“Jim’s not a racist.”
“No, not that—his way of looking at sex crimes. The jokes he’d make about some of the cases I was working. You know how some of the guys are.”
“Yeah.” Alex always thought the guys pushed the boundaries to piss off the female cops, or make them uncomfortable.
“And usually we ignore it. But with you—Jim was better when you were around. Even though you were too good for him, he’d mellowed out once you started dating. He liked you.”
“Or maybe,” Alex said, “he was pretending all along.”
“What does that mean?”
“You can’t tell anyone this, Selena. No one. Not even Gabriel.”
“I trust Gabriel, but I won’t tell him.”
Alex glanced around, but one reason she’d picked this coffee house was that it was the least likely place they’d run into another cop. Still, she kept her voice low as she told Selena what really happened last year. She went through how she started working undercover for the feds and about documenting Tommy’s illegal activities and trying to get something big on Rykov, the head of Russian organized crime. “Everything was working fine until I caught Tommy with that underage prostitute. I had been investigating him for months, not long after I transferred to Northern Command. And that’s around the time Jim and I started dating.”
“Wow,” Selena said. “None of that came out when Tommy shot you.”
“Because the FBI didn’t have enough on Rykov, and if Rykov knew that I had documented everything Tommy did, it put others at risk. I agreed to stay quiet so they could find another way into the organization.”
“Shit, Alex.” Selena paused. “You don’t think that Jim knew about the investigation?”
“No. I honestly don’t. But before we split up, things were tense—I was keeping secrets and he knew. Only, he accused me of having an affair. I wasn’t, but I left anyway.” She paused, everything from her relationship with Jim starting to look a whole lot different.
“He came to see me last night,” Alex continued. “It was late. There didn’t seem to be any reason for the visit. But it felt familiar. He came in angry, as if I’d done something, and then said he thought I was lying about recognizing the shooter. I was lying—I did recognize him, though I don’t know his name. I didn’t tell Jim because as far as I’m concerned, the FBI needs to clear that information. So I admitted that he looked familiar but I didn’t know why. He seemed satisfied with the answer and all was well. But it reminded me of several other conversations we’d had in the past. And when I gave an answer, he was satisfied and we’d go drinking or have sex or watch a game. I think he was pumping me for information. He wanted to know what I knew or thought of Tommy’s activities. Either he thought I was extremely stupid because I didn’t figure it out, or that I was also on the take, though he never directly asked me. Yet ... Tommy may have told him that I knew about the skimming on drug busts. I pretended to ignore it, but had to make sure Tommy knew I knew what he was doing so that he would trust me.” She squeezed her temples. “This is a mess.”
“You need to tell your FBI contact all this.”
“I did. Sort of. They’re on top of things. But it makes me question my own judgment. I dated Jim Perry for more than a year. I lived with him for months. And I didn’t pick up on any of this. I feel like an idiot.”
“You’re the farthest thing from.” Selena grabbed her hand. “Listen to me, Alex—a good liar can make anyone believe a lie. I’m going to talk to John. I won’t tell him anything about what you said, I won’t even mention your name. But John is the finest cop I know, hands down. If he suspects anything, he’ll tell me.”
“Can you ask him to look into one more thing?”
“Anything.”
“Ballistics from the gun used in the Hart shooting match ballistics from an unsolved murder of a Russian prostitute.”
“I sense a theme here.”
“We’re hearing the same tune.”
“And you want to know what?”
“Anything about that case. Details—where she was found, if she had other injuries, any suspects. I can’t help but think that I have a bunch of pieces to the puzzle, but I’m missing the one piece that puts it all together.”
“I’ll call him. But Alex—please be careful. These people are extremely dangerous. If they had one cop on the payroll, they could have more.”
“I know they do. I just need to prove it.”
***
The archived files were on his desk when he arrived back to his office at ten that morning. Matt scanned the summary sheet of what was included, and all appeared to be in order. Next, he went through the detailed indictment.