She Who Watches (14 page)

“Good morning to you too.” Dana set two plates on the table, then reached over with a remote and snapped off the TV. “I turned it on for the company. Ready to eat?”

“After all that food last night, I shouldn't be hungry; but I'm starved.”

Dana pulled a carton of orange juice from the refrigerator and filled two long-stemmed glasses, then set them on the table.

“I'm hungry too,” she gestured toward the plates, “which is why I made breakfast. I usually just grab a yogurt and granola.”

Mac eased into one of four wooden chairs in the small alcove. “Thanks for letting me crash here last night.”

“Don't mention it.” She pulled out a chair opposite him. “I'm glad you were here.”

They ate in relative silence, finding comfort in the sunny spot, the good food, and each other's company.

Dana drained her juice and said, “I'm going to church this morning. Want to come?”

He raised an eyebrow. “I didn't know you went to church.”

“I do when I have Sundays off.”

He sighed. Church seemed like a good place to be this morning.

“I'd like that, but I need to get home and shower. I'm thinking I should go in to the office. Start working on the Watson case.”

“I thought you might. We could go to church first and then head over there. I need to drive you there anyway to get your car.”

“True.”
Church
. He hadn't been to a church since the funeral he'd attended for Megan Tyson. Megan's murder had been his first assignment as a homicide detective. “Sure, why not? Only you'll have to take me by my place so I can shower and change.”

CHURCH TURNED OUT TO BE A PLEASANT SURPRISE. The minister, a soft-spoken man, talked about Daniel Revman and how he'd lost his life in the process of making the community a better place. Mac appreciated that.

They were filing out of the church when a familiar voice called out his name. “Antonio?”

He whipped around. “Nana?” A grin spread across his face. Glancing at Dana, he said, “Did you know she was coming to church here?”

“Um—yeah, I did. She's the one who invited me. At Eric's barbeque last spring.”

“Huh.” Turning back to the older woman with white hair, he gave her a hug. “I didn't know you came to this church!”

“Well, you would if you'd come with me. How many times have I asked? And it's always, ‘I'm working.'” Her gaze flashed to Dana. “How did you get him to come?”

Dana smiled. “Long story.”

Nana nodded, knowingly. “So are you two dating?”

Mac flushed. Nana never minced words.

Dana, as usual, was quick to dispute the allegation. “We're just friends, Nana.”

She clicked her tongue. “Too bad. Can you come by my place, Antonio? Have lunch with me. It's been too long.”

“Just last week.” He tried to stop by at least once a week, but for her it was never enough.

“I know, but it seems longer.”

He bent down to kiss her wrinkled cheek. “Later,Nana. When I get off work. I promise. Right now, Dana and I need to get to the office.We're working on an important case.”

“You work too hard. Both of you.” She heaved a resigned sigh.

“Be careful.”

MAC AND DANA STOPPED FOR A QUICK LUNCH and coffee before going in to the office. Once there, Dana went on ahead while Mac lingered in the squad room. His gaze roamed over the spot where he had last seen Daniel, and he gripped the back of the chair Daniel had been sitting in. He small-talked with the troopers who were passing on rumors and speculating about how the trooper had died and what would become of the suspects who'd been arrested during the raid.

A sergeant with Fish and Wildlife entered the squad room and tossed a small manila envelope on one of the tables. Several small black cloth bands spilled out of the package. “We were out of these, so I had them shuttled up from the stockroom in Salem,” the sergeant told them.

The contents of the package needed no explanation. They were black mourning bands to be worn over their badges. Mac picked up one of the bands and slipped it over his silver five-point badge, then clipped the badge back on his belt. He grabbed a half-dozen more for the detectives in the back room, took a drink of his coffee, then swirled the contents in the paper cup before taking one more and tossing the cup in the garbage.

Dana, Philly, Russ, and Sergeant Bledsoe were all in the break room when Mac walked in. Philly looked especially shaken, and Mac suspected he carried a big helping of guilt since he and Russ were lead detectives and had initiated the bust. His eyes were bloodshot, and he was taking slow, shallow breaths, his appearance confirming some of Mac's suspicions. Philly was a recovering alcoholic, and was obviously drinking again.

