Homicide - A Year On The Killing Streets Part 4

"A suggestion, sir?"

"You have my undivided attention, Sergeant McLarney."

"Maybe it would look better if we put the open cases in black and the closed ones in red," McLarney says. "That would fool the bosses for a while."

"That's one solution."

"Of course," adds McLarney, "we could also go out and lock some people up."

"That's also a solution."

McLarney laughs, but not too much. As a supervisor, Gary D'Addario is generally regarded by his sergeants and detectives as a prince, a benevolent autocrat who asks only competence and loyalty. In return, he provides his s.h.i.+ft with unstinting support and sanctuary from the worst whims and fancies of the command staff. A tall man with thinning tufts of silver-gray hair and a quietly dignified manner, D'Addario is one of the last survivors of the Italian caliphate that briefly ruled the department after a long Irish dynasty. It was a respite that began with Frank Battaglia's ascension to the commissioner's post and continued until members.h.i.+p in the Sons of Italy was as much a prerequisite for elevation as the sergeant's test. But the Holy Roman Empire lasted less than four years; in 1985, the mayor acknowledged the city's changing demographics by dragging Battaglia into a well-paid consultant's position and giving the black community a firm lock on the upper tiers of the police department.

If the outgoing tide stranded D'Addario in homicide as a lieutenant, then the men under him owed much to affirmative action. Soft-spoken and introspective, D'Addario was a rare breed of supervisor for a paramilitary organization. He had learned long ago to suppress the first impulse of command that calls for a supervisor to intimidate his men, charting their every movement and riding them through investigations. In the districts, that sort of behavior usually resulted from a new supervisor's primitive conclusion that the best way to avoid being perceived as weak was to behave like a petty tyrant. Every district had a s.h.i.+ft lieutenant or sector sergeant who would demand explanatory Form 95s from people ten minutes late to roll call, or scour the district's holes at 4:00 A.M A.M. in the hope of finding some poor post officer sleeping in his radio car. Supervisors like that either grew into their jobs or their best men ducked and covered long enough to transfer to another sector.

Up in homicide, an authoritarian s.h.i.+ft commander is even more likely to be held in contempt by his detectives-men who would not, in fact, be on the sixth floor of headquarters if they weren't eighteen of the most self-motivated cops in the department. In homicide, the laws of natural selection apply: A cop who puts down enough cases stays, a cop who doesn't is gone. Given that basic truth, there isn't much respect for the notion that a cop shrewd enough to maneuver his way into homicide and then put together forty or fifty cases somehow needs to have a s.h.i.+ft commander's finger in his eye. Rank, of course, has it privileges, but a homicide supervisor who exercises his divine right to chew a.s.s on every conceivable occasion will in the end create a s.h.i.+ft of alienated sergeants and overly cautious detectives, unwilling or incapable of acting on their own instincts.

Instead, and at some cost to his own career, Gary D'Addario gave his men room to maneuver, providing a buffer against the captain and those above him in the chain of command. His method carried considerable risk, and the relations.h.i.+p between D'Addario and his captain had frayed around the edges during the last four years. By contrast, Bob Stanton, the other s.h.i.+ft lieutenant, was a supervisor more to the captain's liking. A b.u.t.toned-down veteran of the narcotics unit handpicked by the captain to command the second s.h.i.+ft, Stanton ran a tighter s.h.i.+p, with sergeants exerting more overt control over their men and detectives pressured to hold down the overtime and court pay that lubricates the entire system. Stanton was a good lieutenant and a sharp cop, but when compared with the alternative, his frugality and by-the-book style were such that more than a few veterans on his s.h.i.+ft expressed an eagerness to join D'Addario's crusade at the first opportunity.

For the sergeants and detectives blessed by D'Addario's benevolence, the quid pro quo was both simple and obvious. They had to solve murders. They had to solve enough murders to produce a clearance rate that would vindicate His Eminence and his methods and thereby justify his benign and glorious rule. In homicide, the clearance rate is the litmus test, the beginning and end of all debate.

