The Academy Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  ALSO BY ROBERT DUGONI

  The David Sloane series

  The Jury Master

  Wrongful Death

  Bodily Harm

  Murder One

  The Conviction

  Stand-alone novel

  Damage Control

  Nonfiction with Joseph Hilldorfer

  The Cyanide Canary

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Text copyright © 2014 Robert Dugoni

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Thomas&Mercer Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Thomas&Mercer are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781477898116

  Cover design by Salamander Hill Design Inc.

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  CHAPTER 1

  SEATTLE, WASHINGTON

  1996

  The brass wanted more women. That was the only reason Sergeant George Decker still sat in a windowless conference room breathing stale, cologne-laden air. His team would have completed their choice of recruits two hours earlier but for the edict from on high to find more qualified female applicants. Given that nine out of every ten candidates were male, that was easier said than done.

  So instead of sipping a cold one on his newly poured concrete patio, Decker was becoming increasingly nauseated by the smell of Johnny Nolasco’s cologne and crude vulgarities.

  “What about Jennifer Almond?” Decker heard the fatigue in his voice as he scanned the list of potential recruits. “Who went through her file?”

  “I got it.” Harry Granum, a twenty-five-year veteran of the Washington State Patrol, sifted through a stack. “Almond, Jennifer.”

  “Sounds like a candy bar,” Nolasco said.

  Granum flipped open Almond’s file. “References are okay; a lot of family telling us what a wonderful officer she would be. Her father’s a sheriff in Klickitat County. She did all right on the written; seventy-seven percent.”

  “So what’s not to like?” Decker asked.

  “Still wet behind the ears; she’s only twenty. One year out of high school. She’s been working the past year as a cashier at a Costco.”

  “Maybe she can get us an employee discount,” Nolasco said.

  Decker felt sorry for Nolasco’s partner. Five minutes trapped in a car with Nolasco, and Decker would have grounds for justifiable homicide.

  “She’s also five foot two and ninety-eight pounds,” Granum said. “We have dogs bigger than her.”

  “Wouldn’t want her watching my back,” Nolasco said.

  “Let’s bring her in for an interview,” Decker said. Granum handed him the file and Decker placed it atop the interview pile. He could almost taste the cold beer and feel the breeze off the Puget Sound. Chairs slid from the table.

  “Wait a minute. If we’re going to look at Almond, I think we should take a look at this one,” Granum said. Nolasco groaned. “Seriously. I think we should take a look. Tracy Crosswhite. Five foot ten, one hundred and thirty pounds.”

  Nolasco took the file. “Blonde. Shit, she wouldn’t be bad to look at all day.”

  “We got enough,” Decker said.

  “She scored a ninety-eight on the written,” Granum said.

  “You mean eighty-eight,” Nolasco said.

  Granum shook his head. “I mean ninety-eight.”

  “Nobody’s ever scored a ninety-eight,” Decker said, taking the file.

  “She’s a high school chemistry teacher. College graduate. Twenty-five years old,” Granum said.

  “And you’ve been sitting on this all day why?” Decker asked. “We could have been out of here hours ago. What’s not to like about her?”

  “Her references. Nothing from a single family member. Not one relative.”

  “How’d she get ten?” Nolasco asked.

  “Teachers, colleagues, a few friends—most say she’s got an analytical mind, is great with the students, and they’re sorry to see her go.”

  “So why is she?”

  “One of the references hints at it. Apparently her sister was murdered a few years ago,” Granum said.

  “Crosswhite.” Nolasco sat forward. “That was the name of that girl went missing in that town up in the North Cascades.”

  “Cedar Grove,” Decker said. “They never found her. They convicted the guy, though. First-degree murder charge. First time without a body.”

  “So what do her references say?” Nolasco asked. “Is she some sort of crusader?”

  “No, nothing like that, just that the murder could be the reason for her sudden desire to enter law enforcement,” Granum said.

  “We’ve had a few before,” Decker said. “Maybe she’s legit. If not, she’ll wash out. Anybody opposed to bringing her in for an interview?”

  “Like I said, I can think of worse things to spend an hour looking at,” Nolasco said.

  CHAPTER 2

  Johnny Nolasco looked like a rooster strutting, his chest puffed out, shoulders pulled back, neck elongated. Decker thought Nolasco might try to mount Tracy Crosswhite right there in the conference room and was relieved when Nolasco only shook her hand.

  After introductions, Decker, Nolasco, and Granum returned to their seats behind the table at the front of the room. Decker sat in the middle. Crosswhite took the hot seat, a lone chair in the center of the room. If she was intimidated, she didn’t show it. Decker immediately sensed something different about her. Unlike the other women they’d interviewed, Crosswhite hadn’t tried to hide her femininity beneath pants or a loose button-down shirt. She wore a black skirt cut just above the knee, a beige blouse, pearls, earrings, and makeup. She’d left her hair, which fell past her shoulders down, rather than pulled back into a ponytail or tight bun. Nolasco had gotten one thing right. She wasn’t bad to look at—better than not bad. Decker’s wife would never let him have a partner who looked like that.

