Michael McGarrity - Nothing But Trouble

Johnny nodded, his face flushed from the whiskey and wine. “And this one is a real moneymaker for everyone involved. Not that you need it. To hear tell, you’ve got a sweet little horse-ranch operation outside of town.”

“Raising and training cutting horses,” Kerney said, wondering who had been so forthcoming about his personal life with Johnny. He doubted it had been Dale Jennings.

“Are you in?” Johnny asked, his words slightly slurred.

“I’m not sure if I can spare the time.”

“You’re the police chief,” Johnny rebutted. “Top cop, and all that. Can’t the department do without you?”

“I’ll think about the offer.”

After dinner Johnny fumbled with his wallet for a credit card to use to pay the check. When he signed the charge slip his hand was shaky.

Kerney thanked him for dinner and held out his palm. “Give me your car keys, Johnny. I’m driving you to the hotel. The concierge can arrange to retrieve your vehicle.”

Johnny flashed an annoyed looked. “Get real, Kerney. The hotel is only four blocks from here and I’m not drunk.”

“I think you are. Your keys, Johnny.”

“You’re joking, right?” Johnny said, laughing.

Kerney shook his head and made a gimme motion with his outstretched hand.

Johnny shrugged, fished a hand into his pocket, and dropped the keys into Kerney’s open palm, along with his business card. “I’m going to need an answer on the technical-advisor job in a week,” he said.

“You’ll have it by then,” Kerney said.

At the hotel Kerney accompanied Johnny into the lobby. The concierge was off duty, so Kerney gave Johnny’s car keys and a twenty-dollar bill to a valet parking attendant and asked him to bring the vehicle at the restaurant back to the hotel.

Johnny described his car and the attendant hurried off. “Let me buy you a nightcap in the bar,” he said.

Kerney steered Johnny to the elevators and shook his head. “Not tonight, but thanks again for the meal. It was good to catch up with you.”

Johnny hid his disappointment. He hated being alone in hotel rooms. Maybe he should have tolerated Brenda’s chitchat and kept her around instead of sending her back to Denver. He pushed the elevator call button and said, “You’re no fun at all, Kerney.”

“Don’t take it personally,” Kerney replied. “I’ve got a busy day tomorrow. Next time, if you come to town on a weekend, I’ll lift a glass or two with you.”

“It’s a deal,” Johnny said. “When I get back to Denver, I’ll send you a copy of the shooting script for the movie by overnight express, so you can see exactly what I’ve been talking about. You’re gonna love it.”

The elevator doors slid open and the two men shook hands and said good-night. Kerney left the hotel thinking it might be wise to check out Johnny and his offer before making up his mind about the proposal. On appearances Johnny seemed to be successful and living large. He drove an expensive car, stayed in the best hotel in town, and had treated Kerney to dinner at a pricey restaurant.

But Kerney wondered about Johnny’s drinking. He’d studied Johnny’s face carefully for any telltale signs of alcoholism-pasty gray skin, bloodshot eyes, the broken spider veins that showed on the cheek and nose-and had seen none. But that didn’t prove anything.

He shrugged off his unanswered question about Johnny. Best to wait and see if he followed up and sent him the script. If he did, Kerney would talk to Sara about the idea of spending their vacation playing cowboy on a movie.

Actually, to Kerney, in spite of his reservations about Johnny, the idea sounded like a total hoot.

By morning the April snowstorm had passed, the sun had burned away the last traces of snow, and trees were greening up, about to bud. After a presentation to a civic organization at a breakfast meeting in downtown Santa Fe, Kerney hurried back to headquarters for a regularly scheduled monthly meeting with his senior commanders and supervisors from all shifts.

Always on the lookout for new ways to combat and reduce crime, Kerney had recently instituted a computer-based system that identified patterns of criminal activity based on the types of offenses committed, the dates and times of each occurrence, and the specific locations of the crimes. Basic information from all incident reports and traffic citations was fed into the system, analyzed, and broken down into ten geographic areas within the city. The program allowed Kerney and his commanders to shift resources, set goals, coordinate case planning among the various divisions, and track progress.

The department had field-tested the system over the previous holiday season and had reduced auto burglaries at shopping malls by fifty percent. Now that it was fully operational, each commander was responsible for establishing targeted monthly goals to reduce crime on their shifts based on the current trends.

Over twenty senior officers were crowded into the first-floor training room, filling the chairs at the large conference table and sitting against the walls. Kerney’s deputy chief, Larry Otero, ran the meeting as commanders discussed the data, reviewed current activities, set new case plans, and decided upon special operations to be initiated during the coming month.

At the end of the table a slide projector connected to the computer displayed the maps of the city on a screen that highlighted high crime activity. In the downtown area, early evening, strong-arm robberies and purse snatchings were up, and in a public housing neighborhood near St. Michael’s Drive, criminal damage to property and residential burglaries had risen by ten percent on the weekends. On the southern end of the city motor vehicle crashes were down on all shifts. But a perp had surfaced who was baiting patrol officers into high-speed chases and had yet to be caught.

The meeting wound down with a report on the completion of the latest citizen police academy program, and a decision was made to run a DWI blitz on a weekend two weeks hence. The last bit of business was an announcement of the arrival of twenty new patrol vehicles, which would be outfitted and put in service within several weeks.

Kerney thanked everyone for their good work and went to his upstairs office, where he reviewed the shift commanders’ reports from the last twenty-four hours. A DWI arrest had been made on Cerrillos Road by a third-watch patrol officer, and a male subject named John Jordan had been taken into custody.

Kerney powered up his desktop computer, logged on, and read the officer’s incident-and-arrest report. Three hours after Kerney had left him at the hotel, Johnny had been busted on Cerrillos Road two blocks from the city’s only adult entertainment club. He’d been stopped for making an illegal U-turn and had failed a field sobriety test. At the jail he’d registered a 0.20 on the alcohol breath test, more than twice the legal limit.

Kerney called the jail and learned that Johnny had been released on bail. His phone rang just as he was about to dial the hotel.

“Hey, Kerney,” Johnny said cheerfully when Kerney answered. “You should have had that nightcap with me at the bar, then I wouldn’t have gotten into trouble with one of your cops.”

“I just read about your ‘little trouble,’ Johnny,” Kerney said.

“Didn’t the cop call you at home? I asked him to.”

“He had no reason to do that.”

“Even if he had, I figured you wouldn’t give a rat’s ass,” Johnny said sourly.

There was static on the receiver. “Where are you calling from?” Kerney asked.

“I’m on the road, heading home. Can you help me get out of this pickle for old time’s sake?”

“Sorry, Johnny. Get a lawyer to handle it.”

“Is it that cut-and-dried?”