He leaned back into the confession box and snared his jacket off the back of his chair. As an afterthought he locked down the computer screen. Then he stepped out into the squad room. He gestured towards the exit door and the corridor we’d just come along. ‘We’ll go somewhere a little more comfortable. Can I get you anything? Water? Coffee?’
‘A coffee would be great,’ I said, thinking that if he was leading me to somewhere where an arrest was more easily contained then I might as well have a decent brew before being thrown in a cell.
He nodded. Then to Brockovich, he said, ‘Do the honours will you, Kathy? Bring one for Tyler and me as well, OK? We’ll be in room five.’
‘Of course,’ she said brightly, but she couldn’t help the twist of her mouth. I wondered if it was at Jones’ ill-concealed sexism, or the inherent ‘them and us’ competition that existed between detectives and uniformed officers in most police stations. I decided on the latter.
‘Much appreciated,’ I said to her, and meant it.
She only jerked her head haughtily. I watched her go, smiling sadly to myself. I was once close to a uniformed policewoman and Kathy Brockovich brought her to mind. Kate Piers had worn a different uniform, and her beat was the breadth of a continent away; she was also dead. But there was enough about this woman to bring her to mind. I shook the memories loose. Gar Jones was looking at me. He must have misread my interest in his colleague, because he grinned conspiratorially, nudged me with his elbow. ‘Easy on the eyes, right?’
‘I’ve met plenty worse looking cops.’ I met his gaze, watched his grin slip a little. But then he got that I was joking — albeit at his expense — and his grin broadened. ‘Come on. There’s an even uglier one waiting for us down the hall.’
Gar Jones hadn’t yet decided on his best play to get through to me. He’d tried amiable cop, bad cop, now it looked as if he was going for the good cop routine. I preferred people who were true to themselves, even if they were obnoxious, and this buddy-buddy style of his struck me as a lie. He led the way from the squad room and into the hallway I’d earlier traversed. The doors were numbered consecutively, mirroring the one opposite, but each office was designated ‘A’ or ‘B’ depending on which side of the corridor it was located. We headed for 5A.
Gar swung the door open without knocking, and went in. I was a pace behind him. We caught Detective Tyler posed as I’d found Jones minutes earlier, typing furiously at a laptop. Unlike Jones he’d learned to type correctly, and all fingers were flying at the keys. He looked up from his work, saw me, and sat back, pushing out from under the desk. He didn’t get up. He did however lean across to offer his hand.
‘I have coffee coming,’ Jones announced. Having shaken with me, Tyler sat back and folded his hands across his stomach. He acknowledged Jones’s proclamation wryly. He waited for us to sit, then, as an afterthought, flipped the screen down on his laptop so he could see us over it. I made a cursory inspection of my surroundings. The office was about fifteen by ten feet, not huge by anyone’s standards, and about the size of most interrogation rooms I’d been in. But the computer, the desk and drawers, the in-tray and the memo notes on the walls reassured me this was nothing of the sort. I looked for CCTV cameras, but if they were there they were well concealed. There was an archaic monitor on another table in the corner behind Tyler, plus a DVD machine, but that was all. It was a workplace, and it allowed me to relax a little. There was still time for the detectives to arrest me, but it wouldn’t be here.
‘Thanks for coming in, Mr Hunter.’
‘Just plain Joe,’ I said, ‘or Hunter. Whatever you prefer.’
‘OK, Joe. Then you can call us Gar and Ty. Let’s keep things informal, shall we?’
‘Depends on why I’m here. Will I need legal representation?’
‘For performing a heroic deed? Why would you?’ Tyler eyed me squarely. His words would have held more reassurance if they hadn’t been delivered so drily. ‘Sadly your efforts were wasted. Yoshida Takumi passed away en route to hospital. He succumbed from the overdose of insulin despite your actions with the glucagon. Maybe it was best; his lungs might never have recovered from the smoke he inhaled. He’d have suffered.’
‘I suppose it was better going that way than burning alive,’ I said.
‘Yeah. Good job you were there, otherwise we’d never have known what happened to him.’ Tyler unfolded his hands, placed one on the desk, and began distractedly scratching at the wood with a fingernail. ‘What exactly were you doing at Mr Yoshida’s house?’
‘Visiting.’
‘You said that already,’ Gar said. ‘You didn’t say why you would do that. You said he was a family friend, but that’s not entirely true is it?’
‘Only if you wish to be awkward about it,’ I said. ‘Yukiko Rington asked me to check in with him. She wanted me to tell him about her husband’s death, and to reassure him that she was OK.’
‘Why not ask her son to do that? Instead of a relative stranger?’
‘Rink has more on his mind than running errands.’
‘Just seems too much of a coincidence that you happened along at the most opportune of times. I mean, what are the chances?’
‘Beats me,’ I said. ‘What are your thoughts on the subject? You’re obviously not considering me a suspect otherwise I doubt we’d be going through this rigmarole without you having read me my rights.’
‘We don’t think you’re a suspect in Yoshida’s murder, but we think you know much more than you’re letting on.’
‘Yeah.’ I looked across at Gar. ‘He made that clear already.’
I expected my words to get a rise out of Jones, but he merely pursed his lips. I returned my attention to Tyler.
‘We’re after the same thing here, Joe. We want to find the person responsible for the brutal murder of a significant number of our elderly residents. We know that’s also what you want. We could help each other out.’
‘I’d love to help, but I don’t know a damn thing.’
I felt a shift in mood. The mock friendliness was about to go out of the window. Jones said, ‘You made that clear already. But we’re not having any of it.’
‘Fair enough.’
Before the recriminations could start flying there was a knock at the door. Kathy Brockovich poked her head inside. She was lugging a tray with three mugs of coffee. She felt the charged atmosphere. She looked at the floor. ‘You want me to leave these here?’
Tyler indicated his desk, shifting his laptop over to make room. He didn’t thank the woman; maybe she had grown not to expect it. She placed the tray down without any ceremony and scuttled out of the room.
‘Do I still get to drink my coffee?’ I asked.
‘It’s here now. Knock yourself out.’
I took mine black. Neither detective reached for theirs.
‘Here’s the deal,’ Tyler said.
I watched him over my cup, the steam wafting up my face.
‘You tell us what you know and we let the assault on Sean Chaney slide.’
I was surprised to hear he’d learned about that, but didn’t let it show.
‘Sean who?’
He didn’t bother expounding. He opened his laptop and hit some buttons. He twisted it around on the desk so that I could see it. There was a small movie file centred on the screen. Tyler hit another key and the picture expanded, filling the corners. I immediately recognised Rink and me stepping off the train at Montgomery Street Station. The image was taken from a wall-mounted camera. I was relieved; for a moment I thought the image was going to be a recording from inside the BART carriage. I watched the events unfold. At no time did either of us look up and offer a full-on view of our faces, but it’d take a blind man not to recognise us — even dressed in the shabby clothes I was wearing.