Which is reason enough for D'Addario to stare long and hard at the red ink on his side of the board. Not only does the white rectangle offer ready comparisons between detectives, it offers the same superficial comparison between s.h.i.+fts. In that sense, the board-and the clearance rate it represents-has divided Baltimore's homicide guard into separate units, each s.h.i.+ft functioning independently of the other. Detectives old enough to have experienced life before the board remember the homicide unit as more of a single ent.i.ty; detectives were willing to work cases that began or ended on another s.h.i.+ft, knowing that credit for clearances would be shared by the entire unit. Created to promote cohesion and accountability, the board instead left the two s.h.i.+fts-and each of the six squads-to compete against each other in red and black ink for clearances, as if they were a pack of double-knit salesmen moving marked-down cars for Luby's Chevrolet.

The trend began long before Stanton's arrival, but the lieutenants' different styles helped to highlight the compet.i.tion. And for the last several years, detectives from one s.h.i.+ft had interacted with those from the other only at the half-hour s.h.i.+ft changes or on rare occasions when a detective pulling overtime on a case needed an extra body from the working s.h.i.+ft to witness an interrogation or help kick down a door. The compet.i.tion was always understated, but soon even individual detectives found themselves contemplating the white rectangle, silently computing clearance rates for opposing squads or s.h.i.+fts. That, too, was ironic, because every detective in the unit was willing to concede that the board was itself a flawed measurement, as it represented only the number of homicides for the year. A squad could spend three weeks of nightwork knee deep in police shootings, questionable deaths, serious a.s.saults, kidnappings, overdose cases and every other kind of death investigation. Yet none of that would be reflected in black and red ink.

Even with the murders themselves, much of what clears a case amounts to pure chance. The vocabulary of the homicide unit recognizes two distinct categories of homicides: whodunits and dunkers. Whodunits are genuine mysteries; dunkers are cases accompanied by ample evidence and an obvious suspect. Whodunits are best typified by crime scenes where a detective is called to some G.o.dforsaken back alley to find a body and little more. Dunkers are best typified by scenes at which the detective steps over the body to meet the unrepentant husband, who has not bothered to change his bloodied clothes and requires little prompting to admit that he stabbed the b.i.t.c.h and would do so again given the chance. The distinction between cases that require investigation and cases that require little more than paperwork is understood and accepted by every man in the unit, and more than one squad sergeant has accused another of rus.h.i.+ng a detective out to a call that sounded on the radio as if it were a domestic murder or, worse yet, ducking a call that had all the markings of a well-executed drug slaying.

The board, of course, does not delineate between dunkers solved by circ.u.mstance and whodunits solved by extended investigation: The ink is as black for one as the other. As a consequence, the resulting politics of whodunits and dunkers becomes part of the mind-set, so much so that veteran detectives watching an old western on the office television will always offer the same remark when gunfighters are shot down on frontier streets crowded with G.o.d-fearing townsfolk: "Yeah, bunk. There's a dunker."

But dunkers had lately been few and far between for D'Addario's s.h.i.+ft, and the lieutenant's dependence on both the board and the clearance rate had become even more acute in the wake of Worden's investigation into the Monroe Street shooting of John Scott. The captain had taken the extraordinary step of removing both D'Addario and McLarney from the chain of command, ordering Worden and James to report directly to the administrative lieutenant. On one level, the decision to preempt McLarney made sense because he was close to so many of the patrolmen in the Western, some of whom were potential suspects in the murder. But D'Addario had no divided allegiances, and after nine years in homicide he had seen enough red b.a.l.l.s to know the entire drill. The suggestion that he continue to devote his time to routine matters rather than contend with a sensitive investigation such as Monroe Street could only be taken as an insult. Inevitably, D'Addario's relations with the captain were now more strained than ever.

Gary D'Addario was by reputation a man slow to anger, but Monroe Street had clearly shortened his fuse. Earlier that week, Terry McLarney had typed a routine memo requesting that two Western officers be detailed to homicide to help with an ongoing probe; he had then forwarded the missive directly to the administrative lieutenant, bypa.s.sing D'Addario. A minor oversight in chain-of-command courtesy, but now, in the quiet of the coffee room, D'Addario brings it up, using humor and overwrought formality to make his point.

"Sergeant McLarney," he says, smiling, "while I have your attention I wonder if I might inquire as to an administrative matter."

