Ring of Silence Read online

  Turner shook his head, “Or just get us the yearbook for three Districts closest to the hospital. I think it was the same guy. We can look at pictures and identify him.”

  “We’ll need background when we identify him or them,” Molton said. “You sure it was the same guy both times?”

  Turner said, “I think so.”

  Fenwick said, “I didn’t see the guy when I was being treated. I’d recognize the other one.”

  Molton said, “Dams can get whatever we need.”

  Turner said, “We need to proceed as if this were a normal case, or cases. We need to talk to each of these people and find out which of them are connected with getting us put on this case.”

  Fenwick said, “If they’ve got brains, they’d call their lawyers right after hearing from us.”

  Turner said, “They will call to tattle on us.”

  “They might call me first,” Molton said. “As a warning.”

  “Or take us as an even greater threat.”

  Fenwick brought up another point. “If we talk to them, they’ll think we’re wired.”

  Molton said, “At this point, they’d be stupid to presume you weren’t.”

  “Is this hopeless?” Fenwick asked. “We’ll meet the same Code of Silence that’s supposed to be protecting us.”

  The Superintendent said, “They won’t like to be challenged, but it will scare them. No one is that confident of their power in any bureaucracy.”

  “And the church?” Fenwick asked.

  Molton said, “There’s a new cardinal. What the hell, talk to him.”

  The Superintendent spoke. “You really think the Catholic Church is going to go that quietly? They’re known for secrecy.”

  Fenwick said, “No one expects the Spanish Inquisition.”

  In spite of himself, Turner smiled. He knew Fenwick was referring to one of his favorite bits of television comedy on Monty Python. When the Cardinals rush in and claim the church has various powers, finally deciding on saying their chief weapons are, surprise, fear, ruthless efficiency, an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope, and nice red uniforms.

  The Superintendent raised an eyebrow.

  “Sorry,” Fenwick said, “not important.”

  The Superintendent gave a ghost of a smile himself. He said, “I know Monty Python. Unfortunately, Carruthers is very Catholic and very much active in his church, and there is real power and real danger there.” He harrumphed and took a sip of coffee then said, “We already presume there’s a conspiracy against you, or the presumption that there is one is strong. To let them know we know, I don’t think that gives them power.”

  Molton said, “It might scare some. The weak links. They’ll be scrambling to destroy their weak links, or be certain of their silence, or assure the weak links that all will be well.”

  “Can the conspiracy be that immense?” Fenwick asked.

  Shrugs around the room.

  Turner said, “We’ve got to find out who the expert shots are in the department.”

  Molton said, “I can get you raw data on possibilities. The top sharpshooters in each class at the academy for the last fifty years.”

  The Superintendent asked, “Why bother to make this all that convoluted?”

  Turner said, “My guess is, it didn’t start out that way. They wanted to prevent what we’re doing now. They wanted us scared and frightened.”

  Fenwick asked, “Why not just kill us and be done with it?”

  Molton asked, “An outright murder of cops? Tough to sell. And you’ve got that heroic shit in the last couple days.”

  Fenwick asked, “A sneaky murder of cops is better?”

  Nobody bothered to answer.

  Turner asked, “We found those CPD dash cams in Shaitan’s hotel room. What if he or some group of protesters were in it with the cops?”

  Molton said, “All to protect Carruthers?”

  Turner said, “So far we have no forensics or proof for any of this.”

  Fenwick asked, “When they call to complain about us, are you going to back us up?”

  Both administrators said yes.

  Fenwick said, “If these people are as all-powerful as we are positing, then will we live to see another day?”

  The Superintendent said, “They can’t be omnipotent.”

  Fenwick said, “All they need to do is either be a better shot, or stop trying to dick around with us.”

  Molton said, “All of a sudden, they’re graced with omnipotence? I think not.”

  The Superintendent said, “Enough potence to snuff you out, I’m guessing, or close to it. You know a bureaucracy can crush you as well as anyone.”

