The White Angel Murder

5

When Stanton walked in to police headquarters on Monday morning he stopped at the vending machine and got a Diet Coke. He wore old khakis and a blazer he had dug out of his closet. After work he would have to head to the Fashion Depot and pick up a couple of suits.

He went to the fifth floor and it was buzzing with activity. Detectives with their suit coats off and their sleeves rolled up ran around making demands of assistants and secretaries. A few uniforms were wandering around, rubbing elbows with the detectives and swapping war stories.

He walked to the large door and entered the code. It clicked open and he stepped inside.

The space was quiet as opposed to the rest of the floor. He could hear someone speaking in hushed tones on a telephone in one of the offices.

“Jonathan!” Harlow shouted from across the hall. The chief came over and shook his hand. “I’m so glad you said yes. We’re going to do some real work here, Jon. God’s work. Come on, let me introduce you to everyone.”

The conference table had an ample supply of bagels and coffee spread over it. Three men and a woman sat at the table speaking quietly with each other. They stopped and looked at Stanton when he walked in.

Harlow motioned to a seat near the head of the table and Stanton sat down. The chief took his position at the head and glanced over everyone quietly.

“I can’t tell you how happy it makes me to see these faces around this table. You five are the best at what you do. I’ve never served with better cops in my career. There’ll be more coming, but you were the ones I wanted, the ones I needed, right away.

“I know this is fucking grade school, but I want to go around the table and have you introduce yourselves. Where you’re from, family, all that bullshit that you would have to get out in small talk. Let’s start with you, Chin.”

An Asian man with glasses and a finely cut suit straightened up in his seat and said, “I’m Chin Ho. I’m from San Francisco PD. Got transferred down for this unit. Originally from Korea. I have a partner and he’s moved down with me too. He’s a lawyer.”

Harlow looked to the next man, tall and black with an ipad on his lap.

“Nathan Sell. San Diego PD. Divorced, no kids.”

The next man was white and overweight with a black suit and white shirt.

“Philip Russell, FBI. On loan to the unit. Single, no kids.”

“Jessica Turner, LAPD. Single, one child.”

Stanton cleared his throat. “Jonathan Stanton. I’m … I guess I’m with San Diego now. Going through a divorce. Two sons.”

“Good,” Harlow said, “now we’re all friends.” He reached for a bagel and placed it on a napkin in front of him. “I’ve talked to each of you individually about what we’re doing and what’s expected of you. If you have any questions, now’s the time to ask.”

Nathan raised a finger in the air and Harlow nodded to him.

“Who’s the unit commander, Chief?”

“I am. That’s why you’re set up next to my office. I want everything reported and ran through me.”

Jessica asked, “What’s the budget for this unit?”

“As much as we need to get the job done. We got grants from the city, state and federal government. But like I said, everything goes through me. No one buys so much as a paperclip without me knowing it. But I’m not going to micromanage. Submit a report of what you need directly to Tommy and as long as you think it’s reasonable I’ll have the money to you within one day. I’m putting a lot of trust into each and every one of you and I expect you to take that trust seriously.” He looked around the table. “Anything else?”

“How are cases assigned?” Stanton asked.

Harlow shifted in his seat. “I’ll pair the appropriate case with the right investigator. You don’t start another case until the one assigned is solved or it’s dead, and then it shifts from this unit to archives.”

Clever, Stanton thought. Every year the unit’s cases would shrink and people would assume it’s because they were being solved.

“Anything else?” Harlow looked to each person. “Good. Let’s start with assignments.” He pressed a button on a sleek gray phone set up on the conference table.

“Yeah, Chief?”

“Tommy, get me the assignments.”

“You got it.”

While they waited for Tommy, the group quietly read emails or checked phone messages. Jessica took a cup of coffee and asked if Stanton wanted one and he declined.

“He’s Mormon,” Harlow interjected.

“Oh,” Jessica said. “That’s interesting. Why the Diet Coke?”

“It’s a gray area in the Church,” Stanton said.

The door opened and Thomas Sanchez walked in with several uniforms carrying boxes and thick three-ring binders. They spread everything on the table, shoving the food out of the way, and left the room with a nod to Harlow.

“Chin,” Harlow said, passing two binders over, “Todd Grover. He was a liquor store owner that was robbed in 0 4. They got off three rounds during the robbery and one hit him in the neck. He died in the hospital. Only thing he gave us was that they were African-American, young, and one had a tattoo of some sort on his hand.”

Harlow pointed to one of the boxes. “Nathan, that’s you. Alberto Domingez Jovan. He was leaving a strip club and flirting with one of the dancers in the parking lot when some other patrons began talking shit to him. He asked them what their problem was and they showed him with two slugs in the head. Got at least twenty witnesses and two suspects that went nowhere.”

“Got it, Chief,” Nathan said.

“Jessica, this is yours.” He handed her a binder and a small box with a DVD and a folder in it. “James Damien Neary. Stabbed in the heart while walking home from a Wal-Mart. He got back to his apartment and, for whatever reason, didn’t call an ambulance. Died there. No leads.”

Harlow pointed to a box at the end of the table. “Philip, you got Rodrigo Carrillo. Gang member. Shot to death sitting on his porch in a drive by.”

There was one final box and Harlow hesitated before putting his hands on it. He grabbed it by the sides and pulled it near to him, staring at the name.

“Jonathan, you got Tami Jacobs. Twenty-three year old waitress. It’s … it’s pretty bad.”

He pushed the box to Stanton and then looked to everyone again before standing. “All right, we got a lot of work to do. Tommy’s your point man on everything. Once a week we have meetings on Monday morning to go over our cases. You may be working them alone, but you’re not alone. We got a brain trust on these cases.” Harlow glanced at his watch. “I’m not expecting miracles, but I am expecting results. Even if it’s nothing more than declaring the case dead and moving it to the basement. Now do what I know each of you is capable of doing and let’s have some of these bastards stay in our concrete hotels courtesy of the California taxpayer. Our system’s burdened by too many obstacles and loopholes as it is, but we can make it better and give our kids the future they deserve.”

Stanton glanced around the table and saw that no one had noticed the prepared stump speech; one intended to be given at a lectern in front of an audience.

When the chief had gone everyone gathered their materials and headed to their respective offices. Stanton stayed and got a bagel, spreading warm cream cheese over it with a plastic knife.

“Sorry about the coffee,” Jessica said, walking back out and throwing away her paper plate and napkin.

“It’s okay.” He noticed for the first time she was wearing one pearl earring in her right ear and nothing in her left. Before he could ask her about it, she walked back to her office and shut the door.

Stanton finished eating and took the box into his office. He placed it down on the desk, and pulled out the first three-ring binder inside.