Chapter 18
chapter
eighteen
Riverfront Coffee buzzed with mid-morning activity. Tourists clustered near windows overlooking the Savannah River. Businesspeople tapped at laptops while nursing expensive espresso drinks. College students sprawled across corner sofas, textbooks open beside empty pastry plates.
Parks occupied a corner booth away from the windows. Back to the wall. Clear sightlines to both entrances. He wore civilian clothes—jeans and a button-down shirt beneath a lightweight jacket, despite the heat. The jacket concealed his shoulder holster.
Lawson slid into the booth opposite him. "Took precautions getting here?"
"Standard protocol when department channels are compromised." Parks pushed a coffee cup toward her. "Americano. Room for cream."
She accepted without comment. He'd remembered her order from their previous meeting. "Wallace shutting down the investigation?"
"Official statement calls it suicide with confession." Parks kept his voice low. "Case closed pending pro forma review."
"Convenient narrative."
"Too convenient." Parks glanced around before reaching into his messenger bag. "Which is why I secured this before the DA's team could misplace it."
He slid a clear evidence bag across the table. Inside lay a folded sheet of paper sealed in plastic. No official evidence tag. No chain of custody documentation.
"You took evidence from a crime scene." Lawson didn't touch the bag.
"Secured evidence that would otherwise disappear." Parks pushed it closer. "My authority as Internal Affairs investigator establishes legal chain of custody if needed."
"And if Wallace questions your authority?"
"I answer to Professional Standards Division, not the Chief." Parks tapped the bag. "Found this hidden inside an air vent in Hutchinson's bedroom. Taped behind the register cover."
Lawson opened the evidence bag carefully. The paper inside showed age—creases from multiple foldings, slight yellowing at the edges. She recognized the handwriting immediately. Monica's distinctive script. The same handwriting from the journal and storage unit documents.
She unfolded it carefully, preserving the plastic covering. Not a confession but a list of names. Department personnel organized by division. Patrol. Narcotics. Homicide. Vice. Her own name appeared at the top with a notation: "Can trust completely."
"This isn't what I expected." Lawson scanned the document. "These aren't dirty cops. These are the clean ones."
"Officers who refused bribes or participation in cover-ups." Parks nodded. "Landry documented the honest cops for protection."
Lawson examined the list more carefully. Most names had been crossed out. Some with dates noted beside them. Others with notations like "transferred" or "resigned." Only three names remained unmarked—her own, a patrol sergeant who'd retired last year, and a records clerk who'd moved to Atlanta.
"The pattern emerges when you check the dates." Parks sipped his coffee. "Five years of systematic removal. Every crossed-out officer was either dead, transferred, or forced out through manufactured complaints."
"Someone's been cleaning house." The realization crystallized. "Removing obstacles to department corruption."
"Exactly." Parks leaned forward. "Notice anything about Hutchinson's name?"
Lawson found it in the Narcotics section. Crossed out with different ink. More recent than the other markings. "Monica crossed him off the clean list."
"Changed her assessment at some point." Parks nodded. "Question becomes why."
"He turned. Started working with whoever was running the corruption." Lawson studied the document again. "But why would Hutchinson keep this? It implicates him."
"Leverage, perhaps. Protection against whoever runs the organization." Parks took the list back and returned it to his messenger bag. "Or evidence he planned to use for negotiation if caught."
"Or someone planted it for us to find." Lawson countered with another possibility. "Creating false connections."
"Unlikely given its location." Parks shook his head. "Hidden too carefully for planted evidence. Required specific knowledge of the apartment layout."
Lawson considered the implications. The list documented a systematic purge spanning five years. Clean officers removed through carefully orchestrated means. Monica tracking the pattern until her death. Hutchinson initially trusted, then marked untrustworthy.
"There's more." Parks extracted another evidence bag from his messenger bag. Smaller than the first. Single notecard inside. "Found this behind the same vent. Different paper. More recent."
Monica's handwriting again. A single line centered on the card: "He knows I know."
No name. No elaboration. Just four words documenting a fatal realization.
"She discovered who ran the corruption network." Lawson stared at the card. "Confronted Hutchinson about his involvement."
