Deviations (6 page)

Out of the corner of my eye I saw the guy next to
me looking at his watch impatiently like I was holding him up. Like he had earned
the right to fuck me and be done in time for dinner at seven with the other
microchip douchebags.

The five o’clock crowd at Callahan’s was the
noisiest because it was the youngest. A lot of young white collars letting off
steam after work, and therefore a lot of women laughing way too loud at the
lame shit the guys were saying. So I was having trouble hearing the TV. I
gestured for Wayne. “Would you mind muting the TV so the subtitles come on?”

Wayne did it. He’s a great bartender.

It was about five-thirty. I’d been here only a
little while. I was spending my days trying to do some exercise, walking around
my neighborhood, eating food, watching TV. And going to my meetings at three
o’clock. I was late for one, and the guy didn’t sign my card, so I had to do
another one later that day. The drunks there were starting to acknowledge me
when I entered the room, but I stood off to the side before the meetings, and
they respected my space, which I appreciated.

I was getting better at getting through the meetings.
I’d passed out a few days ago right before it was my turn to tell a story about
how alcohol made me betray the trust of someone important in my life. I hadn’t
prepared anything to say, but you’d think with about a hundred stories to
choose from I would’ve nailed it. Apparently, I thought passing out and conking
my head on the floor would be more entertaining. After I came to, the guy
running the meeting told me I could just sit there without participating. All I
had to do was say I didn’t want to say anything, he explained, as if that was
supposed to make me feel less like an idiot.

By the next day, I was doing better. I didn’t pass
out or throw up or piss myself or anything. I just sat there, studying my hands
or looking through whoever was talking. I didn’t listen to what anyone was
saying. Why should I? I wasn’t trolling for drinking buddies. Plus, I didn’t
want to hear about the drinking life, since I already knew all I needed to know
about it.

I’d made it through my meeting, come home, and put
on some sweats. I found that sweats made it a little less convenient to go out
to Callahan’s because I’d have to get dressed again. But this afternoon I’d
made the effort.

There was Murtaugh on the TV, looking like a
police chief: great posture, somber, in charge. The sun was directly in his
eyes, but he wasn’t wearing sunglasses. “The body of State Senator Dolores
Weston was recovered by officers of the Rawlings Police Department at 2:46 this
afternoon at a vacant lot that adjoins the Prairie Industrial Park. The death
was a homicide. I have ordered a full mobilization of all Rawlings Police
Department officers and detectives as we begin our investigation. We intend to
pursue the investigation vigorously, and we will issue updates at 5:00
pm
and at any other appropriate times,
right here, when we have information to communicate. Thank you very much.”

The guy next to me had sat down, apparently
willing to give me a little TV time. But I could tell he was getting pissed.

The reporters weren’t going to let Chief Murtaugh get
away that easy. One voice shouted out, “Chief, are you sure it was a homicide?”

Murtaugh had started to walk away. He turned back
and walked up to the podium. “Yes, I said it was a homicide. Our forensic team
has not yet completed its work. But it was a homicide. That’s all I can say at
this time.”

Another reporter called out, “How did your
officers know to look at the industrial park? Were you tipped off?”

“I can’t comment on that right now.”

“How was she killed?” a third reporter called out.
“Do you have any suspects?” from another voice.

Chief Murtaugh turned toward the last questioner,
a twerp with gelled hair, and gave him one of those stares I’d seen yesterday.
When the camera turned on the young guy’s face, it looked like he was going to drop
a brick. “We are just beginning our investigation. I will personally brief you
at 5:00
pm
tomorrow or when
events dictate,” the chief said. “Thank you very much.”

He turned and walked back toward the glass doors,
followed by two uniforms and all six of the detectives, including my old
partner, Ryan Miner. The reporters called out other questions to the chief, but
he had disappeared behind the glass.

The guy next to me stood up and pocketed his
twenty off the bar. “I’m gonna take off,” he said.

“Yeah, sorry,” I said. As I turned back to the TV
I heard him mutter “Bitch” loud enough for me to hear. Fair enough.

