Read Red Man Down for Free Online

this man worked for the Tucson Police Department.’ He slid a tall stack of pages onto his desk.
    ‘Soon as I saw his old photo I recognized him just fine. Back in the day, he and I worked the same shift, two to midnight, for more than a year.’ He pushed the yellowing pages around on his desk, remembering. ‘We backed each other on many a hinky call, and I can tell you, he was solid as a rock.
    ‘About the time I made detective – let’s see, that’s almost ten years ago now – I heard Ed got a spot on the training crew, where it seems he always did well and was pleased with the job. But he came back on street patrol, didn’t he, three years ago? I wonder why?’ He was leafing through the records, asking himself questions. ‘He had his first big problem then. A couple of months after he got his old shift back at East Side, he was accused of handling an arrestee too rough. Earned a reprimand and a few days’ suspension … After that no comments on his file till he wrecked his car and got fired, a little over two years ago. How could anybody change that much in only two years? He doesn’t even look like the same man.’
    ‘He didn’t do it all in two years,’ Leo Tobin said. ‘That last year on patrol, he was a train wreck.’
    ‘Oh? I guess I just didn’t happen to see him. But you usually hear something …’
    ‘The department didn’t want to talk about it when they fired him,’ Leo said. ‘They put the lid on tight, told the media something vague about his health. The incident that led to it was a one-car crash, so there weren’t any complainants to be dealt with. But anybody who had to work with him during the second half of his shifts that last year knew he was going down.’
    ‘What, he was using on the job?’
    ‘Sure was. Vodka and weed. And sometimes something else … I heard meth.’
    ‘Meth … That’s what I figured when I saw him today,’ Menendez said. ‘You notice the way his mouth was wrecked?’
    Sarah tried to remember, but it had been the bullet hole beneath his chin which had attracted her attention.
    ‘Of course,’ Tobin was nodding to himself, remembering, ‘he didn’t look quite this bad while he was still working … he used to clean up for roll call and make a pretty decent show, but he had stuff stashed along his route, and by the time he checked out at night he was way up in the clouds.’
    ‘Huh.’ Delaney shuffled through the pages, looking. ‘His record doesn’t reflect any of that till he wrapped his squad car around a light pole, and then people came out of the woodwork, apparently, to say what a bad boy he was. He went off the charts for DUI, it says here, and flunked the narc screen big time.’ He pulled off his glasses. Polishing them, he asked the table, ‘Anybody know what set him off?’
    ‘His wife left him,’ Menendez said.
    ‘OK, but what was the
bad
news?’ Jason said, and got his laugh from everybody but Delaney, who just looked impatient.
    ‘Well, before that his uncle got, you know, disgraced …’ Cifuentes said.
    ‘Disgraced by what?’ Delaney hated gossip, and always got mean and sharp when, as now, it became useful and he had to tolerate it.
    ‘That’s right, that Martin guy was his uncle, wasn’t he?’ Tobin said.
    Delaney looked around the desk at his suddenly buzzing detectives and said, ‘You’re not talking about Frank Martin, are you?’
    ‘Yup.’ Tobin always remembered the best stories. ‘The beloved do-gooder who got caught with his hand in the till at the Old Pueblo Credit Union, then shot himself in the head. It was in all the local papers. They never found the money, though.’
    ‘That was Ed Lacey’s uncle? Why didn’t I know that?’
    The faces around the table all grew a little half-smile until Leo Tobin said, kindly, ‘Boss, you don’t schmooze much.’ He shrugged in an understanding way. ‘It’s not a problem.’ He nodded at the rest of the crew. ‘We all gossip enough to make up for your