Джеймс Паттерсон - The Black Book

Sure, I know Tristan. Hey, Tristan, what the fuck kind of a cop’s name is Tristan? Were your parents hoping for a girl?

“Of course,” said Billy. Kate only nodded, didn’t speak.

“This is assistant state’s attorney Amy Lentini,” said Olson, nodding to the beauty queen with the steely expression in the corner.

Italian. That was my first guess.

“She handles special investigations for my office. Sit, Detectives, sit.”

Billy and Kate took the two seats in front of the desk. They were flanked: the top cop to their left, the top prosecutor dead ahead, and Amy Lentini, the special investigator, to the right.

Okay, Billy thought to himself. I know you’re all eager to thank us for doing a good job last night. Who wants to go first? Raise your hand!

Billy glanced at Kate, who was visibly shaken. Her reaction prompted one in him. It pissed him off that they were being treated this way, this obvious attempt at intimidation. He felt his protective instinct take over and reached for Kate’s hand, but then thought better of it.

“We have some questions for you about last night,” said Amy Lentini. “We assume you’ll want to help us understand a few things.”

That was a nice way to put it, a friendly, we’re-in-this-together offer delivered by a woman who looked like she wanted to lop off their heads.

“Why were you there in the first place?” she asked. “The Gold Coast isn’t your jurisdiction.”

Billy said, “I was investigating a homicide. The one by the U of C campus, the girl who was strangled. I had a suspect. I saw him go into this brownstone the week before, and I sat on the place long enough to figure out that it was some kind of brothel.”

“A Vice case,” she said.

“Sure, a Vice case, except I didn’t like it for a Vice case. I wanted to catch my suspect there.”

“Why?”

“Have you ever been a cop, Amy?”

She recoiled. Billy wasn’t sure what bothered her more, that he turned the questioning on her or that he used her first name.

“See, Amy,” he went on, “when you have a suspect like I had, a guy with all the money in the world, it’s easier to get him to talk if you have something on him. If I caught him with a prostitute, I’d have leverage over him.”

Amy Lentini opened her hands. “You thought if you caught him with a hooker, he’d up and confess to murder?”

“Okay, so you answered my question.”

“What question did I answer?”

“You’ve never been a cop.” Billy sat back in his chair and crossed a leg.

“This will go easier for you if you cooperate,” said Tristan Driscoll, the superintendent—Billy’s boss, ultimately.

How about you, Tristan—have you ever been a cop? A real one, I mean?

Billy coughed into his fist. “If I just hauled this guy in off the street, he’d lawyer up in two seconds flat,” he said. “But if the conversation began with him being terrified that his wife and kids would find out about a hooker, I could make him an offer he wouldn’t refuse. If he could answer a few questions for me, maybe I would forget about this hooker thing. No, he wouldn’t answer the big question, the did-you-kill-her question. But I could have made him admit that he knew the girl, that he’d sent her text messages, that kind of thing. I could have started laying the groundwork.”

Lentini stared at him, blinking a few times. “And how’d that work out for you? Did your plan work?”

“No,” Billy conceded.

“No,” she said, mimicking him. “Because your suspect lawyered up right away. Because the media heard about this massive bust—this Vice arrest, made by a homicide detective—before he’d even made it to the police station. So this concern he might have had about his wife finding out—that ship had already sailed.”

It was true. But once Billy saw all those men go inside the brownstone, he couldn’t ignore it. He wasn’t supposed to ignore it. He was a cop, witnessing a crime in progress.

But Lentini had made her point. Once Billy rounded up all the men and the prostitutes, his plan to interrogate the murder suspect had been blown.

Lentini had him on that point, and everyone in the room knew it.

Billy felt the first chill through his body.

“Let’s talk about the little black book,” said Lentini.

Fourteen

“WHERE IS it?” Amy Lentini asked. Not Have you been able to locate it? Do you have any leads? She was saying it as if Billy already knew the answer.

“I don’t know,” said Billy. “We stripped down the brownstone and the manager’s house. We searched her laptop and her iPhone. There must be some record. They’d have to keep a list of clients. Maybe not a book, but a disk, a flash drive, even a pad of notes. There must be something.”

“I agree.”

“Good,” said Billy. “I’m glad we can agree on something.”

Lentini didn’t think he was funny.

“We have reason to believe it was there,” she said. “In the brownstone.”

“You do? How?”

“We’re not at liberty to discuss that.”

“You’re not at liberty to…” Billy almost came out of his chair. “What does that mean—you’re not at liberty to discuss it? I’m the investigating detective. If we have a lead, I need to know about it. We’re supposed to be working together.”

Lentini didn’t answer. The superintendent and state’s attorney kept faces of stone.

“What the hell is this?” Billy said, this time popping up from his chair. “Since when does the state’s attorney’s office not share information with the police department?”

“Since now, apparently,” said Kate, speaking for the first time, the color drained from her face.

“It’s no longer your case,” said Lentini. “You’ve been removed.”

“You don’t get to decide that. The state’s attorney doesn’t—”

“ I decided,” said the superintendent.

Billy looked at Tristan Driscoll, a slow burn coursing through his chest.

“What do you know about that video that surfaced today?” asked Lentini. “The one showing the Packers quarterback visiting the brownstone this summer?”

Billy took a moment to recover, his legs feeling unsteady.

It could be the last arrest you ever make, Wizniewski had warned him.

“I saw the video on that website,” he said. “That’s all I know.”

“Did you shoot that video, Detective?”

Billy finally took his eyes off the superintendent, turned back to Lentini. “What the hell are you talking about? Why would I shoot that video?”

“Would you consent to a search of your house and personal belongings?”

Billy moved toward the special investigator, who stood as he approached. He faced off with her, almost nose to nose. She was almost daring him to do something, to make a situation that was already spiraling downward worse. He could feel the Irish rising within him, an anger that closed his fists and drew heat to his face.

“Now, why would you want to search my house, Amy?” he hissed.

And then the door to the office opened. Lieutenant Mike Goldberger walked in with another man, a man wearing a suit—a civilian, Billy thought.

What the hell was Goldie doing here?

“I’m sorry to interrupt, Mr. Superintendent, Madam State’s Attorney,” he said.

The superintendent did not look pleased. “Lieutenant, what in the—”

“I heard about this meeting, and I just wanted to make sure you were properly covered, sir.” Goldie motioned to the man next to him. “This is one of our union reps. Since this is an inquiry into a police officer’s conduct, obviously the detectives here are entitled to union representation before being questioned. I didn’t want there to be any reason for you to come under criticism.”