Holgersen reached into his breast pocket, pulled out a packet of nicotine chewing gum. “I’s said, where’s Pallorino?”
“I don’t know.” Maddocks returned his attention to his notes. But his pulse had quickened. Holgersen remained there, making a crackling noise as he struggled to pop a square of gum out of its cellophane packaging.
“Christ, Holgersen,” he said, looking up again. “What do you want? I need to get these notes wrapped before Buziak’s a.m. briefing.”
He freed the tablet of green gum from its cellophane prison, grinned, and popped it into his mouth. He started to chew as he dragged a chair up to the side of Maddocks’s desk. He seated himself, pointed to his mouth. “Not giving up the smokes, just sos you knows. But the gum fix keeps me calm when I can’t have a cigarette indoors. Been trying it out since Wednesday.”
Two detectives entered the incident room along with the scent of the fresh coffees they were carrying.
Holgersen lowered his voice. “I phoned her. She didn’t pick up.”
Maddocks shrugged and returned to his notes one more time. But his shoulders were tensing.
“Like, several times.”
“Okay, Jesus.” Maddocks slapped down his pen and sat erect. “You’re pissing me off now. It’s early, okay. Maybe she doesn’t want to take your call. Maybe she’s in the damn shower. So wait for her to come in.”
He smoothed his goatee, his twitchy, dull-brown eyes fixed on Maddocks’s face.
“I heard she called in sick today,” he said.
“Where’d you hear that?”
Holgersen’s gaze twitched toward the two detectives who were now conversing in the far corner with another two investigators who’d also entered the room. He lowered his voice further. “Overhead Fitz talking to one of them suits from internal. They was inside Buziak’s office. I figure from what Fitz was saying that he’s gunning for Pallorino as the deep throat, and he wants her badge. And I’s just wanting to be warning her about it. Funny thing—Buziak was not in his office. Just the inspector and the suit. Maybe Buze called in sick, too. Maybe something went down at that late-night meeting he was called into when we was all drinking and celebrating at the Pig.”
Maddocks felt blood drain from his face and anger rise in his chest. “You and Leo cook this up? He trying to mess with Pallorino again?”
Holgersen snorted and was about to speak when the incident room door burst wide open.
“Sergeant Maddocks?” Inspector Frank Fitzsimmons called out in his scratchy, high-pitched voice, his hand on the door handle. Behind him loomed a skinny man in a bad suit—someone Maddocks did not recognize. “A word in my office, please, Sergeant?”
All attention in the room swung onto Maddocks and his bruised and bandaged face. His stomach muscles tensed.
“What I freaking tell you, man?” Holgersen muttered as Maddocks pushed back his seat, came to his feet, and smoothed down his tie.
“Good luck,” Holgersen said, standing up himself.
Then, as Maddocks started toward the door, Holgersen murmured under his breath, “Guess Leo was also smacked by a boom Wednesday night, eh?”
And it struck Maddocks like a bolt—Holgersen had seen Angie, him, and Leo fighting outside the Flying Pig. He’d probably been lurking under the eaves, out of the rain, smoking in the dark shadows. He’d seen him and Angie kiss.
And he was warning Maddocks, too, not just Angie, that maybe the information was out there. And was going to be used.
Or was he playing some other dark game entirely?
CHAPTER 50
“This is Sergeant Charles Tillerman from internal,” Fitz said, holding his tie against his stomach as he bent to take the seat behind his desk. Tillerman seated himself to Fitz’s side. Maddocks took the lone remaining chair, positioned directly in front of Fitz’s desk.
Fitz had shut the door behind them. Blinds were drawn against observation from the bullpens.
“Tillerman was originally Vancouver PD,” Fitz offered. “Maybe you two knew of each other, given you both worked the greater Vancouver area.”
“I was RCMP, integrated homicide, and while iHit does partner with VPD, we have not met.” He glanced at Tillerman, who sat stony-faced and still.
“I see,” Fitz said in his reedy voice, and Maddocks sensed he was being played, measured. His walls of caution went up higher. Silently, he half-thanked Holgersen for the warning, if that’s what it was.
“What happened to your face, Sergeant Maddocks?” Fitz said.
