Six moves ahead.
When I got back to Homicide, I went to the evidence room and pulled a computer hard drive from a closed case that hadn’t yet been sent to the archive room. I peeled the evidence stickers off of the drive and slipped it into the side pocket of my jacket. Then I went to my cubicle and plugged my digital recorder into my computer to copy my interview with Dennis Orton. You can never have enough backups of something that explosive. I was just finishing with the copy when Niki walked in the office.
“Any luck finding Kroll’s voice?” I asked.
“It took a while but . . .” She pulled a CD from her purse and twirled it in her fingers.
“He talks? You can hear him?”
“Loud and clear. He doesn’t say a lot, but it’s good-quality.” She handed me the CD.
“How’d your meeting with Farrah McKinney go?” Niki asked.
I opened the CD tray and laid Niki’s CD inside. “Zoya was terrified that she would be killed by a man named Mikhail. Farrah found a recording of Zoya saying that she wants to go home to Lida. Mikhail might be from there. Who knows, maybe he’s Russian mafia or something.”
“Lida?”
“A town in Belarus.” I click to start the CD from the court proceeding. We listen as the case is called by the clerk.
“The next case is State of Minnesota versus Raymond Alan Kroll, file number—”
A boom echoed through the office as Lieutenant Briggs slammed open his door. “Rupert! Vang! In my office now!”
He was standing in his doorway, his hands on his hips and legs squared up as if he were doing his level best to fill the space, his face already approaching pomegranate red. I clicked off the CD and turned to Niki, who was giving me a look that said: Here it comes.
She started to stand up, but I put my hand on her shoulder and shook my head no.
“Coming, Lieutenant!” I hollered back. And then to Niki I whispered, “Do you trust me?”
“Of course I do, but—”
“Stay here.”
“What?”
“I’m going to have a chat with Briggs. Can I borrow your recorder?”
“Don’t you have one?”
“Yeah, but I need two: one to play and one to record.”
She pulled a small digital recorder out of her purse and handed it to me. “What’s going on?”
I hit the record button and slid the thumb-sized piece of technology into my shirt pocket. “I can’t tell you,” I said. I adjusted my jacket to cover my pocket, trying to find a balance between hiding and smothering.
“You’re going to do something stupid, aren’t you?”
I smiled my calmest smile and said, “Nothing stupid. I promise. But I need you to stay here and trust me.”
She nodded without saying another word.
I stood, took a deep breath, and walked into Briggs’s office.
Six moves ahead.
Briggs sat behind his desk, waiting for Niki and me, his desktop cleared of any distractions. He’d been preparing for this meeting—but so had I. He looked confused when I entered alone.
“Where’s Vang?”
I closed the door. “She’s not coming.”
“What do you mean she’s not coming?”
“I mean that this conversation is between us and will remain that way—if you’re smart.”
“Are you out of your mind? Do you have any idea how much trouble you’re in? And you dragged Niki into the mess with you.” He slammed his hand on the desktop. “Go get her and bring her in here now!”
Briggs’s reaction made me smile as I remembered how Sun Tzu wrote that an enemy who makes a lot of noise, clanging his sword against his shield, is showing that he is weak. “No, Briggs,” I said calmly. “Niki stays out of this.”
“You can’t—just who the hell do you think you are?” Tiny drops of spit sailed from Briggs’s mouth as his anger climbed toward a full-blown conniption. “I know what you’ve been up to, Rupert. I know all about it.”
“Yeah, and what have I been up to?”
“You’ve been snooping around in your wife’s case again.” His lips tightened against his teeth as he seethed. “I’m going to go to Chief Murphy and recommend that Detective Vang be reprimanded and that you be suspended—and after this show of insolence, I may change my recommendation to termination. Now go get Vang or clean out your desk.”
“Are you done?”
“That’s it, Rupert. I’ve had all I can take.” Briggs picked up the phone hit the top button of his preset numbers, a line that would connect him directly to Chief Murphy’s office.
“Did you go see Dennis Orton this morning?” I spoke my words like a man asking nothing more than what time it was. He had no idea that I was leading him toward a battlefield, one that I had selected. This fight would be on my terms, not his.
Briggs hung up the phone before the chief ’s assistant could answer. He looked like a man who’d just walked into an invisible wall, his eyes blinking hard to wipe away the confusion. I could see him trying to move game pieces around in his head. What did I know about his visit to Orton? How could he explain it away?
“Are you accusing me of something, Detective?”
He didn’t answer my question, so I didn’t answer his. “Tell me, Briggs, have you been involving yourself in my investigation?”
“What investigation are you talking about?”
“The minivan case, as you called it. Have you been sticking your nose into things you shouldn’t?”
“I’m the one asking the questions, Rupert. If you have any desire to remain a detective here, you’d better remember who you are and who I am.”
I pulled a folded piece of paper from my pocket, a printed shot of Briggs leaving Orton’s hospital room, a souvenir given to me by my new friend, Dan Clark at HCMC Security. I moved in slow, deliberate motions as I unfolded the picture and slid it across Briggs’s desk.
At first, Briggs leaned away from the picture like it might be radioactive. Then he picked it up, squinting to get a better look.
“Recognize that face?”
He didn’t answer.
“Because I do and so will Chief Murphy—and my friends at WCCO.”
“Where did you get this?”
“Why did you go to see Dennis Orton?” I ask.
I must lock him in on his lies. Cut off all of his escape routes before making the final attack.
“I didn’t. I . . . I went there to see if he was still intubated. I wanted to see if you were lying to me again. It’s your penchant for lying that—”
“You didn’t talk to him?”
“No. Why would I talk to him?”
“That’s right. What would you possibly have to say to a guy like that?”
“I didn’t say anything to him. I just wanted to see if you were being straight with me.”
“So you didn’t say a word to your buddy Dennis Orton?”
“My buddy? I don’t know what you’re talking about. He’s not my buddy.”
“You didn’t go to college together?”