by Adira August
“It’s not about trusting them.” Hunt merged into an exit lane. “If the decisions are bad, I’m the only one who should be taking heat. I have to at least know what the decisions are before they’re implemented. Then whatever happens is on me, not them.”
“You should be a lieutenant. You’re good at this.” Cam shut down the laptop.
Hunter laughed. “I’ll see what I can do. What’s your plan today?”
“You drop me at my car. I wait for the barstools. Then I have a couple meetings.” Cam also had Hunter’s bag of clothes to take to the cleaners. He skipped mentioning it. “Where do you want to spend the night, tonight?”
“Can I let you know?”
“You can.”
“GOOD, YOU’RE EARLY,” Hunter said when Mike Merisi appeared in his office doorway holding a file folder. “You get the Maki DNA back? I heard Zee called.”
Merisi came inside and shut the door behind himself. That’s when Hunt looked up from his monitor and saw the young detective’s face.
“Mike?”
He put the file down in front of Hunter, but he didn’t sit. “Robert Ikeda wasn’t the baby’s father.”
Hunt grabbed the file and opened it. “Oh. Well, it was still a good idea. Eliminating one possibility….” He was looking at the top sheet, the report from the lab.
“Hang on ... “ He held up a hand and went back to the top of the page, not sure he’d understood. Then he did. He shut his eyes.
“Hideyoshi Maki,” Merisi said. “Her father. She was pregnant with her own sister.”
“Goddamnit.” Hunter shut the file.
“Anything else you need?” Merisi’s venomous tone caught Hunt by surprise.
“You ordered me to find out why the girl killed herself. I did.” Merisi almost spit the words at his boss. “So. Is there anything else?”
Hunter sat back, slowly. Last night he’d gone home to a man who loved and cared for him. He wondered what Mike had gone home to.
“There is one thing, detective,” he said. “Uh - look, would you mind sitting down just for a minute? Please.” He looked at the chair but didn’t gesture.
Merisi felt like more stone sculpture than living man. But Hunter Dane waited patiently for him. And it occurred to Mike Merisi that standing up did seem a lot of work, right then.
He took a seat.
“You did an amazing amount of work the last few days, way above the call,” Hunter told him. “The work is impeccable, I think is the right word. I don’t know anyone else I could possibly count on the way I’ve counted on you. And you’ve always been there.”
Hunter blew out a breath and leaned toward Merisi. “I feel guilty even asking, and you should feel free to say no and take the rest of the day, if you want. But, Cam’s kind of overwhelmed with getting the Foundation organized. Is it as at all possible you could hang out over there for today and maybe tomorrow? I can wrap everything else up.”
He sat back again. “Like I said, feel free to say no. In fact, as of right now, you’re on days off.”
Mike Merisi’s clouded expression cleared. “Cam’s having trouble?”
Hunter shrugged. “I’m not supposed to say anything; you know how he is. But, yeah. He’s all alone over there, now. I think he could really use some advice on the money and file systems and just some moral support.”
Mike stood up. “I’m off duty?”
“Until Friday, unless you think he could use you then, too.” Hunt looked back at his monitor. “I’ll square it with Natani.”
“I guess I could look in.”
“Thanks. Hey, close the door behind you, okay?” Hunter frowned at his screen.
The second the door closed, Hunt had his phone in his hand. “Yeah, no time. Merisi’s on his way to you. He’s pretty damaged.” Hunter told Cam what he’d said. “He is? … Okay. Take care of him for me.”
He cut the call and texted Twee to come to his office. She was as mentally tough as any old head on the job. But he didn’t know who she went home to, either.
His text alert sounded. Twee.
EATING LUNCH.
THOUGHT WE DON’T TALK
SHOP DURING MEALS.
He grabbed the Maki DNA file and went into the bullpen.
“You ready for the meeting?” he asked Avia hard at work with multiple monitors open, so much like Cam. Only with breasts.
“Once I get these images organized. That the Maki DNA? Want me to scan it in?”
