Chapter 152: Starting with the Patrol Car Theft
Chapter 152: Starting with the Patrol Car Theft
After Director Rosen's assistant left, the office settled into silence.
Billy Hawke positioned his notebook upright on the desk, leaning over it so only his eyes showed above the edge. He studied the stack of case briefs with the intensity of a man constructing a future. An actual investigation. A real manhunt. Maybe even a shootout. His foot tapped against the desk leg.
His internship had been nothing like this. Back then, "participation" meant filing forms and applications, performing clerical drudgery that veteran FBI agents disdained. They'd relegated it to trainees without hesitation. But now he might finally see the work that mattered.
Theodore didn't bother organizing the cases by priority. Rosen had done that already. The Director had his methods, and Theodore trusted them. Besides, time-sensitive cases—kidnappings, extortions—wouldn't be suspended midstream and reassigned on a whim.
The first brief wasn't a headline case. It was a stolen patrol car.
On the evening of April 1st, two officers from the DC Fourth Precinct had parked their car in front of Best Market at the corner of Maryland Avenue and 14th Street NE. They'd ducked inside for coffee. When they emerged twenty minutes later, the patrol car was gone.
It turned up on Rodney Road in Brentwood, Maryland—just 1.5 miles from the state line. The carjackers had abandoned it almost immediately after crossing the border.
Technically, it was FBI business. Interstate commerce. Federal jurisdiction.
The previous investigator had been perfunctory. His notes revealed that Officers Taylor and Whitman, terrified of reprimands, hadn't reported the theft to their superiors. They'd waited until a colleague spotted their car and radioed in. Even then, they'd hesitated. Repeated inquiries over the chat channel before they finally admitted what happened.
By then the window had closed. Confirmation came that the car had already crossed into Maryland. What had been departmental embarrassment became federal territory.
The cascade was predictable: calls climbing the precinct chain of command, Maryland State Troopers locating the abandoned vehicle at dawn. The entire affair reeked of bureaucratic paralysis. Nobody wanted this case. No injuries. No fatalities. No property damage. The car's interior was intact. Everyone involved—FBI, DC police, Maryland troopers—had been content to let it die quietly.
Then someone at the Maryland State Police had filed the paperwork incorrectly, and the case proceeded anyway, grinding forward through administrative inertia.
The FBI agent assigned to it had shown no enthusiasm. Ten days had passed with virtually no progress. Physical evidence sent to the lab had been shelved. No reports. No follow-up. Dead time.
Theodore finished reviewing the brief as the afternoon light slanted through the office windows. Nearly time to leave. Pennsylvania Avenue would be chaos by now—it always was.
Back at the Georgetown apartment, Bernie returned from the convenience store carrying a bag of toilet paper and frustration etched across his face.
"I really want to know what they're thinking," he muttered, setting the toilet paper in the bathroom before shoving the rest into the cabinet. "They've looted the place clean. Toilet paper. Of all things. If the Soviets dropped a bomb tomorrow, who's going to care about using toilet paper?"
When he called his wife that evening, the news from Felton was worse. The looting had escalated into violence. The West Side—already volatile—had become a powder keg. Police stations fielded call after call. Rose Street, usually quiet, had erupted the night before: two large gang fights, the West Side precinct burning through overtime as they flooded the streets with patrol units.
After hanging up, Bernie found Theodore sorting through psychology magazines. He posed the question that had been bothering him: "Are these people mentally ill?"
Theodore looked up without expression. "Who?"
Bernie recounted what his wife had told him. Theodore set down his magazine, pulled two volumes from his stack, and tossed them across the desk. "If you want to understand their psychology, start with these."
Bernie flipped through the pages, then set them back. "No. I don't think I want to understand them anymore." He disappeared into the bathroom.
The next morning, in the basement office of the Justice Department building, Theodore pulled up the whiteboard and began briefing the team.
When Bernie and Billy Hawke heard about a stolen patrol car, their expressions went strange. Theodore paused. "Questions?"
They exchanged a glance and shook their heads.
After laying out the basics, Theodore pushed the whiteboard aside. "First stop: the lab to collect the evidence report. Then the Fourth Precinct."
Billy Hawke jumped up. "I'll grab the report. You two wait in the parking lot." He snatched the keys from the table and tossed them at Theodore.
Bernie, one arm already in his coat sleeve, watched this exchange. His face shifted—calculation, assessment, decision. He finished putting on his coat with deliberate calm and addressed Theodore directly: "There are three of us. We'll likely need to split into teams during the investigation. We should request another vehicle."
He paused, letting the real objection land. "This car was assigned to you by Deputy Chief Tolson. It's not an official department vehicle."
Bernie grabbed Billy Hawke's shoulder and redirected him toward Theodore. "You two head to the precinct. I'll go upstairs, collect the report, and apply for a second car. I'll catch up."
Theodore shook his head. "It's too chaotic right now. Your application won't get approved immediately."
