FIFTY
Patty was in the sergeant's cramped office with Sparky Taylor and a clearly agitated Ronald Bell facing the stern sergeant sitting on her throne behind her desk.
Bell looked at Sparky and said, “What fucking policy do you want to quote now? It's too bad you didn't read policy about staying fit or maybe your fat ass wouldn't have gotten stuck in a bathroom window and you could've stayed in the tech division, where at least people care about your fucking opinion. Jesus Christ, I am sick of tech agents.”
Yvonne Zuni said in an icy voice, “That will be quite enough.” And it worked because Ronald Bell shut up and sat down like his third-grade teacher had struck him with a ruler.
For his part, Sparky seemed completely unfazed by the outburst. He said, “The policy says that when there is a large seizure of contraband that must be tested in the lab, a representative sample can be stored in temporary evidence downstairs while the overall seizure is secured.”
Bell said, “So what?”
“So Dwight and I live by the same code of policy. He would know the policy and follow it. Since he's been injured and unclear about what happened, I wonder if anyone checked temporary evidence.” He turned to give Bell a subtle, superior glance.
Patty had to stifle a chuckle, he'd done it so perfectly. What Sparky had said sounded so simple that it couldn't be true, could it? She had only used temporary evidence once. It generally involved holding part of a seizure in a standard-size locker with two separate locks at the entrance to the evidence room. An evidence custodian keeps a key to one lock in the evidence room and the seizing officer keeps a key to the second lock. That way the seizing officer can come back and retrieve the sample to take it to the lab while maintaining a strict and clear chain of custody. Not all departments used it and usually it only applied to narcotics.
The sergeant stood behind her desk and said, “I have an easy solution to this debate. Let's all go down to evidence and check the lockers. It sounds like it's something IA should've done long before the investigation got this far. And it will definitely be something I address with the captain later on.”
Patty liked the support she was getting from the people on her squad and it was starting to give her some confidence. She followed the little posse of Sparky Taylor, Yvonne Zuni, and Ronald Bell down the rear stairs and through the corridor to the evidence custodian.
As they were walking, Bell said, “We never found a key around the scene of the fight or in Dwight's clothes.”
Sparky said, “I've thought about that and there are a number of possibilities. The key would have been out and possibly on the desk. Your people could've simply overlooked it. It could've been kicked all the way across the room during the scuffle. It might have even ended up going to the hospital with Dwight and being left there.”
Patty followed along, realizing she was a suspect in the eyes of the sheriff's office. Even if it was only the IA division. She had to come to grips with idea that someone thought she'd committed the crime. It gave her a lump in her throat and upset her stomach. It made her think about all the times she'd purposely tried to upset suspects in her own cases in an effort to get them to confess or cooperate. This incident was giving her an entirely new perspective on the trick. She would have to look at the way she conducted business differently from now on. This sucked. She'd gone beyond pharmaceutical help. Patty was so nervous now that no amount of Xanax would calm her down. The crazy thing was that she was terrified over an administrative issue. She hadn't been this scared when she was held captive by the fucking Bag Man. Her life had been on the line, but she'd known someone was trying to help her. It was an odd experience to have someone question her integrity.
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Stallings had tried to follow Patty and the group as they left the office, but a sharp look from the sergeant had kept him in his seat. It gave him one more thing to worry about in addition to his wife, his father, Jeanie, his kids, and Leah Tischler. He felt like he needed to burst out and do something to take action against one of the problems in his life.
He looked around the nearly empty office and decided to act. Now.
Fifteen minutes later he pulled into the driveway of his former residence, pausing at the front door before knocking firmly but politely and waiting for someone to answer. It was Charlie's smiling face that cheered him up as soon as the door swung inward.
“Hey, pal, is your mom around?”
“She's upstairs. Do you have time to kick with me?”
“Let me talk to Mom for a little while first.”
The boy darted upstairs like a guided missile; almost a full minute later Maria glided down the stairs like she was at an awards show and had admiring crowds watching her. In his own way Stallings was an admiring crowd.
She gave him a weak smile and walked past him into the family room to sit on the couch. He knew the unspoken command to follow her and sit next to her. And he obeyed.
Stallings started. “We need to talk.”
“Yes, we do.”
“I mean about us.”
“I do too.”
That surprised him because she generally avoided any conversation about the troubled relationship.
“I thought we had made a connection the other night. I mean I did spend the night here.”
“You fell asleep here. There is a difference. And I'll admit I liked having someone to cuddle up to. But as soon as the call of duty hit you, the house was empty and silent again. I understand your need to help people and I commend it. But the kids and I are people too and we need more than just a few minutes of your time every day.”
