A New Broom

Six years before, Palo Alto police had questioned Ginger Han and Mamoru Chiba about how Usagi Tsukino had been shot. The detectives had done remarkably little in following up, almost as if they had a blind spot about the case. However, the Palo Alto department of the time had been much less structured than the Oakland Police Department, especially since the current wave of reforms had begun.

Detective Lieutenant Albert Ballin was one of the new brooms brought in to sweep the OPD clean. He noticed immediately that the reports from the interviewing officers on the Kimberly Chiba case were very thin, and he was shocked to find how little follow-up they had done. But they were a couple of his better people. He reminded them of procedure, but then stepped away, giving them a chance to shape up. They did a little more--and then fell off after a few days.

Ballin was in a difficult place: Harper and Glenn were well respected in the Department. If he took them off the case, he was likely to get even less cooperation from the veterans. So he decided to look into the case himself.

The girl was brought into the hospital by her sister, who had allegedly gotten a ride from an anonymous man who simply vanished thereafter--though she gave an excellent description of his car, and a fair description of the man. But the girl "didn't remember" exactly where she'd been when she found her sister.

Interviewing any of the principals in the case would probably be found out soon if Harper and Glenn were protecting someone, whether for pay or misguided principle. Lt. Ballin started his investigation with record searches--remarkably easy to do if one had reasonable computer skills. Ballin had exceptional skills.

Just checking the visitor list at Highland Hospital uncovered one fact that anyone who had been in the OPD for a few years should have noticed: Olivia Jones had visited the victim. She was the widow of Marvell Jones, one of the most powerful gang leaders in the country, and she listed her address as the same as the victim's. A DMV check for others sharing the residence turned up more surprises: Kevin Jones, one of Marvell's brothers, had listed his last residence as the same place, and his widow, Minako Jones, still lived there.

That last fact was especially unnerving, because Minako Jones was one of the people interviewed by Harper and Glenn. She was a scrub nurse, and she had assisted Dr. Chiba and the others operating on Kimberly Chiba. She hadn't been on duty the night of the emergency; she had come in on her own.

Ballin's searches for information Minako Jones and Kevin Jones produced little more than he already knew, but he was reminded that they had almost been assassinated together in the spectacular Angels incident at Lake Merritt, and that Kevin had died with his brother in a bloody shootout in Highland Hospital itself.

The new head of the Gang Task Force was Captain George Blanchard, another "new broom" like Albert, so he could be trusted. But he was out of town, testifying in a case from his former jurisdiction. Ballin did not want to throw this to the GTF yet, not until Blanchard was back. But there was something else he could do . . .

Besides his computer skills, Albert Ballin had another edge on his resentful subordinates and colleagues in the OPD: a gilt-edged contact in the FBI. That is, Victor Ballin recently transferred from the Florida Office to the headquarters in Washington, DC. After a phone call, he sent Victor the salient facts, and even the descriptions of the vehicle and the driver, in case they actually existed.

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