I have never been one to answer questions without thinking about my response first. I was even more careful with Meagan, who had always been a verbal chess player.
"It's a favor for a friend," I finally said.
To her credit, she saw the answer as a blocking move and let it pass.
"And what have you come up with so far?" she said, moving right to the business at hand.
"Since both your case and the one in Florida have to do with women, I'm kind of surprised by the opinions women have of O'Shea," I said.
"Ah, you talked to the ex?"
"Yeah."
"Same old Max," she said with that smarter-than-you smile. "You have to see their eyes, right? Tell if the truth is there?" I looked straight into hers.
"She doesn't think the guy that she was married to for what, six years, was capable," I said.
"Right. But she didn't mind filing a domestic abuse charge against the guy to justify divorcing him so she could run off to Cherry Hill with her boyfriend the pharmaceutical salesman."
"According to her, the abuse wasn't physical," I said and caught the flavor of defense in my own voice.
"No shit," Meagan said, flatly.
"What? You don't believe it?"
"Oh, I believe it," she said and then turned to face me again. The look felt like an assessment. I must have passed.
"I dated him a few times, years ago, when he was trying to make SWAT."
Maybe she thought it was a confession that was going to shock me. But even if O'Shea hadn't already told me, I'm not sure I would have reacted. I took a drink, like it had nothing to do with me.
"He never made the team?" I said.
"Too aggressive. Not enough patience. Thought it was all gung ho shit. He was one of those who could never find the balance."
"He ever get aggressive with you?" I said. "I mean in a personal way?"
She gave me one of those "Who, me?" looks.
"You of all people, Max," she said. "He got pissed off once and raised a hand."
"And?"
"I slapped him first when he hesitated."
"And his reaction?"
"He apologized. Said he would never have actually hit me," she said. "Like I would have let him."
"Christ, Meg," I said. "And now you think he's capable of whacking some poor grocery store clerk to cover up a sex scandal out on the beat?"
One of the sweater guys nearby looked over. Meagan smiled at him and raised her eyebrows. I signaled the hostess that we were ready to sit down for dinner and paid the bar bill.
Meagan was true to her word on answering any questions I had about the departments' and internal affairs' investigation into the Faith Hamlin case. While we ate she described how IA isolated the officers on the differing shifts and found discrepancies in the night crews' stories of how often they stopped at the market and who had actually been the last to see Hamlin. Although good cops usually have well tuned bullshit detectors when they're talking to mopes on the street, it doesn't mean they're good liars themselves. Despite the polygraphs that three of the cops had passed, Meagan's investigators had done searches of all the officers' homes and cars, looking for any sign of Hamlin or DNA that could have indicated she'd been transported, dead or alive, by any of them. Nothing. They also crunched the time lines down on each man, making them give details on their whereabouts during every minute that they weren't on duty from the time Hamlin was last seen. Two of the guys were married and took the biggest hit. The media was all over the story. No one escaped being flayed in public. But O'Shea took the brunt. He was the only one who refused to cooperate. He stonewalled. He'd told them to charge him or leave him the fuck alone. He demanded a search warrant be served on his home and vehicles. He knew enough about the law to argue to a judge that the department had no evidence of a crime, that Faith Hamlin could have done anything from simply walking away from the embarrassment of the situation to throwing herself off the Ben Franklin Bridge. There were no indications of a crime and no body. Though she might have had the mind of a thirteen-year-old, Hamlin was legally an adult.
"So what does your gut tell you, Meagan?" I said when I ran out of questions. "Colin killed her and dumped her over in the Jersey Pine Barrens?"
"I don't have the kind of instinct you always seem to think you have, Max. Hell, he could have chopped her up and stuck her in a barrel. It's been done before. And by guys a lot smarter than him. He might have had nothing to do with her. None of the other three ratted on each other. They just came clean," she said, not letting the conversation spoil her appetite for the veggie wrap she worked her way through.
"But you know the old saying: If you got nothing to hide, why not talk?"
"Shit," I said, shaking my head because she knew better and every cop worth a damn knew better. A lot of people went to jail for crimes they didn't commit because they talked when they should have shut up. The only thing that let some cops and prosecutors live with that was the belief that it made up for the crimes the guy did do.
"So, Max. Speaking of talking," Meagan said, folding her napkin and resting her chin on the backs of her hands. "What have you got for me?"
I didn't hold out on her. I gave her the details of my meeting with O'Shea, including his admission that he'd dated a couple of the bartenders that had gone missing. I told her he'd been working private security and even detailed his participation in the alley fight.
She smiled at a thought, but didn't comment.
"Do you have an address for him?" she said.
"I'm sure detective Richards has an address, but I wasn't exactly tailing the guy, Meg."
"They have a trace on his phone or surveillance of some kind?"
"Not that I know of. As far as I know they're in the same bind you were in. No crime, no warrants, no taps or manpower."
"I don't know, Max," she said, folding her napkin on the table. "If that's all you have I'm not sure this was much of a trade."
I took my wallet out of my pocket without looking up at her, guessed at the bill total and put a few twenties on the table and slid my chair back.
"Yeah, it's not going to get you any captain bars," I said, getting petty by matching the dig.
"Oh, the jealous good ole boys' club got your ear already," she said.
"Hey, you've always been a multitasker, Meg. You find out what happened to your girl and get promoted for it, more power to you," I said, letting her lead the way out.
On the sidewalk the drizzle had stopped but it felt ten degrees colder. Meagan waved at a taxi that was parked across the alley in front of the Walnut Street Theatre. I opened the door for her and again she put her hand on mine.
"I was kidding with that trade comment, Max," she said.
"I know," I lied, knowing she had only been half kidding.
"It really was good to see you," she said and took a strand of her hair and carefully pulled it behind her ear and smiled. "Will you call if you get anything more from O'Shea that will help us, you know, with the girl?"
"You'll be the first," I said, and this time the kiss did not surprise me. It felt dry and perfunctory and did not even leave a warm spot on my chilled cheek. The next morning I flew back home to Florida.
CHAPTER 13
He was in her apartment, lying back on her bed, his work boots on the thin chemise bedspread, watching her get ready for work. Her face moved in and out of the mirror on top of her cheap dresser as she crimped her eyelashes and applied shadow and took particular care with liner. She caught him in the reflection and said: "What?"
"I'm just amazed at the work you put into all that when your eyes are already so beautiful."
"Yeah? How do you think we keep them so beautiful? We cheat," she said, smiling at him without turning around.
The few weeks they'd been together had been good. Sure he was kind of private, didn't like to stay and hang out with any of the other regulars at the bar when her shift was done. Didn't like to talk much with the other patrons and had pointedly asked her not to let anyone else know he was a cop. He said he had to be careful because it was like that situation with that prison asshole who scared the shit out of her that night in the bar when she saw him flash his badge. He said it should be a secret between them because he could get caught up in off-duty stuff like that and then he'd end up being liable and it made sense the way he explained it.