When he got off the phone, Mike Brewster was standing by his desk, looking a bit uncomfortable. “Show you what I got?” Mike asked.
Mac nodded. “Pull up a chair.” He looked over at Janet. “Janet, you got a moment?”
Having Janet looming over his shoulder made Mike increasingly uneasy, but he pulled up his account in the system and opened up his data files, and a graphic. He walked them both through the research and the data.
“So, bottom line? In the last 18 months the number of divorce and child support cases that mention concerns about guns, arsenals, or collections has risen from 10 in 2008 to nearly 1,500 in 2013. And it’s still escalating. In Washington, the hot spots are not in rural areas as one might expect, but in suburbs around Seattle and stretching north to Bellingham. And I did a gut check by going back to 2008 and doing the same geographic analysis, and those hot spots didn’t exist. They appear to have started in 2010, and have been snowballing ever since.”
Mike Brewster paused, and called up a different file. “So, I ran the same content analysis on criminal cases, both overall, and domestic violence. Your cop source is right, 15 in six months is a lot. The first such case was in 2009, and they’ve slowly been growing. Same clusters as the civil cases.”
“Why 2008 as your start year?” Janet asked.
“I gave it to him,” Mac answered. “The Sensei keeps using Obama’s election as a trigger point. Figured it would be as good a starting point as any.”
She nodded and studied the numbers and the graphics. “Good job, Mike,” she said, with obvious approval. “Get it polished up. We’ll probably need it early next week. Do you need me to clear it with Steve?”
Mike looked relieved. “That would help,” he admitted. “I didn’t have anything pressing in my queue to work on, but a request from you two would cover me.”
She laughed. “I’ll backdate it, even,” she promised.
“What made you go after these numbers, Mac?” she asked. Mike lingered to listen.
“One of Rodriguez’s cops ran the DV numbers after those two calls last week,” Mac said. “And I remembered one of the articles you sent me talked about how almost all mass shooters have a history of DV in their past. But our society doesn’t take domestic violence seriously, and we don’t see it as the warning sign of danger ahead. So, the bastards escalate and then when they kill someone — sometimes lots of someone’s — we go, oh, look, he was arrested for domestic violence five years ago. Isn’t that a coincidence?”
Both Janet and Mike looked at him with startled expressions.
“Sorry for the rant,” he muttered. “I’m on edge today.”
“No,” Mike said slowly. “That gives me an idea for another data dive. Let me play around with that idea, and I’ll tell you two about it later today.”
Mac nodded. “Leaving early, though,” he warned. “Angie and I are headed up to Skagit Valley to do that wilderness survival weekend.”
“By noon, then,” Mike promised, and walked away, hands shoved into his pockets.
“He seems to be a good guy,” Mac said. “But he doesn’t know sh— anything about daily journalism.”
“Looks like he’s learning,” Janet said, returning to her desk. “Give me a bit to finish up, and then let’s go over the details for your trip.”
Mac was restless. Rather than wait in the newsroom for Janet, he headed toward the photo department. He wasn’t surprised that Angie was there. “Do you ever go home?” he asked, with a half-smile. He leaned against the door frame, and watched her.
“Sure,” she said, smiling at him. “And then I come back in again.”
He laughed. “I’m headed to the coffee shop across the street. Janet will be joining me to talk about the trip. Wanna come along?”
She nodded, finished what she was doing to a photo, and closed things down. She stuck her head into her boss’s office. He looked up at Mac, and came out to talk to him. “I approved this,” he said, “but I have to tell you, I have had second thoughts. I might be on the tenth set of thoughts. You sure you don’t want to take a more experienced photog?”
Mac thought he probably meant a male photog. “Too late,” he said easily. “They approved Angie. Can’t change now.”
The photo editor nodded. “I worry this is dangerous,” he said. “Your stories are.”
Mac grinned. “Can’t argue there,” he said. “But I come home.”
“Will she though?”
“If I come home? She comes home,” Mac said somberly. “My word on it.”
“Holding you to it,” the man said. He met Mac’s eyes. Mac nodded.
The editor looked at Angie. “Go,” he said. “Be careful. Don’t take risks. Let him take the risks. You just take pictures, you hear?”
Angie nodded. She grabbed up all of her stuff. Mac took her backpack from her. “See you Monday, Carl,” she said.
He nodded.
“Let’s take this to my truck before we go drink coffee,” Mac said.
“Sorry about the ‘Dad grilling a boyfriend on the first date’ bit,” she said with an eyeroll.
“I knew I recognized the tone from somewhere,” Mac teased. “It’s fine. I’ll get a similar lecture from Janet. And I’ve already gotten one from a cop I know.”
She laughed and relaxed. “Not from your girlfriend?” she asked as he opened up the back of his 4-Runner and added her backpack.
“We broke up,” he said, not turning around. He locked the back of the SUV. “Last night. It was overdue. I can’t be what she wants, you know? A man in church every Sunday, raising a family to worship a God they say disapproves of my aunt because she’s gay?”
“Well you could be,” Angie said slowly. “But you wouldn’t be you any longer. So, I’m glad you’re not going to try.”
“Yeah,” Mac said, turning around finally. “That’s the
