Badge of Betrayal

Sure winner. Chain of evidence and Jeff. The only thing he could have been talking about was Jeff McCauley. Jeff McCauley was technically an employee of the Mason County Jail but was also in charge of our property and evidence room. I decided that I needed to explore those avenues and see what they turned up. If I was right, then Bud's attempts at being clever and cryptic weren't that good. God, that son-of-a-bitch had an ego!

I placed a quick call to Tonya Fulbright to ask for another favor. She picked up after the first ring.

"Heyyyy! What's up, buttercup? Never expected to hear from you so soon," she cooed. It was like talking to a long lost lover, only way more awesome and sexy.

"I hope I'm not bothering you. You've helped me so much already that I don't want to impose any further."

"Oh, my God, Patrick! You're not imposing at all. I've always got time for one of Christopher's hot, sexy co-workers!"

It isn't often that I'm at a loss for words. But I was. Big time. I would have to have her expound on that last statement some time in the future.

"Well, Tonya, I was wondering if you knew how to do a background check. I mean, like a really deep background check on someone."

"Patrick Quinn," she scolded me, "I just recently helped you install illegal software on your wife's phone and computer to access multiple layers of highly-encrypted software and hardware to help you data mine a treasure trove of personal information from your wife and her lover, who also happens to be a sitting elected public official. I think I can handle something as trivial and mundane as a fucking background check," she giggled.

"Uh, yes. Well, when you put it that way, I suppose it sounds like I'm underestimating your abilities."

"Yeah, no shit you're underestimating my abilities. Lucky for you you're so damned cute that I'm willing to overlook your transgression. Might have to be a penalty for your mistake in the future!"

Hmm. I was intrigued. "And what kind of penalty would that be?"

"You might have to put in some 'hard time', know what I mean?" She cackled mercilessly. She knew exactly what she was doing to me.

"Well, you, Chris and I can negotiate a payment plan in the future. But for now, I just need some essential information on a key employee of the Mason County Sheriff's Department."

"Ooh! Sounds sneaky! Who are we talking about, dear Patrick?"

"His name is Jeff McCauley. He is technically a jailer who also runs our property and evidence room."

"Okay, give me a sec." I could hear her beautiful black polished nails tickling a computer keyboard in the background. "Okay, I got him. What all do you want to know?"

"Well, what have you got?"

"I have one Jeffrey Malcolm McCauley, DOB 6/27/73. Lives at 834 Lincoln Street. Has a wife Marissa and two kids, Cicely and Tyson, ages 16 and 13 respectively. Wife is employed at Wells Fargo Bank as a teller. Only known civil issues are just a couple of old traffic tickets for both. Nothing else stands out on the criminal side."

Damn. Dead end. Something told me deep down that Bud had the screws put to Jeff to make him play ball. Somehow, Jeff was tied in with Bud. He had to be. Bud had SOME kind of leverage over him. But if not criminal, then what? Financial?

"Hey, Tonya, see what you can dig up on Jeff's financials. Can you do that?"

"God, Patrick? Are you TRYING to insult me? Wow! I'm gonna have to think of something REALLY good to punish you now!" I could only imagine what that might be. And it could only be awesome!

"Work your magic, Tonya. I need a miracle here, you know."

"I know, I know, Patrick. You know I'd do anything to you, er, I mean, FOR you," she giggled. She was merciless. And I loved it. "Okay, okay. I got it. Holy shit!"

I sat up in bed. "What? Holy shit what?"

"Jeff and his wife have a mortgage on their house for about $55,000. About normal for the part of town they live in. But Jeff has two credit cards in his name that are TOTALLY maxed out!"

"How much is on the cards?

"Jesus!" she said. "One card is maxed out at $60,000 and the other is tapped for another $35,000!"

I let out a long, slow whistle. "Can you dig deeper and find out where it is all going?"

"Give me a sec. I gotta get into the MasterCard system." I didn't even want to know if that was legal. After about 30 seconds she came back and asked, "Where the hell is Canterbury Park?"

I thought and thought for a minute. "Uh, Canterbury Park. I want to say it is a horse track over by Valley Fair amusement park, south side of the Twin Cities."

"Yep! It sure is," Tonya confirmed. "I'm looking at the website right now. I dunno, Patrick. It looks like our boy Jeff has a helluva gambling problem, because BOTH credit cards have been completely maxed out on cash advances from Canterbury Park."

