The Witness Wore a Puppy Tail, chapter 16 (Patreon)

Carol Hoyt met Ken at the station door. “No Millan?” she asked.

“He had a class he insisted he couldn’t miss,” Ken said. Surprisingly, Robert was on a scholarship and he couldn’t skip days. Personally, Ken thought he had a good reason to take time off, but once Robert had calmed down and eaten, he realized they couldn’t talk to anyone until the clubs opened. That’s when he announced he was going to class. When Ken had failed to talk him out of it, he driven Robert and then stopped to brief campus security on the importance of keeping an eye on him. Mentioning publicity and Robert’s lawyer father had secured their cooperation. “Campus security will call if he leaves campus or anyone matching our suspects’ descriptions shows up.”

“The captain is not amused,” she warned him as they walked toward the stairs. Ken sighed. He had assumed as much. Hoyt continued. “I pointed out that you have been working the case as if it were a murder case, but you’ve gotten the support due an assault case.”

Ken cringed. “I’m not sure insulting the captain’s decisions was the best approach.”

Carol hurried to the step above Ken and cut him off where the stairs put her eye to eye with him. “That was insulting you, not the captain.”

“Raul Mendoza is dead. This is a murder.”

Carol took a deep breath. “Mendoza died this morning. Until this morning, this was an assault case, and you have pushed everyone to treat it like a serial killer. I admire your determination to get justice, but if you’re going to run around like Chicken Little every time you get a serious case, this is not the job for you.”

Ken flushed with anger and gripped the rail. “Just because I recognized the danger before anyone else does not make me histrionic.”

“Yeah, yeah it does,” Carol said. “And you’re relatively new as a detective, and trust me, this is normal. We all start seeing boogie men in the shadows, and sometimes they’re actually there. But murder cases get the most attention and the most budgetary support, and you can’t run around demanding resources that aren’t yours.”

“So, accept that the Raul Mendozas of the world have to die to get someone to take me seriously?” Ken asked, his voice low and dangerous. He had an irrational urge to punch her in the throat.

She glared at him for several seconds, long enough that the officers who passed them on the stairs gave them curious looks. “Follow me,” she ordered as though she were his commanding officer. She headed up the stairs.

Ken wanted to go downstairs just to spite her, to prove that she didn’t have the authority to tell him how to run the case. However, Captain Jenkins made it clear that this was her case now, and that meant Ken was the junior detective assigned to the case. He had enough experience with that to know she was as good as a senior officer. If Ken argued too much, he’d just get assigned to another case. With resentment brewing in his soul, he followed Carol into an empty meeting room.

Ken closed the door behind him and went to parade rest as he waited to see if she was going to turn into a power-hungry asshole now that they were in private. Instead she sighed and sank into a lop-sided rolling chair. “Mendoza’s death is horrible, and I would give anything if I could go back and prevent it. However, until this morning, this was an assault case. If the captain approves extra crime scene time, additional forensics tests, more manpower and safe houses for every assault case, then what gets cut from the budget? Do we stop testing rape kits? Do we tell people to suck it up if they have burglary losses of under five hundred? What?”

For a second, all Ken could do was grit his teeth. “That’s a strawman argument, and you know it. I would never want other cases to get less than their fair share. But these attackers were escalating. You’ve seen the notes.”

Carol nodded. “I have, and for the record, I would have come to the same conclusion. However, I’ve seen other offenders who were escalating suddenly stop. They crossed a line in their heads, and they realized that they were fucking nuts. Or someone stopped doing as many drugs and stopped egging the others on. There is a chance that last night is going to be their last crime. They broke into someone’s house and then lost control of the situation badly enough that Millan had the opportunity to call the police. If these suspects are young, that could scare them into cooling off.”

“Or it could fuel their anger and lead to another attack,” Ken countered.

She nodded. “It could. However, the world could end tomorrow. You have to work the case as it exists.”

Ken clenched his teeth and tried to avoid lashing out at her. He knew she had a point, but he could already tell that she was going to advocate for working the case slowly and methodically. After all, she thought the suspects might magically stop attacking people.

“Talk to me about Millan. If these three are going to continue, they’re going to target him.”

On that, they could agree. Ken forced his body to unclench as he tried to focus. “He’s determined. I don’t think there’s any way to get him to stay out of the case; he’s driven by a need to protect the people he’s talked to, and that includes protecting them from us.”

She snorted. “You two must be besties.”

“He’s annoying, and I can’t do my job because he won’t give me names,” Ken said. He prepared to present a fellow detective with the lie he and Millan had prepared. He felt guilty about that, but given Hoyt’s whole spiel about not pushing too hard, it was best. In this case, honesty would get him removed from the case. “I believe he’s going to keep investigating and he’s smart enough to know that someone must have given the suspects Millan’s name. If I were him, I’d retrace my steps and try to figure out who might have done that.”

