An Absence of Light

Katz turned and looked at Graver. “Creeping Jesus,” he said. “What does that mean?”

“I wouldn’t have thought so. Not him, not any of the investigators. His informants, maybe. You think of the informants, the sources, being at risk, not the investigators.”

“Even if it’s suicide you’re going to have a hell of a time convincing some people that it wasn’t related to spooking.”

“Some people?”

“Just about everybody, I guess.”

“Yeah, that’s what I guess.”

“Jesus, that’s grisly,” Katz said.

They were watching the morgue van attendants and the detectives wrestle Tisler’s rigid torso out of the front seat. His stiff sprawl was causing his arms and legs to hang on the door frame and then a corner of the seat as they turned him and twisted him and maneuvered him out of the car.

When the deed was done, when the doors of the morgue van finally closed on Tisler’s demise, the four detectives stood in the floodlights just inside the yellow ribbon and pulled off their latex gloves, tossing them into a paper sack. Charlie Bricker was the first to speak. He was tall and lanky, and he spoke to Tordella, looking down at the stocky detective. Whatever he said caused Tordella to nod and nod and then shake his head. Hodge Petersen put in a few words. Tordella shrugged. Tordella then seemed to make a point, turning partly toward the car behind him, gesturing over his shoulder. He asked his partner something, and the young man shook his head. Petersen took out his notebook and a ballpoint pen and made some notes. Tordella leaned forward and made a point of saying something to Petersen; Petersen nodded and kept writing. Bricker thrust his hands into his pockets, rocked back on his heels and said something as he wagged his head side to side as though he were reciting a set of rules. They all nodded in agreement.

“This ought to be interesting,” Katz said.

At that point they broke from their loose huddle and came across the grass, through the dizzy fog of insects attracted to the floodlights.

“Well”-Tordella was the first to speak as the four of them approached-”we all pretty much agree that we just don’t see anything indicating foul play here.” He was addressing Katz this time, his boss, who was leaning his forearms on the fender of the car as he smoked, as if he were watching a game of pick-up basketball.

“It just looks like he shot himself is all,” Tordella added. “I mean, that’s what the physical evidence seems to point to. But there are still the fingerprints to think about, the autopsy, whatever the CSU might come up with, all that. IAD’s going to need some stuff.”

Charlie Bricker nodded. He was actually assigned to Narcotics but was pulling his eighteen-month stint in IAD, a requisite tour of duty that rotated among officers in all divisions. This was a universally dreaded duty, partly because the job involved investigating fellow officers, which no one liked to do, and partly because there was no overtime allowed in IAD, which adversely affected your monthly income. Internal Affairs detectives were often in a bad mood.

“I guess the best way to handle this,” Bricker said, fixing his eyes on Graver, “is for us to get a synopsis of the investigations Tisler was involved in. And some kind of risk factor assessment for each one. We’ve got to have some way of making a judgment as to the job-related possibilities here.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” Graver said.

“I’m going to put that in my report,” Bricker said, making it clear to Graver that he wasn’t going to be finessed, “that I’m requesting that kind of information from you before I can conclude my part of the investigation.”

“I understand,” Graver said. “Fair enough.”

He couldn’t blame Bricker for being a stickler about it. His captain was going to insist on that And besides, Graver could afford to be amenable. Whether or not he ultimately gave Bricker what he was requesting would not be solely determined by him anyway. The CID file was the most sensitive repository of information in any law enforcement agency, and persons having access to the entire file could be counted on the fingers of one hand.

The intelligence unit of a police department stood apart from all the other divisions in one central aspect: it had no active interest in crimes already committed. Instead, the intelligence division’s objective was preventive, to identify criminal trends, and to provide assessments of these trends to policy makers by collecting information about people and organizations who were either known to be, or who were suspected of being, involved in criminal acts, or who were threatening, planning, organizing, or financing criminal acts.