Fluid

by Alex C. Hughes

  “Whatever he’s done or not done, you couldn’t have known,” I said, feeling his mix of emotions: guilt, worry, determination, a sense of fairness, and self-recrimination. Only innocent people felt like that in the absence of clear information. It was odd; Branen had always seemed so strong, so in control, so much the boss I’d never before now thought of him as human. And I hadn’t liked Kalb. But still. Maybe this was my answer, Branen doing something I could respect.

  I added, “You’re sure my relationship with Cherabino isn’t going to be an issue if this does turn into an internal investigation? There are more interrogators here. She was just pulled into holding yesterday.”

  Branen sighed again, looking beat up. “I heard about that. I understand, she’s a loose cannon right now, but you’ve done exceptional work the past weeks. I don’t think we have an interrogator in the building who doesn’t have some kind of bias. Your bias doesn’t impact this one at all. You pursue it, we’ll get it on tape, and we’ll figure out what to do from there.” He looked me in the eye then. “Tell me I can count on you, Ward.”

  “You can count on me,” I said, and swallowed. He trusted me to do a good job here, where it was trickier, when he didn’t before on a more usual case?

  I left promptly when ordered, not sure how to handle any of this. Was this related to the bad apple thing Freeman was implying? Or was it a distraction to get me away from the Jeffries case?

  Or was I just being paranoid?

  I waited in the sound room of the third interview suite, staring at Kalb as he squirmed in the chair at the other side of the one-way glass. I wanted to smoke, but the tech wasn’t okay with that, even with the industrial-strength filter on, and today I didn’t feel like being more of an asshole than I had to be.

  Kalb wore a pastel blue dress shirt and dark slacks of fine quality cloth, nothing I recognized, but clothes far too fine for the standard cop or detective’s salary, not to mention the lower-paid position he filled as Branen’s administrative assistant. Right now, here, that bothered me again. A shiny pin sat on his shirt front, a shape I didn’t recognize but that probably meant something. He fidgeted nearly non-stop, first his hands against the table, then his foot bobbing against the floor, his body moving forward in the chair for a moment, then back, like he couldn’t ever get comfortable. He was in his thirties but seemed younger, somehow. More uncertain.

  After watching him for awhile and asking the technician a question, I settled on my approach for the day. I picked up a pile of files, more for something to do with my hands than anything else—I still wanted that cigarette between my fingers, badly—and ducked out into the hall and into the next room.

  “Adam Ward,” Kalb greeted as I walked in. “The telepath. It figures they’d send you.” He seemed nervous, but at this stage, being questioned like a suspect, he’d be an idiot not to be nervous.

  I paused at the door, glancing at the younger cop they’d sent to babysit me in the corner, somebody who—unlike me—could testify if and when this went to court. “Kalb,” I finally said, channeling as much of Freeman’s respect-between-equals as I could manage. It wasn’t a comfortable approach. I sat down, putting the pile of files in front of me. Behind me, the babysitter shifted in his chair.

  Then I did something I didn’t often do: I sat there, quietly and calmly, and said nothing.

  “They said you were going to ask me some questions about the Jeffries case,” Kalb said into the silence after barely thirty seconds. “They came and got me at work. I was setting up a press conference for the lieutenant.”

  “I’m sure the lieutenant can take care of the details himself if it’s critical,” I said evenly, still channeling Freeman’s calm as much as I could manage. It had worked for him with other members of the department, after all. “Jeffries was a reporter investigating corruption . . .” I started, letting the sentence trail off until it practically begged to be filled with something.

  Kalb obliged, looking down at the table like he was ashamed, then back up, at me. “Look, I didn’t know,” he said.

  “Of course you didn’t know,” I echoed, even changing some of my body language to echo his. I wanted his impulse to talk to be met with friendliness, to be met with someone very much like him, or so he’d feel. He was on the edge here, the edge of something big, and all I had to do was push him over it.

