David Lindsey - An Absence of Light

“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.

The key phrase in this mandate was “suspected of.” It was the source of a world of trouble. Suspicion carried with it a responsibility as delicate as nitroglycerin. Because the law gave intelligence officers the authority to act on their suspicions, implicit within that authority was the assumption that they would act responsibly. They were given considerable latitude in determining who should become a target of their “collection efforts.” (The term “spying” was considered a dysphemism, though many believed it to be a more honest description of domestic intelligence work.)

Intelligence investigators often collected information about persons who, at first glance, were not clearly seen to be involved in criminal activities. The intelligence file, therefore, invariably contained allegations, rumors, and hearsay that were in the process of being either corroborated or disproved. This information was known as “raw data.”

For this reason, the file was highly sensitive. In reality, every Intelligence Division operated under a tentative condemnation. If the raw data they gathered eventually was validated and the resulting intelligence was used to avert criminal activity, then the intelligence process was a prima facie success. It was justified.

On the other hand, if the raw data eventually proved to be false, then the information was purged from the intelligence file. However, during the time in which these allegations were in the process of being evaluated, the intelligence unit was in fact maintaining a file of spurious information about persons or organizations who were entirely free of any criminal taint In the eyes of many people this was clearly a violation of the individual’s right to privacy, a violation that was hardly justified by the system’s other successes.

For this very reason, then, the intelligence file was considered inviolable by the men and women who were responsible for keeping it The file’s raw data was considered unstable and susceptible to abuse, and only those persons who knew and understood the context in which the information was collected were allowed access. However, this narrowly restrictive guardianship of the CID file created an information elite, and like any privileged group the Criminal Intelligence Division was often resented. It was itself continuously under suspicion by those on the outside.

Marcus Graver had made a career of collecting other people’s secrets. He had learned early on that most men were so complex a mixture of what was traditionally considered good and bad that to assign either value to any one individual was to commit a gross oversimplification. His personal philosophy about human nature had ranged all the way to the farthest margins of cynicism and back again, and now his own views were so bedeviled by disappointments and buoyed to hope by those rare, but inevitable, acts of selflessness, that he no longer had a coherent philosophy at all. No one theory or doctrine seemed to him to contain a suitable explanation for the astounding diversity of behavior of which a single individual was capable.

He also had learned that if you were in the business of collecting the kind of information about people that they ardently wished to keep hidden, for whatever innocent or evil reasons, you had better accept the fact that you never would be free of suspicion yourself. Knowing other people’s secrets was, in itself, a kind of tainting knowledge.

They talked a few more minutes while the morgue van disappeared through the high weeds and the tow truck pulled up and hooked onto Tisler’s car. Graver said he would take the responsibility for notifying Tisler’s wife. The detectives finally left, and the Crime Scene Unit broke down its equipment and packed the van. Katz lighted one more cigarette.

“Well, congratulations, Marcus, this is a first,” he said. “I don’t believe a CID officer has ever died in circumstances that required an investigation.”

“No,” Graver said, “I don’t think so.”

It was completely dark now except for the jerking beams of flashlights as the two CSU investigators put in the last of the equipment and closed the doors. They had a brief conversation with the remaining uniformed officer who was waiting to be the last to leave the scene, and then they climbed into their van and plowed through the weeds to the ruts that led them back to the paved street.

The uniformed officer started toward them, his flashlight bouncing across the trampled grass.

“It’s all right, go on in,” Katz said to him across the darkness.

“Okay, sir. Just checking.”

“Yeah, thanks,” Katz said.

The flashlight beam bounced back to the patrol car, the door slammed, the headlights came on, and the car made a turn away from them and headed for the ruts that everyone else had followed.

For a moment the city seemed far away, having nothing to do with them. There were no more planes taking off from the airport Katz’s cigarette glowed brightly then faded, absorbed by the darkness that was close around them. Graver was waiting for him to make his observation. He knew Katz had something on his mind, or he would have been gone with the rest of them.