Friendly Fire (17 page)

Chapter Seventeen

B
raddock County Police Chief Warren Michaels looked up as Lieutenant Jed Hackner approached his door and knocked.

“Excuse me, Chief,” Hackner said. “Have you got a minute?”

From the way Jed asked the question, Warren was inclined to say no. First of all, he and Jed had known each other since they were kids, and the only time he used the honorific instead of his first name was when the officialness of the official business was grim. Second, Warren could see past Jed's shoulder, where German Culligan and Wendy Adams both looked pretty spun up.

“Am I in trouble?” Warren asked.

“It's about the Falk kid,” Jed said. “They want to do something that only you can approve.”

“Am I going to want to approve it?”

“I think you should hear what they have to say.”

“Do they know that I'm busy and cranky?”

“It's a day with a
y
in it, isn't it?”

“And they've already spoken with you?”

“At length.”

“And what do you want to do with whatever they're asking?”

“I want to send them to you so you can make the decision.”

Warren's expression triggered a smile from his old friend. “Send them in.”

Over the course of his nearly thirty-year career with the Braddock County Police Department, Warren had worked hard to build cordial relationships between the many players in the judicial process. Unlike far too many of his counterparts in other cities and counties, he did not see defense attorneys as the enemy, but rather as the necessary counterbalance that forced his police officers to do their job to the best of their ability. Guilt or innocence notwithstanding, if his troops screwed up an investigation, the accused went free. And that sense of fairness was a counterbalance to the political ambitions of the Commonwealth's attorney, J. Daniel Petrelli, a fifth-degree asshole by any measure of the word.

Warren had learned the hard way nearly two decades before about the fallibility of incontrovertible evidence when a twelve-year-old boy named Nathan Bailey was without question a murderer. Only by forcing himself to look at the evidence from a different angle did Warren see the error of the obvious, and in the process of doing that, he'd saved the boy's life. Now that boy was a thirty-year-old patrolman for the BCPD and Warren called him his son.

German P. Culligan, attorney at law, was to Warren's mind one of the best in the business. He pressed hard, fought harder, and somehow managed to fight fair. Warren knew that German had contacts within the department who leaked him information, but he didn't care. That was one more way to counteract Petrelli's exuberance for his job of prosecuting the innocent as well as the guilty.

As for Dr. Wendy Adams, the jury was still out for Warren. He respected the job she had to do, and the zeal with which she did it, but when all was said and done, Warren didn't have a lot of faith in the art of psychology. There was no way he could think of it as a science. An admitted curmudgeon, Warren had little tolerance for insanity defenses or for so-called hate crimes for that matter. No one murders someone they like, after all, and the fact that the decedent was “hated” or not had no effect on his status as a corpse. As for insanity, he'd noted over the years that that defense was usually trotted out as a last resort, and at that, only for the most heinous crimes.

Culligan crossed the threshold first and Warren stepped out from around his desk to greet him. “Nice to see you, Counselor,” he said as he shook the man's hand. “And Dr. Adams, to what do I owe the pleasure?” He gestured to the oval conference table near the window. The police department offices today were a hell of a lot more opulent than they were in Warren's early years.

“Are you aware of what happened to Ethan Falk in jail last night?” Culligan said.

Warren looked to Jed.

“He was beaten pretty badly,” Jed said.

“What does pretty badly mean?” Warren asked.

Wendy said, “It means two broken teeth, an eye swollen shut, and nearly broken ribs.”

“Have you brought it up with the ADC bosses?” Warren asked, referencing the Adult Detention Center.

“They didn't want to have anything to do with it,” Wendy said.

Culligan added, “We talked to the lunkhead who runs the place and he washed his hands of it. He said, ‘Well, it
is
jail,' and then brushed it off.”

Warren cut his eyes to Jed again. “Doesn't he have a point? You put violent people together and violence is likely to happen.”

“How could you of all people say that?” Wendy snapped. She appeared totally aghast.

“Excuse me?”

“Your own experience with Nathan Bailey.”

Warren bristled. “That was a
juvenile
detention center, and he was twelve years old. And, frankly, that's not a topic I intend to discuss.”

“There are similarities,” Culligan said. “Falk does not have the skills to cope with jail.”

Again to Jed: “Isn't he charged with murder?”

“Yep.”

“Admitted to it, right?”

Jed nodded. “And we have about twenty witnesses to the event.”

“Well, come on, Counselor,” Warren said. “Actions have consequences, you know? One of the downsides of killing people is that you have to learn to get along with other killers.”

Wendy started to speak, but Warren interrupted.

“Why are you even here? I don't run the ADC. Go beat up on Sheriff Wallingford.” To Jed: “Why are they even here?”

“We want to move him out of the ADC and into one of your holding cells,” Wendy said.

Never a very patient man, Warren felt himself slipping toward anger. “They call them holding cells for a reason. The people in them are just a-passin' through. On their way to the Adult Detention Center.”

“This is not without precedent,” Culligan said. “Alejandro Garcia.”

“That's not a precedent,” Warren said. “He was a protected witness who would have been whacked in thirteen seconds if people knew where he was.”

Wendy started to speak again, and this time it was Culligan who silenced her, with a gentle touch on her arm. He softened his tone. “The precedent lies in the fact of long-term incarceration outside the ADC.”

“It was not long-term,” Warren objected. “What? Maybe three weeks?” When this meeting was over, he intended to have a discussion with Jed. Some decisions were easy. This should have been one of them.

“It proves that it's possible,” Wendy said, seeming pleased to finally be back in the argument.

“Your cells are singles,” Culligan said. “You have shower facilities, and the ADC can send over meals.”