“Even after getting attacked?” Carol looked incredulous. “That does not match what I’ve heard about him from other detectives.”

Ken sat across the small round table from her. “What have they said?”

She shrugged before answering. “That he’s gay and kinky. He likes to get tied up, and he’s a professional sex worker.”

That was partially true. “He insists that he gets paid for role play and he doesn’t have sex.” Ken held up his hand to stop the protect Carol was about to lodge. “And I’m not asking about it because I don’t want to know if he’s doing something illegal. He’s my witness, not my suspect.”

“Okay, you have me there.  Not asking is probably the smartest thing you can do.” She wrinkled her nose, and Ken seriously hoped that she disapproved of prostitution and not homosexuality.

“He’s also passionate about social justice. He’s led protests against the police department, and he volunteers to tutor low-income students as part of an outreach program. He wants to be a journalist and he probably dreams of writing investigative pieces that get dirty cops fired. He’s that sort.”

Carol frowned.  “If he’s determined to be a journalist, he is probably hoping to get arrested for contempt. I would make his career to stand up against the police to protect his sources.”

“He’s mentioned that,” Ken said. “I honestly don’t know how to get him to give me the leads I need. Fuck, I don’t know how to keep him from getting himself killed. I had to threaten contact his father just to get some cooperation from campus security. I get the feeling Millan has them running scared.”

“Hopefully you scared them more,” Carol said.

“I did. By the time I left, I implied that I would testify for his father and inform a jury, in detail, just how many warnings I had given the university concerning the threat to Millan’s life.”

Carol rested her chin on the back of her knuckles and seemed to take time to think. Ken waited, a familiar sense of helplessness and rage settling into the pit of his stomach. Every time he thought he had found a way to improve some corner of the universe, it was like God had to sweep in and remind Ken of his lack of power. He found it endlessly amusing in a dark and twisted sort of way that people thought he had some sort of hero complex. 

“Captain Jenkins has brought in the DA since this is now a murder investigation,” Carol said slowly. “Let’s broach the subject of keeping Millan under surveillance and seeing where he goes.”

“I would like primary on the surveillance,” Ken said. The previous night, Robert had been alone with the suspects, unarmed and frightened. Ken’s stomach churned at the thought of him going through that again. The man deserved to have backup that would prioritize his safety over the case.

“Why?” Carol asked.

“Because…” Ken hesitated long enough that Carol raised her eyebrows. “He called for me after last night’s attack. He knows my goal is to keep him safe, so if he spots me tailing him, he’s less likely to bolt. Hell, he’ll come after me yelling before he’ll disappear through a kitchen door.”

“He’s much more likely to spot you, though.”

Ken nodded. “And I would be more afraid of that if I hadn’t seen the terror on his face last night. He may not want to give us his sources because he believes in his ethical obligations.” And Ken admired that about Robert, no matter how annoying he found it. “However, if he can plausibly ignore me—if I stay far enough back that I can’t hear his conversations—I think he’ll appreciate the protection.”

Carol stood and tapped her fingers on the back of the chair as she considered that. “If you’re wrong, he’s going to take off for the hills, and we will have no way of knowing where he goes and no reasonable cause to bring him in.”

“I know.”

She kept tapping. “If I put you on surveillance and you blow this, I will personally make your life a living hell.”

“I wouldn’t expect any less,” Ken assured her as he stood.

She sighed and headed for the door. “I need my head examined.”

Since he had won, Ken didn’t push his luck by answering. If Robert disappeared, the captain was going to question Carol’s judgment in sending Ken to tail him. Women still didn’t get the respect they deserved, so putting her reputation on the line meant a lot to him. He wished he could tell her that Robert had agreed to letting Ken tail him, but that would mean a long conversation about how Ken was allowing a witness to help plan strategy on a murder case. As much as Ken preferred honesty, he refused to go there. Down that path lay long-term suspension and firings for cause. 

So instead, Ken followed her to Captain Jenkins’s office. As usual, Jenkins sat at the desk in front of his office, although this time his office lights were on and a lawyer sat at the table in the corner. He stood and nodded at Carol before he gave Ken a long and unhappy look. “Detective, have you briefed Hoyt?”

Feeling like he’d been pulled up in front of the unit for discipline, Ken said, “Yes, sir.”

“We’re on the same page,” Carol said.

“And what’s written on this page?”

“These suspects might enjoy knowing they’ve killed someone and escalate or it might frighten them, especially since they lost control of Millan last night. They may go dormant.”

“So, you think our suspects were at Millan’s house?”

Carol nodded. “Yeah. I read the witness statements and looked through the photographs of the scene. That was not a push-in robbery.” She gave Ken a quick look. “I probably wouldn’t have called in the night forensics team. I would have secured the apartment and requested that you send someone today.”