“No. I’m going across the hall to see Twee.”
She grinned. “So who’s the mountain and who’s Mohammed?”
He ignored that. “Get me a physical location on Hideyoshi Maki.”
She glanced at his face. “Right on it,” she said, and opened a blank search screen.
He went to Natani’s office door, knocked once and opened it. She was on her landline.
“Hang on, one,” she said and covered the receiver.
He put the file down next to her. “Figure out what we can charge this asshole with.”
Hunter was gone before she responded.
ONE-HUNDRED THIRTY-SEVEN. That was the number of evidence baggies from the accessway Twee had laid out on the counter and floor of her small lab. When the knock came on her door, she ignored it. When a key turned in the lock, she looked up from where she sat cross-legged on the floor.
“That’s not lunch.” Hunter said from the doorway. There was nowhere inside for him to step.
“Most of them are oil or suspected oil. Over there in that box”—she chin-pointed to a sealed plastic bin on a shelf, while making notes on a clipboard— “is a sample from James Dobbs’ oil pan and other stuff I got from his car. From the driver’s seat.”
Hunt squatted in the doorway, tilting his head to the side, trying to catch her eye. “You realize the chances this suspect will ever be found competent to stand trial are almost nil.”
“The Journal of Forensic Sciences,” she said, the lisp nowhere in evidence.
“Twee. The Farleigh family’s involvement is peripheral. I have to turn the case over to VanDevere, it doesn’t fit our operation parameters.”
“No.”
“What?”
The face she finally turned to him was as hard as any he’d ever seen on Camden Snow.
“You aren’t taking my evidence, Hunter. I worked too damn hard for it.” She leaned toward him. “You didn’t even consult me before you turned everything over to Nugent?” She sat back, sneering at him. “Because I’m a woman? Because I’m black or short or you want to fuck me and don’t have the balls?”
He waited her out.
“You can count on Mike Merisi but you can’t count on me? They were butchered! You knew, all the time. You and Gordi and Mike, the he-man woman hater’s club revisited.”
Her eyes filled and she brushed angrily at them. When she spoke again she was calm, but not someone he recognized.
“This case will be historic. I’m pretty sure this guy lived in that crawl space for forty years. Books will be written and movies made. This is my case. If it goes; I go with it.”
Hunter remained quiet until he was sure she was done. “Mike’s a cop. You aren’t.” Hunter stood up. “See you at the meeting.”
He shut the door, walked to the end of the hall, turned a corner and went out into the stairway. Sinking down on the top step, he wished he smoked. Not all the time, just often enough so if someone found him out there, he’d have an obvious excuse.
It seemed to Hunter that he used to have a lot of time to think. But since Cam, he was rarely alone.
“Office, meditation chamber, gameroom. You can stick a card table in there, if you want. It’s a room. It’s yours.”
But he had a room at the A-frame, also. He didn’t use it. How had he let his people get to this point? Why hadn’t he seen earlier that a team this small required far too much of each member?
He didn’t even know who was making the decisions. He didn’t know who he was really working for.
When did he decide that was okay with him?
It wasn’t.
Back in the hallway, the faint sound of men’s laughter reached him. It was a good sound. The door to the Foundation was ajar. Cam magic was happening.
He opened Twee’s door and stuck his head in. “You’re way too much like me, Carol. That’s why I can’t fuck you.”
She looked like she might protest but then heaved a sigh. “I know. Sorry, Boss.”
Now it was time for Natani.
But Avia stopped him as soon as he entered. “Hideyoshi’s gone.”
He leaned over her shoulder and looked at her screen. “Yesterday,” he said looking a the flight information for the billionaire’s corporate jet. “Didn’t even wait for the funeral. Ikeda?”
She shrugged. “No passenger lists. I have video from DIA of them entering. The plane leaving. They never exited.”
“Yeah. Okay.” He moved off toward Natani’s office.
“Hunter?”
He paused. “This is a lot to deal with when you’ve just gotten started, I know.”
