Outside, we had barely crossed the arid plaza of the county courts building when we were intercepted by Jack Abernathy.
“Give us a minute, Deputy,” he said to Lindsey. The way he said “deputy” made me think he really wanted to say “missy” or “girl,” but maybe I was judging the man harshly based on surface impressions. That had gotten me in trouble before.
But there it was. Abernathy, a high-ranking law enforcement official in the nation’s sixth-largest city, looked like a Southern sheriff who had stepped out of a sequel to Smokey and the Bandit. At best, he was an ancestor mask in the tribe of the police.
In a way, I felt sorry for him. He must have been an embarrassment to the former sheriff, who turned the department into a trendy place of mission statements, media events, and master’s-degreed deputies. And he sure didn’t fit Peralta’s mold. But somehow he hung on. Abernathy was a head shorter than I was. His jowly face was a patchwork of reddened skin, as if he constantly scratched himself. His hair was close-cropped like a dry lawn and going white. All his weight congealed into his belly, which stretched impatiently against the fabric of his uniform shirt. And that Texas in his accent. I half expected him to address me as “boy.”
“Sheriff, we got a problem at the jail.” He nodded toward the massive brown fortress of the Madison Street Jail complex. I waited and he went on. One inmate had attacked another last night, nearly cutting his head off with a homemade knife. Both were leaders in respective African American and Latino (“Mescan” in Abernathy’s butchered language) gangs. Everyone expected reprisals and tensions were high.
“What do you think we should do?” I asked. He pulled his chin back into his heavy neck, seeming surprised someone, even the greenhorn acting sheriff, had asked his opinion.
“Move some of ’em out,” he said. “Disperse ’em to other facilities.”
“Well, let’s do that, and find out how this moron got a knife into our main jail.”
Abernathy pursed his lips and nodded. It went on a long time. A cool breeze was blowing down Jefferson Street from the west. Maybe it would push some of the smog away. Over Abernathy’s shoulder, I watched workers finishing the new Federal Building. It was a massive glass objet d’art. I guess the famous architect intended it to convey openness in a democratic society, rather than the respect and awe inspired by government buildings even into the 1930s. But to me it just looked insignificant and ugly, like a credit-card call center in the suburbs.
Finally, Abernathy said, “How are you feeling after that dude took a shot at you?” It came out harsh and confrontational. I said I was OK.
“I can’t believe Phoenix PD and Davidson’s people, and all Kimbrough’s detectives, can’t find this little scumbag,” he said. I didn’t want to take the time to explain, again, why I didn’t think Leo O’Keefe had shot at me.
“How is Chief Peralta?” he demanded.
“The sheriff is the same,” I said. “In a coma.”
“I ought to go by,” he said, thrusting his hands into his pants pockets. “You know, he and I go way back.”
I let that one sit on the concrete between us. Lindsey was across the street smelling flowers by the old municipal building. She gave me a little wave.
“This logbook from Nixon,” he said. “This is not good.”
I felt the balls of my feet tense. “That’s confidential information, Jack.”
“Word gets around the department,” he said, working his jaw like he was chewing tobacco. “You know, Dean Nixon was trouble. Long time before we finally got him out. You check his file. I know he was a friend of yours.”
“I don’t know if he was a friend…,” I stammered. “We knew each other in high school.”
“He recommended you,” Abernathy said. “I sat on your review board for the academy, remember?”
Actually, I didn’t remember.
“I voted against you,” Abernathy said, not unkindly. “I thought you were some egghead who would get bored with law enforcement. Those kind of people don’t like rules, don’t like routines. They’re a pain in the ass for the supervisors…”
“They probably can even read the little card that has the Miranda warning.”
He laughed once, high and breathy and alien. “You’re a clever one.”
“Well,” I said, “Lucky for you I don’t hold a grudge.”
“Nixon would go crazy, you know.” Abernathy didn’t meet my eyes. He stared over my shoulder, at the early lunch congregants at Patriot’s Park. “One time I saw him nearly beat a suspect to death. Would have, if I hadn’t stopped him. He was drinking all the time. Probably taking drugs, too. Then he fell in with those bounty hunters…”
“Jack, what do you think this logbook means?”
He kept his gaze over my shoulder. “How the hell would I know that?”
“You brought it up, Jack.”
“Shit.” His face reddened, evening out the patches of red and white. “I don’t have a clue what it means. I don’t know what you’re getting at.” He fixed me with his little eyes. They were liquid gray. “Don’t you know what this kind of thing can do to this department? Look what’s happened over in L.A. with the Rampart scandal. Months and months of allegations, careers ruined. Politicians make hay over this. And in the end nothin’ changes. I tell you one thing, the only people it helps is the politicians and the bad guys.”
I started to speak but he cut me off. “You ain’t never gonna get cops to roll over on each other.” His voice had changed. Never polished, it had dropped into a rougher clone of itself. I could almost imagine him interrogating a suspect back when he was on the streets. “There’s a code of silence, Professor. You think anybody’s going to talk about this log, even if it’s true?”
I said, “I guess if we have badge numbers, that might lubricate some memories.” He worked his heavy jaw again. Maybe he didn’t know that detail. I went on. “This isn’t some petty-ass IA investigation, like over in Mesa where the male and female officers were taking breaks on duty to go off and fuck. We’re talking about murder and attempted murder.”
“You don’t know that,” he squealed. A pair of young women walking by stared at us. “You got your suspect in both shootings. This O’Keefe character. And, hell, with Dick Nixon, nothin’ he was involved in would surprise me.” I hadn’t heard someone use his nickname in years. “Bad things have a way of comin’ back around.”
“What were the River Hogs, Jack?”
“Bunch of idiots drinkin’,” he said, no hesitation. “When they’d get off duty, they’d drive down into some deserted spot in the riverbed, drink and party all night.”
“Did you ever go with them?”
His mouth puckered and he shook his head. “I know you’re tryin’ to get the old white guy. I’m not ‘with it’ in this department. I don’t read the same books as you. I’m not politically correct. But I’m sure as hell not a dirty cop.”
“I didn’t say you were.”
“I supported you for acting sheriff.”
Thanks, I guess, I thought.
Suddenly, he calmed down. “OK, Sheriff,” he said. “I’ll get moving on those prisoner transfers. That oughta help. We wouldn’t want a jail riot your first week in office.” He added, “You looked good on television Wednesday. We need somebody like you, clever.”
He clapped me on the arm and walked away.
“Jack,” I called, and he turned to face me, all belly and jowls. “What about it? You ever go out with the River Hogs?”
He just gave me a little smile, raised a fat finger to his lips-shhhhhhh-then turned and walked on.
There was a disturbance off to my left, and my involuntary muscles sent my hand reaching for the Python under my coat. But it was just some domestic thing, woman and man and their lawyers arguing. A pair of burly young deputies intervened. The male deputies like their hair cut close these days. When I was a young deputy, the fashion was just the opposite: The old guys like Abernathy had crew cuts and the young cops tried to get away with hair as long as possible. I had lived long enough to see a cycle.
So I jaywalked and caught up with Lindsey.
“What did he want?” she asked.
“I guess to tell me I’m clever.”