Page 60 of Sinful Promise
“Sure, okay. So if we asked you to come on down to the station and work with our composite artist, you’re telling me the best you can give him is ‘the dude is tall and didn’t wear a hat’?”
“Listen, cop.” His arrogance flares hot as he leans onto the table and works to intimidate a man who won’t be scared. “I saw what I saw.”
“You didn’t see shit.” Turning, I lean into my partner’s space and murmur by his ear, “He’s trying to sell us bullshit. Two weapons imply two perps. Your eyewitness saw only one person exit.”
“Maybe they left at different times,” Fletch proposes. “Or maybe they walked in a straight line, so from Benji’s vantage point, there was only one.”
But that’s not how it fucking happened!
Though if I say so, I have to confess how I know.
Frustrated, tired, and ready to go home, I pull back and bite my tongue. Then I look to our supposed witness and fake a smile. “What time did you see this person?”
“About midnight. I was walking back to my place after hanging with some friends when I passed Fentone’s safehouse. I heard his door open, so I moved into the shadows and caught the guy coming out.”
As a cop, I long ago became accustomed to assholes lying to my face. Butthislie, tonight, grates on my nerves more than any other. “Why hide?” I grit out. “Walking isn’t a crime.”
Again, he looks to Fletch. “No reason.”
“So you always hide in the shadows?” Demanding, I bring his attention back my way. “You’re a little badass, walking Copeland City streets past your bedtime, definitelynotbuying or selling drugs with your friends, and a door opens. Why hide?”
“It’s what I do.” He puffs his lips forward, like a weird pucker I think he thinks looks cool. “No need to draw more attention to myself than necessary.”
“Right.” And yet, he dresses like Kevin Federline, circa 2002. “Did you follow the guy who left Fentone’s safehouse?”
He immediately shakes his head, then as the music grows louder, and across the club, a group of women scream their enthusiasm, he leans closer. “I turned and continued to my place.”
“Did you watch where the guy went first? Which way he walked?”
He shrugs. “It was just a guy walking at night. Same as I was. He minded his business, so I minded mine.”
“Well… not exactly, right? Since you’re here, talking to a couple of cops about it.”
Displeased, he narrows his eyes. “Money is money, Detective. I gotta pay the bills.”
“Especially when your dope-trade isn’t picking up the way you wish it was.” Tilting on my hips, I take out my wallet and effectively burn cash—because that’s the next step in this process. It’s what’s expected.And fuck, but why is Fletch shutting his trap tonight, when he does at no other time?
“Twenty for your trouble.” I set the cash on the table and blink just once before it’s gone.
He doesn’t waste time before turning away. But he twists back and pins me with a look. “I’m not sorry the dude is dead. We all do bad shit sometimes, but hurting little girls isn’t cool.”
“Nope.” I pop my lips on the P and study the kid up and down. “Hurting little girls isn’t cool at all. You know where to find us if you think of anything else.”
“Yeah. Oh, and I heard your people found the knife the killer used.” He taps the table, like that tidbit of information doesn’t rock me to my core. “I don’t think anyone will be mad if you lose that evidence.”
“What?” I spin on my chair as Benji wanders away, and catch Fletch’s eyes. “Someone found the knife? We’re the primaries! Who the fuck has the knife?”
“It was handed over this afternoon,” he rumbles in the back of his throat.
Taking out his phone and navigating to the photo album, he pulls up a picture of the very blade I tossed in a trashcan two nights ago. The handle Minka gripped. The blade that punctured Fentone’s heart. Fuck, but the etching along the side, seemingly unique, but not really once I went online and found a million of the same kind available in every store from one end of the country to the other.
“I caught a tip this afternoon after we clocked off,” he tells me, “so I followed up.”
“Without me?” Angry, I study his honeycomb stare. “You running this case without me, Fletch?”
“Garzo called me.” He stares back, as though challenging me to look away. But like I’ve perfected over the years, even under my best friend’s glare, I keep my expression straight.
“You remember Garzo, right?” His voice grows louder. “He called me, Arch. Because he said he had some information on the vigilante that you said you’d followed up.”
