He stood at the door to the small store, with the bloodstain a few feet away and the two casings about ten feet beyond the blood. He tried to get a sense of what the witnesses might have seen from the door or from inside the store. He tried to imagine what the corpse saw as the cop approached him. Stoltz had to wonder why, if the dead guy saw the cop with a pistol pointed at him, he didn’t drop the ASP. While the ASP expandable baton was a lethal weapon, it was no match for a Glock .40 caliber.
The lack of blood on the sidewalk probably meant good shot placement and that the guy’s heart stopped before it pumped much blood. Some bloody napkins and paramedics’ bandage wrappers lay next to the wall and in the lot just off the sidewalk. Someone had made an effort to save him.
Stoltz scanned the area to see all the vantage points. Inside the store, two of the female witnesses cried into paper towels.
The shooting had occurred more than an hour ago. He had a hard time understanding the lingering stress of the incident. To him, the aftermath was just an activity, like doing your wash or balancing the books. He often was mystified by the emotion that followed. At least the hysterics of witnesses who didn’t know the corpse. He noticed his partner speaking to a witness off to the side, away from the others. That seemed natural to him, not emotional. Get the scene in order, then break it down. Talk to the witnesses separately so one account doesn’t influence the others.
He noticed the chief of police walking toward him, accompanied by a short, bald man in casual clothes. The bald guy was young, maybe thirty-three, and had a serious look about him.
The chief said, “Ben, this is David Whist. He’s the PBA attorney handling this.” The Police Benevolent Association always sent a lawyer to the scene of a shooting that involved one of its dues-paying members.
He shook the younger man’s small, smooth hand.
The attorney blew past all niceties. “You wanna hear our side? As a proffer, of course.”
“I’d rather talk to your man.”
“He’s composing himself.”
“And if there’s a problem with the shooting, you can’t testify.”
“That’s why we have attorneys and offer proffers of what happened, Detective.”
Stoltz listened to the quick summary of the cop’s encounter with an uncommunicative man who wouldn’t leave the premises as the owner had ordered. The cop popped out his ASP so the man could see the extended baton, then tapped him on the leg to get him moving. The attorney emphasized it was a tap, not a strike. The man grabbed the ASP, and the two wrestled for control of the weapon. When the cop couldn’t fight any longer, he released the ASP and climbed to his feet, exhausted. The officer drew his pistol and ordered the man to drop the weapon and not to come any closer. After several attempts to get the man to stop coming toward him, the cop fired twice, hitting the man in the chest. The officer applied immediate first aid and called for help.
“That’s it?” asked Stoltz.
“In a nutshell.”
“Can I speak to your client?”
“Absolutely.”
“I’ll be over to the PD in about half an hour.”
STOLTZ TOOK A few minutes to confer with his sergeant, who had just arrived, and with his partner, who had briefly spoken to each witness and was preparing to get formal taped statements from them.
The young sergeant looked up at his two seniormost detectives. “What do ya got, Ben?”
Ben relayed the attorney’s account.
The sergeant looked at Chuck without saying a word.
The heavier partner with the monogrammed shirt looked down at his pad. “The store owner called in that the dead guy wouldn’t leave the premises and appeared to be ignoring the outside world. The owner said he didn’t notice the cop until they started struggling outside. He said they sort of ‘lay on top of each other for a long time,’ until the cop stood up and shouted several times, then fired his pistol twice. The shop owner thinks it’s great, because he believes it’ll scare off the other homeless guys from across the Intracoastal.” He looked at Stoltz and added, “The others say pretty much the same thing, except . . .”
Ben said, “Except for who?”
“The surfer-looking guy.” They all turned at once and looked through the window. Stoltz immediately saw a smaller blond man, about twenty-five, in the corner, drinking a Pepsi.
“What about him?”
“He says the cop smacked the guy with the ASP in the head for no reason, then shoved him to the ground. He also said that after only about twenty seconds, the cop stood up and shot the man without warning.”
Stoltz rolled his eyes. There was always one witness who saw things differently. Now he had to find out why the guy saw events occur in a way no one else did. Often it was just the stress of the situation. Sometimes it was something else. He knew this would take some time.
“Bring him over to the PD, and we’ll talk to him last.”
If only he had been able to direct his family life as well as a scene, maybe he’d be anxious to wrap things up to get home now. He knew that wasn’t true. He had never been anxious to leave a scene. That was his issue.
HE ARRIVED AT the small but professional-looking building that served as city hall in the front. The tiny police department on the side and the one-engine fire department in the back. The sun was just setting, and he felt a breeze off the ocean combined with the autumn temperature and wished he had a Windbreaker. That was the heaviest coat he owned, except for his lone suit coat, which he needed for his rare appearances in court. He shrugged off the chill and headed inside with his partner.
As he entered the main hallway, he heard, “Stoltz, good. Come here—I need to tell you something.” He knew the harsh New York accent and hesitated to turn, hoping instead he was just having a stroke or his hearing had gone. He couldn’t hide as his partner murmured, “Oh shit, I forgot about her.”
