Free A Killing in Zion by Andrew Hunt Page B

“Mr. Oveson? We’re ready for you.”
    On my way to Cowley’s office, lugging my stack of file folders, I noticed Inez Spooner typing once more, and I had no doubt she’d stop as soon as that matron was no longer standing in the doorway. “Famous movie star and you don’t get his autograph,” she said under her breath, fingers dancing on the Underwood keys. “What a disgrace.”
    The chief’s assistant closed the doors behind me. Inside, paneled walls matched a mahogany conference table in the center of the room, surrounded by tall chairs, several presently occupied. Chief Cowley rose from his spot at the head of the table and came over to me to shake my hand. He stood at only five feet, seven inches tall, yet his formidable presence fooled you into thinking he towered over seven. He kept his hair slicked back, his eyeglasses low on his nose, and his dapper mustache neatly trimmed. He had the most prominent chin I’ve ever seen on a man, even more than President Roosevelt’s. He seized my hand with a grip that almost fractured bones, so I knew he meant business.
    â€œWelcome, Detective Oveson,” he said. “Please, come in and be seated. Anywhere you wish.”
    â€œThank you, sir,” I said. I faced his assistant and handed her the box of slides. “Were you able to arrange use of the projector?”
    â€œYes, it’s right over there,” she said, gesturing to a wheeled cart. “Top slide first?”
    â€œYes, please,” I said. “Thank you.”
    While Cowley’s assistant went over and loaded the slides into the projector, I gravitated to the unoccupied end of the table, nearest the door, and Cowley returned to his spot. I never quite knew what to make of Cowley. He seemed competent enough, but his rise to the top spot in the force grew out of a checkered history. Sometime around the close of 1931 or opening of ’32, Mayor Bennett Cummings replaced the outgoing police chief, Otis Ballard, with his good friend Bill Cowley. Ballard retired so he could—in his own words—“take up the rod and reel full-time.” But there was more to Ballard’s departure than a desire to spend more time fishing, and everyone from the lowliest traffic cop to the highest deputy chiefs knew it. Ballard’s early retirement was tied to a scandal in the winter of ’31 that rocked the Anti-Vice Squad. It was a complicated story involving cops who accepted bribes in the form of money, liquor, and prostitutes; mass firings of a squad commander and detectives for allegedly participating in said racket; and an overzealous new mayor, Cummings, who wanted to wipe out every last vestige of corruption, even if it meant destroying the careers of a few innocent men in the process. At least three Anti-Vice detectives had been driven out of the force without any evidence linking them to illegal activities. For Cummings, their presence in the squad was sufficient reason to discharge them. Moreover, Ballard had never played any part in the scandalous behavior that had been going on for years. Yet he had been the chief of police at the time when the worst instances of corruption were occurring, and that was good enough for Cummings to accuse him behind the scenes of being “inept” and “asleep at the wheel.” Since Ballard was so popular among his men and the public at large, Cummings would never utter such statements in public. He chose instead to apply quiet pressure. It worked. Ballard was out and Cowley was in.
    Needless to say, Cowley wasn’t terribly popular in his own force. That had to do, in part, with him being an outsider. Cummings brought Cowley in from Boise, Idaho, to introduce a fresh face, someone capable of rising above the internecine conflicts that had been plaguing the force for so long, and restore the department’s tarnished image.
    My thoughts returned to the present. To Chief Cowley’s left