Clean Slate

Chapter 22

The Wednesday duty scheduler poked her head in the half-open door. "Someone to see you, Superintendent."

Earl Bucaro climaxed his morning administrative duties with a hard punch of the "enter" button on his computer. "Who," he grunted.

"Man from DPP."

He looked up. The scheduler, a middle-aged housewife type with freckles and tight curly brown hair, stood in the rigid posture typical of Bureau of the Bailiff employees. "Have him stand by."

The scheduler backed out and went over to Mac McGladrey, who was idly glancing over a Work Program bulletin board. "Superintendent will be right out," she said.

"Thanks." Mac looked toward the private office. It was fronted by a large picture window; tan vertical blinds blocked the view inside. The glass door read, in gold letters, simply: SUPERINTENDENT. There wasn't much of a seating area out here. Mac knew that Bureau of the Bailiff did not do much off the street business. Offenders showed up here to get their work program assignments, and deal with related matters. Bailiffs came by to get their schedules, turn in paperwork, and take care of other administrative matters. Nobody had any call to hang around.

After allowing the amount of delay appropriate to a man of his position, Earl came out of the office. His visitor, he saw, was a tall man in his late 30s, with short wavy reddish blond hair, squared-off rugged face, pale thoughtful eyes. He wore a short-sleeve white shirt, open at the neck, over light blue pants and black running shoes. He was tall, long of arm and leg, and quite fit, but not particularly imposing. Earl made him for the quiet social-work brand of PO. One who consoled, and held hands, and offered hankies; a man expert at making excuses for the scumbags."Help you?" he asked.

"Superintendent?"Mac asked, looking down at the big-shouldered man.

"Earl Bucaro."

Mac stuck out his hand. "Mac McGladrey," he said, and they shook. Bucaro's hand, Mac found, was on the damp side, his grip just a formality. The tanned man with the smooth blackish-brown hair had dark painted-on eyes and bulky shoulders and arms, as if he'd lifted weights once, or boxed. This gave him an aura of physicality that always made Mac – physical enough, but essentially more of a cerebral type – feel inferior. Bucaro's shirt was pale green banlon, open at the neck, where chest hairs crinkled through. His pants and boots were soft, black, comfortable. He seemed to lack twitches, tells, or any other sort of defining body language. He filled space, but did nothing to animate it. This essential stillness told Mac all he needed to know: this man was fully in command, of himself, his department, and surroundings. Which made him the type Mac preferred to deal with in situations like this: a professional.

You don't have to like him, Mac reminded himself. You just have to do business with him.

"I've seen you before," Earl said. "But not in a long time."

"We've howdied," Mac said, "but we haven't shook. Maybe at Judge Wildern's office?"

"He's my boss," Earl acknowledged, squinting. "McGladrey. Weren't you away for a while? Didn't I hear that?"

"Well, I'm back," Mac said genially, not about to go into details with this man. "Maybe you can help me."

With the smallest of dutiful smiles, Earl hooked his hands in his back pants pocket, and otherwise did not budge. It annoyed him that this McGladrey just walked into his office expecting an audience. He should have just called, like everyone else. Like, for example, that reporter bimbo Libby Lewis, who'd left three voice mails that Earl blithely ignored. "What's going on?"

Mac kept smiling, though Bucaro's failure to invite him into his office seemed unnecessarily inhospitable. So I've irked him, Mac thought, just by stopping by? "I called over for a case file," he said, "that's logged out to you guys. But your folks can't seem to lay hands on it."

"What file?"

"One of my offenders," Mac said. "Last name Fant, first name Edward."

Earl's practiced impassivity worked flawlessly. Though inward his reaction was surprise – what the fuck – outwardly this did not show. Even Mac, deeply experienced at reading others and more intuitive than he knew, detected nothing. "I don't know him," Earl said. "And we're not in the habit of checking out files over here."

"That's what I told him," the scheduler, who, though at her desk, was within earshot, put in.

