The Blue Religion

The Drought by James O. Born

The photograph of the girl hadn’t changed since the first time Broward Sheriff’s Office detective Ben Stoltz had looked at it three years before. She looked pretty much like she had when he walked up to her in the center of yellow crime-scene tape in a vacant lot off Sunrise Boulevard. Something about her nose and eyebrows reminded him of his own daughter, and that was really all it took. One of the things that had saved his sanity was the rise in the murder rate in Broward County, which had kept him too busy to really consider how he had failed her ever since a jogger had first discovered her body on that cool March evening. Now that things had slowed down, he had time again. Shit.

A musical ringtone shook him out of his daze as he looked at the photograph. He missed the practical and obnoxious rings that phones used to make. Sitting at the same desk he had occupied since entering the detective bureau, using the same Paper Mate pen he had used his first day in plain clothes, he wondered why the phones had undergone such an evolution. Some had a gentle, breezy electronic chime; others sounded like a tiny fire alarm. His phone had whatever was programmed into the damn thing when some pencil-necked geek had plopped it down four years before. If it weren’t for the weary secretary who, tired of taking his messages, had set up his voice mail, he’d be the only one in Homicide without the precious service.

Now, staring at the files of his open cases, Stoltz wished someone would call and get him off his dead ass and doing something. He feared these slight lulls in the murder rate. The times when he might have to sit in the office and look over his mistakes. That’s what he considered his open cases. Why not? If he was unable to solve them, then it was his mistake. He had failed. Aside from his deep desire to retire in Homicide, he knew what his duty was. It was to catch the assholes who killed other people. Sometimes it was more personal or more rewarding. Sometimes he just felt like the referee in some giant game in which one group shoots up another. Of the four files in front of him, three were drug related. He wanted them closed but never felt satisfied with the result. Somewhere, maybe a few years down the road, some dumbass would get picked up on a trafficking charge and give up the triggerman on a drug homicide. Or, as had happened to him several times, a gun would be recovered and traced back to the killing. Once, they had lifted some DNA off the grip of a Beretta that had led to a conviction. These were back burners.

The fourth file. Jane Doe number sixty-eight was a girl that had died around the age of twenty. Jenny’s age. Except this girl wasn’t a junior at the University of Central Florida. She was some lonely girl whom someone had stabbed and left in a vacant lot off Sunrise Boulevard. Still in unincorporated Broward County, about two blocks from the city limits of Sunrise. At first, his boss asked, almost pleaded, for him to say it was in the city’s jurisdiction. But geography didn’t lie, and neither did he. It was their case. No witnesses, no leads, no motive, and no true name for the victim. His sergeant looked like he was about to have a seizure. Then the sergeant had a stroke of genius. Suicide. Stoltz had to bring up the uncomfortable question of how someone stabbed themselves four times to commit suicide and then didn’t leave a weapon near the body. His sergeant was ready. Animals had carried it off. After all, it was a vacant lot. But as the lead investigator, Stoltz refused to go with the “well-armed raccoon” theory and had carried the case for the past three years. Three years, two sergeants, nineteen cases, and one marriage ago. Felt like a lifetime.

He sensed more than saw the figure of Chuck, his partner on most cases, as he dropped into the chair next to his desk.

“Ben, what’s the good word?” asked the only detective who was senior to him in the Homicide Unit.

Ben Stoltz just looked out over his cluttered desk and sighed.

“Yeah, I know. Droughts like this bring up a lot of old shit. I’m recanvassing the neighborhood where we found Cassie Brown’s body.” The heavyset detective looked across at the other cops at their desks. “You never see this many guys in here at once. Rumor is that they may shift some of us to other areas.”

Stoltz looked up and paid attention for the first time. “Like where?”

“Dunno. Fraud is hot right now, and there’s always sex crimes.”

“We got nothing to worry about. We’re senior.”

“Ben, you and I got no juice. These young guys, they’re climbers. They talk to the colonel and the sheriff. They get ‘face time,’ and all we do is get cases and clear ’em. We’ll be the first to go. They’ll tell us some bullshit like it’ll do us good to see something other than corpses.”

