Chapter 21

another fallen soldier

The entire station was in shock. Officers stood in small groups, grim looks

on their faces. Some cried, some cursed.

Hot on the heels of losing seven comrades in the riots, this latest event was

almost too much to bear. Adding to the sense of outrage was the fact that

this was a cold, calculated act, not the result of any mad frenzy. It also

happened in their house, not on the street, not in a dark alley…in their

house!
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 Garland Smith walked through the doorway of the Internal Affairs Unit

and immediately started processing information.

The steel door was dented near the handle. He recognized the square

footprint of the dent to be roughly the same as the one made by the battering

ram used by the department’s SWAT team. Pieces of the lock tumblers and

latch mechanism were strewn across the floor.

He walked further, taking in every detail.

The door to Tank’s office was opened and the room had been trashed.

Special attention had been paid to the filing cabinet where Tank had kept the

tapes of his interviews. Cassettes were scattered from the open file drawer to

the door.

Garland walked on.

On the carpet just outside the office door was a blood stain about a foot

and a half across. Trails of blood lead around the corner to a small janitor’s

closet. Inside was the body of Lieutenant Mitchell.

Garland had to force himself to look at it. Tank laid half across a mop

bucket, as if he’d been thrown there. His eyes, still open, stared at the

ceiling, obscured by the blood that ran down from the gaping jagged hole in

his forehead. Sergeant Smith recognized it as an exit wound.

On the tile near Tank’s head was a partial bloody shoe print. Garland

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looked at the zigzag pattern and committed it to memory.

"Any shell casings?" he asked the detective that had been shadowing him

since he entered the room.

"We haven’t come across any yet. We still have to toss the room after the

body’s been removed. It may have rolled under a desk or something."

"I take it the photographer’s already been here?"

"He processed the scene before anybody was allowed in, except for the

paramedic that is."

"How many of them have been through here?"

"Just the one. When the janitor discovered the body it was apparent that

Lieutenant Mitchell was already dead. The paramedic just had to pronounce

him, then he left."

"Anybody been assigned to the case yet?"

"Yeah, I have."

Garland turned and, for the first time, really took a good look at the

detective. He didn’t recognize him as anybody who worked out of the

central station.

"What district station do you work out of?"

"I don’t. I’m with the FBI." he answered. The agent took a deep breath and

waited for the shit to fly.

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 Garland rose to his feet and immediately started slinging it.

"What the fuck are the Feds doing overseeing the investigation into the

murder of a city cop?"

"I’m not a liberty to discuss the details of our investigation. My

supervisors would like you to work second chair on this since you were

involved with Lieutenant Mitchell on most of his latest cases."

As he spoke, the agent took a business card from his pocket and handed it

to Garland.

"Well thank you very much for the consideration!" Garland bristled,

snatching the card from his hand. He half crumpled it as he thrust it into his

pants pocket. "What do I do, tag behind you and wipe your ass?"

"Look Sergeant, my supervisors requested you for this case. I advised

against it. You’re too close to the subject and frankly, I don’t think you can

maintain any sort of objectivity."

"I’ll tell you what, I’ll be objective when it’s a dead FBI agent lying on the

floor!"

The agent threw his hands up and walked away.

"We’ll talk about this later." the agent muttered under his breath.

"Damn straight we will!" Garland muttered back.

He took out his notebook, removed the rubber band and started jotting

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notes. As he wrote, the coroner’s crew arrived and started to remove the

body. A shiver ran down Garland’s spine as the zipper on the body bag made

a cold metallic hiss. The corpse was strapped to the gurney and rolled from

the room. Now the real work could begin.

Garland got down on his hands and knees and started scouring the floor,

looking for any stray shell casings that may have ejected under a desk or a

chair.

"Ahem." a voice came from behind him.

Garland ignored it.

"What do you think you’re doing?"

"I’m looking for a place to take a nap. What the hell do you think I’m

doing?"

Garland looked back to see the F.B.I. agent standing in front of five rather

serious looking individuals with large cases in their hands.

"Our crime scene investigation unit is here to process the scene. I’ll have

to ask you to leave detective. We’ll fill you in on our findings."

Garland scanned the faces of the crime scene investigators. He’d never

seen a more humorless collection of suits in his life

"See to it that you do Agent…uh,"

"Spangler, Rick Spangler."

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 "Right, Dick Dangler. Don’t hold out on me Dangler. If I think you’re

freezing me out I’ll spread the word and our doors will slam shut. We can be

a bunch of tight lipped fuckers when we need to be."

"So what you’re telling me is that you intend to impede our investigation

Sergeant?"

"No, not impede. Fuckin’ shut down!" Garland said turning to push past

the lab techs that had started unloading their evidence kits.

"This is going to be a fucking riot!" Agent Spangler whispered to himself.

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