A glance at Dana told him she was thinking the same thing. Russ had made an effort to cover for his partner's tardiness, but Philly was making it difficult to conceal his problem. If this kept up, it wouldn't be long before Philly got called on the carpet. He wondered if Russ had confronted him. Maybe they all should. If peer pressure couldn't bring Philly around, then he would be referred for a fitness-for-duty evaluation and lose his gun and badge until recovery.

“I heard Revman was a friend of yours, Mac,” Philly said. “Can't tell you how bad I feel.”

“There was nothing any of us could have done, Philly.” Kevin slapped the big man on the back.To Mac, he said, “We'd just gotten inside when the blast went off, and there were no intelligence reports to indicate booby traps.”

“I can't imagine what Daniel was thinking,” Mac mused. “You come to expect those things in an outlaw biker clubhouse.” On the other hand, Daniel hadn't been with the SWAT team all that long.

“Did you find any other devices at the house last night?” Dana asked.

Kevin nodded. “Bomb techs found a spring-loaded shotgun in an attic access. They almost missed it. It was set up with a rat trap attached to the trigger by a string, set to go off if someone sprang the trap door without depressing this special rigging they had set up.”

“Any more IEDs like the one that took out Daniel?” Mac wanted to know.

“That was the only one. It was set on a pull chain, which is why he was so close to the blast.

“We found lots of guns and dope. They were dealing pretty heavily out of the house,” Philly added. “Pieces of filth. A good man dies so they can protect their dope from other thieves. Crooks worried about crooks—a never-ending circle.” Philly tossed the rest of his coffee in the small sink and leaned against the counter. He shook his head in disgust and then let out a long string of profanities aimed at the bikers who lived and dealt out their poison.

“Come on, partner.” Russ patted him on the back. “We've got paperwork to do.”

“Phil, I need to speak with you before you take off,” Kevin said.

Mac had no doubt as to the topic of the conversation. Russ apparently knew what was up as well and excused himself, mumbling something about getting started on the reports.

Philly nodded and straightened. “I figured you would.” His look was one of embarrassment rather than fear.

Mac felt bad for Philly and Russ. It was their warrant that had brought the SWAT team to the house, and nothing anyone could say would ease their guilt. Even though the bad guys had planted the explosive device that cost Daniel his life, the officers present would be caught in the blame game. The brass and even the media would scrutinize the information the detectives had prior to serving the warrant. Mac hated the politics of it all. Even though it was not their fault, the uniformed contingent of the department would likely be critical of the detectives' planning and preparation.

The situation created a ton of extra work. Kevin would have to coordinate the investigation with an outside detective team, while Russ and Philly coped with their guilt the best way they could. They would put together their original case and hand it off to a new detective team from Salem, who would put together an aggravated murder case on the bikers.

One good thing would come out of it. Because a police officer was killed, the case would automatically be a qualifier for the death penalty if the Clackamas County district attorney sought the resolution. The citizens of the rural county and the state's police officers wouldn't be happy with anything less.

Mac gave them the black bands he'd picked up and mumbled something about getting to work. Minutes later, sitting at his desk, he pored over dozens of e-mails and listened to his voice-mail messages. He had a subpoena for a suppression hearing on a Columbia County murder he and Dana had worked earlier in the year. The suspect in this case was attacking some statements he'd made at the time of arrest. Attorneys drove him nuts.

He heard Philly come out of Kevin's office and go into his own, making some inane comment to Russ about not having the paperwork done yet. He closed the door, and Mac didn't hear Russ's comment.

Half an hour later, restless and unable to concentrate, Mac went around the partition to Dana's office. “Hey.”

“Hey, yourself.” Dana tipped her head. “You OK?”

“Yeah. Just having trouble concentrating.”

“Me too.”

