Cold Blue (16 page)

“Special Investigations Division.”

Thorpe delivered his best Sean Connery impersonation. “Hello, Miss Moneypenny.”

“Hello, James.”

“Actually, it’s John.”

“Hello, John.”

“Do you ever get tired of this routine?”

“Never,” Gail lied.

“I’m sure. Could you put me down for a vacation day?” he asked. “I’ve decided to give aspiring world dictators a holiday.”

“Everyone needs a day off.”

“How’s M?” Thorpe jokingly asked. ‘M’ is James Bond’s and Miss Moneypenny’s fictional boss in the British Secret Intelligence Service. In this case, he was referring to their actual boss,
M
ajor
Richard Duncan, aka The Walrus.

“She’s an idiot and a bitch,” Gail replied. Duncan was a man, but the gender swap allowed Gail to insult the Major even if he were standing right next to her. It also added an extra bit of amusement for parties on both ends of the line.

“I think she needs to find a man,” Gail giggled.

Having phoned in a vacation day, Thorpe had the entire afternoon and night to himself and decided to begin his free time with a workout in his barn. As he lifted weights and worked on the heavy bag, he obsessed on the connection between Stephen Price and his family’s murder.

Why would that asshole want to set him up to take the fall on a drug charge?
Thorpe could remember having only one incident with the man.

He’d been in his current position as supervisor of the Organized Gang Unit when one of his officers arrested a dealer for trafficking crack cocaine. A first time offender, the suspect didn’t want to waste his get-out-of-jail-free card from the District Attorney’s Office. He signed an agreement to take down five bigger fish to keep the incident off his record.

The first credit on the informant’s payment plan would be a man he knew only as “Rocc.” According to the CI, Rocc was always good for at least an 8-ball on short notice. The CI refused to do a buy-bust; he was too scared to be present when officers swooped in and arrested the dealer. Instead, the CI called Rocc and ordered an 8-ball of crack. He agreed to meet Rocc at a convenience store at a busy intersection. The only suspect information Thorpe’s unit had was a vague physical description and that he usually drove a newer white Dodge Stratus.

The plan was to get the Stratus stopped for traffic violations
before
it reached the convenience store—a tactic used to keep from burning informants. The CI would be sequestered away at another location. As with all dope deals, the plan changed, then changed again. After a tedious game of musical “meets,” the Stratus finally showed. Of course, by this time the marked patrol units were spread across the city and in no position to make a stop. Thorpe and his team were forced to don raid jackets and take the Stratus down in a parking lot.

Two sons of a Tulsa police officer were inside the vehicle. Lyndale Peterson sat behind the wheel. His younger brother, Leon, occupied a backseat. Interestingly, a Hispanic gang member—a Latin King out of Chicago—rode shotgun. Eventually, officers found an 8-ball in Lyndale’s sock and two loaded handguns under the driver’s seat. More cocaine was found hidden in the engine compartment, and Leon held a small amount of marijuana in his pants’ pocket.

The three suspects were arrested. Surprisingly, Lyndale manned-up and took responsibility for both weapons and all the cocaine. Unfortunately, that led to the release of the Chicago gang member. Leon received a stint in the county jail because the marijuana charge was a second offense, but Lyndale got hammered. A three-time loser, he was sent to prison for a serious stretch.

After the incident, Officer Charlie Peterson filed a complaint with Internal Affairs, claiming Thorpe planted dope on his sons. In order to protect the identity of the informant, Thorpe couldn’t tell Peterson that his boys had been set up in a sting or share any of the details of the investigation. Doing so could get the CI killed. However, I.A. investigators obtained the information, and Thorpe was exonerated.

Afterward, Thorpe heard rumors that the Peterson sons were close friends of Price. If Price thought Thorpe framed his buddies, it could explain why he’d be interested in returning the favor. If Thorpe had been found with an unexplained half-kilo of cocaine in his house, he would—at the very least—be fired and almost assuredly sent to prison. Price would have his revenge.