Bridget Moyers came back on the screen. “As you
have just heard,” she said, “Rawlings Police Chief Robert Murtaugh has
announced that the body of State Senator Dolores Weston was recovered this
afternoon, an apparent homicide, at a vacant site near the Prairie Industrial
Park. Chief Murtaugh, leading the department for only two months, will head up
what will surely be the most extensive murder investigation the city of
Rawlings has ever seen. In his press conference, which lasted less than one
minute, Chief Murtaugh did not elaborate on how the senator was killed, how the
police knew where to look for her body, or whether they have any leads. Let me
turn to my colleague, Mark Winters, for background on Senator Weston.”

Mark Winters was a good looking guy. A real strong
TV face, complete with newly white teeth he got when the station went hi-def
about a year ago. Up came a photo of Dolores Weston. She was even better
looking than Mark, showing early forties. The photo was a professional job,
highlighting her wavy chestnut hair, combed straight back, full on the top and
sides, chin length. It was short enough for her age and her grown-up job but
long enough so that it probably bounced when she rode her horses, which I
happen to know she did almost every day, either on the trails near her ranch
north of town or in her enclosed arena. The hair said Professional Woman, with
the emphasis on both of those words.

“Dolores Tuttle Weston, aged fifty-nine, was in
her second term as State Senator from Montana’s Senate District 15. Considered
a moderate Republican, Senator Weston angered her more conservative colleagues
by occasionally co-sponsoring legislation with the state’s several Democrats
and for refusing to sign off on last year’s Republican Party Loyalty Pledge.
Just last February, she famously declared that she took an oath to support
Montana’s state constitution—and that was enough. If her constituents wanted to
be represented by a robot, she said at that time, they could vote for one next
time. If they wanted to be represented by a human being with a brain and a
heart, they could vote for her.”

The dark brown eyes were wide-set, with the
mascara so subtle you didn’t notice it. A long thin nose separated a terrific
set of cheekbones, and a mile-wide smile. The smile said that yes, life is
indeed beautiful if you come factory-equipped with all the options—brains,
incredible beauty, and energy—and live in an environment in which much is
expected and every advantage is provided. Come closer, her smile said. Look but
don’t touch.

“Senator Weston clashed with some in her party earlier
this year when she sponsored a bill that would provide considerable tax
advantages to companies that would locate in Montana and pledge to hire more
than one-hundred employees. Critics charged that the bill was a sweetheart deal
to lure Henley Pharmaceuticals, a New Jersey firm, to the Rawlings area.
Conservatives expressed their opposition to Henley Pharmaceuticals, which is
conducting research on new technologies for stem-cell research. Senator Weston
responded that existing law would ensure that the company did not cross any ethical
lines, and that the company would provide a significant boost to the area’s
economy and create jobs for skilled and semi-skilled labor in central Montana.
That bill passed by a narrow margin in this winter’s legislative session and
was signed into law by the governor in February.”

Yeah, Mark, maybe the company wouldn’t cross any
ethical lines with stem cells, but they had no problem handing her thousands of
dollars in stock options for unspecified “consulting work” to support that
bill. Oh, wait a second, Mark, you don’t know about that little transaction, do
you?

“Senator Weston suffered a terrible personal loss
six months ago, when her second husband, James Weston, the wealthy retired
venture capitalist, died in a windsurfing accident in Maui, for which a
Hawaiian man was convicted of manslaughter.

“Senator Weston is survived by a son, Brian
Mathers, now an attorney in New Jersey, and two daughters—Cynthia Mathers, a
businesswoman in Ohio, and Melissa Armstrong, a medical resident in Pennsylvania.”

The photos of the three kids came up on the
screen. I could see her in all three, especially the businesswoman, who was a clone
of Mom. But big noses and weak chins on the lawyer and the doc said Dolores
married Husband Number One for love. Not that looking at the photos of the
three kids was easy. They were adults—that was a good thing—but losing Stepdad
and then Mom, both to murder … no way that money and good jobs made that hurt
any less. Senator Weston acted like the queen that the world apparently told
her she was, and she was kind of a crook. Still, she was their mom.

“We’ll have much more on the murder of Senator
Dolores Weston at ten o’clock, including tributes from prominent Montanans who
served with her in the legislature. Back to you, Bridget.”

