Rick Mofina - Vengeance Road

“I’ll tell you something nobody in the press knows,” the source said. “There’s a closed-door case-status meeting with a lot of cops from a lot of jurisdictions. It’s been going on all morning out at Clarence Barracks.”

Gannon grabbed his jacket.

He’d go out there and see if anyone would talk to him.

The New York State Police patrol east and northeast Erie County from the drowsy suburb of Clarence, east of Buffalo. Clarence Barracks was on Main Street, housed in a plain one-story building.

When Gannon arrived, the woman at the reception desk was twirling her pen and talking on the phone.

“I’ve been temping all week, just when they get this big case … meeting after meeting, people coming, people going—one second, Charlene.” She clamped her hand over the phone. “May I help you?”

“I’d like to see Michael Brent or Roxanne Esko. I’m with the Buffalo— “

“They’re all in the meeting, third door on the right.” She pointed down the hall with her pen. “I’m supposed to send everybody there.” She went back to her conversation. “What’s that? She’s pregnant! OH MY GOD! How many is that now?”

“But I’m with the Buffalo Sentinel.”

Ignoring what he’d said, the receptionist pointed him down the hall.

“Go,” she told Gannon. “It’s all right. Everybody’s in the meeting.”

He hesitated for as long as it took the receptionist to buzz him through the security door. As he went down the hall he could almost hear the floor cracking under him for he was treading on thin ethical ice. Through innocent circumstance he’d gained entrance to the inner sanctum of the investigation of Bernice Hogan’s murder. The door to the meeting was half-open. He could hear loud voices.

How should he play this?

He’d knock on the door, identify himself then request to speak to Brent or Esko. They’d likely shoo him away, have him wait at reception.

At that instant the door opened and a man he didn’t recognize exited, talking on his cell phone. Gannon turned and bent over a water fountain as the man, his tie loosened, shirtsleeves rolled up, whisked by him to the opposite end of the hall talking loudly on his cell.

“Tell Walt this Hogan thing is going to be a ballbuster,” he said into the phone. “No one will believe where they’re going with it. Yeah, they’re keeping a tight lid on this. Yeah, I got to get back.”

The man returned to the room and Gannon inched closer to the door.

It remained partially opened. Voices of people arguing spilled from it.

“I don’t buy it.”

“Look at what we know so far.”

“What you have so far is hearsay, Mike!”

Gannon’s breathing quickened. As he inched closer he got a limited view of a large whiteboard. He glimpsed a patch of handwritten times, dates, streets, arrows, then a clear view of initials written in blue marker under the heading “Suspect.” The initials on the board were blocked by an open hand slapping it to stress the point someone was making.

“Given all that we’ve got so far, all that we’re following up with, this guy is our suspect and the focus of our investigation.”

The hand vanished.

Gannon’s heart beat faster as he glanced around to be sure no one could see him. He stepped closer and saw the initials of the suspect.

K.S.

Who was that?

“It’s bullshit, Mike, I’m telling you!”

For an instant Gannon caught sight of someone he knew.

“How can you be so sure? We just don’t buy it.”

“It’s not a done deal. Listen, we’ve got a lot of hard work ahead of us, but based on what we’ve got, everything points to him. He’s the key.”

“Let’s see if I have this right. Based on the things a couple of crack hoes on Niagara told you, you’re telling us that a cop, a decorated detective, is your suspect for Hogan?”

A cop?

Gannon froze.

Then he felt a hand on his shoulder.

Gannon turned around to see the receptionist’s puzzled face.

“Aren’t you going to go in?” she asked, holding a stack of files she appeared to be delivering.

“No, I was just leaving.” He kept his voice down as he walked to the door. “I have to go.”

“Well, I forgot to have you sign in,” she said. “But if you’re done I guess it doesn’t matter.”

Gannon waved his thanks, headed to his car, hurrying when he got to the lot. He pulled away, a thousand concerns shotgunning through his mind as he struggled to concentrate on what he’d heard.

A detective was the prime suspect in Bernice Hogan’s murder.

This was big. Huge.

He wouldn’t alert the desk yet, not until he nailed it. He had to keep this to himself until he had it in the bag.

Never oversell a story.

First things first.

He had to confirm the name behind K.S. and the police department the suspect worked for. He had an idea and drove downtown to the headquarters of the Buffalo and Erie County Public Library system. The building took up two city blocks in Lafayette Square.

He went to the public computer terminals and logged into the databases for the city of Buffalo employee listings by department. The Buffalo Police Department was the area’s largest police force.

Let’s start here, he thought as he began searching the BPD’s directory for all officers whose surname started with an S.

Damn.

They were not ordered alphabetically but rather by seniority. With more than eight hundred officers to check, this would take time. Page after page of names blurred before he found a K.S.

Ken Smith. Then another. Kim Sailor. Then another. Kent Sanders. And another. Kevin Sydowski.

By the time he was done, he’d mined nine possibilities from the Buffalo Police Department. He moved on to the database for officers with the Erie County Sheriff’s Office. After searching some four hundred names there, he had three more candidates: Kal Seroudie, Kyle Sawchuk, and Keen Sanchez.

But there were numerous police departments that served greater Buffalo, like the Cheektowaga Police Department, the Amherst Police Department, Hamburg, North Tonawanda, West Seneca, and Ascension Park, to name a few.

He continued scouring the databases.

As time passed he realized that he would never get through them all. He stopped to think. So far, he had some sixteen possibilities, but this was turning out to be a needle-in-a-haystack search.

He needed help confirming the name.

He’d use another option.

He abandoned the computer, went to a public telephone and called the private number of the person he’d seen at the meeting. He hadn’t talked to his source for some time and was reluctant to push, but the stakes were high.

No one answered.

He left a message then returned to the newsroom, which was in full midday mode with reporters talking on phones, or typing at keyboards, or huddled with editors discussing stories. Gannon had grabbed a BLT in the cafeteria and was threading his way to his desk.

“Hey, Jack, what’ve you got?” Tim Derrick held up his clipboard listing the stories for tomorrow’s paper. “I’m heading into the meeting. I’ve got you skedded for a follow-up on the investigation into Hogan.”

“I’m expecting more information. I’ll let you know if it falls through.”

“Remember, Nate’s counting on you for a scoop.”

As Gannon settled in at his desk and prepared to eat his late lunch, his phone rang. He answered after getting two quick bites down.

“Jack Gannon, Buffalo Sentinel.”

“I got your message.”

The caller’s number was blocked but he knew the voice.