Boone saw a sadness in her eyes. She saw pain in his.
Two broken people did not need to ever hook up, and they both knew it.
Boone backed up just enough for Charly to safely get around him.
Boone and Charly didn’t know it, but as they were meeting in his office, they were the hot topic of conversation in the squad room. And all of the guys, except for Morley and Dontay, were betting on her complete and utter failure to ever convince their irascible chief to let her anywhere near his prisoner.
“Pigs will fly,” Sarge said, “before Boone Ryan allow that woman to visit with a murder suspect.”
“But that’s why she came,” said Dontay.
“I know why she came,” Sarge shot back. “But I’m telling you it’s not going to happen.”
“She does have big boobs,” Morley said. “You know how chief loves those big women.”
“The word is voluptuous women,” said Dontay. “She’s not big.”
“Back in my day,” said Sarge, “women had a little meat on their bones. At least the good looking ones did. It was expected. But nowadays, if you’re not thin as a rail, you’re fat. It’s insane.”
“I still say,” Morley said, “that her boobs will get her that visit she wants with Amos Yerkson. If I know Chief, and I think I do, she’ll get in.”
“I know him too,” Sarge said. “I may not have worked for him as long as you have, but I know him. You’re as wrong as the day is long, Morley,” he said.
“Wanna bet?” Morley asked.
“Hell yeah,” said Sarge. “How much?”
“Lunch tomorrow.”
Sarge laughed. “That’s nothing!” he said. “I say a hundred bucks. Put your money where your mouth is.”
“Okay, okay,” Morley said. “You wanna play the big man, go right ahead.”
“That’s a lot of money,” Dontay warned his mentor Morley.
But Morley was smiling. “I got this, little one,” he said. Then he said to Sarge: “You’re on. A hundred bucks it is.”
Sarge laughed. “That’s going to be one payout I’m really going to enjoy,” he said.
Until the door to Chief Ryan’s office opened again, and the chief and Charly walked out. “Let Dean Johnson see Amos for a few minutes,” Boone said to Sarge.
Morley and Dontay grinned. Sarge couldn’t believe it. “But sir, I thought you said nobody was allowed--”
The chief gave him that chilling look.
“Yes, sir,” Sarge said, understanding he’d crossed the line, and rose to his feet. “Right this way, Miss,” he said.
Charly looked back at Boone. “Thank you,” she said to him.
Boone actually smiled at her, which shocked the daylights out of his men, and then Sarge escorted her towards the cells.
But every man in that squad room kept their eyes on Boone. They watched him as he seemed to lustfully watch her body make its way down the hall with Sarge.
When they turned a corner and the view was gone, and Boone turned to head back into his office, it was only then did he realize his men were staring at him as he had been staring at Charly. His smile disappeared, and he frowned. “What the hell are y’all looking at?” he asked angrily, and every one of them got back to work.
Boone then realized Dontay was still in the squad room, and his headache that had subsided while Charly was around, had returned monster-style. “I thought I told you to get me some aspirin,” he said to him.
“I called Betty and she said she has the aspirin and is heading back. I didn’t see the point in me going to get more aspirin too.”
“You didn’t see the point? Who the hell are you?” Then he pointed at Dontay. “If Betty isn’t coming through that door in thirty seconds, you’re fired!” Boone yelled, and walked back into his office, slamming the door behind him.
The squad room laughed as Dontay jumped from his desk and ran out of the squad room. His goal: grab those aspirin from Betty and rush them upstairs himself.
But Morley wasn’t laughing at Dontay. He was a good kid, and he knew Boone liked the kid. Morley was shaking his head at Boone. “He’s got another hangover,” he said. “What a disgrace.”
“Tell it to his face,” another officer said.
“No thanks,” said Morley, and they all laughed again.
But inside Boone’s office, after he had slammed the door, it wasn’t a laughing matter for him. Mainly because he had exposed himself so completely. Not just to his men, which was bad enough, but to Charly too. What on earth was he doing? He didn’t even know her, but was so quick to give her anything she asked for. Even breaking his ironclad rule against allowing outsiders to see murder suspects. She must think of him as some pervert with a hard-on who’d do anything for a piece of good looking tail. Which wasn’t true.
But something more was bothering him too. There were perfectly fine people living in Low Town, but there were all kinds of crooks and cons and even convicted murderers living there too. It wasn’t a safe environment by any stretch of the imagination. And that so-called prestigious school put her up in a place like that? A good girl like her?
Then he had to catch himself. What was so good about her? He didn’t really know her from a hole in the wall! What was wrong with him?
And then his head began pounding even more, reminding him he had his own problems. Why was he trying to take on hers?
But as soon as he got back behind his desk, and pulled out the file of another cold case he was trying to clear, her fresh, pretty face flashed across his mind yet again.
And the fact that those bastards put her up in a place like that.
He was angry all over again.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The drive back to the office, to retrieve the file Amos had set up for her, was a slow drive on a lazy Saturday afternoon. To her shock, the chief had allowed her to spend nearly two hours with Amos. They talked, mainly about the school and her duties there. And when Amos told her that he had set up an entire orientation file for her, she was elated. She knew she liked him for a reason.
But they didn’t hardly talk at all about Rita Mae Brown, which she thought was the reason he wanted to see her.
But Amos said he didn’t kill her, and left it at that.
Charly wanted to know why he didn’t come clean with the chief from the get-go. That if he would not have lied he might not have been arrested. But Amos would have none of that.
“He was going to arrest me regardless,” Amos had responded to her. “There’s no evidence that I did a thing to that young lady, because I never laid a hand on her, but you can’t tell people like Boone Ryan anything that doesn’t comport with what they already believe.”
“But what if the jury doesn’t believe you?” Charly asked him.
“It won’t get to that,” Amos said. “Don’t worry about me. Worry about yourself.”
Charly frowned. “Then why did you ask me to come see you?”
“I wanted to tell you where you could find the orientation packet I put together for you. And I wanted to answer any questions you might have about your job responsibilities.”