The Ten-Mile Trials (10 page)

About the same time, Minneapolis–Saint Paul was changing from two busy cities into one burgeoning megalopolis, devouring its surrounding cornfields with new suburbs. The hundred miles of Highway Fifty-Two that used to separate Rutherford from all that action shrank to eighty, and with four lanes and higher speeds lost most of its buffering effect. Any Twin Cities criminal looking to expand his business could climb into an SUV and be on our doorstep in a little over an hour. Rutherford still looked the part of the bucolic farm center it had always been, surrounded by green acres of dairy cows and silos. But we were suddenly a long way from the shores of Gitche Gumee – we had to pull up our socks in a hurry.

I got promoted to head of Rutherford's rapidly expanding investigative division the following year, and Bo Dooley was an important component in the reorganization that followed. We split into two divisions, People Crimes and Property Crimes. I got a headman for each division, and Bo carved out a vice division in the middle, doing most of the legwork himself and getting help when he needed it from the rest of us. He jumped nimbly on board one of the other teams, too, if the cases piled up.

Bo more than carried his load, nobody complained about his work. But he was a hard blend with the rest of the crew – he didn't fish or hunt, or show much interest in team sports. He had a face that looked as if it would be right at home in a knife fight, and yet he wore small diamond earrings and offbeat clothes – he was different. Behind his back, some of the guys called him The Drug Czar. He was wrapped a little too tight – I kept waiting for him to go out a window without waiting to open it.

He came out one Saturday to help me when I found some crack in my golf bag. That's a whole other story – the point is, he came on his battered old Harley and brought along this tiny girl child in a pink helmet. He introduced her gravely as ‘my daughter Nelly.' She looked just like him and behaved like three years old going on forty. That day I began to realize Bo was carrying an extra load he didn't talk about. Soon enough I learned what it was. His wife was battling a crack addiction, and the fight wasn't going her way.

Bo didn't give up easy. To be fair, I'm sure Diane tried hard too, but she was well and truly hooked. She would come back from a cure, more wraithlike every time, and try to reclaim her place with an increasingly standoffish Nelly. Eventually some of her pals would visit in the daytime while Bo was at work, and in a few days she's be gone again. Bo, with his face like granite, would be quietly putting the word out. Shortly after Nelly's fifth birthday Diane disappeared for the last time, and Bo filed for divorce.

‘We can't do this any more,' he said. ‘It's too hard on Nelly.' He was quieter than ever during the months that followed. Then he caused the first tremors in a personnel earthquake that was still shaking my section.

Months before the present budget shortfall, Ray commented that Bo seemed oddly critical of a sting we were planning. In particular, Bo thought that Rosie Doyle, acting as decoy, had insufficient security.

The first female detective in the Rutherford Police Department, Rosie did not so much break down barriers as fail to notice their existence. She had worked with Bo many times and had always held up her end. So why, Ray and I wondered, was Bo getting so antsy about Rosie's part in this particular operation?

When Rosie got hurt in the sting Bo had opposed, the air between Ray and Bo, which had never been cordial, turned rancid. That string of muggings culminated in a homicide, and we concentrated on that for a while.

Then I visited Rosie's hospital room and found her locked in Bo Dooley's passionate embrace.

Grand as it is when people find happiness, two capable detectives finding it in adjoining cubicles in my department was about as welcome as a fast-spreading case of the mange. I knew at once that resentment and jealousy would swirl around the lovers. Morale would be affected, assignments would have to be reshuffled. On the street, did anybody think they would not be watching out for each other first?

Before I'd thought of half the possibilities, I got shot. By the time I got back at my desk and was ready to worry some more, Bo took the matter out of my hands. Standing just inside my doorway, he stared at his shoes for some time as if he suspected the laces might be going to explode. Finally he managed to blurt, ‘I need to tell you I've put in my application to transfer to Domestic Violence.'

Unable to believe my ears, I said, stupidly, ‘Oh?'