They weren’t kidding about having much more on the
murder. It was all over every station. None of them had any more facts, her
being too young for them to have an obit ready, and the chief keeping a tight
lid on his people, but they played the chief’s press conference a couple dozen
more times and sent all their reporters out onto the streets to interview every
non-comatose person in the Rawlings area about the murder. Here’s what I
learned: When a person heard about the crime, they were either “shocked” or “horrified.”
What did they think of the murder? The top answers were that it was “terrible”
or “just so sad,” followed by “what does it say about our world today?” Was she
a good senator? Almost everyone said she was doing a “great job” (not a good
job, okay job, or truly shitty job). What would she be remembered for? Top
answer: “I don’t really follow politics.”

I glanced around the bar, but the guy who’d called
me a bitch had left. If he’d stayed five minutes more … But, we all make
choices in life.

I glanced at my watch. Not yet six. The night was
young.

Chapter 5

“I want you to report for
duty immediately, Detective.”

“Say that again, please.” I wanted to be sure I
hadn’t misheard him.

“I said report for duty. Immediately.”

Since the press conference about the Dolores
Weston murder yesterday at 5:30
pm
,
the networks had been clubbing the story like a
piñata
. They had spent
the night assembling all the file footage they had of her, and they’d gotten
interviews from other state senators and the governor. But they didn’t have any
more news. Chief Murtaugh had said he wouldn’t say anything until today at five
unless he had some news. Apparently, he didn’t have any news.

“Chief, I’m real excited about the possibility of
coming back to work, but that FFD with Dr. Palchik didn’t go too good. You sure
you want me back?”

“Yes, Detective, I’m sure. I authorized the FFD,
told you to take it, and read the report from Palchik. Now I’m offering you
your job back.” There was a pause. “That is, if you’re interested.”

“Absolutely, sir, of course.” I was starting to
cry. I didn’t realize how much I wanted this, how much I wanted anything that
was headed … anything that was headed anywhere but straight down. “It’s just
that I told the psychiatrist about my insubordination with Chief Arnold. He
asked me about whether I thought I had a drinking problem. And I told him yes …
yes, I am an alcoholic.” I was reaching inside my big leather bag, rummaging
around, trying to locate a tissue or something, as if that would enable me to
spare him another episode of me crying.

“Are you done?”

“Excuse me?”

“I just said I read Dr. Palchik’s report. That
means I am aware of what you told him, as well as his analysis of what you told
him. And that I have done my own analysis. So if I’m calling you and telling
you to report for duty, I want you to report for duty. Do you understand me?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And one more thing, Detective. I need you to pull
yourself together. I realize you’re going through a difficult period, but if
you are going to serve the city of Rawlings, I can’t have you impaired. Not by
anything. When you’re on duty, you’re giving me one-hundred percent. You’re not
drinking, you’re not hung over, you’re not thinking about how unfulfilled your
private life is. You’re working the case I assign you. And you’re not planning
on going out to a bar after your shift is over. Is that clear?”

Holy shit. I thought that part of my
extracurricular activities was private. I wanted to believe he didn’t really
know about it. Maybe he was just assuming that, like most other drunks, I had
this place I go to, another set of four walls to try to keep in focus as I got
plastered. But I couldn’t make myself believe that. Whatever the facts were, I knew
I was in no position to second guess this guy. He was offering me a job, even
though I’d given him plenty of reasons to keep his distance. “Yes, Chief, I’ll
be there. A half hour.”

“Very good, Detective. You’re not here in thirty
minutes, don’t bother.”

“Yes, Chief. Thank you.” My hands were shaking as
I ended the call. I started to take inventory. I was in my sweats, no makeup,
so that would take a couple of minutes. Luckily, I’d showered, and my hair was
clean. I looked like hell, of course, with the black bags under my eyes giving
me that whole raccoon vibe, but at least I wouldn’t have to start from scratch
to look human. Female detectives don’t need to spend too much time worrying
about their appearance. Male detectives set the bar pretty low.

I hadn’t eaten breakfast, and my stomach was growling
pretty loud. I looked at my watch. I had twenty-nine minutes to get dressed and
get to headquarters. At the speed limit, I’m twelve minutes away. Giving myself
a five-minute cushion for missing all the red lights, I better get moving—Murtaugh’s
just the kind of guy who really would fire me if I disobeyed him the first day.
I threw on some navy slacks and a white silk blouse, slapped on a little
eyeliner and foundation, and hurried out to the kitchen and started throwing
cabinet doors open. I ripped into a box of Pop Tarts and tossed a pack in my
bag. Non-popped Pop Tarts. The breakfast of champions in a hurry.

