The Ghost of Truckee River by Brent Kroetch

Author:Brent Kroetch [Kroetch, Brent]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2017-07-16T23:00:00+00:00

11

SUSPICIOUS MINDS

Did he say he’d meet Charlie back at Blake’s? Ham should have known better. Charlie went wherever she wanted, whenever she wanted, whether wanted or not. On the plus side, he had to admit that her presence could end up an asset, given the thinly disguised superciliousness of Detective Wilson Phillips, apparent de facto chief of the Honolulu Police Department’s “You Don’t Want To Mess With Me, I’m A Cop, You’re Only A Civilian” squad. He gave the impression that, despite Martina’s introductory smoothing, his nose was still bent by an out of town ex-cop invading his province. Charlie’s wit and easy charm might smooth the edge off that pique, if not his condescension.

Now, waiting for His Nibs to return, and as Charlie opened her mouth to speak, Ham shushed her with a quick but firm shake of the head. This was a game that he knew all too well, as well as anybody on earth. If Phillips was going to make them wait, hoping to learn whatever—or merely to jangle their nerves—then Ham would make certain that Phillips wasted an much of his day as they themselves were forced to exhaust.

Unless the cop was unfamiliar with Ham’s previous occupation, the approach was without investigative reason. To Ham, this meant that Detective Phillips either grossly underestimated him, which would be good, or that Phillips was deliberately poking Ham in the eye, which would not. Either way, the aggravation of dealing with such an overbearing miniature prick would be considerable, as would the necessary nuisance of playing fence and parry with a skilled adversary.

Hoping to defuse just a potentially incendiary interview, Ham had voluntarily relinquished his gun, a leap of faith that had purchased him nothing other than a sharply worded command to produce his permit to carry in Hawaii. To nobody’s surprise, the Las Vegas P.I. lacked said permit. Whether the weapon would be returned had yet to be determined but, despite the possible hazard, he believed he’d done the right thing and knew that would do so again. He’d been on the other end far too often to put another cop in the uncomfortable position of placing an armed and largely unknown player across the table from him, even in his own court. That would epitomize an unpardonable sin under any circumstances, but most especially cop to brother cop.

Ham had hoped that his forthright manner would induce a small amount of camaraderie or, at the very least, decrease any lingering tension that might have existed given his failure to surrender himself after the shooting at the cafeteria where Kane was killed. Instead, it seemed to have heightened Phillips’ suspicion. His reaction had been to toss them here into this interview room, with a barely smiled apology for the wait they would have to endure before he would be able to return after he finished up a report that was “due on the captain’s desk within the hour.” On the plus side, he did promise to bring coffee back with him.

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