‘Yes.' He inspected the thin sliver of sky outside my one small window. His mouth moved a couple of times but no words came out.

I said, ‘You know, nobody around here is criticizing . . . what's happening between you and Rosie.' Actually a small parade of detectives had come into my office, closed the door, and asked how did I plan to make this, you know, work? But for some reason I thought I owed him that lie. He recognized its base dishonesty at once and stared at his toes again in embarrassment. I made it worse, saying, ‘I'm sorry if I've seemed disapproving. It's just – I don't know yet how it's going to work, I guess.'

‘I don't think it will,' he said. ‘So it's better if I work someplace else.'

‘I don't exactly disagree. But – Domestic Violence? Isn't that a little like Derek Jeter signing on with the Rutherford Honkers?' The local semi-pro team was having a disastrous season, which only a faithful fan would notice was any worse than its usual season.

‘DV crews get very few call-outs on nights and weekends. First responders mostly handle the initial incident and pass along the ones they think need follow-up.'

‘I know. So?'

‘So Nelly starts first grade this fall and I'd like to be home evenings and weekends, to see she gets started right.'

‘Ah.' I looked at him, thinking, what's that got to do with what's going on with Rosie?

‘It's hard for Nelly to . . . she can't remember when she could count on her mom. So she's pretty . . . um . . . possessive . . . of me. I'm hoping if she gets a good start in school, makes some friends . . . it might get easier for her to accept Rosie.'

I looked at him standing there, ready to suffer some more, and wondered, why is it some guys can never catch a break? He finally had a healthy, capable woman to love, and now his daughter didn't want her in the house. I said, ‘Well. How's it looking? For the assignment?'

‘It just came through. I start in two weeks.'

‘Damn. I mean, I'm happy for you but I can't replace you with anyone close to your level of experience.'

‘Rosie's been helping me for a couple of years,' he said. ‘She's good now and what she doesn't know I'll teach her.'

‘That'll work, I guess. It better, because all retraining programs are cancelled for at least the rest of the year.'

‘I know. They said at DV I'd have to learn the ropes from the crew that's there. The city's flat busted, huh?'

‘Not to mention the state and the nation. Basic boot camp for new recruits, that's it. The rest has got to be monkey see, monkey do.'

‘So,' Bo said, ‘us old guys gonna finally get some respect, huh?' He gave me a tight little smile that hardly moved the rest of his face.

I have never subscribed to the notion I hear occasionally from crusty codgers that maybe another Great Depression might be good for us, take us back to the simpler life and the sharing they claim to remember from the Dirty Thirties. I can't speak for those far-off days, but I took a few knocks myself, growing up in foster homes in the seventies, and my impression was hard times make people harder. But driving home that afternoon past ramrod-straight rows of corn, I thought maybe the present fiscal calamity wasn't all bad, if I was right in believing that Bo Dooley had just made a joke.

‘Dooley.' Bo answered the phone, in his new office, in his usual dry-as-dust voice. His telephone manner suggests he knows your call is bad news and is not surprised.

‘Bo,' I said, ‘you called?'

‘About the woman I picked up at the grow house,' he said. ‘Gloria Funk.'

‘Oh, yes. I interviewed her in the infirmary later that day.'

‘You did? Why? I mean, why you?'

‘Things are a little mixed up around here right now,' I said. ‘We're kind of taking the tasks as they come. What can I do for you?'

‘Gloria was back in jail this morning and made her court date.'

‘Rosie took her over, yes. I haven't heard yet what the disposition is. Where's her child, do you know?'

‘CPS took her to Child and Family Services for the weekend. There's a grandmother – Gloria gave me her number but she was at work. She said she'd have to change her hours to take the little girl, so it will take a while. She wasn't at all eager to have her, but she said she'd take the child if we promised not to send Gloria. I assured her Gloria's going to prison, so – but then I got into court and found Rosie and the CA there pitching this story to the judge about the contrite mother who wants to reform and get her child back.'