If this theory were accurate, was the elder Peterson involved? Were any others? Thorpe wouldn’t be satisfied until all those responsible paid with their lives. He needed a way to reveal all the players and establish their guilt.

Thorpe was pulled away from his thoughts and workout by an irksome beeping. He recognized the number displayed on his pager’s screen and selected the appropriate contact on his cell phone.

“Hull.”

“Hey, Bob, it’s John. You paged?”

“Yeah. Just wanted to give you a quick update on the search warrant. We found a pair of boots in L.A.’s closet, and guess what?”

“They matched the tread patterns left in the barn?”

“Correct, Carnac. He tried to clean them up, but looks like some blood stains are still on the boots.”

“What’s L.A.’s story?”

“He says he’s happy as a dog with two dicks that Marcel’s dead, but he didn’t have a damn thing to do with it.”

“Go figure. You hit him with the boots yet?”

“Yeah, we told him we have the boots he wore at the scene. Told him he didn’t clean all the blood off. Told him if the lab proved the blood was Marcel’s, he was fucked. He asks, “
What
boots?” So we show him. You know what he says then?”

“I have no idea.”

“He says, ‘Those aren’t my boots.’”

“Ah, the old ‘these aren’t my pants ploy.’” It wasn’t uncommon to arrest someone, find dope in his pocket—only to have the suspect claim, “These aren’t my pants.” Apparently drug dealers would like cops to think they share pants with one another, which
would
explain why they were always ill fitting and falling halfway down their asses.

“Yeah. So we say, ‘How come you have someone else’s boots in your closet?’ and you know what he says to that?”

“He claimed you planted them there,” Thorpe answered.

“Close. He said someone left them on his front porch. He thought they were mint, and they fit, so he decided to keep them.”

“Yeah, people leave free boots on my porch all the time. How did he explain the ‘L.A.’ Marcel wrote at the scene?”

“He didn’t. He said ‘Fuck you, I want my lawyer.’”

“Probably the smartest thing that’s ever come out of his mouth. You guys find anything else?”

“We’re still sifting through a lot of stuff at the crime scene and from the warrant. Plus we’re waiting on the autopsy. That’s the biggest news so far. What time are you coming in?”

“Sorry, Bob, I know it’s bad timing, but I took the night off. Needed a break. Something you should consider doing every once in a while.”

“I’ll rest when I’m dead.”

“That won’t be long if you never take off. In the meantime, can I take out…what is it now…wife number ten…for you tonight? I’ll show her a real good time.”

“Fuck you, John. She’d rather get twelve inches from me once a month then three inches from you every night.”

Thorpe laughed. “Sounds like you’ve used that line before, Bob.”

“Maybe a time or two. We can make do without you, John. Take a break. You’ve earned it.”

Hull was a good cop and one hell of an interrogator. Thorpe noticed Hull kept prompting him to hypothesize L.A.’s responses to his questions.

Was he being interrogated himself?
Hard to determine—Bob was a tough guy to read. Thorpe hoped he was equally difficult to decipher; he’d tried to respond as though he hadn’t known the truth.

Thorpe also noticed Bob hadn’t mentioned L.A.’s hair fiber on the duct tape. But, there was a lot of evidence to sift through and the results of the autopsy were still out. Thorpe doubted L.A. could come up with an alibi strong enough to contradict the physical evidence mounting against him. These guys were notorious for producing not-so-credible witnesses who would swear the offender had been in their presence at a faraway location at the time whatever heinous crime was committed. Unless L.A. had been sitting in a casino with a hundred cameras trained on him during the time period Marcel was killed, he’d be convicted.

Thorpe felt little remorse about L.A. serving a life sentence or possibly being condemned for a killing Thorpe had committed. L.A. was a murderer, and everyone knew it, even the judge who’d been forced to release him because of uncooperative witnesses—witnesses who’d probably been threatened into silence.