"That's not my whiskey bottle in the top right drawer," blurts out McLarney, straight-faced. "Sergeant Landsman put it there to discredit me."

D'Addario laughs for the first time.

"And," McLarney deadpans, "I would respectfully like to point out that Sergeant Nolan's men have been using the cars without signing the vehicle book as I have properly trained my squad to do."

"This is about another matter."

"Something to do with conduct unbecoming an officer?"

"Not at all. This is purely administrative in nature."

"Oh." McLarney shrugs, sitting down. "You had me worried there for a second."

"I'm just a little concerned because a certain memo you penned was addressed to a lieutenant in this police department other than myself."

McLarney sees his mistake immediately. Monroe Street has everybody stepping light.

"I didn't think. I'm sorry."

D'Addario waves off the apology. "I just need to have your answer to one particular question."

"Sir?"

"First of all, I take it you are of the Roman Catholic faith."

"And proud of it."

"Fine. Then let me ask: Do you accept me as your true and only begotten lieutenant?"

"Yes, sir."

"And thou shalt have no other lieutenants before me?"

"No, sir."

"And thou shalt forever keep this covenant and wors.h.i.+p no false lieutenants?"

"Yes."

"Very good, sergeant," says D'Addario, extending his right hand. "You may now kiss the ring."

McLarney leans toward the large University of Baltimore band on the lieutenant's right hand, feigning a gesture of exaggerated subservience. Both men laugh and D'Addario, satisfied, takes a cup of coffee back to his own office.

Alone in the coffee room, Terry McLarney stares at the long white rectangle, understanding that D'Addario has already forgotten and forgiven the wayward memo. But the red ink on D'Addario's side of the board-that's cause for some real concern.

Like most supervisors in the homicide unit, McLarney is a sergeant with a detective's heart, and like D'Addario, he sees his role as largely protectionist. In the districts, the lieutenants can order their sergeants and the sergeants can order their men, and it all works as the general orders manual says it should-chain of command is suited to patrol. But in homicide, where the detectives are paced as much by their own instinct and talent as by the caseload, a good supervisor rarely makes unequivocal demands. He suggests, he encourages, he prods and pleads ever so gently with men who know exactly what needs to be done on a case without having to be told. In many ways, a detective sergeant best serves his men by completing the administrative paperwork, keeping the bra.s.s at bay and letting the detectives do the job. It is a reasoned philosophy, and McLarney holds firm to it nine out of ten days. But every tenth day, something suddenly compels him to attempt a pattern of behavior consistent with the sort of sergeants they warn you about in the academy.

A heavyset Irishman with cherubic features, McLarney drapes one stubby leg over a desk corner and looks up at the white rectangle and the three red entries below his nameplate. Thomas Ward. Kenny Vines. Michael Jones. Three dead men; three open cases. Definitely not the best way for a squad to start a new year.

McLarney is still staring at the board when one of his detectives walks into the coffee room. Carrying an old case folder, Donald Waltemeyer grunts a monosyllabic greeting and walks past the sergeant to an empty desk. McLarney watches him for a few minutes, thinking of a way to begin a conversation he doesn't really want to have.

"Hey, Donald."

"Hey."

"What are you looking at?"

"Old case from Mount Vernon."

"h.o.m.os.e.xual murder?"

"Yeah, William Leyh, from eighty-seven. The one where the guy was tied up and beat," says Waltemeyer, shuffling through the file to the five-by-seven color photos of a half-nude, blood-soaked wreck, hog-tied on an apartment floor.

"What's up with that?"

"Got a call from a state trooper in New Jersey. There's a guy in a mental inst.i.tution up there who says he tied up and beat a guy in Baltimore."

"This case?"

"Dunno. Me or Dave or Donald is going to have to go up there and talk to this guy. It could all be bulls.h.i.+t."

McLarney s.h.i.+fts gears. "I always said you were the hardest-working man in my squad, Donald. I tell everybody that."

Waltemeyer looks up at his sergeant with immediate suspicion.

"No, really ..."

"What do you want, sergeant?"

"Why do I have to want anything?"

"Hey," says Waltemeyer, leaning back in his chair, "how long have I been a policeman?"

"Can't a sergeant compliment one of his men?"

