Page 55 of Stone
“But you have the start of something,” she said with an encouraging nod.
“That I do. Over the past fifteen years, Gregor has worked on twenty-four projects. Eighteen were in San Francisco and the rest in other parts of the Bay Area from up north in Healdsburg to down south in San Jose. Of those projects, eight of them received federal funding.” Viper paused and crossed his arms,his attention focused somewhere on the opposite wall. “Of those eight, four definitely have something fishy about them.”
“In what way?” Simon asked.
Viper’s lips pulled down into a frown. “That’s what I need to look into more.” He paused again. “There were discrepancies in the finances, but it was worked out to the government’s satisfaction. Something doesn’t feel right about the review process, though. It went too fast? Or the reviewers were too junior? I don’t know,” he said with a shake of his head. “But I’ll find out.”
Simon nodded, then turned to Philly and Monk. At her feet, Sherman let out a deep sigh. She and Simon glanced down to find his eyes closed. It warmed her heart knowing he felt safe enough to sleep.
“Our morning was a little more interesting,” Philly said, taking over reporting duties. Not a surprise, since Monk preferred silence and Philly was happy to talk a mile a minute. “Of the projects Gregor worked on in San Francisco?—”
“The eighteen?” she clarified.
Philly nodded. “We reconfirmed that all the surrounding areas experienced an uptick in crime. Ten of those projects were in the precinct Polinsky covers.”
“Which is?”
“Taraval,” Monk answered. “The biggest.”
Philly nodded. “It covers a huge part of the southwestern part of the city. Including the neighborhood where Lowery lives.”
“Convenient,” Simon muttered.
Philly wagged his eyebrows. “Anyway, so we have ten projects in that area. We cross-referenced those projects against the crime that occurred, then identified the officers involved in taking the reports. It was the same eight people. Seven men and one woman.”
“I don’t know anything about police organizations,” she said. “Are there enough officers in the precinct that it’s weird the same eight were involved?”
“There are about a hundred officers assigned to the station,” Philly answered. “Big enough that if people bothered to look at the data, they’d look twice at those eight.”
“What do we know about them?” Simon asked.
Philly inclined his head. “That’s for tomorrow.”
“If the other projects weren’t in Polinsky’s precinct, or even in San Francisco, could he have been involved?” she asked, making a note to herself to pick up a book on how police departments organized themselves.
“That’s where it gets interesting,” Philly replied. “For the remaining San Francisco projects, those occurred in three other precincts and, like in Taraval, the same officers responded to the events in their respective beats. There are six, and each has ties to Polinsky even if they no longer work together.”
She cocked her head. “Strong ties?”
“All of them either once worked for him at the Taraval station before transferring or they worked with him when he was with the Mission precinct after moving to San Francisco,” Philly said.
“Is it the same with the projects outside of San Francisco?” she asked.
“Those six are interesting,” Philly said. “The two up north had no uptick of crime, but both were less populated settings—one winery and one small shopping plaza.”
“So even if dealers used the sites for drug drops, they were in locations where the incidental petty crime that we’ve seen around the city developments wouldn’t occur,” she said.
Philly nodded. “Exactly. Maybe they weren’t used, or they were, and it’s as you say, but we don’t have data either way. The other four were housing developments in San Jose. Theyexperienced similar low-level criminal activities as the San Francisco sites, and just two cops covered every incident.”
“Any ties to Polinsky?” she asked.
“Do you even need to ask?” Monk replied.
“The senior officer of the pair—who are partners—worked with Polinsky in San Francisco prior to transferring to his current station,” Philly answered.
“Too many connections to be a coincidence,” Simon said.
“All still circumstantial, though,” she said.
