TRUTH OR LIES

by Kylie Brant

  "I don't know, Cade. Tying up two men, hoping LeFrenz is going to show up eventually to see this woman doesn't sound like a sure thing. We don't really have the manpower to spare."

  "I'll explain when I get to the station," Cade responded tersely, starting the car and pulling out into the traffic, the cell phone to his ear. "But this is solid, Lieutenant. It might not be today or tomorrow, but he will try to contact her. I'd stake my shield on it."

  "Come in and we'll discuss this further. Then we'll see." Cade had heard that noncommittal tone in Lieutenant Howard's voice before, had often seen the expression to match on the man's mahogany face. It wasn't going to deter him.

  "Put the men on O'Riley now. If you're not convinced after our conversation, you can always reassign them."

  There was a silence, then a long-suffering sigh. "You'd better be on your way here right now."

  It wasn't triumph Cade felt at the small concession, but relief. He didn't think he was overstating his certainty that O'Riley was going to be their key to catching LeFrenz. Or his concern for her. "I'm on my way." He broke the connection.

  He hoped his lieutenant was going to be easier to convince than Shae had been. He'd barely been certain of her cooperation. If ever there was a woman who shouted No Trespassing, she did. Cade had no difficulty reading the signs. Hell of it was, he'd never been one to follow them. He was intrigued by her, had been from the start. She was a study of contrasts, starting with her occupation. He knew of plenty women doctors, but few who chose to work the adrenaline-pumping ER field.

  With a quick look over his shoulder, he changed lanes, edging into a narrow opening in the traffic. Then there was the woman's looks. Hair the color of flame, eyes that could go glacial in the span of seconds. Fire encased in ice, her frosty demeanor was designed to ward off the most determined man. Cade was just obstinate enough to be fascinated, instead. Years of police work had taught him more than he'd ever thought to know about human nature. He couldn't help but wonder what was behind that guard she wore like armor. Couldn't battle the temptation to try to bridge it.

  His cell phone rang again, abruptly shattering that wholly inappropriate line of thought. "Cade?" The woman on the end didn't identify herself. She didn't need to. He recognized Carla Hollister's voice, even layered as it was with defiance and fear. "Can you come over right away?"

  "What's wrong?" But even as he asked the question, Cade was scanning the street, searching for a way to change course. He pulled into an alley and stopped.

  "It's Torley and Morrison. They're here again and, Cade—" her voice hitched once, then evened out "—this time they have a warrant."

  His priorities abruptly shifted. The conversation with his lieutenant would have to wait. "I'll be right there." Cade eyed the traffic behind him, backed out into a narrow opening and, with a screech of acceleration, headed toward the Hollister home, fury and resolve mingling in a hard knot in his belly. The police shrink would have said the feeling stemmed from survivor's guilt, for being alive when Brian was dead. Shrinks had all kinds of psychobabble to explain things that really needed no explanation. Things like loyalty. Friendship. And a determination to keep his partner's memory from being irrevocably stained.

  The nondescript blue sedan parked in front of the Hollister town house was instantly recognizable. Not because Cade had ever seen it before, but because it was the type he figured I.A. suits would choose. Dull, stolid and lacking in imagination. As he ascended the porch steps, Carla opened the front door, rushed out with Richard squalling in her arms.

  "Thank God you're here, Cade. I can't get them to tell me anything, and they're totally trashing our home. Can they do this? Can they just walk in and…"

  He pushed aside his own anger and resentment at the men's-tactics and schooled his voice to soothing. "I'll see what I can find out, okay?" He reached out and took the screaming toddler from her. "Hey, big guy, what's the problem, huh?"

  Richard quieted to hiccuping sobs, his big dark eyes liquid with tears. Cade murmured nonsense to the toddler in a low lilting tone, his gaze sweeping the house's interior as he entered. His mouth flattened. Carla's description wasn't too far off the mark. The place wasn't a shambles, but the I.A. team was being methodical and none too careful, judging from the gaping drawers and cushionless furniture. Pictures had been taken off the wall and not replaced, and one officer had the vent unscrewed and his arm inside, searching. Another was seated on the floor, Richard's floppy teddy bear on his lap, the seam ripped open. Apparently Richard had taken offense at the indignity his toy was suffering. Cade could appreciate the sentiment. "Maybe if you boys told us what you were looking for, we could help you out."

