“Okay—whoa—we’ve got a lot of hits here, Jack. Twenty-eight. Anything in particular you’re looking for?”
“Uh, no. What’s the most recent?”
I knew that she could scan the hits by having just the headlines print out on her screen.
“Okay, last one. ‘Detective fired for part in former partner’s death.’ ”
“That’s weird,” I said. “This should have come up in the first search you did. Can you read me some of that?”
I heard her tap a few keys and then wait for the story to be printed on her screen.
“Okay, here goes. ‘A Baltimore police detective was fired Monday for altering a crime scene and attempting to make it appear that his longtime partner had not killed himself last spring. The action was taken by a departmental Board of Rights panel against Detective Daniel Bledsoe after a two-day closed hearing. Bledsoe could not be reached for comment but a fellow officer who represented him during the hearing said that the highly decorated detective was being treated with undue harshness by a department he had served well for twenty-two years. According to police officials, Bledsoe’s partner, Detective John McCafferty, died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound on May 8. His body was found by his wife, Susan, who first called Bledsoe. Bledsoe, officials said, went to his partner’s apartment, destroyed a note he found in the dead detective’s shirt pocket and altered other aspects of the crime scene to make it appear that McCafferty had been killed by an intruder who had grabbed the detective’s gun. Police said’—Do you want me to keep reading, Jack?”
“Yeah, go ahead.”
“ ‘Police said Bledsoe went so far as to fire an additional shot into McCafferty’s body, striking him in the upper leg. Bledsoe then told Susan McCafferty to call 911 and he left the apartment, feigning surprise when he was later informed that his partner was dead. In killing himself, McCafferty had apparently already fired one shot into the floor of his home before placing the gun in his mouth and firing the fatal shot. Investigators contend that Bledsoe attempted to make the death appear to be a murder because Susan McCafferty stood to receive a higher amount of death, health and pension benefits if it could be proved her husband had not killed himself. However, the scheme unraveled when suspicious investigators interviewed Susan McCafferty at length on the day her husband died. She eventually admitted to what she had watched Bledsoe do.’ Am I reading too fast? Are you taking notes?”
“No, it’s fine. Keep going.”
“Okay. ‘Bledsoe refused to acknowledge any part in the scheme during the investigation and declined to testify in his behalf during the Board of Rights hearing. Jerry Liebling, Bledsoe’s fellow detective and defense representative during the hearing, said Bledsoe did what any loyal partner would do for a fallen comrade. “All he did was try to make things a little better for the widow,” Liebling said. “But the department has gone too far. He tried to do the good thing and now he’s lost his job, his career, his livelihood. What kind of message does this send to the rank and file?” Other officers contacted Monday expressed similar feelings. But ranking officials said that Bledsoe had been treated fairly and cited the department’s decision not to file criminal charges against Bledsoe or Susan McCafferty as a sign of compassion for the two. McCafferty and Bledsoe had been partners for seven years and handled some of the higher-profile murders in the city during that time. One of those killings was attributed in part to McCafferty’s death. Police said that McCafferty’s depression over the unsolved killing of Polly Amherst, a first-grade teacher who was abducted from campus at the private Hopkins School, sexually mutilated and strangled, led him to thoughts of killing himself. McCafferty was also struggling with a drinking problem. “So now the department hasn’t lost one fine investigator,” Liebling said after Monday’s hearing, “it has lost two. They’ll never find two guys that were as good as Bledsoe and McCafferty. The department really blew it today.” ’ That’s it, Jack.”
“Okay. Uh, I’m going to need you to send that to my computer basket. I have my laptop. I can get it.”
“Okay. What about the other stories?”
“Can you go back to the headlines? Are any of them about McCafferty’s death or are they all stories on cases?”
She took a half minute to scroll through the headlines.
“It looks like they are all about cases. There are quite a few on the schoolteacher. Nothing else on the suicide. And you know what, the reason that story I just read didn’t come up on my search on Monday was because the word ‘suicide’ was never in it. That was the keyword I plugged in.”
I’d already figured that out. I asked her to ship the stories on the teacher to my computer basket, thanked her and hung up.
I called the main detective bureau of the Baltimore Police Department and asked for Jerry Liebling.
“Liebling, autos.”
“Detective Liebling, my name is Jack McEvoy and I’m wondering if you can help me. I’m trying to reach Dan Bledsoe.”
“That would be in regard to what?”
“I’d rather talk to him about it.”
“I’m sorry I can’t help you and I’ve got another call.”
“Look, I know what he tried to do for McCafferty. I want to tell him something that I think will help him. That’s really all I can say. But if you don’t help me, you are missing a chance to help him. I can give you my number. Why don’t you call him and give it to him. Let him decide.”
There was a long silence and I suddenly thought I had been talking to a dead line.
“Hello?”
“Yeah, I’m here. Look, if Dan wants to talk to you he’ll talk to you. You call him. He’s in the book.”
“What, the phone book?”
“That’s right. I gotta go.”
He hung up. I felt foolish. I never even considered the phone book because I never knew a cop who put his name in it. I dialed information for Baltimore again and gave the former detective’s name.
“I have no listing for a Daniel Bledsoe,” the operator said. “I have Bledsoe Insurance and Bledsoe Investigations.”
“Okay, give me those and can I get the addresses, please?”
“Actually, they are separate listings and numbers but the same address in Fells Point.”
He gave me the information and I called the investigations number. A woman answered, “Bledsoe Investigations.”
“Yes, can I speak to Dan?”
“I’m sorry, he’s unavailable.”
“Do you know if he’ll be in later today?”
“He’s in now. He’s just on the line. This is his service. When he’s out or on his line it rings through. But I know he’s there. He checked for messages not ten minutes ago. But I don’t know for how long. I don’t keep his schedule.”
Fells Point is a spit of land east of Baltimore’s Inner Harbor. The tourist shops and hotels give way to funkier pubs and shops and then old brick factories and Little Italy. On some streets the asphalt has worn off the underlying brick and when the wind is right there is the damp tang of the sea or the smell of the sugar factory just across the inlet. Bledsoe Investigations and Insurance was in a one-story brick building at Caroline and Fleet.