“What did you expect?”
Kincaid just smiled.He tipped the cup upside down to empty out the dregs onto the sparse grass, giving it a shake to drain it completely.Once it was empty, he set it down, rim to the dirty grass, and stood up.He brushed himself down fastidiously and pivoted away from the question.
“Special Agent Merlo said you were with him when he entered SSA Joel’s house today,” he said.
Cloister waited.
Kincaid’s lip twitched.“That was a question, Deputy.”
“No,” Cloister said.He shrugged and took a drink of beer.“It was not.”
Kincaid sighed.“There’s no reason we have to be at odds, Deputy Witte,” he said.“By all accounts, you were a good soldier and a reasonably competent K-9.”
He paused.Cloister grinned.
“If you want to get my goat,” he said as he nodded down at Bon.“Insult the dog.”
Kincaid followed the gesture.He scratched between his eyebrows with his index finger and then looked back at Witte.
“Were you with Special Agent Merlo when he entered SSA Joel’s house?”he said, enunciating the first few words pointedly.
“I was,” Cloister said.
“Why?”
“I was with him when the call came in,” Cloister said.“He asked me to come along in case he needed backup.It wasn’t clear what had happened to SSA Joel.”
“And once you made entry,” Kincaid said.“It was?Clear?”
“Not to me.”
“To Merlo?”
“If it was, he didn’t tell me.”
Kincaid pursed his lips and took a step closer to Cloister.He leaned in.
“And if it came to it,” he said.“Would your account of what happened match Merlo’s?”
Cloister took a moment to think about his answer.Annoyance pinched Kincaid’s lips together, and he took a breath in through his nose.“It’s not a hard question, Deputy Witte,” he pointed out.“Or it shouldn’t be.”
“I don’t know what SA Merlo’s account of events is,” Cloister said.“I can’t see any reason it wouldn’t match, but I could have missed something.”
“Do that often?Miss things.”
“No.”
Kincaid had the grace to look amused.He glanced away from Cloister to cast his gaze over the trailer park, attention lingering on the screaming kids and the pickups.
“I don’t know what Merlo has told you about me,” Kincaid said.“But I am very good at my job.”
“He’s mentioned that.”
Kincaid blinked in surprise and flicked his attention back to Cloister.The fact he had to tip his head back made annoyance flicker over his face.
“Did he tell you what tends to happen to people who get in the way of me getting the job done?”
“Yeah,” Cloister said.“It came up.”
