He looked away from me toward the water.
“Answer isn’t out there,” I said. “Why don’t you look me in the eye and say whatever the hell it is you want to say?”
His gaze slowly came back to me. “I was wrong.”
“No shit. But I don’t want an apology.”
“I understand that,” he said. “But I’m telling you, I was wrong. About your daughter. About you. About everything. And the bottom line is that her disappearance happened on my watch and it’s never been solved.” He paused, folded his arms across his chest. “If you think that doesn’t bother me, then you don’t get me at all.”
“I don’t think it bothers you the way it should’ve,” I said. “And I don’t need to get you.”
He nodded slowly. “Right. Fair enough. All I’m telling you is that if you need any help, let me know.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
“No.”
My hands clenched again. “For years, I spent every day looking for her. You cost me my job. You probably cost me my marriage. And you sure as hell cost me my reputation. And now you’re offering your help? After stonewalling me for forever?” I laughed again. “I don’t know whether to punch you or feel sorry for you.”
He slipped the glasses back on. “You can do whatever you’d like, Joe. I’m just telling you that if you need help, the department is willing to provide it.”
I stared at him. I genuinely couldn’t believe his audacity and I thought I had to have been missing something, some part of the conversation that had somehow managed to escape me. Not once since Elizabeth’s abduction had he acted like he cared about anything more than the reputation of his department. Not once. And now he wanted me to know that his resources were at my disposal. It was all surreal.
I thought for a moment and decided to call him on it. “Okay. I got a question.”
He cleared his throat. “Ask it.”
“Right around the time Elizabeth disappeared, there was a bust in I.B.,” I said. “Right down on the strand. Involved the Tijuana cartel, a local gang and the DEA. What do you know about it?”
He shifted his weight from one to the other. “What the hell does that have to do with anything?”
“Just answer the question.”
He stood there, thinking. I knew I was putting him on the spot and giving some of what I’d worked on away. It was a risk because I was showing him some of my cards and, if he was involved in Elizabeth’s abduction, I was giving him a hint that I was onto him if the bust was tied to her disappearance. But I was tired of being passive with him. I wanted to see if I could get him to squirm.
“I remember it,” he said finally. “19th Street Kings.”
I nodded. “Correct.”
“What does that have to do with Elizabeth?”
“You tell me.”
He frowned at me, deep crevices forming at the corner of his eyes. “I can’t because I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Anything weird happen after the bust?” I asked.
“Weird like?”
“You tell me.”
His jaw twitched. “I don’t know what you’re getting at.”
“Okay.”
He unfolded his arms from his chest and put his hands on his hips. “Okay. I’ll play. But don’t forget. I know you’re still good pals with Lorenzo.”
A small butterfly took flight in my gut.
“I’m not gonna get into the details,” he said. “But, yes. Something occurred after that bust that required more work on my part.”
“You’re going to have to elaborate.”
“I’m not going to because I can’t,” he said. “Privacy laws. But I didn’t like what happened and I let Lorenzo know about it. Things fixed themselves.”
My head was spinning and he was making me second-guess myself, both in what I’d suspected and what I’d told him.
“I’m not exactly sure why it occurred,” Bazer said. “I never got a straight answer. But I covered for him and things were rectified.”
“You’re talking about the money,” I said. “You’re saying Mike was involved with it?”
He shuffled his feet. “I’m not saying anything about anything, Joe.” He took a step backward, then stopped. He adjusted the glasses again. “But the offer stands.”
I didn’t say anything, trying to wrap my head around what he’d said.
“You’ve got my help if you want it,” Bazer said.
I watched him stride down the sidewalk, cross the street to his car and drive off.
TWENTY SIX
I showered when I got home, then tried to eat a sandwich, but my stomach was in knots after seeing Bazer.
It felt to me like he was insinuating that Mike had done something wrong, but based on what I knew, that could’ve been anything. It could’ve been taking the money or it could’ve been going over his head with the DEA. And even if that was the insinuation he was making, it didn’t mean that any of that was tied to Elizabeth. It could’ve been coincidental. It didn’t give me any direct connection to whomever took Elizabeth or why.
I laid down on the sofa. The ceiling fan above me spun lazily and I fixated on the blades. I hated not knowing about Mike. Every time I thought I could rule him out, something else would show up that would point the compass in his direction again. And I hated that it was Bazer who was pointing the compass this time. I was far more comfortable being angry with Bazer and thinking Mike was still my friend. I didn’t want to consider having those roles reversed.
My cell buzzed on the coffee table and I was grateful for the distraction when I saw Lauren’s name. “Hey.”
“Hey,” she said. “Sorry we didn’t call this morning. Day got moving and got away from me.”
“That’s okay,” I said, thinking I could tell her the same thing about my day. “How was it today?”
“Different,” she said.
“What does that mean?”
“Well, it started off pretty good, actually,” she said. “She woke up in a better mood and we had a fine breakfast. No arguments, no stare downs. We were watching the news and just talking. Normally.”
“That’s good.”
“It was. Then we went to meet the Corzines again.”
“Where?”
“At their house,” she answered. “Which was fine. We’d talked about it yesterday and I was okay with it. She wanted to go over and get into her room and that kind of stuff.”
“Cool,” I said, glad that Lauren was at least able to see that Elizabeth needed some time there.
“Yeah, well, it went not cool in a hurry,” Lauren said.
I shifted on the couch. “How?”
“I’m not sure how we got into it,” she explained. “The family, they were actually…they were actually very nice. They understood about yesterday. They understood why I didn’t want her staying there and they were supportive of that.”
“That’s a good thing.”
“I thought so,” she said. “But then the conversation turned to them wanting an ongoing relationship with her. Elizabeth was in her room, doing whatever. And they started asking about visiting her in San Diego and when we thought we might allow her to come back and visit them.”
A small knot formed in my gut.
“I told them we were nowhere near that point and I wasn’t sure if we ever would be,” she continued. “I explained that we were there for closure for Elizabeth, not to figure out what the future held.”
“How’d that go over?”
“Not good,” she said. “The guy started getting agitated and shitty with me, telling me they’d raised her and had a right to have some sort of relationship with her. I told him he didn’t have shit for rights and they were lucky we were even there, letting them see her again.”
“And Elizabeth wasn’t there for any of that?” I asked.