Accused (8 page)

Carly glared at him and said nothing.

“I know I sound crazy. I told you I would,” Jeff continued. “I can’t help it. I’ve stumbled onto the tip of something that even I don’t believe. And I can’t stress enough how you can’t trust anyone—not even Nick. He’s part of the administration now. Not even people you’ve known for years at work. This thing has spread like cancer. This city has sold its soul to the devil, and Teresa’s death is only the tip of the iceberg.”

He turned to leave and then stopped. As if there was a monumental struggle going on inside him, Jeff slowly turned around. “Carly, you’re still a good cop. Doing the right thing matters to you. Help me. Please.”

Carly looked away from him. His reasoning for her transfer was jarring, but it made more sense than “for your own good.” She wanted to tell Jeff to get lost, because his cheating reminded her too much of Nick. But what if he was right? She swallowed any sharp retorts—and maybe some good sense. “I can’t say I’ll do any more than just keep my eyes open.”

“Fair enough.” If he relaxed at all, it was imperceptible. “Let me leave first. Here’s a number you can call if you need to reach me.” He tossed her a card. “Give me a few minutes, and then you leave. And, Carly, don’t tell anyone about this conversation, not even Nick.”

He threw some money on the table and was gone.

12

Like a tornado, Jeff carved a swath across Carly’s consciousness and twisted on. She watched him leave, somewhat numb.
Maybe he’s working too hard. Maybe being undercover is to blame.
She glanced at her watch and panicked.
I’m late! How do I explain this to the sergeant?

Rising quickly, Carly checked the money Jeff had left. There was enough for both meals.
Good. He owes me for listening to his ravings.
Unfortunately the soup was now congealing into an unpleasant lump in her stomach. As she made her way to the front door, she realized there was no choice but to tell Nick, in spite of Jeff’s warning.
Maybe I won’t tell him everything, but he should at least know how strange Jeff is acting.
This thought brought up too many conflicting emotions. She didn’t want to talk to Nick, but she should, shouldn’t she?
Nick should know that his best friend is 5150, considering the fact that Jeff carries a gun. Maybe I should call Jeff’s sergeant. . . .

“Carly!” Derek Potter stepped into her path, surprising Carly enough that her hand went to the fanny pack gun compartment.

“Hi, Derek. What a surprise.” She let her hand drop to her side, tempted to tell Derek the surprise was not a pleasant one.

“You look great! Are you here with anyone?” His eyes scanned the immediate area around Carly. There was a beer in his hand, and given his demeanor, it wasn’t the first of the night. Derek was a fireplug of a guy, short but thickly muscled with what an old training officer would call a punch-me face. No matter what his mood, he always seemed to be sneering.

“Nope, I’m on my way back to work. I already ate and I’m really late.” Carly moved to walk around him toward the door.

“But who did you eat with? Were you here by yourself?” He fell into step next to her.

“Look, I’d love to visit with you, Derek, but I’m
really
late!”

“All right, all right. Take it easy, okay?” He took a big gulp of beer as Carly left the restaurant to hurry back to the station.

As the rest of the night ticked by, Carly brooded over her dinner conversation. She couldn’t decide what was worse: Jeff’s being right or Jeff’s being crazy. Sergeant Altman sat next to her at the front desk compiling the month’s statistics and muttering under his breath about how much he hated the paperwork.

“Hey, Sarge, you ever work undercover in vice or narcotics?” Carly figured he’d appreciate the distraction.

“I worked vice years ago. You know, back in the bad old days.” He looked up from his work and winked. “I walked the Boardwalk.”

Carly smiled. The Boardwalk was part of the history of Las Playas. Twenty years ago, when the city was a Navy town, no less than thirty raucous sailor bars lined the Boardwalk. The cops from that era who were still on when Carly started were the cowboys, the old-style patrol
men
, many of whom thought any problem could be solved with a good whack from a nightstick. Weekends in downtown Las Playas back then were known for parties, drinking, prostitutes, and sailor fights.

“You must have been a rook.”

“I was, but I was big and stupid, so they sucked me into the detail as soon as I passed probation. Of course, police work was a little different then. I wasn’t really undercover; I just frequented the bars with my partner to make sure everyone behaved.” He leaned back to get nostalgic. Carly hoped to hear some good stories.

“We broke up fights, stopped grafters, and shut bars down, but hardly ever took anyone to jail. Police work sure has changed,” he said wistfully. “Now you can’t hardly tell someone to move along without filing an hour’s worth of paperwork.” He stared off into space, lost in thought.

“Well, have you ever seen undercover work change people?”

