Deviations (4 page)

“Then you’re supposed to say, ‘And I’m an
alcoholic.’”

He waited a beat. “And I’m the Chief of Police.”

It came like a little orgasm in my head. That’s
who he was. Doctorate in criminal justice from City University of New York.
Twenty-five years in five different cities in California and Washington,
climbing each rung from uniform to detective to Assistant to the Chief in
Sacramento, then the big job here in little Rawlings. His photo was in the
paper when he arrived last month to bring law and order to Dodge. He was
wearing a dress uniform, so many ribbons for meritorious service, some were
half-hidden behind the lapels.

“My office. Tomorrow, nine
am
.”

“You want to ream me out, get in line.”

He nodded, like I had just shown him something he
was expecting. “My office, tomorrow at nine.” He turned and walked out of the
room, not even giving me a chance to tell him to go fuck himself.

Chapter 3

Couple minutes before nine,
I pulled into the lot at police headquarters, the first time I’d been there in over
five months. By habit, I headed toward the row along the west side, where the
detectives park. But I caught myself and steered over toward the five spots
marked Visitors. That’s what I was: a visitor.

The building was two stories, with a basement. A
big, flat-roofed rectangle, with the personality of a plain cardboard box. Forty-thousand
square feet of office space, evidence rooms, holding cells, labs, a morgue, a
five-lane shooting range, and a workout room, all wrapped up in dirt-colored
brick. When the building was put up right after I joined the force fifteen
years ago, the idea was to make it ugly. The architect succeeded: it announced,
in a robot voice with no inflection and no accent, “Responsible Use of Taxpayer
Funds.” One good thing about a building designed to be uninspired: it didn’t
look significantly worse than it did the day it was built.

The main entrance was the same one you’d see on
any quickie municipal building: two wide glass doors centered below the generic
foot-tall brown letters identifying the building as Rawlings Police Department.
I walked into the foyer. Utilitarian beige patterned industrial floor tiles, beige
drywall with framed color photographs of all eleven chiefs of police.

I was a few minutes early, which I never was when
I worked there. I didn’t want to go over to Reception just yet, so I walked
over to the portraits. There, at the end of the row, was Robert Murtaugh. Just
to his left was Howard Arnold, his bloated, lazy, publicity-hungry, penny-ante
corrupt predecessor, the one who fired me. I looked at the photo of his fat face.
Some Photoshopper had changed the busted blood vessels on his enormous nose
from fire engine to a gentler Hello Kitty pink, which puzzled me. Either leave
the nose alone, so he can guide our sleigh tonight, or take out all the red.
What’s the point of making him look just halfway to liver cirrhosis?

He had retired soon after firing me. It was six
months before his twenty years, which makes a big difference in your
retirement, but the City Council signed off on his full pension when Robert
Murtaugh from Sacramento showed some interest in the job. They knew Murtaugh was
an up-and-comer, and they thought having a real chief, rather a big real-estate
developer’s dumb-shit brother-in-law, would do the city good. The old chief left
on a down note, not because of the case I fucked up—after all, we got the right
guy for the murder, and he killed himself, saving the taxpayers some serious
money—but because of another case that never materialized.

That case had to do with the death of James
Weston, husband of Dolores Weston, who is a Montana state senator living in
Rawlings. Weston, a super-rich dude, died in a parasailing accident at their
place in Maui. Turns out a kid who worked on the boat jimmied the line that
held the parasail to the harness, and down he came, hitting the crystal-clear
water at close to a hundred miles an hour. The old chief was hoping that the
kid, who used to work on the Weston ranch in Rawlings, had conspired with
Dolores Weston here in town to ice her husband. The case had made the national
media because—well, because he was a rich dude and because a tourist’s
cell-phone video of his last dive, complete with windmilling arms and
scissoring legs, was all over YouTube.

Unfortunately, there was no connection to Rawlings.
The crime was plotted in Maui by one of the local boys who worked on the Weston
place. Seems the kid was pissed because Weston was boning his seventeen-year-old
sister. Maui boys consider it rude when a sixty-year old billionaire haole
slaps a four million-dollar estate on a dozen acres with a couple hundred feet
of pink sand. But when he starts diddling the little sister of one of his
minimum-wage workers—well, that’s just wrong.

