DeLongpre added, “Because goodness knows we want you to feel comfortable.”
“I don’t know if I would say he lost it,” she said. “It was more like a slow change. A little more tense, that’s all. I cut him slack because of his wife getting killed.” She didn’t know which was stronger, her instinct to protect his memory or her mistrust of these two.
Lovell said, “Is that why you said to your squad yesterday . . . ,” he read from his notepad, ” ‘Cap’s been off the charts lately, but this has me shaking my head’?”
Who gave them that? Heat wondered. Although she had an idea. “That’s out of context. I think I said it when he was MIA.”
Lovell held the pad up and repeated, ” ‘Cap’s been off the charts lately . . .’ Sounds like plenty of context to me. I hear you two really tore it up in this office yesterday morning. Shouting, desk pounding . . . Well?”
“He was feeling pressure. The CompStat push, you know. Target numbers.”
“Yeah, he told us about that, too. But why was he up your skirt?” said DeLongpre. Heat knew that was calculated to press a button, so she ignored it. But she had to answer. So she tossed them a bone.
“We had some disagreements about the case I’m working on.” She was prepared to say little and leave it general. But they had other ideas.
“The priest, right? And you thought he was involved somehow in the killing, is that what set him off?”
Heat was stunned. As she grappled for a reply, DeLongpre jumped in. “He conducted a solo search of the rectory, correct? You found that suspicious.”
Then Lovell hit her with “And he screwed with your case, blocking viable avenues of your investigation.”
“Especially hinky, since the phone records established Montrose had a relationship with the vic,” said his partner.
These guys were thorough. “If you know all these things, what do you want from me?”
“More.” Lovell unfolded all six-two of himself from the chair and came around to sit on the front of the desk. He smoothed his skinny black tie and looked down at her from his perch. “We want to know what else you’re holding.”
“You expect me to dish dirt on my old skip?”
“We expect you to assist the department in its investigation, Detective.”
DeLongpre said, “He was into something, let’s hear what you’ve got.”
She looked from MIB to MIB. They had positioned themselves so that following their conversation felt like watching a tennis match. “I don’t have anything. No more than you already mentioned.” Which was mostly true. The rest was unfounded and circumstantial, like the captain’s finger cut.
In a singsong, DeLongpre said, “Bull . . . shit . . .”
She didn’t turn his way but spoke her remarks calmly to Lovell. “I deal in facts. You want to spitball, call Detective Hinesburg in again. I’m going to apply myself to finding out who killed my commander.”
“Find out who killed him?” When Lovell raised his eyebrows, the lines in his vast forehead formed an inverted V. “Nobody killed him but him.”
“You don’t have proof of that.”
“You just gave it,” he said. The Internal Affairs man got off the desk and walked the room, ticking off each point on a finger. “Straight-shooting, tough-but-fair captain’s wife dies a year ago and he goes around the bend. He starts to slip. Can’t handle the pressure of the command, and the pack wolves at HQ descend on him, making him even more erratic. Maybe it’s temptation, maybe it’s anger at the system, he gets himself involved in something—we don’t know what yet, but we’ll damn sure find out—and when you . . . his protégée . . . called him on it and handed him his ass yesterday, he felt the walls closing in.” Lovell snapped his fingers once. “He leaves your meeting and eats his gun.”
Nikki shot to her feet. “Hold on, you’re putting this on me?”
Lovell smiled, and deep vertical creases appeared on his cheeks. “Give me something that says it isn’t.”
“Till then,” said DeLongpre, “live with it.”
* * *