“When was the last time you were here?” Henry asked, finding a parking spot with surprising ease.
“Last year. I doubt they’ve forgiven us for that, either. Be prepared to take flack.”
“Always.”
Jackson grinned at him, pleased by Henry’s general willingness to stir up some shit. Good quality in a partner, and he and Henry had worked pretty well together when they were clearing Henry’s name.
His phone buzzed as he was getting out of the car.
“Ellery?” Henry asked as Jackson checked it. The heat hit him like a wave, and he actually had to catch his breath before he answered.
“Wants us to look for larger patterns.” Jackson frowned. “I feel like I need a good run around the block to figure that one out.”
“Yeah, that’s above my pay grade,” Henry muttered. “But sure. We’ll look for larger patterns.”
Together they ventured through the public entrance to a clean and relatively new and efficient lobby. The smell of too many sweaty people was still strong—there definitely weren’t enough windows to go around—but body odor and burned coffee aside, Jackson felt himself respecting the purpose of the place.
Sure, he’d seen his share of corruption—and dammit, something was wrong here again, and why did he have to fix this shit?—but most of the employees were here because they believed they could do something useful, something important with their time. He’d read the Dobrevk file, seen indications that Fetzer and Hardison had been trying to keep Tage Dobrevk out of prison and that they doubted he’d been involved in the first place. If he could keep his attitude in check, maybe he could help that kid who’d already had a two-day pass to hell, and maybe he could get some people down to see Kryzynski, because it sure would be nice for him to know his department had his back.
“Can I help you?” the desk sergeant asked as they approached. Thirtyish, Latinx, very pretty—and very pregnant, Jackson noted with a smile.
“Please tell me they let you put your feet up behind that desk,” Jackson said, sympathy in full force. That pregnant in August. There oughtta be a law.
Desk Sergeant C. Kensington allowed a dimple to pop on her pretty, round face. “Oh my God, that’s why I took this job when it came up. I knew shit was going to get real!”
“Right? And better here than somewhere in the heat.”
She nodded, her tight double french braid not even shifting by a shiny raven-wing hair. “Ugh. Once we hit May, I wasn’t playing around. It was like an inferno!”
“Well, I’ll tell you what,” Jackson said. “How about my friend and I go get you some ice water? Crackers?”
She gave him a wide-set pair of soulful brown eyes. “Ice cream?” she begged pitifully. “I thought it was a thing you only saw in movies but… ice cream?”
“On it!” Henry said crisply. “Any flavor?”
“Yes,” she said, nodding enthusiastically. “Any. Flavor.”
Henry laughed gently. “I saw a minimart about a block away—is that the closest place?”
“Yeah.” She sighed. “Never mind. By the time you got it back, it’ll be melted.” All vitality seeped out of her, and Jackson and Henry met eyes.
“You leave that to me,” Henry said staunchly. “If you can help my friend there get in to see the people he needs to talk to, I will hook you right up.”
Her lips parted ever so slightly, and her eyes grew terrifyingly bright. “Really?” she whispered, and Henry and Jackson nodded.
“I’ll get you in to see God himself,” she said, and her fervor was undeniable.
Jackson and Henry did a low five below the eye level of the Formica desk—but it wouldn’t have mattered if she’d seen them.
Jackson was in.
Fortunately, so were Fetzer and Hardison, both of them sitting in the almost vacant briefing room, working on their tablets across the table from each other as they completed their paperwork for the day. The room itself was set up like a classroom, with tables lined up by columns, all of them facing the front podium where the chief briefed them every morning in preparation for their day.
Adele Fetzer, fiftyish, African American, with a smile of both cynicism and hope, noticed him first. She nodded to Jimmy, who was about the same age and had graying blond hair and a ruddy complexion. He looked up from his paperwork, and his eyes widened.
“Rivers?” he asked tentatively. “That’s your name, right?”
“Yessir,” Jackson said, and let some respect color his voice. He hadn’t been tight with Fetzer or Hardison, but neither of them had given him reason to believe they were crooked, or even mean. They’d worked different shifts than he had, and as far as he knew, they held no grudges.
“What can we do for you, Mr. Rivers?” Adele asked, head tilted. “Who used to be a cop.”
“I work for a defense attorney now,” he said, snagging a plastic chair from another table and swinging it around so he could straddle it and prop his arms on the back. “Cramer and Henderson. Don’t worry, you haven’t heard of us. But you will.”
“Dirty/pretty killer,” Hardison said without missing a beat.
“And the Sampson drug ring,” Fetzer added, both of them regarding him with no humor—but no enmity either. “You’ve been busy.”
Jackson nodded. “It’s been an eventful year,” he said. “And we were at the public defender’s office this morning”—he watched their eyes widen, so he knew he had them—“picking up a file for a young man named Tage Dobrevk.”
Ooh, he’d hit a nerve. Both of them leaned in, glancing at each other furtively.
“Was that what the shooting was all about?” Fetzer asked, voice hushed. “Because nobody is telling us dick!”
“They don’t know,” Jackson said. “We were there to pick up the file when we heard the guy shout the name of the lawyer who had it. We got there in time to hide her in the copy room while my colleague barricaded the guy in the stairwell. They took him down with Tasers, but he’s out cold. But they tried again. Did you guys hear about that?”
The confusion on their faces made his stomach hurt.
“Detective Kryzynski—you guys know him?”
Fetzer blinked. “Good guy,” she said.
“In the hospital,” Jackson told her brutally. “Because a kid with a switchblade was trying to break into our law office, and between him and the guy this morning, we figure….” He let them make eye contact, the way good partners did.
“They both wanted the same thing,” Fetzer reasoned. Then she frowned. “Is Kryzynski doing okay? We have not heard about that!”
“He’s actually by himself,” Jackson said. “I told him we’d get the guy, but we’re visiting later this evening. I….” He remembered waking up after two weeks in a medically induced coma to discover his hospital room had cards and stuffed animals from Jade and Kaden, but not a damned thing from his department because he’d been wearing a wire trying to bring down his corrupt partner. “I think it would mean something to him to know he had friends in the waiting room.”
Fetzer nodded seriously. “Mercy San Juan?”