Ken didn’t point out that any trace outside would have been compromised by then or that forensics tests took time, so every hour they delayed was an hour longer they had to wait for any results. 

“Every great detective I’ve ever known has gotten obsessed with a case,” Jenkins said. His gaze turned a little sharper. “However, if you really don’t trust me to handle your case appropriately, look around at the other precincts and turn in a transfer request. Clear?”

“Yes, sir.” Ken said. He did trust the captain. Mostly. He could be a bit of a narrow minded ass, but no more than most people. The ones he didn’t trust were the officials above Jenkins and their love of tight budgets and low overhead. However, every precinct captain would have to deal with those jerks.

"This is a murder case now, and I called in the assistant DA," Jenkins said with a curt nod towards his office. As if hearing himself getting talked about, Gary Birdsell, the lawyer at Jenkins’s table, swiveled his chair around. He wore a dark suit that didn’t match his sand-blond hair and round baby-face. Even with a power suit, he projected a sort of benign incompetence that made defense attorneys underestimate him. He saw them looking at him and waved, looking more like a young surfer someone had given a haircut and stuffed in a new suit than an assistant district attorney with one of the best records in the state.

"You called in the big guns.” Carol sounded surprised

Jenkins pinned Ken with one more unhappy glare before he turned toward his office. "We have to do something to save this case.”

"Hey, Carol,” Birdsell greeted Hoyt. “Wow. This is one dog of a case, if you’ll excuse my little pun on your star witness’s chosen profession.  Not like you to get so tangled in your own paperwork." He held his hand out to Carol.

“I work the case I inherit, and Detective Hoffman has done most of the footwork on this one.”

“So I have you to blame.” The lawyer smiled and held a hand out to Ken. “Gary Birdsell, assistant D.A. Nice to meet you.”

“Same,” Ken said as they shook hands.

Jenkins pulled the blinds on the office windows.

"Robert Millan has made our life interesting,” Captain Jenkins said. Apparently he planned to hide his unhappiness with Ken. 

“I’ll say,” Gary agreed as he sat. “I usually just get the boring old homicides, but I have questions of privilege and the contamination of witnesses and reliability and some truly salacious descriptions of kinks I hadn't even heard of." Gary held up a file with a neon orange sticky note that announced "Well 'n Truly Fucked." He dropped the file dramatically on the table before opening it and rifling through the loose pages.

"If you want to use Millan as a witness… well, I wouldn't recommend it," Ken said seriously as he sat next to him. "He has a mouth that runs about two steps ahead of his brain sometimes. You put him on the stand, and you'll never know what to expect."

Carol took her place at the table, leaving Captain Jenkins hovering near the door. He rarely sat, but Ken twitched at having Jenkins at his back, especially when the captain was so aggravated.

"I would have taken that into consideration before he slept at the lead detective's house, but now it's a moot point. He's not getting anywhere near the courthouse on any day I'm in front of a judge," Gary said with a hint of laughter in his voice.

Ken flinched. He hadn’t realized Carol had shared that story. 

"I enjoyed the officers' reports from their first encounter with him, though." Gary held up a sheaf of papers held together with a binder clip. "I thought witness statements were boring, but half the reports would make for good stand-up comedy and the other half used so many euphemisms I couldn't actually tell what happened."

Ken shook his head as he remembered that first sight of Millan. "He wasn't taking their shit," Ken agreed.

"Considering the reports, we're lucky he isn't filing suit for some of the officers' actions. Although luck might have less to do with it than the fact that a jury is not likely to award a settlement to a man who makes a living dressing up like a dog for sex. The country is amazingly prudish considering the amount of pornography that gets sold every year."

Jenkins grunted. "So, how do we salvage this from here?" The captain asked.

"Legally, we ignore Millan as a witness. I suggest passing the assault in his apartment over to the local precinct…"

"The gay-bashers case is mine," Ken protested.

“Ours,” Carol added with real heat in her voice. “And the local precinct already showed a significant lack of common sense when investigating the original complaint.”

Gary held up a placating hand. “We don't have definitive evidence linking the cases, and having you two investigate a push-in smacks of inappropriate involvement. In court, I can limit the damage done so far, but don't make this any messier for me. I mean, I know I'm good, but let's not test the limits.”

Carol leaned forward and pressed her fingertips against the tabletop. “Detective Hoffman and I both believe Millan is the key to this case. If the suspects are targeting him, then he has gotten close to finding them, even if he doesn’t realize it.”

“Let me play devil’s advocate for a second,” Gary said. “We know Millan makes a living dressing up like a dog for the sexual gratification of others. It’s entirely possible that an ex-wife or husband, a jilted boyfriend or even a parent has decided that Millan has corrupted one of his clients and decided to kill him for it.”