  The cop in front of the vent glanced up. "Just stay out of the way, buddy, and we'll…" Cade flashed his shield and a modicum of arrogance faded from the other man's voice. "Sergeants Torley and Morrison have the warrant. They're around here somewhere."

  "I'm sure they are." Cade rubbed Richard's back in slow rhythmic circles as the boy took a deep breath, popped his thumb in his mouth and laid his head on

  Cade's shoulder. "Question is, what corner are they skulking in and how far have you already violated the contents of the warrant?"

  The man got to his feet, eyed Cade warily. "Why don't I go find them?"

  "Why don't you?" Cade said agreeably. "Tell them Detective Cade Tremaine is here."

  As the man hurried out of the room, Carla moved to his side, Benjamin's hand clasped tightly in hers. "Maybe I shouldn't have called," she said in a low voice. "I don't want to make any trouble for you."

  "You know me." Cade smiled down at her with an amusement he was far from feeling. "I never could resist trouble."

  "Now that just might be the most interesting bit of information we've turned up here so far."

  Cade turned at the voice, saw the officer had returned with two plainclothes cops. With his face carefully averted, the third man brushed by them and returned to his search, leaving Cade to study the newcomers. "I'm Torley," the speaker continued tersely. Jerking his thumb at the other man, he said, "This is Sergeant Morrison. Lucky for us you stopped by. Saves us a trip."

  "Yeah, I'm all about saving you guys some work," Cade said with mock politeness. The two men were about the same height, a couple of inches shorter than him. But their similarities ended there. Torley was thin and angular, with a low forbidding brow above deep set dark eyes. Morrison was beefier, with a build that suggested muscle going soft. He wore his light hair in a buzz cut and his blue eyes were puppy-dog friendly.

  "Sorry about your partner," Morrison said. "We offered our condolences to Ms. Hollister."

  "Before or after you shoved a warrant at her?"

  "This is going to be hard enough without you copping an attitude, Tremaine," Torley put in. "Wouldn't kill you to throw a little cooperation our way."

  "Maybe I'll do that. Provided you show me that warrant so I can judge how much cooperation you deserve."

  "Ms. Hollister got served the warrant. We don't have to show it to you."

  Morrison put his hand on his partner's arm, stemming the man's words. "I don't think it'll hurt to-show Tremaine." He reached into his pocket and took out the folded sheets, handed them to Cade. "I'll think you'll find everything's in order."

  Scanning the document, Cade's mouth twisted. "You guys are taking a few liberties, aren't you?" At their silence he looked up. "Case files, bank records, computer software … is that what you think you're going to find in that stuffed animal over there?"

  Morrison flushed, but Torley shot back, "There's no telling where we'll find any of it, you should know that. Maybe you narcs have x-ray vision, but the rest of us poor saps have to be more thorough."

  "Hey, I know the timing here isn't so hot," Morrison said placatingly.

  "You think?"

  "But we talked to Ms. Hollister a few times before it got to this point. You can ask her."

  Cade turned to Carla and handed her the baby. "Why don't you take the boys ou
t back for a while?" he suggested, his gaze never leaving the two men in front of him. He waited until she'd left the room before speaking again, and when he did, every ounce of civility had vanished from his voice. "So tell me what had the two of you sniffing around Brian before he was even cold. Most cops have a little more respect for their colleagues than that, but then—" he bared his teeth "—you're really not cops, are you."

  "There's no reason to make this adversarial, Tremaine." With surprising agility, Morrison shifted his weight so he stood between Cade and Torley, who'd clenched his fists. "You have your job, and we have ours. Truth is, we didn't know you were back on the job until recently. We have every intention of speaking to you about the way things played out."

  "That's real fair-minded of you," Cade said evenly. "But that's going to be damn hard when I don't even know what 'things' we're talking about." He looked from one man to the other. "You suspect Brian of being on the take, is that it?"

