Chapter Twelve
Lamar rapped on the Chief’s partially open door before poking his head in. “You got a minute?” At his nod, Lamar entered and dropped into the seat across from his desk. “It’s about that case at the sex club.”
The Chief looked up from the stack of paper in front of him. “Go ahead.”
“This doesn’t feel right.” Lamar passed a few crime scene photos across the desk. “There’s no way that one person drank all this alcohol and walked away.”
The Chief snorted. “Coop, the man is dead. How is that walking away?”
Lamar conceded with a laugh. “Okay, let me try that again. He would have been dead before he could ingest all this alcohol.”
The Chief nodded. “That seems probable.”
“But the suspect is a small female who blew a clean BAC in interrogation a couple hours after the body was found and consented to a blood test.”
The Chief’s eyebrows arched. “That’s a lot of booze for anyone to process that fast. No signs of intoxication?”
“None.”
“Any chance it was dumped?”
“They’re still processing the scene,” Lamar admitted, “but there’s no bathroom in the room, no plants, nowhere that we can think of to dump it into, and the video doesn’t show the bottles ever being removed.”
“But you saw them being brought in? They couldn’t have already been empty in the room?”
Lamar shook his head. “No, the footage shows them being carried in a box by the victim when he arrived.”
“Must have been expecting some kind of party.”
“Seems like,” Lamar agreed.
“You got an ID yet?”
“No,” Lamar sighed. “Wallet was gone, no vehicle was found in the lot, and his pockets were empty. M.E. will roll the prints to run through the computer, but for now, we’re out of luck.”
“Well, that puts us in a holding pattern,” the Chief agreed. “Unfortunately, we have another issue that arose. Where’s your partner?”
“Genov? He’s still watching the interrogation. Why?”
“Get him in here.”
Lamar sent the text and waited in silence until the tap came at the door. “You wanted to see me?”
The Chief tapped the paper that he’d been reading when Lamar walked in. “You two are being sent down to Internal Affairs to answer some questions.”
“About what?” Lamar questioned.
“The suspect in the killing last night has accused Detective Genov of unwanted physical attention.”
Well, fuck.
“They’re expecting you ASAP.” The Chief blew out a breath. “Your union reps are already there.”
Lamar swallowed a groan and rose from his chair. “Yes, sir. We’re on our way.”
~*~
“This is not good,” Genov muttered as they left the precinct after the initial meeting with the IAB investigators.