He had considered a lot of reasons why Maria was acting the way she was. He thought it might be some reaction to seeing him with Liz Dubeck. He'd even considered the idea that she was using again. But this was not only the most logical and obvious explanation, it was also the one that stung the worst.
Maria continued. “The last two weeks have been a revelation to me. I've gone down to the stadium and listened to Frank Ellis for hours each day. The man has some amazing insights and made me feel a real connection to Jesus.”
Stallings leaned back and stared at his wife. “That's why you were downtown. You were going to see the Holy Roller.”
“That's a condescending term. It was a legitimate religious service.”
“I wasn't trying to be insulting. I thought it was a legitimate Baptist religious service. You've been a legitimate Catholic your whole life.”
“I thought you would have learned by now that nothing lasts a lifetime.”
That brought Stallings up short. He looked at his wife and remembered their early married life with Jeanie running around and Maria smiling from early in the morning till she laid that beautiful head down on the pillow. It would be easy for him to say that was all he wanted back, but it was so much. He realized now it was more than any man should hope for.
Maria caressed his cheek and then let her hand drop to his. “You should be happy that I've gone to the service. It's taught me a lot about myself and what to expect from others. You are such a good man, John. And I've had a new hope instilled in my heart. I really do believe you can change. I believe in redemption. But you're going to have to earn it. You'll have to show me that you care about the family and that you can express all of your feelings, both good and bad.”
“And how do I do all that?”
“You have to figure it out for yourself. It may take a while. You may not be able to do it. And until you figure it out, I can't have you living in this house.”
Stallings stared into those luminous dark eyes and thought his heart might break. He had no idea how to change.
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At some point in the process Patty Levine had decided to toughen up and take this shit like a cop. She did everything else on the job like a man. It was to the point that most cops didn't even notice she was female. Almost. That was the way she liked JSO. Anymore the only reason female cops were treated differently was because of an ingrained view or, as some called it, an “instinct” for men to treat women differently. On the road she occasionally saw patrolman instinctively keep her out of harm's way. When the truth was she usually could fight better than any man on road patrol.
Now she stood in the corner of the room while Ronald Bell questioned an evidence custodian and Yvonne Zuni kept the proceedings from turning into a witch hunt.
Bell said, “So you don't have a record of the detective using a temporary evidence locker?”
The heavyset, middle-aged man acted like Bell was a fifth grader. “I said this before and now I will repeat myself for the fourth time. He was checking in something, I don't know what, and took a temporary evidence key. Whoever took in the package and gave him the key expected him to be back in the next few minutes and didn't log it for some reason. It was a mistake that I accept responsibility for. But it happened and I do not have time to explain it to you even once more. Is there anything that confuses you in that statement, Mr. IA?” He had spoken slowly and clearly.
Patty smiled at his condescending manner, chalking it up to some past run-in with the Internal Affairs division.
Bell said, “If we don't have the key to the second lock how do we get into the locker?”
The evidence custodian rubbed his bald head and said, “We do have an emergency master key. But we don't use it very often.”
Bell said, “I think this qualifies as an emergency. You can use it on my authority.”
The evidence custodian chuckled, reached low under his counter, and handed him a three-foot-long set of bolt cutters, saying, “Ooh, your authority. I can't wait to see if these things work. I've never been authorized to use them before.” The evidence custodian didn't even wait to see Bell's reaction. He rolled his eyes and went back to his usual work.
Bell, Sparky, and Sergeant Zuni walked across the outer room to the wall of fifty lockers. They scanned the numbers along the top row to find the locker the narcotics detective had used. The evidence custodian had given Sergeant Zuni his key to the second lock. Once they found the locker the evidence lock was opened and off instantly. Then Bell used the big bolt cutters on the second heavy-duty lock. He struggled as he pulled the handles together and let the giant clippers snap through the shackle of the padlock.
He wasted no time opening the locker and even from her position, Patty could see a gray bundle. She stepped behind the group as Bell pulled it out and saw the initials and date written by the injured narcotics detective.
Sparky looked at Ronald Bell and said in a very moderate and cool tone, “Perhaps you people in IA should read up on policy a little more. We could've avoided this entire ugly incident had you showed a bit more interest in doing your job well.”
Patty smiled at the portly detective's comment.
Sergeant Zuni summed it up more succinctly. She looked at the IA investigator and said, “You're a douche bag.”
Patty Levine laughed out loud for the first time in a week.
FIFTY-ONE
Tony Mazzetti felt the week start to catch up to him on Friday morning. He had set up an interview room in the administrative section of Shands hospital. The management and security at Shands could not have been more helpful and open to the investigation. Their help sped along a number of tasks he had to complete on the murder case. He also felt a lift in his spirits when he heard that the missing narcotics had been found and no one would get in trouble for it. He was starting to realize that Patty Levine had been a suspect and it bothered him. It bothered him because he didn't understand how a great cop like Patty could fall into the crosshairs of Internal Affairs and he didn't understand why Patty had not wanted to talk to him about it at all.