  "Interesting how that immediately popped into your mind," Morrison said blandly.

  "Well, I'd claim it was because of my brilliant powers of deduction, but since you're looking for a bank book, it didn't take much detective work." There was a vise in his chest, squeezing viciously. He'd graduated academy with Brian; been the best man at his wedding. While the man had had his faults, lack of integrity had never been one of them. These two men were strangers, worse yet, desk jockeys, passing judgments on a man who'd been a better cop than either of them could ever hope to be.

  "Look, this isn't the time for this conversation," Morrison said. "Why don't we make an appointment to get together, informally, have you answer a few questions, how's that? You know Paddy's on Canal Street

  ? What do you say we meet there tomorrow. We can—"

  "I don't think so," Cade said.

  "Don't make this difficult, Tremaine." Torley slanted a glance at the officers still searching the room beside them. "You're going to have to talk to us sooner or later."

  "Sure. But when I do, it will be done formally. At the station, after you make a request to my lieutenant." The two sergeants exchanged a look and Cade smiled grimly. "Damned if I'm going to let you hide what you're doing to Brian's name in a dark bar or behind closed doors."

  Although Morrison looked chagrined, Torley merely lifted a bony shoulder. "Makes no difference to us. You might want to reconsider your attitude before our discussion, though. I'd think you'd want to get to the bottom of this even more than I.A."

  "Really?" Derision dripped from the word. "And why is that?"

  "The way I hear it, you're the one with three bullet holes in your chest." The man swiped at an imaginary piece of lint on his sleeve. "Seems like you'd have more than a passing interest in why. And whether or not it was your partner's fault that you were almost killed."

  * * *

  Chapter 5

  « ^ »

  "You need to calm down."

  Cade stopped pacing the narrow confines of Lieutenant Howard's office to lance his superior with a bitter look. "Calm down? Those two I.A. humps are lucky I left them upright. They have a helluva nerve, overturning Brian's house, his widow right outside, and laying all the responsibility for his death on him." Resentment surged anew, threatened to boil over. "Easy enough when they ride a desk all day to throw mud at decent cops and see what sticks. Hell of a lot easier than chasing any of the scumbags on the street."

  "I'm not disagreeing with you." The calm in Howard's voice did nothing to dissipate Cade's anger. "But tangling with Internal Affairs isn't going to clear up Brian's investigation. If anything, it'll convince them to dig deeper."

  Turning to stride across the room again, Cade said, "They don't need any encouragement to do that. I don't know where they got this crazy idea about him or what they think they have for evidence, but the two I.A. jerks I talked to already have their minds made up. Especially Torley." He crossed to the lieutenant's desk and placed his palms on the edge, leaning toward the man. "You could do something about this. Get the investigation dismissed. Call in some favors. Go higher up."

  "That's the last thing I'd do," Howard said bluntly. "And if you'd sit down and relax, I'll tell you why." Ebony gaze battled with green, before Cade pushed away from the desk. Hooking a foot around the leg of a nearby chair, he dragged it over and dropped into it. The sitting part was accomplished easily enough. Relaxing was impossible.

  Lieutenant Howard settled his spare frame back in his chair with the air of a man about to impart some unpleasant news. "I did pull a few strings," he began. His eyebrows shot upward when he read the surprise on Cade's face. "You're not the only one who can feel outrage that a good cop—a dead cop—is having his name dragged through the dirt. And everything I've managed to find out indicates that I.A. is on more than a fishing expedition with this investigation."

  Rage torched a hole through the pit of Cade's belly: "So you're ready to hang Brian out to dry, too?"

  Howard held up a hand. "Not even close. I didn't get details. I.A. doesn't trust me any more than they do any of us. But I do have it on good authority that they're following a trail of evidence that is … disturbing at best."

  Cade's eyes burned. "Nice to know how much trust you put in the detectives in your squad, Lieutenant." He launched himself from the chair, prepared to leave. "Maybe you call that standing behind your men. I'd call it something else." He headed toward the door.