  “Thank you for coming in,” Decker said.

  “Thank you for the opportunity to interview,” she said.

  “Well, that’s probably our first question,” Granum said. “Why are you here?” As the officer who had performed Crosswhite’s background check, Granum would take the lead.

  “To become a Seattle police officer,” Crosswhite said without hesitation.

  “You suddenly disenchanted with being a high school chemistry teacher?” Granum asked.

  “No, sir.”

  “Because the pay won’t be much better,” Decker said.

  “Or the benefits. Some of the benefits.” Nolasco grinned.

  “I’m not doing it for the money,” Crosswhite said.

  “Why are you doing it?” Decker asked.

  “For the challenge.”

  “You think you can cut it physically?” Nolasco asked.

  “The physical challenge, absolutely. I was talking about the mental challenge. I have an inquisitive mind. I have good people skills. I think I’
d be a good detective.”

  “Detective? Aren’t you getting ahead of yourself a bit?” Decker asked.

  “That’s my goal sir. Homicide detective.”

  “She wants my job,” Nolasco interrupted. “I better watch out for this one.”

  Decker shot him a glance, hoping Nolasco would get the hint and shut up. “You realize homicide is the top of the food chain—that it can take years, decades, before you’re even considered?”

  “I have time,” she said.

  “Seattle’s never had a female homicide detective. Did you know that?” Granum asked.

  “Then I intend to be the first.”

  “The hours, the stress, the demands of the job . . . ,” Nolasco said. “What are you going to do if you get pregnant?”

  Decker cringed.

  “What do the men do?” Crosswhite asked.

  Nolasco’s brow furrowed. Decker couldn’t keep the corners of his mouth from inching into a grin. He liked this candidate. He liked her a lot.

  “I’m not interested in having a family,” Crosswhite said.

  “What if that changes?” Nolasco said. “What if you get a boyfriend and he gets you pregnant?”

  “Then he can stay home and take care of the baby,” Crosswhite said.

  Decker raised his right hand, cutting off Nolasco. He sat forward, arms resting on the table. “We’ve been through your references,” he said. “And we’re curious.”

  “You want to know why I don’t have references from any family members. Would you like me to explain?”

  “Please.”

  “My sister and father are dead. My sister was abducted a little over three years ago. They never found her body. A paroled rapist was convicted of her murder. Two years after that, my father took his life. My mother isn’t in favor of me becoming a cop.”

  “What about aunts, uncles, grandparents?”

  Crosswhite shook her head. “My mother’s family is from back East. My father grew up in the Midwest. My parents wanted to live in a small town. My father wanted to be a country doctor, everything from delivering babies to stitching cuts. We didn’t see our relatives much. I’m not close to any of them. Their references wouldn’t be worth the paper they were written on.”

  “Do you know anyone in law enforcement?” Decker asked.

  “The only law enforcement I know is a sheriff in Cascade County.”

  “And what do you think of him?”

  Her gaze shifted to Nolasco, though it was Granum who’d asked the question. “He’s a narcissistic idiot.”

  That set them on their heels a moment.

  Granum said, “Does your sister’s murder have anything to do with your desire to become a homicide detective?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “You could see why that might concern us,” Decker said.

  “I can.”

  “But you aren’t trying to hide it,” Granum said.

  “You already know because of the background check. So we might as well get it out on the table now. My sister’s murder was my introduction to the criminal justice system. Like I said, I have an inquisitive mind. It’s one of the reasons I like chemistry. I like coming up with theories and trying to find evidence to prove them.”

  Decker nodded to Granum. A scenario was presented to each recruit.

  “Candidate Crosswhite, we’re going to give you a scenario and ask you to tell us how you would respond.”

  “Okay.”

  “You’re on patrol and come upon a car driving eighty-five miles an hour. You pull that car over. What do you do?” Granum asked.

  “I run the license plate and determine if the car has been stolen or if the owner has any outstanding warrants or priors. If the report comes back clean, I approach the vehicle and ask for the driver’s license and registration. I run both. If they check out, I give him a ticket for speeding.”

  “What if, when you approach the vehicle, the driver tells you he was speeding because his wife is having a child?”

  “Is the wife in the car?”

  “In this scenario, no.”

  “I ask the driver for additional information. Is his wife at the hospital? Which one? How many weeks is she? What’s the name of her doctor?”

  “Why?”

  “To determine if he’s lying.”

  “If you deduce he’s telling the truth?”

  “I tell him to drive the speed limit, that it would be better for his wife and his baby if he was late rather than dead.”

