Internal Affairs Ch. 03

'Hillary I need a couple of hours off this morning," Roger said.

"Of course is everything alright?" she asked. It was obvious to Roger that over the course of the past month, she had developed a bond with Roger. A bond between the high school nerd, she had been a nerd without a doubt, and the kid nobody liked. They bonded from the necessity for human contact. They would have never been friends, if not for their mutual outsider status.

"My sister is going to be passing through town. It will be the first time I have seen her sober in a long time." Roger said.

"Oh where does she live?" Hillary asked.

"She and her husband live down in Capitol city. Last time I saw her it was about six months into the investigation, I was using and had pretty much given in to my emotions, but not in a good way," Roger said. "A lot of shit from our childhood came up in front of her husband."

"I see, so is she your older or younger sister?" Hillary asked.

"Older," Roger said. "She blamed herself for some of the constant arguments between us while I was using. It didn't help that I seriously threatened to kill her husband for shouting at her. I told him that I was a cop and could kill him and get away with it."

"I know he filed a complaint. It is in the box over there," Hillary said.

"How many complaints are in my file," Roger asked.

"Oh it was all expunged, but I'm a pack rat," She admitted.

"Anyway she is passing through with the kids, and I'm going to take them to lunch," Roger suggested.

"Why didn't you go into the witness protection program. I'm sure DOJ could make room for you." Hillary asked changing the subject.

"Nobody wants to bother with me. Everybody I got, was got good. Almost all of them flipped on everybody somebody else. Seems there is no honor among dopers. I always expected to come back to the job, but I'm rethinking that now." Roger admitted.

"Surely you knew better than to expect a brass band," she replied.

"I expected it to be rough at first, but it's been two months and it just goes on and on. I don't really mind, except that I haven't made any friends in the last two months, except you." He suddenly laughed, "I'm not even sure we are friends."

"I think we are, and if I had a daughter. To be honest I would discourage her from dating you." Hillary said.

"There is such a thing as too much honesty," Roger said.

"So are you taking her to lunch somewhere nice with all that drug money?" Hillary asked with a smile.

"I knew it Hilly, you have been dying to ask me, so go ahead," he demanded.

"You knew I would look into your finances. It's just what I do," she said.

"So ask," Roger said. "I have nothing to hide."

"I know where it comes from, I just don't know how much you have?" Hillary asked.

"Forty K a year from the PD. Another Fifty K gets deposited in my account by the DOJ. It comes from their drug asset recovery fund. It's like winning the lottery, they don't want me to take it all at once."

"Probably afraid you will go back into business for yourself," Hillary said.

"That is probably it. Anyway the reward program will pay out for the rest of my life. They wanted to be sure that I had the money to disappear, if it got too nasty," Roger admitted.

"The jackpot would temp you back, if you had that kind of money all at once. So how much is in the fund?" she asked.

"A lot is all I'm willing to say," Roger suggested.

"So why don't you buy a fancy sports car?" Hillary asked.

"The point of any vehicle is to take me from one place to another. It doesn't matter about the vehicle, the journey is the thing," he said.

"More of that Zen shit?" she asked sarcastically. Roger could never get used to her talking like that.

"My own version," Roger said.

"Since I'm admitting to snooping, what's up with that place where you live?" Hillary asked.

"When I came out of rehab, they told me to move. To get away from everyone I had known during my days using. I bought a house in the country where I could hide from my old self. Then realized I couldn't hide from my real enemy, because I carried him with me," Roger explained.

"Is there an end to this story," Hillary asked.

"Not a happy one, I'm afraid. I rented the three bedroom two bath house to some college professors, who had never heard of me. I moved into the storage building at the rear of the lot. I found that I don't need much space."

"So you have almost a hundred K a year income, and you live in a place no larger than my living room?" she asked.

"Well, when you say it like that," Roger said with a smile. "Part of my therapy was to avoid buying shit. In the end the shit just makes more shit. Things seemed to breed. You buy a new car, then you have to have a garage and so it goes.

"So is your sister's husband coming," Hillary asked returning to the original discussion.

"No they are living apart for the next year. The separation leading to the divorce. I'm sure I was part of the strain on her marriage. She had to be worried about me constantly. After all I was her junkie kid brother."

