by Fuller, Levi
“I’ll be sending you an email later, around noon. My man came through, but I have to clean it up before sending, or we'll all be in trouble.”
Kate relaxed her tone. “Right. Thanks, Matt. I really appreciate it. Truly.”
He breathed a small chuckle. “I know. Hey, any idea when you’ll be back?”
Kate sighed. “No. Say hi to everyone else for me, okay?”
“Sure, Boss.”
Kate smiled and disconnected. She hadn’t realized how attached she had become to her little hand-picked group.
She glanced at her watch. Three and a half hours until noon. That was enough time to get through Olsen’s stuff and verify the cases from yesterday. Then all she had to do was read the email and hope that when she called in that evidence, Adams didn’t try to stop her. Adams had been clear. No friends. No family. Nothing that would give Olsen a way to weasel out of this.
Kate looked at the ceiling. Maybe she was pushing it too far. She nodded. Depending on what information Matt’s source had uncovered, she’d ask Adams to call in the evidence and run the tests. That way, Olsen would have nothing to pick on. It was a risk, but likely a lesser risk.
Kate had been refreshing her email box every five minutes for the past forty when a new email finally arrived. She opened it, with excitement pounding through her veins, and read quickly. Matt’s source had been thorough. She felt a grim mood settle over her as she read the lines that showed two clear trails of bribery. One to the witness—a name she didn’t recognize, but would bet her job here that it was an employee who had access to the blood samples.
She sent Jack a message with the new name and a request to meet later, then went in search of Adams. It was time.
3
“If this is a joke, it is in poor taste, Summers.”
Kate bit her tongue. She had decided that she could only tell Adams so much. While the woman had been willing to give her a shot and wasn’t having any of Olsen’s bullying, she would not take kindly to Kate voicing her gut instincts that slandered Olsen. Matt’s contact had found proof of bribery, but not who initiated it yet. The witness and the other person named had accepted payment hours before the incident with Kyle. He’d also found an encrypted message that left things pretty clear that the one target was to defame a man matching Kyle’s description, and the other was to make a specific set of blood work vanish.
But Kate couldn’t tell Adams any of that, because, unlike Jack, she would not budge until Kate had explained exactly how she came about such knowledge. That was the problem with having used shady channels.
Kate met the older woman’s gaze and Adams arched an eyebrow. Kate drew a deep breath. “Look, I’m not asking you to do anything out of the ordinary. I am just asking you to examine the evidence and see if there is anything that might work to prove Kyle’s innocence.”
Adams looked at her desk, tapping her pen. “You seem to want him back on this case pretty badly.”
“Of course I do. Apart from the trouble I went through to get him back here in the first place, Kyle’s a damn good detective, and this whole department is all the poorer for not having him here.”
Adams met her eyes again and seemed to be calculating and debating something, but then she shrugged. “Tell you what. You find me something such as a cause to look into the evidence Olsen’s locked up, and I’ll do it.”
Kate gritted her teeth so that she wouldn’t be tempted to raise her voice. “How? I can’t have a hand in this, or Olsen will throw it out, no matter what we find.”
“What makes you so certain he didn’t do it?” Adams asked, sidestepping Kate’s point. “You weren’t here; you didn’t see how Rebecca’s death floored him.”
Kate shut her eyes. “You’re right. I wasn’t here when Becky died, but I found out enough to know why it did him in.” She opened her eyes, looking Adams hard in the eyes. “He was right, you know. Kyle. There was a second perp, and I’m going to ensure he is found. That’ll give Kyle the closure he needs, and that is why I know he didn’t do this. He knows what I am working on. He wouldn’t throw away his shot at redemption.”
Surprise flared in Adams’s eyes, and then she nodded once. “Fine. I’ll send out a call for Detective Carson to come in. Maybe he has something I can twist into probable cause.”
Kate grinned and winked. “Already done. He’ll be here within the next hour.”
****
“Please tell me you have something good?” Kate asked, practically bouncing on the balls of her feet, as Jack appeared in the entrance to the forensic building.
Jack took her in with a look of amusement, before nodding. “I did. Found enough to suspect Samuel Gibbins of tampering with the logged blood work that day.”
Kate recognized the name that Matt’s contact had sent and smiled. “That’s perfect.”
“How did you find out about him, anyway?”
“Never mind that,” Kate said, unsure how he’d react to the truth. “What is important is that you tell Adams now so that we can get that “evidence” thrown out.”
He gave her a long look but nodded and went to talk to Adams. Kate stayed in her office. It was better if no one saw her with Jack and Adams. That was, no one could claim she’d cornered them. Instead, she opened the tracker all these computers had to see where any piece of evidence was at any given moment within the building.
“All set. I’m heading back now,” Jack said, appearing beside her desk some twenty minutes later.
Before she could even answer, the tracker pinged, and she grinned. “Fantastic. Thanks Jack.”
“No need to thank me. I come off looking like a super detective with finds like that.”
Kate chuckled. “There’s one more thing I need you to do today.”
“What is it?”
“Track down that witness again. This time, armed with their bank statements. See if they can explain that away. When they can’t, offer them a deal to come clean.”
