"No. That's all of it. Maybe the manager at the restaurant or one of the waiters could verify what happened. I know people were watching."
"Bistro Verde, you said?" Max asked.
She nodded. "It was last Friday, just three days before everything happened."
The day and time helped, Kara thought. Hopefully, there were some cameras near the bistro that could help identify that person.
"I have to go," Claire said, sliding out of the booth.
Max got up, barring her from leaving immediately. "One second, Claire. Kara may need you to look at footage we can find from the restaurant to help us identify that man."
"I don't really want to be more involved."
"It will be completely private. No one will know you helped us," she said, a little surprised that Max had taken the initiative, but glad that he had.
"Okay. You have my number," she said as she hurried away.
Max moved around the table and sat down across from her. "What do you think?"
"We need to find that man," she said, already texting the information to her team so that they could start looking for him. "This could be the break we've been looking for." She finished texting, then lifted her gaze to his. "Thank you for including me. You didn't have to."
"I thought it might help. I'm not your enemy."
"You have been more helpful than I expected, but I still don't completely trust you."
"Well, I don't completely trust you either," he returned.
His comment surprised her. "Why not? I've been completely transparent with you."
"I doubt that." He paused. "I have a friend in the NYPD. He said you weren't a very popular cop."
"You looked me up?"
"I asked a few questions. It's not like you haven't been trying to find out about my past."
"But your past is redacted. And mine is not. I'm sure you know exactly why I wasn't popular."
"I'd like to hear about it from you."
She paused as the server returned to ask if they wanted to order anything else. "I'll take a chicken Caesar salad," she said. If she were going to talk about her past, she might as well have lunch while she was doing it.
"I'll take the French dip." As the server left, he said, "Since we'll be waiting for our lunch, this seems like a good time to talk."
"I'll tell you what happened. And then you're going to answer one of my questions."
He shrugged. "Let's see how it goes."
"After almost eight years in the NYPD, I made detective after closing a big case, which was very exciting. Unfortunately, the seasoned and cynical detective I was assigned to work with did not share my enthusiasm."
"Because you're a woman?"
"It was more because I wasn't someone who was going to look the other way. Three months into our assigned partnership, which was almost two years ago now, we started working on a joint interagency case with the FBI and the DEA that involved drugs and money laundering. During the investigation, I realized that my partner had stolen money and drugs from a stash house. I turned him in, and he and his friends turned on me. I'd broken the code. Not only because I'd reported him to Internal Affairs, but because I'd also talked to the FBI and the DEA."
"You had no choice. If you hadn't turned him in, you could have been charged as a co-conspirator."
"If anyone had ever found out, which they might not have," she said candidly. "And to be completely honest, there were other, far more dangerous, far more violent people to take down, which was repeatedly stated to me after the fact. That I had ruined the career of a man who had been on the force for over a decade, who had been overworked and underpaid, was unforgivable. And he had been overworked and underpaid, but that's the job we all signed up for. I couldn't let him walk away because he would have kept committing crimes, and that's not why I became a cop."
Max nodded, a gleam of respect in his eyes. "That was brave."
