Close Case (10 page)

When Mike finally emerged from the interrogation room with Corbett’s signed confession, he raised the palm of his hand for a high-five from his partner. I could have kicked Chuck in the shin for obliging him.

“What the hell was that stunt you pulled in there with the lights?” I demanded, interrupting the celebration.

“What is she talking about?” Calabrese said to Chuck. Then he laughed and held up the confession. “This here’s what we call a good thing, Sam. I got you your slam dunk and your co-defendant. That’s what I’m saying.”

“There’s nothing cute about this, Mike. You had to have known that I knocked on the window for a reason.” I could tell he was thinking about denying it, which pissed me off even more. “You were teetering dangerously close to the line even then. You pretty much told the guy he’d die if he didn’t confess.”

“Everything I did in there was about getting you the confession. How many times have I had a case rejected by your office, or dealt down to nothing, because a DA’s afraid to try a close case? So, yeah, maybe I walked the line in there, but I didn’t cross it.”

“You’re wrong, Mike, you may very well have crossed it. The defense is going to jump all over that stunt you pulled. But you know what? In court, I’ll stick up for you. I’ll try to get the confession in. But I don’t appreciate what you did. You not only ignored my warning to back off, you used me as a prop to go further.”

I had seen Mike get pissy at times when he didn’t agree with a call, but I had apparently never seen him angry. Or mean. “Gee, what a surprise: A DA sits on the sideline watching the action, then wants to second-guess every move. Maybe you should sit down with your boy Frist and see if you can prosecute
me
for something.” When I didn’t respond, he pushed his stack of papers to his partner and stormed away.

“What the hell?” I said to Chuck, once Mike was gone.

“Leave it alone for now,” he warned.

“Your partner’s totally out of control. Why didn’t you say something?”

“Do you realize he’s about to ask me the same exact thing about you in a couple of minutes?”

“Maybe, but I’m right, and he’s wrong.”

“And that’s also exactly what he’ll say. Look, Sam,” he said, touching my shoulder gently with his free hand, “I know you don’t want to hear this, but you don’t understand the position you just put him in. He’s still pumped from getting Corbett to flip. You have no idea what that’s like. And to walk out of the box and be told you fucked up—well, now’s not a good time. Give him some space.”

By two in the morning, we had everything we needed to enter the piece-o’-crap house that Trevor Hanks shared with his father on East 123rd. Officers Craig Todd and Jeff Walls from East Precinct had been perched outside for nearly two hours, watching. According to them, two male heads—one young, one old—were last seen through a gap in the stained sheets that served as living room curtains, watching Howard Stern. The glow of the television faded around one o’clock. Since then, the torn screen doors had remained undisturbed. By all appearances, father and son were quietly tucked away within their home’s peeling exterior.

Based on Corbett’s statements, we obtained a telephonic arrest warrant for Trevor Hanks. We also secured a no-knock search warrant for the house, authorizing police to force their way in without first announcing their presence. We’d be looking for the bat and any other evidence related to the murder, including the jean jacket and other clothing Hanks was wearing Sunday night.

So far, all I knew about Trevor Hanks had come from his pal Corbett and from reading his PPDS record. That said, I suspected that at some point Corbett’s mother, if he had one, must have said to her son, “That Trevor Hanks is a bad influence.” While Corbett’s only previous run-in with the law was for underage drinking, Trevor had quite the sheet for a twenty-two-year-old.

Although juvie convictions don’t show up in the computer, I noted stops for theft, assault, marijuana possession, and—bingo!—unauthorized use of a motor vehicle. Since becoming a grown-up, Hanks had convictions for burglary, forgery, assault, and menacing. Thanks to pleas in exchange for county jail time, Hanks had so far avoided any visits to state prison.

What makes a kid go bad so early? Maybe in Hanks’s case there was something in the genes. Daddy Hanks, legally known as—I kid you not—Henry Hanks, had his fair share of troubles too: possession of stolen property, menacing, disorderly conduct, bad checks, and a couple of domestic violence pops—dropped, of course, when the victims refused to testify. Needless to say, we don’t have a three-strikes-and-you’re-out law in Oregon, and for that the Hanks men should be grateful.

Calabrese had taken Corbett to MCDC—his citation for vandalism in hand—on charges of aggravated murder. Given the tension between us, I was relieved to see him go. The patrol officers outside Hanks’s house were ready to help Chuck make the arrest. For good measure, Johnson had paged Walker for the action, and the two partners were on their way there to meet Chuck.

