Chapter Twenty-Four #2
“You’ll be the first to know.” Sam left the captain’s office and made her way to the department’s library.
She could count on one hand the number of times she’d made use of the resources contained in the library, but with the Coyne files missing, she needed context she could only get from news stories about the case.
The library kept microfilm copies of old copies of the Post and the Star dating back to before the papers were digitized, and that’s where she’d start to look for much-needed context on the Coyne shooting.
Perhaps she was chasing her tail by bothering to take another look at that case, but she’d learned to trust the hunches that rarely disappointed her.
The librarian, a woman named June Mercer, perked up when Sam stepped into the third-floor library. Short and stout with gray hair cut into a bob and bright blue eyes, she’d been the department’s librarian for more than thirty years.
“Good morning, Lieutenant.”
“Good morning.”
“How can I help you?”
“I’m looking for newspapers from decades ago.”
“You’ve come to the right place. Do you have a date?”
Sam recited the date.
“That’s the day Officer Coyne was killed.”
“Yes.”
June gave her a long look before seeming to realize she was staring.
“Let me get that for you.” She set Sam up on a microfilm machine and showed her how to scroll through the coverage of the Coyne shooting.
“I took the liberty of getting you everything from the day after the shooting through the funeral. There were a number of stories in the months that followed until the case went cold and the coverage dried up.”
“I’ll take whatever you’ve got.”
“I’ll get you the rest.”
“Thank you very much.”
“I wanted you to know how sorry I was to hear about your father’s passing. He was a lovely man and a great cop.”
“I appreciate that, and I agree. He was the best.”
“I’ll leave you to your work.”
Sam called up the first articles that detailed the brazen shooting of a Metro Police officer in broad daylight on a city street.
The Post story mentioned how Coyne’s partner, Officer Skip Holland, had been standing feet away from Coyne when he was struck down.
Her father had never gotten over that happening when he was right there, just as Gonzo struggled with the similar circumstances of Arnold’s shooting.
She took a good long look at the familiar face of Steven Coyne—he’d been handsome and intense with dark eyes.
His dark hair had been buzzed per the department regulations at the time.
Her father had always said Steven was one of the finest cops he’d ever worked with—a cop’s cop, the kind who always had your back and never failed to do the right thing no matter the consequences.
Skip had never forgotten his first partner or how he’d died.
There’d been few details about the make or model of the car from which the gunfire originated, with witnesses stating that it had happened so fast the car was gone before they realized the officer had been fatally shot.
For years after the shooting, Skip had agonized over the dearth of information in an investigation that had gone nowhere fast and quickly gone cold.
Like how his case had years later, Sam thought, the similarities remarkable in many ways.
The only difference being that Skip had survived—albeit just barely.
He’d come out of the haze of the shooting with no memories of the weeks leading up to it, which had further hampered their efforts to find the shooter.
Had he stumbled upon something that had led to the Coyne case or was his shooting entirely random?
The not-knowing was maddening. She couldn’t imagine how difficult that had to have been for Alice over the years.
The Holland family had lived in a state of purgatory for four years. Her hell had spanned decades.
Sam continued to read the articles about the Coyne case, taking her time to read each word while hoping her dyslexia wouldn’t kick in to scramble the text.
By taking it slowly, she had a greater chance of getting through it without a problem.
Tackling the reading earlier in the day also tended to help.
As Sam read, June continued to add articles to Sam’s folder from her workstation behind the main desk.
Sam opened a story from the Star, dated two months before Steven died, that showed a political rally for Roy Gallagher.
In a photo that accompanied the article, Steven stood behind Gallagher on the dais, wearing a suit and an earpiece.
He’d been named in the caption, which is why June’s search for the name Coyne had yielded the photo.
Had he provided security for Gallagher? And why had Gallagher needed security?
“Hey, June? Would it be possible to get everything from Roy Gallagher’s first run for city council?”
“Of course. I’ll add that to your folder.”
“Excellent. Thank you.” Sam had all new respect for June the librarian, who was proving extremely useful.
She read for hours about Gallagher, his meteoric rise to political power on the District’s City Council.
Gallagher was a Democrat raised by working-class parents in the city’s Foxhall Village neighborhood, located blocks from Georgetown University.
He’d been elected an at-large member of the council eleven times, making him the longest-serving member—and its most powerful member as the council chairman for the last sixteen years.
Sam read how the council members each receive a salary of $132,990 with the council chair paid $190,000 annually.
“Damn. I’m in the wrong business.”
“Did you say something, Lieutenant?”
