A Murder of Justice

R.C.?”

Calkins thought about how he might describe it, then lifted a piece of paper out of the clutter on his desk.

“Two gentlemen from IAD walked in, served me with this.”

He handed the paper to Jose.

Jose studied it, then handed it to Frank. It bore the Internal Affairs Division letterhead.

“It says IAD’s investigating procedural compliance,” Jose said.

“It also says,” Calkins added, “I’m suspended.”

“With pay.”

“Nice of them.”

“Internal Affairs,” Frank asked, “they say anything?”

“I asked. They just pointed to that.” Calkins gestured to the letter.

“Then what?” Jose asked.

“Then they sealed my files, my computer, my office door. Then they escorted me out of the building.” Calkins’s eyes moved to middle distance, reliving the scene. “In front of all my people… they escorted me out of the building,” he said in wonderment, as though he couldn’t believe it had happened. He brought his eyes back to focus on Frank and Jose, then smiled ruefully. “At least they didn’t cuff me.”

Frank felt a vicarious flush of embarrassment and stole a glance into the garden. A sparrow fluttered in a lichen-covered birdbath, and Frank searched for something to say. Jose got there first.

“How you doin’, R.C.?”

Calkins frowned at Jose like a man who’d been asked an impertinent question. “Doing? Why, I’m updating my journal.” He motioned to his desktop. “Later, I’ll be cataloguing additions to my stamp collection…”

“That’s not what we mean, R.C.,” Frank put in. “Inside… you okay?”

That brought Calkins to a halt. He pondered that for a moment, then ventured out. “Am I disturbed?” Another second’s thinking. “Yes. Certainly, I’m disturbed.”

A pause.

“Am I angry? Yes… I suppose so… somewhat.”

Another pause, then, “But am I despondent?” Calkins shook his head emphatically. “No. Definitely not. Evidence will out, Frank, evidence will out. We run a responsible and professional shop. And that’s what’s going to be found out when the evidence is in.”

Frank found part of himself cheered at Calkins’s certainty, another part worried about the same certainty. He tried to shut out the worry side.

“I’m sure it will, R.C.”

Italian sausage, Muhammad.”

“Jose?”

“Steak supreme.”

Muhammad scratched out the orders and handed Frank and Jose their numbered call slips.

Mon Cheri Cafe was open six a.m. to three a.m. Sunday through Thursday, and twenty-four hours a day Friday and Saturday. Gleaming white ceiling with bright fluorescents, scrubbed floors of large black-and-white square tiles. Muhammad or one of his brothers was always there. So was a steady stream of police, laborers, taxi drivers, and old-time Georgetown residents.

Frank and Jose took a table at the back along the wall. At a table toward the front, an old man sat by himself, drinking coffee and reading a newspaper.

“This is a clean and pleasant cafe,” Frank said. “It is well lighted.”

Jose squinted at Frank. “You been reading Hemingway again?”

Frank smiled. “Can’t help myself.” He watched the old man get up and take his cup to the front for a refill. “You know, don’t you, how IAD’s going to go after R.C.?”

Jose nodded. “But R.C.’s a man with faith in the system.”

“Let’s hope he’s not disappointed.”

Muhammad called their numbers. Frank added a Diet Coke to his tray, Jose picked out a cranberry juice. For several minutes they ate in silence, concentrating on keeping their overstuffed sandwiches together.

“I’m full.” Jose put down the last of his sandwich and wrung out a paper napkin. He wadded the napkin and dropped it on the table. “R.C.,” he began experimentally, “you don’t think there’s a chance IAD can tag him with something? Anything? I mean, Emerson needs a scapegoat bad.”

Frank shrugged. “I think there’s always a chance. But do I think there’s any probability?” He shook his head, answering his own question. “Slim and none. R.C.’s too meticulous.”

“Yeah.” Jose nodded.

“So?”

“So maybe we ought to talk to Milt some more.” After a second thought, Jose finished off his sandwich.

The two men locked eyes.

“IAD investigation’s under way,” Frank cautioned. “Milt’s a material witness.”

“Unh-hunh.”

“We go talking to Milt, that could bring down a load of shit.”

“Unh-hunh,” Jose agreed. “Sure could.”

First the sleek sound of precision-milled metal turning. Then light breaking the darkness, framing a man in a doorway. The figure flicked a wall switch. Nothing. A muttered curse. The man closed the door behind him and made his way through the dark. A table lamp suddenly snapped on. The light caught Milton in the middle of the living room, keys still in his right hand.

“Evening, Milt,” Frank said.

“Hi, Milt,” Jose chimed in.

“What the fuck?”

Frank motioned to the sofa. “Why don’t you sit down, Milt? We’d like to talk.”

Surprise kept Milton rooted in the middle of the room.

“Renfro Calkins,” Jose rumbled. “Frank and I think a good man’s being railroaded to save Emerson’s ass.”

“So? So why the fuck does that give you the right to bust in here?”

“Sit down, Milt,” Frank said pleasantly.

Milton paused, as though weighing what to do.

“Sit down, Milt,” Frank repeated, this time not so pleasantly.

Milton took a seat on the sofa, both feet on the floor, hands guarding his crotch, fingers interlaced.

“We’d like to understand better how you came to close the Gentry case. You had to rely on this snitch.”

“Yeah.”

“The snitch told you that Zelmer Austin’s woman said that Austin did Gentry.”

“Right.”

“The snitch have a name, Milt?”

Milton mumbled something.

“I didn’t hear you,” Frank said.

“Cookie.”

“He have a last name?”

