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That was the part of this situation that galled him the most.
Bill Gibbons had been like family to him, Joe, Skip and many others who’d come up through the ranks with them. Gibbons had loved being in charge of IT and reminded Jake of Sam Holland and how she was perfectly content to lead the Homicide division with no desire to move up in the ranks.
That described Bill to a T. He’d balked at any suggestion of doing any other job within the department. Like Archelotta now, Gibbons had been the best at what he did, adapting to each new technological development to make things easier for the rest of them. He’d been their go-to guy any time a computer acted up at home or at work as they transitioned to the electronic age.
Gibbons had led seminars for his colleagues on how to use new technology to solve their cases.
And the son of a bitch had enabled Len Stahl’s criminal activity.
With twenty-four hours to process the info Archie had given him, Jake still couldn’t believe it had been Gibbons who’d archived Stahl’s bogus reports on investigations that’d never happened.
But Archie’s evidence was irrefutable.
He should’ve started with Gibbons, the department’s technology wizard, the one person working there at the time the reports were archived who would’ve known how to give himself captain-level status, which was required to archive reports in inactive cases. That’s how Stahl had buried investigations involving Calvin Worthington and Carisma Deasly, two Black teenagers who’d gotten a fraction of the attention they should have after being murdered and kidnapped, respectively.
Jake’s blood boiled over the blatant racism that had led Stahl to ignore cases that could’ve been solved years ago, and he wanted to know what the hell Gibbons had been thinking when he enabled that son of a bitch and helped him get away with it.
He parked outside Gibbons’s townhouse and stared at the door he’d passed through many a time before he worked up the energy to get out of the SUV to clean up yet another mess on behalf of the department he’d served with honor for close to thirty years. He was sick to death of the rot that kept surfacing from within the ranks, past and present.
After taking a deep breath and releasing it slowly so he wouldn’t lead with rage, he rang the doorbell.
The Bill Gibbons who came to the door had gotten grayer and heavier since Jake last saw him. His face lit up with a big smile. “Hey! This is a nice surprise. Come in.”
Jake followed him into the warm, cozy home he shared with his wife, Elaine. Their four kids were now grown and out on their own. Once upon a time, Jake and his wife, Val, had been there with their kids to help celebrate their birthdays and graduations. Gibbons’s son Billy had dated Jake’s daughter, Mel, when they were in high school. They’d joked then about sharing grandchildren one day.
“How’s Val?” Gibbons asked.
“Doing great. Retired from teaching and volunteering. How’s Elaine?”
“That’s been a little tricky. We’re spending some time apart. She’s staying with her sister in Baltimore.”
“Sorry to hear that.”
Gibbons shrugged. “We found we didn’t have much in common when it was just the two of us again.”
“That’s too bad.”
“Thanks. It is what it is. Coffee?”
“No, thanks. Already had my two cups for the day.”
Gibbons poured himself a cup. “I hope you got my note when Skip died. I felt terrible I couldn’t be there for you and Joe and the family. I was in San Diego for my mother’s funeral when I got the news.”
“I did get your note, and I was sorry to hear about your mother.”
“She made it to ninety-two and said she had no regrets.”
“Good for her. She was a great lady.”
“She was. We miss her. And Skip’s son-in-law... What a tragedy that was.”
“Indeed. Fucking fentanyl is a scourge like nothing we’ve ever seen before.”
Gibbons shuddered. “I miss the job like crazy, but stuff like that and guns everywhere you look? Retirement is looking pretty good to me. You ought to give it a whirl.”
“One of these days.” Jake told himself to get on with it. What he’d come here to do wouldn’t get easier with procrastination. “So, the reason I came by is we’ve been looking into some of Stahl’s old cases and came across some irregularities.”
“I heard you solved a couple of them. I couldn’t believe you found Carisma Deasly.”