Stoltz turned and nodded. “Carla, I need some time. I haven’t even taken a statement yet.”
The younger woman motioned him over, knowing that his partner would avoid joining the conversation at all costs. “Listen.” She placed a hand on his shoulder and leaned in as if someone might try to intercept the conversation. “You can take your statement, but this looks like shit.”
“What does?”
“This shooting.”
“Why, what did you see in it?”
“He shot someone who had only a stick.”
“You mean the ASP?”
“Don’t you start on that bullshit. A baton is not a threat to a big cop like Albury.”
“I disagree, but until I speak to everyone, I can’t say what exactly happened.”
The prosecutor ran a hand through her richly dyed hair. Her pretty face often fooled people until she started to speak. “Look, this department has had a dozen shootings, and no one ever has boo to say about it. This one is not gonna slide by while I’m assigned to it.” She turned and wiped her forehead with her bare hand, clearly exasperated. “There are already TV vans filming at the scene. This case means something. This case can make up for a lot of bad press.”
“I thought each case was independent and we looked at the facts.” He tried to suppress his smile.
“The fact is that if we don’t indict a white cop in this town for killing a black transient, people are gonna shout.”
Stoltz was ready. “Luckily the justice system isn’t influenced by bullshit like that.”
By the color of her face, Stoltz knew he had hit a nerve. It wasn’t right, but this was fun.
The young prosecutor came right to the point. “If you can’t make this case, let me know and I’ll get someone who can. I need this indictment.” She paused. “Besides, there is no dispute that the cop shot the homeless guy. He has to pay for that.”
“I agree, the cop has to pay.”
“That’s more like it.”
Stoltz went on, “If the cop had no reason to shoot. Right now, it looks like he had a reason to shoot — they wres
tled until he was exhausted, and then he lost a deadly weapon to the assailant.” He looked up for support from his partner but saw he was alone. “Besides, it shouldn’t matter if people shout. It should matter what’s right.”
“Cut the ‘brotherhood of the badge’ shit. You write it so I can present it.”
“Look, Carla, I’m not looking at a brotherhood issue. I’m looking at an officer-involved shooting. Only one, not the last eleven. This one, single shooting. And if it looks clean, I’ll pass it on, and if it looks like a bad shoot, I’ll pass that on. But you’re out of line telling me how to write it up.”
She stepped back and turned her dark eyes up at him. “I’m out of line? I’m out of line? Let me tell you something, Detective. You fucking work for me, and I tell you anything I fucking want to.”
In a perfectly calm voice, Stoltz said, “I work for the sheriff of Broward County, who has assigned me to the Homicide Unit to look at death investigations objectively. Until he says otherwise, that’s what I’m gonna do.” He turned and headed into the rear section of the building to continue his investigation before the assistant state attorney could make another comment.
BY ELEVEN THAT night, Stoltz had spoken to the cop, who was shaken by the incident, and to two of the witnesses, who said the fight lasted several minutes and the cop did everything short of running away before he shot the man and then applied immediate medical aid. Stoltz knew the other witnesses had corroborated that sequence of events — except for Sammy Walker, the surfer, who was waiting in a nearby room and whom Stoltz intended to question next. As he set up the recorder and waited for his partner to come back from the bathroom, Carla Lazaro stuck her head in the small room.
“You done yet?”
“One more witness.”
“The surfer?”
“Yeah.”
“He says it was murder.”
“I still want to talk to him, if you don’t mind. The others say it was justified.”
The prosecutor slipped her wide but shapely frame into the room and lowered her voice. “I’m telling you, Stoltz, you write it my way or your ass will be out of Homicide so fast your clip-on tie will stay at your desk.”
“Look, Carla — ”
“I’m serious. The way the murder rate is going and the new blood that wants in at your unit, you’ll be in Warrants or Fraud, slogging through buckets of financial records until the day you pull the plug.” Her flushed face showed she was not kidding and that this had become personal. “See if you can ever figure out who killed Jane Doe number sixty-eight while working midnights at the airport.”
That brought him up short. He stared at her. “What do you know about Jane?”
“I know that if you’re out of the Homicide Unit, no one will ever give a shit about her. I know she cost you your wife. And I also know she won’t let you fuck up here. That’s why you’ll do as I tell you.”
Thankfully his partner walked up behind Carla with the surfer in tow.
The prosecutor took a seat and said, “I’ll sit in on this interview.”
Stoltz could’ve protested but knew it wouldn’t do him any good. “Whatever you want, Carla.”
The surfer, Sammy Walker, had seen the whole thing. He recounted in detail how the cop had swung at the man’s head and how the officer had drawn his gun and fired before ever issuing a warning. The whole time, the assistant state attorney nodded her head in acknowledgment and made an occasional note. The look on her face approached pleasure.
Stoltz felt her eyes on him every once in a while, and he met her gaze a couple of times, sensing her satisfaction at the young man’s story. He knew she was serious about having him transferred and believed she probably had the clout. She knew just what to threaten him with and how it would hurt.