As Chuck was strapping a bulletproof vest over his civilian clothing, he asked if I was coming with him.

“May as well.”

“OK, but you’re wearing this.” Chuck grabbed another vest from a locker.

I hopped into the passenger seat of a white Crown Vic from the precinct detectives’ fleet. Rifling through the glove box, I unearthed an old box of Junior Mints from a pile of abandoned notepads, drivers’ manuals, receipts, and fast-food coupons. At a different place and time, I might have been grossed out, but given my current hunger pangs, I was willing to compromise culinary standards.

We beat Johnson and Walker to the meeting spot, a corner parking lot behind a car repair shop two doors down from the Hankses’. Waiting in the dark, the stillness was a momentary relief from the manic chaos of the last few hours.

Chuck looked at me and smiled. “Excited?”

“Of course not,” I said, popping another crusty mint morsel into my mouth. “I just want Hanks picked up so we can get the hell out of here.”

“You’re so full of shit,” he said jokingly. “Admit it, babe. You came along for the fun of it.” He started to sing the theme song from the watch-real-cops-chase-after-real-scumbags show: “Bad boys, bad boys, whatcha gonna do?”

“Sing all you want, reggae boy. You won’t be teasing me when you need my legal know-how.” He eyed me cynically, then burst out laughing when he realized I had been serious.

So maybe my tag-along wasn’t motivated entirely by lawyerly concerns. The truth was, I liked the idea of some real live, not-so-real-life, television prosecutor action. On the rare occasion when I’ve watched one of those shows, the DA always winds up toe-to-toe with the suspect, telling him he’s a “skell” who will “fry” for his crimes. And, of course, if the tough talker’s a woman, she’s always got cute clothes, a perfect body, and good hair.

My daily reality’s a lot less glamorous. I occasionally drop in on crime scenes, but I’ve never gotten in a suspect’s face. Hell, I never even speak to them directly. Even in the third person, I refer to them—boringly and respectfully—by their names or by the generic term
defendant
. And forget the model good looks; I run a minimum of twenty-five miles a week to remain only mildly dissatisfied with my body, and, for me, dressing up means wearing pantyhose and brushing my hair.

Tonight, things could be different. In my ponytail, sweatshirt, and jeans, I might not look the part, but I was ready for action. I was in the front seat of a police car. I was pumped full of aged sugar and chocolate. I even had a vest.

“OK, maybe it sounded just a little bit fun. But can you blame me? Don’t I deserve a thrill on my birthday?”

“I’d try to sneak something in before the boys get here, but it’s not technically your birthday anymore,” he said.

“Not to mention that right now I’m technically way more in the mood for these Junior Mints than for what you’ve got in mind.”

“Ouch.”

A second Crown Vic pulled up next to Chuck, and Jack Walker rolled down the passenger window. “All set?” he asked.

“Ready. Got the warrants by phone. No-knock’s OK.”

“Approach on foot?” he asked.

“Sure,” Chuck agreed. “Looks like they’re sleeping, but why take a chance?”

I opened my door with the rest of them and felt Chuck grab my left forearm. “No way, Kincaid. You stay here, and I’ll tell you when it’s clear.”

There was neither time for nor any point in arguing, so I slumped back in the seat.

“See this red button here?” Chuck pointed to a button on the computerized terminal that was mounted to the dash. “If anything goes wrong, you push that button and you drive away, OK?” He began walking with the other detectives.

“Wait,” I said. “What is it?”

“It’s for an officer down.”

They never said anything about that on
Cops.

I looked at my watch again, but it was only a minute later than the last time I checked.
Was this thing working? Where were they?

As I watched Chuck, Jack, and Ray move to the house twenty minutes ago, there were a tense few seconds when I was grateful for the safety of the locked car. But then, down the street, I saw lights come on inside the Hanks house. No gunfire or other scary sounds. Everything had seemed hunky-dory. I expected Chuck to wave me in or call my cell, then I’d run right over.

Now I wasn’t so sure. I looked at my phone, wondering whether to call someone and, if so, whom. I stared at the door, wondering whether I should get out of the car and what I’d do if I did. I found myself picturing the no-knock entry, wondering whether Chuck had been the one in front, the one to kick the door. And, most of all, I stared at the red button and thought about what I’d be losing if I needed to press it.

