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ITHADBEENover a year since Brian had been in the police station two days in a row. Every time he stepped inside the building claustrophobia set in. He’d grown accustomed to being on loan to the task force, far removed from the others on the force. Having a sense of purpose that better suited his skill set. Getting to work with the FBI and ATF had broadened his horizons and had gotten him thinking about what was next in his career beyond the LPD.
Detective Kent Kramer wasn’t at his desk, but Brian found him in the breakroom filling up his travel mug with coffee.
“Hey, Kent.” Brian strode up to him.
“Well, look at who it is. Decided to grace us with your presence again.”
The detective met his gaze. Heavy bags under his bloodshot eyes bolstered Brian’s concerns. After the death of his wife in a car accident, Kent hadn’t been the same. It was no secret he drowned his sorrows every night at a bar. Before Brian’s assignment to the joint task force, he’d never caught the smell of alcohol on Kent’s breath, but there had been times when he’d wondered if the detective had become a functioning alcoholic. Kent still could get the job done, but his drinking was also a potential liability that Brian couldn’t ignore.
“I was hoping to run in to you. Alone.”
“Oh, yeah,” Kent said, with an easy smile. “Something little ole me can do to help you on yourspecialtask force?”
Kent had taken a shine to him from the beginning and had been the one to encourage Brian to go for detective early. Not quite a mentor, Kent had been more of cheerleader. Rooting him on. The first to tell him “atta boy.” The only one to congratulate him on being picked as the police liaison for the task force.
“No,” Brian said. “Actually, I was wondering if I might be of any assistance to you?”
Kent’s brow furrowed as the smile faded. “How so?”
“I was driving by Seth’s place last night,” Brian said, “and saw the smoke from the fire.”
“Really?” Kent smoothed a hand down over his wrinkled suit jacket. “According to dispatch, you got a report about the fire. No mention of you seeing it firsthand.”
“Both, really.” Brian poured himself a cup of coffee. “I was wondering why you’re the only one investigating.” For a case this big, involving one of their own, there should be two detectives working on it.
Kent glanced around, causing Brian to do likewise. They were alone in the room. No one was in the hallway. “I asked the lieutenant the same thing,” he said, lowering his voice. “Apparently, it’s complicated. This doesn’t look good for Seth, you know, considering his first wife, Linda, died under suspicious circumstances.”
Brian wasn’t aware that he’d been married before. “What happened to her?”
“Too much wine. Slipped down the stairs. Broke her neck. Coroner ruled it an accident.”
“But Seth lived in a one-story ranch.”
Kent shook his head. “They used to live in Linda’s house. Massive place. Three levels.”
“Do you remember her blood alcohol content?”
“Looked it up once I got this case. She had a .30 BAC.”
Brian whistled. That was high enough to severely impair walking, even speech. At .08 a person was considered intoxicated.
“After she died, he sold the house,” Kent said. “Used the proceeds to stop his family ranch from going into foreclosure. Seth said that it was the only good thing that came out of her death. That she was his angel taking care of him from the beyond.”
“That doesn’t explain why you’re the only detective on this.” If anything, that gave even more reasons as to why this was a two-person investigation.
Kent’s gaze swept the hallway. He waited until an officer passed by. “Rumor has it there are dirty cops in the LPD.”
Brian had heard rumblings of the same and presumed the new police chief, Wilhelmina Nelson, had been brought in to clean up the problem before it was verified as credible and made headlines. One more reason Brian had been grateful to be assigned elsewhere. But the chief was in for an uphill battle.
If there were dirty cops, Vice and Narcotics would be a good place to start looking for them. The odds were there would be others at different levels, working in various areas. A tight-knit group.
Kent took a gulp of his coffee. “Chief Nelson told the lieutenant that she doesn’t want anyone close to Seth working on the case. You’re looking at the one detective who isn’t, besides yourself. He’s bosom buddies with all the others.”
Laramie was a small town. The size of the entire police force was tiny compared to a single precinct in a large city like New York or Chicago.
“Internal Affairs is going to get involved,” Kent said. “They’re sending someone down from Cheyenne next week. Until then, it’s just me.”
“Have you made any headway? Got any leads?”
