Chapter 8
“. . .Paved with Good Intentions”
Deputy Brown had a volatile lineage. His mom was half Irish and his dad an odd mix of Comanche, Mexican, and Italian, with some other non-specific Anglo-Saxon race mixed in. But his look and demeanor was fully Irish: closely cropped strawberry blond hair and a red-tinged complexion that served as a mood thermometer. When challenged, professionally or otherwise, his face would turn so red it looked like he had a serious case of sunburn.
Anderson called Brown and Lind back into his office at 6:45 the next morning, which was Sunday. Both knew there was trouble—neither was scheduled to work that day—so they reported to Anderson’s office with trepidation. They had reason to be concerned. He was furious after a quick review of Lind’s report, and he took with a grain of salt the one prepared by Brown, which was curiously void of the search and seizure violations Anderson had already been made aware of.
As expected, the unscheduled meeting did not begin well. The two deputies were once again sitting on the other side of Sheriff Anderson’s desk, shifting in their seats, after Anderson had vented his rage at Brown’s sloppy police work. Brown’s Irish mood thermometer was fully engaged, his complexion a bright red tint. Lind, on the other hand, was calm as a corpse, totally satisfied that Brown’s actions would ultimately result in a change in the power structure of the department. Maybe he would be Brown’s supervisor? Indeed, while Brown was livid, Lind was smiling, as he had been the day before.
“Don’t think you’re the Boy Scout in this mess,” Anderson snapped at Lind’s apparent contentment with the situation. “You could have been more assertive and stopped things from getting out of hand.”
The smile turned upside down.
“He’s my superior,” Lind replied. “I told him to wait, but what am I supposed to do? Tackle him and take the chance that I won’t get slammed for it later?”
Anderson pondered Lind’s reply. He nodded in agreement, but kept the angry look on his face. The rookie had a point, he realized. Besides, the kid was sharp and would go far if he played his cards right. And he was a Republican. That last point actually turned up the corners of his mouth. The expression was not really a smile, but it was no longer the look of sheer and unadulterated anger he had moments before.
“Fine. I suppose you’re right.”
Brown sat aghast. He was being ganged up on, he knew, and it would only get worse. “We had probable cause,” he whined, doing his best to not yell at the turncoat sitting to his right. “He could have destroyed the evidence and made our job much tougher.”
“We’re done here,” Anderson responded, more and more perturbed at a clearly non-repentant deputy who had already been demoted. “I suggest you do things right from this point forward. Standard Operating Procedures from now on, by the book, understand?” he ended, staring at Brown.
“Yes,” Brown dejectedly replied.
“Starting with notifying next of kin,” he said toward Brown. He then turned toward Lind. “I want you to take over the investigation.” Glancing at both, he added, “Does everyone understand?”
Both nodded.
My days are numbered, Brown thought, as his feelings changed from anger to fear.
Anderson stood up, walked around the desk to his door, and opened it, motioning his visitors to leave with his free hand. The deputies stood up and started to leave, Brown in front. After Brown exited and Lind approached the threshold, Anderson placed his hand in Lind’s way. “You stay,” he said.
Brown, his complexion now a much lighter shade of red, glanced back at Anderson, who was now glaring at him. “SOPs,” Anderson responded. “Now do your job the correct way.”
Brown stopped just after he walked out the door, and Anderson shut the door behind him, with he and Lind still inside.
Standard Operating Procedures, or SOPs, as his military and law enforcement experiences taught him to abbreviate. They were a royal pain in the derriere as far as Brown was concerned. A professional officer followed only the SOPs he had to, he believed, and bent the rules just enough when they got in the way of his job; it was, after all, about catching criminals and preventing crime. If such a breach of SOPs meant a case might go away, he could just change his reports later. Most of the time, his supervisors never even knew just how much he bent the rules. As long as the cases Brown investigated resulted in convictions or pleas of guilty, no one cared. The problem came when he was no longer the darling of the department. The problem came when he had a backbiter riding shotgun in his patrol vehicle.
Lately, Brown’s superiors were becoming more and more intrusive in their questions about his tactics. There was always someone in that other political party looking over his shoulder, waiting for him to screw up.
I’m getting sick of this garbage, he said to himself, as he walked toward his cubicle a dozen or so feet from Anderson’s office. He was now relegated to the distasteful task of telling someone’s family that their son was near death and might not make it. SOPs required him to contact the local authorities in Stonelee, Kansas, immediately, which was certain to take a tragic situation and make it worse. Those totally unconnected with the investigation would notify the victim’s family of his situation and condition, both of which they were ill-equipped to fully understand. At 7:00 on a Sunday morning, it was likely that a Stonelee officer would rudely awaken the family with the news, creating far more anxiety than was necessary. So instead of following the SOP for such a situation, he stood up, picked up his keys and walked to the door.
“I’m not about to wake up his family at this hour, and I’ll be damned if I delegate it to someone else,” he said aloud. “It’ll wait until later and do it myself.”
Brown went home, grabbed a couple hours sleep, and returned to finish his commandment as directed, in spirit even if not according the SOP. While researching the location of Robert Baxter’s family, he ran across a telephone number. Again, in yet another act of defiance, he arrived in his tiny office and immediately picked up his phone a little before 10:00 A.M., not even bothering to sit down, and punched in the numbers. As the phone rang, he pulled his chair out and took a seat. It rang three times.
“This is Deputy Brown of the Darkwell County, Oklahoma, Sheriff’s Department,” he began, as he considered what else to say into the answering machine, his southern twang more pronounced now than usual. “Robert Baxter was in an accident. Please call 405-345-6734 for details.”
After finishing the message, he put the handset back in its place and glanced down to his cellular telephone, still clipped to his belt, to make sure the ringer was turned on. He preferred to talk to the boy’s loved ones in person, not delegate such a sensitive task to a stranger, whether it was some local police officer in Stonelee or one of his own colleagues.
“What a stupid policy,” he muttered after he verified that the cell phone was on.
Brown stood up, left the investigations office, and walked through the main foyer toward the jail’s entrance. “Now let’s see what we can get out of this twerp,” he told himself as he considered what the suspect might say to speed up his investigation, totally ignoring Anderson’s directive to stay out of the case. “What the heck does Anderson know? Rookie. He wouldn’t know a good detective if he bit him in the butt.”
He slammed the door shut and made his way to the jail. He’d crack the case if it was the last thing he did.