Ochoa picked up his cup again. “Hey, we’re just doing the job, man. As long as that works, I’m cool.” He tested the coffee and then took a long sip.
“Come on. Something’s going on here and I want to clear the air between us. Now, I’m not insensitive. I know what’s different. My article. It’s because I didn’t give you guys enough credit, is that it?” They didn’t say anything. It struck him right then what room he was in and how ironic that here he was interrogating two detectives, trying to get them to talk. So he played his ace card. “I’m not going anywhere until you tell me.”
A look passed between them both, but again Ochoa spoke. “OK, since you ask, yeah. But I wouldn’t call it getting credit. It’s more like, you know, we’re a team. Just like you’ve seen us do it. So it’s not about getting our names in more or being made heroes, we don’t want any of that. Just how come it wasn’t more like it’s all of us together, you know? That’s all.”
Rook nodded. “I thought so. It wasn’t intentional, I assure you, and if I had it to do over, I’d write it differently. I’m sorry, guys.”
Ochoa studied Rook. “All I can ask.” He stuck out his hand, and after they shook, he turned to his partner. “Rales?”
The other detective seemed more tentative, but he said, “Cool,” and also shook with the writer.
“Good,” said Rook. “Now, my offer still stands. How can I help here?”
Ochoa beckoned him to scoot his chair closer. “What we’re doing is going over Padilla’s phone records looking for any calls that weren’t to friends, family, his boss, whatever.”
“You’re trying to spot anything out of pattern.”
“Yeah. Or a pattern that tells us something.” Ochoa handed a phone record to Rook and placed a pink sheet listing the friend and family and work numbers on the table between them. “You see any numbers that don’t appear on the pink sheet, hit ’em with the highlighter, got it?”
“Got it.” Just as Rook began to scan the first line of calls, he felt Raley’s eyes on him and looked up.
“I have to say this, Rook. There is one more thing bugging me, and if I don’t get it off my chest, it’s just going to keep eating and eating at me.”
Rook could see the gravity of this on his face and set down his sheet. “Sure, let me hear it, let’s get it all out. What do you want to say to me?”
Raley said, “Sweet Tea.”
Puzzled, Rook said, “Help me out here. You don’t like the tea?”
“No, not the damn tea. My nickname. Sweet Tea. You put it in the article, and now everybody’s calling me that.”
Ochoa said, “I haven’t noticed that.”
“Why would you? You aren’t me.”
“Again, I apologize,” said Rook. “Better?”
Raley shrugged. “Yeah. Now that I unloaded, yeah.”
“Who calls you that?” pressed his partner.
Raley fidgeted. “Lots of people. Desk sergeant, a uniform in booking. It doesn’t matter how many, I don’t like it.”
“Can I say something as your friend and your partner? In the scheme of getting over yourself? . . . Get over yourself.” And one second after they resumed their work, Ochoa punctuated it with “. . . Sweat Tea.”
They studied the records in silence. A few minutes later, on his second printout, Rook asked Ochoa for the highlighter.
“Got one?”
“Yeah.” As he took the marker from Ochoa, it registered exactly what he had. “Holy shit.”
“What?” said Roach.
Rook highlighted the phone number and held it up. “This number? It’s Cassidy Towne’s.”
A half hour later, Detective Heat stood over the array of highlighted phone records Roach had laid out side by side, in chronological order, on her desktop out in the bull pen. “So what do we have?”