Jack’s brow furrowed. “You’re saying they were bribed? By whom?”
Kate sighed. “I don’t know that yet, although, you know who my money is on. The point is that, yes, they were bribed—and so Kyle is free. I just need you to get the pieces all lined up.”
Jack chuckled. “I’d best get to work then, I guess.” He rose then turned back. “I’m visiting Kyle later. Do you want to come?”
Kate nodded. “Sure, but Jack? Let’s leave any talk of bribes out of it.”
“Why?”
“Because if I am right, I don’t want Kyle doing anything to compromise his position.”
“If you are right, won’t he just be attacked again?”
“Depends how stupid his enemy is; but don’t worry. If I discover I am right., I will be keeping a close watch on our man.”
****
“Dr. Summers? A word. Now.”
Kate looked up to see Adams already moving away from the doorway and towards her own office. Heart beating fast, Kate closed her files and shut down her program, then followed.
“Don’t speak,” Adams said, as Kate shut the door and opened her mouth. “I want your word now that you didn’t have anything to do with this.”
“With what?”
“How did you know I would find something?”
Kate’s innards squirmed with guilt, but she kept her face clear and her voice level. “You mean other than my gut feeling? Jack was keeping me in the loop, and it all seemed oddly convenient. In my experience, there’s really only one time when a specific set of blood work vanishes, and invariably, those have been deliberate cover-ups. A legitimate system error usually fells more than a single file. I smelled a rat, and forensic evidence is my domain. When I realized it wasn’t likely to even be called on, thanks to the witness, I told Jack all my suspicions, and it looks like that paid off.”
Adams stared at her long enough that Kate’s composure finally broke, unable to bear the silence.
“So did you find anything?”
Adams took i
n the eager tone and wide eyes and snorted. “You are truly an enigma, Summers. Yes, I found things.”
Kate took the seat in front of the desk and leaned forwards. “And is it enough?”
“With a little help from Carson, it will be. And before you ask, yes, he already knows. I sent him the request ages ago.”
Kate nodded, biting her lip. She desperately wanted to know what Adams had found, but knew it was likely in her favor if it came as a surprise later. She listened to Adams clicking her fingers across her keyboard and guessed the other woman had felt the same, as she was not volunteering any information.
“You’ve done good work today, I see.”
Kate managed a distracted smile, and then the office phone rang.
“Dr. Adams. Yes. I understand. Now? Fine. Tell him to give me ten. What? Yes, fine. I’ll bring her too.”
Kate watched her replace the receiver, then stood. “I guess Olsen wants us.”
Adams chuckled, rising too. “He does. Looks like Jack has a report and wants to deliver it in tandem with mine. Olsen apparently decided you might as well come in for your end-of-day check-in.”
Kate hid a grin. No, what Olsen wants is for this information to be presented with me present so that he can read my expression and decide what level of enemy I am.
Kate arrived at the police building, a step behind Adams, and saw two men, whose photographs she had seen, marched past her. Looks like Jack had not been idle. Two arrests, but had either of the bribed men given up the one who ordered the attack?
One look at Jack told her that was a no. He was watching the men from beside the doors to the main bullpen, a small furrow between his brows, as if hoping to be able to snatch some information straight from their minds.
“You’re here. Good.” Although his eyes and body were directed at Adams, Kate knew the words were for her.
“Is that them?” Adams asked, having also seen the men.
“Yes. I have ordered their fingerprints scanned. You should have them soon.”
“Good, then I can do a live matchup in the briefing.” She glanced back at Kate, then looked at Jack again. “Well, let’s go then, Carson. After this, Commissioner Olsen will have no choice but to free your partner.”
4
Kate settled at the back of the room, but made sure to give Olsen no cause to think she was hiding. Even so, the man switched seats under the guise of allowing Jack and Adams to have the floor, choosing a seat that gave him a clear view of Kate’s face.
She hid her smile and settled for looking vaguely puzzled and mostly hopeful. She heard him stifle a snort as Jack took the floor.
“I can go into detail if you want, but you did order me to keep this short,” he said in opening, looking at Olsen, in case the man had changed his mind.
“I want facts. If I have questions, I’ll ask them.”
Jack nodded. “Well then, the short of it is that after speaking with the witness and the section of the lab that processed the blood work for Kyle Green, I found there to be a few things amiss. For one, the witness’s reasons for being on that road were inconsistent. What he told me was different from what—”
“I think we all know what inconsistent means, Detective.”
“Of course. And the disappearance of the blood work was off too. It seemed highly unlikely that only a single file would be affected if it had been a nonhuman error.”
Here, Jack’s eyes cut to her, and she could have cursed him as Olsen’s lips tightened, but the man said nothing, and Jack continued.
“So I looked further, going through the basics like usual behavior patterns, friends, bank statements, etc. He didn’t have any business being where he was on that day and time. Also, Samuel Gibbins’s login has been verified in relation to the time stamp the missing blood work should have had.”