“Why not just make him a reservation at a motel?” Warren said. “That way he can have clean, crisp sheets every night and maybe a couple of drinks at the bar.”

“I fear that we're losing this argument,” Culligan said.

“You
fear
? Oh, trust me, you've already lost it. I am not a prison. And by the way, that Garcia case cost a lot of money in terms of extra guard time.”

“That was because he was a protected witness,” Culligan said. “That would not happen here.”

Warren hated it when the other party in an argument was right.

“Before you kick us out of your office, let me make the case,” Culligan said. “Give me sixty seconds.”

“You've got forty-five.” Warren said it because it sounded like the right thing to say. In reality, he'd give the man five minutes if he needed it.

“We have growing reason to believe that the man Ethan Falk killed had in fact brutalized him when he was a child. Detective Hastings is in Ashland, Ohio, as we speak, hoping to triangulate Ethan's story with an unsolved homicide there that meets the time frame. The early indications are that she scored a home run.”

“Then you must be thrilled,” Warren said. “You've got a perfect argument to take to court. You can claim temporary insanity, or maybe go for jury nullification, but there is nothing in what you have said, what Ethan has said, or what witnesses have said that could possibly justify self-defense. That means he's likely in the environment that he'll have to cope with for the rest of his life. I'll stipulate that it sucks, but jails have long had a reputation for sucking. There's no surprise here.”

“If I may,” Wendy interjected. “This case is special. That young man—Ethan Falk—is in a very fragile state. It is my professional opinion that the continuing stress of daily violence will leave him permanently wounded, psychologically.”

“Then petition the court,” Warren said.

“They will deny my petition,” Culligan said.

Warren raised his shoulders in an extended shrug.

“This is more than that,” Wendy said. “That young man needs counseling, and he desperately needs to feel a sense of safety. At least of marginal safety. Daily beatings from which he cannot defend himself are hardly the way to sanity.”

Warren looked to Jed. “Don't they have isolation cells in the ADC anymore?”

“They're all taken, apparently,” Jed said.

“And even with isolation, there is still the air of violence that permeates all aspects of that place,” Wendy said. “Look, if he gets convicted, then obviously he's going to have to do whatever the system tells him he has to do. But let's at least give him some coping skills. Let's give him an opportunity for some kind of emotional recovery.”

“We can make it work,” Jed said.

Ah, so there it is,
Warren thought. They'd already won Jed over.

“Not to repeat myself,” Wendy said, “and not to step on dangerous territory, but you do know more than most how much difference a little rule-bending goes in taking a young man's future from the dark side to the light.”

This was a bad idea. Warren knew it in his heart. No matter how you cut it, this was going to add a burden to everyone involved in the incarceration cycle, from the food workers at the ADC all the way down through his own officers who had to keep track of a semipermanent resident. But Wendy had structured her argument in a way that he could not deny it.

“Okay, Lieutenant Hackner,” he said to Jed, “make it happen.”

The defense team beamed.

“Don't say anything,” Warren said with a trace of a smile. “This'll take a couple of hours to put together, and I can change my mind as quickly as I made it.” He'd never do that, of course, but there was no harm in them thinking that he might.

Warren ushered his visitors to the door, and as they left, an older man in civilian clothes stood from the corner of an empty desk he'd been sitting on. He wore a Braddock County Police Department ID tag, and he looked familiar, but Warren couldn't quite place the face.

“Excuse me, Chief,” he said in a timid tone. “My name is Cletus Bangstrom, sir, and I really need to talk with you.”

* * *

Jonathan spent the night ten miles away from the Hilton Garden Inn, at some all-suites place whose management team needed to think seriously about remodeling the rooms and hallways. Jonathan rarely stayed in the kinds of hotels that catered to business travelers, preferring higher-end digs when the situation allowed, but he couldn't imagine that dirty and dreary was anyone's preference. On the other hand, maybe with the economy the way it was, the market would not support the extra twenty or thirty bucks a night that would be needed for what ought to be done.

He'd pulled himself out of the rack at a ridiculous hour so that he and Boxers could meet back at the airport for their return flight to Virginia. Boxers was already pre-flighting the Learjet when Jonathan arrived. He had just a little over a year left on his “lease” agreement with the plane's owner, and as much as Big Guy hated the aircraft's cramped size, Jonathan appreciated the convenience. If need be, he could always lease another plane through one of his cutout corporations, but Jonathan enjoyed the anonymity of this arrangement.

Boxers was just alighting the fold-down stairs when Jonathan approached from behind.

“Good morning, Big Guy,” Jonathan said cheerfully. It was always a good idea to give Boxers adequate notice when moving up behind him. “Did you have a successful night of passion?”

“Nah. But I did get laid well and frequently.”

“Congratulations,” Jonathan said. “Now maybe you'll be less cranky.”

Boxers climbed through the door and turned. “You know, Boss, you ought to try it some time.”

“Stop,” Jonathan said. He'd had difficult times with relationships for as long as he and Big Guy had known each other. It never failed that just when he thought he had found a soul mate, she'd let him down. “Are we ready to go?”

“We've got wings, fuel, and a working engine,” Big Guy said. “Can't think of a thing that can stop us now. I filed a flight plan back to Virginia, so as far as I'm concerned, we're all set. Are you riding up front like a big boy, or are you planning to lounge in the back?”

If only for the optics of having two faces in the windscreen during takeoffs from real airports—as opposed to some of the less-than-optimum fields they'd used over the years—Jonathan always rode in the front seat until the plane was at altitude. More times than not, he'd stay there to keep Big Guy company during the flight. As far as Jonathan was concerned, the private plane was entirely about convenience and not at all about the creature comforts. Sometimes, though, when he had things to work on, he would ride in the back and spread out. This would be one of those days.