“Using three suspects who match the descriptions in the bashing case?” Ken asked.

“Ah!” Gary held up a finger. “But those descriptions came from Millan. Maybe he knows who is harassing him. Maybe he is trying to get the police to identify his stalkers by linking them to the unrelated gay bashing case.”

Ken shook his head. “That doesn’t make sense.” 

“Defense attorneys rarely make sense,” Gary said with disgust. “Oh, some are great, and I am one hundred percent in favor of the adversarial nature of the justice system, but if you think a lack of logic will preclude a particular defense, you need to spend more time in a courtroom. I don’t want you two near the break in. I would prefer it if, from now on, you weren’t near Robert Millan.”

Carol spoke while Ken was still trying to figure out whether he should come clean about their plan. “I already told Detective Hoffman to tail Millan when he leaves school today. He has a real lack of self-preservation, so he may try to backtrack his own investigation to figure out who told the suspects about him or the suspects may target Millan again. It’s our best lead.” Ken wanted to speak up in favor of the plan, but at this point he figured that anything he said would hurt more than help her argument. The captain’s suggestion that Ken could transfer was one small step away from an involuntary transfer out of the precinct. Ken didn’t want to think about where the CPD might dump him if they decided to make him miserable enough to quit.

"Well, that's…" Gary stopped. The man who made a living with words obviously ran out of them.

Jenkins found his voice first. “Damn it, Hoyt, you’re supposed to be applying some cool logic to this hothead, not letting him wallow in his conspiracy theories.”

Carol turned her chair to face the captain. “If I had another lead, I’d follow it. However, Ken knows Millan and when he says that Millan’s lack of any self-preservation is going to send the man running toward this danger, I believe him. I want him protected, and I would stand out like a sore thumb in a gay club. I’d get heckled for invading their safe space and accused of having a fetish for men who aren’t sexually attracted to me. That’s not the best way to stay inconspicuous.”

“She has you there,” Gary said with a grimace.

Jenkins turned on him. “Don’t start with me.”

Gary held his hands up in surrender.

“Sir,” Ken said, “I believe Millan is in danger.”

“And he’s the one who believed one of the victims would die,” Carol added. Given that she’d read him the riot act about being inconsiderate of other cases and having his logic tied in knots, she was being pretty damn supportive. Sometimes people kept it private when they dressed down a subordinate. Hopefully that motivated her, and not a strange case of raging indecisiveness. 

"We’ll get someone else for surveillance,” Jenkins said. “Hoffman, you’re off the case." Jenkins didn't even sound angry; he had that low, quiet voice that suggested he was milliseconds away from exploding.

"Not so fast,” Gary said loudly. “If you take him off this case, it's going to give the defense attorney a basis to challenge everything he's done. Ken collected the witness statements, got the composite drawings, and was in charge when the forensics team collected hairs at Millan's apartment and outside the townhouse where Millan was playing puppy. This is evidence I can't afford to lose at trial," Gary said. “Since Millan is morally questionable, I need a good upstanding cop and formal military hero to trot out at trial.”

Ken snapped at Gary, “Millan has a strong ethical core.”

"Ethics?" Jenkins demanded. "I'm surprised he knows the word."

Even though silence would serve him better, Ken refused to sit still and let Robert get maligned by people who didn’t even know him. “Ignore his potential prostitution, and you’re left with a scholarship student who tutors underprivileged teens and wants to be an investigative reporter so much that he is willing to risk his own life to protect the people who confided in him.”

Carol cringed, and Jenkins said dryly, “I stopped listening after ‘potential prostitution’ came out of your mouth, detective.”

"I don't know. In court I could easily paint him as a zealous student reporter with a strong ethical code, and the dog kink is so prejudicial I’m sure a judge would throw it out,” Gary said as he stood. “But make sure that you cross every t and dot every i if you’re following him around the gay clubs. A judge might also throw out any evidence you get if the judge believes you’re crossing the line because you’re too invested in catching these guys.” Gary turned to the captain and held out his hand. “Thank you for consulting before this nightmare landed on my desk. I always appreciate knowing that I have a log jamb of shit headed my way before I get hit by it.”

“Of course. Any time,” Jenkins said.

“That’s one police officer down, and twelve thousand more to convince that I’m not the enemy,” Gary said with a sigh before he headed out.

Chapter 17: https://www.patreon.com/posts/witness-wore-17-19064720 

Chapter 18: https://www.patreon.com/posts/witness-wore-18-19083274 

Chapter 19: https://www.patreon.com/posts/witness-wore-19-19142224 

Chapter 20: https://www.patreon.com/posts/witness-wore-20-19153311 

Chapter 21, 22, 23: https://www.patreon.com/posts/witness-wore-21-21192263 

Chapter 24: https://www.patreon.com/posts/witness-wore-24-21260957