Cold Blue (5 page)

Before long, all those still conscious were laughing—even Drunken Ninja’s drunken sidekick. When the amusement faded, his lady in distress, Erica, looked up at Thorpe, and he could see it in her eyes: she was enamored.

One week later, he picked up Erica for their first date. For the occasion, she wore a white lace cami with plunging neckline and bare midriff. Her long legs blossoming from a short skirt, she looked, smelled, and oozed sex. The date began with dinner and drinks before Erica suggested going to a large country and western bar located near the center of Tulsa’s city limits. Not fond of crowded bars he couldn’t resist the prospect of slow dancing with the beauty seated next to him; her toned legs presented a convincing argument. Shortly after, Thorpe found himself on an overflowing dance floor with Erica pressed against him. The couple lasted all of two songs before he invited her back to his place. By the time he turned the key to his apartment and pushed open the door, they were pulling at one another’s clothes. The two fell into the apartment and a lovemaking session. They never made it past the front room.

After their first date, they began seeing each other regularly, but not exclusively. Sex was the glue holding the relationship together. He didn’t know if Erica had fallen for him but knew she at least had a deep infatuation. Sometimes he wondered if she wasn’t just attracted to the potential for violence she had witnessed when they first met. Some women craved that. Everyone has seen them—the woman with the fashion model looks hanging on the arm of a Kid Rock lookalike. One thing Thorpe knew for certain; he wasn’t in love with Erica. In fact, he’d never been in love with any woman and had his doubts whether he had the capability.

A couple of months after their first date, Thorpe decided he’d better call off the relationship. Prepared to break the news to Erica, she had a surprise of her own; she was pregnant. They’d been careful, but these things have a way of happening. Erica seemed genuinely happy with the prospect of motherhood, and after the initial shock, Thorpe did his best to appear optimistic. Raised to accept responsibility for his actions, and though today’s experts would probably discourage marrying because of an unexpected pregnancy, Thorpe felt it was the only
thing to do.

Erica came from money—old money. Her father, Phillip Hessler, made no attempt to hide the fact that he disapproved of the man who’d “knocked-up” his baby. He had higher aspirations for his daughter. Thorpe figured the man had hoped for an Ivy League investment banker as a future son-in-law, not some knuckle-dragging civil servant with a gun. The two married in a large downtown Methodist church with Erica clearly showing in her white wedding dress. When the father gave his daughter away, he did so with a glare that should have burned a hole right through Thorpe’s rented tuxedo. The relationship with his in-laws would never improve.

Thorpe, in the delivery room on the night Ella was born, didn’t experience any of those overwhelming emotions other fathers describe when excitedly recalling the births of their children. He made sure he said all the right things and smiled on cue. Two days later, mother and child came home to the apartment. Erica didn’t feel well, and Thorpe was burdened with the majority of childcare. One short week of tending to Ella—the diaper changing, the bottle feedings at 3 a.m., the standing over the crib to make sure the baby still drew breath, the worrying that comes with caring for something so small, fragile, and, yes, precious—had broken Thorpe down.

He loved his little girl more than anything he had loved in his entire life. Childcare wasn’t a burden any longer; it was a privilege. This innocent baby, Ella, looked to Thorpe to take care of her, and that’s just what he planned to do. Thorpe wasn’t the only one changed by being a parent. Erica settled down, and, to his surprise, turned out to be an excellent mother. As Ella grew, so did the relationship between Erica and Thorpe. He might not have been in love, but his caring deepened. Thorpe’s love for Ella, however, grew beyond even his own comprehension. He knew if he lost her, he too would be lost forever.

FOLLOWING THEIR WORKOUT, JEFF LEFT
Thorpe’s property more concerned than when he’d arrived. When they’d partnered together, they spent upwards of eight hours a day with each other five days a week and had often hung out on their off days. When you’ve spent that amount of time with a person, you damned well got to know him. Maybe not his history, if he were unwilling to share. But you reach a point where you knew another person’s thoughts, even if the words weren’t spoken.

Jeff sensed a shift within Thorpe. He’d already been close to becoming unhinged, but now there was something…new. Jeff couldn’t quite pinpoint what it was but decided he’d be keeping a closer eye on his best friend.

Monday

February 5

Evening

POLICE LOVE THEIR ACRONYMS, AND
the Tulsa Police Department was no exception. Thorpe supervised the Organized Gang Unit, or OGU. The OGU operated out of the Special Investigation’s Division or SID, which housed the department’s undercover units. In addition to the OGU, the division was also home to the Vice Unit, two narcotics units, the Intelligence Unit, and the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force or OCDETF, a unit comprised of DEA agents and Tulsa police officers—both entities being cross deputized. Tulsa officers, integrated with the FBI’s counter terrorism unit, also worked out of the office. The personnel working at SID were a motley bunch. Some had the boy or girl next-door appearance while others looked as though they should be shooting crank in a darkened corner of a seedy bar.

The Special Investigations Division, more commonly referred to as “The Office” by those who worked there, was relocated every few years in an attempt to keep the location secret, thereby deterring countersurveillance. Currently the office was located on the southwest corner of a busy intersection in East Tulsa. SID personnel accessed the office via a concrete ramp on the south side of the building. At the top of the ramp, a tall gate and an electronic card reader kept the uninvited at bay. The gate was posted “ITPS Inc., AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.” ITPS stood for
I
t’s
T
he
P
olice
S
tupid
—a testament to the fact that cops
do
have a sense of humor. If allowed through the gate, one parked on a lot that—in reality—was the roof of the second floor of the building. The first two floors were occupied by regular citizens who didn’t have access to the third. The third level was half parking lot and half office building.