“I’m marveling at how well paid the city councilors are compared to the rest of us.”
“They do have a sweet deal.”
What would someone like Gallagher do to protect that sweet deal?
She read about his business interests—several five-star restaurants in the city, one of which had been a favorite of hers and Nick’s back when they’d been able to move more freely.
In addition, he owned several high-end apartment buildings and a boutique hotel.
Where in the hell did a guy with a working-class background who made $190,000 a year from his day job get the capital for all those businesses?
She rolled her chair to a computer workstation next to the microfilm machine and called up the search function on a browser and typed in Gallagher’s name, looking for more information about his personal life and his businesses.
The search returned a treasure trove of articles, most of them proclaiming him a genius when it came to business with almost everything he touched turning to gold.
A photo with one of the articles showed him with his gorgeous blond wife, Crystal Sands Gallagher, the daughter of Maurice Sands, who’d done time in federal prison in the 1970s for gambling and racketeering.
Before his death thirty years ago, he’d been rumored to have ties to organized crime, but that had never been proven.
Tingling sensations spiraled down her backbone, always a sign that she was on to something. But what?
Rubbing her tired eyes, she tried to put the pieces together, but they refused to yield anything that made sense. The first thing she wanted to know was more about Steven Coyne’s connection to Gallagher and whether he’d done private security for Gallagher when he was a candidate for the council.
“Thanks again for your help,” she said to June.
“Any time.”
Sam went back to her office, closed the door and picked up the phone to call Alice.
She answered on the third ring.
“Hi, it’s Sam Holland. I had another question for you.”
“Of course. Whatever I can do.”
“Tell me about Steven’s relationship with Roy Gallagher.”
“They were good friends from the academy.”
“Did Steven do private security for him during his first campaign for the council?”
“Not that I ever knew. He went to some of the rallies and fundraisers, but I wasn’t aware of any formal role.”
The earpiece Steven had been wearing in the picture was the only clue Sam had that he’d been providing security of some sort. “Would he have told you if he was working for Gallagher on the side?”
“I think he would have. We didn’t keep secrets from each other.” She let out a gasp. “Wait. The money.”
“What money?” Sam held her breath, waiting to hear what Alice would say next.
“About two weeks before he died, he came home one night with a wad of cash that he said he’d found on the street.”
Sam took frantic notes.
“I asked him why he hadn’t reported it. He said he did, and when no one claimed it they said he could keep it.”
“They being?”
“I assumed it was MPD officials.”
“How much was it?”
“Ten thousand dollars. That money paid my rent for six months after Steven died.”
“And you never heard anything more from the department about the money?”
“No, nothing. Should I have?”
“I don’t think so. I was just wondering.”
“No one ever said anything to me, but about four months after Steven was killed, I came home one day to a package on my front porch that had another ten thousand dollars in cash. I…I didn’t report it to anyone because I needed it so badly.
Steven hadn’t been on the force for long, and his life insurance hadn’t fully kicked in. ”
“Have you ever told anyone about the money?”
“I was afraid if I did, someone might ask me to give it back.”
“This has been very helpful, Alice.”
“Is there… I mean, if I had to pay back the money, I couldn’t.”
“You won’t have to. Don’t worry.”
“Oh good.” Her sigh of relief came through loud and clear.
“I know it’s painful for you to think about, but is there anything about Steven’s last few weeks that stands out in your memories? Anything different or unusual?”
Alice took a moment to think about that. “He was stressed out about something.”
“He didn’t say what?”
“Only that work was extra busy, but I sensed it was more than that. I never could get him to tell me what was wrong.”
Sam wrote down every word she said. “If you think of anything else Steven ever said about Roy Gallagher or anything having to do with him, no matter how minor it might seem, please call me.”
“I will. You don’t think that Roy had something to do with Steven’s death, do you? They were such good friends.”
“I honestly have no idea.”
“Wouldn’t that be something? After all these years, to finally know what happened, to have answers.”
“Yes, it would.”
“Thank you for all you’re doing. Even if it doesn’t yield answers, it’s nice to know that people still care about my Steven.”
“Of course we do. He was one of us. He always will be.”
“Means a lot.”
“I’ll be in touch.”
For a long time after she ended the call, Sam sat perfectly still and tried to think it through from all angles. Someone had paid Steven ten grand before his death and then had made sure his widow was cared for afterward. Was it the same person? And if so, was that person the one who killed him?
Malone came to the door. “We found the messenger bag in the trunk of Conklin’s wife’s car.”