Raynor circled his desk and sank down in the big black leather chair. He looked weary. “I fired two officers today,” he said bluntly. “A sergeant on the patrol side and a detective who was one of our representatives to CODE.” CODE was the coalition of police agencies, including the DEA and FBI, that fought drug trafficking.
“Damn.” Noah lowered himself into a chair facing the desk. He’d known this was coming but hated to have his assumptions confirmed anyway. “Tip-offs to drug dealers?”
“That’s what it looks like. No question they took bribes. Maybe even offered guard service. Hard to be sure. We’re still working on who the money came from.” His eyes met Noah’s. “We’ve traced one payment for sure to the same source that paid off Bystrom.”
Gary Bystrom was the former police chief whose corruption had been uncovered almost by accident in McAllister’s investigation of a murder that had taken place in the city park the same night his now-wife, Maddie Dubeau, had been abducted when she was a teenager. Found along with the boy’s bones was a backpack that contained, among other things, a snapshot of the police chief shaking hands with a known drug dealer and a bank deposit slip for a hefty sum into his account. The Drug Enforcement Agency had mostly taken over digging into the source of those bribes, a real challenge. Raynor was stubbornly refusing to let go entirely of the investigation, with the result that the DEA agent in charge was kindly deigning to keep them informed. Noah and, he suspected, Colin McAllister in particular were getting damn frustrated by the snail’s pace of inquiries that left Bystrom free as a bird. Probably putting away his winter clothes right now and getting out his fly-fishing gear. The only consolation Noah could find was that, at the very least, the feds had him for tax evasion.
What they’d known all along was that he had to be getting tip-offs from officers in the department about police raids. McAllister had found the first two; these were the next to fall.
“It’s still only the beginning, I suspect.”
Noah grunted. He wanted to see some trials and prison cell doors clanging shut.
The dark eyes were direct. “You know most of the work on this was done by McAllister.”
“You’re asking why he isn’t sitting in your chair?” Noah rolled his shoulders and then told him.
“I think you misjudged him.” Raynor’s smile was razor-sharp and came and went swiftly. “To my benefit, of course.”
“Is it? I still don’t know why you wanted this job.”
Still eyeing him, his police chief ran a hand over his darkly shadowed jaw, maybe to give himself a moment. “I was looking for a peaceful town. Not for me.” He hesitated. “My brother was special forces, killed in Afghanistan. I’ve been stepping in to help his widow with their kids. The boy’s thirteen, gotten to a rebellious stage. L.A. wasn’t the place for him.”
“I didn’t know you’d brought family with you.”
“They’re not here yet. Took a while for Julia to sell her house.” He shrugged. “Now she’s waiting out the rest of the school year. They’re moving up here as soon as the kids are out the end of June.”
Noah was unexpectedly relieved to have the answer to the questions he’d asked himself. It was even one he could understand, although this was a big change of direction for a man to make for his sister-in-law and her kids.
“Are we as peaceful as you thought we’d be?” he asked.
Raynor gave a bark of laughter. “Sure. There’s only been one murder since I arrived, you know.” That had been a domestic. “Now, honesty, that’s another story.”
Noah laughed. “Okay,” he said, pushing himself to his feet. “Keep me informed.”
Raynor stood, too, presumably from courtesy. “Will do.”
Noah left, thinking that the past hour had been exceptionally informative. Now all he asked was that he make it back to his office without so much as another glimpse of his new director of community development.
* * *
COLIN SET ASIDE the newspaper when he saw Cait come out of the guest bedroom. “You going out this evening?” he asked with deceptive casualness.