He'd spoken to her last night, hoping she might suggest he come over. Instead she was polite and cool. Just before he ended the phone call she said the words he had been dreading, “I think we need to talk sometime this weekend.”
He felt the same way, but based on the way she'd been acting and the tone of her comment, he suspected they each had two entirely different things to say. In his mind he was already trying to figure out how to arrange his life without falling back into the lonely routine he had lived before he met Patty.
He sighed and looked down at a notepad, trying to build an interest in talking to one of the thirty hospital employees who thought they might get to help him in his investigation. There were two other rooms with detectives taking down information. Mazzetti realized he should be coordinating information and supervising the investigation, but he needed to settle down to a simple task for a little bit.
As Mazzetti was about to call down for his next witness, a tall, odd-looking young man of about thirty poked his head in the door, pushed his dark brown glasses up on his face, and said, “Are you one of the cops looking into the murder of Katie Massa?”
“I am.” The young man gave off an odd vibe and Mazzetti let his hand drop to the side where his Glock sat on his hip.
“I think I need to talk to you”
“You have information?”
“Yes, I know who killed her.”
Mazzetti sighed, set down his pen, and finally said, “Really? And who would that be?”
“Me.”
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Buddy had parked his van with the magnetic sign slapped on the side. He couldn't believe how long he had agonized over the logo for Classic Glass Concepts. He had given a sort of a regal sketch to the sign company, which had made him five signs he could slap on his van. He'd lost two, one had been defaced, and one had faded. The best part was that he got the signs for free when he fixed a broken window in the sign company showroom. He charged them for materials and made the labor seem harder than it really was so they didn't think they were being ripped off.
He'd taken this job at the hotel for two reasons. The woman hadn't offered him his full estimate, but it wasn't bad money and she was a very likely candidate for his work of art. From a strategic standpoint it didn't make sense to use a subject that he'd worked so closely with. But the time to worry about covering his tracks was past and Buddy had come to terms with it.
Had Detective Martinez talked to him about Cheryl a year or two ago, he might have learned something about police procedure he could've used. Instead he had the sense Detective Martinez had a lot to do and not very much help on his investigation. He wondered if all police investigations were like that and if his constant worry over the years about being discovered had been a waste of time.
As he lay down his tools and cut the caulk from around the outside of the wide bay window he looked up to see the lovely Liz coming out the front door of the ramshackle hotel. She turned toward him with a steaming cup of coffee and a wide, bright smile.
She said, “I thought a good cup of strong coffee might start you off on the right foot.”
He accepted it with a gracious smile.
“How long do you think this'll take?”
“I should be out of your hair by lunchtime.”
“I wasn't trying to rush you. I just wanted to know if you'd like me to make you lunch around noon?” She placed a delicate hand on his shoulder.
That was all he needed. It was like an electric shock. The combination of her sweet smile, pretty face and kind manner was all he needed to know for sure that she was the final piece of his work of art.
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John Stallings checked in at the office, hoping the media coverage had generated a decent new lead. He was ready to go out and get something done. In the darkest corners of his heart he recognized he wouldn't mind punching someone. Someone who deserved punching. Just the thought made him feel better. He didn't like that side of his nature, but as he got older he'd come to accept it. There were many cops who never came to terms with their natural instincts. Really smart guys who tried to act tough. Tough guys who wanted to show how organized they were. Police work took all kinds of cops to complete.
The squad bay was very quiet as Sergeant Yvonne Zuni came in the main door and paused at Stallings's desk. She said, “How are you today, Stall?”
“Good, how about you?”
She let out a long sigh and sat down in the seat next to him. “Now that the IA cloud has been lifted from the squad I feel like I can focus on the mountain of information we're getting in from the tip lines and lab.”
“We gettin' anything good?”
She pulled a random report from her pile in her arms. “We finally have the lab report on the chemical found with two of the bodies. You know, the stuff Sparky found at Lexie Hanover's apartment.”
“What was it?”
“It says here that it is consistent with the residue from a commercial glass cleaner with trace elements including potash. Some of the manufacturers form their own glass components, and potash and other accelerants would be used in natural, non-electric furnaces.”
“What does that mean?”
Sergeant Zuni looked off in space for a minute, then said, “Maybe it would be a good idea to look into construction workers that deal with glass in windows.”
Stallings nodded his head, knowing that it would be another big drain on man power when there were so many other leads coming in. He remembered speaking with someone recently about a glass company. But he just couldn't recall the details.
Stallings knew it would bother him all morning until he could remember.