Page 36 of Manner of Death

This is why Sawyer is the detective. Leave me to the autopsies.

Sawyer made a show of checking his phone. Then he fixed a glare on Felix. “Well?” His waning patience even made Bashir a little nervous. “Are you going to talk or not?”

Where Felix had been dangerously close to vomiting earlier, he looked even closer now to crying, shitting himself, or both. He was shaking badly, inching back from all three of the other men like a cornered animal. “I want…” He swallowed hard and tried again. “I want a lawyer.”

Oh. Shit. Was he the killer?

But Sawyer didn’t seem bothered. He half-shrugged and said to the other cop, “Set him up in an interview room upstairs, and get him on the phone with a lawyer.”

“Will do.” The cop gave a curt nod, then gestured for Felix to head out of the morgue. All the screaming and arguing from earlier were gone, and the podcaster fell into step with the officer.

When they’d left, Bashir said, “Do you think he did it?”

“No,” Sawyer said without hesitation.

“Even though he’s asking for a lawyer?”

“A lot of people do. Everyone should, honestly, so he’s smart.” Sawyer gazed in the direction Felix had gone. “Hopefully he’s smart enough to lead us back to the killer.”

Chapter 10

Sawyer would never think of denying someone their right to a lawyer. He just wished the lawyer in question wasn’t this particular lawyer. He didn’t lend credence to the idea of intelligent design, but this guy in particular seemed built to embody the ideal of a human stumbling block.

“Unless you’re charging my client with something, then we’re done here.” Devon Larue folded his hands on the folder in front of him and stared smugly across the table at Sawyer. He was as thin as Felix was bulky, with a pointed face that reminded Sawyer of a Doberman Pinscher. “Unless you’d like me to start going through all the civilian complaints your department has received over the past five years again?”

“We’re not here to litigate the police department, or your client’s guilt or innocence,” Sawyer said. Good thing they weren’t, because Devon had a point when it came to poor behavior in the past by the police department. There was an external oversight committee in place now that reviewed every complaint, and things were getting better, but earning back trust was a slow process. “All I want to know is where Mr. Daughtry got his very heavily classified information.”

Felix, also far more smug now that his lawyer was here, opened his mouth to speak, but Larue cut him off. “That’s not germane to the subject at hand, which is his guilt or innocence. If you aren’t going to charge him, then by law he’s free to go. If you do charge him, and these charges turn out to be as baseless as I expect them to be, then you can expect a lawsuit within the next week on behalf of my client for pain and suffering.”

“And will your client be paying your legal fees from the money he expects to get for selling his storytelling skills to HBO?” Sawyer asked.

The self-satisfied look dropped right off Felix’s face, but Larue didn’t even flinch. “It’s not my job to ask where the money comes from,” he said with a shrug.

“Until it is.”

“Until then, yeah. But for now?” He smiled. “What’s the verdict, Detective Villeray?”

Sawyer smiled. “Oh, you’re free to go.”

“Ha!” Larue turned and shook hands with Felix, and the two of them pushed back their chairs noisily.

“But.” They paused. “If, over the course of my investigation, I find a link between Mr. Daughtry and the killer, and if I determine that he did know something that could have helped us save more innocent lives that he decided not to turn over to us…well. I think being charged with obstruction of justice and accessory to murder will be the least of his worries then.”

Larue sneered as he tucked his paperwork back into his briefcase. “Threats, detective? Another black mark against the police department.”

“Not a threat,” he said. “A fact. I appreciate honesty, and so I prefer to be upfront about my intentions. Don’t say later that you didn’t see this coming.” He stood and got the door. “Have a nice day, gentlemen.”

“I will have a nice day, thank you,” Larue said as he walked through the door and down the hall with a brisk pace.

Felix moved slower, and even came to a stop in front of Sawyer and leaned in. “Hey, listen…”

Is he about to give me something? “Yes?”

“I know you don’t act anymore, but you’ve got the look down¸ you know what I’m saying? Jessica’s daughter is cute and all, but we could turn things in a way more powerful direction if we could convince the studio to cast you, and—”

“Get. Out.”

Felix pulled back, a little shaky but still bombastic. “It was just a fuckin’ thought, there’s no need to threaten me over it, Detective Villeray!”

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