The Last Witness by K. J. Erickson

Author:K. J. Erickson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group

CHAPTER 16

The first person Mars ran into in the squad room was Danny Borg.

Danny started to say something about the rental car in the parking lot at DuCain Industries, looked at Mars’s face, and stopped.

“We need to talk,” Mars said. “Is Nettie in?”

* * *

What he told them about the changes in their assignments gave him an excuse for why he was upset. He wasn’t ready to say anything to Nettie about lunch with Denise.

They responded as he’d anticipated. Nettie was ticked but remained on track. Danny was heartbroken.

“Eviscerated,” Danny said. “I knew there was a reason I needed to know that word. I feel like I’ve been eviscerated.”

“Emasculated,” Nettie said. “‘Emasculated’ would be a better word in this instance.”

“You always do that,” Danny said, his usually unflappable self too raw not to be sensitive. “It doesn’t matter what I say. You’ve always got a word that’s better.” To Mars he said, “Would this have happened if I hadn’t mouthed off about how Narcotics handled things with Venema and Weber?”

Mars sighed and stretched out his legs. “Yes and no. I think the reporting changes would have happened regardless. You being off the case is probably because you irritated Freize.”

Danny’s face crumpled in grief.

“It was still the right thing to do, Danny. Maybe, in hindsight, it would have been better if you’d talked to me about it, and I’d talked to Narcotics. Freize already hates my guts. It’s not a question of being right or wrong, it’s a question of understanding how the department works, where the minefields are. That just takes time and experience. Like I said, you did the right thing. This time, doing the right thing wasn’t the right thing to do.”

Mars straightened up, pulling energy from the day’s ashes. “Here’s how we’re gonna operate until someone tells us otherwise. I assume Freize hasn’t showed his shitface around here yet?” He looked from Danny to Nettie. Both shook their heads and shrugged their shoulders.

“So the three of us are gonna keep doing what we’re doing until we have orders from Freize to do something different.…”

Danny looked worried. “I’m not gonna get in trouble staying on the case after Narum told you I was off?”

Mars smiled a serene smile. “Narum told me what the chief told him. I’m still waiting for orders from my new reporting officer. Until he gives me an order to the contrary, we keep doing what we’re doing. If someone gets upset about that, they’ve got a problem with me, not you. And whatever they’re gonna do to me, they’ve got four days to do it. I can tell you for sure that nothing, absolutely nothing, related to personnel happens in four days.” Mars shifted in his chair. “Danny? When I came in, you said something about the rental car that we think John Sater was driving at DuCain Industries on August twenty-third.”

It was the best possible moment for Danny to have good news. “The rental car we know John Sater was driving at DuCain Industries on August twenty-third.

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