“Thanks for sharing that,” I said. “Now I’m motivated.”
“Don’t be a wiseass, Somers. This is important.”
“Right,” I said. “The Governor wants to be President.”
He nodded. “And the Captain wants to be chief.”
I always found it refreshing that he acknowledged that, at least to me. He’d never say it to anyone else; it made me feel trusted. “So let’s catch the prick,” I said.
“Do we have a chance?” he asked.
“Zero.”
He frowned. “That’s not what I wanted to hear.”
“Come on, the guy would have to fall in our lap.”
“Did I mention that that was not what I wanted to hear?” he asked.
“OK, how’s this? We’ll get him, Captain. We’re closing in on him right now.”
“Good. That’s what I told the Governor.”
Sometimes, not often, an investigation just seems to fall into place.
This was one of those times.
The first thing I did was utilize the services of the state prosecutor’s office to get a list of the cases Judge Brennan presided over in the last ten years. There are very few jobs someone can have that piss people off as effectively as judges, and sometimes the pissed-off parties have years to sit in a cell and plot revenge.
I had reached a level within the department where I didn’t have a partner anymore, since most of my work was done on the inside, supervising other officers. This was a mixed blessing. On the minus side, I actually missed being on the street, closer to the action. The reason it was a mixed blessing was that sitting behind a desk significantly reduced the chance of my being shot at. Cops who are not in action are rarely killed in action.
For the Brennan case, I chose, if not a partner, then someone who I could count on to be a very willing, very competent slave. There would be quite a bit to delegate, and it was also my intention to go out on the street if a serious opportunity presented itself.
My choice was Emmit Jenkins, who at forty-eight years old had me by twelve years, and who at two hundred and sixty pounds had me by seventy-five pounds. Emmit was a walking contradiction; he was simultaneously the toughest, meanest, and most pleasant guy I’ve ever known.
Emmit was a twenty-two-year vet, and loved his job for every single minute of it. He had turned down four opportunities for promotions that I knew of, and probably as many more that I didn’t. Emmit wanted to be where the danger and excitement was, and he excelled in those circumstances.
Emmit had the list of Brennan’s cases, and therefore his potential enemies, within two hours of the request. The reason it was so quick, he informed me, was that the prosecutor’s office had already prepared the same list for the FBI.
I went through the list personally, paying special attention to two groups. Those people who went to prison and got out in the past year were a priority, as were those who recently fared poorly in Brennan’s court. Personally, if I were convicted of a felony, I’d be more pissed at the prosecutor, or witnesses, or jurors than at the judge, so I considered the revenge motive a long shot. But for the time being it was all we had.
As a Superior Court judge, Brennan handled a wide variety of cases, everything from high-level business fraud to low-level drug offenses. He had his share of violent crimes as well, four murders and thirty-one assaults, most of them armed, in the last five years. I instructed Emmit to find out which of the convicted defendants were out of jail.
Of course, even someone in jail could be responsible for planning the murder, since most violent felons didn’t hang around with altar boys or the chess club before they went in. But we had to prioritize; if we went through the obvious candidates and got nothing, then we could widen our search. That’s if the Feds hadn’t already made an arrest.
There were four criminals who had been sentenced by Judge Brennan and released within the previous year. There were also five people, four males and a female, who were convicted in trials over which Brennan presided during the previous year, who were either out on bail, pending appeal, or awaiting sentencing. The most recent was a twenty-two-year-old named Steven Gallagher, a third offense for crack cocaine possession and use.
“Anything look promising to you?” I asked Emmit.
“Only one way to find out,” he said. “Let’s run ’em down.”
That was Emmit’s upbeat way of agreeing that nothing looked promising. “Go get ’em,” I said.
“Who can I use?” he asked, meaning which detectives was I giving him permission to work with on this.
“Whoever the hell you want.”
He thought for a few moments. “I want Garfield, Miller, Wallace, and Freeman.”
“You’ve got Garfield, Miller, Wallace, and Freeman,” I said. It may have sounded like a law firm, but they were actually four of our best officers.
Emmit went out to get started, but came back less than ten minutes later, not nearly enough time to have gotten started with Garfield and Miller, never mind Wallace and Freeman. “We may have something,” he said.
“Talk to me.”
“We got a tip on the hotline, anonymous, that ID’d a kid named Steven Gallagher as the killer. He’s…”
“The user that Brennan was about to sentence,” is how I finished his sentence.
“Right.”
I didn’t ask if the tip seemed reliable, since anonymous tips were never reliable, except for the ones that were. They needed to be tracked down, and we were about to do just that with this one.
“Let’s go,” I said, standing up.
“We’re on this one ourselves?” he asked.
“You got other plans?”
He grinned. “Sure don’t.”
We arranged for backup, and within ten minutes we were on our way to the address Gallagher had given the court. Much to my amazement, a case that had nowhere to go for us now looked to be very possibly promising.
Sometimes, not often, an investigation just seems to fall into place.
Chris Gallagher didn’t need a travel agent to book his flight out of Afghanistan.
When you’re Marine Force Recon on your third tour, and you’re going on leave, there’s no need to check expedia.com.
It was actually an emergency leave for Chris, to the extent that it hadn’t been planned. But he had plenty of time accrued, and when events transpired as they did, his commanding officer expedited things and did not officially designate it as an emergency. It would have just meant more paperwork, while changing nothing.
The emergency was the arrest and subsequent conviction of Chris’s brother, Steven, on a drug offense. He was a repeat offender, and this was simply another chapter in a life going downhill. Unfortunately, it was a life that Chris had spent years trying to protect.
Darlene and Walter Gallagher were killed in a car crash when Chris was fourteen and Steven was seven. The Gallaghers had never made out a will, but that was basically of no consequence, since they had no money and little of value.
The boys went to live with an aunt, an alcoholic who reacted to the added responsibility by significantly increasing her alcohol intake. Chris became the responsible adult in the house, and took it upon himself to watch out for his little brother.