Chapter 23

The next day was Juneteenth, and we spent it quietly. Both my Dallas PD contacts called, Langer in the morning and Sardis about lunch time. Langer had nothing to offer, but Sardis had been able to reach out to someone in IAD, and had some interesting information. "Stryker had a choice when he left here – resign quietly, or face an IAD investigation. Now you know most cops, even though they hate Internal Affairs, would gladly stay and prove themselves, but Stryker signed a resignation letter with hardly a protest."

"That's interesting. Why was IAD interested in him?"

"There'd been complaints that he was on a small-time pad – nothing organized, you understand, just taking money from businesses to see to it that they got police protection. You know how it works, Darvin – a business gives you a discount, and you naturally swing by a little more often than you might otherwise. But Stryker was collecting 'insurance, ' or so the rumors went. He was telling businessmen that they either paid, or no one would ever swing by. Because the allegations were so thin – we couldn't get anyone to file a formal complaint – we couldn't do anything until IAD looked into it, and his watch commander moved quicker. He got wind of the pending investigation, and put it to Stryker – quit or deal with IAD. Whether the commander was in on the scheme I don't know, but he certainly stymied Internal Affairs. He's been a watch commander ever since; he upset some powerful people."

"I guess being Stryker's rabbi wasn't without peril," I said to myself, using a bit of slang that was common in Red Hawk but originally came, as I understand it, from the NYPD. Red Hawk's polyglot department was more like the two coasts in some ways than it was like anything in Oklahoma.

"Darvin, all you need is a Brooklyn accent and you could be one of New York's finest."

"Not me, mate – I'm too laid back. I'm a California boy."

After we hung up I wished I had a contact in the OKC police department. But never having lived in Oklahoma City, I'd never had any solid contacts there, and during my years out of the state I'd drifted away from the few OKC cops I'd known. I'd have been willing to bet – had I not given up gambling years ago – that the "personal reasons" which prompted Stryker to leave OKC were along the same lines as the rumors in Dallas.

And now I had a lever. I had the rumors that had reached Harry Thomas in Red Hawk. I had the dance around reality which had accompanied Stryker's departure from the OKC department. I had the knowledge that Stryker had quietly quit the Dallas PD rather than fight it out with the headhunters. I could go back to Red Hawk, and talk to those business people – clerks, owners, managers, whatever – who'd seemed uneasy when I questioned them earlier, and tell them what I knew and what seemed likely, and maybe pry something definite loose.

It wasn't a pleasant prospect – at least not entirely so. The prospect of clearing up the case and having some time with my family – for I was going to have a couple of clear weeks for us alone even if I had to pay Marla, my part-time secretary, to pay our personal bills as well as the office expenses – the prospect of finishing, I thought to myself, was pleasant. But it is never pleasant to contemplate a dirty cop. Exposing one, bringing him down, putting him in the hands of the cops he betrayed, to face a jury of the citizens he scorned, is a worthwhile activity and one I would not spurn, but it wouldn't be pleasant taking a cop down. To think that part of the thin blue line – a line that is far too thin, though most people never know just how thin it is – has become rotten, is acid on the mind. It brings a whiff of putrefaction into one's thoughts, as though in the midst of a pleasant walk one steps in the decaying remains of some animal.

But the cancer had to go; I had to cut it out. Or, at least, I had to confirm my suspicions – for I was now sure they were valid suspicions – and turn the evidence over to Harry, who would make the arrest himself, probably. He didn't put himself onto the patrol schedule because he was showing off; he really was a cop all the way through, and would want to make this arrest if he never made another one. I'd have to be there, of course, as the investigating officer, and I'd no doubt have a part in Stryker's interrogation. Cecelia had asked me to stay away from that part of it, but I really couldn't; I had to be in on it, because of my position, though I would put myself as far into the background as I could. And then I'd have to deal with the paperwork – there'd be mounds of it.

I sighed, sitting there with my hand still resting on the phone. And I realized that I had a family looking at me – Cecelia with an expression of mingled relief and dread, and Darlia simply puzzled. I knew what caused Cecelia's relief, and what caused her dread, and I knew why Darlia was puzzled, and addressed it all at once.

"I know what's going on in Red Hawk now. I don't have proof yet – not enough for an arrest, and certainly not enough for a jury, but I know. And when we get back to town I'll wrap things up just as quick as I can, and then we'll pick a spot on the map and go there for a couple of weeks. Y'all are going to have y'all's vacation."

"Oh Daddy, thank you!" And Darlia rushed over and hugged me as tightly as she could – and that's pretty tight. Cecelia was more restrained, but her face glowed. "Darvin," she said, "I shall take pains to consult the atlas well between now and the time you're finished. For I am going to find a place where you shall have to pay for using 'y'all' twice in one sentence."

I think our laughter was just a bit hysterical with relief.

We left Dallas the morning of the 20^th, and got back to Red Hawk that night. It was again a long weary drive, and would have been even without our frequent stops, and we again went right to bed. This time there was no Reunion Tower for Cecelia to gaze at, and indeed the back window of the room was too small and high to see anything but dark sky as we went to bed. There wasn't anything to see out the back window anyway but a plowed field – and we kept the curtains drawn over the big front window; we like privacy.

And on the 21^st I got up more cheerful than I'd been in a while. I knew what it was – I had a handle to grab now, and I was getting set to grab it. Even when you know the result's going to be unpleasant, when you finally get a handle that you can use, you cheer up, because it means progress. A stalled investigation is no fun at all.

I started where I'd started nearly a month before. The month had passed without my noticing, hardly, I'd been so involved in the investigation. I didn't know what Cecelia and Darlia had done with the month; they'd had to entertain themselves without me, thanks to this confounded job I'd taken on. I went back up to the 7-11, and the same clerk I'd talked to that first day was behind the counter, as I'd hoped.

I grabbed a Coke and a candy bar, and reached for my wallet, and she forestalled me. "Police discount, remember?"

"Yeah, I remember, but I never take it for granted. I'd rather pay when I don't have to than presume."

She didn't say anything, but I got the impression she was comparing me to someone else. I pretty well knew, now, who the someone else would be, if she was indeed making a comparison. I leaned on the counter and lowered my voice, just as I had before; she found her stool and sat on it, as before.

"You remember what I asked you about the first time I was in here?"

"Yeah."

"You think of anything you want to tell me about that?"

"Nope."

"Okay, let me tell you a thing then. And then we'll see what comes of it." I took a drink of Coke. "I've been looking around, as you know, and not just here – I've gotten info from OKC and Dallas. And I've found out that there's a cop in this town who had to leave both Dallas and Oklahoma City because if he didn't he'd have to deal with an investigation into corruption. The same officer, the same problem, in both cities. And now it looks like he's into the same thing here – except he's not going to get the chance to resign and move on this time. We're going to put him behind bars."