Mac kept his smile on, though he was feeling increasingly irked at the relentlessly foggy bureaucracy. It's part of the environment, he thought, but I'll never get used to it. "He was in the work program over here," he said.

Earl nodded. "Him and a hundred others."

"So somebody here needed his file for some reason," Mac speculated. "The computer log said somebody named Becky."

Earl was ready for that one. "Nobody by that name over here," he said. "Some kind of snafu."

"Yeah," the scheduler said, "a computer glitch."

"Computers," Earl agreed, nodding.

"Seems to be the excuse o' the week," Mac said mildly.

"Happens all the time," Earl said easily. "Like a few months ago when a half dozen jerk-offs got kicked by mistake."

Mac, politely determined to keep things on-topic, said, "Might have been while I was away. Anyway --"

"Oh yeah," Earl said, his strategy now being: run out the clock with anecdotes. "Computer spit out a bad batch of forms, some half-asleep judge signed them, nobody at the jail gave it a second thought. So a car-jacker, two rapists, child molester, and pair of murderers got released early." Which, Earl thought, probably suited McGladrey just fine.

"Bad news, for sure," Mac said. "But listen, Superintendent, could you do a search for the file? Just in case?"

"What's the emergency?" Earl asked, his concern securely hidden behind a bored drone.

"He got killed last week in some sort of freak accident over in Dogtown."

"And?"

Boy oh boy, Mac thought, studying Bucaro. This man was all callous – the type, Mac knew, that law enforcement tended to draw. There was a place for them, surely, but, in Mac's view, not nearly as large a place as the Bucaros of the world thought. They lived in a black-and-white world of take-no-prisoners warfare. "The fact set," Mac went on, seemingly casual but choosing his words carefully, "is a little skimpy, and for my own satisfaction I'm trying to flesh it all out."

Fact set, Bucaro thought. That clinched it. This was an egghead type, a fucking book-reading college boy. No street smarts, no grasp of reality, just chock-full of idiot theories from guys in beards, making them want to release every jerk-off from prison because his mommy wasn't nice to him. "Just check the computer record," he suggested. "That's got everything you need."

"I did that," Mac said patiently, aware he was getting nowhere with Bucaro. "But that only goes back two years, when we transitioned over. The earlier information is still in the paper file. Which is what's missing."

What Earl wanted to do at that point was back this McGladrey idiot up against the wall and, very quietly and with dead certitude, hiss threats. But A, he had no handles – yet. And B, that would tip Mac off that there might indeed be something worth chasing here. Guys like McGladrey, Earl knew, were at heart lazy. Faced with enough road blocks and fog, he'd shrug and walk away. "Wish we could help," he said. "Tell you what. I'll keep an eye out, and I'll make sure our people do, too."

Glumly aware that he had no edge here, Mac nodded. "Much obliged." Going into his pocket, he came out with his business card, just delivered this morning. "Office and mobile," he said, handing Bucaro the card, "either one'll work."

"Very well." Earl got his wallet out and opened it. Pulling open the currency pocket, he extracted a business card. In doing so, he made sure the array of $100 bills was fully visible to the PO. "Just for the record," he said, handing Mac the card.

The sight of the C-notes gave Mac a deep chill. Crisp and new, just like the one he'd found in Eddie's papers. What the hell is this, he wondered. Just a coincidence? Or a clue? A message? Is it a taunt, as if Bucaro's saying: "Yeah, I did him, but you'll never catch me?"

Earl saw Mac tense up and eyes narrow, and inside he grinned. People never expected a mid-level county official to sport that kind of wad. That's why he often flashed it that way, to put others in their place. "Anything else?" he asked.

Mac slipped the business card into his pants pocket, gathering his thoughts. "No, Superintendent, I guess that's it. Let me know if you find the file, okay?"

"Count on it." Earl watched the tall man exit his department. He'd done all he could do, and, he thought, he'd done very well.