On the drive in, my mind kept going to how weird
this FFD and the phone call from Murtaugh were. Since I pretty much agreed with
all the old chief’s accusations about how unprofessional I’d been, when I let
the murderer kill himself plus when I almost killed the girl in a DUI, I just
couldn’t see the shrink writing a report saying I was pulled together enough to
get out there and track down bad guys. So what did that say about Chief
Murtaugh? A guy who gets all anal about unacceptable deviations from regs,
what’s he doing offering a job to an unacceptable deviant like me?

But one of the things I was hearing over and over at
the AA meetings was starting to make sense. If you have to spend an hour a day
sitting in a circle with a bunch of strangers the only thing you got in common
with is every one of you has fucked up your life, a reasonable takeaway is you
don’t have everything quite figured out. And therefore you might want to just
keep your head down and try to do a few simple things right. You know, start
small. So when a chief of police offers you your job back, you could say “Yes,
sir; thank you, sir” and get your sorry ass in.

* * * *

I drove in careful, like a buzzed
teenager afraid of getting pulled over, and parked alongside the building. It
was real good to see Ryan’s blue Mitsubishi there. I didn’t yet have a plastic
key card for the rear entrance, so I went around to the front and checked in at
Reception. The woman looked down at her computer screen. “Chief Murtaugh is
expecting you,” she said. “Do you know where his office is?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Thanks.”

She pointed me to the door. “I’ll buzz you in.” She
gave me a medium-watt smile.

I walked through the door, down the hall I’d
walked down for fifteen years. Branched off into the detectives’ bullpen, which
was empty. I stopped to look at my old desk, head to head with Ryan’s near the
middle of the bullpen. There were a couple of cardboard boxes on it, stuff
sticking out the top: mugs, a few framed photos, desk crap. New flat-screen
monitors sat on my old desk and Ryan’s.

I walked past the break room and the bathrooms,
down the hall to the chief’s office.

His assistant looked up, nodded officially, said,
“Go on in, Detective.” Apparently, I really was employed again.

I walked into the chief’s office. Immediately, I
recognized Ryan. He was standing with his back to the door, hands on his hips,
but his broad shoulders were pretty hard to miss. When he heard me, he turned
and flashed the big ear-to-ear grin that I remembered from our couple of weeks
together half a year and a lifetime ago. He leaned in and gave me a little-brother
hug, saying “So glad you’re back, Karen” soft enough for just me to hear. I chose
to believe him.

Chief Murtaugh stood there, no expression on his
good-looking face. He nodded, acknowledging that I’d passed my first audition
by showing up. “Seagate, you and Miner will be heading up the Dolores Weston
case. I’ve chosen you two because you knew her from the Arlen Hagerty case. Tell
me what I need to know about Weston.”

“Sure,” I said, not expecting to have to make a
presentation within two minutes of walking back into headquarters. “She was
from back East, old-money Republican. The link to the Hagerty case—you read
about that one, the president of Soul Savers, he got killed here in town?—never
became public because we ruled her out as a suspect. But, anyway, she was
paying off Hagerty five thousand a month for his organization to support her
for election.”

The chief said, “Why was that?”

“She had a relationship with this big
pharmaceutical company, Henley, from New Jersey. They were going to set up a
facility in the Rawlings area. They’d even arranged for their hot-shit
researcher, a biology PhD named Lakshmi Kumaraswamy, to get a nice job here at
the university. The problem was, the thing this biologist was working on was
stem-cell research, which scared the Republicans in the legislature because
they thought it was about killing fetuses and making clones and stuff like
that. So Weston was paying off Hagerty to get his endorsement.”

“Those payoffs never went public?”

“No, it wasn’t related to the Hagerty murder. She
just handed him an envelope every month. It was dirty but legal.”

“Is that all you’ve got on her?”