Thorpe looked at his watch and realized he’d been working out for nearly two hours. He’d been in such a state of concentration he wasn’t even sure what exercises he’d completed. Earlier, he’d convinced himself not to act until tomorrow. Now he realized he needed to move quickly and decisively. He hadn’t thought it possible for this to get more personal, but it had. His family may have been murdered by fellow police officers—by his
brothers in blue
. They might not have intended to kill his wife and daughter, but that consideration wouldn’t be enough to spare those responsible. They’d meant to falsely accuse Thorpe of a crime that would cost him his job and his freedom. Instead they’d taken so much more.

He’d waited thirteen months for Hull and his crew to find the killers. But Thorpe had found the bastards on his own and was prepared to secure reparations the same way.

Wednesday

February 7

Evening

THE RIVER FALLS APARTMENTS ON
South Memorial Drive had neither a river nor a falls but was nice, upscale complex situated behind a Wendy’s fast food restaurant and a QuickTrip convenience store. Thorpe had entered by riding the rear bumper of resident who’d remotely activated the apartment’s iron gates. He waited there now, in the privacy of a blacked-out Chevy Impala.

Earlier, Thorpe had stopped by Riverside Division (RID), the department’s uniformed subdivision that covered the southwest section of the city. Because of current manpower shortages, the front desks of the uniformed divisions were only manned during business hours. Thorpe found it ridiculous that the buildings were closed at any time, day or night—people should be able to find and talk to a cop at a police station. However, this evening, the lack of basic services had worked to his advantage; he’d needed information contained behind the front desk of RID, and no one was around to watch him snoop. Thorpe had used a four-digit code to enter the building, walk behind the desk and locate a file with Riverside officers’ names, addresses, and phone numbers. Once he recorded the pertinent information, he checked third-shift’s lineup, pleased to see Stephen Price was on duty.

His next stop had been at SID to procure equipment for the night’s activities. He’d hoped to get in and out of his office without being noticed but had been pulled into a brief conversation with the sergeant over Vice, Gary Treece. Thorpe had explained that despite taking the night off, he’d needed to come in for a few minutes in order to keep the long tusks of The Walrus from chewing his ass. Not a fan of Major Duncan, Treece required no further explanation. Following the encounter, Thorpe made it out of the building with a “Birddog” tracking device, directional microphone, voice changer, and keys to a gray Chevy Impala—none of which he signed out.

The Birddog consisted of a magnetic transmitter easily placed on a vehicle’s undercarriage. It emitted an RF signal detected by a directional receiver with a range of two to four miles. Thorpe could have selected a GPS tracking device, which was much more accurate and functional, but the Birddog did have an advantage crucial for this mission: it left no electronic signature that could later be traced back to the device or to Thorpe. GPS units left an easily tracked electronic footprint. Plus, SID’s GPS trackers had external antennas that—unless you had access to the car’s interior or the engine block—made them much more likely to be discovered by the persons you followed.

The Birddog’s disadvantage was its limited range. If you slipped outside its realm, the only way to reacquire your target was to stumble around until reentering the transmitter’s radius. Then it became a game of Marco Polo. But in this case, Thorpe had no choice. He couldn’t use a unit that could be traced back to SID equipment. The directional microphone he’d borrowed was able to pick up conversations in open areas but couldn’t penetrate enclosed spaces.

Outside Stephen Price’s apartment, Thorpe lurked behind the Impala’s deeply tinted windows as a patrol car turned the corner and found a parking space. Thorpe checked his watch; Price wasn’t scheduled to get off work for another thirty minutes. Nevertheless, his unmistakable form—akin to an NBA forward—uncoiled from the cruiser and lumbered toward his apartment. He’d hoped Price would give an indication which personal car was his, but no such luck. Price’s apartment was situated on the middle floor of the three-story building. Its balcony overlooked the parking lot where Thorpe sat. The lights to Price’s unit snapped on, and Thorpe exited his car.