Situated in a fairly nefarious neighborhood, officers could sit atop their own elevated parking lot, look over the short wall, and observe drug sales occurring on a daily basis. The Sheridan Commons, a low-rent, pay-by-the-night or by-the-week “whoretel,” sat just to the south. It was a major prostitution and street-level narcotics hub, owned and operated by a Middle Eastern man shadier than a Live Oak in July.

Thorpe arrived at the office a few minutes before 6 p.m., when darkness was already descending. Thorpe had ten investigators and one corporal under his command. His corporal and four of his officers normally worked dayshift hours from eleven in the morning to seven at night. Thorpe chose to work the late shift from 6 p.m. till 2 a.m. with the six nightshift officers. However, because of the nature of the work, schedules changed on a daily basis and overtime was abundant. Well, it had been abundant until the new division commander arrived a few months ago. Now officers went home on time even in the midst of developing investigations—all in order to make the new major, Richard Duncan, look like an overtime savior to his bosses.

Thorpe docked his undercover truck beneath the amber lights of the parking area. Then, dimly illuminated by the yellow haze, strode across the lot and swiped his card a second time to gain entry. As usual, the division’s secretary and all the brass had left for the evening. Deeper into the building, he found two of his nightshift officers already at their desks. One, Jennifer Williams, shouted at him across the OGU bullpen.

“Hey, Carnac, can we serve a warrant tonight?”

“Carnac” was a name Thorpe picked up a couple of years earlier. Most criminals had cool nicknames like Deuce, Fast Eddie, Machine Gun Kelly, whatever. But a police officer would never give another cop a good moniker. A few had tried to assume favorable nicknames for themselves—always with disastrous consequences.

Thorpe’s label was a reference to “Carnac the Magnificent,” a character made famous by the late Johnny Carson. In the skit, Johnny would wear a ridiculously gigantic turban on his head. As always, Ed McMahon played the straight man. Carson as Carnac would produce an envelope, which McMahon would claim was “hermetically sealed.” Carnac would then use his psychic powers to come up with a punch line answer to an unknown question. After announcing the punch line, Carnac would open the envelope and read the question. The bit would go something like this:

Carnac would hold an envelope to his turban and state, “A triple and a double, catcher’s and fielder’s, and Dolly Parton.”

McMahon: “A triple and a double, catcher’s and fielder’s, and Dolly Parton.”

Carnac: “Name two big hits, two big mitts…and a famous country singer.”

Thorpe had earned this nickname while serving a search warrant on a methamphetamine lab near Lewis and Independence. One of his officers had obtained the warrant utilizing a “trash pull.”

The courts have deemed once refuse is abandoned at the curb it is no longer protected by search and seizure laws. Investigators generally “pull” the trash and replace it with another bag in the early morning hours while everyone’s asleep (though it’s sometimes difficult to determine when a crankster sleeps, since they’re often up for days on end). And it’s always a bit awkward when you get caught stealing garbage. Feigning being drunk off one’s ass is the preferred tactic for avoiding lengthy explanations. No one likes talking to someone who’s shitfaced, not even meth-heads.

You can learn a lot about a person from going through their trash, right down to their menstrual cycles. In this instance, officers found blister packs from numerous cold and allergy pills, which contained pseudoephedrine. They’d also located Heet bottles and items covered with iodine stains. All of these components are used in the “Red-P” method of methamphetamine production. A background check on the occupants revealed prior arrests for drug possession and related offenses. The contents of the trash, bolstered by the resident’s criminal history, were more than enough to obtain a search warrant for the property.

Search warrant services on methamphetamine labs are rarely fun. They’re inherently dangerous because of a multitude of toxic chemicals used in the manufacturing process. In addition, the “cook” itself produces phosphorus gas, which is lethal. Added to the mix are cooks who are at the extreme end of paranoia. Labs often explode, and cooks sometimes implement booby traps to injure officers.

The residence involved in this particular search warrant was the quintessential crank house. Located in the midst of lower-class homes, it had a large lot surrounded by an eight-foot privacy fence, vehicles in various stages of disrepair carpeting the yard, black plastic sheeting on the windows to provide concealment, and upholstered furniture on the front porch. The only things missing were the requisite Chevy El Camino and Confederate flag.

In addition to their usual equipment, the first three officers staged at the front door wore self-contained breathing apparatuses (SCBAs) and Nomex fatigues. The SCBAs protected against toxins in the air, while Nomex offered minimal protection against explosions and flash fires. The first officer wore an air monitor around his neck that checked for toxic and explosive chemicals. The monitor is designed to let out a piercing alarm if it detects specific elements above a certain threshold. If the alarm goes off, the search warrant is over, and everyone gets out. Immediately.

Upon knocking the front door off its hinges with a battering ram, the first thing they saw was—you guessed it—a Confederate flag. The air quality seemed fine and the entry team entered the residence. Two officers “held” the staircase to the second floor as others cleared the lower portion of the dwelling for suspects. Earlier, surveillance reported observing the main target enter the house, yet they hadn’t yet encountered a single person. Ground level rendered safe, Thorpe ascended the stairs after notifying another officer to follow at a reasonable distance.

Hallways are one of the most dangerous portions of any search warrant. Officers call them fatal funnels because you progress down a corridor with no cover or concealment. If a suspect steps out and fires rounds down a hallway, he’s likely going to “cut meat.” Stairways are even more perilous. They’re hallways with uneven footing where the bad guy has the high ground. Consequently, a bunch of officers on a stairway at the same time is a worse idea than entering an adolescent male’s bedroom without knocking.