That's it. That was totally it. Bud Roberts had Jeff McCauley by the balls. Even the mere appearance of anything that might be used to sway Jeff McCauley's influence would be enough to automatically remove him from his position as Property and Evidence Supervisor. All anyone had to do was know his situation and they could easily bribe or coerce him to do anything they wanted, considering he had nearly $100,000 in gambling debt. Bud Roberts should have removed him immediately as soon as he found out. But the fact that Jeff was still there meant Bud was using him for sure.

"Tonya, you are absolutely amazing. And I'm gonna make good on my promise to you and Chris. You have my word on that."

"You haven't promised me shit, Patrick. But I can think of plenty of ways for you to make it up to me."

"Uh," I said, sheepishly, "I'm not sure Chris would appreciate that."

"Chris and I have a very liberal understanding, Patrick. And an extremely mutual, yet open, relationship. We just have to agree on who we play with and be completely honest about it. And I'm thinking that a little rendezvous between you, me and Chris might just be therapeutic for us all! Just think about it, Patrick. And keep an open mind. That's all I'm saying."

"I'll do that, Tonya," I chuckled. "I promise. Thanks again for all your help."

"Bye, bye, sugar pie!" she said, hanging up.

It was time to pay a little visit to Jeff McCauley down at Property and Evidence.

I made a miraculous recovery the rest of the afternoon and evening and presented to work bright and early the next morning. As luck would have it, Bud Roberts had only two meetings scheduled that morning and then planned to be out of the office the rest of the day. Typical for a Friday.

I was preparing two civil warrants to be delivered later that day when I looked up from my desk around 10:30 and saw Bud Roberts leaving. He was on his phone and leaving in a hurry. As he got into the elevator to head downstairs, he looked at me, smiled and then flipped me the bird as the elevator doors closed. I guess that told me all I needed to know about where he was headed.

Shortly after he left, I paid a little visit to the Property and Evidence room. Jeff McCauley stood about 5'6 and about 180 pounds. He wore his hair in a bad comb over to compensate for a growing bald spot and he sported an over-size porn mustache to compensate for his loss of hair and a profound overbite. He never quite had what it took to become a deputy but he had, for the most part, always been fairly well liked and regarded by everyone in the department.

"Good morning, Jeff," I said nonchalantly, as I arrived.

"Captain," he said, somewhat startled. "This is a surprise. What brings you all the way down to P & E today?"

"Well, I'm still getting used to a lot of my new duties as Chief Deputy. And, as you know well, one of my actual duties is to oversee Property and Evidence. So, I thought there was no better time than now to come down and go over the property and evidence logs to see how they are kept and whether they are up-to-date. As you can see, I brought the Property and Evidence SOPs with me and I thought you and I could have a chance to go over them and make sure everything is as it should be."

Jeff face visibly paled and he suddenly appeared nervous. "Well, I've been in this office for five years now, Captain. I can assure you that everything is ship-shape. Bud's never had a single complaint about me the entire time I've been here."

"No doubt. Nor should he, I'm sure. But as I said, I'd like to go over the logs and kind of do my own eyes-on inventory to make sure what we have actually matches the logs. I'm sure you understand that."

I could sense Jeff shifting his weight. His right hand was very slightly but visibly trembling. His breathing rate quickened.

"Well, Captain, the logs and inventory are completely computerized now. I just finished the last weekly inventory just this morning. I can show you the results right now."

"Great! Go ahead and print it off and we can go through the arms room and evidence room ourselves and visually verify it."

Jeff froze in place. He was obviously petrified.

"Something wrong, Jeff?"

"Well, Captain, it's just that I already finished the inventory and I was gonna knock off early today and planned on taking some comp time."

"That's funny," I said, faking confusion. "I'm sure you know that payroll and paid time off requests come through my office, Jeff. I never saw any PTO request from you this week. You do know, of course, that they need to be approved at least 24 hours in advance." Jeff just looked away from me and was breathing fast and hard through his nose. I decided to torture him a little further. "I'll tell you what, Jeff. Let's burn through a quick inventory and then I'll let you take the rest of the day off. How's that sound?"

He didn't bite. He just stood there not knowing what else to say. I decided to lay down my trump card. I stood directly in front of him and looked him straight in the eyes. His bottom lip was even starting to tremble.

"I know, Jeff," I said in a low voice. "I know about your extreme credit problems. I know that you owe nearly twice as much on credit cards as you do on your house. I know that you spend almost every weekend in Minneapolis at the track and that you lose profusely. I know that you're at the breaking point and you're going to soon be in danger of losing your job, your family and your home. And I know that Bud Roberts knows all of this, too, and is holding it over your head to get you to help him screw me over."

