Deviations (23 page)

“And Leonard?”

“Leonard Woolsey died in a traffic accident. Alcohol
related.”

“So, him raping Dolores Weston, then me. That just
didn’t happen? You don’t think maybe the public ought to hear what a stand-up
guy he was?”

He looked at me and nodded, like he understood. “Tagging
him for the Weston murder could cause some problems. Like Ruby Ridge, which had
a lot to do with Waco. If it gets out that there was federal involvement, it
turns these guys into martyrs. It’s better if they just die quietly.”

So I guess I didn’t get raped after all. Neither
did Dolores Weston. I could feel myself getting woozy, but I needed to know one
more thing. “Willson Fredericks. He was just someone for me and Ryan to go
after while you worked Reverend Barry?”

“No, not at all. We thought Fredericks might open
up the Dolores Weston investigation. We were thinking it might be that guy BC
from the emails.”

“But it wasn’t him.”

“Apparently not.”

“How did Fredericks die?”

“That’s a matter for local law enforcement.”

“Am I still local law enforcement?”

“That’s between you and Chief Murtaugh.”

“I missed a few AA meetings.”

“The chief might know a little more about AA
meetings than you give him credit for. He’ll probably stop by a little later to
talk to you.”

“You gonna be leaving Rawlings now?”

“Good luck, Detective.” He squeezed my hand. “And
thank you.”

* * * *

Gun Mishap Claims Life

Lake
Hollow, Montana, May 14—Richard Sidoway, 19, died Thursday of a wound he
received when his rifle accidentally discharged while he was cleaning it.

At the time of his
death, Sidoway was employed by the Montana Patriot Front, where he served as a
general maintenance worker. Sidoway had lived with the Reverend Christopher
Barry, the president of the Montana Patriot Front, and his wife, Alice. The
couple had been Sidoway’s foster parents since he was three years old.

The Reverend Barry
issued a brief statement honoring his foster son as a young man who had
overcome tremendous odds to become a productive and useful member of society.
The statement included the comment that “Ricky is now at peace, sitting in the
lap of his Heavenly Father, the Lord Jesus Christ.”

Tim Fleming, Sidoway’s
former football coach at Powell Regional High School, spoke fondly of the young
man.

“Ricky faced some
challenges in the classroom, but he was always at ease on the football field,”
Fleming commented. Sidoway won regional honors in his sophomore and junior
years as the left tackle on the high school football team.

“Our opponents knew
that they were never going to get at our quarterback from the left side, not
with Ricky there,” said Fleming. Sidoway left high school during his senior
year to work full time for Reverend Barry.

Sidoway was cremated
Wednesday and his ashes scattered in the woods near the Montana Patriot Front
headquarters, where he loved to hunt. The Reverend Barry will soon announce
plans for a memorial service to celebrate Sidoway’s life, as well as creation
of the Ricky Sidoway Fund to honor his foster son and promote the causes to
which Sidoway devoted his energies.

Chapter 22

“Procedures call for a
mandatory fourteen-day leave, as well as psychiatric consultation. I’ve already
filed the paperwork and set up your first appointment with Dr. Palchik at one
o’clock today. Can you make that?” The Chief was sitting at his desk.

“Yes, Chief,” I said. I’d checked myself out of
the hospital after they’d kept me there overnight. They’d wanted to run a bunch
of tests on my brain to see if I had anything other than a garden-variety
concussion. The chief never did visit me in the hospital, like the FBI guy,
Friedman, told me he might. But it was appropriate that Friedman debriefed me,
since it was him, not the chief, running the Weston case. And feeling pretty
crappy all over, I didn’t need the chief stopping by to ask me insincere
questions about how I was doing. It was better for us to meet here in his
office—just so that everyone knew our relationship was official, didn’t have
any personal component.

“Do you have any questions for me?”

Where to start? “The fourteen days—that’s paid?”

“Of course.”

“On the fifteenth day, am I fired?”

“Why would you ask that?”

“Couple reasons. First, I’ve missed some AA
meetings, which you said were a condition for keeping the job. Second, I was
insubordinate on the Weston case.”

“On the AA meetings, let me be clear. I told you
to do ninety in ninety. Obviously, you haven’t been able to do that. But my point
was that I needed to know whether you would take it seriously. Your alcoholism,
I mean. And from what I’ve learned, you are taking it seriously.”

“How would you know that? That second A stands for
Anonymous, right?”

“I’m aware of that, Detective. But I know some
people in the AA community here. I reached out to them.”

“The signatures on the card aren’t good enough?”

“Two things, Detective. As the head of a municipal
agency, I have the right, by city charter, to require AA attendance as a
condition of employment for individuals who have exhibited behavior indicating
that it might be an appropriate means of monitoring job performance—”

“You sound like a goddamn manual—”

“Don’t interrupt me, Detective. And don’t ever speak
disrespectfully to me.”