“Yeah, but he wouldn’t give it to me. Real hard on that. Like he was scared. And look, Frank, Jose, the guy knew the hold-out details. He knew stuff he couldn’t a read in the papers or see on the tube… how many times Gentry was shot, what time it was, no money taken.”

“You find him, Milt?” Jose asked. “Or did he find you?”

Milton took a deep breath of resignation. “He called me. We met.”

He looked at Frank and Jose, pleading with his eyes. “Emerson and the chief put the squeeze on me. I didn’t want to close the case on the snitch alone. But before I could say anything, they were out with a press release saying we’d found the killer.”

“You didn’t say anything to Emerson?” Jose asked. “Like hold up on the release?”

Milton’s face clouded. “I…” He began, then stopped.

His chin dropped a fraction, his shoulders sagged. “Emerson called me in,” Milton whispered hoarsely. “Asked me how I was doing. I told him we had good poop from the snitch… about how the guy knew the hold-out details. Emerson damn near danced around that desk of his. I told him I wanted more before signing off on the Three-oh-four-point-one. But he waved me off. Said he’d already told the chief, the chief had already called the mayor.”

“Essentially, Emerson told you to shut it down.” Frank said.

Milton looked at Frank, then at the ground. “Not exactly… not so many words… but I knew what it was he wanted.”

Frank looked at Jose, who was staring at his shoes with the embarrassed expression of a man who’d stumbled on another man’s private weakness.

We’ve all been there, Frank wanted to tell Milton. Maybe we didn’t make your mistake. But we know what it was like… how close we came.

The three men sat silently, all aware of what had happened, none wanting to say any more about it.

Jose started the car and checked the rearview. “You’ve had a hot day,” he told Frank. “Gave your blood pressure a workout.”

Frank slumped in the passenger seat. His anger gone, in its place a debilitating fatigue.

“Emerson really got to him,” Jose said, pulling out into the evening traffic.

“One thing about Cookie what’s-his-name…”

Jose nodded. “About getting the story from Austin’s woman?”

“Funny that Austin would tell her the hold-out details.”

“Ha-ha?”

“No,” Frank said, gazing at the headlights of the oncoming cars. “Not ha-ha funny.”

Jose was quiet for a block or two. “You think this is just a case of Emerson covering his ass?”

Frank looked at him. “Or?”

“Or something else?”

You got it made,” Frank said.

Monty sat on a nearby chair, giving Frank the look that said he wanted dinner, not conversation.

Frank mixed a half-cup of shredded chicken with some pureed pumpkin and banana, and put the result in a bowl by Monty’s door. The big gray cat pondered whether to make the effort, then leaped, achieving a cushioned four-point landing on the floor. He sent a cool glance to Frank, then began working on his dinner.

Frank turned to the refrigerator. He foraged listlessly through the freezer compartment. The sausage sandwich from lunch was still with him, dulling his appetite. Nothing in the emergency cache of Lean Cuisine appealed. Two beers would have worked. But you didn’t drink dinner. You ate at the end of a day, even a day as shitty as this one.

Groping at the back of the freezer, he found a plastic container. He brushed the frost off and held it to the light. It came to him-the last of a batch of his father’s chili.

He bounced the container in his palm. Nothing else came to mind. “What the hell,” he muttered, and started the microwave.

Monty glanced up, then nosed back into his dinner.

Frank watched the microwave timer on its countdown. A restless pulse hit him.

Call Kate?

He stopped his hand halfway to the phone.

And we’ll talk about… what?

His hand detoured to the TV remote on the counter.

For a fractured moment, the story on Channel 9 rocked him back to another time: A helicopter crash in Vietnam-seven GIs killed? Not his war. Not this time. Days ago, not 1968. A few days ago, seven Americans died searching for remains of other Americans killed thirty-some years before. And so, in 2001, Americans continued to die in Vietnam.

Channel 7 dissected a report that Michael Jordan would return to the NBA to play for the Washington Wizards.

They used to be the Washington Bullets. Then D.C. earned the title of “America’s Murder Capital,” and sensitive souls changed the team name to Wizards, and they never had a season worth a damn after that.

Frank flicked over to Channel 4. A file clip of Chief Noah Day’s face filled the screen. Then the camera switched to Jim Vance. Barely concealing a smile, Vance reported a congressional investigation into obscene e-mails being sent among DCMPD patrol cars.

“Send in the clowns,” Frank whispered, keying the TV off. Without replying, Monty nosed his door open and disappeared.

Frank was reconsidering calling Kate when the microwave timer chimed.

He sat up in bed reading until after midnight. It was his second time through Martin Cruz Smith’s Havana Bay. The Russian detective, Arkady Renko, had just regained consciousness after having been beaten by a thug with a baseball bat.

Frank closed the book and turned out the light. “G’night, Arkady,” he said. “Don’t worry, you’ll get your guy.”

He lay staring at the ceiling through the darkness. Smith had told a good story. He’d put Renko behind the curve, kept the pressure on, bombarded the Russian detective with bits and pieces of stuff from every direction, stuff that could be something or nothing at all.

Arkady Renko understood: Connecting dots was easy… a two-dimensional problem. But try a puzzle where the pieces constantly change shape, no one piece remaining the same.

Monty had come in from the night, and he settled into his place on the pillow beside Frank, who drifted off into a turbulent sleep.

And the scrambled pieces swirled in the darkness.

… Renfro Calkins…

Robin Bouchard… Brian Atkins at FBI-you have a road map?

Chief Day, fiddling with un-PC e-mails among bored cops on the night shift while the cold cases rise up out of their file cabinet graves, angry and accusing and demanding… demanding… what?