Free (2012) Cross-Border Murder by David Waters Page B

file on the Monaghan murder.
    He gave me a smug, self-satisfied smile. “I have a copy of it in the car.”
    My raised eyebrows conveyed both surprise and pleasure. “That was fast.”
    “After I spoke to you, something about the case bugged me. I decided to act while I still had friends in the department. It wasn’t easy.” He grunted.
    I raised my eyebrows again. “How come?”
    “It was in the archives labeled, SECRET, requiring a signature from pretty high up in the department for its release. But again I was fortunate. The sergeant in charge of the archives was an old friend who was also about to be put on the shelf.” He grinned. “I told him that I had a few minor questions about the case that were bugging me in my retirement. He decided to break the rules for me. He just made a copy and spirited it out. Career cops hang together you know, or hadn’t you heard that?”
    Of course I had heard that. Doctors hang together, so too do lawyers, journalists, priests, professors, the list is depressingly endless. “So when do I get to see it?”
    “You don’t. Phone me tonight and I’ll answer any reasonable questions you have. I may even suggest some leads. But I have to protect my friend from anything appearing verbatim from it in the press.”
    I didn’t like his decision, but for the moment I decided not to argue about it. After all we were hardly close friends, and to him I was still a journalist. “Okay, I’ll give you a call when I get home.”
    When we emerged Gina was waiting outside the door. We headed in the direction of our cars. When Gina spoke I wondered for a moment whether she could have overheard any of our conversation in the washroom.
    “I believe,” Gina said, “that Mr. Webster asked if you could get a copy of the original police file. Will that be possible?”
    After a moment’s hesitation, Ryan shrugged. “I’m working on it.”
    Gina seemed satisfied. But I felt a sense of discomfort at what I considered to be a lie, a “white lie” maybe, but a lie nonetheless. Gina had been misled. But then Ryan wasn’t a saint, just a career cop pushed into early retirement. And he had his reasons. As I drove off with Gina beside me I thought about the kind of misleading statement Ryan had made.
    It was a form of casuistry. I had participated in numerous discussions about the morality of such statements in a course on ethics I had almost failed while in university. I remembered the example which had been used for discussion purposes. Someone comes to your home wishing to see your parents. Your parents do not want to see that person. The person asks you, “Are your parents at home?” And you answer, “No.” Except that you say only the word “No” out loud, and under your breath you mutter the rest of the phrase, “they are not at home to you.” In your mind you have uttered the whole truth, but with your voice you have misled. Ethical or not. The argument in favor went this way: you can assume that the person at the door understands the social convention you have employed and so is not misled. It is like the conditions one encounters on a used car lot. Since the onus is on the buyer to beware, the seller can say almost anything at all. Ethical casuistry. It is used by doctors, lawyers, politicians, bankers, parents, and yes even very young children. Is there anyone who has not used it and felt justified in doing so? Yet it has become a social malady, I thought, as widespread as the common cold. It spreads suspicion like a virus, fosters resentment, and if it is not used sparingly where does the damage end?
    “I think there’s something strange about that police file,” Gina said.
    “Oh?” I asked. I pretended to be concentrating on the driving, although the streets were almost deserted.
    “It was the odd way he responded to my question about it,” she said. “From the moment we met, whenever he said anything to me, he would stare right at me assessing my reaction. But when I