“I know. I’m just nervous we’ll see that fucker go free on a technicality.” The real worry in George’s tone kept Andi from giving him a snarky answer. Instead, he reached over the kitchen counter to briefly touch George’s hand. It wasn’t an overly intimate gesture, simply one cop reassuring his cop partner, but to Andi, who had deprived himself for years of any contact, physical or otherwise, from other people, it was a great step. And George, being the great human being he was, knew that and picked up on the enormity of the moment. He smiled at Andi, nodding at him in silent understanding. “This is all new for me. I’m not used to being in such a state of ambiguity when it comes to a case. Knowing for sure yet not being able to prove most of what I know—it’s unnerving. I don’t know how you can stand it.”
Andi shrugged. The answer to that was a lot more pragmatic than he would have liked. “I have no choice. You get used to it.”
George furrowed his brows, not liking it one bit. Andi started talking again. “Our problem is that we know Castain is our man, and hopefully, he will serve himself on a silver platter in four days. What we now need is enough circumstantial evidence—evidence we can get through old-fashioned police work—to deflect from how we were able to bust him when officially we’d been told to leave him alone.”
“You make it sound like that’s going to be easy.”
“It won’t be. But we do have other avenues we can walk to get back to Castain, Detective Harris being one of them. It’s like one of those labyrinths for kids, where they have to draw the way to the treasure in the middle. We already know what the treasure is, and where it’s hiding, so to speak. Which means all we have to do is follow the strings back to sources we can use in our report.”
“Ways,” George said absentmindedly.
“What?”
“In a labyrinth, you look for ways, not strings. You have to stay true to your metaphors if you want them to work.” He winked.
Andi couldn’t suppress the full belly laughter that was forcing its way out of him. “I could have been referring to Ariadne, you know.”
“Which would make the strings more plausible, I grant you that,” George conceded with a small smile. “Though your starting out with a children’s labyrinth made that quite the leap, don’t you think?”
Andi held his hands up in defeat. “Fine, fine. My bad. No mixing of metaphors when working with you. I’ll keep that in mind. Now back to our current problem. We have four days to find dirt on Harris and perhaps some other connections to Castain. Since we don’t want to spook him, we have to be very careful not to stir up too much dust, though we do need something substantial. A fine line to walk.”
“But we can do it.” George sounded determined.
“We can definitely do it. All we have to do is steer clear of Chief Norris and keep our investigation close to our chests.”
George sighed. “Easy-peasy.”
“Yes. Easy-peasy.”
They both stared into their empty soup bowls.
Chapter 26—Leashed and Muzzled
EASY-PEASY ENDEDthe moment they entered the precinct. Chief Norris beckoned them into her office with a sharp gesture of her head, her eyes hard as flint. George had a sinking feeling in his stomach, and as soon as they were seated in front of the chief, his worst fears came to life. Norris didn’t bother with any niceties; she went straight for the jugular, and George was sure he could detect a hint of morbid satisfaction in her tone.
“It has come to my attention that you’re still bothering Mr. Castain. He has made a complaint about you two harassing him about the unfortunate incident at his house.” She glared at them. “I thought I was clear when I told you to leave the man alone. The mayor wants his involvement kept on the down-low because he’s obviously just as much a victim in this as those poor children. You still following him around makes me look as if I can’t control my own force on top of making it seem as if he’s involved, which reflects badly on the mayor once the press gets wind of this whole mess.”
She was still standing behind her desk, looking outraged at their insubordination and at the same time strangely pleased to be able to yell at them. George felt Andi tensing next to him and managed to put a hand on his partner’s lower back to keep him from saying something they both would regret later. In situations like these, it was always wise to keep one’s mouth shut and wait for the person in power to calm down. Unfortunately, Norris didn’t seem to be in the mood to calm down. George suspected it was because she finally had something she could pin on Andi, a chance she had been waiting for since she took over as chief.
“I simply can’t let this kind of blatant disregard for your superiors go unpunished. I’m assigning the case to Detectives Merrigold and Vargas, since they are already familiar with it because of the stolen cell. You will hand them everything you’ve found so far, and then you’re going to take a week of unpaid leave to cool your heads and think about your stance on authority. If your chief gives you a direct order, you have to follow not ignore it. Is that understood?” She obviously didn’t expect an answer from them because she went on without taking a breath. “Once you are back at work, I will be watching you both more closely, assuming the way you handled this case isn’t a first. You’re dismissed.” She made a shooing motion with her hands, clearly not interested in anything they might have to say. George got up, keeping a close eye on Andi, fearing his partner would explode any minute now, but the man seemed eerily calm. He simply nodded in Norris’s direction, something that made her eyes flash in anger, before he left the office, George trailing behind him.
Outside Merrigold and Vargas were already waiting, embarrassment written all over their faces. Norris must have planned this whole scenario down to the last detail, eager to get them off the case. Andi still remained calm, as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened, which freaked George more than anything else. He watched as his partner gave their colleagues all the files they had been working on, only noting that he had kept the one about Harris to himself when Merrigold and Vargas left and Andi shoved the binder into his backpack. Without saying a word, he then led the way to Shireen, who greeted them with a pitying look on her face. News traveled fast in the precinct, and everybody seemed to know already.
“I’m so sorry, guys. All your hard work….”
“It’s fine, Shireen. Do you have my tablet?” Andi sounded almost as if none of this had anything to do with him. Shireen looked surprised for a moment; then she nodded hastily.
“Of course. It’s all done. Ready for full use again,” she announced, perhaps a little too loudly, but there was nobody with them in the IT department, the other staff having fled when Andi and George approached. Andi put the tablet into his backpack as well.
“Thank you, Shireen. I guess we’ll see you next week.” Andi turned for the door. George waved at Shireen, still not sure what to make of his partner’s strange behavior. He followed Andi outside to the car and didn’t protest when Andi sat down on the passenger side. Once George had taken his seat behind the wheel and they were back out in traffic, Andi broke his Zen-like silence.
“What a stupid, arrogant, selfish, clueless bitch!”
That was more like Andi, and George sighed in relief. “Yeah to all of it.”
Andi tapped a sharp rhythm on the dashboard. “The nerve of her!”
“I would be more interested in how Castain found out we were following him. I could have sworn he didn’t detect us.” George was deeply frustrated by this unexpected turn of events. They had beenthisclose to solving the damn case and getting Castain. Now with a week’s unpaid leave, the meeting from the paper would happen without them. Not to mention what a blow this was to his career aspirations. Reprimands from higher-ups never looked good on a CV.
