“October’s a pretty time in the Ozarks,” Brooks commented, as Roland came out. “We’d be happy to have you, when you’re visiting. Boyd, you can finish up with the search. I’ll take Mr.Babbett in.”
“You’re not going to cuff me?”
Brooks offered that friendly smile again. “You want me to?”
“No. I appreciate it.”
“I don’t figure you’re going to run, and if you did? Where’re you gonna go?”
He didn’t run. Even if he’d had somewhere to run, he was made, his cover blown, the job in pieces.
At the station, Brooks gave him a cup of decent enough coffee, a phone and a few minutes of privacy—at a desk rather than in a cell.
After he made the call, Roland sat brooding.
“You finished up there?” Brooks asked him.
“Yeah. Finished.”
“Why don’t we talk in my office? Jeff?” Brooks said to his part-timer. “Don’t go poking in or sending in any calls, all right? Not unless it’s important.”
“Yes, sir, Chief.”
“Have a seat.” Brooks closed his office door, walked over to lean a hip on his desk. “Well, I’m going to tell you straight. You’re in some trouble here, Roland.”
“I got a lawyer coming down.”
“Fancy lawyer from the fancy firm, I expect. Still, we got you pretty cold on the B-and-E. Camera caught you in the hall, at the door, then the other cameras caught you poking around inside the suite. Got your lock picks.” As if sympathetic, Brooks let out a breath, shook his head. “Even a fancy lawyer’s going to have a time getting around that, don’t you figure? Could mean a little jail time and put a hurt on your license. And a baby coming. I’d hate for your wife to visit you in jail in her condition.”
“Jail’s doubtful, but the hurt on my license…Hell.”Roland pressed his fingers to his eyes. “Might be okay there. It’s the first ding on my record.”
Brooks lifted his shoulders, let them fall. “Might be.”
“I’m not usually sloppy. I figured the look-around for a breeze. I didn’t spot the cameras.”
“Don’t be too hard on yourself. They weren’t there until after you stopped by Abigail’s.”
“Uh-huh.” Now, Roland’s eyes met Brooks’s in perfect understanding. “She, her dog and her Glock scared the hell out of me.”
“You scared her. She’s a city girl still,” Brooks lied cheerfully. “Alone out there, no close neighbors. Add to that how she makes her living. I’m sure you know that already. Working security, always looking for how people get around it and do what they do? She’s a bit jumpy.”
“You’d have to be to have security cameras in the woods.”
“Oh, she’s always experimenting, running programs and what she calls scenarios. It happens you walked into one. Shook her up enough to have her lock herself in the house till I got home. You know, in case you were some ax murderer instead of a lost photographer.”
“She didn’t look shook up,” Roland muttered.
“Well, Abigail, she puts on a good front, and the dog helps her confidence. She told me about you, and I had to wonder. You gave her your real name.”
“ID was in my pack. She had the gun. I didn’t want to annoy her with a lie if she checked my pack. But I didn’t consider she, or you, would run me.”
“Cops. We’re just naturally cynical and suspicious. So, Roland, here’s the thing. I know who’d hire a PI from a fancy firm to poke around at Abigail, at me, at the Conroys and the hotel.”
“I can’t confirm or deny without my legal counsel.”
“I’m not asking you to, I’m telling you. Lincoln Blake would do close to anything to get that asshole son of his off, including hiring out for somebody to plant false evidence, make false statements.”
Where he’d been slouched and sulky in his seat, Roland now straightened. “Listen. I don’t go there, not for any client, not for any fee. Neither does the firm. We wouldn’t have the reputation we do otherwise.”
