Chapter Twenty-Three
Sam held a brief closed-door meeting in her office with Freddie, Jeannie and Cameron before their shift officially began. “Ramsey is coming for us. It’s time for us to fight fire with fire.”
“What do you have in mind, LT?” Green asked.
“He’s looking for dirt on us, so we’re going to return the favor.
Let’s take a nice, quiet look at what he’s got going on behind the scenes.
” She made eye contact with each of them.
“That said, no one is required to participate in this. If I had my druthers, none of us would be doing something like this to a colleague.”
“I’m in,” Cruz said.
“Me, too,” McBride said.
Green hesitated, but only for a second. “Me three.”
Sam met the gaze of the earnest detective who’d replaced Arnold, the most by-the-book member of her team. “You’re sure?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“No one outside the four of us is to know about this, and you report anything you find directly to me in person. No paper trails or emails or texts. Everything is verbal. Understood?”
They nodded in agreement.
“The priority is the Weber case and finishing the paperwork on Conklin. This takes a backseat to the regular stuff.” Which meant it would take a while. That was fine. She’d rather they do it right than fast.
With everyone on the same page, she released them to start their shift, hoping she was doing the right thing by fighting Ramsey with some of his own tactics. If it went bad, she’d take the heat for all of them.
Malone had gotten the warrants for Tara’s phone and her account on the dating app, but neither company had yet complied with the order to turn over the information they’d requested.
In truth, she wasn’t holding out any hope for the dating app.
If word got out that they were disclosing private information about their clients to the police, their business would be ruined.
She fully expected them to fight the order in court, which would tie things up long enough for the investigation to play out without them.
The cell phone data, however, she expected to receive anytime now, and once they had that, they could find out who Tara had been talking to around the time her child was conceived as well as her recent communications.
In other words, they could get what they needed from the dating app without the dating app ponying up.
However, it gave her great pleasure to know the app’s management was probably sweating the warrant and having to pay for lawyers to figure out how to fight it.
She found the report she’d been promised detailing the president’s vasectomy in her email and checked that box.
Her phone rang with a call from Faith Miller. “Hey, what’s up?”
“After the hearing about the warrant yesterday, I got a call from the attorney for the dating app company who told me unofficially that the ‘person in question’ hadn’t been active on the app in more than fifteen months.”
“Well, that’s info we didn’t have before. Thank you for that.”
“No problem. Wish it could’ve been more.”
“It’s enough. Thanks, Faith.”
“Sure thing.”
After ending the call and notifying her team of the development with the dating app, Sam turned her attention toward tracing the origins of the story that had broken about Tara’s affair with the president. She placed a call to Darren Tabor at the Washington Star.
“This is an unexpected surprise. By any chance, are you calling to tell me how you feel about the possibility of moving to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue?”
“Shockingly, that’s not why I’m calling.”
“Oh damn. And here I thought I was going to get the exclusive of the year.”
“Sorry to disappoint.”
His huff of laughter came through loud and clear. “No, you’re not.”
“No, I’m not, but I’m wondering if you’ve gotten anywhere on figuring out the origins of the Nelson affair story. I’m trying to figure out who knew what and when.”
“I was going to call you this morning. I’ve done some digging, and from what I can tell, the first place to have the story was a small website called DailyPolitic. Have you heard of it?”
“I haven’t.”
“It’s relatively new and made its mark during the last election cycle with some rather revolutionary reporting about the various candidates.”
Sam was ashamed to admit that she’d paid very little attention to the relentless coverage of the campaign.
She often wondered why it was allowed to drag on for years, rather than being confined to the election year.
The resources expended to elect people to office made her crazy when she thought of all the causes that could benefit from the obscene amounts of money that went toward the business of politics.
Other than Nick’s involvement, she kept her distance, mostly because there was so much about the process that irritated her.
“The person you need to speak with there is a guy named Tim Finley. He’s the CEO and editor in chief. If anyone would know where that story came from, it’s him. Their offices are on Connecticut Avenue.”
“This is very helpful, Darren. This earns you some points in your column.”
“How can I cash in these points toward an exclusive about how you and the VP are handling the latest Nelson scandal?”
“The points are blacked out on that topic, but feel free to use them toward a different topic.”
