Sitting next to a man who was clearly a Legal Aid lawyer was Joe Gunther.
Freed of his cuffs at the door, Willy settled opposite them at the small table, his feet almost tangling with theirs, and addressed Gunther directly, ignoring the lawyer and his outstretched hand. "Now I know why I tried to stay anonymous."
Gunther didn't take offense. If anything, the attitude gave him hope that Willy was still functioning up to par. "Hi to you, too. And you almost got your wish. The AFIS took close to twenty-four hours to kick out your prints. You're a glitch wherever you go."
The lawyer tried asserting himself. "Mr. Kunkle, I thought you'd like to know our strategy in dealing with all this."
Willy barely glanced at him. "Just do what you got to do." He asked Gunther, "Is Sammie here, too?"
"You think I could keep her away?"
Willy scowled. "Shit. As if I didn't have enough on my plate already."
"She wants to help, Willy, and it's pretty obvious you need it."
"I need it from him"-Willy pointed at the lawyer- "not from you two."
"He's here because of us. I talked to the DA and the cops. Sammie was a character reference. Like it or not, we're helping you out. But I want something in exchange."
"Why? I didn't ask for any favors."
"You got 'em anyhow, and the biggest one is that you get to keep your job. The DA could've dropped the resisting arrest charge from the get-go, which is what's really hanging you up right now, but since the arresting cop was so pissed off, mostly because you put them all through a chase, the DA wants to do a little face-saving to appease the boys in blue. Your lawyer here will play his role, the DA'll do the same, and the judge'll have no other real choice but to kick you loose with time served. From our side, if you tell me what you were doing there, which I'm guessing had nothing to do with drinking, then I'll be able to clean your slate entirely with our bosses back in Vermont, and that'll be an end to it."
Willy pressed his lips together and didn't answer.
"Why were you there?" Gunther repeated.
"I was meeting a guy."
"What about?"
Willy struggled with the frustration boiling up inside him. He just wanted to get out of here so he could pick up where he'd left off. He didn't give a damn about his job or the good graces of his superiors or fulfilling any deal with his Boy Scout boss.
"Joe," he finally said. "This is private, okay? I got busted on some chickenshit thing that doesn't have anything to do with anything. If my job's in trouble because of it, then the whole bunch of you are stupider than I thought. Just get me out and leave me alone. And tell Sammie to mind her own business."
"She feels she is."
Willy was beginning to feel hot, almost dizzy, the past twenty-four hours threatening to take him over by force. He pressed his hand against his forehead, fighting the urge to simply strike out in anger. "What is it with you people? You don't have the right to tell me what to do. Due process will get me out of this dump, and some excuse about vacation time or bereavement leave or whatever the hell will get me off with the pencil pushers in Vermont. Or not-I don't give a shit. Just leave me alone, okay?"
He shifted his attention to the lawyer at this point, fixing him with a furious stare. "Do your job. Don't feed me strategy. Just spring me out of here."
The lawyer looked from one of them to the other. Joe Gunther nodded slowly and rose to his feet. "You two go ahead. Willy, you should be out by tomorrow morning, maybe the afternoon if things get jammed up downtown. If you don't act like a jerk and all goes as planned, Sammie and I'll see you afterward." He paused and leaned on the tabletop, putting his face close to Willy's. "I know what you're doing down here. I know you're not going to take Mary's death at face value till you can prove it to yourself." He quickly held up a hand to stop Willy from responding and added, "I'd do the same thing in your place. Just remember one thing, though, okay? You're not alone, much as you might think you are. And if Mary's death was anything other than what they're saying, you're also not the only one who wants to set that right." He straightened and finished by saying, "You know my pager number. I'm a phone call away."
He left the room, crossed the hallway, and exited the building through a double-doored vestibule where one door had to be locked before the other could be unlocked. At the other end, he retrieved the identity card he'd left with the CO there and went out to where he'd parked his car. There waiting for him was Sammie Martens.
"What happened?" she asked as soon as he'd slid in behind the wheel.
"For starters, you were right about not going in. He's wired so tight, his eyeballs are bulging. But I think he'll play ball with the DA. He is up to something, though-he didn't argue when I implied he was investigating Mary's death. I just don't know what he's got, if anything."
Gunther started the engine and put the car into gear. "One thing's for sure, though: As soon as he's out, he's going back on the trail, and I'd love to know exactly what that means."
Chapter 11
Ward Ogden rounded the corner from the hallway, sidestepped a cardboard box, and bumped into two colleagues standing before the new coffee pool list, consisting of all those officers who pitched in to pay for the squad's current flow of caffeine. The coffee pool was an NYPD standard, since the department didn't supply this perk, and was frequently more often a topic of debate than the various reasons they all worked here. In fact, as Ogden stopped in order not to collide with them, he saw one of them finishing up a succinct piece of graffiti reading, "Martinez is a cheap fuck."
Ogden laughed. "Didn't pay again?"
The writer shook his head sourly. "Says he kicked the habit, 'cept I saw him drinking some an hour ago. Looked like a kid caught smoking in the john, for Christ's sake."
The other man jerked his thumb toward the squad room. "You got guests, by the way. Out-of-town fuzz."
Surprised, Ogden stepped past them and entered the room to see an older man and a much younger, wiry woman both sitting by his desk. The man rose as Ogden approached.
"Detective Ogden? Joe Gunther and Sammie Martens. We're from the Vermont Bureau of Investigation."
Ogden shook their hands. "Colleagues of Willy Kunkle?" he asked, waving them back to their seats and sitting down himself. "Didn't we speak on the phone?"
"Good memory," Gunther commented.
Ogden maintained a friendly, seemingly relaxed demeanor, but Gunther could see the guardedness in his eyes.
"We don't see too many people from Vermont, especially cops. Three of you must be a pretty big percentage of the total."
Gunther laughed. "Only a thousand of us-true enough."
Ogden nodded, looking amused. "Wow. We have over forty times that just in the five boroughs." After one of those miniature but detectably awkward pauses, he added, "So, what brings you down? Your guy find something?"
The phrasing caught Gunther's ear. "Was there something to find?"
Ogden smiled thinly, the look in his eyes spreading across most of his face. "We didn't think so."
He didn't say anything more, making his question about why they were there hang in the air between them.
Gunther was the first to address it. Sammie had obviously chosen to let the two old warhorses feel each other out on their own. "He's into a bit of trouble-got picked up in a sweep in an after-hours bar."
Ogden recalled Willy's admission to being an alcoholic. "Drinking?" he asked.
Gunther shook his head. "Not according to him, and not from what I just saw when I visited him at Rikers. He claims he was talking to someone, I think about how his wife died."