AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I WAS AT my desk in the squad room when I opened the little shopping bag and took out the note and the foil-wrapped packet.
Conklin was putting on his windbreaker. He said, “Cappy and I are running across the street for lunch. Come with us.”
“Rain check,” I said.
“Prime rib special. All you can eat. Seven bucks.”
I peeled back the aluminum foil and peeked between the slices of bread. Meat loaf. The note read, “Eat. Love. Joe.”
That was priceless.
When I had come home last night, Joe had taken one look at me, hugged me, pulled off my outerwear and gun, and sat me down. Then he pulled off my shoes and poured me a drink.
“Talk to me,” he said.
Once I started talking, I couldn’t stop. Joe listened to every word about the Michael Dunn takedown that morning: His discombobulated name-calling as I confronted him. The wild shots he’d fired, one of which put a new part in Sergeant Nardone’s scalp. And his confession to everything but the Kennedy assassination as we locked him in the squad car.
“Dunn is in a cell by himself, under close guard, pending his arraignment,” I concluded. “People on the street can breathe a little more easily tonight. Me, too.”
Joe dished up the meat loaf and fixings, and as I ate, he told me about his Mr. Mom day: ducks in the park; Julie’s new word, panda; a playdate for Martha. And a haircut for him that I admired. I got up from the table to run my fingers through the thick new growth of hair that hid the long, bumpy scar at the back of his head.
“Good haircut,” I said.
“It’s for my interview,” he said.
Even as Joe was excited at the prospect of getting back to work himself, I knew some part of him wanted me to take a desk job, have another baby, stop mixing it up with crazy people with guns.
I’d tried to imagine it, but the picture just wouldn’t gel.
That night I ate dinner with two glasses of a nice Chianti. I slept without moving all night, like a rock or a log or a candle that had been burned at both ends.
Now, at my desk, I saw that the meat loaf Joe had made with loving hands was making an encore.
“I’m in brown-bag mode,” I said to my partner. “Thanks anyway.”
As Conklin made his exit, he passed Yuki coming through the gate. Normally tightly wrapped and focused, she looked frazzled. She pulled out Conklin’s now-empty desk chair and dropped into the seat.
“Brady’s in a meeting upstairs,” I told her.
“I know,” Yuki said. “I came to see you.”
CHAPTER 89
“EXCELLENT TIMING,” I said to Yuki. “I’m lunching at my desk. What’s going on?”
Yuki ran her hands through her hair and gladly accepted half of my sandwich.
Then she said, “My case is going sideways, Linds. I’m starting to think that my star witness is a big fat liar. If that’s true, the whole case against Briana Hill might be a lie, and if so, I have to jam on the brakes, and I mean right now.”
“Back up a little,” I said. “What lies are you talking about?”
Yuki leaned across Conklin’s desk and spilled her fears: that Marc had added fabricated details to his original story of the assault while he was under oath.
“But then it got worse,” Yuki said. “James Giftos turned up some old phone messages from Marc to Briana that sounded like he could have been blackmailing her.”
“Really? You’re serious?”
Yuki went on, saying, “Lindsay, do you remember what I told you about Paul Yates?”