“Change how?”

“I don’t know—make them paranoid, delusional.”

“Most cops are paranoid. At least the good ones are. But yeah, I have seen guys change after working undercover. Remember Sergeant Knox? He dyed his hair a different color every two weeks and never drove home the same way after spending time on that federal task force. And Gates—I’d be willing to bet that his time undercover chasing pedophiles is what made him eat his service revolver. Why do you ask?”

“I don’t know; just curious.”

His phone rang and Carly returned to her paperwork. She wasn’t about to tell Altman about Jeff. She knew the names the sergeant had mentioned. Sergeant Knox taught at the academy when she was hired. He never smiled, always looked over his shoulder, and had the reputation of being able to conceal more weapons in his clothing than anybody else in the department. She remembered the hair-color changes too. He was bizarre but not dangerous.

Gates was a sadder situation. He’d worked vice for years, then returned to patrol to finish out his career. She’d worked with him one night and remembered him as quiet and very conscientious about the job. He’d taught her some tricks about eliciting the truth from reluctant suspects during interviews. There was no hint he was having any problems. Two months later he drove his car to a remote location, parked, and shot himself in the head. Undercover work caused that?

Was Jeff manifesting some kind of undercover burnout? The Jeff she’d known was a fun-loving, dedicated family man, never weighed down or affected by the job. He had plans to coach his son’s baseball team. As she remembered Jeff playing catch with his son, an unpleasant thought followed.
Nick and I had plans too.

Jeff’s cryptic warnings served to magnify the uneasy feeling she already had about the course Teresa’s murder investigation was taking. From past experience she didn’t need any reason to mistrust Garrison, but now Drake and the rest? Twice she picked up the phone to call Nick and tell him his best friend was crazy. But she hung up when a small voice intruded:
What if Jeff is right?

At EOW the phone rang just as Carly was about to step on the elevator. She leaned over the counter and picked up the receiver.

“It’s Joe. Are you on your way out?”

“Yeah, what’s up?”

“I’ve got something to tell you. I’m in the locker room changing. I got an early out. Are you up for coffee?”

“Sure. Harbor House?”

“I’ll meet you there.”

Carly acknowledged for about the hundredth time how lucky she was to have Joe as a partner and friend. He hadn’t been a cop as long as she had, but he was a guy who seemed born to the uniform. When they’d first started working together, she’d been concerned about Joe’s age since he was five years younger than she was. The last thing she needed was a hotshot partner getting her into trouble. Joe proved to be mature, solid, and dependable, with great instincts for the job—everything that made for a good partner.

As she drove to Harbor House, Carly wondered at the urgency in her partner’s voice. What could have happened that made him take an early out?

Harbor House was a twenty-four-hour diner just outside of Old Towne. It was a place Carly and Joe visited often when they worked together. The setting was great for informal debriefings. Neither of them drank, so a bar wasn’t an option. And when something happened at work that required they unwind, Harbor House was the place. Joe’s wife, Christy, or other cops used to meet them at the diner. Before the divorce, Nick often tagged along. It was therapeutic to talk and debrief one another over coffee after a stressful incident.

Joe met Carly at the door. “Hey, it’s been a while since we’ve come here, huh?” The last time they’d stepped inside Harbor House was after her shooting. Today, he’d just gotten a haircut, and it made the thinning spot on the top of his head more pronounced. Carly decided to hold back on the teasing.

“Yeah, too long. We should visit once in a while to catch up.”

Their favorite corner table was available. The restaurant was fairly crowded for 2:30 in the morning, as much because of the good food as the fact that not much else was open in the area. The waiter recognized both of them, and coffee came quickly. He left a carafe on the table so they would be undisturbed. Carly took a seat in the booth, feeling as relaxed as if she were sitting in her own living room.

“So what’s up?” she asked Joe while he doctored his coffee.

“There was another homicide tonight.”

“Oh, no wonder it got so quiet. No one arrests juvies when big stuff is happening in the field. Where and who?”

“On the west side. I drove over to check the scene out.” He paused, looking grave and older somehow. “It was Cinnamon, two bullets to the head, execution style.”

Carly’s coffee cup stopped midway to her mouth. “No way.”

“I couldn’t believe it myself.” His voice lowered to a whisper. “When I got there, they were still waiting on the coroner to check her for ID. I told Corbin who she was. His team drew the case.”

“Did you tell him we talked to her the other night?”

“No, after I told him who I thought she was, he really wasn’t interested in what I had to say. I told him I knew her from my beat. She was quite a ways out of her neighborhood when she was killed.”