“That’s funny, but I refuse to laugh because it might encourage you to continue stonewalling your favorite reporter.”
“When did I ever say you were my favorite reporter?”
“It’s so obvious to me and everyone else that I’m your favorite.”
“You’re giving yourself an awful lot of credit.”
“It’s okay. I know the truth.”
“Whatever. How’s Roni holding up?”
“Not well from what I’m hearing. Someone else on our team had to write the obit. She couldn’t bring herself to do it.”
Sam grimaced, recalling how important it had been to Roni, an obituary reporter at the Star, to get her husband’s story right.
“I feel so badly for her. She had her whole life figured out and then it’s over.
” And what’d happened to Roni struck at Sam’s deepest fears about something happening to Nick.
She shuddered from the sick feeling that went through her at the very thought of having to face the rest of her life without him. She wasn’t at all sure she could do it.
“It’s so hard to believe,” Darren said. “We were dancing at their wedding not that long ago, and now we have to go to his funeral. Hard to wrap your head around something like this.”
“I know. Well, thanks for the info.”
“I’m available at any time for an exclusive.”
“Bye, Darren.” He was tenacious. She’d give him that, and he was her favorite reporter, due to his inherent fairness and ability to portray victims of violent crime in a thoughtful, caring manner. But she couldn’t ever tell him that.
“Cruz!”
Freddie came to the door of her office. “You bellowed?”
“I’ve got a thread to pull.”
“What’s that?”
She told him about DailyPolitic and the CEO/editor they needed to see. “A guy by the name of Tim Finley. Do a run on him and get me the lowdown. When you’re done with that, we’ll pay him a visit.”
“Got it.”
Freddie no sooner walked away than Malone appeared at her door. He had an odd look to him as he came in and shut the door, taking a seat in her visitor chair.
“What’s up?”
“Sometimes I hate this job.”
Sam had never heard him say anything like that and it had her sitting up straighter in her chair as her stomach dropped with dread. “Why?” She almost didn’t want to know.
“Hernandez.”
The captain in charge of Patrol. “What about him?”
“He’s up to his eyeballs in debt.”
“Okay…”
“Because he has a gambling problem.”
Sam didn’t need Malone to connect the dots for her. If Hernandez had known about the gambling ring, he probably also knew the lengths the organizers had gone to in order to protect their cash cow.
“We had the FBI’s lab analyze handwriting samples from Hernandez’s reports against the card you received after your dad died.”
“Let me guess. A perfect match.”
Malone nodded. “There were also texts between Hernandez and Gallagher, and if that’s not enough, the deep dive on the Conklins’ phones uncovered cryptic texts between Hernandez and Conklin over the last few months that show a connection between the two of them.
Taken in context, it’s clear that Hernandez knew about your dad’s shooting, and Conklin knew he knew.
So today, I have to arrest yet another high-ranking member of our own department, as well as file new charges against Conklin for holding out on us on Hernandez’s involvement. Thus, I hate my life.”
“I’m sorry.” Sam felt sick hearing another high-ranking officer had sat on the info for years. The betrayal cut her to the quick.
“Not your fault.”
“Everyone will make it my fault, I’m sure.” Anytime a fellow officer was accused of wrongdoing as part of one of her investigations, they tried to make her the problem.
Malone’s brows narrowed with displeasure. “Let them try. This is on Hernandez and his guilty conscience that had him sending that anonymous note during the investigation. He made his own bed, and now he can sleep in it.”
“At least he wasn’t one of my dad’s good friends.”
“There is that.”
“What’s this going to mean for the chief?”
“He’s making a statement expressing his profound disappointment in Captain Hernandez’s choices as well as his culpability in the Holland/Coyne murder investigation.
He’s got a line in there that perfectly sums up how we both feel about the latest goings-on.
He says he’ll go to any lengths necessary to ensure the officers working under his command are doing so with the highest ethical and moral values. ”
Sam’s stomach soured when she thought of Gonzo committing a crime to feed his addiction, and her orders to her team to dig for dirt on Ramsey.
“Hopefully, that’ll keep the jackals off his ass after word about Hernandez gets out.” Malone took a deep breath and released it. “Where are we with the Weber investigation?”