“No, one other thing. She was taking money from
Henley. They had her listed as a consultant, which was bullshit. She didn’t do
any consulting. What she did was sponsor the bill that greased the wheels for
Henley to set up shop here.”

“You’re talking about the tax breaks for companies
that create one-hundred jobs, right?”

“That’s right,” I said. “She pitched it in the
legislature as a job-creation bill, which I guess it was.”

“So it was legit, the consulting agreement with
Henley?” the chief said.

“No, I don’t think so. Henley gave her stock
options, which they undervalued so she could sell the stock and pocket the
profit. What was the name of that law she was breaking, Ryan?”

The chief didn’t give Ryan a chance to answer.
“That’s Sarbanes-Oxley. Says you have to value the stock options at the price
of the shares on the day you sign them over.”

“Yeah, that’s it,” I said. “Sarbanes-Oxley.”

“So how did that shake out?” the chief said.

“How do you mean?”

“Sarbanes-Oxley is a federal law. If Henley Pharma
broke that law by playing games with the stock price, that should have been
prosecuted. Where does the case stand now?”

“I have no idea,” I said. “We threatened to
divulge it—not the violation of any federal law or anything—but just put it out
in the media how this state senator is making a profit from a pharmaceutical
company back East. That scared the shit out of her, and she cooperated with us.
We ruled her out as a suspect in the Hagerty murder, and that was that. We
learned that the guy who killed Hagerty was this Warren Endriss, the guy who
debated against him.”

“So Dolores Weston was paying off Hagerty, and
Henley Pharma was paying off Weston, and none of this had anything to do with
the Hagerty murder?”

“That’s right,” I said. “We closed the Hagerty
case. The money changing hands was kinda like professional courtesy. Weston was
buying legitimacy from Hagerty’s organization, and Henley Pharmaceuticals was
buying access to Weston—plus some nice tax breaks—as a way to open a research
facility here in a really red state with cheap land.”

“And you didn’t refer the case to the federal
prosecutor here in Montana?”

“I didn’t really have time to—”

“Okay, you went on leave of absence immediately
after the Hagerty case was resolved, and Chief Arnold apparently didn’t refer
the case.” The chief paused. “All right,” he said. “I want the three of us to
go out to the crime scene in a half hour, okay?”

“Sounds good,” I said.

“Ryan, you want to help Seagate get set up in the
bullpen?”

“You bet,” Ryan said.

* * * *

Back at our desks, Ryan
said, “Sorry about the boxes.” He started to lift one of them. “Let me bring
them into the break room.”

“No, don’t,” I said. “I’ll take care of that
myself.” When we worked together before, I’d let him hold a door or two, but I
didn’t want him treating me like anything other than his partner now.
Especially now that I was officially Damaged Goods.

“So,” he said, his smile glowing, “I’m so glad you
decided to come back, Karen. How’re you feeling?”

“Tell you the truth, Ryan, it’s more like Chief
Murtaugh decided I’d come back. Him and the bank holding my mortgage. Those
two, together.”

“Well, whatever, it’s sure good to see you again.”
He had a great smile. “Haven’t heard from you since you left.”

I looked down at my hands. I was gripping the back
of my chair. “Yeah, well, you know how it is. I was gone. You were real busy.”
I tried to smile. “You had a new partner, new cases.” Yeah, that was it: he was
busy. Also, I was passed out most of the time.

“Still …” he said, letting it trail off.

“So, catch me up. Kali and the baby, they doing
okay?”

“Yeah, they’re fine. The baby’s walking now. I put
those plugs in the light sockets. Got that accordion fence to block off the top
of the stairs. You remember that stuff?”

Tommy was zipping around at about a year, getting
into everything. He’d tear off toward the little fence as fast as he could. I
swear he knew it was a game, knew I’d be right behind him to scoop him up by
the waist, lift him up over my head. We’d both be laughing. Seemed like twenty
or thirty times a day, at least. “Yeah, I do remember that.” Where I was last
night? Not quite sure. “And the new baby? When’s it due?”

“It’s going to be a little boy. Three weeks,
tomorrow, that’s the date.”

“Kali doing okay?”

“She better be.” He smiled. “Three more to go
after him.”

I leaned over and touched his arm. “That’s great,
Ryan. I’m so happy for you.” My eyes were a little wet, but I held it together.