Jeff immediately burst into stifled sobbing and sat down at his desk with his head in his hands.

"I can help you, Jeff," I said, pulling up a chair. "But you've gotta help me, too. And you can start by telling me exactly what it is that Bud has you doing for him. And you can't hold anything back, either. You gotta be 100% straight and true if you want me to help you, Jeff."

It took Jeff several minutes to get himself under control. Finally when he did, he wanted to talk.

"Captain," he started.

"Call me Pat," I said.

"Okay, Pat," he continued, "you say you'll help me. I gotta know that ain't just a comment. I need you to promise me on everything you hold dear that you will help me. You understand?"

I leaned in beside him and put my hand on his shoulder. "Jeff, look at me." He did. "You have my word and I promise you on the life of my children that I will do whatever I can to help you."

"Including keeping me out of jail?" Jesus, I thought! What in the hell did Bud have Jeff doing?

"Jeff, I don't know what all you and Bud are mixed up in. But I promise to do my best to keep you out of jail. I can't promise you that you will NOT go to jail. Only that I'll do my damnedest to keep you out of there."

Jeff dried his eyes, wiped his nose and nodded his head. "Well then, Pat, I guess we better take a little ride."

"I'm gonna bring a few people along, Jeff. Just for posterity's sake."

"Probably a good idea, Pat."

I called in Danny Larson, Chris Hayes, another female deputy named Angel Ryerson, and one of our Lieutenants, Benito "Ben" Villanueva. I didn't know most of our lieutenants that well but I knew Ben better than the rest. I wasn't sure how he felt about me being Captain now, having passed him over, even though he never applied for my position. But I needed to take a shot in the dark. Ben was probably one of the most well-liked and trusted members of the department in general. He was the picture of polished professionalism in all matters and he was an extremely good officer and a very fair shift supervisor. I needed to trust that he would put any personal animosity beside at this point and focus on the problem at hand. Jeff had assured me that what Bud was having him do would absolutely blow my socks off when I found out. I felt that such a premonition warranted having some additional witnesses.

I told everyone to meet me at 4:00 pm, just after the afternoon shift change. I made sure that Jeff McCauley never got out of my sight the rest of the day following our morning encounter. I ended up driving Jeff and myself back to the Skyline Driver Motel where I retrieved my F-150 crew cab, as I had already made sure that Bud was not tracking my personal vehicle with GPS. Then I told everyone else to follow me and drive their own personal vehicles, but only after Chris Hayes and I did a precursory check to ensure that no one's vehicles had any GPS tracking devices planted. Danny, Angel and Ben looked at us as though we were insane but they went along with it. Then I insisted that everyone take out their personal and department-issued phones and remove the battery, rendering them useless and untraceable. There was some general bitching, but they did as I had asked.

Jeff and I jumped in my truck and Ben, Angel, Danny and Chris all rode in Ben's Chevy Silverado. We drove to the northwest part of Red River Falls near the new industrial park. Jeff had me stop at a complex of storage sheds that were part of Red River Rentals. We all proceeded on foot to unit #189. Jeff produced a single key for the tamper-resistant padlock on the roll-up door to the shed.

"Remember," Jeff said, "remember what you promised me, Pat. And remember that none of this is my fault."

"Open the unit, Jeff," I commanded. Jeff proceeded to unlock the padlock and flung the roll-up door open. He pulled the string to a single light-switch that illuminated the room. Nothing could have prepared me for what I saw.

There were storage shelves along the west wall of the shed running the full length. Sitting on those shelves were numerous white paper bags and white paper boxes all sealed with red tamper-resistant tape. Doing a quick scan, I estimated that there were over 80 bags and boxes of evidence sitting on those shelves.

"Holy Jesus," I said aghast. "My God, Jeff. What the hell have you done?"

"What the fuck?" Angel said.

"Is that what I think it is, Pat?" Danny asked, incredulous.

"Oh, my fucking God," was all Ben could say.

We all proceeded to walk into the shed as a group and stare horrified at the boxes and bags of evidence that had been surreptitiously removed from our secure evidence lockers and transported over three miles to a remote rented storage facility in a very bad part of town.

There were boxes containing clothing, weapons used in assaults, weapons used in murders, rape collection kits and all other forms of material and criminal evidence in over 80 cases. Some of the evidence was from cases that were ongoing. Some was from cases closed ten years ago.

