Page 40 of Broken Wolf

“We don’t, sorry,” she said as she wrote it down. “Only whole, skim, or 2%.”

“2% is fine, thanks.”

He hurried to order and we handed over our menus. He cleared his throat and let out a sigh. “Something fishy is going on with a trailer park in DeKalb. Where I work.”

I studied the guy, realizing he was pretty young, maybe not a rookie, but in his second year maybe. “Keep calm and just tell me what’s what. We’ll keep you safe.”

His eyes were full of worry. “Something shady is going on. For real. I wouldn’t just reach out if it was small and risk blowing up my life for stupid.”

“Yeah, I got that, so tell me and let me figure it out so you can sleep at night,” I said gently, seeing the signs of sleep deprivation. “And if we need to get you out, we will.” I nodded that I wasn’t kidding. “You’re not the first cop the FBI has pulled out when shit hits the fan. It’s normally how some of us get into Quantico. So let’s just start with what you know.”

That settled him a bit.

And what he knew wasn’t good.

Basically, there was a trailer park doing shady shit that was being covered up by the police department. Maybe not the chief of police, but people higher up enough to make things go away.

First, he’d been called out for an eviction and he thought to remove people, but it was the people being evicted who called saying that it was illegal and all against the law especially since their kids had stolen everything. That didn’t make any sense, but the guy who was there with the trailer park smoothed it over saying people said anything to blame others for their mistakes.

But when he’d wanted to follow up, he’d been told to let it go. Not just whatever or he was wasting his time, but to drop it.

And that raised his hackles even as a newbie. Why care if he looked into the claims of the older couple who called for them to say the eviction was illegal? Wasn’t that their job? Now they were homeless without anything and left at a shelter that didn’t have enough damn beds.

Next, it was a woman who came to file a police report against her kid for elder abuse for stealing her money and sticking her in a trailer park. She wasn’t old enough for elder abuse, but there were extenuating circumstances since she had signs of early-onset dementia. That could make things tricky and she admitted as much, but she was having a clear day and needed help.

But then it was taken from him, mid-report, and he was sent on a nothing call to direct traffic like it was a gunshot emergency. It was weird, and when he asked about the woman later, no one had answers and acted like he was talking about a damn ghost. No one knew her. She wasn’t on the log anymore.

Nothing.

Same with another call he’d heard about from that trailer park that he wasn’t sent on, but it had disappeared from the records that night. Not on the logs. The unit who responded to the call didn’t write it up—and he checked.

Again… Nothing.

Three strikes and he wanted it checked out for real. Something was going on at that trailer park, and his gut told him it was bad, bad things.

He had finished up right before our food arrived and I gave him a few minutes to enjoy it before getting back to the topic. “What do you think is going on?”

He swallowed his next bite loudly. “I think someone high up in the department is taking a kickback to look the other way as the owner of the trailer park is illegally kicking people out. Trailer parks are worse than HOAs because they own the land under the trailers. They can put liens on the houses for not following the rules and some court bullshit, and the house is then theirs as well.

“It’s a good way to screw over the elderly and take houses that they can turn around and sell or rent. Or that lady who had dementia and had bad days. She’s done for on the street, and who will fight for her? They didn’t even stick her in an old person’s home. She’s not old yet, not of the age yet. They intentionally lost her so she’ll just be seen as some crazy homeless woman.”

I nodded. “Yeah, the crazy homeless are so much easier to sell and blame for everything instead of the truth that we tend to fail them as a society and let shit like this happen.” I snorted. “The number of veterans we toss after…” I just shook my head and focused back on my breakfast. “You get the name of the guy who smoothed things over at the trailer park?”

He lifted his head, and I saw the annoyance in his eyes bubbling. “No, and he was very careful not to give it to me when I asked. I don’t think that was just the situation being crazy.”

“No, I don’t think it was either. I bet you also looked up who owns that trailer park and couldn’t find much.”

“No, I couldn’t, but the FBI could.”

“We could.” I took a few more bites and finished, wishing I could eat about ten more plates. “This goes down and people will know it was you. There’s no way around that if they’re on the take and you’re the newbie. So let’s be honest about your options.”

“I’d like that,” he mumbled.

“You interested in CPD?”

“Not particularly,” he admitted. He sighed when I raised an eyebrow. “That’s a lot of cooks in the kitchen, for too many bosses, and a lot of politics. Years on patrol to have to play nice to the wrong people to get anywhere to do anything. I wanted to get to know the community better which is why I picked a smaller area.”

“Fair. So it’s not family there?”

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