The Garden of Betrayal - Lee Vance [85]
I wiped sweat from my forehead, wincing as I inadvertently tugged at my bandage.
“Rashid was a good buddy of yours, wasn’t he?” Reggie asked gently.
I shrugged, not ready to start down that path. Rashid had been a friend, a colleague, and a mentor. He was one of the few people I could talk to about almost anything, and he’d always been there for me. At the end, I’d suspected him of betraying me, and he’d died before I could ask him for help on the one thing that mattered to me most.
“I’d like to get out of here now.”
“Doctors want to keep you overnight.”
“No. Fix it for me, please.”
He tapped a thumb against the side of his leg, frowning.
“Doctors aren’t as suggestible as regular people. And we got another problem.”
“I can’t deal with any more problems.”
“I hear you. But you’re going to have to make a statement. Investigating officers will be here soon to talk to you. You have to decide how much to tell them.”
“Why not everything?”
“Might be the right thing to do. But the department likes to keep things simple. You start talking about all that stuff you have taped to your hotel-room wall and their heads are going to spin. That whole cold-case thing is only on TV. Real life, the powers that be only worry about what’s in the paper today and what’s going to be in the paper tomorrow. First priority will be to nail a guy for doing Rashid. Beyond that, it might play either way.”
“Meaning?”
“NYPD side of things is being supervised by Deputy Chief Ellison, guy you met in Walter’s office.”
“Great.”
“Chief’s not stupid, no matter how many pops he has in him, but he is political. He might assign a team of people to get to the bottom of this whole thing, or he might decide to leave well enough alone. It depends on what he thinks will work better for him with the mayor and the press.”
“What do we care if he decides to leave it alone? We can still keep working on this thing ourselves unofficially. Right?”
“Not as easily,” Reggie said, shaking his head. “It’s one thing for me to be poking around outside my territory when no one’s paying attention, but it’s another for me to keep at something when I’ve been ordered to stand down. Chief doesn’t let much slide, and I want to clear some more names off my list before I pull the pin.”
“So, you’re suggesting I keep my mouth shut about everything except the basic facts.”
“It’s a judgment call, but yeah, that’s how I’d play it right now. We might be able to lean on the Feds later for some informal help, if we need it. I have good relationships there.”
I crossed my arms and tucked my fists up into my armpits, struck by a sudden chill. There were too many powerful people in the mix for me to risk coming clean just yet—Senator Simpson, Walter, the Saudis. Any of them could bring intense political pressure to bear to orchestrate a cover-up, if necessary.
“Fine,” I said, feeling shakier by the moment. “But I got to tell you—I can’t take any more people dying. It seems like everything’s been going sideways on me for a long time, and now it’s all picking up speed.”
“I been there,” he said. “Lots of times. You just got to hang on.”
One of the green curtains jerked sideways. I expected the nurse, but it was Deputy Chief Ellison at the foot of my bed, Lieutenant Wayland directly behind him.
“Irish Reggie Kinnard,” the chief said. “As I live and breathe.”
“Chief,” Reggie replied evenly.
“He got that nickname in the four-one,” the chief confided to the lieutenant sotto voce. “First year out of the academy. You know why?”
“Boozer?”
“No more than anyone else,” the chief muttered irritably. “No, they called him Irish because he was old school, inclined to solve problems with a minimum of paperwork.”
“New department these days,” the lieutenant observed piously. “New rules.”
Reggie laughed. The lieutenant looked angry, but the chief smiled.
“I been meaning to look you up,” he said