The White Angel Murder

29

Chief Michael Harlow’s home sat on top of a small hill overlooking the beach. It was upscale, more so than even a chief of police of one of the largest cities in the country could normally afford, and was filled with two children, a wife, and a mother-in-law with a live-in nurse.

Stanton came to a stop in front of it and sat in his car a long time. He watched the neighbors come and go. A utility man was on a power line repairing what looked like damage from someone throwing items up there. A kids pair of shoes hung over one of the lines. This used to be a signal to potential buyers driving through that drugs were being sold. A sort of “open for business” sign. But that had stopped since law enforcement picked up on it. It was now red lighting on porches.

Stanton guessed this neighborhood had some rowdy children; ones that had rich parents that were never around to see what it was exactly their children were doing. In many respects, though the media painted the poor as responsible for most crime, the rich committed just as much. But there were so few of them it didn’t seem significant.

He could see the family having dinner and he pushed his seat back and listened to an Opera to Relax CD for forty-five minutes until they were done. The children ran off and Mrs. Harlow cleared the table and then began helping her mother back to the guestroom upstairs. The chief sat alone at the table sipping wine.

Stanton knocked on the window to the kitchen rather than the front door. Harlow didn’t move and then eventually got up and opened the front door and stepped outside.

“What’s going on, Jon?”

“I need to speak with you. In private.”

“If this is about reinstating you-”

“I don’t care about that. I just need to speak for a few minutes.”

“All right. Well come inside before one of my neighbors shoots you as a prowler.”

Stanton was led through Harlow’s home to a study off to the side of the living room. Books lined cherry wood shelves and a puffy brown leather couch took up an entire wall. Harlow sat down at an old desk and lit a cigar. He put his feet up and waited for Stanton to speak first.

“You ordered Anderson to halt progress on the Jacobs case. Then you brought me in. You had to have known I would eventually find all this out. So that means you’re in trouble somehow and you thought solving this thing could get you out of it. My best guess is that you found out the cop she was dating was Noah and you didn’t want another body attributed to the San Diego PD. But why bring me in? What if I just went to IAD?”

Harlow sat frozen. He took his feet off the desk and put his face in his hands, rubbing his eyeballs with his palms. “Christ. I was hoping you could handle this without finding out certain aspects of it. I had a sneaking suspicion you would but I had to risk it.” He put his cigar out in an ashtray and mumbled something under his breath. “But you’re wrong, that’s not how it was.”

“Then what happened?”

Harlow rose and shut the door. He came and sat down on the couch. Stanton saw his shoulders slump and his belly puffed out of his shirt as he stared at the carpet. In a few seconds, he had gone from a man in control to a man spinning wildly through the universe.

“I met her at that restaurant. I was having lunch with Tommy. I think I actually offered him his position there.”

“Who’d you meet there?” Stanton knew the answer but wanted to hear it from him.

“I asked her out to dinner and we started talking on the phone. We would talk, get this, for two or three hours sometimes. When was the last time you talked to anyone for two or three hours? I felt like a teenager again.”

“Say her name, Mike.”

Harlow looked at him. You cruel son of a bitch, he thought. “Tami Jacobs. I was having an affair with Tami Jacobs.” He chuckled. “Would you believe me if I told you it actually made my marriage better. Swear to God. I was more attentive with Crystal. It felt like the time I would spend with her and the kids was more special. I can’t explain it. But that’s the way it was.”

Stanton thought of the young girl in the sweatshirt, her arms thrown around her grandfather. The look of joy on her face at being able to spend a sun-filled afternoon with her family.

“I can’t believe you can sit there and tell me this like it’s okay.”

“I know it’s not okay, Jon. Hell, I knew it right when I started doing it. You asked and I’m telling you what happened.”

“She was a kid. She was lost and looking for anyone to hold on to and you used her like trash.”

“Hey, who the hell do you think you are? I cared for her. You think working three days a week at that shithole paid her rent? I bought her clothes when she needed, I took her out, I got her car fixed. I did everything I was supposed to do.”

“Except save her life.”

It was low and Stanton felt the pain of his words cut deep into his boss. He regretted saying it, but then thought that perhaps Harlow deserved it. That this might be the only time that someone will be able to say it to him.

Harlow put his face in his hands again and they sat in silence. There was an antique clock on the wall and it was ticking softly. A shower started somewhere in the house and the groan of pipes ran through the room and then faded away.

“You’re right about something though. I am in trouble, Jon. And I need your help.” He stood up and walked to a space behind the desk and knelt down. Stanton could hear the turn key to a safe and then a click and the creak of a metal door that needed to be oiled. Harlow came back with a small box. He opened it and showed him what was inside. They were letters. Stanton glanced through them. They were demanding different amounts of money.

“After she was killed, I got one of these in the mail with a photo of me and her checking into a hotel. You gotta see, Jon, this was right after Noah. I mean right after. The media was all over us, looking for anything they could use to show that we were all sick fucks like him. I couldn’t let this get out.”

Stanton rose and began pacing. He had to move, to get blood flowing through him. He felt the softness of the carpet through his shoes and he looked to the walls, focusing on a single point of reference and keeping his eyes fixated before moving to another wall.

The idea of the Chief of Police manipulating a murder investigation to cover himself …

“You have to turn yourself in.”

Harlow suddenly appeared pale. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

“Having your detectives selling steroids and you taking a cut is one thing. This is something else.”

“Taking a-”

“I’m not blind, Mike.”

“No, you’re not. I’m sorry. These are things that just … not even Crystal knows these things about me.”

Stanton sat back down on the couch and looked him in the eyes. “You need to turn yourself in and resign.”

“Now hold on a second, Jon. We go back a long ways you and me. This ain’t just a Boy Scout solution to turn myself in and everything’s going to be fine. I’ll be thrown off the force. I’ll lose my pension. You know the forfeiture laws as good as me. All this,” he said, waving his hand around the room, “they’ll take it all and sell it at some fucking IRS auction. I got a family relying on me.”

Stanton rose. “You let them down a long time ago. Turn yourself in, Mike. Or I will.” He got out to the hallway before Harlow was on his feet.

“You’re not such a fucking saint! You got a good detective, a detective with a family, murdered for nothing.”

“I didn’t get him killed, Mike. You did.”

Stanton left the house and went to his car. He laid his head on the steering wheel and rested there. He remembered something his grandfather had told him: No one is what they want you to see. No one.