I walked over to Reception, the U.S. flag to the
left, Montana flag to the right. From behind the bulletproof glass, the
receptionist, a young guy I didn’t know, slid me a sign-in book and a visitor
badge. He said he’d notify the chief. A minute later, an electronic lock
clicked and Murtaugh came out through a wood-grained steel door. He said
“Detective,” which wasn’t accurate, of course, but sounded better than
“Visitor.” He didn’t come over to me, didn’t smile. He waited for me to tap tap
the twenty paces over to him. Then he turned and led the way, down the center
hall of the main floor, past the evidence rooms, the dispatch center, the
interview rooms, the roll-call room, and the detectives’ bullpen. I kept my
head down, not wanting to see my old partner, young Ryan. He’d smile and call
out to me, rush over and tell me how good it was to see me. Tell me I looked
well. I lie, but I don’t like to be lied to.

In the chief’s outer office, I was glad to see
that Helen Glenning, the old chief’s old gatekeeper, was gone, along with her cat
photos, her inspirational wall posters, and her completely unearned sense of
superiority. In her place was another woman, who looked up briefly and nodded
to me as I followed the chief into his office. I liked her already.

The office had some new furniture—a small couch
and a couple of soft chairs—so the chief could come out from behind his big
desk and talk one-on-one with colleagues. He gestured to one of the soft chairs
and walked around behind his desk, sitting down in one of those expensive
chairs with the mesh. On his desk I saw an open folder with a white legal pad
next to it.

“I see from your file that there was no exit
interview conducted when you left in November,” he said.

Fine, thanks, I thought, and you? Yes, it is good
to see some signs of Spring. And congratulations on your new position.

“Did Chief Arnold indicate why there was no exit
interview?”

“No, sir, he didn’t. He was kinda disgusted with
me. Just told me to get the hell out.”

Chief Murtaugh held his gaze. I couldn’t tell
whether he was assessing me, the old chief, or both of us.

“Our discussion today will function in that
capacity, then.”

“All right,” I said. It wasn’t like I had a lot of
other appointments.

“You and Detective Miner had concluded that Warren
Endriss, using Jonathan Ahern as an alias, had killed Arlen Hagerty, is that
correct, and you had gone to San Diego to arrest Mr. Endriss and bring him back
to Rawlings?”

“Yes.”

“But you failed to follow the regulations by
cuffing him appropriately when you took him into custody at his daughter’s
funeral.” He looked down at the folder. “Then, he requested that you drive him
out to Torrey Pines State Park, which he used to visit with his daughter. You
complied. Once there, he took his life by jumping off a cliff overlooking the
water. Is that correct?”

“Yes.”

“Do you agree that your decision not to follow
regs when you apprehended him constituted an unacceptable deviation from
policy?”

“Well, sir, yes and no.” Good thing about being unemployed:
you can’t piss off the boss.

“Yes and no? I would have thought that was a
straightforward question.”

“It was, sir. Very straightforward. It’s just that
I can’t give you a straightforward answer.”

“You do agree that the regulations call for you to
cuff a suspect when you arrest him for murder?”

“I’m aware of that, sir.”

“It was a felony murder case. He could have taken
control of your automobile at any moment. He could have grabbed your pistol. He
could have thrown you over that cliff. How was your decision not to cuff him
not
an unacceptable deviation from policy?”

“Well, sir, obviously it was a deviation from
policy. I’m just not sure it was unacceptable.”

He looked at me for a good five seconds. I looked
back at him. If I gave a shit what he thought of me, this moment would have
been somewhat awkward.

“Explain,” he said.

“I knew Endriss wasn’t going to jump me or take my
pistol or anything—”

“You knew? How did you know?”

“Well, sir, that’s another one of those
questions.”

“The straightforward kind that you can’t answer in
a straightforward way?”

“Exactly, sir. I didn’t know like it was a
mathematical impossibility. More like the monkey in the room with the
typewriters. It’s possible one of them’ll eventually type out a Shakespeare
play, but the smart money says it’s not gonna happen, you know what I mean?”

His face was an empty billboard. “Let’s say you
are correct that it was highly unlikely that Endriss was going to put up any
resistance. What was the countervailing benefit of not following regs?”

“Not exactly sure what ‘countervailing’ means,
Chief, but if you’re asking what good did I think was gonna come out of not
following that reg, my answer would be I knew that once I cuffed him, he would stop
being a person for a real long time, maybe forever. Once he was in the system,
he would become an animal. And since I knew he wasn’t a danger to me or anyone
else, I wanted him to still be a person for as long as he could. That was how I
figured it.” I shrugged, signaling I wasn’t trying to insult him by defending
my decision. Just telling him what I was thinking. “But I didn’t have any beef
with getting fired. Still don’t.”