  “That’s what I’m saying!” Kalb said, and then stood up, running his fingers through his hair. “That’s what I’m saying, but nobody would ever believe me.”

  “Which is why you didn’t say anything then,” I echoed, bringing the implication out loud. I couldn’t get a clear read of anything but tortured emotions from him, but his body language was pretty clear. He wanted to talk. I just had to bring him to the right place.

  “Exactly,” Kalb said, and turned around, pacing a few times across the table, before sitting back down.

  Beside me, the younger cop moved his hand away from his gun, quietly.

  “Look, she didn’t tell me she was married at first.”

  I blinked. That was not where I thought this was going, at all. To be honest, I’d thought he was gay, with the clothes and all. “Who?”

  “Patricia, man. Patricia Arnold. Isaiah Jeffries’s wife. The reporter. The reporter who’s dead now.” He looked at me like I was an idiot for not knowing.

  Okay, now I was really confused. “Oh, of course,” I said, empty words to keep him talking. “How could you know? They even had different last names.”

  “Exactly! And then she said her husband didn’t care, and I didn’t look into it too much, you know, because the sex was really really good and she was always taking me places and paying for things. She even bought me these clothes. And the sex was good. It was, okay? I didn’t know then what she’d do with the information. She never told me her husband was a reporter. I mean, how was I supposed to know? I just thought, you know, she cared about my job and gossip and liked to laugh at people. And she always paid for things.” He stopped, and backpedaled. “I didn’t tell her anything she wouldn’t have found out from anybody else who knew those guys. I mean, Washington was all over the rumor mill after that hooker thing happened, and Oswald, well, he’s a prick, you know?”

  But I had spent an hour talking to Freeman about the other people Jeffries had written up, so I knew who Oswald was. “You know he killed himself after IA started looking into the thefts from the lockup.”

  “That was sad. But he shouldn’t have taken all those drugs and stuff at all, much less from police lockup. And the rest of the guys they found, well, that was a good thing, right? That kind of stuff. I mean, I didn’t tell her anything she couldn’t have found out otherwise and anybody doing bad stuff deserves what they get, I mean even the department has to feel that way.”

  “How did Lieutenant Branen feel about this?” I asked, having to work hard now at keeping my body language and face cordial and supportive. This guy had no business working with a police department or with any kind of confidential information. No business at all, I thought with contempt. Even if he had helped catch wrongdoers. What else had he shared?

  Suddenly I caught myself in the thought—which was worse, the gossip who spilled secrets or the bad apple who took things for gain? It had to be the bad apple, right? But Kalb had been a whistleblower only by accident, and he’d broken ranks. Freeman would probably hate him for that. For me, I didn’t know what to think. I believed in privacy and confidential information, but I also believed in real justice.

  Kalb squirmed in his chair. “Well, I didn’t fill out the relationship forms like I should have, and I feel bad for that. But I didn’t know, okay? And by the time I did it was already in the papers and stuff. Branen would have been really mad.”

  He felt really guilty about something, and I needed to know what it was. “Did you kill Jeffries when you found out his wife was pumping you for information?”

  “No!” Kalb yelled, and sat back, head in his hands. “No, it wasn’t like th
at at all. I mean, she said he didn’t care, that they were having problems and she couldn’t leave because of the money. She kept buying me things, and she was fun, and it wasn’t any of my business, you know? Until the stuff started showing up in the papers. That’s when I said I couldn’t talk anymore, but we could still go out. She seemed okay, but when I wouldn’t tell her any more about the Commander—”

  I cut him off. “Commander Draco?” The captain’s boss, the administrative head of most of the county police force, a guy I’d never met and never wanted to—he was rumored to be pretty scary.

  “Um,” Kalb said, and for the first time his parade of words stopped cold.

  I let the silence sit—for a minute, for two. Then I said, “What did you tell her about the Commander?”

