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Joe took the call, putting it on speaker. “Hi, Tom. I’m here with Deputy Chief McBride and Captain Malone.”
“What’s up?” Tom asked in the distinctive New York accent he was known for.
“We have a situation. I’ll let Chief McBride brief you.”
Jeannie went through the facts of what they’d uncovered in a review of the Davies case. For a full thirty seconds after she finished speaking, Forrester was silent.
“Son of a bitch,” he finally said. “Let me talk to my team. I’ll be back to you ASAP.”
“Thank you.”
“Please tell me we’ll be filing additional charges against Stahl after this is dealt with,” Jake said after the chief disconnected the call with Forrester.
“Hell yes,” the chief replied. “Even though he’s already serving a life sentence with no chance of parole, we’ll still charge him for every egregious violation he committed while wearing a badge. If for no other reason than to put everyone else on notice that we won’t tolerate criminal behavior in our ranks.”
“How much more do you think there is?” Jake asked.
“I think we’re going to find other similar cases,” Jeannie said.
“Motherfucker,” Jake whispered.
“At least this one happened before I was chief,” Joe said, “so they can’t blame me for it.”
“But they will anyway,” Jake said.
“No doubt, but hopefully we’ll get some credit for doing the right thing when we discovered the irregularities.”
“Let’s hope so,” Jake said as he stood. “Keep me posted on what you hear from Forrester.”
“Will do,” Joe said.
When Jake returned to his office, Lieutenant Archelotta was waiting for him. “What’s up?”
Archie held up a flash drive. “I think I’ve figured out who was archiving reports for Stahl.”
“Who?”
“Remember Lieutenant Gibbons?”
“Who headed IT before you? What about him?”
“I believe he gave himself captain-level access so he could do Stahl’s bidding.”
“And you’ve got proof?” Malone asked, gesturing to the drive.
“I do.”
Resigned to this day going completely to hell and another former officer being charged with a crime, Malone said, “Let’s see what you’ve got.”
Sam and Freddiespent the remainder of their shift going through the printouts the rest of their team had put together from the Blanchets’ financial institutions, their social media and more emails and text messages from the parents’ phones and computers.
“It’s amazing how one couple amasses a mountain of paper, isn’t it?” Freddie asked as he worked through their social media posts.
“People never think about how their messages might someday be reviewed by law enforcement investigating a crime. If so, would they text or email their true feelings about anything?”
“Probably not,” he said. “It’s always in the back of my head that my own words could be used against me.”
“You really think about that?”