  Fenwick said, “They haven’t been able to save Carruthers.”

  “Yet.” The Superintendent mused. “You do know that dirt is flying in your direction as well. You saved yourselves by saving those kids.”

  “Wasn’t our fault,” Fenwick said.

  “But close enough to be heroes. Because you both made split second decisions that saved lives, you may have saved your own, or at least made it more complicated for powerful people in this town to get even with you.”

  Saturday 12:12 P.M.

  After the meeting, Turner and Fenwick trooped up to their desks.

  Fenwick plunked into his chair. He said, “Maybe the ones who are working against us want me to do a press conference because they presume I will fuck up and embarrass myself, kind of the buffoon rule of intimidation.”

  “Are we really that important?”

  “Someone seems to think so.”

  “We’ve wasted time on all these activists.”

  “Maybe we’ve got both ends of the same thread, and we’re going to meet in the middle.”

  Turner’s phone rang.

  It was Fong. He said, “I’m in my basement. Would you guys please come down?”

  Down they went.

  The whole floor, ceiling, wall thing was turned off.

  Fenwick said, “No special effects this morning?”

  “I’m working on the next show.”

  He pointed to his monitor. “I’ve been hunting the web for cop videos.”

  Fenwick said, “More bullshit.”

  Fong said, “At times, one must go to the bullshit and wade through it.” He tapped on his keys and seconds later rows of icons showed up. “I started with those angry-cop sites, all fighting back against perceived attacks, slights, and prejudice against cops. Then I began to go further. I’ve been looking for Carruthers on the dark web and the deep web. You know how there’s a few big cases with payouts for victims, but the vast majority of police complaints are found in favor of the police?”

  The detective nodded.

  Fong said, “They’re both right. All the complaints ignored, most of those, the vast majority of complaints are from assholes who are guilty. You know they used to yell ‘police brutality’, now they still yell it, but they have video. Or video they think backs them up. The problem is, the nuts and all their idiocy get in the way of real stuff.”

  Fenwick said, “We knew that.”

  “I hunted.” Fong rubbed his hands across his face.

  Turner realized the poor guy looked exhausted. He asked, “Have you slept?”

  Fong said, “I like you guys. The stuff I found, while not profound, might start to give you leverage on Carruthers.”

  “What have you got?” Turner asked.

  “On the dark web, on crazy sites. Hidden. Extreme. I found some Chicago cop sites. Video taken by Chicago cops. Bragging Chicago cops. You know how teenagers take video of themselves bullying somebody. Same kind of thing. I found several sites at around six this morning. I spent hours downloading, saving, sharing.”

  He pointed at his monitor. They watched. Fong explained as he went. “I started with right wing sites. They’ve been even more bold lately. Then I found Carruthers.”

  He came to a particular point, paused the tape, tapped the monitor. Turner and Fenwick moved in close. “Kind
of blurry,” Fenwick said.

  “Most of them are,” Fong admitted.

  Scene after scene unfolded of cops using excessive force against civilians, mostly, sometimes each other. According to the data under each one, the scenes of cop-on-cop violence were the most clicked on.

  Fong said, “Here. Now.”

  A series of scenes followed for eighteen minutes.

  After they were done, Fenwick said, “It’s just Carruthers. Rodriguez isn’t in any of them.” He sounded relieved.

  “Rodriguez isn’t a psychopath,” Turner said. He tapped the monitor. “These could plausibly be seen to be identified as Carruthers, but I’d hate to have to rely on them in court.”

  “Maybe we don’t need them in court,” Fenwick suggested. “Just releasing them might be enough to scare people off.”

  Fong said, “Hell, I may release all this stuff when I can make sure no one can find out it came from me.”

  “Can you do that?” Fenwick asked.

  Fong said, “I’ll have to go to a cyber café or library and use a computer there, and I should be able hide it, or better yet, bring it back to Carruthers’s laptop.”

  Turner mused, “It might take a lot of work, but maybe we can figure out the times when Carruthers and Rodriguez weren’t working together.”

