The Ten-Mile Trials

TRIPLE PLAY

PAR FOUR

FIVE CARD STUD

SIX-POUND WALLEYE

SEVENTH INNING STRETCH

CRAZY EIGHTS

McCAFFERTY'S NINE
*

THE TEN-MILE TRIALS
*

COOL IN TUCSON
*

NEW RIVER BLUES
*

This eBook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author's and publisher's rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  

This first world edition published 2009

in Great Britain and 2010 in the USA by

SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD of

9–15 High Street, Sutton, Surrey, England, SM1 1DF.

Copyright © 2009 by Elizabeth Gunn.

All rights reserved.

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Gunn, Elizabeth, 1927–

The Ten-Mile Trials. – (A Jake Hines mystery)

1. Hines, Jake (Fictitious character) – Fiction.

2. Police – Minnesota – Fiction. 3. Detective and mystery stories.

I. Title II. Series

813.6-dc22

ISBN-13: 978-1-78010-034-0   (ePub)

ISBN-13: 978-0-7278-6824-4   (cased)

ISBN-13: 978-1-84751-195-9   (trade paper)

Except where actual historical events and characters are being

described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this

publication are fictitious and any resemblance to living persons

is purely coincidental.

This ebook produced by

Palimpsest Book Production Limited,

Falkirk, Stirlingshire, Scotland.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am greatly indebted to Officer Quinton Gleason, his dog Sam, and the other officers and dogs of the Tucson K-9 Corps for letting me observe their training regimen.

In Minnesota, Officer James Bradley and Officer Mark Darnell introduced me to the close-knit band of brothers that is the K-9 Corps, and in Tucson, retired K-9 Officer Doug Russell also shared his insights into the rigors of training and caring for a police dog.

Sgt Mark Fuller, supervisor of the Tucson Special Investigations Division, Street Crime Interdiction Unit, provided colorful details about multi-tasking Russian gangs who occasionally invade the US drug trade. I rearranged some details to serve the needs of this story, but I'm not clever enough to have thought of wearing gold jewelry with velour running suits.

And without the generous help and ingenuity of John Sibley, retired Deputy Chief of the Rochester, Minnesota Police Department, the Ten-Mile Trials could never have taken place.

ONE

T
hat Friday started out like most June mornings in Minnesota, somewhere between extra pleasant and perfect. The first cutting of hay across the road from my house showed a sparkle of dew as I drove by, and smelled like bee heaven. Red-winged blackbirds flaunted themselves in the ditches along the highway, and a meadowlark in a nearby pasture promised his mate great sex if she'd just come home. To confirm that all the planets were lined up right, somebody had made a fresh pot of coffee in the break room and I got to it ahead of most of my comrades in the Rutherford Police Department. I carried a cup to my desk feeling smugly content. Minnesota is usually quick to punish undue optimism, so the rest of that day may be partly my fault.

Shortly before lunch, a row of fleecy white cumulus clouds began building on the western horizon. Two hours later they'd become churning behemoths with a black layer on the bottom and thunder rumbling inside. The first gust hit at two thirty, and within a few minutes a monster wind was blowing pieces of Rutherford up into the sky. Like some cosmic Cuisinart, the storm blended pitchforks and potato peelings, gable-ends and garbage cans into a lumpy flying mulch, which it spread across a wide swathe of southeast Minnesota halfway to Lake Pepin. Behind that path of destruction, tons of rain and hail dropped into Rutherford and its surrounding farms. By nightfall, Hampstead County was a hive of busy insurance adjusters.

Police officers going off shift rubbed their bruises and groaned with fatigue.

‘Man, when I say I'm a beat cop today,' Bud Burnap said, ‘I
really
mean beat.'

‘Tell me about it. I pulled at least a dozen people out of flooded cars this afternoon,' Vince Greeley said, ‘and they all yelled at me like it was my fault.'

‘There was this one woman,' Bud said, ‘on top of her car with two little kids. I can't imagine how she ever got them up there. I said, “Lady, couldn't you see this was a river?” And she said, “It's my driveway, for cat's sake.” – like that should make the water go away.'

I'm the captain in charge of the investigative division, and have plenty of worries of my own. I don't usually waste time in the break room listening to belly-aching patrolmen, but I was hoping one of them could tell me the driest route to my babysitter's house.

‘Fifteenth and Marvin? The near Northwest is kind of tricky, it's got some low spots,' Bud said. ‘If I was you, I'd go out Center Street all the way to the highway and come back in around the Costco store.'

‘No, listen, you can just take Third Street and go straight out,' Vince said. ‘That's good all the way to Fourteenth Avenue for sure. And if you have to, you could walk from there.'

‘He can't walk through water carrying a baby! Are you crazy?' Bud said.