  “Let’s change the scenario,” Granum said. “You run the license and determine that the vehicle is not registered to the driver.”

  “If I’ve run the plates, I’d know if the car was stolen. If the check comes back clear, I ask the driver how he knows the registered owner.”

  “The report comes back that the car is registered to a Mark Maloney and that Maloney’s wife reported him and the car missing two days earlier.”

  “I radio for backup. Then I instruct the driver to step out of the car. When he complies, I cuff him.”

  “And what if the driver gets out of the car but refuses to comply?”

  “I try to defuse the situation and convince him to be compliant.”

  “Do you believe you have the skills to do that?” Decker asked.

  “I had the skills to get seventeen-year-old boys to sit in their seats for fifty-five minutes and keep their mouths shut. And we didn’t get to use handcuffs.”

  Decker and Granum smiled.

  Nolasco leaned forward. “What if the driver gets out of the car and he’s a six-foot-four, two-hundred-and-fifty-pound black man cranked on coke and jacked out of his mind? He tells you to shove the cuffs up your ass and proceeds to come at you. What are you going to do then?”

  Crosswhite looked from Nolasco to Granum to Decker. “I shoot his ass.”

  “What if he gets your gun?”

  “He won’t.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “Because he’d be dead before he got that close.”

  “You think you’re that fast?” Nolasco asked.

  Crosswhite smiled for the first time during the interview. “Yeah,” she said. “I am.”

  Nolasco started to chuckle the moment the conference room door closed. “She has no idea what’s out there.”

  “I like her,” Decker said.

  “She’s living in a fantasy world,” Nolasco said. “Guy that big would be on her before she knew what hit her. Then what’s she going to do?”

  “Shoot him, apparently,” Decker said.

  Granum smiled.

  “She’s arrogant. Homicide? She wouldn’t last a day.”

  “I wouldn’t bet against her,” Decker said.

  “Come on, George, she’s on a crusade. Are you going to hire her just to appease the fucking brass? She’ll get a reality check at the Academy and wash out. Why string her along? Let her go back to Cedar Pine—”

  “Cedar Grove,” Granum said.

  “Whatever.”

  Decker said, “You worried she’s going to take your job, Johnny?”

  “Shit, she’ll never get out of the Academy.”

  “So at least we agree she’s hired.”

  “Tell you what, you want to waste a space, be my guest. I got a thousand bucks says she washes out. Almond with her.”

  Decker looked to Granum. “You paying attention?”

  “I’m writing it down.”

  Decker held out his hand. “Thousand bucks,” he said.

  Nolasco hesitated, looking unsure. “Fine,” he said. He gripped Decker’s hand. “A thousand bucks.”

  Decker smiled. “My wife’s been after me to get back to Maui,” he said. “And Recruit Crosswhite is going to buy our plane tickets.”

  “I wouldn’t book your reservation just yet,” Nolasco said. “She and Almond got three and a half months of shit to get through.”

  CHAPTER 3

  Tracy entered the gym just after six in the morning and collapsed o
n one of the blue mats. Ironic that three months ago she’d left a career teaching high school, only to find herself back in one. The Criminal Justice Training Commission had purchased a former junior high school building in Burien and converted it into the Washington State Police Academy. The blue mats covered the gymnasium floor and the walls beneath two basketball hoops that had been raised to the ceiling. Climbing ropes and pegboards were mounted to the walls in one corner. Heavy bags hung from chains in another. The room held the pungent odor of decades of high school students’ body odor.

  Tracy had come to lift weights, which had become her routine after a run to the facility. This morning four other recruits joined her. They’d started out meeting after class lectures to go over the day’s material. During one of those sessions, Tracy had mentioned her workout regimen and a few had expressed interest in joining her. Tracy had charted a three-mile course through Burien that started at her rented apartment just two blocks from the school.

  She lay on the mat catching her breath and going through a series of stretches that she’d learned in a yoga class.

  “That’s the last time we put you in charge of the course.” Bob Manion plopped down on the mat beside her. His gray sweatshirt was soaked in sweat. “What, you couldn’t find a steeper hill?”

  Tracy had taken them on a loop she’d discovered that descended a mile-and-a-half hill to Three Tree Point, a tiny beach community on the Puget Sound. Of course, what went down had to come back up eventually. The ascent was a bitch.

  “I think I’m having a freaking heart attack,” Manion said.

  A former marine, Manion was well acclimated to the military climate of the Academy. They’d given him the nickname Gunner Bob because he’d been a gunnery sergeant, including a tour of duty during Desert Storm. Upon graduation, he was headed to the Chelan County Sheriff’s Office.

  “You go into cardiac arrest and you’re dead, bro.” Victor Melendez lay sprawled across another mat. He’d joined them on the run. “’Cause I ain’t giving mouth-to-mouth to no dude.”

  Everyone within earshot laughed.