Chapter Twenty-Six
Parker
Nate and I don’t make it three steps past the bullpen before AJ pokes his head out of his office. “You two. In here. Now.”
Shit.
“I did nothing,” Nate declares. “And Parker got through the whole Mallon bullshit without punching anyone.”
AJ drops into his chair, brows shooting toward his hair line. “Are you feelin’ okay, Parker?”
I’d roll my eyes if AJ hadn’t looked so serious when he called us in. “I only punch people who threaten Grace. Or Emi. Or Isabel. Or…” I stop before I dig myself a hole I can’t get out of. “Never mind. What’s goin’ on?”
“Mallon give you any hassle about accessin’ the Haight file?” He takes a sip of coffee, grimaces, and sets the mug down.
“Nah,” Nate says. “He knows what’ll happen to him if his shoddy police work sees the light of day.”
“Good.” AJ slides a piece of paper across his desk. “The state’s communications office wants the two of you—and Flint—to schedule a press conference at four p.m. today to talk about these fires.”
I scan the printout. AJ’s being…diplomatic at best.
The Department of Public Safety Media Relations is calling a joint press conference for 1600 today.
Captain Parker Elmore and Captain Nate Hardison with the Ranger Division, and Eliot Flint with SFMO will appear and speak to the deaths that occurred at the Aldrich Street fire and any possible linkage to the fires in Williamson County.
This office has received four separate inquiries in the past thirty-six hours. This is non-negotiable.
“Since when does Media Relations get to tell us anything is non-negotiable?” I ask.
AJ eyes his coffee mug like what’s in there might have improved in the past ten seconds, then shakes his head. “Since the Castillo family went to Captain Vern at APD and asked why no one was working Delia and June’s case.”
Shit. “What did Vern say?”
“That they should talk to us.” AJ pushes to his feet and starts to pace behind his desk.
“The man’s a fuckin’ idjit. I thought we’d turned a corner this past month.
Hell, he even bought me coffee last time we met up.
And now he pulls this shit. His chief’s puttin’ him on the podium next to you, so when he gets here, you’re gonna have to play nice. ”
Nate leans closer to me. “That means no punching him.”
“I know what it means. I don’t have to like it.” I rub a hand lightly over the bandage on my thigh. The wound is healed up enough to itch, and it’s been driving me up a wall since before the sun even thought about rising. “What time is he gracing us with his presence?”
“Three thirty,” AJ says. “Get Flint over here. Prepare a statement, answers to all the usual questions, and we’ll review it before Vern shows up.”
He braces his hands on the back of his chair, gripping it hard enough some of the blood leaves his fingertips. “Three dead in less than a week. We’ve gotta get this one right. Before anyone else dies. Get out of here. You’ve got work to do.”
By three, the conference room looks like someone threw a grenade into a paint store. Nate stands at the whiteboard, five different dry erase pens tucked into his back pocket, and a sixth in his hand. There are enough colorful arrows up there to make a subway map jealous.
AJ leans against the far wall. “This is good. Disturbing, but good.”
“As long as no one says the word pattern, we might be okay,” Nate says.
Eliot looks up from his laptop. “Care to explain?”
“One reporter hears the word pattern, they’ll start asking why we’re using it for fires in two different counties.
They’ll start asking about the accelerant, about what else the fires have in common, and I’ll have to recite useless facts about the origins of the word ‘pattern’ for at least two hours before everyone gets tired of listening to me and goes home. ”
“Two hours. On the etymology of the word pattern? I’d like to see you try.” Eliot shakes his head, and I cringe. He has no idea what he just signed himself up for.
“Pattern. From patron. Same word, actually, all the way from its origins in Latin. Pater meant father. That evolved to patronus, then the Old French word—patron. Meant protector and template at the same time. Sometime in the sixteenth or seventeenth century, people got tired of being confused and that’s how pattern was born.
Either that or the guys responsible for dictionaries got paid by the word. ”
Eliot turns to me. “Is he serious?”
“About this? Yes.” I check my watch. “Nate, that was ninety seconds. Not two hours.”
“Eliot said I couldn’t go two hours. I’m just getting started,” Nate deadpans.
“No, you ain’t.” AJ pushes off the wall. “Captain Vern’s gonna walk in here any minute. Clean up this mess and get your talkin’ points in order. Press conference starts in less than an hour.”
I stare at the table. Eliot and I barely touched our lunches. Nate wanted food from some place called Om Blends and Bowls, and since I didn’t recognize a single thing on the menu, I told him to order for me.
