Free Be Mine by Rick Mofina Page B

dialed the number of a very well placed police source.
    Come on. Be there . He checked the time.
Less than an hour to deadline. His call was answered after the second ring.
    “Hey, it’s me, I need help,” Tom said.
    “Give me one minute, I’ll call you back from another phone.”
    He looked around the newsroom. Della Thompson was at a news
conference. Nothing big expected. Simon Lepp had been dispatched to the
Ingleside police district office to pursue some angle for Pepper. No one around
to overhear him. He was clear to talk. His line rang and he took the call from
his source.
    “What’s up, Reed?”
    “I need to know what’s going on inside the Hooper investigation.”
    His source said nothing for a long time.
    “It’s not good. Emotions are running high. Hell, Hooper was well
liked and there’s a bad smell to this one.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “The brass wants this thing blitzed. Green-lighted the overtime, you
know the drill.”
    “Sure.”
    “And on big cases like this, Homicide’s pretty good at sharing with
the other bodies brought in. I’m talking on a need-to-know basis, but they’re
usually open, right?”
    “Right.”
    “But on this one it seems they ain’t sharing the time of day. It’s
got everyone pissed off. Grief and anger are entangling everybody.”
    “Do you know why that’s happening?”
    “I have an idea.”
    “Care to share it?”
    “If I give you anything, it could come back on me.”
    “Come on. I’m kinda jammed here.”
    “Look, it’s hot right now. Dangerous for anyone to leak anything.”
    “I’m really jammed. I’d owe you.”
    There was a long heavy silence. A promising silence. “All right, but
you have to confirm this with other sources. You got this on the wind, understand?”
    “On the wind.”
    “We heard that Management Control and OCC paid Homicide a visit very
early in the case. It got them all freaked out.”
    “Why? Isn’t that procedure, administratively speaking?”
    “Read it any way you like. But sparks flew. Hooper hadn’t even been
autopsied and there they are ready to second-guess the investigation before it
even started.”
    “But why? Was Hooper dirty? Or were they just playing politics?”
    “It suggests a toilet full of ugly things.”
    “Like what?”
    “Anything from an internal suspect to internal corruption. Who
knows? It’s pissing people off and raises a lot of dark questions.”
    “Jesus.”
    “You did not get it from me.”
    Tom hung up and punched the number for the Office of Citizens’
Complaints, eyeing the clock as it rang. He requested an official comment for a
story saying that within hours of Inspector Hooper’s murder OCC visited the
homicide detail to talk specifically about Hooper’s case.
    “I’ll have to get someone to call you back, Mr. Reed.”
    “I need to talk to someone now.”
    “Yes, someone will call you right away.”
    Tom then called the Office of Management Control for the SFPD and
was put through to Lieutenant Dan Taylor. After listening, Taylor said, “You
know that we never comment on any ongoing investigation, whether we’re interested
or not.”
    “Is that a denial?”
    “We never comment.”
    Tom tried a bluff.
    “I understand you were present at the meeting, Lieutenant?”
    The phone slammed down in Tom’s ear.
    Whoa. Tom grinned. He wrote down Taylor’s response, created a new
file on his computer screen, and began drafting a new story. Then Nan
Willoughby, spokeswoman for OCC, returned his call.
    Tom said, “I understand officials from OCC and Management Control
visited the homicide detail after Inspector Hooper’s death.”
    “That’s correct.” Now he had confirmation.
    “And the nature of the visit was, I understand, to talk about the
case?”
    “I’m afraid I cannot discuss the nature of the visit.”
    “Why were they there?”
    “I can’t discuss that.”
    “All right, Nan, let me try this: When OCC presented its most recent public report to the