“I wanted to help,” I started, trying to find a way to admit to my real reasons, to explain,Hey, so I might have dropped my registered firearm in the vicinity of a major crime, but the look Villiers gave me suggested that he might have me locked up for my own good.
“You’re on suspension already, Flynn. Don’t make things worse for yourself.”
“But I need to give my evidence about what happened last night,” I tried. “I’m a witness. You should’ve debriefed me before you—”
Villiers held up a hand, and I’d never seen him look so furious. “It may have escaped your notice, Flynn, but I’m actually trying tosaveyour career. Wewilldebrief you when appropriate, but right now, I need you to get out of here. Now, I don’t believe that you shot Bachman last night. Did you?”
“Of course not! But neither did Angelo Messina.”
“Then if you want to help, wait until we call you as a witness.” His face softened, very slightly, and there was less anger in his voice when he added, “I don’t want Walsh to have first run at you, not coming off Messina’s interrogation. Walsh won’t get anything from that snake, and he’ll be spoiling for a fight. I don’t want you next in line for him to take a punch at.”
I pictured Walsh’s face if my gun were found near the crime scene. “I…don’t want that either.”
There was a chance I’d dropped it while running. Maybe I could still find it.
“I’ll call you back in tomorrow,” Villiers was saying. “In the meantime, I hope you had the sense to write out a witness statement on your own.”
“Of course.”
“Then go home, email it to me, and wait for the task force phone call tomorrow. Alright?”
It was the moment to own up about the gun. But all I said was, “Alright.”
“And Flynn—you might want to call the union. Even retain a lawyer.”
“I don’t need to retain a lawyer just because I was in the Park last night! I might’ve been off duty, but Iama federal agent and weareon call—”
Villiers put his hand on my shoulder. “Flynn, I need you to hear me. Go home. Do what I’m telling you to do. And maybe, just maybe, this won’t end in a giant shitstorm. Look around,” he said softly. “You are not among friends here.”
I did what he’d suggested, glancing around at the men and women who had been my fellow task force members up until this morning. Most of them had stopped looking directly at me and were muttering about me instead, based on the glances sent my way. Others were glaring at me with outright anger, contempt, even suspicion.
Villiers was right. I had no friends here.
I cleared my throat. “Okay.” I’d go home. But before I did that, I’d retrace the route Messina and I had run along last night—as far as I could remember it—and hope like hell that I found my gun.
If I couldn’t, I’d officially report it straight away. Tell Villiers in the email when I sent him my witness statement.
Villiers turned me around and walked me back to the tape, patting my back. “It’s going to be a late night for me. Expect a call tomorrow. But like I said, send me that witness statement so you don’t forget any details. And you know better than to sit there thinking about last night any more than you have to. It’ll only muddy the waters and make you more sure about details that will turn out to be wrong.”
I knew that, but keeping my mind from inventing details had been harder to accomplish than I’d ever imagined. All I could think about was my missing gun, Bachman lying on a slab in the morgue, and Angelo Messina’s warm breath on my cheek as he’d wrapped his arms over my head to keep me safe.
I gave the crime scene boundaries a wide berth and managed to find some landmarks I remembered running by last night. I walked the route slowly, turning over leaves and detritus along the way.
Messina would still be in custody, I guessed, Captain Walsh trying to grind him down. Walsh would fail, there was no doubt about it.
Still, if anyone would have any idea about what was going on, it would be the Morelli Underboss.
Chapter Eight
Angelo
“Give my thanks to the Boss,” I told my lawyer on the steps of the precinct building. I’d been tied up with the Keystone Cops for longer than I would have liked, but as usual, Carlo Bianchi had come through. He was a hotshot attorney, the youngest grandson of the founder of Bianchi and Associates, the same firm the Morellis had held on retainer for decades.
“No problemo, Mr. Messina. These task forces, they’re always a mess,” he said as we walked down to the curb. “So desperate for results, they’ll pull in any innocent citizen off the street.”
They’d had to let me go. With no evidence and no opportunity, they would have been fools to try to hold me. The Family had standard operating procedures including pre-prepared alibis for moments like this, and as usual everything had gone off without a hitch.
“You gonna see Dylan tonight?” Bianchi asked as he hailed down a cab for me.