Although Olsen was watching her, Kate had, in turn, been watching him—not directly, but by using the small panel of metal beside the projector. His reflection tensed, and his eyes left her for a brief moment, darting to Jack in surprise. She could have laughed. Such a clear sign of a guilty conscience, but then she realized that she had been the only one who had noticed. Jack was retrieving and laying out the papers, showing he’d followed proper protocol, and Adams was busy on her computer, no doubt preparing to run her fingerprint comparison.
“I see,” Olsen said, after what felt like an age to Kate. “So the behavior is suspicious, but none of that yet clears Green. There was drink in his car and in his house.”
“Which is why I then passed on the request to Dr. Adams to have the evidence analyzed.”
Again Olsen reacted poorly, but this time, it was far more muted. Just a tightening of his eyes. Kate swallowed a smirk, instead leaning a little more forwards and letting the hope that Kyle would soon be free become more pronounced.
“What did you find, Dr Adams?” Olsen asked, after taking in Kate’s reaction critically.
“Several things. For one, all three bottles showed no signs of having been drank from directly. While that might be explained away for the two in the house, no drinking vessel of any description was found in the car.”
Kate felt surprise flicker across her face and was glad for it. Olsen would hopefully read that as surprise that there was such good evidence, and not surprise that someone with his knowledge of the law would be so careless.
“As a result, I looked more closely at the bottle from the car. It bears only one set of fingerprints, and they do not belong to Kyle Green.”
Kate hissed in triumph, unable to stop herself, and earned three looks. Two bemused and one annoyed.
“Whose were they?” Olsen asked, with a good show of not already knowing the answer.
“Let’s run it now and see,” Dr Adams said, hitting a key.
While her computer ran the program, Kate analyzed Olsen’s reflection. He must really hate Kyle if he was willing to break the law. Or were his reactions simply annoyance at his foe having escaped the noose yet again? Maybe she was reading too much into it, like she knew Jack thought she was.
Olsen certainly looked annoyed, but he didn’t look frightened or even worried. Shouldn’t he be sweating, if he thought they were about to accuse him of bribery and corruption?
Maybe he really did just take advantage of a situation created by someone else. But who else disliked Kyle enough to have him arrested on false charges?
The computer pinged and Adams smiled. “It’s a match. Looks like our witness is not so much a victim as an aggressor.”
“He planted the bottle?”
“Silence, Dr. Summers. You are not part of this,” Olsen snapped. “Anything else, Dr Adams?”
Kate cast him a muted glare, muttering under her breath. “I’m only here because you invited me.”
“There is,” Adams said loudly. “The bottles from the house. I scanned them too and found one clear set of prints, belonging to Green, and overlapping them, a newer set, although most were smudged and useless, there was a partial that might match one of our suspects.”
Kate held her breath; there was no denying it this time. Olsen had gone pale, his reflection seeming to be leeched of color, as if by magic.
“Unfortunately,” she continued, glancing down at her screen again, “These partials do not match either of the suspects.”
“You’re saying there’s a third person involved in all this?” Jack asked, again shooting an ill-timed glance at Kate.
Kate bit her tongue, but then sighed in relief. Olsen had not noticed. He was too busy feeling relieved himself, by the look on his face. Suddenly his eyes opened and landed on hers in the reflection.
“So you are all then wanting Kyle Green released.”
She kept her face impassive, only raising one eyebrow as if to suggest that if that was where the evidence led, then yes, of course, she wanted him released.
“It seems unlikely that the charges are legitimate,” Dr Adams said, frowning at his tone. “Someone clearly wanted to see him slandered.
”
Kate held her breath, seeing the stubbornness in Olsen’s eyes. She knew her words would make this worse for Kyle, but was rapidly running out of patience.
The ring of Jack’s phone startled them all and stopped her from exploding.
“Carson. He did. I see. Send it to me. Board room three.”
Jack put his phone away and looked Olsen dead in the eyes. “Yes, I want Kyle released, and not because he is my friend or even my partner. Because he didn’t do this.”
Olsen shook his head. “The evidence you have, so far, only gives me cause to look deeper, not release a potential hazard, and certainly not allow that same hazard on my team.”
Kate felt her hands snap into fists, and Olsen’s answering smirk, as he caught the movement, did nothing to temper her anger.
“Actually, sir, there’s more. Looks like Gibbins was eager to cut a deal. He’s given up the blood work he stole. They prove Kyle had no alcohol in his system.”
Kate resisted the urge to jump up and punch the air, as an officer came in and presented Jack with a piece of paper that he, in turn, brought to Olsen.
There. Get around that.
Olsen looked over the page then handed it back. “Well then. You two had best start one of your reports compiling that data.” Olsen rose, the movement contained the effort he had managed to keep out of his words. “I’ll go and start the process for release, and you can give your partner the good news later.”
Kate stood too, letting her face show every inch of glee that she had been suppressing.
Olsen turned to her, and she felt the air shift. He’d been thwarted again and was clearly eager for a win. “And you, Dr. Summers, did you spend your day helping free your old buddy, against my regulations?”
Kate tilted her head to the side. “You certainly are suspiciously minded, Commissioner Olsen. I’d be careful of slandering people without cause.”
