“Ms. Edens,” Normandy placated, “if you’ll just calm down—”
“Oh, you did not just tell me to calm down!” she shrieked, blue fire shooting from her eyes. It was a good thing Normandy was mostly bald or his hair might’ve burst into flames. “And let’s get something straight right now, I’m not going anywhere with you until I get a chance to speak with my father!”
And Bill could admit he, too, would like a chance to confront Patrick Edens before the CPD carted the sonofabitch off to a nice, tidy jail cell. If only to look into the man’s eyes when he admitted what low-down, dirty, scum-of-the-earth he really was.
Then again, a confession was probably a little too much to hope for, but Bill still wanted to see the man’s face when his daughter finally stood up to him. The part of him that remembered being looked down upon and openly sneered at had waited a very long time to see the lion bearded in his own den.
And in the name of avoiding an immediate police-cruiser ride down to the station and missing his chance to witness said bearding, he stepped away from the group, pulled his cell phone from his pocket, and punched in Chief Washington’s number. As he listened to it ring on the other end, he watched Normandy produce a notepad from the inside pocket of his wrinkled suit coat.
“Why would you need to speak with your father?” he heard Normandy ask, but he didn’t catch Eve’s response, because right at that moment Washington answered with a gruff, “What the hell do you want, Reichert?”
Taking a few more steps away from the group, Bill explained the situation to the CPD police chief.
“Hell, no!” was Washington’s immediate response to his request that he keep Normandy off their backs for a couple of hours. “If Patrick Edens is really behind Ms. Edens’s recent mishaps and tonight’s attempted murder, then you need to let Detective Normandy do his goddamned job. Let him question the man and—”
“You know as well as I do,” Bill interrupted, “if the police approach Patrick Edens first, he’ll lawyer-up quicker than I’ll be able to say I told you so, and we’ll miss any opportunity we had at surprising him into a confession.”
“Yeah, right. You’re crazier than I thought, and I already thought you were bat-shit crazy, if you’re under the impression a man like Patrick Edens will cop to trying to kill his own daughter,” Washington snorted. “Besides, anything he admits to you won’t stand up in court. It’ll be nothing but hearsay. Unless…this isn’t about a confession at all, but revenge? That’s it, isn’t it?” Washington’s bass boomed through the connection. “Don’t you even think about going all vigilante on his ass, Reichert! You may be some hot-shot, super-secret agent, but you’re a Chicago citizen, too. Which means you fall under the purview of a little thing known as Illinois law and—”
“Cool your jets, Chief,” Bill cut in. “I’m not going to kill the guy. I just want to give Eve the opportunity to look the man in the eye and tell him she knows what he’s been up to.”
“It’s too dangerous,” Washington insisted. “If he is the man behind these attacks, then what’s to keep him from plugging her then and there?”
“You mean with two witnesses watching? Me and Mac? Come on, Chief. Give me—”
“Hand me the phone.” Bill turned to see Buchanan standing behind him, the man’s hand extended in his direction.
His first instinct was to tell Eve’s cousin to fuck off, but he reminded himself of how hard Buchanan had been working—begrudgingly albeit—to help them. So, instead he tempered his response to, “Excuse me?”
“I couldn’t help but overhear,” Buchanan said. “I know you’re talking to my police chief, and I think I have a way to convince him to let you have what you want.”
Bill lifted his brows, making his skepticism known, and then handed the phone over. He listened as Buchanan said something about a wire being inadmissible in court but going a long way in securing a search warrant before the man fell silent, no doubt intent on Washington’s response on the other end.
Then he gave Bill a thumbs-up and handed back the phone.
“What’s up, Chief?” Bill asked.
“Two hours,” Washington muttered, and Bill shot a mental fist in the air. “I’ll give you two hours to do your confronting. Jeremy’s gonna give you a wire for Eve, and I want you to make damned sure she wears it!”
“You got it.”
“And then when those two hours are up, I want all your asses down at the goddamned station answering any goddamned questions Normandy thinks to throw your goddamned way!”
Three goddamns in the same sentence? Washington meant business. “You have my word,” he was quick to assure the man.
“And in the meantime, just in case Edens thinks to vamoose himself from the city, I’m sending unmarked units to keep an eye on him. You hear what I’m saying to you, Reichert? You catch my meaning?”
Bill rolled his eyes. He may be crazier than Washington thought he was, but he wasn’t stupider. “You’re telling me I shouldn’t do anything hinky, because, if I do, your watchdogs will see it and then they’ll be forced to cuff me and throw me in the nearest eight by ten.”
“Bingo,” Washington said. “You’re not as dumb as you look, white boy.” Ha! Well, you can take the man out of the Marines, but you can’t take the Marine out of the man. The drill sergeant in Washington tended to pop up when least expected. “And tell Normandy to call me immediately!” he yelled before the line went dead.
Bill thumbed off his cell phone and turned to walk back toward the group. Buchanan, striding beside him, asked, “How the hell do you know my police chief?”
Well shit on a stick…
“Uh…a former military connection,” Bill lied. “We go way back. But I don’t think all the semper-fi love on the planet would’ve changed his mind about this plan before you stepped in. So, thank you. I really think Eve needs this.”
Jeremy snorted. “Yeah, well, don’t thank me too quickly. If this blows up, my name will be Mud with the CPD, and I might need to come to you for a job. I’ll be honest and tell you right now that I’m total shit in the mechanic category, but I’m a quick learner.”
Bill slid the man a sidelong glance. Buchanan as a Black Knight? Two days ago he would’ve laughed at the idea. Now? Not so much…
“I’ll run and get the wire from my duty vehicle,” Buchanan said.
“You’re not going with us?”
“I wish. I’d like nothing more than to see Eve finally stand up to her father.” And that made two of them. “But that was my partner who called a minute ago, and I’m still on the clock.”
Bill nodded and watched Buchanan spin on his heel and jog down the alley. Turning back, he closed the distance to the group and handed his cell phone to the detective who was still attempting to question an uncooperative Eve.
“What’s this?” Normandy asked, one bushy gray eyebrow sliding up his age-spotted forehead.
“It’ll be your police chief on the other end once you hit redial,” Bill said, trying not to sound overly pleased with himself.
The look on Normandy’s face before he turned away to do as Bill suggested told him he’d failed in that endeavor. He couldn’t bring himself to care overly much, especially when, after a quick conversation, the detective turned back to him, gaze speculative. “You’ve got two hours,” the man said, echoing Washington’s decree. “Then I expect to see you at the station.”
“You got it,” Bill repeated the assurance he’d given to Washington before glancing over at Eve. “Now, let’s go question your father, shall we?”