Waltemeyer rolls his eyes. "What do you want from me?"

McLarney laughs, almost embarra.s.sed at having been so easily caught playing the role of supervisor.

"Well," he says, treading carefully, "what's up with the Vines case?"

"Not much. Ed wants to bring Eddie Carey back in and talk to him, but there isn't much else."

"Well, what about Thomas Ward?"

"Talk to Dave Brown. He's the primary."

Pedaling with his feet, McLarney rolls his chair around to the side of Waltemeyer's desk. His voice drops to a conspiratorial tone.

"Donald, we've got to make something happen with some of these fresh cases. Dee was in here looking at the board just a few minutes ago."

"What are you telling me for?"

"I'm just asking you, is there anything that we're not doing?"

"Is there anything I'm I'm not doing?" says Waltemeyer, standing up and grabbing the Leyh file off the desk. "You tell me. I'm doing everything I can, but either the case is there or it isn't. What should I be doing? You tell me." not doing?" says Waltemeyer, standing up and grabbing the Leyh file off the desk. "You tell me. I'm doing everything I can, but either the case is there or it isn't. What should I be doing? You tell me."

Donald Waltemeyer is losing it. McLarney can tell because Waltemeyer's eyes have begun to roll up into his forehead the way they always do when he gets steamed. McLarney worked with a guy in the Central who used to do that. Nicest guy in the world. Pretty long fuse. But let some yo with an att.i.tude ride him too far, those eyeb.a.l.l.s would roll up like an Atlantic City slot. It was a sure sign to every other cop that negotiations had ended and nightsticks were in order. McLarney tries to shrug off the memory; he continues to press the point with Waltemeyer.

"Donald, I'm just saying it doesn't look good to start out the year with so many cases in the red."

"So what you're saying to me, sergeant, is that the lieutenant came in here and looked at the board and gave you a little kick, so now you're gonna kick me."

The whole truth and nothing but. McLarney has to laugh. "Well, Donald, you can always go kick Dave Brown."

"s.h.i.+t rolls downhill, doesn't it, sergeant?"

Fecal gravity. The chain of command defined.

"I don't know," says McLarney, backing away from the conversation as gracefully as possible. "I don't think I've ever actually seen s.h.i.+t on a hill."

"I understand, sergeant, I understand," says Waltemeyer, walking out of the coffee room. "I been a policeman a long time now."

McLarney leans back in his chair, resting his head against the office blackboard. He absently pulls a copy of the police department newsletter off the top of the desk and scans the front page. Grip-and-grin photographs of commissioners and deputy commissioners shaking hands with whichever cop managed to survive the last police shooting. Thank you, son, for taking a bullet for Baltimore.

The sergeant tosses the newsletter back on the desk, then gets up, giving one last glance at the board on his way out of the coffee room.

Vines, Ward and Jones. Red, red and red.

So, McLarney tells himself, it's gonna be that kind of year.

TUESDAY, JANUARY 26.

Harry Edgerton begins the day right, his freshly s.h.i.+ned loafer narrowly avoiding a piece of the dead man's ear as he pushes through the screen door of a Northeast Baltimore townhouse.

"You just missed his ear."

Edgerton looks up quizzically at a ruddy-faced patrolman leaning against a living room wall.

"What was that?"

"His ear," the uniform says, pointing down at the parquet floor. "You just missed stepping on it."

Edgerton looks down at a pale lump of flesh next to his right shoe. It's an ear, all right. Most of the lobe and a short, curled stretch of the outer ridge, resting just beyond the welcome mat. The detective glances at the dead man and the shotgun on the sofa, then moves toward the other end of the room, choosing his steps carefully.

"How does that line go," says the uniform, as if he had practiced it for a week. "Friends, Romans, countrymen ..."

"Police are some sick f.u.c.ks," laughs Edgerton, shaking his head. "Who's handling this one?"

"Straight-up suicide. She's got it."

An older patrolman points to a younger uniform sitting at the dining room table. The officer, a black woman with delicate features, is already writing out her incident report. Edgerton makes her immediately for a uniform new to the street.

"Hey there."

The woman nods.

"You found him? What's your unit number?"

"Four-two-three."

"Did you touch him or move anything around?"