Stoltz looked around, seeing, for the first time, his competition. He had always just done his job and been left alone. Would that work in today’s environment? He looked at the other detective. “You’re in DROP. I didn’t come on the Sheriff’s Office until I was thirty-one. I got four years, just to go into the DROP for five more.” In reality, Stoltz didn’t view the DROP retirement incentive as a chance to make more money but as an opportunity to stay a while longer. The Deferred Retirement Option Plan allowed a cop to collect retirement in a savings account and still work for a five-year period. The intent was to move old-timers out of the job.

Chuck loosened his tie. “Man, that would suck to finish up in another unit.”

Stoltz didn’t acknowledge the comment. He was distracted by his sergeant, who, at thirty-four, was nearly twenty years younger than he. The balding young man who never smiled said, “Ben, we got an officer-involved shooting.”

“Where?”

“Our favorite beach town, where else?”

“The cop okay?”

“Of course. That bunch are shooters, not targets.”

“Any weapon?”

“Not from the stiff. Looks like he took the cop’s ASP and the cop fired twice. You two get over there. Crime Scene is on the way.” He ran a bony hand through thinning blond hair. “Ben, you’re the lead. I’ll be along shortly.”

“Got it, Sarge.”

The young sergeant added, “Carla Lazaro is the assistant on it.”

Stoltz gave an involuntary shudder. “She’s not in the Homicide Unit.”

“Public Integrity. They get police shootings. Watch your ass so she doesn’t swallow you whole.”

“I’m still the lead investigator. She’s just an assistant state attorney.”

“But she has a big mouth and bigger ego. If she called the captain and wanted you removed, she’d probably pull it off. Just watch it. She’ll use a case like this for political advantage.”

“I don’t follow politics.”

“But she does.”

Stoltz nodded, not worried about whomever the state attorney had assigned to the case. He just found and repeated facts.

His partner said, “The drought breaks, good thing you’re the duty detective. This’ll give you some juice to stay here if things go bad.” He paused and added, “Too bad the Queen of the Damned is assigned.”

“She won’t bother us.”

“You hope.” He stood and headed toward his desk. “Like I said, at least you caught a case. That’ll look good during review time.”

Stoltz hated to admit it, but he had already thought of that. He had his “go kit,” with a tape recorder, camera, and note pads, all zipped up and ready within a minute. This was the kind of stuff that had kept him sober and sane as the last year had unfolded. Mary’s leaving him, Jenny’s college expenses, and Craig’s Christmas revelation had shaken him out of the life he had found so comfortable. Thank God he still had Homicide.

HE PARKED MORE than a block away from the point of the shooting, so he could take in the scene and get his bearings before anyone noticed him and started to tell him what had happened instead of him discovering what had happened. He could see the outer edge of the yellow crime-scene tape coming from the convenience store one block east of the Intracoastal. The Sheriff’s Office had a memo of understanding with the town that the S.O. Homicide Unit would investigate their officer-involved shootings. The previous sheriff had signed the memo, not realizing that there would be more shootings in this small beach town than in all other municipalities combined, and no one knew why. In addition, none of the suspects, five of whom were dead, had ever had a weapon. They had reached for wrenches, umbrellas, tape players – one had used a car – but none had had a gun or knife. That didn’t mean the cop hadn’t acted in self-defense; it just looked bad in the media. Stoltz didn’t care about the media or even the reasons why there were so many shootings in the town. All he cared about was doing a good job on the investigation and finding out what had happened in this shooting. If the cop had acted incorrectly, he would note it. If the shooting was justified, he would note that too. That was his job, and the only thing he had going for him now.

As he neared the tape, he heard a voice say, “Detectivesaurus Rex, I thought you had retired.”

Stoltz looked over at the forty-year-old police chief of South Fort Lauderdale Beach. He had known the chief since the guy was a patrolman and never thought he’d be a chief of police. At least not in the United States. “Hey, Howie, your man doing okay?”

“He’s a little shaky. The perp wrestled with him for a good five minutes before he finally had to drop back and fire. This’ll be an easy one for you.”

“Will he talk to me?”

“Through the PBA attorney. Just to be safe.”

“Whatever he wants.”

The young chief straightened his tie and adjusted his suit coat. “You haven’t changed. Still the Joe Friday look.”

“The dress code is shirt and tie.”

“Yeah, but short sleeves and a blue clip-on?”

“Never had a client complain.”

The chief smiled. “Nice to see some things never change.”

“I could say that about how your cops react to threats.”