"Which gave him motive for her murder." Parks finished the thought. "Yet someone killed him to prevent that connection from emerging in Blackwell's podcast."
"Someone higher in the organization." Lawson remembered the hooded figure from the security footage. "Someone who couldn't risk Hutchinson talking if pressured."
"Exactly." Parks returned the notecard to his bag. "The confession note serves a dual purpose. Closes Monica's case while preventing further investigation into Hutchinson's connections."
The coffee shop filled with new customers. A tour group entered, chattering about riverboat cruises and historic homes. The noise provided additional privacy for their conversation.
"Department corruption explains the evidence gaps in Monica's case." Lawson kept her voice low. "The purposeful mishandling. The witnesses never re-interviewed."
"And why Internal Affairs received direct orders to stand down on certain investigations," Parks nodded. "Cases involving specific businesses or individuals quietly redirected despite clear evidence."
"Which businesses?"
"Construction companies. Import businesses. Entertainment venues." Parks recited from memory. "The pattern becomes visible only when examining five years of case assignments across divisions."
"Monica found the pattern." Lawson tapped her fingers against the table. "Started documenting the clean officers as potential allies."
"Then realized the corruption reached higher than she anticipated." Parks glanced toward the entrance as new customers arrived. "Became more cautious about who to trust."
Lawson thought about Monica's journal entry. The meeting with Hutchinson at the warehouse. Her uneasiness about him. The floodlight positioned for ambush. Pieces clicked into place.
"Hutchinson lured her to the warehouse." The scenario formed in her mind. "Set up the ambush on orders from whoever runs the organization."
"Then someone killed him to prevent that connection from becoming public." Parks nodded. "The question remains who benefits most from maintaining the corruption system."
The coffee shop television switched to breaking news. Camera footage showed the medical examiner's van outside Hutchinson's apartment building. The caption read: "Detective's Suicide Linked to Cold Case Murder."
Parks studied the screen with narrowed eyes. "Narrative control. Statement crafted to close both cases simultaneously."
"Wallace orchestrating the media response?"
"Or following instructions from above." Parks checked his watch. "The DA will announce case closure by noon. Department statement to follow confirming the confession matches evidence from Landry's murder."
"Except it doesn't." Lawson remembered Parks' earlier revelations about evidence never processed. "The forensics were deliberately mishandled."
"Which no one will ever investigate now that Hutchinson provided convenient closure."
Parks studied her for a long moment, seeming to weigh his words carefully. "There's something you should know about why I'm really here. Why I requested this case specifically."
Lawson set down her coffee, sensing the shift in his tone. "Go on."
"Three years ago, I lost my partner. Detective Bram Kowalski.
" Parks stared into his mug, voice taking on the careful cadence of someone who'd rehearsed this story many times.
"Officially, it was a single-car accident.
Bram supposedly drove off Highway 17 after drinking. Case closed in forty-eight hours."
"But you don't believe that."
"Bram was investigating evidence tampering.
Had been for months. Found patterns in major drug cases—evidence disappearing, chain of custody problems, financial records becoming corrupted right before trial.
" Parks looked up, meeting her gaze. "He called me the night he died.
Said he'd found something big. Was taking it to Internal Affairs the next morning. "
The parallel struck Lawson immediately. "Like Monica."
"Exactly like Monica. Both discovered corruption.
Both died before they could expose it. Both had their evidence disappear afterward.
" Parks pulled a small photograph from his wallet—two men in uniform, arms around each other's shoulders at what looked like a department barbecue.
"Bram was methodical. Organized. The kind of guy who planned his grocery lists a week in advance.
He didn't develop sudden drinking problems or reckless driving habits. "
Lawson studied the photo. Kowalski had been younger than Parks, with the earnest expression of someone who still believed the system could be fixed from within.
"The alcohol in his system?"
"Blood draw showed point-one-two. Well over the limit. But I'd worked with Bram for four years. Never saw him drink more than a single beer, and that only at retirement parties." Parks returned the photo to his wallet. "Someone wanted him drunk when that car went off the road."
"Did you investigate?"