He continued to contemplate the philosophical dilemma while Lewis ranted and raved.
“Do you know what that made me look like? Emmett is furious with me,” he said, referring to the area commander.
Alec shrugged. “I don’t know what to tell you,” he drawled. He’d be damned before he’d apologize for making the jerk look bad.
Three more weeks with Lewis calling the shots suddenly seemed like an eternity, and Alec wondered if he could make it. He could barely stomach looking at the man. Lewis looked and acted like a freak. Vain to a fault, he always had a deep tan, no doubt from the tanning bed it was rumored he slept in at night. His exceedingly bright white capped teeth made his scowl all the more garish.
“I gave three weeks’ notice,” Alec said. “But if you’d like me to leave now, that’d be fine with me.”
“You’ve put me in a hell of a spot.”
“How’s that?”
“Emmett told me I had to talk you into staying. He seems to think you’re an asset. Needless to say, I don’t share that opinion.”
Alec shook his head. “My mind’s made up.”
Lewis slapped his palms down on his desk and leaned forward. “You know what your problem is, Buchanan? You’re not a team player.”
If the goal of the team was to make Lewis look good, then no, Alec decided, he wasn’t a team player.
“Do you want me to stay for three more weeks, or do you want me to leave now? It doesn’t matter to me.”
“You stay,” Lewis snapped. He sat down heavily behind his desk and began to push folders around, obviously trying to give the impression he was a busy man. He opened one and closed it. Reaching for another, he said, “You can clean out your files. Give whatever you’ve got pending to me, and I’ll distribute them to my loyal detectives.”
Alec wanted to ask who those men might be, but he didn’t think it was a good idea to antagonize Lewis, who could and would make his life miserable.
Without looking up, the lieutenant said, “For the next three weeks, you sit at your desk. You can do the phone work for Wincott.”
“Phone work for Wincott? What exactly does that mean?”
“It means you can answer the damn phone, and if Wincott needs any help, you’ll help,” he said. “From your desk.”
The urge to punch him was getting stronger. Alec was leaving when Lewis asked, “Do you have another job lined up?”
“Yes.”
“In Chicago?”
“No.”
He didn’t offer any more information, and Lewis didn’t press. Alec went to his desk and began to sort through his files. John Wincott came rushing across the room. He and Alec went way back. They had gone through the police academy together and had become good friends, but they hadn’t worked together until recently. Wincott used to be able to drink him under the table. Alec thought maybe he still could.
“Man, do you look bad.”
Alec wasn’t exaggerating. Wincott looked as if he hadn’t had any sleep in a decade. There were fat bags under his eyes and deep creases running down the length of his cheeks. He was only a couple of years older than Alec, but at the moment he looked ancient.
Wincott ignored the comment about his appearance.
“Did you get my message about the e-mail Regan Madison received?” Alec asked.
“Yes,” Wincott answered. “And I’ll be happy to talk about it in a minute. First, I want to ask you something. Is it true? You’re leaving the department?”
Alec nodded. “Yes.” His chair squeaked when he leaned back. “I was going to call you and tell you, but I guess Gil beat me to it.”
Wincott sat on the edge of Alec’s desk. He glanced beyond Alec’s shoulder to the lieutenant’s office. “I can’t blame you. I’d get out if I could.”
“I was ready for a change.” That response was becoming the pat answer. Alec decided he’d stick with it and wondered how many times he’d say it in the next twenty-one days.
“A change, huh? A change where?”
“I’m hoping Boston. I’m kind of homesick.”
Wincott lowered his voice and leaned toward Alec. “There’s a nasty rumor going around that you’re heading to the FBI.”
Alec smiled but didn’t confirm or deny it.
Wincott went on, “You have to come over for dinner before you leave Chicago. It’s gonna upset Suzie when she hears. My wife’s had the hots for you for years.”
“Is she still screaming my name when you’re having sex?”
Wincott laughed. “How the hell would I know? I can’t remember the last time I had any. There’s always at least one kid in bed between us, and now with the baby getting up every couple of hours, the only thing I want to have is sleep.”
“Spoken like a true married man,” Alec said.
Wincott grimaced. “Back to Sweeney,” he said. “We’re discovering that a lot of people wanted him dead, so I won’t be running out of suspects. We’ve been going through his stuff. No one can find his wallet. Hey, guess what? Sweeney kept a diary.”
Alec raised an eyebrow. “That’s a girly thing to do. I didn’t think Sweeney was the dear-diary type.”
Wincott laughed. When he smiled, he looked ten years younger. “It wasn’t that kind of a diary,” he said. “The idiot kept notes on all the people he was going to blackmail. I’m not speculating about that. He wrote it all down. Guess who was in the notebook with the drug dealers and the pimps?”
“Who?”
Wincott leaned in again. “Lewis.”
Alec perked up. “No kidding.”
“That’s right. Sweeney was going to take pictures and send them to his wife.”
“What kind of pictures?”
“Lewis with his mistress.”
Alec shook his head. “Now, that’s shocking.”
“I don’t think it’s so shocking,” Wincott argued. “I don’t know anyone who wouldn’t like to see Lewis take a fall.”
“I think it’s shocking that he could get two women to have sex with him.”
“One woman’s built like an ironing board but has some money, which is why he married her, and the other one doesn’t have any money but from what I hear, she’s loaded in other area, if you know what I mean.”
“Who else was in there?”
Wincott told him about some of the other deviants Sweeney was already blackmailing. “He even had a ledger of the cash he was going to be taking in and the amounts he was going to charge, kind of like a bank account. Who would write all that down?”
“He must have thought he’d never get caught.”
“Like I said, we’ve got a lot of suspects, but we’re narrowing it down. It looks like one of three drug dealers didn’t want to pay Sweeney’s bills. Maybe he was already shaking them down.”
“What about Regan Madison? How does she figure in this?”
“Don’t know,” Wincott said. “I haven’t had a chance to talk to her yet. I had to go back to the crime scene and I got stuck there. We did find her cell phone.”
Alec straightened. “Yeah? Where’d you find it?”
“In the bushes behind the dump Sweeney called home. We’re running what’s left of it for prints, but I don’t figure we’ll find any. The basement was wiped clean. Only prints around were Sweeney’s. The killer had to know what he was doing, and he was strong, real strong. Had to be,” he added, “to lift Sweeney’s body up like that with the rope. Oh, and by the way, we got the autopsy report. He was dead before he was stripped and hung.”
“How was he killed?”
“Asphyxiation,” he said. “So now I’ve got to wonder why the killer went to all that trouble to strip him and hang him. Bradshaw thinks it was for drama,” he said, referring to his partner.