I got up to leave. “Listen, Chief, this isn’t
working. You’re gonna give me fourteen days’ leave because I got gang-raped on
the job—well, sort of on the job. But then you’re gonna fire me, if not the
next day, the next time I fuck up. And what’s worse—I don’t respect you. You
treated me and Ryan like shit. You froze us out of that case. Maybe you treat
everybody like shit, but I’m not gonna take it.”

“Sit down, Detective. Now.”

“What the fuck for?”

“If you want to work for the Rawlings Police Department,
you will sit down, right now. You will speak to me and to all other members of
the Rawlings Police Department with respect. If you’re unwilling to do that,
turn around, walk out of my office, and keep walking. I’ll gladly give you all
the pay and benefits you’ve earned, just to be done with you.”

I thought about it a little, and I sat down.
“You’re right. I’m sorry, Chief. I shouldn’t have interrupted you, and I
shouldn’t have spoken to you disrespectfully.”

“All right, Detective. I’ve explained that I have
a right to monitor your attendance and participation at AA meetings. And, as I
was going to say, the reports I’ve gotten are that you are making real
progress. You understand that you are an alcoholic, and you are coming to grips
with what that means about how you have to live your life.” He shifted in his
seat. “I have not mentioned this to anyone on the job here, but I am a
recovering alcoholic, too. I have not had a drink in over eighteen years.”

“Is that why you hired me?”

“No, I hired you because you’re a good detective.
But also because someone took a chance on me, eighteen years ago, when my
career in law enforcement was over because of some things I’d done on the job.”

“I see.”

“I want to explain to you why I took the actions I
did with the Dolores Weston case.”

“I’d appreciate that.”

“When Senator Weston’s body was recovered, with
the 1488 on her chest, I immediately contacted Washington to see if this was a
hate crime. They filled me in and dispatched Special Agent Friedman to head up
the investigation.”

“Yeah, I got that. But why didn’t you let me
contact him when he went offline?”

“It’s FBI protocol. They try to keep their agents
under cover as much as possible to minimize the chances that civilians will
learn of FBI involvement. That knowledge could jeopardize the integrity of the
investigation—as well as the lives of the FBI agents. We’re in a much better
position to investigate the crime if the perpetrators think we don’t know it’s
a hate crime. They know that conviction on a federal offense carries stiffer
mandatory penalties, including death. Do you understand that?”

“Yes, I understand.”

“Is there anything else you want to ask about his
role in the investigation?”

“I hear what you’re saying, but it doesn’t help
morale when we get an idea for a way to get at Willson Fredericks, you tell us
Friedman isn’t available and we should just hang tight.”

“You’re right, Detective. That was unfortunate,
and I’ll take responsibility for it. It isn’t that often that the feds come in
like that and we have to defer to them. It was just bad timing that you started
up with the department the same time Friedman came in. Plus, you and I haven’t
worked together, and it takes a while to work through some of these communication
issues.”

“Friedman told me yesterday in the hospital that
the feds weren’t interested in the Willson Fredericks death, that it was—I
think he said that was a matter for local law enforcement. When I asked Ryan
about it on the phone—out at Lake Hollow, before I was attacked—he said we
hadn’t determined yet whether it was natural causes, suicide, or homicide.
Where are we on that?”

“It was a heart attack.”

“Caused by us leaning on him?”

“I know he was stressed, but I don’t see any
evidence of a link. He was sixty three. He had a heart attack. He died. It
happens.”

“So there was no autopsy.”

“That’s right. There was no trigger for an
autopsy, and the family didn’t ask for one.”

“There was a family?”

“Yes, apparently an ex-wife from long ago. She
claimed the body, brought it home to Wisconsin.”

“So we never did track down the guy BC he was
exchanging emails with—about patriot operations?”

“That’s right,” the chief said. “There was nothing
actionable in those emails, and with Leonard Woolsey dead, there’s no reason to
pursue it. Anything else you want to ask?”

“What are you gonna tell the press?”

“About you?”

“No, about the investigation.”

“Nothing. The case is officially open, and we’re
pursuing all leads. But we don’t have any forensic evidence, and none of the
tips from the public have panned out. So, we look like chumps, but that’s the
way the FBI handles this kind of operation. It’s part of their strategy of
preventing the patriots from getting any publicity out of it, or making anyone
a martyr. About you—”

“I don’t give a damn about me.”

“I do.” He paused but held his gaze. “Here’s how
I’m going to handle it. When you get back from leave in two weeks, I’ll show
you the text of a confidential report I’m adding to your file. You’ll tell me
if you want anything changed, or if you want me to toss it out. Unfortunately,
there won’t be any kind of commendation or public recognition, or even anything
here in the department. Nobody will know what you did or what happened to
you—except me and the psychiatrist, to the extent you want to reveal it to him.
Is that acceptable?”

“Yeah, Chief. I’m not interested in commendations
or anything.”