Carly set her cup down. Did this new twist have something to do with Jeff’s ravings?
I trust Joe, no matter what Jeff said.
“I think I should tell you about a strange conversation I had with Jeff Hanks.”

“Jeff Hanks? The guy in dope?”

Carly nodded and gave Joe the play-by-play.

Joe listened thoughtfully. “That’s interesting. Especially in light of all the weird stuff that we’ve been hearing on the street.”

“What kind of weird stuff?”

“Gossip, specifically about the late Teresa Burke. The buzz is she was getting kickbacks on all the redevelopment funds.”

“Teresa Burke, dirty?” Carly felt her jaw drop. That was like saying Mother Teresa was a poser.

Joe nodded. “She built a nice front, didn’t she?”

“I’ll say. That shocks me just about as much as hearing about Cinnamon.”

“That’s not all.” Joe leaned forward. “There’s also talk that someone in narcotics is on the take and covering for a big-time drug dealer. It’s like there’s dirty laundry under every rock.”

“You’re beginning to sound like Jeff. What do you think about his accusation that I was put in juvenile to calm down the press, to keep someone like Alex Trejo from uncovering something?”

“Well, as long as I’ve been here, I’ve never noticed the department go out of the way to get publicity. But low profile has definitely become more the norm lately than I can ever remember. Even the PIOs haven’t initiated any programs to generate publicity. And vice and narcotics seem to avoid any situation that might result in high-profile arrests. The last big drug seizure was about six months ago. Remember when Hanks got that award?”

“Yep, Mayor Burke presented it to him.”

“Since then, all narco can manage is nickel-and-dime stuff. Anytime they get wind of something big, it never pans out. I talked to a buddy in narco two weeks ago; he thought the guy on the take was Hanks.”

“Why Jeff?” Carly refilled her cup, brows knit in irritation, hating the way gossip spread like wildfire. It was every bit as destructive.

“According to my buddy, the last few months he’s been Mr. Mysterious. Sometimes he shows up for work; sometimes he doesn’t. Sergeant Roberts always signs his time cards without question. Some of the guys complained to him about Jeff, but nothing was ever done. Then rumors hit about Jeff having an affair with Teresa Burke. Everyone decided it must be true; the only explanation for Jeff getting away with all he did was because he was sleeping with the mayor.”

Carly sipped her coffee and digested Joe’s words.
Is Jeff the bad guy in all this? Is he just trying to manipulate me?
“Who’s who in the zoo? Jeff even insinuated the city council was corrupt. He told me he was working on a task force with the DEA and the FBI. Was that a lie? And what does any of this have to do with Cinnamon?”

“I don’t know. It just seems awfully coincidental; the night after we talk to her, she gets whacked.” He shook his head. “As for Jeff and narcotics, I do know that the feds stay away from Las Playas. Nickel-and-dime stuff isn’t what they’re after. Plus our narco detail has gained a rep for always getting burned. Except for occasional surveillance and helping out other agencies, the PD’s narcotics division has become a laughingstock. I’ve never met Jeff, but my friend says there are two different men calling themselves Jeff Hanks. The one before the award was a supercop, savvy and on the ball. But after the award, he changed into a quiet, secretive slug.”

“Jeff did look like a tweaker at the restaurant.” Carly sighed, her head aching with the mess. “Is there more to Teresa’s murder than a carjacking? Was she a bad guy or is the bad guy a cop?”

“That’s the sweepstakes question, and I don’t have any answers. I’m just telling you what I’ve heard. Another outrageous story floating around that I know is true concerns Craven’s.”

Craven’s was a notorious topless bar, constantly being cited for pages and pages of violations. Every kind of vice imaginable was available at Craven’s. “Before I went to juvie, we handled several disturbance calls there, if I remember right.”

Joe nodded and went on. “Well, patrol guys were told to lay off, that any problems there would be handled by special enforcement. The word on the street now is Craven’s is the place to be. Business is better than ever because the cops are hands-off.”

“And SE is ignoring things?”

“All they’re doing are pet projects for Garrison or the city council. And one of my snitches says Galen Burke is a regular at Craven’s.”

“The grieving widower?” Carly trusted Joe’s snitches. Any good street cop developed unusual avenues of information in their beat. There was a tremendous population of street people—homeless, prostitutes, sick, lame, and lazy—who saw and heard everything. Experience taught a cop how to sift through the nonsense to the good stuff. Carly and Joe cultivated several people. Sometimes it was as easy as buying someone a burger now and then. Other times it required some wrangling with DAs to get charges reduced. Often the information gathered was as good as gold.