“Stoltz, you know that’s not fair. Just because you never had a rough patrol zone, don’t think it’s not dangerous out there.”

He looked around at the beach shops and the park that extended five blocks. “You call this a rough patrol zone?”

The chief ignored him. “C’mon, I’ll take you to the scene.”

Stoltz followed the younger man to the tape, where a female officer in a city uniform wrote down his name as he entered the scene. She looked young enough to be one of his kids. He ducked under the tape that sealed off the entire ten-car parking lot at the Beach Snack Shop. He noticed that the S.O. Crime Scene people were already photographing the area. One tech had a detailed sketch of the lot and was placing yellow markers next to the two spent.40-caliber casings on the ground in front of the store’s door. Inside the brightly lit store, Stoltz saw six people leaning or sitting near the back wall, one of them a small man with a dark complexion, wearing a bright-red shirt with a badge that read beach snack shop.

This was what he had been trained to do and why he hadn’t had a bad day in his six years with the unit. His mind seemed to understand the template to use to set down the case. Interview the witnesses, interview the cop, get the radio transmissions, talk to the dead guy’s family, pull together crime scene and ballistics, throw in a few photos, and he had a case that would make sense. That was what he loved, pulling order out of chaos. That was all he had left.

He turned to find his partner next to the worried-looking chief. “Chuck, talk to the witnesses inside and get me an idea of what happened. Chief, I’ll need your radio tapes and the cop’s clothes and gun. You have something for him to use until we’re done with the examination?”

He nodded.

“Can we use your PD for interviews and stuff? It’s a lot closer than the S.O.”

“No problem.” He paused and then said, “Ben, you’re not gonna bury this guy, are you? Albury is fairly new but a good cop.”

“C’mon, Howie, you know I gotta look at this with an open mind.”

“That’s all I ask.”

“Why would you think I wouldn’t?”

“Because Carla Lazaro is waiting at the PD to sit in on interviews.”

Stoltz patted the chief on the arm and said, “Don’t worry, Howie. She doesn’t conduct the investigation and she doesn’t influence me.”

“I’m just worried about her using something like this to make a name for herself.”

“It’ll be fine. I’m sure she won’t interfere. She’s just a dedicated assistant state attorney.”

They both started to laugh as they moved on through the scene.

BEN STOLTZ FELT a sort of Zen pattern with homicide investigations. When he was on the scene of something like this, nothing else mattered. The problem he had experienced was that, when working a hot case, an activity that often took days or weeks after a body was discovered, he excluded almost everything else from his consciousness. He had missed Jenny’s dance recitals and cheerleading contests, more than one anniversary, which explained his current one-bedroom apartment in the town of Davie, and would have missed Craig’s sporting events if he had ever played sports. He did miss his son’s slow transition from rock to punk to Goth to whatever the hell he was now, with the piercings and tattoos. That was one favor the job had done for him.

Now, he let his instincts dictate what steps to take in the case. He didn’t worry about family, salary, or even Jane Doe number sixty-eight. The drought in homicides had lasted so long, he had to savor this activity of checking in with all the cogs that made an investigation run. The young woman from Crime Scene showed him where the body had fallen and where a small amount of blood had leaked onto the cement sidewalk. He tried to visualize where the body had landed. He didn’t like to call them “victims” in officer-involved shootings because he cringed when he heard the TV reporters refer to them that way. It made the cop sound like a murderer even if he was doing what he had been paid to do and was protecting the public. Contrary to Hollywood lore, Stoltz had never actually seen anyone use chalk lines on a body. If the corpse had been involved in immediate violence, like a drive-by, he or she would have been rushed to the hospital so every effort could have been made to save the person. If a body was found that was days old, Crime Scene took hundreds of photographs to provide an accurate view of how the corpse was discovered and what condition it was in. Chalk lines served no purpose. At least at a homicide scene.

He stood at the door to the small store, with the bloodstain a few feet away and the two casings about ten feet beyond the blood. He tried to get a sense of what the witnesses might have seen from the door or from inside the store. He tried to imagine what the corpse saw as the cop approached him. Stoltz had to wonder why, if the dead guy saw the cop with a pistol pointed at him, he didn’t drop the ASP. While the ASP expandable baton was a lethal weapon, it was no match for a Glock.40 caliber.

