“To have the warrant, they must have some evidence that he’s involved.”
“Evan went down there to find out what he can,” Reese told him.
“I can make a few calls and see what I can find out.”
Brantley nodded. It was something.
“Give me a coupla hours,” Jeff said. “I’ll let you know what I find out.”
Brantley wanted to argue that they didn’t have a couple of hours to spare, but he didn’t. It wouldn’t benefit any of them if he pissed off the people who could help them.
Brantley turned to walk out, feeling restless. “Thanks, Sheriff.”
“Where to next?” Reese asked as they stepped out into the muggy August morning.
“To talk to Wes,” Brantley told him.
“Why?”
“Because Baz is gonna need a lawyer,” Brantley explained. “Baz knows the system. He’s not gonna speak without one. And I figure his father’ll have a good one. Or, at the very least, know of one.”
Plus, Brantley couldn’t fathom going back to HQ without having some news for JJ.
***
Baz sat in the small room, waitingfor the detective to come in.
From the moment they marched him into the station, he’d felt all eyes on him.
He’d never been on this side of the handcuffs, and he would admit he didn’t care much for it. Despite the fact he was a former police officer, they treated him as though he had a criminal record a mile long. He was pretty sure the guy in charge got a kick out of marching him through for everyone to see.
Once they dumped him in the room, he knew they were going to make him sweat for a while. It was exactly what he would’ve done. In fact, he could likely predict exactly how this would go. They wanted him good and frustrated before they came in to get him to spill his guts about whatever crime they suspected he committed. Then a friendly face would show up, try to soften him up, get him to confess to the crime they needed him to be guilty of because if there was even a shadow of a doubt, it could all blow back on them.
That was how these things worked.
Baz intended to play the game because it was the only way to find out what they had on him. And since they were convinced he’d killed Molly and Sonny, he was interested in the evidence. What could possibly tie him to a double murder?
As much as he wanted to wipe them both off the face of this earth, they were going to be sincerely disappointed because he didn’t do it.
Thirty minutes later, a detective walked in.
Baz figured she was here to play good cop since she carried two cups of coffee—one for him because she was courteous that way—and a single file folder. She was moving slowly, setting the cups down first, then the folder. She sighed, pushing one of the cups toward him and touching the folder once more. It was her way of drawing his attention to it, trying to get him curious about what was inside. Considering how thin it was, he would be surprised if they’d even bothered to tuck a copy of the arrest warrant in there.
Not everyone was good at this game. Baz was, so this was sure to be interesting.
“Thought you might need this,” she said, gesturing toward the paper cup, her tone soft.
Baz didn’t point out that she hadn’t made it this far in her career by being sweet and meek, something they liked to portray when they were hoping to confuse a suspect.
“Kinda hard to drink with cuffs on,” he informed her.
“Sorry about that,” she said, sounding almost contrite as she came around the table.
As he’d expected, she freed him from the cuffs.
“I’m not sure why they left those on.”
So you could pretend to be the good guy, he thought. Just another box to check in theInterrogation 101 Handbook.
