Free The Year We Disappeared by Cylin Busby Page A

we were supposed to look the other way. That’s just how it was done.
    Mickey Mangum had been a North Carolina state trooper who started as a summer RAC and then became a full-time regular shortly after I started on the force. But Mickey didn’t quite get the unspoken rules when he joined the force and was so gung-ho arresting and ticketing locals that they took him off the street and put him on permanent desk duty. He was allowed to use a cruiser only to go home to supper with his wife and kids. That is, until a rookie whom he had trained arrested a“connected” local for DUI. The next day, her ticket was cleared by the chief and removed from the log book. Mickey complained to the chief, but nothing came of it. Except for the fact that after that, Mickey had to bring his supper or have it delivered—he was now officially a troublemaker, and they didn’t want him out in a patrol car if they could help it. Two years before I was shot he resigned from the force, but not before writing a nice long letter to the town officials, letting them know all about the issues and cronyism in the police department. Didn’t make a difference. At the time of my shooting, he was working for the community college, teaching law enforcement.
    Arthur Pina was a local guy from West Falmouth, worked full time for the Department of Motor Vehicles and part time as a cop in the summers. Nicknamed “the Bear,” Arthur was six foot five and around three hundred pounds. His size came in handy on party raids—when the first cop on the scene completely fills the doorway, things have a tendency to quiet down quickly. But for his size, Arthur didn’t have a mean bone in his body—a good guy with a good heart. Before long, Polly and I were spending time with Arthur and his wife, Cynthia, and our kids were playing with their two daughters.
    I worked with Arthur and Mickey for years, both of them good guys on the right side of the law, so when the two of them came to see me, I knew they weren’t there to talk about the weather. Mickey got right to it and told me that he’d heard the following story: the morning after my shooting, RaymondMeyer shows up at the back of the police station to empty the Dumpster. Meyer is a local character running Falmouth’s garbage disposal under contract, but he’s got a bunch of guys who work for him. There’s no reason for him to personally pick up the trash outside the station, unless he wants to be there.
    “And guess who climbs right up into the truck with him?” Mickey asked me. I wrote the name “Monty” on my notebook and showed it to him, referring to a cop on the force who we all knew was dirty. But Mickey shook his head. “Nope, Larry Mitchell. And they’re having a good chat. After that, Ray leaves and no one has seen him since.” Mitchell is a cop and also a friend of Meyer’s, so this came as no surprise to me. But the thought of a fellow officer casually chatting with the chief suspect in my shooting wasn’t just troubling, it was infuriating. I felt my heart beating faster, the machine monitoring my heart rate by the bed keeping time with the blips.
    I wrote, “Has he been questioned?” Arthur explained that the district attorney, Philip Rollins, was away on vacation until Tuesday and was just now getting back into his office. He’s the one who had to order the investigation.
    I was confused. No one had asked Meyer anything yet? It had been about five days since I was shot. I’d told everyone—or rather, I’d written notes to every cop who had been in to visit me—that I knew who wanted me dead. Maybe Meyer didn’t shoot me himself, but if he didn’t, then he hired whoever did. This was simple cut-and-dried police work. I was shot. I told myfellow officers that there was only one person I suspected. And no one had even talked to this dirtbag yet?
    I wanted to ask our chief of police, John Ferreira, what the hell was going on, but he still hadn’t found the time to visit the