The lack of blood on the sidewalk probably meant good shot placement and that the guy’s heart stopped before it pumped much blood. Some bloody napkins and paramedics’ bandage wrappers lay next to the wall and in the lot just off the sidewalk. Someone had made an effort to save him.

Stoltz scanned the area to see all the vantage points. Inside the store, two of the female witnesses cried into paper towels.

The shooting had occurred more than an hour ago. He had a hard time understanding the lingering stress of the incident. To him, the aftermath was just an activity, like doing your wash or balancing the books. He often was mystified by the emotion that followed. At least the hysterics of witnesses who didn’t know the corpse. He noticed his partner speaking to a witness off to the side, away from the others. That seemed natural to him, not emotional. Get the scene in order, then break it down. Talk to the witnesses separately so one account doesn’t influence the others.

He noticed the chief of police walking toward him, accompanied by a short, bald man in casual clothes. The bald guy was young, maybe thirty-three, and had a serious look about him.

The chief said, “Ben, this is David Whist. He’s the PBA attorney handling this.” The Police Benevolent Association always sent a lawyer to the scene of a shooting that involved one of its dues-paying members.

He shook the younger man’s small, smooth hand.

The attorney blew past all niceties. “You wanna hear our side? As a proffer, of course.”

“I’d rather talk to your man.”

“He’s composing himself.”

“And if there’s a problem with the shooting, you can’t testify.”

“That’s why we have attorneys and offer proffers of what happened, Detective.”

Stoltz listened to the quick summary of the cop’s encounter with an uncommunicative man who wouldn’t leave the premises as the owner had ordered. The cop popped out his ASP so the man could see the extended baton, then tapped him on the leg to get him moving. The attorney emphasized it was a tap, not a strike. The man grabbed the ASP, and the two wrestled for control of the weapon. When the cop couldn’t fight any longer, he released the ASP and climbed to his feet, exhausted. The officer drew his pistol and ordered the man to drop the weapon and not to come any closer. After several attempts to get the man to stop coming toward him, the cop fired twice, hitting the man in the chest. The officer applied immediate first aid and called for help.

“That’s it?” asked Stoltz.

“In a nutshell.”

“Can I speak to your client?”

“Absolutely.”

“I’ll be over to the PD in about half an hour.”

STOLTZ TOOK A few minutes to confer with his sergeant, who had just arrived, and with his partner, who had briefly spoken to each witness and was preparing to get formal taped statements from them.

The young sergeant looked up at his two seniormost detectives. “What do ya got, Ben?”

Ben relayed the attorney’s account.

The sergeant looked at Chuck without saying a word.

The heavier partner with the monogrammed shirt looked down at his pad. “The store owner called in that the dead guy wouldn’t leave the premises and appeared to be ignoring the outside world. The owner said he didn’t notice the cop until they started struggling outside. He said they sort of ‘lay on top of each other for a long time,’ until the cop stood up and shouted several times, then fired his pistol twice. The shop owner thinks it’s great, because he believes it’ll scare off the other homeless guys from across the Intracoastal.” He looked at Stoltz and added, “The others say pretty much the same thing, except…”

Ben said, “Except for who?”

“The surfer-looking guy.” They all turned at once and looked through the window. Stoltz immediately saw a smaller blond man, about twenty-five, in the corner, drinking a Pepsi.

“What about him?”

“He says the cop smacked the guy with the ASP in the head for no reason, then shoved him to the ground. He also said that after only about twenty seconds, the cop stood up and shot the man without warning.”

Stoltz rolled his eyes. There was always one witness who saw things differently. Now he had to find out why the guy saw events occur in a way no one else did. Often it was just the stress of the situation. Sometimes it was something else. He knew this would take some time.

“Bring him over to the PD, and we’ll talk to him last.”

If only he had been able to direct his family life as well as a scene, maybe he’d be anxious to wrap things up to get home now. He knew that wasn’t true. He had never been anxious to leave a scene. That was his issue.

HE ARRIVED AT the small but professional-looking building that served as city hall in the front. The tiny police department on the side and the one-engine fire department in the back. The sun was just setting, and he felt a breeze off the ocean combined with the autumn temperature and wished he had a Windbreaker. That was the heaviest coat he owned, except for his lone suit coat, which he needed for his rare appearances in court. He shrugged off the chill and headed inside with his partner.

As he entered the main hallway, he heard, “Stoltz, good. Come here-I need to tell you something.” He knew the harsh New York accent and hesitated to turn, hoping instead he was just having a stroke or his hearing had gone. He couldn’t hide as his partner murmured, “Oh shit, I forgot about her.”

Stoltz turned and nodded. “Carla, I need some time. I haven’t even taken a statement yet.”

The younger woman motioned him over, knowing that his partner would avoid joining the conversation at all costs. “Listen.” She placed a hand on his shoulder and leaned in as if someone might try to intercept the conversation. “You can take your statement, but this looks like shit.”

“What does?”

“This shooting.”

“Why, what did you see in it?”

“He shot someone who had only a stick.”

“You mean the ASP?”

“Don’t you start on that bullshit. A baton is not a threat to a big cop like Albury.”

“I disagree, but until I speak to everyone, I can’t say what exactly happened.”

The prosecutor ran a hand through her richly dyed hair. Her pretty face often fooled people until she started to speak. “Look, this department has had a dozen shootings, and no one ever has boo to say about it. This one is not gonna slide by while I’m assigned to it.” She turned and wiped her forehead with her bare hand, clearly exasperated. “There are already TV vans filming at the scene. This case means something. This case can make up for a lot of bad press.”

“I thought each case was independent and we looked at the facts.” He tried to suppress his smile.

“The fact is that if we don’t indict a white cop in this town for killing a black transient, people are gonna shout.”

Stoltz was ready. “Luckily the justice system isn’t influenced by bullshit like that.”

By the color of her face, Stoltz knew he had hit a nerve. It wasn’t right, but this was fun.

The young prosecutor came right to the point. “If you can’t make this case, let me know and I’ll get someone who can. I need this indictment.” She paused. “Besides, there is no dispute that the cop shot the homeless guy. He has to pay for that.”

“I agree, the cop has to pay.”

“That’s more like it.”

Stoltz went on, “If the cop had no reason to shoot. Right now, it looks like he had a reason to shoot – they wrestled until he was exhausted, and then he lost a deadly weapon to the assailant.” He looked up for support from his partner but saw he was alone. “Besides, it shouldn’t matter if people shout. It should matter what’s right.”

“Cut the ‘brotherhood of the badge’ shit. You write it so I can present it.”

“Look, Carla, I’m not looking at a brotherhood issue. I’m looking at an officer-involved shooting. Only one, not the last eleven. This one, single shooting. And if it looks clean, I’ll pass it on, and if it looks like a bad shoot, I’ll pass that on. But you’re out of line telling me how to write it up.”

She stepped back and turned her dark eyes up at him. “I’m out of line? I’m out of line? Let me tell you something, Detective. You fucking work for me, and I tell you anything I fucking want to.”

In a perfectly calm voice, Stoltz said, “I work for the sheriff of Broward County, who has assigned me to the Homicide Unit to look at death investigations objectively. Until he says otherwise, that’s what I’m gonna do.” He turned and headed into the rear section of the building to continue his investigation before the assistant state attorney could make another comment.

BY ELEVEN THAT night, Stoltz had spoken to the cop, who was shaken by the incident, and to two of the witnesses, who said the fight lasted several minutes and the cop did everything short of running away before he shot the man and then applied immediate medical aid. Stoltz knew the other witnesses had corroborated that sequence of events – except for Sammy Walker, the surfer, who was waiting in a nearby room and whom Stoltz intended to question next. As he set up the recorder and waited for his partner to come back from the bathroom, Carla Lazaro stuck her head in the small room.

“You done yet?”

“One more witness.”

“The surfer?”

“Yeah.”

“He says it was murder.”

“I still want to talk to him, if you don’t mind. The others say it was justified.”

The prosecutor slipped her wide but shapely frame into the room and lowered her voice. “I’m telling you, Stoltz, you write it my way or your ass will be out of Homicide so fast your clip-on tie will stay at your desk.”

“Look, Carla – ”

“I’m serious. The way the murder rate is going and the new blood that wants in at your unit, you’ll be in Warrants or Fraud, slogging through buckets of financial records until the day you pull the plug.” Her flushed face showed she was not kidding and that this had become personal. “See if you can ever figure out who killed Jane Doe number sixty-eight while working midnights at the airport.”

