The Authorities, page 1
THE
AUTHORITIES
SCOTT MEYER
ONE
Officer Rutherford looked forward to the day that he would finally get used to seeing dead bodies. He had a five-year plan, a rather detailed one, which he had laid out before applying to become a police officer. The first line of the plan said: “Join the Seattle Police Department.” The last line was: “Become a plainclothes detective.” None of the many bullet points in between said anything about getting used to dead bodies. He now realized that was an oversight.
Of course, he thought, if I had listed all of the unpleasant things I would need to get used to, the plan would have been three times longer.
He adjusted his gun belt, which he was also not yet used to, even after a year on the job. The belt had seemed like any other belt to him right up until the first time he actually had to put one on. He discovered that it was too large to go through any belt loop ever made, which was fine, because it wasn’t designed to keep your pants up. For that you needed your normal belt. Wearing two belts at once seemed inelegant to him, and he said so to his instructor at the academy, who agreed with him, but only because he’d misunderstood Rutherford’s point.
The instructor went on to explain that the gun belt could slide around the body, becoming misaligned with the officer’s pelvis, making it more difficult to draw one’s weapon. To prevent this, the gun belt is fastened to the trouser belt with small straps made of leather or nylon, locking them together.
The instructor called them “belt keepers,” but Rutherford recognized them for what they were: tiny little belts that belted the big belt to the smaller belt.
Rutherford adjusted all of his belts again.
Shouldn’t be surprised, he thought. Dad always said that when all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. They went to a belt maker asking him to fix a belt problem. Of course his answer was more belts.
He was also struck by the bitter irony that while he had an overabundance of belts around his waist, he was required to wear a clip-on tie. The rationale was that in a fight, if some dude who was resisting arrest grabbed you by your standard necktie, he effectively had you on a leash. If he grabbed you by your clip-on tie, it would come off in his hand. You would be free to defend yourself, and your assailant would be paralyzed with laughter. Rutherford sometimes wondered if there was any record of an officer being whipped about the face with his own clip-on tie, but it seemed inadvisable to ask.
Rutherford’s goal from day one had been to become a detective, and the overabundance of belts only strengthened his resolve. Plainclothes officers were still supposed to wear either clip-on ties or breakaway ties, which tore off of an officer’s neck with a light tug and the slapstick sound of tearing Velcro, and were thus even more efficient at turning an attempted assault into an unexpected moment of physical comedy. But at least plainclothes officers got to carry their weapon in a simple paddle holster that clipped on to a single, relatively normal belt. That seemed much more civilized to Rutherford.
He looked at his surroundings and realized that if what he wanted was a more civilized existence, perhaps becoming a cop had been a poor choice.
Rutherford was working in the seedy part of the University District, a few blocks back from frat row. He was maintaining the perimeter at a crime scene in a dilapidated Victorian house that had been converted into a boarding house for broke students by a determined individual who wasn’t willing to let zoning laws, building codes, or public safety get in the way of making a profit.
Rutherford stood in the hallway, trying to exude authority. It was not easy. The house naturally drained the dignity from anyone who came inside. Even the mildew seemed embarrassed to be seen there.
Because he was the lowest-ranking officer present, Rutherford stood in front of the door of the worst room in the house. Perhaps it had not been the worst room before, but it currently had a murder victim in it, so Rutherford was pretty sure it had earned that title now.
The victim appeared to be a college-aged male, and the room showed signs of a violent struggle. The body had been discovered by one of the other tenants, who had noticed through the closed door that the victim was splayed on the floor next to the bed. This sounded fishy at first, but the story was made more plausible by the fact that the door had no knob, only a gaping hole where one could be installed at the tenant’s expense. Also, the odor had likely drawn some attention. It certainly had Rutherford’s, since he had been ordered to stand right next to the door and make sure that none of the other tenants disturbed the crime scene.
The residents were all outside now. His fellow officers had herded a great many freaked-out college students onto the lawn, but nobody had returned to tell Rutherford that he didn’t have to babysit the corpse any longer, so there he stood.
Rutherford tried to distract himself from the odor. He thought about how he would describe the smell later.
Imagine how your hands would smell if you bought fifty pounds of past-due-date ground beef and paid for it entirely with pennies.
Rutherford thought that captured it pretty well. He also thought that trying to distract himself from the odor by describing it in detail had been a stupid idea.
He adjusted his belts again.
He heard the sound of the front door opening and closing, followed by the sound of approaching footsteps. Rutherford hoped that he’d get permission to leave his post, or at least pleasant company to distract him from it, but those hopes were dashed when detectives Stoker and Volz came around the corner.
Seattle was a big city, and the Seattle Police Department had a lot of detectives. Some of them were pleasant to work with. Some were less so. Most were more pleasant than Stoker and Volz. They were sloppy, both professionally and personally. Rutherford might have described them as “scuzzy,” but that would be an insult to scuz, and he didn’t even know what scuz was.
