Chapter 61
Roger Teal looked up from his desk to see a man in his late fifties of slightly-above-medium height, his dark hair graying at the temples, his face set in what only a fool would have regarded as an unthreatening expression.
Without the benefit of a name and occupation, Teal would still have been on his guard; with both, he began actively shoring up his defenses, even as he did his best to hide his disquiet.
That it was the Bitch Berrien, as Teal called her (rarely aloud, and only when he was alone), who had brought this man to his door made him doubly wary.
It wasn’t so much that Berrien wouldn’t have pissed on Teal if he was on fire, but that she would happily have pissed on him, and not to put out the flames.
For years, she’d been nipping at his heels, asking for clarification on this and paperwork on that, which Teal had come to regard as an attack on his integrity.
This was even before she moved to Public Affairs, which gave her wider latitude to apply pressure, and more excuses to spread rumors about him.
The fact that Teal was dishonest, and his moral principles would hardly stand up to the most modest of scrutiny, was beside the point.
What annoyed him was that Berrien had assumed the worst of him from the start, and then set about trying to find evidence to support her convictions, which was tantamount to persecution.
Teal didn’t mind people taking a dislike to him, but he preferred that they make an effort to get to know him first.
Now, on top of everything else, Berrien was bringing a private investigator into his office, an investigator with questions about Spero.
Teal had hoped this particular bugbear of Berrien’s was laid to rest, since his formal involvement with Spero came to an end when the school ceased to draw on state funds.
But why would a PI be interested in the quondam funding of a private school?
The answer was that the investigation wasn’t about money—unless, of course, the department had employed a specialist financial investigator to look into certain matters, but then a) Teal would have heard about it long before anyone arrived at his door, because a mayfly had a longer life than a secret in the department, and b) from what he could recall of Parker from the newspapers, his specialty wasn’t forensic accounting but thuggery. So, definitely not a money matter.
Which came as a relief to Teal, who had managed to siphon a five-figure sum—okay, shading into six figures—during his time as the departmental inspector for the school, his cut of the deal he’d made with Santopietro.
But if the investigator wasn’t here to ask about misappropriated funds, why was he here? It couldn’t be about the Game—
Could it?
All this went through Teal’s mind in seconds, after which he spread his arms, palms raised upward like the Merciful Christ, and said: “Uh, why is the department employing a private investigator?,” even if he was ninety-nine percent sure that it wasn’t.
“Mr Parker isn’t here at the department’s instigation,” said Berrien. “He’s working on behalf of another client.”
Teal looked confused, and his next question was genuine.
“Then what am I permitted to share with him?”
“I’ll leave that to your discretion,” said Berrien. “As far as the department is concerned, we have nothing to hide, so feel free to be as open with Mr Parker as you feel comfortable.”
With that, she closed the door, leaving Teal alone with the investigator.