That brought him up short. He stared at her. “What do you know about Jane?”

“I know that if you’re out of the Homicide Unit, no one will ever give a shit about her. I know she cost you your wife. And I also know she won’t let you fuck up here. That’s why you’ll do as I tell you.”

Thankfully his partner walked up behind Carla with the surfer in tow.

The prosecutor took a seat and said, “I’ll sit in on this interview.”

Stoltz could’ve protested but knew it wouldn’t do him any good. “Whatever you want, Carla.”

The surfer, Sammy Walker, had seen the whole thing. He recounted in detail how the cop had swung at the man’s head and how the officer had drawn his gun and fired before ever issuing a warning. The whole time, the assistant state attorney nodded her head in acknowledgment and made an occasional note. The look on her face approached pleasure.

Stoltz felt her eyes on him every once in a while, and he met her gaze a couple of times, sensing her satisfaction at the young man’s story. He knew she was serious about having him transferred and believed she probably had the clout. She knew just what to threaten him with and how it would hurt.

He hadn’t always felt this way about the job. Originally he started because the benefits and retirement were much better than those of his job as a teacher at a private school in the north end of Fort Lauderdale. His wife had worried about the change at first, but with his better pay and benefits, she was able to go part-time at the bank, and she realized her husband wasn’t stupid and wouldn’t take ridiculous chances. Then, after becoming a detective, he had started to change. Slowly at first. Working a few extra hours or bringing home reports to review. Then, as he transferred into Homicide, the job took on more of a global effect. When he wasn’t at the office, all he talked about were cases or the guys he worked with. Now, through some slow evolution, he had come to view not only his job as a cop but his assignment in Homicide as who he was rather than as a part of his life. Then Jane Doe number sixty-eight entered his life. Other than in her resemblance to Jenny, he never knew why this young woman had taken ahold of him, but she was almost as big a part of his life as his own daughter. In a way, over the last three years, he had spent more time thinking about Jane than about Jenny.

Now he listened as the surfer seemed to lay out a compelling case for believing that the cop had acted without proper cause to shoot the homeless man, who, it appeared, had lived behind a shopping plaza across the Intracoastal.

Stoltz let the young man finish everything, made a few notes, and looked up and nodded at the assistant state attorney.

She nodded back and let a slight smile cross her pretty face.

“So, Sammy,” he started slowly, “have you ever been arrested?”

“What?”

“Have you ever been arrested? For anything?”

The young man hesitated, rapping his fingers on the table. “What’s that got to do with anything?”

“That sounds like a ‘Yes, you have been arrested.’”

He brushed back his long bangs. “Yeah, a couple of times.”

“What for?”

“Why?”

“Look, Sammy, I can run a criminal history on you. I just want to know what you’ve been arrested for.”

“Usual.”

“What’s the usual?”

“You know. Burglary, possession, auto theft. That sort of stuff.”

“Possession of what?”

“Drugs, you know. Crack, weed, a few pharmaceuticals.”

“And you live over on this side of the Intracoastal, right?”

“Yeah, with my parents, in a condo.”

“And the arrests happened where?”

“Hollywood, mostly.”

“Just in Hollywood?”

“And Davie, I think.”

“What about here?”

“Where?”

“Here, in this town?”

“Over here? Near my folks?”

“Yes, here, near your folks.”

He took a long breath and said, “Yeah, a couple of times.”

“Now here’s an important question, and you better tell me the truth.” He looked at the young man to impart the gravity of the situation.

“What’s that?”

Stoltz asked, “Did the officer you saw in the shooting ever arrest you?”

The young man hesitated and looked to the prosecutor, to whom he had obviously already spoken.

Stoltz pressed him. “C’mon, Sammy, did this officer ever arrest you?”

“Well, I, ah…”

“Sammy, the truth.”

“Yeah.”

“What for?”

“Burglary of a conveyance and possession and maybe once for shoplifting.”

“Three different arrests?”

“Yeah.”

“Did you talk to him today?”

“No, I don’t think he ever even saw me.”

“Now, before you’re in real trouble, do you want to tell me what you saw today? And this time, no bullshit.”

The young man slowly nodded his head and told a story a little more believable than the first one. It matched the others.