  Fenwick shook his head. “He could have done this any time, but we can let Rodriguez know. He might have an idea.”

  Fong said, “Simplest thing to do would be to start with Rodriguez. He’s not in any of them. Do a process of elimination. Some of these are date and time stamped. Find out where Rodriguez knew Carruthers to be.” He handed them a flash drive and several sheets of paper. “I’ve got that for you. I called Rodriguez. Most of those videos happened before they were partners.”

  Fenwick said, “Carruthers was smart enough not to try to involve him.”

  Fong asked, “You’re wondering why Carruthers has so few successful official complaints against him?”

  Fenwick said, “I was curious about that.”

  Turner said, “Well, we found he had a lot, but they went away.”

  Fong tapped more keys, called up some more files. Civilian complaint forms appeared. “He has. Somebody made a ton of them go away.”

  “How’d you find them?”

  “Once it’s on a computer, or worse, on the Net, you risk that for all time, someone can find it. I found it. I talked to Barb Dams. She says she gave you copies of the originals from her files as well. My stuff is more complete with paperwork above Area level. Barb wouldn’t have that.”

  Fong handed them each a flash drive. “Those are your copies. I’ve saved it to every device here. I’ve saved this to my home machines. I’ve saved it to the cloud. I’ve emailed it to myself, to each of you, and to other people I trust.”

  “With so many people with copies, it will come out.”

  Fong shrugged.

  Fenwick asked, “Why were they stupid enough to put those videos on the Internet?”

  “They didn’t think someone as smart as me would be after them? Who knows? Ego? Stupidity? People love to see themselves.”

  Turner shook his head. “Most of these are blurry. We’ve got to prove it’s Carruthers.”

  Fenwick groused, “What about our goddamn crime scene? Everybody but the killer and his victims was taking pictures and video like mad. Everybody was following everybody else with a camera. Except our killer.”

  Fong tapped his screen, “That wasn’t part of this. That was part of your protester murders.”

  Turner said, “Unless our killer wasn’t part of the conference.”

  “Huh?”

  “They’re all running around like mad. Except our killer and tormentor. The damn deaths have nothing to do with that conference.”

  Turner sat next to Fong on a stool that wobbled. “That you found all this could be dangerous to you. You could be a target.”

  “If I die, it’s all set to come out to every website and broadcast network on the Internet.”

  “Every?” Fenwick asked.

  Fong smiled. “More than they’d be able to count or stop.”

  Turner said, “Let’s hold on to all this for as long as we can. We’ve got to figure out what the hell is going on.” Then he asked, “You have anything more from all those surveillance cameras?”

  “Nothing new. I’ve got a few more cameras to go through. You know how long it takes when I don’t have someone I’m specifically looking for.”

  Turner and Fenwick knew how useless the search was without such.

  “However, you may find it slightly odd, or even majorly odd, that the cameras in the most direct line from the crime scene to the encampment to the murder scene, and all the cameras around the encampment were all non-functional.”

  “Deliberately broken?” Fenwick asked.

  “Can’t tell you that. My guess is your average protester is bright enough to know there are cameras around and paranoid enough to want to make sure they aren’t functioning. Not sure I blame them.”

  Turner asked, “How about that bugging device in Bettencourt’s room?”

  Fong said, “It is not ours. As far as I could find out, it is a type that can be purchased online by anyone.”

  Fenwick said, “Crap.”

  Fong said, “Precisely. I can try and narrow it down to a specific web site, but I doubt it. Some illicit gun shows sell them as well. They wouldn’t advertise, so they’d be hard to find. Underground and that shit.”

  Fenwick said, “We need to find some Chicago cops. We don’t have one of their names. He was outside of Fenwick’s first hospital bay, and then DeShawn’s hospital room.”

  Fong turned to his computer. “You want to find a cop in the city? So that’s ten thousand, give or take. Can we narrow it down?”

  “Male,” Fenwick said. “White. Young maybe 25-30.”