He hadn’t always felt this way about the job. Originally he started because the benefits and retirement were much better than those of his job as a teacher at a private school in the north end of Fort Lauderdale. His wife had worried about the change at first, but with his better pay and benefits, she was able to go part-time at the bank, and she realized her husband wasn’t stupid and wouldn’t take ridiculous chances. Then, after becoming a detective, he had started to change. Slowly at first. Working a few extra hours or bringing home reports to review. Then, as he transferred into Homicide, the job took on more of a global effect. When he wasn’t at the office, all he talked about were cases or the guys he worked with. Now, through some slow evolution, he had come to view not only his job as a cop but his assignment in Homicide as who he was rather than as a part of his life. Then Jane Doe number sixty-eight entered his life. Other than in her resemblance to Jenny, he never knew why this young woman had taken ahold of him, but she was almost as big a part of his life as his own daughter. In a way, over the last three years, he had spent more time thinking about Jane than about Jenny.
Now he listened as the surfer seemed to lay out a compelling case for believing that the cop had acted without proper cause to shoot the homeless man, who, it appeared, had lived behind a shopping plaza across the Intracoastal.
Stoltz let the young man finish everything, made a few notes, and looked up and nodded at the assistant state attorney.
She nodded back and let a slight smile cross her pretty face.
“So, Sammy,” he started slowly, “have you ever been arrested?”
“What?”
“Have you ever been arrested? For anything?”
The young man hesitated, rapping his fingers on the table. “What’s that got to do with anything?”
“That sounds like a ‘Yes, you have been arrested.’”
He brushed back his long bangs. “Yeah, a couple of times.”
“What for?”
“Why?”
“Look, Sammy, I can run a criminal history on you. I just want to know what you’ve been arrested for.”
“Usual.”
“What’s the usual?”
“You know. Burglary, possession, auto theft. That sort of stuff.”
“Possession of what?”
“Drugs, you know. Crack, weed, a few pharmaceuticals.”
“And you live over on this side of the Intracoastal, right?”
“Yeah, with my parents, in a condo.”
“And the arrests happened where?”
“Hollywood, mostly.”
“Just in Hollywood?”
“And Davie, I think.”
“What about here?”
“Where?”
“Here, in this town?”
“Over here? Near my folks?”
“Yes, here, near your folks.”
He took a long breath and said, “Yeah, a couple of times.”
“Now here’s an important question, and you better tell me the truth.” He looked at the young man to impart the gravity of the situation.
“What’s that?”
Stoltz asked, “Did the officer you saw in the shooting ever arrest you?”
The young man hesitated and looked to the prosecutor, to whom he had obviously already spoken.
Stoltz pressed him. “C’mon, Sammy, did this officer ever arrest you?”
“Well, I, ah . . .”
“Sammy, the truth.”
“Yeah.”
“What for?”
“Burglary of a conveyance and possession and maybe once for shoplifting.”
“Three different arrests?”
“Yeah.”
“Did you talk to him today?”
“No, I don’t think he ever even saw me.”
“Now, before you’re in real trouble, do you want to tell me what you saw today? And this time, no bullshit.”
The young man slowly nodded his head and told a story a little more believable than the first one. It matched the others.
OUTSIDE THE ROOM, as Stoltz prepared to wrap up the on-scene investigation, the assistant state attorney approached him. “You know that doesn’t change shit, Stoltz. We need an indictment on this.”
/> “No jury would ever convict.”
“That’s fine, then it’s the jury’s fault for not convicting him, but the state attorney’s office has to take action. We’re gonna indict at the grand jury.”
“How?”
“You know how. The standard is just probable cause, not reasonable doubt. We could indict Don Shula for loitering if we present it right.”
“But if you put me, the lead detective, on the stand, I’ll just tell the facts, and you’re sunk.”
“We’ve got a few weeks. You think about life in another unit. You take some time to decide if you want to answer a fucking phone, ‘Stoltz, airport traffic.’ Look at the Jane Doe file. You think it over, and we’ll see what you say when the time comes.”
Stoltz resisted drawing his small .38 and putting it to the prosecutor’s head as she turned and stomped out the main door.
He did have a lot to go over.
THE WEEKS AFTER the shooting were filled with investigative duties: the autopsy, criminal checks on the corpse and witnesses, reviewing the 911 tapes and radio logs, going over the department’s policy on the use of the ASP and the state’s guidelines on the use of deadly force. The whole time, a cloud seemed to hang over Ben Stoltz as he considered his possible transfer if he didn’t proceed the way Carla Lazaro had instructed him. He dreaded a transfer more than he had his divorce. He might find another wife, but he’d never get back into Homicide. He felt his ulcer start to flare up; his migraines returned worse than when Craig had introduced him to his “friend” Alex. He lay sleepless most nights, imagining life on the Fugitive Unit or the Property Crimes Unit. And he did go back to the Jane Doe number sixty-eight file more than once, getting lost in the photos of the lifeless form in a vacant lot. He wondered who missed her. How might the world be different in fifty years if she had not been treated like discarded trash? He looked at the photos and felt as strongly about her now as he had when he was on the scene.