Worth glanced at his lieutenant and received an interested gaze in return. He looked across the table. Many faces, few expressions.
“I’m on provisional duty pending clearance,” he told them. The sigh he gave was genuine. It just never stopped sounding pathetic. “I guess it didn’t seem like the kind of thing that would help my case.”
He very nearly added more. Something about the family’s good name in the department, the upcoming memorial. Casting a shadow on his brother’s remembrance.
But he stopped himself. Of all the lines he’d crossed these past days—lines he’d never have considered himself capable of approaching—exploiting Kelly’s death to help save his own bacon wasn’t going to be one of them. Worth decided that then and there.
Mark Vargas unclipped his pager and looked at the screen. He glanced at Captain Torres.
“Excuse me,” he said.
After he’d stepped out of the room, Roger Sheppard said, “For the record, after the break-in at Officer Worth’s residence Sunday night, I did ask if he could think of any possibles. Mr. James was named at that time.”
Deputy Chief Riley said, “Let’s focus on Officer Worth’s account for now. We’ll compare and contrast as things get more formal.”
The meaning in that bit of guidance was clear enough. Keep what you know on this side of the table. The same basics Worth had been taught to apply in the field applied to him now.
Nine liars out of ten will hang themselves if you just get out of their way and let them.
The bearded guy from Narcotics had introduced himself as Detective Neil Granger. Granger glanced at D.C. Riley, eyebrows raised. Riley nodded him clear.
“With all due respect to the, um, love triangle aspect,” Granger said, “how much is the drop?”
“I don’t know,” Worth said.
“How is that?”
He’d told them that Briggs and Salcedo seemed to believe that he and Gwen were in possession of cash. Cash that Russell James had, apparently, either owed them or been meant to deliver to somebody else.
He’d told them that Russell James had, apparently, come to a bad end. He assumed this because Briggs and Salcedo had threatened to frame him and Gwen for the murder if they didn’t hand over the dough. Dough that neither Worth nor Gwen Mullen knew anything about.
“They never verbalized an amount.” He left the rest unspoken. Since I personally have no knowledge of any stolen money, I would have no way of knowing the amount myself.
“Where and when?”
“I don’t know that, either. They said we’d hear.”
“Hear when?”
“Before now.” Worth glanced at the clock on the wall for effect. “It’s past the twenty-four-hour mark.”
“Tell me something.” Detective Granger leaned back and folded his arms. “Who does the talking? Tony or Ray?”
“Mostly Briggs,” Worth said. “Salcedo stays pretty quiet.”
“But you say Salcedo engineered the apartment address.”
“That’s right.”
“Who makes the calls to the apartment?”
“Either or, Gwen says. I’ve never been there for a call.”
At this point, the IAD investigator finally spoke up. “Twenty-four hours?”
Worth hadn’t gotten his name. His tie had a stripe pattern. He couldn’t have been thirty years old.
Worth nodded. “That was the clock Briggs set.”
“Right,” IAD said. “And that clock started when your shift ended yesterday morning.”
“That’s what I said.”
“You approached Detective Vargas at nine o’clock last evening?” IAD leaned forward. “Setting aside the deviation from anything resembling your chain of command, tell me. In your own words, Officer Worth, what took you fourteen hours?”
All this talk of clocks had started the invisible bomb in Worth’s head ticking loudly again.
“Subtracting the eight hours I spent tearing my house apart?” He looked IAD in the eye. “I guess it took me half a day to decide how to end my career.”
“Do you feel the need for sarcasm, Officer?”
“Not at all,” Worth said. “Son.”
In his peripheral vision, he saw Gina look down at the table. Roger Sheppard looked toward a wall.
The guy was only a handful of years his junior. It was an easy point to score. There wasn’t a cop in the room, brass or otherwise, who’d come up with a good taste for Internal Affairs. Especially the young guys who came indoors early. It felt a little cheap, using that; Worth knew what it felt like to be looked down on by fellow cops, and this kid was just doing his job. But he needed all the points he could get.
Before Granger asked his next question, the door opened again. Vargas poked his head back into the room. “Captain?”
Torres looked past Worth’s shoulder. Then she pushed back from the table. “You all keep going. I’ll be back.”
Over his shoulder, Worth caught an accidental glance from Vargas. Something was happening.
A moment later, Captain Torres reappeared. More silent communication among the command branch in the room. The Deputies Chief and Worth’s lieutenant all stood and followed her.
Detective Granger watched them go.
He looked around the table, decided the action was obviously elsewhere at the moment, and followed them.
IAD almost beat him to the door.
Nothing else happened for a few seconds.
Finally, over at the far end of the table, Sergeant Williams sighed. He stood slowly, stretched his back, and went to see what was going on.
On his way to the door, he put a hand on Worth’s shoulder. “Hey there, Matty.”
“Hey, Sarge. Long time no see.”
Sergeant Williams wore dark blue warm-ups and clean white cross-trainers. Worth hadn’t seen him in a couple of years, but Williams still had a chest like a barrel and looked like he could punch through bricks. The sergeant should have made a command post years ago, but Worth knew it was nothing political. Levon Williams hadn’t been passed over or shut out. Levon Williams was happy doing exactly what he did. That was all.
“How’s your pops?” he said.
“Dad’s okay.” Worth shrugged. “About the same.”
The doctors had assumed for years that the cirrhosis would get him before the Alzheimer’s, but the stubborn son of a bitch continued to buck the odds. He patrolled the halls of Elmwood Manor in his wheelchair, terrorizing the nurses, mixed up as a bag of nuts. Half the time, he thought the nurses were Mom, and that Matthew was Kelly, and that his roommate wanted him dead.
“You get by to see him?”
Worth nodded. “Usually once a week. At least once every couple.”
“Good boy.”
Williams gave Worth’s shoulder a squeeze.
Then he left the room with everybody else. That left Worth and his union rep sitting there alone, looking across the table at each other.
“You could have called,” his union rep said.
“Dad.”
John blinked. “What was that, hon?”
“I asked if you wanted more toast.” Liz frowned, wiped her hands, and came over. “You’re on cloud nine this morning. Are you feeling okay?”
“I feel fine,” he said. “Just reading.”
She checked his forehead anyway.
You’d think he’d had a damned heart transplant, the way she mother-henned. Hell, you’d think he was eighty years old. John sat there and let her treat him like a convalescent anyway. It was easier than arguing.
She looked over his shoulder at the newspaper he’d spread out. “What’s so engrossing?”
He hadn’t been reading so much as staring at a photo. “Just this thing. Tell it to you when I’m done.”
“So did you want more toast?”
“Not for me.” John hadn’t eaten this well this many days in a row since Jean had divorced him fifteen years ago.