I would never say this aloud to anyone—much too sickening—but I still felt overwhelmingly lucky to have this second chance with Chuck. It wasn’t just the physical. Don’t get me wrong; he turned more heads in a bar than I did. But what I had really found in Chuck was a match. There was nothing he simply tolerated or even just accepted; he actually embraced and genuinely liked everything about me. Sure, my ex-husband Roger had enjoyed dissecting the
New York Times
op-ed page with me. And no doubt the world was replete with men who wouldn’t mind a girlfriend who dug football, beer, and the joy of the perfect draw on a golf drive.

But Chuck got all of me. And in him, all the various me’s I carry around in my conflicted self had found a partner. In a single Sunday morning, he could scream at the TV during Meet the Talking Heads, bend me over the sink for an X-rated interruption of my morning primp, then laugh when I surprised him with a wet willy while we cooked pancakes in the kitchen. And like me, he’d enjoy every part of it equally, never missing a beat in the unpredictably syncopated rhythm that accompanied our personalities.

And now he was inside the house of a kid who was willing to crush a man’s skull with a bat for a car. I was on the verge of calling Calabrese for advice when I saw Chuck emerge from the house, towing a handcuffed Trevor Hanks at his side. Chuck yanked the back door open and guided Trevor in.

“Who the fuck’s that?” Hanks asked. Maybe it was the relief of seeing Chuck still alive. Or maybe it was the pressure of worrying that he wasn’t. Or maybe it was just the dismissive expression on Hanks’s hardened face when he looked at me. Whatever the cause, I snapped into serious skell-confronting mode.

“Who am I? I, Mr. Hanks, am the prosecutor who’s going to make sure you just lived your last day of freedom.”

He aimed for my face, but the glob of goo that Trevor Hanks spat in my direction was caught in the fencing that separated us. “Fuck you, bitch. No way you’re pinning that coon’s death on me.”

Chuck hopped in the car, strapped on his seatbelt, and hit the gas. Just as quickly, he slammed on the brakes, jerking the unbelted Trevor Hanks forward. Hanks’s face thudded against the gate in front of him, still wet from his own saliva. “Act up again, Hanks, and we’re making a pit stop under the Burnside Bridge. You got me? Now, just as a reminder, you have the right to shut the fuck up.”

Chuck scribbled something on his notepad and passed it to me.

He lawyered up inside the house when we pulled his jacket from the washer.
Oh, shit. This never happened to the tough-talking good-hair girls on television.

We finally got home just short of four o’clock in the morning.

Vinnie, whom we had dropped off at the house before our venture east, was unabashedly pissed. And pissing. And gnawing. The vicious pillaging of a 1984 Van Halen T-shirt was, to Chuck, the equivalent of a declaration of war. Acting as this household’s Secretary of State, I tried to negotiate a diplomatic solution by pulling Vinnie into the bed to sleep with us.

With the lights out, Vinnie snoring, and my birthday over, I snuggled into the crook of Chuck’s arm and held him. Then I pecked a sleepy kiss on his chest and tightened my squeeze.

That kind of sweetness wasn’t lost on a guy who knew me as well as Chuck. “Hey, you. What’s up?”

I was too exhausted to choose my words. How could I tell him that—as much as I admired him for being a cop, and as much as I had almost refused to date him, precisely because he
was
a cop—I had never truly understood all that his job entailed? Did it make any sense at all that it took an empty police car, twenty minutes, and a little red button for me to understand the instinctual terror that he had to overcome on a daily basis? And if it did, could he possibly understand that for a second—just a second during those twenty minutes—I had selfishly regretted letting him move in with me?

“Just sleepy,” I muttered, pulling him even tighter.

Tuesday morning, my alarm blared at 6:30
A.M.
as commanded. Chuck might be able to take a few hours of comp time, but my office still expected me in by eight. Maybe the DAs needed to look into unionizing, I thought, smacking the I’m-up-now-so-stop-playing-loud-music button on my clock-radio.

Despite my late night, I was still the first deputy to make it into MCU. They’d arrive soon enough, I thought. Russ Frist would undoubtedly stop by to pepper me for an update on the Crenshaw case. I swear, with his fretting over whatever I was doing, I didn’t know when the guy had time to do his own work.