Perfect Murder, Perfect Town - Lawrence Schiller [95]
In his second-floor office at the Justice Center, Sheriff Epp caught the press conference on TV and found it hard to watch. He felt that he no longer knew his colleagues, that they had become puppets whose strings were being pulled by the media. Maybe they were more like protoplasm in a petri dish with an electrical charge going through them.
Epp had known Alex Hunter for twenty-five years, and for the first time he was embarrassed for him. Alex was falling all over himself apologizing for the cops—even covering up for them. Epp thought it was a mistake.
Afterward, Epp went downstairs to see Hunter and told him flat-out that he was placing his loyalty to Koby above his loyalty to the people who had elected him. Epp knew that Hunter got the point, but he had no reply. Epp could see how hard it was for his friend to hear the truth. Hunter thanked Epp for his honesty.
Then Epp tried to reach Koby, only to find that the chief and his wife had left for a long weekend in Santa Fe, New Mexico, with city manager Tim Honey and his wife.
While Koby and Hunter were holding their press conference, Bill Wise was at the old courthouse at Pearl and 13th Streets asking the county commissioners for more money for the Ramsey investigation.
Hofstrom had asked Hunter for an experienced homicide detective and a full-time deputy DA. In addition, they needed money for Lee and Scheck and for a forensic psychiatrist, plus funds to support the joint war room with its computer equipment and paper shredders.
Wise brought the commissioners up to date on the anticipated costs for his department. He was surprised when they asked him if Pete Hofstrom would be doing the investigative work.
That’s part of the problem, Wise replied. He’d like to do a lot of that and the Boulder Police Department says, Get out of our business. They don’t want lawyers sticking their noses into their investigation…so we’ve told Pete to back off a little bit.
Commissioner Jana Mendez asked, Doesn’t Tom Koby realize that an investigation that isn’t done for prosecution purposes…? Her voice trailed off.
I’m not going to criticize the Boulder Police Department, but I’d sure like to, Wise told the commissioners. Under the law, we don’t control these investigations. If not for Alex Hunter’s close relationship with Tom Koby, we wouldn’t be in the case at all.
As he spoke, Wise knew he’d put his foot in it. The police certainly deserved criticism, but denouncing them in public was not his job. So far neither the Boulder police nor the DA’s office had publicly acknowledged any problems between them.
The commissioners approved an additional $124,000 for his department.
Later that afternoon, Kevin McCullen, a reporter for the Rocky Mountain News who had been at the press briefing, stopped in as usual at the council chambers to listen to the official tape recording of the budget session. Taking notes, he heard his next headline.
After McCullen left, Jana Petersen, the commissioners’ press representative, called Wise and told him she was sure McCullen would publish what Wise had said about the police. Wise knew immediately that he was in trouble.
Back at the office, he told Hunter what he’d said to the commissioners. For a moment they joked about whether the tape could be destroyed. Then Wise said that all he could do now was mop up after himself.
Calling McCullen, Wise admitted that his comments had been careless and pointed out that a story on his views of the Boulder police wouldn’t help solve the Ramsey case. McCullen refused to bury the remarks.
Having been turned down flat, Wise decided to appeal to McCullen’s editor, Deborah Goeken. She heard him out and said she would consider deleting his comments about the police in her reporter’s budget story. An hour later, however, Wise discovered that the local NBC