I hung up and walked into the Security Office, where a man in a blue uniform sat behind a bank of monitors, scribbling on a pad of paper. I showed him my badge. “I have a suspect in the Burn Unit,” I said. “I was wondering if I could look to see who he’s had as visitors.”
The man, a rotund fellow with an overgrown mustache and a clip-on tie hanging from his shirt pocket looked at my badge, his eyes squinting as if badge inspections were a specialty of his. A name tag on his shirt read Clark, and I was unsure if that was his first name or last, so I didn’t use it.
“You want what again?” he asked.
“I’d like to see if any visitors have been on the Burn Unit this morning. I have a murder suspect in there, and I think one of his visitors may be a person of interest. Can you pull the surveillance footage up for me?”
“Nope,” he said, with a slight air of smugness. “I run security. I’m not an IT guy. That’s something for the computer geeks to handle.” Clark made no move to pick up a phone or page a computer tech. I paused for a couple beats, waiting for him to act, and he just stared at me.
“Is there by chance a computer guy around that could rewind the footage for me?”
“You don’t just rewind it. This is high-tech stuff. It’s not like we’re some Podunk gas station with a VCR in the back room. We’re talking state-of-the-art.”
I leaned my elbows onto the countertop between us, lacing my fingers and giving them a good squeeze to try and pull the stress away from my face. “Someone in this hospital has the ability to pull up footage of visitors to the Burn Unit, am I right?”
“Well . . . yeah,” Clark said. “Of course.”
“And you have enough tech savvy to pick up a phone and summon that person here, don’t you?”
Clark shifted in his seat and glared at me without answering.
“So would you be so kind as to make that call?”
Clark shot me a fake smile. “Tech folk are a busy bunch, you know. Maybe you should just leave me your card and I’ll get back to you.”
He struck me as a man who carried a sizable chip on his shoulder when it came to cops, and I wondered if he’d been kicked out of a police department in his past, told to resign or get fired, a mark that would ensure he’d never wear a badge again—even a security badge.
I made a point of holding Clark’s gaze in mine and said, “I’ll tell you what . . . Clark. You see what you can do while I go upstairs to visit my old friend Doctor John. Maybe he can grease the skids a bit.”
I had met the CEO of HCMC at a conference once, a symposium on dealing with mentally ill clientele. We were by no means close friends; in fact, I don’t think I would have even recognized him had he walked into that Security Office right then. But I knew his name—not the name on the letterhead, but the name he preferred to be called by those under his watch. Doctor John. To Clark, that name was as good as knowing the secret password.
He tried not to show his concern, but the man had an easy tell. He brushed his thumb across his lips, and his nostrils flared as his breathing shifted into a slightly higher gear. I took out a card, laid it on the counter, and smiled, hoping to calm Clark’s pulse. “It’s important,” I said.
“Sure,” he said, the weight of the chip now gone from his shoulder.
I left the Security Office and checked my phone as I headed to my squad car. I had missed a call from Niki, so I called her back.
“Did you come back to the office last night before meeting me at Rusty’s?” she asked.
“No. Why?”
“Both of our computers were on when I came in this morning. I know I shut them off before I left.”
“Briggs?”
“Has to be.”
“Dammit,” I whispered. “He’s digging through our investigation.”
“His door’s been shut all morning, and Commander Walker’s out sick.”
“Again? What’s that been? Ten days out in the last month?”
“You think something might be seriously wrong with Walker?”
“I think Briggs knows something we don’t,” I said. “I don’t like this one bit. I’m on my way back now so we—”
“No, don’t come back here. I have a bunch of stuff to show you, but we should meet outside the office.”
“Meet me at Eddie’s. I’ll buy.”
“I’m heading out now. See you there.”
I cut off the call and paused at the revolving door before leaving the hospital, looking out at the steam rising from the taxis picking up and dropping off patients. I thought about Commander Walker and his many recent absences. Had he been losing weight? Or was that my imagination? We hadn’t always seen eye to eye, but if you brushed away the mud of office politics, I always trusted him to deal straight with me.
I pulled up his personal cell number and hit send.
CHAPTER 18
Commander Walker answered his phone as he always did—with a single word. “Walker.”
“Commander, it’s Max Rupert. I’m sorry to bother you at home, but . . . I have a question that I think only you can answer.”
A pause. Then, “Go ahead.”
His voice came through the phone flat and tired, and I regretted the call. I felt like a school kid tattling to a teacher. “It’s nothing too urgent,” I said. “It’s about Lieutenant Briggs. I thought you might be able to fill in a blank or two.”
“What’s Briggs doing now?”
“Niki and I are looking into the death of a woman on New Year’s Day. They found her burned up in a minivan. Everything points toward her boyfriend.” Now it was my turn to pause as I tried to put my suspicions into words.
“Okay,” Walker said. “What’s that got to do with Briggs?”
“Lieutenant Briggs has been . . . well, I’d call it hovering. He’s pressing Niki and me for information, and we believe he’s been digging through our computers and spying on our investigation. I’m just trying to figure out what his interest is.”
“You think he’s got a political angle?”
“I do,” I said. “The woman’s boyfriend is Dennis Orton, the deputy chief of staff to the mayor.”
“I see.”
I thought about saying more, but realized that I had no more to say. All I had was hovering and a couple computers that turned on overnight. A wave of embarrassment passed over me, and I was trying to figure out a way to get out of the conversation when Commander Walker cleared his throat and spoke.
“Max, what I’m about to tell you is confidential. Do I have your word on that?”
“I’ll need to tell Niki,” I said.
“That’s fine. She’s good people. You got lucky with that one.”
“Best partner a guy could ask for,” I said.
“Here’s the thing, Max. I have cancer—colon. They diagnosed it just before Christmas. They say I have a good shot at beating it, but I’m taking a leave of absence. I’ve been talking to Chief Murphy about the timing, and we were thinking about an announcement before the end of the month.”
My heart dropped into my stomach, and I wished that I hadn’t called.
“I’ll need surgery and probably some follow-up chemo.”
“I’m sorry to hear it, Matt. How’s Lydia handling it?”
“Like a good wife. She’s all smiles when she’s near me, but I can see in her eyes that she’s scared.”
“If there’s anything I can do . . .”
“I know, Max.”
“So Briggs knows about this?”