"The big gamble" - читать интересную книгу автора (McGarrity Michael)

Chapter 10

To save money, a new police headquarters had been built some years before on city-owned land near the outskirts of Santa Fe, which of course made it inconvenient for everybody except south-side and some west-side residents.

During the prior administration, two community policing substations-one in a closet-size space in the downtown library, the other in a building that looked like a large tool shed in a city park-had been established.

Kerney had shut them both down. The city needed a real substation to serve the north and east sides, not cops on duty standing behind a counter fielding chamber-of-commerce-type questions, Monday through Friday, nine to five.

He was hoping that if the city ever got around to demolishing the old downtown high school gym next to city hall-it now served as a woefully inadequate convention center-he could put a real substation on the site in at least part of the space. That would alleviate the cramped conditions at headquarters and reduce patrol response times on the east and north sides of the city.

Kerney doubted it would happen on his watch, but he'd started the planning process anyway in hopes that the concept would survive and eventually come to fruition.

In the first-floor headquarters conference room, he met with Sal Molina, Ramona Pino, and Jeff Vialpando, the APD sergeant, and Helen Muiz, who was present to take notes. Detective Pino summarized the information she'd gained about Cassie Bedlow, Sally Greer, Thomas Deacon, and Adam Tully.

Vialpando explained why Tully's club was a target of investigation, and made a pitch to let him use Pino on a temporary undercover assignment. Kerney tabled the request until later in the meeting.

Molina added some preliminary information about Norvell's Colorado business dealings. Then Kerney went over what he'd learned from Mark Shuler and the anonymous letters.

"Maybe we've got a hard target," Molina said.

"Maybe that and a whole lot more," Kerney said. "Let's back up and outline everything we now know." He moved to the easel at the end of the table and flipped open a newsprint pad. He wrote: