He offered his hand and we shook. ‘I better get inside.’
‘Thanks. I appreciate your time.’
She was still on the porch waiting for him. He turned around and headed back into his more recent tour of duty.
I was a hundred yards from the green and white City Limits sign when I saw the unmarked black car behind me. Police. The landscape here was mostly light manufacturing or the remnants thereof. You had metal buildings but you didn’t have people walking among the metal buildings. Instead you had large forbidding padlocks on gates and CLOSED signs on the perimeter fencing.
He gave me a burst of siren that had the proper effect on my heart rate and mind. I drove another hundred yards until I found a place wide enough to accommodate both cars. Then I sat there the way he wanted me to do. He sat there, too, letting me sweat it out some. At least, hoping I was sweating it out. Now that the annoyance of being pulled over had passed, all I was concerned about was how long he’d been following me. He knew the turf. He could make himself invisible.
From what I could see of him in my rearview he was a young-looking black man in a gray suit, white shirt and blue-and-red rep tie. A Gentleman’s Quarterly cop? He was talking on his phone and I had no doubt he was talking about me. Hammell had set him on me for sure and now he was coordinating with Hammell just how hard he was to lean on me.
He was maybe six feet and slim and he walked with military crispness up to my car window. I hit the window button then handed him my wallet with the driver’s license facing him.
‘Thank you, Mr Conrad. That isn’t necessary.’ He wasn’t going to play any games. He was here to deliver a message. He showed me his badge and ID. Detective William Farnsworth.
I withdrew the wallet.
‘You are performing the activities of a licensed private investigator but as far as the police department can find, you don’t have any license.’ His short dark hair had touches of gray, Obama-style.
‘I’m not sure what you’re talking about.’
The smile was patronizing. ‘Then you’re good friends with the man you just visited?’
‘Is that any of your business?’
‘You were asking him questions because you’re working for Senator Logan. And you’re not working as a consultant. You’re working as a detective. You have a good record as an army investigator but that doesn’t give you any authority to work as an investigator out here.’
They’d spent some time on Google.
‘Detective Hammell would like you to limit your work here to your work as a consultant.’ He had leaned in a little closer to talk to me. His aftershave had a spicy scent. ‘I really need your word that you’ll cooperate.’
‘I’m afraid I can’t give you my word.’
He stood up. His face disappeared. Cars passed by in opposing lanes. Gawkers gawked.
His hand came down with a business card in it. Followed by his head. ‘Take this.’
‘What is it?’
‘The name and number of a reputable local investigator. Detective Hammell would like you to use him. That way you won’t get into trouble.’
‘That’s not exactly a recommendation.’
‘What’s not?’
‘That Hammell recommends him.’
‘Detective Hammell is trying to do you a favor.’ For the first time anger flashed through his words. The suit and button-down shirt and carefully cut hair might say corporate but the words were now pure cop.
‘I’ll take the card but I doubt I’ll call him. And I suppose that means that you’ll keep following me around.’
‘Me or somebody else.’
‘I have a right to—’
‘You have no right. So give it a rest. You understand?’
I’d pressed the wrong button.
‘Get out of the car.’
‘Hey, shit, c’mon.’
‘Out. Now.’
When I was standing next to the open door he said, ‘You carrying a gun?’
‘Not carrying. It’s in the glove compartment.’
‘Let’s see it.’
‘It’s a Glock. You probably know what a Glock looks like.’
He held out his hand, palm up. ‘The Glock. Now.’
So I leaned in and across to the glove compartment, dragged out the Glock and handed it to him.
‘Let’s see the permit to carry.’
‘It’s in my wallet.’
‘Let’s see the wallet.’
He watched me as if half expecting I was going to pull a second gun on him. I opened the wallet so the permit was visible and held it up for him to see.
‘Uh-huh.’
‘That enough for you?’
‘Yeah.’
‘I’d like to go.’
‘So would I, actually. But I have to keep tailing you. And the next time I think you’re asking questions only a licensed investigator should ask, I’m going to arrest you.’
‘Bullshit. I have a right to talk to anybody I want to. A legal right.’
‘Maybe and maybe not. But I’m going to arrest you. You’ve got the big fancy lawyer. If he’s such a hotshot he’ll probably be able to help you get out of our jail.’
A teenage boy in a passing car shouted something and then flipped us the bird. I flipped it right back.
‘Very mature, Conrad.’
He pretty much had a good point.
‘I’m going to make this official, Conrad. Detective Hammell, my immediate superior, wants to find the person who killed the Cabot woman. The medical examiner says she was killed around ten last night, by the way. Finding the killer is Hammell’s only interest. He’s an honest man. If Jane Tyler has told you otherwise then she’s telling you lies. The problem they have is strictly personal and doesn’t get in the way of the investigation. Detective Hammell is interested in Senator Logan for several obvious reasons. He knew the woman and she was found dead in his cabin. That’s for starters. So don’t think there’s any kind of vendetta going on here. You can believe this or not, but both Detective Hammell and I voted for Senator Logan because the douche bag who ran against him wanted to cut the budget so much we’d have to lay off a third of the force. I want to make all this clear.’
He returned gun and wallet. ‘I’m not harassing you. I’m trying to keep you out of trouble with the police. I’m doing you a favor.’
His buffed and shined black shoes kicked up some dust as he turned and started back toward his car, but then he stopped and walked back to me. ‘You may not know this yet, but a woman came to the police station last night and testified that the night before the Cabot woman died she saw her having a very angry argument with a man she says was Senator Logan. This took place in the parking lot of the Regency hotel around midnight. The woman works in the kitchen of the hotel. If I were you I’d think about hiring a professional investigator.’
I sat in my Jeep for a long minute absorbing what he’d told me. He followed me all the way into the city and right up to the parking lot of Jane’s office.
A woman testified that Robert and Tracy Cabot had been in an argument in the parking lot of the Regency.
What the hell else was Robert keeping from me?
Thirteen
‘Did he give you his name?’
‘Farnsworth.’
‘Bill Farnsworth. Right. Great guy and very good cop.’
‘I was hoping you’d tell me he was running drugs and pimping ten-year-olds.’
‘Sorry, I can’t help you there,’ Jane said. ‘He’s a good man. Despite my argument with Hammell, most of his people are good. The chief here is mostly a figurehead. Country club connections. In fact, he and Hammell argue a lot about sending officers to night school to study criminology and keep up on the technology. Hammell knows how important that is. We had a very corrupt and stupid police force here for years. And I knew that firsthand. I had a somewhat wild older brother and one night when he was sixteen they caught him drinking a beer behind the fence at a football game. And they beat him up so badly they broke his nose and two of his ribs. The bastard who did the beating was later arrested for trying to run his wife down with the family car and burglarizing several stores. A real sweetie. Hammell’s changed all that.’