"The vehicle request requires a supervising agent's signature," he added, holding up the keys. "That's me."
Bernie's shoulders sagged. He'd walked into that trap with his eyes open.
Billy Hawke, oblivious to the subtext, bolted upstairs toward the records section. Theodore headed for the parking lot with Bernie trailing behind, still trying to negotiate. Theodore simply shook his head, opened the driver's door, and slid behind the wheel.
Bernie stood on the opposite side for a moment, calculating. He surrendered the passenger seat to Billy Hawke and climbed into the back, resignation settling over him.
The previous investigator, whatever his shortcomings, had been meticulous about evidence collection. Fingerprints lifted from the steering wheel, windows, and door handles. An unopened glass Coke bottle, abandoned by the thieves, bagged and tagged for analysis. That was the extent of the physical evidence.
Billy Hawke trotted over with the evidence report and grinned at Bernie's gesture toward the passenger seat. He thanked him, slid into the front, and took the report Theodore handed him.
Bernie didn't even glance at the paperwork. His whole body went rigid. His hands gripped the back of the front seat like a vise, knuckles white.
Billy Hawke scanned the report: "This—"
The car launched forward before he could finish. His face drained of color. He grabbed the seat, eyes wide, staring at Theodore in shock.
Theodore navigated the DC streets with controlled intensity. The car arrived in front of the DC Fourth Precinct in half the time it should have taken.
Theodore climbed out looking satisfied.
Bernie followed, face pale, one hand reaching for the door, his other hand shooting out toward Theodore's jacket pocket where the keys rested. He held the car frame, steadying himself.
Billy Hawke emerged more slowly, his expression complicated—equal parts terror and something else.
Bernie sensed disaster. He plucked the keys from Theodore's pocket and shoved them into his own, patting them definitively. He announced with careful authority: "I'm driving from now on. All of me."
Billy Hawke looked like he wanted to argue.
Bernie pivoted toward the police station entrance. "We've got work."
The three of them walking through the door had already attracted attention from the Fourth Precinct detectives. Bernie flashed his FBI credentials. The detectives' expressions barely shifted—the Fourth Precinct didn't get excited about federal involvement. After Bernie explained their purpose, the atmosphere thawed marginally. A detective pointed them toward the deputy chief's office and went back to work.
Inside the bullpen, the air was thick with cigarette smoke. At least ten detectives had lit up, their conversations overlapping, their faces creased with frustration. The chaos transported Bernie back to Felton. The Fourth Precinct felt like coming home.
The deputy chief maintained the same indifference his detectives radiated. Bernie remembered something Agent Lombardi had mentioned once: each DC precinct had its own character. Now he understood. The Fourth and Third precincts were antipodal—different everything.
Theodore asked to speak with the two patrol officers who'd lost their car.
The deputy chief's reaction was immediate. His eyes narrowed. His voice rose slightly.
"We've already disciplined Officers Taylor and Whitman," he said, each word clipped.
Robert Taylor and Peter Allen Whitman. Seven days suspension without pay. Suspended from field duty. Reassigned to clerical work for six months. The summary was delivered like a finished case.
Theodore studied him. They were discussing entirely different incidents.
The deputy chief seemed to realize he'd overreacted. He shifted tacks. "As I recall, you weren't the agent assigned to this case before."
"The case is ours now," Theodore replied curtly. Further pleasantries would waste time. "We need Officers Taylor and Whitman to walk us through what happened that night."
The deputy chief held his gaze for a moment, then called his assistant over and instructed him to have the detectives cooperate with the FBI's questions. He clearly didn't think such formalities were necessary, but if the FBI wanted to continue, he wasn't going to obstruct them. So long as they didn't make his officers look worse than they already did.
Taylor and Whitman were brought in a few minutes later. Typical middle-aged patrol officers—rugged, unkempt, solidly built through years of physical work. But they carried a special kind of exhaustion, a paper-cut weariness that came from months drowning in administrative punishment. Bernie recognized it instantly. He'd worn that same hollow look every day of the Earl family investigation, buried under mountains of documentation.
The deputy chief made brief introductions. Theodore asked them to recount the evening the car was stolen.
Both men looked to the deputy chief. He nodded permission, and they began their account.
It matched the case file. They'd been inside Best Market listening to a radio drama—some mystery program that had hit its climax just as they'd finished their coffee. Curious to hear how it resolved, they'd lingered a few minutes longer. When they emerged, the patrol car was gone.
No sign of the thief. No sighting of any suspect vehicle.
Theodore pressed for specific timing. The officers shook their heads—they'd only known it was between the commercial breaks of the radio drama. Theodore borrowed the deputy chief's phone and called the radio station. Based on their description, he confirmed the car had been stolen sometime between 11:30 and 11:40 p.m.
[End of Chapter]
Check out more than 65+ chapters right now! 🔥
👉 patreon.com/cw/Mr_UmU
https://www.patreon.com/Mr_UmU