"You weren't a junkie," Hillary corrected him.

"Sure I was," Roger said.

Lunch with Margaret was a disaster. She kept mentioning things about his junkie past, then apologizing for it. No matter how many times he told her it was fine, she kept on and on. Thankfully the time came when she had to leave.

She pecked him on the cheek climbed up into the seat of the Honda SUV and rode off into the midday sun. Roger had been gone only an hour longer than his ordinary lunch hour. It hardly seemed worth writing down, but he filled out the comp time forms. One hour of his accumulated comp time was taken up by the less than satisfying lunch.

When Roger returned from lunch, Hillary informed him he had a call from the Sheriff's department. She had taken a number since he didn't have his cell phone.

"Yes deputy Sykes please," he sat listening to elevator music for five minutes.

"Mr Everhart sorry to keep you waiting. I don't suppose anyone was able to reach you," Sykes asked.

"Reach me about what?" Roger asked.

"There has been a fire. The volunteer fire department responded but the house you house was a total loss," Sykes. "The fire department said there were signs of arson. You know I got to ask where were you at 11am today.

"I was at work till about 11:30 then I rode my scooter to Marco's Mexican restaurant where I sat listening to may sister bitch for about two hours. I'm sure the staff will remember us. I answered your question, so tell me is the family who are living in the house alright?" Roger asked.

'They are devastated. They lost everything . They were just lucky no one was home. The state fire department arson investigators think it might have been a firebomb through the window," Sykes added. "Do you know anyone who would do that?"

"No idea. If there is anything else just call me," Roger said.

"Roger did someone burn your house?" Hillary asked. She had been eavesdropping of course.

"That seems to be the case. They aren't sure about much, but somebody might have tossed a bottle of gasoline through the window," Roger explained.'

"Do they have any suspects? Hillary asked.

"You are kidding right?" Roger asked with a laugh.

"I guess you are right. "There are far too many people with motives. Anyone threaten you lately?" she asked.

"Not lately," Roger said almost as if it never happened.

"So what are you going to do," Hillary asked.

"I wasn't invested in the house. It was just a thing. Nobody got hurt, so it's not worth worrying about." Roger said. He tried hard to believe what he was saying.

"The family that rents it is pretty upset, I'm sure. I wonder if they had renter's insurance?" Hillary asked.

"I don't have any idea, I'll try to help them out, but they won't be coming back. I'm not going to rebuild. Somebody might get killed in the crossfire," Roger said.

"So you do plan to do something?" Hillary asked.

"Just to defend myself. It is a natural reaction to danger to fight back," Roger said.

"Only for some people. Some people would decide to move to Alaska," Hillary said. "So which one do you think?"

"What?" Roger replied.

"Was it a warning or a revenge thing?" she asked.

"I don't know that we are working on anything that would warrant this kind of response," Roger said. "Unless you are running a secret investigation."

"You know I'm not the secretive type, besides this was on you," she replied.

"Hell boss, maybe the professor gave some kid a failing grade," Roger was trying to make light of it. "You know these rich college kids can be vindictive as well."

Roger used his desk phone to call the professor. He didn't answer, but his wife did. "You might have told us people were trying to kill you."

"So the Sheriff's deputies have spoken with you?" Roger asked.

"You son of a bitch, our dog Wendy died in that fire." She said.

"I am terribly sorry about Wendy. I wish there was something I could do." Roger paused a moment then asked, "Do you have anywhere to go?"

"We haven't talked about that yet," she said calmly.

"Let me know if you need anything. I will of course refund your deposit and the most recent rent payment. If there is anything else just let me know. I'm serious, I want to help."

"Thank you for that, but my husband is a big believer in insurance, so I'm sure we can manage," She said.

"Please relay the message to your husband and have him call me any time," Roger said. "And again, I'm sorry about Wendy."

"Son of a bitch," Roger said angrily after the call.

Hillary noted that he hadn't been upset before the call, but he definitely was after. "What's the problem," she asked.

"They lost their dog. Fuck no, their dog was killed. She isn't missing." Roger said. "Are we going to look into this?"

"It isn't our jurisdiction," Hillary said.

"You know better, it's a crime against your partner," Roger said fighting to keep control.

"We have an ODW report to complete, before we can do anything. It can wait until tomorrow, since no one was hurt."

