"Then put me in a room with him and turn off the intercom," Kaz insisted. "Five minutes, that's all I'm asking."
Lucy glanced at Ivar, who made a production out of ignoring them both. Then she checked the rest of the squad room before nodding. "All right—five minutes. But if Sykes shows up, you're out of there. This is irregular as hell—I could lose my job over a stunt like this." She rose. "I'll have him brought out to one of the interrogation rooms."
"Thank you."
"Don't thank me yet. And Kaz, be prepared. He put up a hell of a fight. It took four of our guys to subdue him, and they weren't too happy with him by the time it was all over. Two of them are in the emergency room right now, getting stitched up."
Kaz waited impatiently at Lucy's desk until she returned, then followed her into a room that was halfway down the hallway at the back of the building that led out to the parking lot. When she entered, Gary was sitting in one of the chairs, his hands and legs in shackles. Clint Jackson was standing guard in the corner. Lucy motioned for him to follow her, and after a moment's reluctance, he did.
Once they were alone, Kaz took Gary's face in her hands and gently turned it up to the light. His nose was bloody and slightly crooked, his lips split and ballooned to twice their normal size. Small cuts and areas darkening to bruises covered his face.
She unbuttoned the three shirt buttons that hadn't been ripped off and inspected his ribs. Black and purple splotches covered them. A small sound of distress escaped her lips. Who could've done this to him? What right did they have to cause this much damage?
He'd barely moved when she touched him, but his eyes slowly focused on her. He licked his lips and tried to speak, but she shushed him. To see him this way, in shackles, made her want to throw up. She swallowed hard. "So," she said, keeping her voice as light as she could. "I guess I should see the other guys, huh?"
One side of his mouth lifted slightly. "Kaz…" The word came out slurred, almost garbled. He closed his eyes and grimaced.
"Talk slowly and quietly." She glanced around at the closed door and the window, then moved so that anyone looking in wouldn't be able to read his lips. "They can see us but Lucy said she'd leave the intercom off for a few minutes to give us some privacy. Tell me everything you know, and Michael and I will take it from here."
He shook his head. "Get…out of…town."
She stooped to look directly at him. "Listen to me, Gary. We can find the evidence to clear you."
"I…don't matter…"
"Yes," she said fiercely, "you do. Don't you dare let them win, damn you. You tell me, and then you stay alive until I can get you out of here."
He stared at her for a long minute. "Trap door," he managed. "Svensen."
Kaz thought rapidly. "The trap door in Steve's office?" All the old waterfront bars had shanghai trap doors—doors in the floor that led to the water below the pier. In the old days, sailors had regularly been shanghaied, or kidnapped, and taken out to sea to serve as indentured crew on ships. "So Svensen goes to the tavern, picks up the money, then drops into a boat below the pier?"
Gary nodded, then sucked in a breath. "Svensen takes out…to be swapped for drugs." He tried to wet his lips with his tongue, and she rose to get him some water out of the cooler. She held it to his battered lips and trickled it into his mouth. He gave her a grateful look as he swallowed.
"Who is Karl's contact?"
Gary shook his head abruptly, then winced. "No…no way….Too dangerous."
Kaz let that go while she paced and thought it through. So how did Karl get away with regularly meeting someone out on the water and not being seen by the other members of the fishing fleet? The last piece of the puzzle fell into place. It was the obvious solution, and she'd even heard Karl say it herself. She hadn't put it together until now. And, she realized, no one else would've either. It would've escaped everyone's notice. Only a fisherman would've caught on, and only over time.
"You said you found notations in Karl's ship's log. Did any of them match to this?" She repeated what she'd heard Karl say over the radio when she and Michael had been out. Gary nodded.
She resumed her pacing. Okay. So she had the list of drop-off locations, and she also knew which one was for the next rendezvous. She had to find Svensen, follow him. If they could catch him in the act, they'd have enough leverage on him to get to whoever was in charge. Was today a day that they'd make a drop? It was Friday—a day most fishermen were superstitious about going out on the water. Which made it ideal—less people would be out there to observe what was going on. She'd bet Svensen was going out tonight.
She hugged Gary again, carefully, trying to will some of her strength into him. "I want you to rest, and to not worry. But most of all, I want you to stay alive until we get back."
"Sure."
Kaz frowned at him. Something wasn't right. She opened her mouth, but just then, she heard a commotion outside the door.
The door opened, and Sykes strode in, trailed by Lucy. He leaned over the table, his expression angry, one eye showing bruising underneath. "What the hell is going on in here?"
"Why hasn't he been treated?" Kaz demanded right back, not answering his question. "He could have internal injuries."
"That's a damn good question. McGuire?"
Lucy stared at Sykes, speechless.
"Do you mean that you didn't know about this?" Kaz asked, confused.
"Of course not. I've been out of the office since we apprehended him, putting ice on this black eye," he said. "You shouldn't be in here, Kaz. There's no way I'm giving you an opportunity to tell the judge that we compromised the legal process. Gary can see a lawyer, and that's it." He turned to pin Lucy with a hard look. "Was this your idea?"
Kaz deflected him, answering for her. "I was concerned about Gary's condition and demanded to see him. Clearly, he's in no shape to be making his own decisions. I will be immediately calling a lawyer to represent him, and I'd like you to delay arraignment until he can arrive."
Sykes shook his head. "We'll temporarily assign him a public defender. The DA won't agree to bail, anyway, not after the fight he put up when he was arrested. So all he has to do at the hearing is plead 'Guilty' or 'Not Guilty.'"
Kaz didn't like it, but she knew she couldn't stop him. "Why do you have him on suicide watch?"
Sykes stared at her for a long moment. "This is the first I've heard of it—I'll check it out." He came around the end of the table and gripped her elbow hard enough to leave bruises. "You're leaving, now."
Lucy, who was standing slightly behind Sykes, cocked her head toward the squad room, indicating that she wanted to talk.
Kaz glanced at Gary, who was watching the exchange with intense concentration. When he realized she was looking at him, though, he immediately dropped his gaze back to the floor. Something was horribly wrong, she could feel it.
"Go." Gary said, the word almost a whisper. He had slumped back in his chair, pain clouding his expression.
She jerked her elbow out of Sykes' grasp, walked back over to him, bending down. "What?"
Gary drew a long, shaky breath. "I'll be all right," he said, his voice stronger. "Just…go."
Back in the hallway, she walked over to Lucy's desk to retrieve her jacket. "I'm headed for the marina, then the Redemption. I'll call Michael on my cell phone—"
Lucy was already shaking her head. "You know he wanted you to wait for him."
"There's no time, he can catch up with me." Kaz glanced at her watch. Slack tide was in just under two and a half hours. She turned to leave, then stopped. "Wait—was there something you wanted to tell me?"