“You understand that, even if your analysis of
that situation was accurate, there is the larger issue of the integrity of the
regulations themselves?”

“I understand where you’re going, Chief, but to be
completely honest with you, I thought that letting this guy see the ocean one
more time before I brought him in was kinda more real than the integrity of the
regs. And,” I added, to underscore how he didn’t need to waste his time explaining
Why Rules Are Important, “like I said, I’m okay with being fired.”

The chief jotted down some notes on the legal pad.
He looked up at me. “Let me turn to another issue. On November 17, you were
involved in a traffic accident when you were off duty. Is that correct?”

I felt a sharp pain in my stomach, then a pressure
going up through my trunk, all the way up to my neck. I didn’t say anything.

“I asked you a question. Is that correct?”

“Yes, sir.”

“In that accident, you sustained minor injuries,
as did the driver of the other vehicle. And a passenger in the other
vehicle—Annie Pritchard, age seven—sustained—”

“That’s right, Chief. Annie Pritchard, age seven,
sustained traumatic brain injury when the engine in my damn car crashed into
the passenger compartment of the minivan because I didn’t see the stop sign
because I was distracted and my reflexes were real slow because I had been
drinking. She was in the hospital for forty-three days, and she’s seeing a
therapist two times a week because her reflexes aren’t working as good as they
used to. The doctors say it’s too soon to tell whether she sustained any
permanent damage. Yes, that’s correct. Yes, I did that to her.”

I brushed a tear away from my eye. That’s right,
Chief, I thought, that’s who you’re talking to here, and I’m well aware of what
I am. But I appreciate you reminding me.

“According to the police report, the accident
occurred at 7:42
pm
, yet the
Blood Alcohol Test was not recorded until 1:14
am
, more than five hours after that. How do you explain
that?”

“That would be another unacceptable deviation, I
guess, sir.”

“Detective, the BAC was recorded by Officer Matt
Browning, who was the first officer on the scene.” He turned some pages in my
file. “That’s the same officer you had a brief relationship with some time
earlier, is that not?”

“That’s none of your goddamn business, who I do or
do not have a relationship with. Sir.”

“What I am trying to establish here, Detective, is
whether you ordered him to delay the BAC because you did not want a DUI, maybe
as high as vehicular manslaughter if the girl died.”

“That’s right, Chief. I didn’t want a DUI or
vehicular manslaughter. I wanted to stay on the force, stay on the case, not screw
up my son any more than necessary. Write it down. I ordered Officer Browning to
delay the BAC. It was all me. I was drunk. I almost killed the kid. I ordered
Browning to wait until my blood was below .08. What are we doing here?” I could
hear my voice getting high. “You want to change my Inattentive Driving to DUI?
Fine, do it. I don’t give a fuck. Give me the form. I’ll sign it.” I was
standing, my palms on the edge of his desk.

“Sit down, Detective.” There was a slight edge to
his voice, which showed impressive restraint, given the size of the axe on mine.
“Now,” he said.

I sat down, but I was coming apart. “What you have
just told me is untrue. You did not order Officer Browning to delay the BAC. He
admits to doing that himself, and I will take appropriate measures to deal with
that situation.”

“Okay, Chief, whatever,” I said, standing up again.
“You got enough for your exit interview? We did our interview, so now I’m gonna
exit, okay?” I turned to go.

“No, Detective, that’s not okay.” He reached into
a desk drawer and pulled out his hip holster, with his service revolver in it.
He stood and slid the holster over his belt on the right side. “Come with me.”

“All due respect, Chief, unless you’re gonna take
me into custody, you got no right to tell me—”

“Detective.” He looked at me. “I’m asking you to
come with me.”

I followed him out of his office.

“Back in an hour,” he said to his receptionist. He
led me down the hall and out to the parking lot behind headquarters. We got in
his dark gray Buick.

He started driving west, toward 53. We got on the
highway, stayed on it for a couple of miles, and turned off an unmarked road
just past the Meadows development. Two-hundred yards in, he rolled up to the
six-feet tall hurricane fencing that enclosed a rectangular bowl about a
hundred feet by four-hundred. Ten-foot tall berms rose from the other three
sides of the area.