Yesterday's News

“References?”
    “On me?”
    “That’s who I’m talking to, isn’t it?”
    “Try Lieutenant Murphy, Boston Homicide.”
    Cardwell’s eyebrows perked up an inch. “Robert Murphy?”
    “That’s right.”
    “You give me his name because he knows you well or because he’s black?”
    “Both.”
    Cardwell stifled something, but whether a laugh or a curse, I’m not sure. He’d acquired the knack of stifling.
    After dialing and routing through some transfers, he said, “Lieutenant Murphy? Sir, this is Trooper Oliver Cardwell. I’m attached to... thank you, sir, I remember that, too.... Lieutenant, I’ve got a private investigator sitting in front of me named Cuddy, first name John, says he...” Cardwell grinned. “Nossir, I haven’t been vaccinated recently... yessir, he looks that way to me, too.... You say so, that’s good enough for me.... Right, right, look forward to it, Lieutenant.”
    Cardwell replaced the receiver. “Murphy says you’re an asshole.”
    “See?”
    “Says I’d be better off throwing you out the window than down the stairs on account of you might hurt the stairs.”
    “Good old—”
    “Says you fuck me up down here, he’ll take more than your weapon by the time you check your next mail delivery.”
    “So he said you could trust me. Can I get on with this?”
    Cardwell eased back. “You can get started, anyway.”
    “I already did. Charlie Coyne and Jane Rust.”
    “Way you say that, you think they’re connected. Doesn’t look that way to me.”
    “I’d like to hear it.”
    “You talked with Hagan down to Nasharbor yet?”
    “Yeah.”
    “And he didn’t tell you much or show you much, so you came up to me.”
    “That’s right.”
    “You know anything about my position here?”
    “I know the state police supplies investigators to the DA’s. I know you guys are supposed to run the major crime stuff for the local cops in the smaller towns, but you don’t get much involved in Boston . That’s about it.”
    “Right as far as it goes. Problem for us is political.” — “That’s a surprise.”
    “Yeah. Everybody starts in uniform on highway patrol. You request investigation, maybe you get assigned to the Bureau of Investigative Services, and maybe, if a DA wants you, you get assigned to a CPAC unit—that’s Crime Prevention and Control—in a DA’s office.”
    “I’m with you so far.”
    “Well, in case you haven’t been doing a lot of highway driving lately, there ain’t a fuck of a lot of troopers of color on the roads. So when I requested investigation, where you figure I’d be assigned?”
    “Someplace there are a lot of people of color, where a black face on a cop might make a real difference in whether the jury gets to hear the witnesses who saw things go down.”
    Cardwell canted his head, reassessing something. “Instead I’m down here. Know why?”
    “Politics.”
    “Good guess. The DA down here is on the outs with the current administration. That means every time one of his investigators gets good enough, the trooper or corporal gets promoted and finds himself riding a sergeant’s desk in a barracks someplace, rearranging patrol patterns instead of looking into homicides and related major action. Guy I replaced seven months ago’s doing that, and if I get good enough, same thing’ll happen to me, unless I decline the promotion.”
    “Sounds pretty counterproductive.”
    “It is. But it helps you appreciate where I stand. And where you stand.”
    “And where’s that again?”
    “I stand where allegations of police corruption in local departments that support the DA don’t get taken at face value, and you stand somewhere out by Montana unless the Nasharbor force tells me to cooperate with you.”
    “What if I don’t ask to read the paperwork or anything. What if I just want to talk a little about the crime scenes themselves?”
    Cardwell used a strong hand to rub on his chin. “Try an easy one first.”
    “You see Coyne before they took him away?”
    “No. Nasharbor covered that. I came on it the next morning.”
    “Anything about it trouble you?”
    Cardwell shook his head. “Coyne was small time. Delivery boy for dirty pictures, videos, and like that.” Without changing his neutral tone, Cardwell said, “Mostly kiddie porn. You want to see some of the shit we caught him with?”
    “No thanks.”
    Cardwell dipped his chin to his chest. “Good. Makes me sick to think about it.”
    “You think the movies got him