Stoker’s suit looked as if he’d slept in it. His hair looked like he’d styled it hastily after sleeping on it. His coat looked like it had recently been wadded up, possibly for use as a pillow. Despite all this, Stoker looked as if he hadn’t slept in quite a while.
Volz was shorter, heavier, and looked like he slept just fine. Indeed, his slow movements and drooping eyelids gave the impression that Stoker had probably had to wake him when their car arrived at the crime scene.
Of course, the thing that really bothered Rutherford was that they had the job he wanted, and they weren’t even bothering to do it well.
They smiled at Rutherford. Both men had mastered the art of making a smile feel like both a threat and an insult.
Rutherford knew them, and of course, they both knew him. One of the bullet points on the five-year plan was: “Find a detective to be my mentor.” Rutherford had set about this task using the same methods he’d employed to make friends in school—being eager and asking lots of questions. It hadn’t worked in school, but he’d hoped it would be a better strategy for a twenty-six-year-old man living in the real world. He’d been horrified to discover that while being a cop was as “real” as the world could get, it was alarmingly similar to being in school. It didn’t help that even though he was obviously an adult, he was treated like a kid by most of his fellow cops. His curiosity and enthusiasm were often misconstrued as peskiness. His small physical stature and thin frame didn’t improve matters. Sure, he was large enough to join the force, but so were all of the other cops, most of them by a substantially larger margin than he was.
“Hey, look who it is,” Stoker said.
Volz spread his arms wide in a mocking gesture of delight. “Officer Sinclair, the future detective!”
“Detective Volz,” Rutherford said. “Detective Stoker. You both know that my last name is Rutherford.” He knew that by correcting them he was giving them what they wanted, but he also knew that to not correct them would have the same effect. The only way he could win was to endure, eventually become a detective, then be better than them. Better at the job, better dressed, and better company, none of which would be difficult.
Stoker furrowed his brow and shook his head, “No, no, I thought your name was Sinclair.”
“My first name is Sinclair. My last name, as you know, is Rutherford.”
Volz said, “But Sinclair is a last name. Why would your parents give you two last names?”
Stoker said, “I think I get it. His parents were idiots.”
“I am named after my father’s favorite writer,” Rutherford said through clenched teeth, “Sinclair Lewis.”
“So there’s one other guy in history with the first name of Sinclair. That doesn’t mean it’s not a stupid first name.”
“Actually, Sinclair was his middle name,” Rutherford said, regretting it the instant the words left his mouth.
“Which brings us back to the theory that your old man was a dummy,” Volz said. “Look, Sinclair, I’m sure it’s a nice distraction for you to stand here and tell us your family history, but we have police work to do.” He pointed at the door behind Rutherford. “The stiff’s in there?”
Rutherford stepped aside and started to recite the details of how the body had been found. Stoker waved him off.
“Inman told me all that outside. All we need you to do is shut up and stay out of our way.”
“Done,” Rutherford said. I’ll just go and—”
&nb
Stoker and Volz gave Rutherford the stink eye as they walked into the scene of the crime. He turned to watch them. As much as he hated to admit it, this was a chance to learn from them. Today’s lesson was in how to close a door in a younger officer’s face, then laugh about it with your partner.
Rutherford turned his back to the door and listened. It was a cheap hollow-core door, and the sound went through it like it was tissue paper. The large hole where the doorknob should have been only made it easier for noises to come through.
“Okay,” Stoker said, mechanically, reading from his notebook. “Meet Christopher Swanson, at least that’s the name we were given. We were also told that he’s a student at The University of Washington, like everyone else who lives in this dump. Major: unknown. Discovered at approximately 0645 hours by another tenant who stopped by so they could go grab some breakfast before class. Upon finding the body and determining that Swanson was deceased, he called the police and alerted the landlord. No known enemies. Some of the other tenants who have been questioned say they heard a brief commotion around 2300 last night, but nothing they found alarming. Officer Inman was first to the scene. He went in, confirmed that the victim was dead, and that it was probably not accidental, then established a perimeter and called us in.”
There was a brief silence, then Volz said, “No computer. Kid’s a student. He’d have a computer. Maybe the killer stole it.”
“Nah,” Stoker said. “We know about that. The landlord took it before the first responders arrived. Planned to hock it to recoup the rent he’s not going to get paid. We’ve already confiscated it.”
Volz exhaled heavily. “Okay, there’s not a lot of blood, considering. What there is came from the nose and ear. Forensics haven’t been here yet, but looking at the body, I’d say from the bruises that someone beat this guy to death with his bare hands.”
Stoker asked, “What makes you say that?”
“Look for yourself. Tell me that bruise doesn’t look like a fist.”
Rutherford closed his eyes and tried to picture the bruises. He hadn’t actually seen much of the body, standing on the opposite side of the door from it, and the odor hadn’t yielded many clues.
“You can even pick out the individual fingers and the thumb,” Volz said. “That’s obviously a fist.”