  "Tremaine, sit down."

  The command barely registered through the red haze of fury fogging Cade's vision. His hand reached for the doorknob. Twisted it.

  "I said sit down!"

  Looking over his shoulder, Cade saw that the usually unflappable lieutenant had risen from his seat, his hands braced on the desktop. And the thunderous expression on the man's face was unusual enough to cool a bit of Cade's ire.

  "What the hell good is it going to do Brian to antagonize the investigators on this case?" Howard demanded.

  Stubbornly remaining silent, Cade slowly lifted his hand from the doorknob, returned to his seat. "What good is it going to do him to sit and let I.A. build a phony case against him?" he countered.

  "If you think I'm going to let that happen, maybe it's time you transferred to a new command. Trust is a two-way street, and you obviously don't feel it."

  The statement had Cade shifting his gaze. "I've never had cause to distrust you," he muttered. Silence stretched between them, the tension palpable.

  "Well, that's something, I suppose." Howard smoothed a hand over his receding hairline as he dropped back into his chair. "You said you looked at the warrant. Did you happen to see the signature on it?" When Cade nodded, he asked, "Did you recognize the judge?"

  "Just the name."

  "Well, I know her. And she's as big an ally as this department has. The fact that she signed it tells me that I.A. has something solid." When Cade opened his mouth to protest, he held up a hand again. "I'm not saying their allegations are true, just that they'd have to show good cause to her before she'd have signed that warrant. We have just as much to gain from this search as they do."

  Slouching down in his chair, Cade propped an ankle on the opposite knee. "Don't see how."

  "If they don't find what they're looking for, it's going to take a little steam out of their case."

  Cade shook his head wearily. "Or make them more determined to find it elsewhere."

  "And the longer they look without collecting more evidence, the less credibility their investigation has."

  "You're talking about playing a waiting game with them. Let this drag on for weeks, months maybe, until it fizzles out. In the meantime Brian's rep is completely destroyed." A helpless sense of bitterness burned through him. "You know as well as I do that the stench of an I.A. investigation alone is enough to smear a cop's name. So they don't find anything. It's the suspicion that people remember, not the fact that nothing was proved."

  "We'll just have to make sure he's cleared," Howard said evenly. He waited for Cade's startled gaze to meet hi
s before going on, "You're right. We can't depend on I.A. to broadcast his innocence. If we're convinced they're wrong about Brian, we owe it to his memory to make sure the world knows it."

  Finally the man had said something he could agree with. "Okay. What do you suggest?"

  Howard picked up a pencil and began tapping it against the desktop. "You're going to be in the best position to gather information about their investigation. I.A.'s going to want to talk to you. Only natural, to see what you noticed. You might be able to tell from the direction of their questioning what they've got." He leaned forward suddenly, fixed his unblinking gaze on Cade. "Use them, dammit. The same way they try to use cops to give up dirt on other cops. Beat them at their own damn game, and we'll see who ends up with the proof about Brian Hollister."

  Approvingly Cade surveyed his superior. He was all but being given permission to conduct his own inquiry. Department policy prohibited him from being on the investigative team looking into the incident that had resulted in his own shooting and his partner's death. But he could nose around and try to find out what I.A. had on Brian. And then do his damnedest to find another way to explain it. Because he had an unshakable faith that the man he'd loved like a brother wasn't capable of defiling the oath he'd taken to protect the people of New Orleans. That was the thing with faith. It didn't require proof. It just was, welling from the heart.

  The law would require evidence.

  Giving a curt nod, he said, "All right. I'll cooperate with I.A. and somehow manage not to put my fist in Torley's ugly mug."

  "I know how big a sacrifice that will be for you," Howard said dryly. "Keep me posted. Together we'll figure out their angle and decide where we go from there."

  Cade nodded. "How's the investigation of Brian's death coming? Ryder and Sanover turn anything up yet?" The two homicide detectives from Fifth Precinct had been assigned to the case. He'd talked to them several times during his recuperation.

  "There's nothing new. Except that they're now working in conjunction with the narcotics task force."