"What the fuck is an ODW?" Roger asked.

"Officer discharged weapon, and you need to meditate. You are working yourself into a state," Hillary said.

"When did it happen?" Roger asked.

"Early this morning," she said. "I have the report we just need to interview the officer. The detectives cut her loose since her shift had ended. We can go to her house. I'll call to arrange it, unless you want to see the damage to your house first."

"There is no need for that, the damage will still be there at five," Roger said. "Give me a few minutes to meditate then we can go."

Roger sat at his desk and tried to analyze how he felt and to cleanse his mind of those thoughts. All he managed to do was suppress his urge to kill someone. After three minutes he stood. "Let's do this thing."

They found officer Ellie Smith waiting for them at her apartment. Hillary introduced them while Roger meditated. He wasn't able to shake the urge to do someone harm.

"So what happened?" Hillary asked. "I know you are a cop and have been trying to work out the details with the detectives. I don't want that, I just want you to give me the facts as you know them. So lets start at the beginning."

"Yes Ma'am, I got a radio call at 0600. The dispatcher said that there was a unknown trouble call at an abandoned building. When I arrived someone took a shot at the cruiser. I returned fire. The shooter must have gotten away. I called for help and pretty much hid behind my car till help arrived. The patrol sergeant arrived and organized a search, They didn't find anything. I think they were going to search again now that the sun is up."

"Did you get a good look at the shooter," Hillary asked.

"No I saw a figure standing outside a doorway. I'm just glad he was a terrible shot."

"Doesn't look as though you were any better," Roger said.

"I tried," she said almost in tears, but not quite.

While Hillary finished her interview Roger took stock of the twenty something slightly broad in the beam young woman. There were no obvious signs of her sexual preference, but he somehow got the vibe that she was at least bisexual, if not a pure lesbian. Not that it made any difference. She was a cop and there for felt she had to cut Roger a wide birth. At least she didn't seem openly hostile toward him." She obviously had been one of the new hires. Half the force seemed to have been hired since the investigation began. It hadn't been an instant thing. The house cleaning had been an on going thing," Once the DOJ got into it full scale, they held off for almost a year then brought them all down. It took almost a year longer to work out the details of all the deals. That whole time Roger was still in deep cover. When they went to trial he came out and got clean. They just hadn't needed his testimony after all. His handler at the DOJ explained it by saying, "Your testimony won't really help, after all you were a junkie at the time."

"How long you been a cop Ellie," Roger asked.

"Eight months, does that have anything to do with it?" she asked angrily.

"Not at all, I was just looking for answers. You know that the bullet went through the door right about where you would have been sitting, if you had been in the car, so you must have been out of the car."

"That is what I said weren't you listening," she said sarcastically.

"I must have missed it. So you arrive at an empty building expecting there to be trouble, but you leave your patrol car without having seen anything. Why would you do that. Don't you usually drive around the building and call for backup before you walk around it?"

"I was planning to rattle the door," she said.

"Ah that explains it. Why didn't you wait for backup?" Roger asked again.

"I thought it was a prank call," she said.

"A prank at 6am. Well you probably had some reason to think that," Roger said with doubt in his voice.

"Roger, why she got our of the car had nothing to do with the facts," Hillary said.

Since Roger was already the bad guy, they had fallen into the habit of running the bad cop, good cop routine from the very beginning.

"Why don't you wait in the car. I will finish up in here," Hillary suggested. While he sat in the care meditating. Hillary pried more information from Ellie Smith.

"She's Lying," Roger said when she returned to the driver's seat.

"I know, I'm just not sure about what or why," Hillary said.

"Simple, surely you haven't forgotten how boring midnight shift is?" Roger asked.

"Okay but someone has to call in the complaint. It was a man's voice," Hillary replied.

"She did it, If she was smart she did it with a throw down piece but she did it," Roger insisted.

"You don't trust cops much, do you?" she asked.

"They haven't given me much reason to trust them," Roger said. "Almost half the department has been on the job less than two years. They are still feeling their way along."

"Then we have to sort out who is who," she said. "We owe it to the people of this town."

"Yeah, we have fucked over them long enough," Roger agreed.

"You we got an hour and we are out of the office, you ready to see your house?" she asked.