John Gilstrap - At all costs

Carolyn smiled just a hair too slowly and shook her head. “Oh, no, not at all,” she said. “I’m just a little tired, I guess.”

Mrs. Barnett returned the smile, but absent her typical humor. “I’m sure. I understand.”

Dammit, Carolyn cursed herself. The problem with busybodies was their keen sense of human nature. Clearly, Mrs. Barnett knew something was wrong. Put another nail in the coffin.

Hurrying, but not running, back to her Celica, Carolyn checked her watch: 12:48. Damn. Every second…

Phoenix Police Chief Peter Sherwood had way too much on his administrative plate to suffer any more of this catfight. If Lucas Banks said that this Brighton guy was a straight shooter, then he was a straight shooter. He’d seen enough of Lucas’s courtroom antics to know when he was in his defense-lawyer mode, and this wasn’t it. Sometimes it wasn’t about winning and losing. Sometimes it was about justice. And as far as Sherwood could see, Lucas had a point.

Under different circumstances, he’d have cut Brighton loose by now. Unfortunately, this case belonged to the FBI, and the lady cop they’d assigned to running it was playing her role as Queen Bitch to the hilt. What was it about that agency that made them so damn difficult to deal with? God knew that DEA and Secret Service boys had huge egos, but at least they pretended to show respect for the eagles on Sherwood’s collar. The FBI, on the other hand, seemed to think that everyone they encountered was either an idiot or a criminal.

This Rivers lady was a case unto herself. Barely a first grader when Sherwood was busting his first felon, she was an arrogant bitch, with what looked to be a God complex. At maybe forty years old, this well-moussed Charlie’s Angels wanna-be thought she had the world pegged, and Sherwood wanted desperately to eat her and her attitude alive. In deference to Lucas and his client, however, he found himself playing peacemaker.

“We’ve been over this twice already, Irene,” Lucas said evenly. It was a struggle, but he forced himself to remain in his faux-leather guest chair, legs crossed, while he strangled paper clips from the dish on Sherwood’s desk. “Brighton is not a threat to you or anybody else. He’s got a business here. And a family. What do you want from him?”

Rivers slumped in the other guest chair. “You’re right,” she said. “We have been over this twice-three times now, in fact. And he’s a friend of yours. I heard you every time. Problem is, Counselor, that you keep forgetting the part where he drew a gun on me.”

“Bullshit!” That was it. Without even thinking, Lucas launched forward in his chair and bounced a dead paper clip off the polished desktop, causing Sherwood to dodge the ricochet. He knew that shouting was a mistake, but the genie was out of the bottle now. “He didn’t draw a gun on you! He drew a gun on a bunch of strangers with automatic weapons! You said yourself that he never even brought it to bear, for Christ’s sake! What the hell would you do if you saw a swarm of terrorists flooding your office?”

Rivers shook her head. “I’m not a terrorist. I’m a federal officer.” Her elbows were planted on the upholstered arms of the guest chair. As she spoke, she steepled her fingers and studied them. “Plus, I didn’t like what I saw behind his eyes. I know he didn’t shoot, but he sure as hell thought about it.”

“Oh, for God’s sake. Now you’re a mind reader!”

The time had come for Sherwood to intervene, before Lucas really pissed her off. “Come on, Irene. I’ve known Lucas since we were kids. If he says the guy’s okay, you can believe him. Don’t get me wrong, he’ll cut off your balls in a courtroom…” He stopped himself. There definitely was some eye contact now. “Well, you know what I mean. He’s a lawyer. But this isn’t a courtroom. You haven’t formally filed charges yet, right?”

Her eyes narrowed. Clearly, she didn’t appreciate the tag-team approach. “Why is this guy so important to you?” In sales, they would have called the question a buying signal.

Sherwood’s eyebrows scaled his forehead, as if to say, “Damn good question.” He left that one for his lawyer friend.

Lucas shrugged. “He did me a favor. He really worked with us to get our car fixed up before vacation, so I owe him one.”

She tossed her hands in the air. “Oh, well, there you go,” she mocked. “He takes a ding out of your car, and I should look the other way on a felony? What the hell kind of deal is that?”

“What felony?” Lucas insisted again. “Jesus Christ, Irene, how can I say it more simply? He didn’t know you were a cop. He saw the guns, and he responded. Why is this so unreasonable to you?” Sensing a crack in Irene’s resolve, he lowered his voice and sat back down in his chair. “Look. You came for a drug bust, and you got a drug bust. Let’s call it a successful day for justice and let my client off the hook.”

Irene inhaled deeply through her nose and held it for a few seconds before she let it go. When she looked up at Sherwood, and then at Lucas, they knew the good guys had won.

“This is a mistake,” she said, seemingly to herself. “I just know in my bones that this is a mistake.”

Sherwood let the words hang for a moment, not sure if it was his turn to speak. “No, it’s not,” he reassured her. “It’s a solid decision.” He stopped there, not wanting to push any harder.

She sighed one more time, then rose to her feet. “You win, boys,” she said, extending her hand. “It’s a mistake, but I’ll do it. Won’t be the first.”

Lucas rose with her and grasped her hand. “Agent Rivers, I appreciate this. Trust me, you’re doing the right thing.”

She smiled, the first show of warmth in twenty minutes. “I hope so, Counselor,” she said. “For all our sakes.”

Jake shifted his position as best he could with his right wrist shackled to the leg of his wooden chair. He’d have paid twenty bucks to be able to sling his arm over the seat back; fifty to stand and stretch.

Many years had passed since he last visited a police station, thanks to a DUI problem when he was eighteen, but from what he could tell, Phoenix police headquarters had been designed and decorated by the same team who’d put together its much larger counterpart in Cook County, Illinois. The place was a jumble of desks and chairs that seemed more scattered than arranged, making it impossible for anyone to walk a straight line from one side of the squad room to the other. Every horizontal surface was littered with papers and files-including the floor. As uniformed officers and plainclothes detectives came and went, those same files and papers were kicked, walked on, or otherwise ignored. A stickler for neatness in his own shop, Jake wondered how people in this dimly lit, nicotine-stained hellhole ever got anything done.

The clock on the wall behind him buzzed noisily each time the minute hand moved, and as he struggled to find a spot for his butt that would ease the stress on his back, his eyes were drawn to the clock for the one hundred thirty-fourth time since he’d been deposited there. It was going on three hours since they’d taken his fingerprints and allowed him to make his phone call. He was cutting this way too close.

He wondered how long Carolyn would wait for him before she headed off on her own with Travis. Part of him hoped she was already gone, but he knew better. They’d been through a lot together. She wouldn’t leave him behind until the very last minute, any more than he’d have left her.

Still, it was getting late. One-fifteen. In the absolute worst case they’d rehearsed, she should have taken care of everything by now, even working by herself. That left her waiting with Travis in the staging area, biding time till her patience gave out.