‘Gloria's willing to testify for the prosecution. I called Milo about her, I think they've already talked.'

‘Well, Jake, did you see the house? You know she's been using meth?'

‘Yes, but she's begging for help getting into detox. She's ready to tell everything she knows about the grow house. Milo's going to bat for her because she's his star witness. The broken nose is quite convincing.'

‘Jake, she's an addict.'

‘Right. Why else would she be living with an abusive drug dealer?'

‘Well, do you know the odds against anybody kicking a meth habit? Why would you want to help somebody like that get her kid back?'

‘Whoa, we're a long way from that decision yet. Besides, aren't you on the wrong side of this conversation? You're in Domestic Violence now, Gloria Funk's your client.'

‘Sure. My job was to get her out of that house and away from the guy who was breaking her face. And I did that. But now she's trying to cast herself as a victim and avoid prosecution for dealing and possible murder. It's not my job to help her with that.'

‘Bo,' I said, ‘before you say any more I think you better have a chat with your supervisor because I believe you're trying to redesign the vehicle you're riding in.'

‘Fat chance of that,' he said softly.

‘Of what? Talking to your supervisor?'

‘Yes. Well,' he said hastily, ‘talk to you later.' And was gone.

I stared at my desk blotter for a couple of minutes after he hung up, feeling as if I'd just listened to the beginning of a train wreck and wondering if I ought to signal somebody down the track. Who, though?

While I was still pondering, Kevin Evjan strode back in. He was leading one of his newer detectives, the hockey player who looked about twelve. What was his name? ‘See, he's just sitting there doing nothing,' Kevin told this fresh-faced kid. ‘He might as well talk to us.'

‘I'm ruminating,' I said. ‘It's an important management skill.'

‘I bet. You remember Gary Krogstad?' The kid and I mumbled pleasantries and they sat down. ‘He's been on a high lope for the last three days, interviewing people whose houses have been broken into. Tell him,' he commanded; and Gary spoke up as if Kevin had pulled his string.

‘The striking feature of many of these burglaries is how quickly they're being executed, often in daylight. People keep saying things like, ‘I just ran down to the shopping center for my regular hair appointment, I was only gone for two hours.'

‘I'm sure we've got a set of thieves who have somebody on the inside, Jake,' Kevin said. Typically, he'd insisted Gary do the talking but now he couldn't shut up and let him do it. ‘They know just where to look. They get in, get the good stuff right away, and they're gone. No browsing.'

‘We talking free-standing houses here?'

‘Oh, you bet – the biggest, most expensive houses in town, the older elegant ones up on the hill, and the new ones out northeast. No condos for these birds, nothing but the best. They get in without doing much damage, give them that. It's like they know where the soft spots are, a basement window left open or a French door that's easy to jimmy. They steal very nice things, but at least they don't leave much home repair behind.'

‘How about prints?' I asked Gary. ‘They leaving any of those behind?'

‘Techies haven't found a smudge. They must wear gloves every minute.'

‘And have an accomplice working in a home service industry?' I said.

‘That's what we think,' Kevin said. ‘House cleaners, yard work, one of those. I've got two detectives out right now, getting lists of all services used by the last dozen homeowners.'

‘Good.'

‘It all takes time, though, damn it. How am I supposed to break up organized groups like this with fewer and fewer people?'

‘You can't. You won't. Don't think ahead, just do this job today. What's next?'

‘I got a lucky break,' Gary said, looking as if he just got a gold star in fifth grade math.

‘Tell me.'

‘One of the burglaries I investigated Saturday, this woman had a set of three antique dolls, something called German Bisque – that's something about the finish on the head. These dolls have beautiful clothes and wigs, they're worth thousands of dollars. The thieves got two of them, but the third one was in a different cupboard and they missed it. So she had a perfect example, and she let me take pictures and copy the document that came with the doll. We've all been studying it.'