“What say we sift through the soil we recovered around Sara's body? It probably won't yield much, but it's something physical to do.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

Mac borrowed the temporary evidence key from Sergeant Bledsoe to remove their soil sacks from the evidence room. When officers logged evidence in the temporary compound, they secured their items with large padlocks that only the supervisors had keys for. Once they were processed, they would be logged into a permanent evidence facility, which only a few select individuals could access. Because it was homicide evidence, their policy required that the evidence be maintained for one hundred years. This would weather all the appeals, court hearings, and claims of innocence by those convicted of the crimes.

It wasn't uncommon for the appeals process in the liberal state of Oregon to exceed detectives' careers and, in some cases, their lives. The average death penalty appeal took fifteen years, so the detective may have retired or died before the case was resolved or set for a new trial. In that case, they had to rely on the evidence and the written report. The physical evidence had to be maintained in the event the officers were no longer around to testify to its importance.

Mac walked out to the boat sheds in the back of the patrol office, where the wildlife officers kept their boats and other paraphernalia, looking through a storeroom of odds and ends for the sifter boxes. After wading through old tires, floor jacks, and old patrol car parts, he found the two sifter boxes. The sifters, wood-framed boxes lined with a fine wire mesh, stood on two legs made of wood and metal.

Mac set out large tarps in the shade outside the boat sheds, so they could gather the sifted soil and return it to the large black evidence bags when they were finished. He helped Dana carry out the sacks of soil, placing the bags alongside the first sifter box with the larger mesh. They would sift the soil through the first box, removing all the large rocks and sticks, then through the second sifter that had even smaller mesh that should remove everything but the bare soil. After the process took the refinement down to the sifted soil, he and Dana would have to use fine hand sifters to look through the samples. The pans with a fine mesh resembled something early miners used to locate flakes of precious metal.

“You want to do the dumping or the sifting?” Mac snapped the second latex glove around his wrist.

“I'll do the dumping.” She grinned. “It takes a little more upper body strength to do the other, and let's face it: you are physically stronger than I am.”

“Wow. I never thought I'd hear you admit something like that.”

“And you probably never will again.” Dana picked up a garbage sack as Mac grabbed the corners of the sifter box. She dumped in several pounds of dirt and rock, with Mac starting to rock the sifter back and forth until all the soil was worked through the mesh. After working all the bags through the first sifter, Mac dumped the final tray of contents that were too big to go through the mesh onto a tarp. The collection was mostly rocks, but they did manage to bag and tag some broken glass and an old beer bottle cap that looked like it had been there for years.

When all the rocks and sticks had been set aside, Mac brought over the second sifter with the smaller mesh, and they went through the entire process again. This time, it took the better part of an hour to sift through the dirt, even the finest pebbles and soil holding up in the quarter-inch squares in the wire mesh. After sifting, they had to then dump the remaining items from the tray back on the plastic tarp and go through the items piece by piece to locate any additional evidence. Their backbreaking effort yielded small pieces of glass, probably from the beer bottle the cap had been attached to. Although the items were most likely not connected to the crime, they bagged them. If they didn't seize them, a defense attorney could accuse them of not doing a thorough job at a later date.

“Now comes the fun part,” Mac said sarcastically. “We have to hand-search the entire soil pile with those hand plates there. This is going to take awhile, but anything that goes through that fine mesh is going to stay hidden.” He tossed a plate to Dana and pointed to the side of the pile. They sat down on the tarp and began the tedious process of sifting pound after pound of the soil. They worked late into the afternoon, making small talk about the case and last night's tragedy.

“Does Daniel's death make you think about your shooting, Dana?” Mac asked.

“For sure. I think about it every day, but I thought about it a lot last night and this morning.” Dana smiled and blew a lock of hair out of her eyes.

The average remaining tenure for a police officer who had been involved in a deadly force incident was less than five years. Many quit their jobs and found other lines of work. The jury was still out on Dana; it had been only a few months since she'd taken a round in the chest. Dana still struggled with some issues, but she showed every indication that she would survive the incident professionally.