  Kalb was feeling guilty. Very guilty. “Look, I shouldn’t have said anything. And I told Patricia that. I shouldn’t have said anything at all. And I dug in my heels, and I didn’t. I didn’t tell her anything, even when she got really mad, I didn’t, but that was when she said she had to stop seeing me. I mean, I pleaded with her, but she wouldn’t. She said if I wasn’t going to give her information anymore that her husband—Jeffries—would be really mad. Like, worse than hitting her mad. I told her she should get away from him, divorce him and stuff. I’d help her. But she laughed this ugly sound of a laugh and said the only way Jeffries would let her leave was if he was dead, and anyway there was the money and I’d served my purpose.” He shivered. “That was really cruel of her. I’d served my purpose. But maybe she’ll get away now, huh? With the money and everything. Now that Washington killed him. Maybe she’ll call me again.”

  His story was like a fish darting around a large tank—impossible to pin down and more than a little hard to follow, if in this case well worth the catching for the strength of the information alone. It did sound like the wife had motive now. “What makes you think Washington killed him?”

  Kalb stared at me. “That’s what everybody’s saying, right? Washington killed him because he got him in front of IA and probably fired.”

  Maybe, I thought. Maybe.

  I’d always had good valence, good mental syncing, with Freeman, so I noticed him behind me on the other side of the one-way glass in the other room. He’d been hearing all of this, at least the last minute or so. And maybe he’d go after Washington right now. The man didn’t have an alibi, at least not one we could confirm. But a couple of things were still bothering me.

  “She said the only way she could get away from him is if he was dead?” I asked. “When was this?”

  “The last time we talked, I mean, after the thing with the commander and before she stopped taking my calls. Maybe . . . maybe three weeks ago? Maybe four? She seemed really mad that day.”

  I leaned forward. “This is very important, Kalb. Very, very important, so I need you to be absolutely honest with me. Did she ever tell you she was going to kill Jeffries, or that she wanted him dead, other than that time?”

  “Um, just the usual stuff,” Kalb said uncomfortably, his shoulders hunching over. “I mean, everybody says they want their spouse dead, right? At least everybody screwing around, that’s kind of the thing.”

  I sat back, feeling my suspicion crystallize. Maybe it wasn’t the department. Maybe it was plain and simple—the spouse.

  A knock on the door then, and Freeman’s head poked in. “Can I come in?” he asked me.

  “Why not.”

  “I’d like the chair,” Freeman said evenly.

  I stood, settling against the glass at the back of the room.

  Freeman moved the chair slightly away from the table and sat down, heavily, his loose shirt settling like a cape around his body. His scar was still there, still prominent, but I knew through Mindspace he was more pensive than the judgmental crankiness his face implied. “Kalb, you’re aware that as part of your job with the department you’re entrusted with a variety of sensitive information, including and especially the information you come across as part of your job in assisting Lieutenant Branen?”

  “Yeah.” Kalb was squirming again.

  “Let’s talk about what you said about Commander Draco. What, exactly, did you tell this reporter’s wife about one of the most powerful men in the department?”

  “I didn’t tell her anything criminal, I swear!” Kalb said, babbling anything and everything except what Freeman wanted to know.

  “And how did you find out about this?” I asked. “How did you know before Internal Affairs knew?”

  “People tell me things!” Kalb said. “People tell me things and they leave information just lying around, and sometimes they tell things to Branen even! There aren’t any secrets, not really!”

  “There aren’t any secrets,” I said, disbelievingly.

  “No,” he said.

  Either Branen knew more than I’d had any idea, or Kalb was a better investigator than half the detectives in the building, with far more curiosity. I didn’t know which answer I was more willing to deal with.

  Freeman interrupted, “I’m here as an impartial investigator into the Jeffries case, and Adam here works for me. I’d like to find out what happened. Why don’t you walk me through what you did say and what you didn’t, and we’ll figure this out.”

