Detective Fog and the Mission Pigeon

Chapter 30. Driving by the Drive-by

Jimmy drove his sixteen-year-old Honda over to investigate the drive-by while Detective Fog stopped by the police department to set Officer Ladas up with the perfect mole catching trap.

With gloved fingers, he swept over bullet marks in brick buildings and the sidewalk while he went over the mole catching trap and what he imagined Detective Fog would say to Jane Ladas to bring it about.

Jane Ladas didn't have an office; she had a very open cubicle. It wouldn't do to talk about the mole trap at Ladas's desk. Detective Fog would suggest they visit the ladies' room, check all the stalls were empty, and lock the door. Maybe one of the stalls wouldn't be empty; maybe she'd make small talk, pretend she had an upset stomach and needed a minute before she could safely vacate the restrooms, while really she was just waiting for the stall's occupant to leave.

Then she would tell Jane, "I have a hunch there was a police officer involved in the scene last night. Involved in the scene in terms of planning the event and then cleaning up some of the evidence. My thinking is it would be hard to pull off a crime like this so close to the department, and if it was a mafioso who scoped out the location ahead of time, it'd be in some patrol officer's notes, or they'd be too threatened to risk it. Seems to me it was a cop scoped it out for them.

"I also returned to the scene last night and found some evidence had been obscured. It looks pretty on purpose. Footprints smudged, and I found a hat that the investigators completely missed because it was tucked in somewhere it never would have fallen accidentally. Somewhere there was no reason to look. The likely story I'm putting together is someone investigating the crime scene didn't want it to be found and checked for DNA evidence. Maybe you can still check it for me, give me a lead. It's useless to you, though. Won't hold up in court, no chain of custody. So let's talk about catching this doggone mole."

She would be pretty convincing, and Jimmy couldn't see any reason why Jane wouldn't be on board. She'd nod and listen to her much more experienced friend, the much better detective, and do whatever she said.

"We need a list of every officer who went to that crime scene. It's probably one of the first officers on the scene since he or she had to be able to hide evidence the others hadn't seen yet. I hear whole packs of police keep showing up to the crime scenes in this city to see if the bodies vanish before their eyes. I'd like to be thorough, but the plot gets unwieldy if we test more than six. Somehow we need to pass information to the six earliest officers on the scene — different information to each person, right? Something a mole would want to warn his or her boss about. Something that would provoke a certain and specific reaction from the mob if said information was passed to them.

"I have a few scenarios worked out. One, a raid on a stash I know about. A big stash of the drug Story. One where they're going to want to move the stash if they hear the police are going to take it from them. You tell one of the officers on the scene, making sure no one else in the world overhears. There could be plenty of hired hands in this department. But if you only tell one person, and the mob moves the stash, you know who told them. Got it?"

"Got it," Ladas would say. "But we don't raid the stash?"

"You can raid the stash if you want. If you don't, the mob might catch on that you're sniffing for moles. Maybe you even catch them moving it, confiscate a few mil in Story while you're at it.

"So we need five more scenarios like that — something with a measurable cause and effect, yeah? We're coming to get Ted Kalogeropoulos, Ted Kalogeropoulos goes into hiding. Stuff like that. First, bring me the list, and we'll brainstorm tailor-made tests."

Jimmy scraped some leftover gun powder residue onto a stick and put it in a plastic bag. They didn't have the money or access to a lab to run anything, but sometimes he liked to look like a real forensics investigator. Scare the criminals a little bit, make his private investigation career look like a severe threat to organized crime.

There was nothing useful at the drive-by scene, although Jimmy was perhaps the first to notice how few shots had been fired. Sure, there were bullet holes from several seconds of machine-gun fire, but the police report on the radio from the 911 call specifically said two cars, two shooters. Where was the carnage from the second gun? It was pretty much half the fun.

No bodies, no deaths, and only a minor flesh wound to the amateur who'd stood up in the middle of the machine-gun barrage.

It occurred to Jimmy that the machine-gun shooter must have stopped firing when little cousin Andreou stood to shoot back. If he had to guess without stopping down to the emergency room to read little cousin Andreou's medical file or the police report, he would bet that the one bullet that hit him wasn't machine gun ammunition. It was probably from a pistol, from someone waiting for the opportunity to shoot to wound.

Now. Why they would go and do that, he would need to ask Detective Fog.

Detective Fog needed a cup of coffee badly, and there was a fantastic place halfway between work and home for Officer Jane Ladas. Detective Fog couldn't convince Jane to come home in the middle of the day, or to her office, which was safe and empty. She may have slightly oversold the quality of the coffee in order to entice her friend.

"They have Stumptown beans from Seattle flown in the day they're roasted, deliveries twice weekly. It's the only place in the city you can get those beans." That was a lie. The drip coffee was not a hand pour-over with fresh beans, but stale beans prepared in giant unnecessary machines, and the barista couldn't pull a shot to save his life. What they did have was croissant stuffed with frois gras.

They sat down together on hard raw wood benches over a two-person table, and Detective Fog laid out the plan for her roommate. They talked in low voices and The Cure was playing. Her roommate listened intently and was ready to go along with the plan.

Stink Kalogeropoulos listened to the whole plan on the other side of the divide of the booth.

It was glazed glass, but he had seen the detective come in when he was on his way back from the restroom, and she hadn't seen him.

There was a crack under the wooden frame that held the glazed glass that let him hear everything.

Stink personally didn't know whether any of the cops she was talking about worked for Sigler, but memorizing every detail and relating it all to his underboss could be just the step up his career needed.

Thank you for reading Detective Fog. The story continues! Stay tuned to this dial, and pass over all of your stars. That way everybody's happy.