‘He won't have to. Almost all the sidewalks in that part of town are high and dry.'

‘Oh, and almost is good enough for you? You sound like that lady in the driveway.'

I left them there arguing, which is their favorite off-duty sport. Bud and Vince have been friends since grade school, and most of their conversations seem to be stuck at about the ten-year-old level.

My Ford pickup has plenty of clearance, so I got it out of the lot and drove toward Maxine's house, improvising the route, telling myself I should have known better than to ask two street cops the best way to anything. Driving as much as they do, they all get preferred routes to everything, and defend them like they were holy writ.

The rain had slowed down to an occasional sprinkle, but the streets were full of trash and tree limbs. I drove carefully, trying to peer around corners, alert for low spots. There was a stoplight lying in a tangle of hissing wire in the intersection at Seventh Street, and one homeowner in the next block had four dog dishes lined up on the top step of his porch, with a hand-lettered sign behind them saying, ‘Take if yours.'

Oddly enough, the beginning of this big storm had caught me unawares, because when it started I was hunkered over the desk in the chief's office, locked in mortal combat over the budget.

‘No use yelling at me about it, Jake,' McCafferty said. ‘The city council's in a panic, I've never seen them so lathered up. They say the tax base is eroding out from under them, the next six months are a crisis. The mayor read a letter from the power company that says if the city can't stay current with their bills they'll cut us off.'

‘They wouldn't, would they?'

‘He thinks so. He says get ready, by Thanksgiving we're all going to be wearing long underwear and keeping the thermostat set low. Speaking of freezing, they froze their own salaries, so you know they're serious.'

‘That may prove they're serious, but it won't save enough money, will it? What are they quoting for the deficit?'

‘Five million and growing as we speak. We must find ways, they say, to get along with less. Prioritize your needs, maximize the assets you have.'

‘If I maximize the assets I have any more than I'm doing now, you can go ahead and burn the chairs for heat, because nobody will have time to sit down.'

‘I know. But it's no use arguing, Jake, the money's not there. Twenty per cent cuts across the board they're demanding, from every department. Demanding, not asking. Non-negotiable.'

‘Well it can't come out of investigative staff,' I said, ‘unless they want people to start writing up their own incident reports.'

When he didn't answer I looked up, found his eyes looking through me at some distant planet, and realized he was considering what I'd just said.

‘Come on,' I said, ‘that's a joke.'

‘Maybe not.' He had his head cocked a little, like a robin looking at a worm. ‘We've already put the phone on automatic. If people can listen to all those other options and select by number, maybe they could punch one more number and get a form that lets them answer the first half-dozen questions we always ask.'

‘Please, Frank, tell me you're kidding.'

‘I mean, what are they? Name, address, phone, fax, email. Right?'

‘Well, right. And with a little work, maybe we can train them to go right on to the number of victims and the condition of the bodies! What else?'

‘I never said it would work for homicide. But for a lot of property crimes, all those stolen bikes and missing wallets, we could have an express line like that. It would speed things up when we call them back, so that— What?'

‘You're really not going to let me add the two detectives I've been begging for all spring, are you?'

‘Haven't you heard a word I said? There is no add for anybody this year, there is only subtract. You can go ahead and bring Amy Nguyen on board to replace Darrell Betts, since that's already in the pipeline. But we don't get to replace Bo Dooley, and the new video-recording equipment for the interview rooms is on hold.'

I reminded him that Rutherford's population had ballooned above a hundred thousand in the last year, and the crime rate was going up, not down.

‘It always goes up in hard times,' Frank said. ‘Nothing I can do about that, either.'

‘Can't we just keep the same cars another year?'

‘That was one of the cost-cutting measures we initiated in January, remember? We've only bought three patrol cars this year. Every Sunday at Mass now I say an extra five Hail Marys for the continued good health of our fleet mechanics and the warranty service at Paulson Motors.' He banged a few folders into a precise pile on his desk, taking out his frustration on the paper goods. ‘We've got to put a total freeze on overtime, and Property Crimes has to shed two people by the end of the fiscal year. You and Kevin figure it out. Prioritize, Jake. Maximize your assets.' He stopped talking and stared over my shoulder. ‘Why is all that stuff flying around?'

I turned in time to see an aluminum lawn chair sail past his window, followed closely by an open umbrella and a wastebasket. Frank McCafferty's office is on the second floor, so the view from there does not ordinarily include household items. We watched in rapt silence as two towels and a striped sock followed the other chattels aloft. Then thunder shook the building and wind-driven rain hit the window like bullets. A ragged piece of awning flew by, and phones rang all over the building.

I got up and trotted toward my office, where my phone, of course, was ringing. Three detectives called in quick succession to tell me why they were calling off the field work they had planned for the afternoon.