Rankin’s eyes were locked on me like laser beams. I opened my mouth to speak, but seemed unable to get any words out. My brain was reeling with possibilities. What if the official corruption wasn’t limited to the sheriff’s department? What if it extended into the TBI — indeed, even into this very task force? Clearly I was in way over my head. “I…I…” I licked my parched lips with a thick, pasty-feeling tongue.
Rankin cocked his head. “Doc, you look a little dry in the mouth there. Can I get you some water?” I nodded my head nervously. “Or maybe you’d prefer a little dab of this?” He slid something that looked like a hockey puck across the oak table toward me. I caught it, picked it up, and turned it over in my hand. It was a can of Copenhagen. My stomach began to churn. “Go on, buddy, give ’er a try,” Rankin intoned, in the thick, good-old-boy accent he’d used at the cockfight. “It’ll perk you right up. You look like you could use some perkin’ up.” As he finished quoting himself, he grinned broadly and winked at me.
Bewildered, I scanned the other faces in the room. The other agents seemed to be studying their notepads intently, but I thought I detected some twitching mouths and twinkling eyes. Suddenly Cole Billings choked back a snort, and it hit me: these guys — these straightlaced, straight-arrow, suit-and-tie agents — were teasing me. At first I felt a wave of indignation, but it was quickly replaced by a profound sense of relief. Rankin must have been working the cockfight undercover; hell, he’d probably even been wearing a wire, making it conceivable — likely, even — that all these agents had heard the audio of my retching into the barrel. As I pictured that, I couldn’t help but yield to the absurdity of it myself. Sliding the can of tobacco back to Rankin, I drawled, “Hell-far, Rooster, I done give up on dip, but if you’uns got any shine, I wouldn’t care to take me a swig or two.”
The League of Justice erupted in laughter. As soon as I could make myself heard, I added, “Okay, you’ve got me dead to rights — I broke the law. I’ll talk. Just promise you’ll go easy on me.” Several of the agents were wiping their eyes. I decided maybe it was time to switch gears. “Seriously, tell me how I can help you,” I said to Price. “Then maybe we can figure out if you all can help me, too.”
“With the recent rise in cultivation, Cooke County now leads the state in marijuana production,” she began, as briskly as if she were launching a PowerPoint talk. “In addition, there’s an alarming rise in methamphetamine labs in basements and trailers up there. We have it from a well-placed source that the sheriff’s office is shielding drug traffickers, possibly even extorting protection money from them. If that’s true, we can prosecute that as racketeering.” I nodded, remembering a case in which the Justice Department had once categorized the Chicago Police Department as “a criminal enterprise.” My ears pricked up when Price added, “We’ve also heard — not just from your phone call to Agent Morgan — that in the homicide case you’re working, the sheriff might be guilty of obstruction of justice, conspiracy, possibly even murder. What are your thoughts on that?”
“Well, let me back up a ways.” I briefed the group on my involvement in the case, starting with the recovery of the body from the cave. When I described being shanghaied by Jim O’Conner, I was interrupted by a flurry of questions about the man; I gathered that O’Conner had managed to fly beneath their radar up to now. His secret road and kudzu tunnel seemed to excite them most. Did I see other vehicles? Any tracks from heavy trucks? Signs of marijuana cultivation, processing, or distribution? Containers or odors that might suggest methamphetamine production?
I answered “no” to all of those questions. “This guy is interesting, and unusual,” I said, “and he admits he’s had some illegal business ventures in the past. But he was a war hero, and I don’t think he’s a killer.” The war hero status seemed to carry some weight. “The sheriff wants to charge him with the murder,” I conceded, “but then again, the sheriff has an old ax — a family feud sort of ax — to grind with O’Conner, so it’s possible that’s clouding his judgment.”
I finally circled back to Price’s question about the sheriff. “Sheriff Kitchings certainly seems to know more about this case than he’s letting on,” I said. “He hedged and stalled and even lied outright when I asked what he knew about missing females. When I finally confronted him about the victim’s identity and his family’s connection, he pointed a rifle at me. If wishes were bullets, I might not be here today.” Several questions about the armed confrontation ensued, which I answered as matter-of-factly as I could. “I don’t know whether he’s intentionally obstructing justice,” I went on, “or whether he’s just behind the curve and reacting badly to the discovery that his family might have some involvement. That’s why I’m here today. I’d like to know what the TBI and the FBI can do to find out whether he’s guilty of more than confusion and a hair-trigger temper.”
She glanced at the other federal agents. “Unfortunately, Dr. Brockton, I’m not sure the FBI can get involved in that case, although we certainly have an interest in it.”
“Why not,” I asked, “if he’s obstructing a murder investigation? Isn’t that a federal crime?”
She shook her head. “Not necessarily. You have to look at the original, underlying crime — in this case, homicide. That’s a state crime, so it would be a matter for the local prosecutor or the TBI.”
“I’ve got no problem with the TBI handling it. After all, it was Steve that I called in the first place.” I turned to Morgan. “Who’s the TBI got up in Cooke County these days besides Brian ‘Rooster’ Rankin here? Anybody I know?”
Steve shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “We’re kinda in between right now. We just pulled the guy who’d been up there for years. We weren’t sure he was quite as…vigilant as he ought to be. Haven’t assigned anybody new yet. We wanted to focus on the undercover angle for awhile first.”
That was disappointing news. “Well, you ought to have one hell of an animal cruelty case. Gambling, too. What additional evidence would you need to charge the sheriff with obstruction?”
He winced. “That could be difficult, Doc. Although we could gather evidence, any criminal charges would need to be filed by the Cooke County DA or — more likely — by a grand jury. Taking it to a grand jury covers his ass, if there’s any fallout either way. Unfortunately, a Cooke County grand jury — the folks who elected Tom Kitchings by a landslide, you may recall — probably wouldn’t indict him. If they did, and the case went to a jury trial, he’d have a pretty good chance of being acquitted. Kitchings is a very popular sheriff up there.”
I stared at him. “So you’re saying that even if he’s guilty — even if you know he’s guilty — the TBI might look the other way?”
Steve squirmed in his seat like a student who didn’t know the right answer. “Thing is, Doc, in cases like this, you get one shot. If you don’t win — if a grand jury votes not to indict, or if you lose the case at trial — that makes the sheriff much more powerful. He becomes virtually untouchable at that point, and he knows it. So then you’re really screwed.”
This was not going at all the way I’d hoped. “So what am I supposed to do, then? Just shrug my shoulders and figure that’s the way things work in Cooke County?” I looked from one face to another, but no one at the table would meet my gaze.
Finally Price spoke up. “No, Doctor, you’re supposed to do your job to the best of your ability, and trust us to do ours to the best of our abilities. Believe me, we don’t like to see public officials break the law any more than you do. But we have to work within congressional statutes and FBI protocols. Sometimes those feel like impediments. But they’re part of the American justice system, which beats the hell out of any other system I know of.”