The Quickie - James Patterson [24]
“That’s a lot of files,” Trahan said, shaking his head grimly. “Scott had hundreds of collars. He was one of the best undercovers I ever worked with.”
He sure fooled me, I thought, remembering his wife and family.
I turned away from the pain in Trahan’s bloodshot eyes. He looked as if he’d lost a best friend more than a co-worker.
“Wait a second,” Detective Marut said. “Has Scott’s family been told? My God, how will Brooke handle it? All those kids. I think four.”
“Three children. We just got back from the notification,” I said. “And she’s handling it about as well as you would expect.”
It sounded like a gunshot went off when Scott’s partner, Roy Khuong, suddenly kicked the side of his desk. Paper went flying as he swept the entire contents of the desktop onto the floor before storming out of the room.
Mike shook his head, took out his cell phone, and started dialing a number.
“Who are you calling?” I said.
“Wake up the ADA on call,” he said. “I’m going to get him to start on the subpoena to bring up the LUDs on Scott’s house and cell phones.”
My breath caught. LUDs were local usage details, a printout of the phone company records that would show every phone call to and from Scott’s phones.
Including all the times Scott had called me!
Five minutes later, Mike stopped in the stairwell on our way upstairs to our squad room.
“Lauren, your eyes are gray,” he said.
“What are you talking about? They’re blue,” I said.
“I meant the whites of them,” Mike said. “You’ve been banging a mile a minute since this thing started. We’re in a holding pattern now. It’ll be morning before we get a real handle on anything. You live ten minutes away. Why don’t you scoot home for a couple of hours of shut-eye. I was scheduled to work this shift. I’ll mind the store.”
Part of me didn’t want to leave my partner’s side, or to possibly miss something on the case. Who the hell knew what would happen next? But out the grimy stairwell window behind Mike, I couldn’t help noticing how the streetlights were starting to swim. I was exhausted.
Whoever said moving and divorce were the two most stressful events in your life never had their husband shoot their lover.
Collapsing wouldn’t help things, I decided.
“Okay, Mike,” I said. “But call me the second you hear anything. Anything at all.”
“Go home, Lauren.”
“Okay. I’m gone. I’m out of here.”
Chapter 35
I CUT MY MINI’S ENGINE in my garage and was getting out, when I heard something weird in the far-right corner. I guess I was a little jumpy, because immediately my Glock was drawn, sights center-massed on the seated figure there.
Until I realized it was Paul.
I clicked on the lights before I finally holstered my weapon.
Paul was snoring in a lawn chair beside his toolbench. On the concrete floor beside him was a bottle of Johnnie Walker scotch. With maybe one shot left in it.
Oh yeah, and Paul wasn’t wearing any clothes. He was bareass naked.
He was also wasted. Blotto. Three sheets to the wind, as they say. Maybe four.
How bad I was feeling tonight wasn’t a fraction of what was going on with Paul, I realized, staring at his troubled, unconscious face.
I knocked off the last shot in his bottle before I tried to shake him awake. No response.
One of his eyes flipped open when I tugged his earlobe. I pulled at his right hand until he stood.
He mumbled something, but I couldn’t make it out as I brought him into the house. I’d never seen him so drunk.
I almost threw my back out, trying to steer him into our bedroom. I finally laid him on top of the bed, and I brought over the wastebasket in case he was sick.
I was just able to make it into the bathroom myself before all the pent-up stress exploded out of me in violent sobs.
Where the hell was all this going? What did I think I was doing, playing dumb in the investigation? This wasn’t a game. Scott Thayer was dead. Few things on this earth bring down more scrutiny than an NYPD cop getting murdered. Did I think I could bluff my way through this? Was I crazy?
I thought