“Yeah,” Stoker agreed. “But it’s really weird. For the fist to hit him at that angle, the killer can’t have thrown a real punch. My guess is that he swung his arm like, I dunno, a bear paw or something.”
Rutherford tried to picture this, and couldn’t. He even made a fist, then swiped it palm first through the air in front of him. He couldn’t imagine any person strong enough to kill someone with such a blow.
“And whoever the guy was, he made his fist weird too,” Stoker said.
There was a silence while the two detectives thought about it, then Volz said, “Well, he don’t know how to hit a guy right, why would he know how to make a fist right?”
Stoker said, “True. Still, he did the job well enough on this poor sap.”
Rutherford heard a muffled rendition of the iPhone default ringtone. Stoker said, “That’s me,” then grumbled as he dug his phone out of his pocket.
“Stoker. Yes, sir, we’re at the scene now. No, sir. Ugh, sir, is that really . . . No, sir! I understand, sir . . . yes, sir.”
There was a heavy silence, then Stoker said, “Come on.”
The door behind Rutherford opened, and Stoker emerged, trailed by a confused-looking Volz.
“Sarge says we’re to clear and guard the scene,” Stoker explained to Volz, as if Rutherford wasn’t even there. “We gotta make sure nobody comes in or out of here, not even forensics, until after Capp’s people have had the run of the place.”
Volz and Rutherford both said, “Capp’s people?”
Rutherford said it with excitement. Volz did not.
“Yeah, that’s right,” Stoker said. “It’s your lucky day, Sinclair. The circus is coming to town. Anyway, we’re to keep the crime scene pristine for them. Volz and I’ll wait at the end of the hall. Sinclair, you just go ahead and stay here. You’ve been doing such a good job of standing around doing nothing, I’d hate to stop you now.”
Stoker and Volz retreated to the end of the hall and came to a halt before it emptied into the house’s front room. They were only twenty feet away, so there was no way to keep Rutherford from hearing them talk, but it was clear to Rutherford that he was not included in the conversation.
“Yeah,” Stoker muttered. “Captain Weinart is running over. He told the sergeant that he wants to be here to meet them. If he doesn’t make it, we’re to cooperate, but not enthusiastically. That’s what he said.”
The detectives were deeply annoyed. Rutherford was ecstatic, partly because he had heard lots of things about Capp’s people and this was his first chance to actually see them work, but mostly because the detectives were annoyed. Rutherford usually didn’t take pleasure in other people’s unhappiness, but life was serving Stoker and Volz’s unhappiness to him on a silver platter. He felt it would be rude not to accept.
TWO
Vince Capp was a known quantity. His name and face were familiar to anyone who paid attention to technology news, as well as those who just happened to live in the Pacific Northwest. Way back in the mists of time, when few people understood computers, Capp had made a killing by writing a piece of software called Grink, which did things few people understood even now. It was just one of the torrents of nonsense words that would cascade down the screen too quickly to read whenever you started a program in MS-DOS. Most just accepted that there were certain technologies baked into every operating system that allowed people to interact with their computers, and Vince Capp owned a patent on one of those technologies. Thus, it was impossible to buy a computer without Capp wetting his beak.
After his success with Grink, he had used his monumental fortune to fund CD-ROMs, ISPs, dot-coms, and a company called Stephenson Auto, which made cars equipped with a unique steam-electric hybrid drivetrain called The Stephenson Drive. The company’s logo looked like a little chrome rocket. Anybody who paid any attention to cars or technology had heard of Stephenson Auto, but since its least expensive two-door hatchback cost six figures, few people had seen one in person.
Capp’s ventures had met with varying levels of success, but all had been well funded and extensively publicized. Two years earlier Capp had announced that he was retiring, but as with most people of his ilk, he seemed to think that retirement meant working just as hard, but on a few less-profitable, more civic-minded projects.
Word was that Capp had turned his attention to law enforcement. Sometime in the last several months he had put together a hand-picked team of specialists to test experimental crime-fighting technologies and techniques. People whispered that he’d made substantial donations to various political campaigns to get the governor, the state crime lab, and the chief of police to treat his group as a sort of consulting CSI and investigation firm. In exchange for sharing their findings and experimental techniques with the department, they would get police cooperation and access to records and crime scenes.
Capp hadn’t announced anything publically yet, and any officers who interacted directly with the team were not legally able to discuss it, but that didn’t stop people from talking. There was rampant speculation about robots, lasers, and more than one person had mentioned a ninja. Rutherford didn’t believe a word of it, but he was excited to get to see “Capp’s people” firsthand. It almost made the rest of the morning worth it.
Less than five minutes after word had arrived that Capp’s people were on the way, Rutherford heard the front door open. Rutherford thought it might be the Captain, but Stoker and Volz stiffened as if awakened brutally from a nice nap, and an unfamiliar female voice said, “Good morning. If I’m not mistaken you’re Detective Stoker, and you’re Detective Volz.”