Danny just stood there, shaking his head in disbelief. "My God, Jeff. What the fuck have you done?"

All I could do was just stare at the wall of evidence and imagine my life slowly vanishing away, one white box or bag at a time. I wanted to scream. So I did.

"Fuck.....fuck.....fuck.....Fuck........FUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!!!!!!!"

"Look, Pat, I'm-"

"I CAN'T EVEN BEGIN TO OVERSTATE HOW IMMENSELY IMPORANT IT IS THAT YOU SHUT THE FUCK UP RIGHT NOW, JEFF!" McCauley just stood there, head hanging down.

"Jesus, Pat! Do you know what this means?" Angel asked?

"Bud had me between a rock and a hard place, Pat," Jeff pressed on.

"I said shut the fuck up, Jeff! Look at that wall, Jeff! Look! Do you see what I see? I see years' and years' worth of evidence that was ILLEGALLY taken from a secure evidence room and transported MILES away without proper authorization or documentation! Do you know what that is called, Jeff? Do you? It is called EVIDENCE TAMPERING! There are over eighty cases worth of evidence on those fucking shelves, Jeff! Do you know what that means? It means over eighty cases of evidence tampering! It means that a whole fucking shitload of really messed up and shitty people could get released from prison because of you, Jeff! It means a ten-year prison sentence for each count! Can you do math, Jeff? Do you know what eighty times ten is, you stupid fucking prick????!!!!"

Jeff hung his head and meekly uttered, "eight hundred."

"Yes! That's right! Apparently you aren't as retarded as I thought! Eight-hundred years, Jeff! That's how long I could potentially go to jail for! It's effectively a death sentence, you fucking moron!"

I began to pace the room like a rabid, caged animal while the others just stared at the wall in disbelief, horror and shock.

"How the fuck did you get it all here?" Chris wanted to know.

"My personal vehicle," came Jeff's sheepish reply.

"How were you able to sign it out?" Angel demanded.

"Bud used Patrick's electronic signature. He was able get it somehow from our IT guy, Dean Strobe. Bud signed it out and made me deliver it here."

"Pat, can I have a word alone?" It was Ben Villanueva. As always he was a voice of reason. We walked outside into the cold about 100 feet from the entrance. "Pat, you got a real mess on your hands in there. You want to explain to me what the heck is going on in there?"

"Ben, you wouldn't believe me if I told you."

"Try me."

I realized he was right and I needed to let everyone in on what our collective boss was trying to do. Ben and I walked back into the shed and I gathered everyone around. I spent the next fifteen minutes giving them all the Cliff Notes version of the events and what had led up to this point. I also spent a few minutes explaining Jeff McCauley's role in this, much to his dismay and shame. To say that Ben, Angel, Chris and Danny were shocked would be a phenomenal understatement. They all knew that Bud Roberts was flamboyant, cocky and a little arrogant. But until now, they had all like him and like working for him. Now they understood just how much of a bastard he could really be.

"So what do we do now?" Angel asked.

"Simple," I replied. "The evidence has to go back in place and right fucking now."

"Not that simple, Amigo," Ben said. "I'm going to assume that it literally took weeks for Jeff and Bud to get all this evidence moved out here. I mean, there are several murder investigations in here, most of which are closed. This whole process is going to get them new trials, get the perps sprung from jail and is going to bring disrepute on the entire department and the Bureau of Criminal Investigations. There is no way to keep a lid on this, Pat."

Or was there? I cast a look over to Chris Hayes. He was thinking the same thing I was and answered my thoughts with the words, "child's play." Tonya could easily fix this situation and revert the records back to the time before the evidence shuffle took place. He quickly explained to the group what Tonya's capabilities were and how quickly she could do it. A quick phone call from Chris to Tonya sealed the deal and she agreed to meet us at the sheriff's office as soon as we had everything loaded.

Ben, Angel and Danny all implored me to just cut my losses and report everything to the Bureau of Criminal Investigations. I, in turn, implored them to follow my plan and return all of the evidence to the Sheriff's office tonight, scrub the records and make sure that chain of custody remained intact. I said that we couldn't risk letting six convicted murderers go free or any of the other bad people who were in prison right now because of this evidence. I assured them, as did Chris Hayes, that Tonya was as good as they come and she could have the records reverted to the way they were before the evidence was taken out of lock up, so long as there weren't any hard copies anywhere. Jeff McCauley assured us there were not, that the entire system was now digital, which explains why Bud was able to get away with it by stealing my electronic signature.