She smiled. “I’m not short sleep. I didn’t deal with rotting flesh. I was going ask how you’re doing. You were my friend before you were my boss.”
He reminded himself that there were more people to ask for help than Cam.
“As a personal favor, could you check around quietly and see who the power is behind the Unit?” He knew between her political contacts and wealthy almost-family, someone had to know something.
“Sure. Also, do you want the Hortt case information now?”
He shook his head. “Meeting’s in twenty minutes; save it for the team.”
“Okay, Boss.”
Any person who knowingly marries, inflicts sexual penetration or sexual intrusion on, or subjects to sexual contact, an ancestor or descendant, including a natural child, child by adoption, or stepchild, a brother or sister of the whole or half blood, or an uncle, aunt, nephew, or niece of the whole blood commits incest, which is a class 4 felony.
“YOU’RE SAYING YOU CAN’T charge him.”
“I’m saying the statute is what it is. I’m not finding case law, precedent, nothing that says pregnancy is prima facie evidence of sexual contact. Not in this century, anyway.”
Diane Natani didn’t look any happier about it than Hunter.
“I need to build a circumstantial case?”
“I talked to Zee,” she said. “There’s evidence the girl was sexually active. There’s no evidence of forcible sexual contact. Find something. A diary, a therapist, friend, anyone she talked to.” Natani handed him back the file. “There’s something else.”
“Oh, good.” Hunter shook his head. Sarcasm wasn’t his usual style. “Sorry. Go on.”
“You know Twee photographed everything, every closet and cabinet. Those cubes in her bedroom? They open, the front side is a door with a magnetic closure. Each one has a drawer inside.”
She brought up an image and turned the monitor toward him.
“That’s an open package of ten milliliter plastic syringes. Pack of five, with only one left. The barrel is about five inches long.”
“He’s going to claim he was only giving her sperm?”
“Seminal fluid,” she corrected. “Get Robert Ikeda to talk.”
“He and his boss left the country yesterday.” He was quiet for a long time. “Three can keep a secret, if two of them are dead.” He picked up the file.
“The wisdom of Hunter Dane?”
“Benjamin Franklin,” he said. “Hideyoshi Maki will come back some day.”
“You’re saying Robert Ikeda never will?”
He slapped the file against his thigh. “Meeting’s in ten.”
Hunter walked out.
AT THIRTEEN-OH-FIVE, when Twee hadn’t appeared, Hunter went to find her. But before he could knock, voices from the Foundation office told him she wasn’t inside. He imagined she’d heard Merisi and gone to get him.
“I couldn’t help it!” he heard, just as he got to the door. It was Mike. “I stepped out to use the head and you were yelling about him not having the balls to fuck you.”
“I wasn’t yelling. I was being assertive!” she said. “And how did you get time off? I didn’t get any.”
“You’re lucky he didn’t give you the rest of your life off!” Merisi laughed. “Anyway, he’ll never do you, now.”
Hunter retreated.
“She coming?” Natani asked when he got back.
“Wasn’t there. Maybe she’s in the bathroom.”
“I’ll text her,” Avia said.
A call alert came in on Hunter’s cell. He checked the called. “Okay, stand by a few.” He went into his office. “Yeah, this is Dane,” they heard him say as he shut the door.
“I’m for hot chocolate,” Avia said, going to the coffee station. “I stole these from Cam. You want some?”
Natani held up her cup. “Still working on my tea.”
Avia poured hot water into her mug. “You don’t trust me, do you, Diane?”
She didn’t deny it. “Probably a holdover from you being a reporter. I don’t know why, you were totally cooperative and gave us a great case.”
“But I’m only here for a month?” Avia came back with her mug and sat at the conference across from Natani, who shrugged. But investigative reporters don’t win awards by being easily put off.
“Would you at least tell me if it’s because I’m new that I think the team is under some kind of not normal stress?” Avia chased bits of floating brown powder around her cup with the back of her spoon.
Diane Natani knew that Hunter trusted Avia Rivers implicitly. In the past, as a reporter, even before Avia had met Hunt, she’d always conducted herself with the highest ethical standards.
