Chapter 1

"You do know that he is coming back to work today," the lieutenant asked.

"Yeah I know. Please don't tell me you are putting him in my platoon," The sergeant said.

"He isn't going back on patrol. He is going to be working with Internal Affairs," the lieutenant replied. "I'm giving you a heads up so that you can warn your men. I do not want any harassment."

"Couldn't they put him somewhere else?" the sergeant asked.

"We aren't that large of a department," the Lieutenant replied. "If he weren't a fucking hero, we could toss his ass out all together. You know how it would look, if we fired him now with or without cause."

"I guess the rat squad is the place for him, if we have to keep him. At least this time we will know he is a rat," the Sergeant said.

"Come on all the guys he took down needed it. They weren't just looking the other way, they were dealing," Lieutenant Billy said.

"Still he ratted out cops, that just ain't done," the sergeant said.

"Of course it is. People roll on cops all the time, we just find a way to make it go away. In his case, it stuck. He did his job," the lieutenant said.

"Then he's a fucking junkie," the sergeant said.

"He went to rehab and he has been declared fit for duty. He is coming back as part of the new internal affairs unit. The department of justice is going to be watching us. If we keep fucking up, we are all going to be out of a job," the lieutenant said. So like it or not he will be working here. He will be in your roll call and after that he will be supervised by the detective unit."

"So when does he start?" the sergeant asked.

"In about five minutes. So you need to work on a welcome back speech," the lieutenant replied.

While the meeting was happening in the Lieutenant's office, Roger Everhart entered the assembly room. When he entered the room all the conversations stopped. He had pretty much expected that reaction to his return to duty. A little of the cold reception was because he had been in rehab, but mostly it was because the other cops saw him as a traitor.

It was bad enough that he had testified against several cops. Those who had sold dope from their squad cars were the worst of them. His return to duty was as a detective with the newly formed Internal Affairs department. The unit was formed in the hopes that a reorganization of the department could be done from within.

The department of justice was talking about coming in with a big broom, if the department couldn't clean its own house. Roger was pretty sure that it was the only reason he hadn't been fired. To the DOJ he was a hero, to the General Green police department he was a rat and always would be. Well to some of them he was a junkie rat. He got hooked on crack while getting recruited by the cop gang. He documented the police gang's activities while he was smoking crack. He tried not to get hooked, but his body betrayed him.

Roger spent three months in rehab while they were getting the plea deals worked out for the others. The men sitting on the jackpot gave a hell of a lot more information on the workings of the gang, than Roger did. The leaders of the cop gang also gave up a lot of names the Roger hadn't even known existed. Roger figured he was responsible for about a fourth of the cops going inside over the dope. The other three fourths were from one cop rolling up another cop.

So there was more than enough credit or blame to go around. Whether it was credit or blame was dependent upon who one was talking with at the time. It seemed all the cops on the street blamed Roger, but the brass approved, or so they said.

"Ladies and gentlemen welcome Roger Everhart. This is Rogers first day back from a medical leave and also his first day in the new internal Affairs bureau." Sergeant Graham said.

It was the coldest greeting Roger had ever seen in the squad room. Even rookies got a hi how are you. Roger got nothing, it was what he had expected. He knew there was no sense in trying to be a smart ass, so he just smiled and waved his hand at them. He knew it was going to be a long time before he was allowed back into the club. Hell it was possible that he never would be allow back in.

When the meeting ended, Roger went to find the office of internal affairs. He needed a place to sit and a telephone at the very least. He had wondered who the detective in charge would be. It turned out that his new partner was almost as much of a pariah.

"Good morning, my name is detective first class Hillary Bridges. I'm going to be your boss for a while," The overweight woman, hovering around forty years old, inform him. Her father had been a some kind of big deal cop back in the day. Everyone knew she had some departmental pull, but no one really knew where it came from or exactly how much juice she had. Since that was the case everyone steered clear of her as well. The two of them had most likely been the first choices for the first every internal affairs unit. They were the two people the brass most likely wanted hidden away. Go for the guys who were already hated, Alex thought.

"Okay Detective Bridges," Roger replied.

"Call me Hillary," she said.

"So Hillary, what do you want me to do first," Roger asked. He sure didn't want a long lecture from the detective in charge. He just wanted to go to work.

"I hope you get that this isn't an opinion job. We just gather facts then carry them to the Chief. He decides what to do with them." she said.

"I get it," Roger replied.

"I hope you do," she said. "We have a new CC."

"CC?" Roger asked.

"Civilian Complaint," Hillary explained. "One of our officers shot her dog last night. She says it was for no reason at all. Of course she said it in front of a TV camera."

"So what is our responsibility here?" Roger asked.

"We are going to do a psychological profile of the dog," Hillary said with a straight face.

Roger felt he was in for a total waste of at least the next two hours of his life. The first thing that they did was to interviewed the dog's owner. They found her in her small frame house one block off a major thoroughfare.

"So Mrs Owens, could you tell me exactly what happened," Hillary asked.

"Where should I start?" the sixty plus year old lady asked.

"Let me start by asking, why the officer was on your property. The police report suggests he was at your door to investigate strange noises and smells coming from the house," the DIC suggested.

"I didn't know that when he knocked on the door. I tried to answer it. That's when Max ran past me. Max jumped up on the cop. The cop just shot him for no reason."

"How much does Max weight?" Roger asked.

"Vet said he weights sixty-five pounds," The DIC said.

"He was a full blooded pit bull, but he played fine with my grand kids and never hurt any of them." The homeowner said.

"I get that. I'm a dog lover, but you know he didn't see that officer as one of his puppies. You know that is how he would see your grand children. My guess is he went out that door snarling and showing his teeth." Roger said.

"Maybe," The complainant agreed. The interview, for all intents and purposes ended on that admission.

"Our job is not to try to convince the complainant that she is wrong. It's just to gather facts. We are going to talk to the neighbors." The boss said once they were in the yard.

Two of the three neighbors who were home, stated that they felt the dog was aggressive. The third one didn't even know the woman had a dog. "I mind my own business," the man said when asked about the woman.

"You know something isn't right don't you?" Roger asked.

"No I don't. The aggressive dog escaped her control and attacked the officer. The officer used good judgment, when he shot it. That is sad, but it does happen," she said. "That is what the facts show."