The Second Life of Nick Mason

14

When an SIS sergeant was killed forty-eight hours after Nick Mason had been released from prison, Detective Frank Sandoval figured this was one crime scene he had to see.

As he ducked under the crime scene tape, a uniformed officer moved to stop him. Sandoval showed him his star and the officer stepped aside to let him pass.

He went up the stairs and down the exterior hallway to Room 215. He saw the blood on the walls first. Then the body on the floor. He took a step inside the room and looked at the exit wound on the man’s back. A bullet goes in clean, but then it meets resistance. It flattens out, slows down, and pushes the tissue in front of it like a snowplow. By the time it comes out the back, it’s not a clean missile anymore. It’s a goddamned musket ball.

He looked up over his head. There was more blood on the ceiling. It had started to drip down onto the bed.

He took a glance into the bathroom. He counted three towels. They were all clean. Sandoval knew there had probably been a fourth.

Sandoval came back out into the main room. He stepped back out onto the balcony. It was after midnight. There was one news truck below him, getting a jump on the other stations, and a half-dozen squad cars, the lights bouncing blue and red on every surface. Beyond the parking lot it was just darkness and quiet streets.

Another car pulled into the lot. A black Audi. He watched the driver get out and walk past the uniforms. They made no move to stop him. A few seconds later, he heard him on the stairs, then saw him coming down the hallway, moving with purpose. He was a tall man, with hard features, hair cut close and so blond it was almost white. His eyes were a pale, metallic shade of gray. Sandoval knew him by reputation only. It was Sergeant Bloome, one of the original members of SIS, one of the men who stood behind the mayor when they announced the big new initiative in Chicago’s War on Drugs.

When they first put this team together, it was called Special Investigations Section. An elite task force of all the best narcotics officers in the city, handpicked by the superintendent himself. They were given their own floor at Homan Square, their own prosecutors and staff, anything they wanted. Their jurisdiction was the entire city of Chicago. They could go anywhere they wanted, talk to anybody at any time, take over any investigation. In a city overrun with drugs, they had been given a blank check from the highest levels to do whatever it took to bring down the dealers. They didn’t have cases. They had targets.

They stood apart from every other cop on the force. You could see an SIS man from three blocks away, always in a dark suit, perfectly tailored, perfectly pressed. Expensive leather shoes. He had his pick of any car confiscated in a drug bust, so he always drove the best. Nothing like the homicide-issued Ford Fusion that Sandoval was driving.

After two years in operation, you started to hear some things about these guys. Illegal seizures, low-level guys on the street getting robbed and beaten. Nothing to lose any sleep over, since they were making arrests every day, piling up numbers that a homicide detective could only dream of. The crime rate went down. The mayor was happy. The brass was happy. So the rumors were ignored, and every uniformed officer-like those guys standing down there in the parking lot, letting Bloome walk by with nothing but a nod-they all kissed SIS ass, because SIS was what every Chicago cop wanted to be. They were stars. Celebrity cops.

Bloome passed by Sandoval without even looking at him. He went into the room. Sandoval waited. A minute later, Bloome came back out. He leaned over the railing, breathing in the night air. Then he finally looked up and noticed Sandoval standing there.

“Who are you?” he said.

“Detective Sandoval. Area Central Homicide. Got a question for you.”

“For me?”

“You’re SIS,” Sandoval said. “Jameson was SIS.”

“Wow, you’re some kind of investigator,” Bloome said. “Whose dick did you suck to make detective?”

“Why was he here alone?”

Bloome took his arms off the railing and stood up straight. “Guy I worked with for twenty fucking years is dead on the floor in there,” he said. “A friend. A great cop. So I’m not in the mood to answer your bullshit questions.”

“You see a suitcase? He wasn’t staying here. What was he doing, meeting a CI?”

“He was doing whatever the fuck he was doing,” Bloome said. “Before somebody blew a hole in him. We’re taking this case, by the way, so you can leave.”

“It was never mine,” Sandoval said. “Ryan’s downstairs. He’s caught it.”

Bloome worked that over in his head for a moment. “Then what the fuck are you doing here?” he said. “That’s a dead cop on the floor. You got no respect?”

“I’m working on something else,” Sandoval said. “Thought it might be connected.”

“Connected to what?” Bloome said. “What the fuck’s the matter with you? Do you let guys off the street come walking onto your crime scenes?”

He stopped and looked at Sandoval’s star again.

“Wait a minute,” Bloome said. “You’re Sandoval? Gary Higgins’s partner?”

Sandoval nodded.

Bloome looked him up and down. “Here’s what’s gonna happen, Detective. You’re gonna get the fuck out of here right now and I’m not gonna see your face again. Any crime scene. Anyplace got anything to do with me, with my men, with SIS. Just stay the fuck away from us so the real cops can do their job.”

Sandoval nodded. “That’s one way. Other way is I tell you to fuck off and I keep doing my job.”

Sandoval turned and walked down the hallway. When he was in the parking lot, he looked back up at the balcony and saw Bloome watching him. Then he walked through the glare of the news team’s camera lights, got in his car, and drove away.