Gary D’Addario was by reputation a man slow to anger, but Monroe Street had clearly shortened his fuse. Earlier that week, Terry McLarney had typed a routine memo requesting that two Western officers be detailed to homicide to help with an ongoing probe; he had then forwarded the missive directly to the administrative lieutenant, bypassing D’Addario. A minor oversight in chain-of-command courtesy, but now, in the quiet of the coffee room, D’Addario brings it up, using humor and overwrought formality to make his point.
“Sergeant McLarney,” he says, smiling, “while I have your attention I wonder if I might inquire as to an administrative matter.”
“That’s not my whiskey bottle in the top right drawer,” blurts out McLarney, straight-faced. “Sergeant Landsman put it there to discredit me.”
D’Addario laughs for the first time.
“And,” McLarney deadpans, “I would respectfully like to point out that Sergeant Nolan’s men have been using the cars without signing the vehicle book as I have properly trained my squad to do.”
“This is about another matter.”
“Something to do with conduct unbecoming an officer?”
“Not at all. This is purely administrative in nature.”
“Oh.” McLarney shrugs, sitting down. “You had me worried there for a second.”
“I’m just a little concerned because a certain memo you penned was addressed to a lieutenant in this police department other than myself.”
McLarney sees his mistake immediately. Monroe Street has everybody stepping light.
“I didn’t think. I’m sorry.”
D’Addario waves off the apology. “I just need to have your answer to one particular question.”
“Sir?”
“First of all, I take it you are of the Roman Catholic faith.”
“And proud of it.”
“Fine. Then let me ask: Do you accept me as your true and only begotten lieutenant?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And thou shalt have no other lieutenants before me?”
“No, sir.”
“And thou shalt forever keep this covenant and worship no false lieutenants?”
“Yes.”
“Very good, sergeant,” says D’Addario, extending his right hand. “You may now kiss the ring.”
McLarney leans toward the large University of Baltimore band on the lieutenant’s right hand, feigning a gesture of exaggerated subservience. Both men laugh and D’Addario, satisfied, takes a cup of coffee back to his own office.
Alone in the coffee room, Terry McLarney stares at the long white rectangle, understanding that D’Addario has already forgotten and forgiven the wayward memo. But the red ink on D’Addario’s side of the board-that’s cause for some real concern.
Like most supervisors in the homicide unit, McLarney is a sergeant with a detective’s heart, and like D’Addario, he sees his role as largely protectionist. In the districts, the lieutenants can order their sergeants and the sergeants can order their men, and it all works as the general orders manual says it should-chain of command is suited to patrol. But in homicide, where the detectives are paced as much by their own instinct and talent as by the caseload, a good supervisor rarely makes unequivocal demands. He suggests, he encourages, he prods and pleads ever so gently with men who know exactly what needs to be done on a case without having to be told. In many ways, a detective sergeant best serves his men by completing the administrative paperwork, keeping the brass at bay and letting the detectives do the job. It is a reasoned philosophy, and McLarney holds firm to it nine out of ten days. But every tenth day, something suddenly compels him to attempt a pattern of behavior consistent with the sort of sergeants they warn you about in the academy.
A heavyset Irishman with cherubic features, McLarney drapes one stubby leg over a desk corner and looks up at the white rectangle and the three red entries below his nameplate. Thomas Ward. Kenny Vines. Michael Jones. Three dead men; three open cases. Definitely not the best way for a squad to start a new year.
McLarney is still staring at the board when one of his detectives walks into the coffee room. Carrying an old case folder, Donald Waltemeyer grunts a monosyllabic greeting and walks past the sergeant to an empty desk. McLarney watches him for a few minutes, thinking of a way to begin a conversation he doesn’t really want to have.
“Hey, Donald.”
“Hey.”
“What are you looking at?”
“Old case from Mount Vernon.”
“Homosexual murder?”
“Yeah, William Leyh, from eighty-seven. The one where the guy was tied up and beat,” says Waltemeyer, shuffling through the file to the five-by-seven color photos of a half-nude, blood-soaked wreck, hog-tied on an apartment floor.
“What’s up with that?”
“Got a call from a state trooper in New Jersey. There’s a guy in a mental institution up there who says he tied up and beat a guy in Baltimore.”
“This case?”
“Dunno. Me or Dave or Donald is going to have to go up there and talk to this guy. It could all be bullshit.”
McLarney shifts gears. “I always said you were the hardest-working man in my squad, Donald. I tell everybody that.”
Waltemeyer looks up at his sergeant with immediate suspicion.
“No, really…”
“What do you want, sergeant?”
“Why do I have to want anything?”
“Hey,” says Waltemeyer, leaning back in his chair, “how long have I been a policeman?”
“Can’t a sergeant compliment one of his men?”
Waltemeyer rolls his eyes. “What do you want from me?”
McLarney laughs, almost embarrassed at having been so easily caught playing the role of supervisor.
“Well,” he says, treading carefully, “what’s up with the Vines case?”
“Not much. Ed wants to bring Eddie Carey back in and talk to him, but there isn’t much else.”
“Well, what about Thomas Ward?”
“Talk to Dave Brown. He’s the primary.”
Pedaling with his feet, McLarney rolls his chair around to the side of Waltemeyer’s desk. His voice drops to a conspiratorial tone.
“Donald, we’ve got to make something happen with some of these fresh cases. Dee was in here looking at the board just a few minutes ago.”
“What are you telling me for?”
“I’m just asking you, is there anything that we’re not doing?”
“Is there anything I’m not doing?” says Waltemeyer, standing up and grabbing the Leyh file off the desk. “You tell me. I’m doing everything I can, but either the case is there or it isn’t. What should I be doing? You tell me.”
Donald Waltemeyer is losing it. McLarney can tell because Waltemeyer’s eyes have begun to roll up into his forehead the way they always do when he gets steamed. McLarney worked with a guy in the Central who used to do that. Nicest guy in the world. Pretty long fuse. But let some yo with an attitude ride him too far, those eyeballs would roll up like an Atlantic City slot. It was a sure sign to every other cop that negotiations had ended and nightsticks were in order. McLarney tries to shrug off the memory; he continues to press the point with Waltemeyer.
“Donald, I’m just saying it doesn’t look good to start out the year with so many cases in the red.”
“So what you’re saying to me, sergeant, is that the lieutenant came in here and looked at the board and gave you a little kick, so now you’re gonna kick me.”
The whole truth and nothing but. McLarney has to laugh. “Well, Donald, you can always go kick Dave Brown.”
“Shit rolls downhill, doesn’t it, sergeant?”
Fecal gravity. The chain of command defined.
“I don’t know,” says McLarney, backing away from the conversation as gracefully as possible. “I don’t think I’ve ever actually seen shit on a hill.”