  “Let’s start with the local district,” Turner said.

  “You said he was young. Maybe he was on a sports team for the district.” There were numerous police sports leagues. Fong called up the local district’s sports page. Turner leaned close shook as the faces scrolled up. Then he pointed and said, “Him.” Fenwick said, “That was the guy outside my room?”

  Turner added, “And outside DeShawn’s room.”

  Fong isolated the shot, enlarged the head, got the name, Bruce Deaton, from the caption under the photo. A few minutes later they had the names and addresses for both Deaton, who had been outside the first two hospital rooms and Arnold, first name Joe, who’d been dragged away by Palakowski at the Sanchez hospital room scene.

  They stood up.

  The detectives thanked him profusely. They left.

  At their desks, they worked on preliminary data on who in the CPD had the expertise or background to fire a rifle the required distance. After half an hour, Turner said, “I’d say an estimate based on what we’ve done so far is over half the members of the department could have fired the rifle.”

  Then they called up as many of the cases that Carruthers had worked on that required a State’s Attorney. They came up with one name. Brandon Smeek.

  Turner asked, “How many detectives have one State’s Attorney continuously on all their cases?” He turned his monitor so Fenwick could see.

  Fenwick gazed for a moment. “These are the ones that didn’t involve Rodriguez, all involved some kind of complaint against Carruthers.”

  They read some more. Turner said, “They all went away.”

  Fenwick said, “Son of a bitch.”

  Turner said, “We need to talk to a friendly State’s Attorney.”

  Fenwick said, “We’ve worked with that Robert Cardin for a few years. He’s been a good guy. We could try him.”

  Turner said, “I’ll call him.”

  They drew up a list of who else they needed to talk to.

  Fenwick said, “It’s a Saturday. A lot of these civilians will be at home.” He paused. “I believe people will use any advantage they th
ink they can get especially as they’re backed into a corner.” He sighed. “Then again, they may feel more invulnerable being in their own homes on their own turf. Screw it. Makes no difference. Fuck all. Let’s go talk to these people no matter where they are.”

  Saturday 1:05 P.M.

  Fenwick said, “Food.”

  They stopped for lunch at Petunia’s on Division near Milwaukee Avenue. Fenwick ordered the full dinner loaded-meatloaf. Turner had avocado toast and a hearts of palm salad.

  While they waited for their food, Turner fumed. “How could Ian be so stupid? How could he think we wouldn’t find out? I’m still angry that he didn’t tell us at the beginning?”

  Fenwick said, “He has shit to answer for.”

  “Got that right.”

  Turner did a grouse almost as long as a Fenwick grumble. He stopped when their food arrived.

  Moments later, they noticed Palakowski, the local district Commander, march in. Petunia’s was known as a cop hangout. He looked around, spotted them, and surged to their booth.

  Palakowski waved a finger in Fenwick’s face. “We’ve gotten complaints about you.” His voice was raised.

  Fenwick said, “Would you care to join us?”

  Palakowski said, “If I don’t get you fired, you’ll be busted to writing traffic tickets in Hegewisch.”

  Fenwick said, “You’re upset. I got that part. So do all the patrons in this place. Anything else?”

  As their food arrived, Palakowski plunked himself next to Fenwick. As the detective bulked large, the Commander’s butt flopped half off the bench. Palakowski rammed both elbows onto the table. Fenwick shook drops of hot sauce onto his meatloaf.

  Turner looked up. The waitress held a container of coffee. She raised an eyebrow at them. Turner gave a slight shake of his head. He noted the rest of the patrons. The place was crowded since it was Saturday lunch in Chicago. A few cops in uniform stared blatantly. The rest ignored them.

  Palakowski lowered his voice to a whisper which Turner thought he might be trying to make menacing, but came across more of a whistle from a teakettle well past its prime.

  “I know what you did to Blawn on that rooftop the night of the murder.”

  “And yet this is the first we’ve heard about it,” Fenwick said. He looked at Turner. “I find that odd.”