Steven Havill - Convenient Disposal

“Me, the undersheriff, and one deputy.”

“Is that deputy certified?”

“No. Not yet.”

“So essentially, it’s you two, then.” He swept a finger to include Torrez and Estelle. “And you’re stuck in here. Right now, who’s on duty in the village?”

Mitchell shifted in his seat. “Officer Sisneros,” he said.

Tinneman frowned, looked first to the right, and then to the left as if caught in a profound conundrum. “See, that’s the thing. Is Tuesday afternoon considered a high-crime time around here?” Someone in the audience laughed, but Tinneman held the pose until Torrez responded.

“No, sir. It’s not.”

“And yet we have five officers on duty.”

“No, sir, we don’t.”

“Well, explain to me, then.”

“Myself, the chief, and the undersheriff are always on call,” Torrez said. “We don’t work any particular shift. We’re around when we need to be. We’re here right now because of this meeting. As far as working officers are concerned, cops who are out in cars and able to respond to dispatch, you’ve got Sisneros in the village, and one uncertified deputy in the county.” A flicker of a smile touched the sheriff’s handsome face. “And if something major happens, you’d see the three of us headin’ out this door.”

“And so how is that coverage going to improve with this merger?”

“It’s not.” When Tinneman looked triumphant, Torrez added, “The only way coverage is going to improve is to hire more staff. Merging the two departments saves some money spent on-”

When he stopped short, groping for the right word, Gray leaned forward. “Infrastructure?”

“That’s it.”

“Now here’s the question,” Tinneman said. “Is the amount of money that the village will spend to contract with us instead of having their own department sufficient …”-he lingered on the word-”is it sufficient to provide the extra patrol officers that you say you need?”

“Probably not.”

The silence hung for a moment as Tinneman assumed that the sheriff planned to amplify his answer. When Torrez didn’t, the commissioner shrugged his shoulders. “I just don’t see how we can take this on,” he said wearily.

“No one will ever spend enough to do the job right,” Commissioner Dulci Corona said. She shook her head in disgust.

“Well, that’s not the case-,” Tinneman started to say.

“Yes, it is the case,” Corona snapped, sounding like the grade school teacher she had been for thirty years. “No one wants to pay for police, but everyone will complain when an officer doesn’t show up in ten seconds when he’s called. We have an opportunity now to do something right. We can have a well-organized department that’s responsive in both the village and the county. We just might have to pay for it.”

“And that money comes from where?” Tinneman asked.

“There’s always money,” Corona said. “That’s the county manager’s job. To find it.”

Tinneman glanced back toward Zeigler’s still-empty desk. He ducked his head, turning toward Dr. Gray. “Was Kevin coming back this afternoon?”

Gray nodded. “As far as I know.”

“I have a couple of budget questions I want to explore with him,” Tinneman said. Torrez was already headed for his seat. “Sheriff, do you have your budget with you?”

Torrez hesitated, frowning. He settled into his seat when he saw Estelle raise her hand in response.

“Ah, you’re the departmental budget guru, Undersheriff?” Tinneman asked. He smiled benignly as Estelle rose and walked back to the podium. “Do you need to borrow some paper-work?” He held up a thick document.

“No, sir. I don’t think so.”

Milton Crowley swiveled the video camera so that its glass eye stared at her, and Estelle could hear it adjusting for the distance and dimmer light in the back of the room.

“Undersheriff Guzman, the chief told us this morning that his village department costs something like thirty-seven thousand dollars per person. Do I have that right?” Tinneman riffled through papers, stopped and underlined something with his pencil. “Counting salary, workman’s comp, benefits, vehicles, everything else, right down to the tissue paper in the restroom, it comes to just over a hundred thirty-one thousand for the department. That’s a little over thirty-seven thousand per person, if we divide it out that way.” He looked up at Estelle expectantly.

“Thirty-seven thousand four hundred seventy-three and sixty-nine cents,” Estelle said.

“Exactly,” Tinneman said with satisfaction. “I was going to ask Mr. Zeigler what the comparable figure for the sheriff’s department is. Would you happen to know?”

“If you take the total budget and divide it by the number of employees, the figure is just under forty-two thousand,” Estelle said.

“So the village PD actually costs less to operate than the sheriff’s department?” Somehow, Tinneman made it sound as if this astounding revelation hadn’t been hashed and rehashed in a half dozen meetings and conferences.

“We also run a small jail unit, sir. On top of that, we have civil law responsibilities that the village does not have. We also have a considerable fleet of vehicles. As you know, most deputies now take their vehicles home to cut response time.”

“It’s my understanding, though, that the village is offering right around one hundred twenty-five thousand dollars for the merger, though. That’s not even three officers, is it?”

“No, sir.”

“Great deal for the village.”

Dulci Corona tossed her pencil on the desk. “I say that we accept the village offer and kick in enough for the Sheriff’s Department to hire three full-time officers. Let’s do this right.”

“I’d want to see the figures on that,” Tinneman said. “Can somebody give Kevin a call? We need him here. I think he fell into his martini or something.”

“Do you have any more questions for the undersheriff?” Dr. Gray asked.

“No, actually, I want to talk to the county manager,” Tinneman said doggedly.

“I’ll check for you,” Estelle said. Torrez turned and shot her an expression of impatience as she left the podium and slipped out the doors, irritated that she’d made her escape and he’d missed his chance. Across the foyer, Estelle saw Penny Barnes at her desk in the manager’s office.

“Barney wants to talk to Kevin,” Estelle said, and Penny made a face.

“Barney always wants to talk,” she said. “He’s not back from lunch yet?” She reached for the phone, dialed, and waited, then shook her head. “I’ll put a message on his pager.”

“He told me this morning that he had some errands.”

Penny reached forward and pulled the calendar closer. “He wanted to talk to one of the men over at the highway barn about some workman’s comp thing. That’s the only one I know about.” She looked up helpfully at Estelle. “You know…just errands.”

“How about at home?”

Penny tried that number without success. “He’s about the hardest man in the world to keep track of,” she said, snapping off the phone. She tapped a pile of papers at her left elbow. “If you see him before I do, tell him I need to bend his ear, too.”

Estelle reentered the commission meeting to find Dulci Corona once more holding the floor, determined this time to head off Barney Tinneman before the commissioner settled into yet another lengthy examination of things already well known. Gray glanced at Estelle with raised eyebrows, and the undersheriff shook her head and shrugged.

Undeterred, Corona offered the motion that would provide police services to the village. To Estelle’s surprise, and evidently to Barney Tinneman’s as well, Patric Sweeney immediately offered a second. When Tinneman ducked his head and appeared as if he was winding up to launch into another round of discussion, Dr. Gray straightened his shoulders and thumped his pencil down on the table.