OUTSIDE THE ROOM, as Stoltz prepared to wrap up the on-scene investigation, the assistant state attorney approached him. “You know that doesn’t change shit, Stoltz. We need an indictment on this.”

“No jury would ever convict.”

“That’s fine, then it’s the jury’s fault for not convicting him, but the state attorney’s office has to take action. We’re gonna indict at the grand jury.”

“How?”

“You know how. The standard is just probable cause, not reasonable doubt. We could indict Don Shula for loitering if we present it right.”

“But if you put me, the lead detective, on the stand, I’ll just tell the facts, and you’re sunk.”

“We’ve got a few weeks. You think about life in another unit. You take some time to decide if you want to answer a fucking phone, ‘Stoltz, airport traffic.’ Look at the Jane Doe file. You think it over, and we’ll see what you say when the time comes.”

Stoltz resisted drawing his small.38 and putting it to the prosecutor’s head as she turned and stomped out the main door.

He did have a lot to go over.

THE WEEKS AFTER the shooting were filled with investigative duties: the autopsy, criminal checks on the corpse and witnesses, reviewing the 911 tapes and radio logs, going over the department’s policy on the use of the ASP and the state’s guidelines on the use of deadly force. The whole time, a cloud seemed to hang over Ben Stoltz as he considered his possible transfer if he didn’t proceed the way Carla Lazaro had instructed him. He dreaded a transfer more than he had his divorce. He might find another wife, but he’d never get back into Homicide. He felt his ulcer start to flare up; his migraines returned worse than when Craig had introduced him to his “friend” Alex. He lay sleepless most nights, imagining life on the Fugitive Unit or the Property Crimes Unit. And he did go back to the Jane Doe number sixty-eight file more than once, getting lost in the photos of the lifeless form in a vacant lot. He wondered who missed her. How might the world be different in fifty years if she had not been treated like discarded trash? He looked at the photos and felt as strongly about her now as he had when he was on the scene.

HE SLOWLY STARTED to think that it didn’t matter if the cop were indicted because he’d just be acquitted at trial. No one would be hurt. He wondered how he might present the facts of the case to leave open enough doubt for the grand jury to indict. It wasn’t reasonable doubt. A case was indicted on majority of votes by the jurors. It would be easy. Easier than working on Road Patrol. Midnights. With Wednesday and Thursday off. He took more than one break to vomit in the small men’s room on the third floor.

THE DAY OF his grand jury testimony, he wore his lone blue suit with the matching blue tie that the guy from Penney’s had thrown in because he was a cop. He had a file with a few notes and some lab reports in case anyone asked him about them. He knew it would hinge on how long the fight was, if the officer had had any other option, and if he acted within state guidelines for use of force.

Stoltz nodded to the PBA attorney outside the grand jury room. Although Stoltz had spoken to Carla Lazaro numerous times since the shooting, always giving her reports and keeping her informed, he had been careful not to give her any clue as to what he planned to do. He dealt in facts, not feelings. Her superior tone showed that she believed she had won. He knew she felt as if she owned him. Why not? She could call his captain and complain, and he’d be moved. The S.O. needed the state attorney more than it needed him. He shuffled into the room and took a seat, and a bailiff swore him in.

He swore to tell the truth. His stomach flipped. He felt bile build in the back of his throat.

All Stoltz really remembered was the look on Carla Lazaro’s face when he noted that all the witnesses had said the cop was exhausted. He threw in a fact from what he had researched: it was the longest hand-to-hand fight between a cop and a suspect in Florida history. Also that the suspect had five convictions for assault on a police officer, one of whom he had tried to choke to death. Stoltz followed up, without being asked, with how the cop applied first aid immediately.

The grand jury came back with a “no true bill” in record time.

As he stepped down from the witness stand, the look from Carla Lazaro said everything. He figured he had nothing to lose and winked at the fuming assistant state attorney, leaving the room with his integrity intact.

On the following Monday, his new phone played the theme to Hawaii Five-O as he picked it up and said, “Stoltz, Economic Crime, may I help you?” He jotted some notes on a check-cashing fraud and opened his first economic-crime case. He now had one case to go with the file his sergeant had allowed him to bring over from Homicide. Jane Doe number sixty-eight had her own drawer in his new desk. As he copied down some information on his first identity-theft investigation, he wondered when he’d get to her. One thing was for sure: there were no droughts in financial crime in South Florida.