But something about Avia always made Diane feel like she was being interviewed for a story no one knew Rivers was working on.
They heard the elevator ding. The door opened and Twee came in, looking back over her shoulder. She shut the door.
“A really cute guy went by me toward Cam’s office. Ooooo! Hot cocoa!”
“There’s packets at the station,” Avia said. “Lieutenant's in the office on a call.”
“Good. I think Mike will be here in a minute.”
While Twee fixed a drink for herself, Natani decided to see where Avia was going. “Rivers thinks we’re under some kind of unusual stress.”
“Absolutely!” Twee took a seat at the table. “Two cases at one time? Both really ugly?” She shook her head.
“I read through most of the old ones and the parameters the Unit is supposed to operate under. I’m not sure why this Hortt Orchard thing is even here. Just because a kinda rich guy is married to the property owner?”
Diane noticed Avia paid close attention to her cup while she spoke. As if she didn’t care about the answer. Which meant she did.
Twee blinked at her. Then exchanged a look with Natani. They both looked at Avia in silence until she met their gazes.
“Trust is a two-way street,” Natani told her. “That’s a reporter trick, trying to get someone to reveal something by pretending it isn’t important.”
Avia had the grace to blush.
“You know, Avia,” Natani went on. “I’ve worked with a lot of cops over the years and they have a saying. ‘The world is made up of two kinds of people: cops and assholes’. You can’t treat us like we’re the assholes. You aren’t the special Hunter Dane protector.”
“Something’s wrong,” Avia insisted.
Diane Natani nodded.
Twee frowned into her cup. “You have a point, though. The first two Hortt Orchard cases are public record. Whose confidentiality are we protecting?”
“The first two cases were also mysterious and baffled the police,” Natani said. “Maybe Roger Farleigh insisted. Wanted it all cleared up, to get it in the past.”
Avia grabbed the laptop. Then she grabbed her cell. “Hey, Liz - Avia. I know, I just got back. … Dinner at Pe
te’s on Friday, good? … Yeah. Listen, can you ship me the dispatch sheet on a case number? … The D.A. here’s a stickler for detail.” She stuck her tongue out at Natani and read off the number. “I’ll wait. … So did you and the aging jock make it up? … His mother? No way. … Ah, got it. Thanks. … Friday at six and I cannot wait to hear the rest of this.”
She put the phone away. “The call came into nine-one-one at twelve-thirty-two. Routed to dispatch, then to homicide at twelve-thirty seven.” She paused and squinted at the screen.
Twee jumped up to look over her shoulder. “Routed to Lieutenant Dane per order Captain H. VanDevere at thirteen-oh-four,” she read aloud.
“Per VanDevere?” Natani said. “The Boss went to see him that day. Maybe he asked for the case.”
“What case?” Two male voices overlapped—Merisi and Hunter had entered from opposite doors.
Merisi took a seat at the table next to Twee.
“Look at this,” Avia said to Hunt.
He came around behind her, glanced at the screen. “You have a message alert.”
Hunt took his usual seat at the head of the table. “Let me know when you’re ready,” he said to Avia. He looked at her steadily until she nodded.
“Penelope Maki was pregnant with her biological father’s child,” he told his team. “He and attorney Robert Ikeda, who I believe is criminally complicit and who altered the scene, have left the country.”
He went on to explain about the law providing no means of prosecuting Maki.
“Twee will make sure the evidence is properly logged and conserved. It’s Detective Merisi’s case so he’ll decide whether to pursue the investigation further.”
“There are people I’d like to question. Do you have any ideas?” Merisi asked.
Hunt sat back, tapping his pen on his notebook. “I think she left a lot of clues, most of which you pointed out. The fish on the counter, the white platter, the pattern. I think she planned this all carefully. Avia you have that thing Cam sent?”
The dispatch call log from the Maki case appeared. “She had a cell phone. She called dispatch, herself. That’s a lot of forethought to leave us with no real proof.”