“Okay,” he said. “We’re going to start over—I
mean, you and me—in fourteen days. I want you to understand my expectations.
It’s my responsibility to be straight with you—and you have to be straight with
me. This Friedman thing was an aberration. Under normal circumstances, I want
to be kept in the loop at all times. A department this small, I want to be
involved in every major case. I want to know where you are in an investigation.
I need it because I have responsibilities—to the city, for instance, and the
media—that call for that kind of information. In addition, I need the ability
to intervene if you propose a strategy that I think will cause some other
problems—or that just might not get us the results we want as quickly as
possible. Does that sound reasonable?”

“Yes, Chief.”

“Let me say a few words about your decisions in
working the Weston case. For starters, I can’t have you going off the grid,
without even telling your partner what you were doing.”

“I couldn’t tell him what I was gonna do, Chief. I
didn’t know what the hell was going on here, and I didn’t want him to be
involved in any insubordination.”

“I understand that,” he said. “But obviously, what
you did—going in without backup, without even telling anyone—was extremely
dangerous. You paid a terrible price.”

I nodded. “Yeah, that wasn’t exactly textbook. On
the other hand, the murderer is dead.”

“Of course,” the chief said. “But so is Ricky
Sidoway. He should be doing time for rape—if he was found competent to stand
trial—but he shouldn’t be dead. As it stands now, the FBI has probably lost all
leverage with Reverend Barry. That would have happened eventually, given
Barry’s age, but he was a useful source for the FBI. I could see how, from your
perspective, alienating a guy like Reverend Barry doesn’t sound so bad, but it’s
a good thing anytime we can prevent a hate crime by keeping a lid on the
kettle.”

* * * *

“The chief’s report
indicates that you have sustained a work-related trauma and that he has placed
you on fourteen-day leave.”

I had made it a point not to think about what to
say to Dr. Palchik—if it makes any sense to say that you’re thinking hard about
not thinking about something. But there were really two issues going on here.
One was the rapes. The other was the shrink himself. It had been less than a
week since I’d had my Fitness for Duty exam here, which was a waste of
everyone’s time, although it hadn’t really taken that much time. I never did
figure out the purpose of the test, given that I’d flunked it with flying
colors but the chief hired me anyway. Maybe it was just because the chief had
to officially make me jump through a Crazy Hoop before he could hire me. He
likes his procedures.

Which made me wonder, of course, if the chief’s purpose
in having me talk to Dr. Palchik now was so he could check off one more box on
the increasingly lengthy Karen Seagate High-maintenance Checksheet. I mostly believed
him that he wasn’t planning to fire me after I returned from leave, but it did
occur to me that he just might decide one day that, shit, life is too short to
have to babysit me all the time. Wouldn’t it be easier all around if he just could
hire one or two of Ryan’s brothers or sisters? I mean, that’s how I’d handle
it.

So I wasn’t going into this session with Dr.
Palchik with high expectations that he was going to cure what ails me. On the
other hand, he didn’t seem like a bad guy or anything. And looking at it from
his point of view, he didn’t get to choose how to spend this hour any more than
I did.

“Yes,” I said. “I did sustain a work-related
trauma, I guess.”

We were sitting in soft chairs, separated by his
coffee table. He was holding a clipboard and a pen. It gave him something to do
other than twiddling his thumbs while he waited for me to answer questions.

“Do you want to tell me what happened?”

I liked the way he phrased it. It gave me a kind
of starter question. “Well, can I be honest with you?”

He smiled and nodded. “Yes,” he said. “It works
better.” It didn’t sound mean or sarcastic.

“Honestly, I don’t really see how talking is gonna
help me. What happened happened, and you’re not gonna be able to make it
unhappen.”

“That’s very true,” he said, patiently. “But if we
talk about it a little, you might be able to understand it better, or figure
out what to do about it. But maybe not.”

I laughed, the sad kind. “You mean you’re not a
miracle worker?”

“A mediocre utility infielder, hitting .215, about
to get sent back down to the minors? He has a better batting average than any
psychiatrist. Certainly better than I do.”

“Okay,” I said. I took a deep breath. “I was on
the job. I got raped by two guys.” I was giving him the brief version to save
time.

He paused. “That sounds terrible.” He made a few
notes on his clipboard, although I thought my story was sufficiently brief and
memorable. Maybe taking notes is how he figures out what to say next. “I see
you’ve got some bruises on your face. Did this happen recently?”

“Couple days ago.”

“When you say you were on the job, should I assume
that these two guys were criminals, or at least suspects?”

“One of them, definitely. He confessed to a
murder. The other one, I think he was probably mentally incompetent. I don’t
think he was a criminal, although he was taken advantage of by criminals.”

“I haven’t seen anything in the newspaper about
this.”

“You’re not gonna see anything. It didn’t
officially happen.”

He looked at me a few moments, almost like he
didn’t believe that something like that would happen in a small city like
Rawlings. “Have you had a chance to start to process what happened?”

“Tell you the truth, I don’t really know what that
means.”

“Well, you’re right, it’s a silly word. Like a
food processor or a word processor. I really meant, have you had a chance to
think about how you feel about what happened?”