  Kalb took a breath, looking back and forth between Freeman sitting and me standing. And I got the first clear picture of what he’d said: based on several pieces of gossip together, Kalb was pretty sure Draco had been involved in the plot with the police who’d stolen from lockup. He’d asked for ten percent of the haul, according to Kalb’s information. And Kalb wouldn’t take much to tell Freeman all about it—he liked Freeman, and he wanted to talk about what had happened.

  “I have another appointment,” I lied then. “Detective Freeman will have to take over, but you’re in good hands. He’ll help you figure this out. Thank you, Detective.”

  “You’re welcome,” Freeman said without turning around.

  As I left, I heard Kalb start to stutter through what he’d said about the commander. I got a stray feeling from him then—fear. Real, authentic fear of the commander, unmixed with respect or well-feeling. Fear of what the man would do when all of this came out. But his eagerness for gossip outweighed it all. No wonder he’d talked so much to his lover, if gossip drove him this much, if he went looking this much for dirt.

  “You’ll protect me from the commander, right?” Kalb asked Freeman.

  I paused with my hand on the door.

  “You’ll have every chance to explain yourself through due process with Internal Affairs,” Freeman said. “I think you’ll find that the truth is the best policy. Tell me what’s going on, and we’ll figure it out together.”

  The fear eased the instant Freeman said the words “Internal Affairs,” which was odd. I pushed through the door and moved into the room with the recording equipment.

  Branen was counting on me to come to some kind of decision about Kalb. And, unless something very positive came out of the next few minutes, that decision wasn’t going to be very good.

  You didn’t get to be a telepath and not have a strong sense of privacy and public versus sensitive information. Kalb had walked all over those kinds of ethics, without a second thought, his sense of justice and privacy fluid and self-serving. Worse, even when questioned about his actions, he still didn’t think he’d done anything wrong.

  But he had been part of what had brought corrupt cops to light and gotten them punished. He’d caught some people in wrongdoing, and effectively blew the whistle for a reporter, knowingly or unknowingly. And I’d worked with Cherabino too long, felt too strongly about justice and right and wrong, to feel comfortable with anything that covered up wrongdoing.

  He’d done wrong, I thought, and I’d tell Branen that. But maybe—just maybe—his wrong had been the right thing in the end.

  Now if I could just figure out where Jeffries fit into all of this, and whether his wife was involved in his death.

  I stopped
by Michael’s cubicle, not knowing what else to do, and knocked on its side. A dull sound echoed from my imprint of knuckles to the fabric-covered material.

  Michael looked up. His mind was wary. “Something I can do for you, Adam?”

  “I need some advice,” I said.

  His face cleared a little then. “Sure, come on in.” He pointed to a guest chair about two feet from him, a chair mysteriously cleared of debris. In Cherabino’s old cubicle, that was a miracle all by itself.

  I sat, cautiously. Not long ago I would have asked these sorts of questions of Cherabino or Bellury—his name hit me with a real pain, as I missed him, may he rest in peace. But Freeman was busy and not very chatty, and I wanted another perspective.

  “Okay,” I said, trying to figure out how to catch him up, before deciding to jump straight to the end. “I need to break the alibi of the wife of a murder victim. Based on her comments to some of the other parties—and a very strong motivation to get out of a bad marriage—my gut says it’s her. But the ME’s time of death is thirty minutes past mine from Mindspace, and by then she was called into her hospital with a last minute maternity case. Freeman’s still stuck on another guy without a strong alibi, but I think the suspect is telling the truth. For once. The thing is, the victim wasn’t a nice guy, and nobody seems to be all that interested in tracking down his killer.”

  Michael sat back a bit in the chair and thought. “Well, murder isn’t illegal just for the nice victims. It’s our job to find the killers either way. You think it’s the wife? Have you talked to her coworkers? Confirmed her story?”

  “I called and confirmed she was working that night,” I said. “Her supervisor checked the records, and she came in at the time she said. The woman went into labor not long before that, the supervisor said. It checked out.”

  Michael thought. “You’re sure it was her?”