Now we'll see.

If McGladrey does the smart thing, and lets it all go, we can all get back to our lives.

But if he doesn't. . . .

---

Thursday dawned as an almost solid paperwork day for Mac. His first crop of pre-sentencing reports were due at the Court House the next morning. He had already read most of the case files. The rest was grunt work: thinking through the issues, crafting the recommendations, drafting the text. Being a job that Mac took seriously – judges relied heavily on pre-sentencing reports in making their all-important decisions – he tended to put a great deal of thought and effort into each. His problem was the usual one. He didn't have much time. He had appointments scheduled for all afternoon. Moreover, he had to include Abigail Heartwell in the process, as part of her training.

They were just finishing the first one when Mac abruptly sat back from his computer. "There's something I gotta do," he told her.

Abigail, seated in the guest chair beside him, folded her arms, crossed one leg over the other. She wore a crimson gabardine blazer and roomy matching pants, over an ivory shell and plain black pumps. Her rich brown hair flowed freely to her shoulders, but her makeup was once again muted and businesslike. A long lean woman, brow often furrowed, who sometimes mentally stepped away to God knew where. Mac had not forgotten her dreamy comment about his office wall safe. But today, she was present and accounted for, and had actually been a big help with the first pre-sentencing report. "You've seemed distracted all morning," she said.

Mac sat a moment, thinking. Include Abigail or not? His first impulse, as always, was to do strictly for himself, declining to impose on another. On the other hand, his problem was in fact a business problem. Abigail might very well encounter one like it some day. It would be good for him to see how she'd react. And, he admitted to himself, she has a good head on her shoulders – bright, thoughtful, and very very quick. If he was misreading the situation, hopefully she could call him down on it.

"I've got this probationer," he began, and went on to fill her in on Eddie Fant, chapter and verse. All but the $100 bill – that, he thought, was too over-the-top to mention. Abigail listened, fully engaged, as evidenced by the way her cornflower blue eyes seemed to study his every nuance. Her reaction was a blend of intrigue and concern. "The poor guy!" she said, voice low, as Mac ended. "So. You think it was no accident?"

"I think there's a chance it wasn't. What's your take?"

She squinted, shrugged. "Not enough information."

"But what do you think? Based on what information we have?"

"It is curious," she admitted. "But --"

In the stillness of the office the only sound was a clicking of heels on the hard wood floor outside. They faded. Abigail was staring into middle distance intently. Mac asked, "But what?"

"Is it your job?" she wondered. "To pursue this."

"With all my spare time," Mac said sardonically.

"Right."

He nodded. "Well, it's like this. There's my job, and then there's my duty. My job is to shepherd these clowns along, enforce the conditions, keep the books, and answer to the court for their progress. Overlaying that is the larger task of guiding them into an awareness that they need to change their ways and not repeat."

"That's the tougher part," Abigail murmured, nodding.

"Yep. Then beyond all that there's my duty. And that is. . .well. . .guys like Eddie, at the very bottom level. . .they're easily victimized. By the system, and by individuals. I feel I have a duty to advocate for them."

"You've done it before," she said. Not a question, a statement.

"Yes."

"And it's gotten you into trouble."

"Oh yeah."

"That ever stop you?" she asked, a smile tugging at her lips.

"Nope."

"So you've answered your own questions."

"Guess so. If Eddie was murdered, that can't be let go. The questions must be answered, and the people involved called to account. And there's nobody around to do that but me."

She looked pleased. "So where do we start?"

Mac thought things over. He felt no joy, no rush of anticipation. Though he always did what he saw as his duty, he'd found that, while there was often satisfaction, there was seldom much pleasure in it. The odds were, after all, long against success. He knew he was in for frustration and conflict. And if, in fact, Eddie's death had not been a freak accident, then inevitably Mac would, if successful, end up confronting a murderer.

And that could get a little dangerous.