Big mistake.
My bowl had soggy granola, a deep purple puree that tasted like wet feet, and strips of mango that had seen better days. Eliot didn’t fare much better. Though his bowl had tofu, at least.
I sweep the containers into the trash while Nate straightens the stacks of papers on the table.
“I’m goin’ to the vending machine. You want anything?” Eliot offers, a small wince tightening his lips when he gets to his feet. “I won’t make it to Rachel’s tonight if I don’t get some calories in me.”
“Peanut butter crackers. The bright orange ones. And a Dr. Pepper?” I reach for his hand, then remember we’re at work. With Nate in the room. I let my fingers slip from his. “Thanks.”
The conference room door shuts with a click that feels louder than it is.
Nate finishes erasing the one section of whiteboard we decided Vern shouldn’t see yet—our suspicions about Roger Haight.
“If I had reservations at Rachel’s tonight, I wouldn’t risk anything in that vending machine.
Some of that shit’s been there since the Truman administration. ”
I chuckle, but my partner arches a brow, his expression as serious as I’ve ever seen it. Panic takes over.
“Look, don’t tell AJ. He’ll tell Grace, and I’m not having that conversation until I’m damn sure there’s a reason to have it.”
I shouldn’t keep secrets from my closest friends, but Eliot and I have only shared a handful of kisses. We could end the night in bed—giving me plenty to talk about at girls’ night on Friday—or crash and burn the second we sit down to dinner.
Nate turns an imaginary key against his lips, then tosses it away. “I stand by my earlier statement, though. Those crackers could kill you. They glow, Parker.”
“Relax. Kenny brings a fresh stash every week.”
“Kenny?”
“Yeah, the guy who restocks the machines.”
He shakes his head. “You’re on a first name basis with…the vending machine guy. I worry about your cholesterol, Parker. Every damn day.”
Eliot shoves a potato chip into his mouth and washes it down with the last of his Dr. Pepper. My peanut butter crackers are long gone, my blood sugar a hell of a lot happier now that I’ve ingested enough preservatives to keep me going for at least the next twenty years.
Nate keeps muttering about how he tried to be supportive, but he’s the only one in this office who seems to care about staying alive past the age of fifty.
The clock on the wall ticks over to three thirty, and, right on schedule, AJ opens the door and walks in, followed by Captain Ellis Vern in his APD dress blues.
He holds his hat in both hands, only meeting my gaze for the length of a lightning strike before staring back down at his polished black shoes.
No one offers him a chair. Hell, the only sound in the room is the ticking clock. AJ closes the door and leans against it, arms crossed, letting the silence do the work.
Vern clears his throat. The man’s not much over six feet tall, but he’s got a beer gut that won’t quit.
“You’d be well within your rights to toss me out that door right fuckin’ now,” Vern starts. His thumb traces a grove in the brim of his hat. “I fucked up. June Castillo’s mama came to see me this mornin’, wondering why none of my guys had given her any update on the death of her only daughter.”
“And you threw us under the goddamn bus,” AJ grits out. “We had coffee the other day, Ellis. I thought we agreed that workin’ together was a hell of a lot better than bein’ at each other’s throats.”
“She was cryin’,” Vern says, still staring down at his shoes. “I ain’t married, Stone. I don’t know shit about comfortin’ a crying woman. I panicked. Blamed your department and hoped she’d go away. That was a weak-as-shit move.”
“Yup,” AJ says.
Vern’s throat works again. “Then Mallon bursts into my office, runnin’ his mouth about these two”—he gestures to me and Nate—“harrassin’ him over some case he closed more than a year ago. I was pissed. No one looped me in, and I believed him. Why wouldn’t I? He was one of my guys.”
With a shake of his head, he clutches his hat tighter to his gut.
“I pulled the file an hour ago. Didn’t have to get past the first page before I suspended the idjit for three days without pay.
Gonna have to audit all his closed cases now.
If I find one more fuckin’ thing he buried or ignored or just decided not to care about, three days will be the least of his problems.”
“Mallon’s complete lack of investigative skills aside,” AJ says, checking his watch, “we’ve got eighteen minutes before a mess of reporters are gonna want some answers. This is a Department of Public Safety investigation. APD is assisting. We clear on that?”
Vern sweeps his gaze around the room—paperwork labeled with color-coded Post-Its, the whiteboard, Nate’s meticulous notes—and nods. “We’re clear. This is your show. Just tell me what role I’m playin’ in it.”