Claudia, I can handle it.”
“It’ll take us half the time working together. Besides, I have the next couple days off. After this, I’ve got a twelve-hour power nap scheduled, followed by a full-night’s sleep.” She flagged down the waitress for one more refill and the check. “Besides, I could use some work to help me forget yesterday.”
Gavin nodded. “I heard about the Brown case.”
Of course he had heard. By now the entire unit would know about her case being thrown out of court.
“Yeah. Lamont Brown.” Closing her eyes briefly, Claudia massaged the bridge of her nose. She was tired, and if it wasn’t for her personal interest in Silver’s murder, she would take Gavin up on his offer and go home right now.
“I heard the judge dismissed for lack of evidence.”
Claudia nodded. “I shouldn’t let it bother me. It was just another drug-related shooting, you know? So what if Brown walks on this one? He’s a punk. In no time he’ll be back, clogging up the system, arrested on some other charge. He’ll do his time eventually.”
“You’d just hoped it would be your charge that put him away, right? Hey, you don’t have to explain to me. I understand.”
When she looked across to Gavin, she met his reassuring smile. It was the kind of don’t-let-the-bad-guys-get-you-down expression Frank would have given her, and at that moment, Claudia hated that Gavin reminded her of him, that their working relationship—so new—had already begun to take on nuances of what she’d had with Frank as a partner.
She blinked. Again forcing back the unwanted memories.
“Of course it would’ve been nice if my charge had been the one to put Brown away,” she said, trying to stay focused on the conversation. “I put a lot of time into that case, piecing it together, interviewing dozens of witnesses, preparing the reports. Only to have it all thrown out because the murder weapon went missing. That gun was on the scene. I pointed it out to the techs. Heck, I even saw them bag it, and then I saw it down at Evidence Control myself. But somewhere between me and the lab, that gun must have grown legs and walked off on its own, because it was never seen again. I had Lori turn the place upside down trying to find it.”
“And they hadn’t run any tests on it before it disappeared?”
“No ballistics. No fingerprints. Nothing. They hadn’t gotten a chance before it went missing. And now it’s as if that gun never existed except in the crime-scene photos. It’s my own fault.”
“How is it your fault?”
Claudia shrugged. “I should have walked the gun down to the lab myself. I should have watched them run the tests I needed.”
“That’s not your job, Claudia.”
“No, but it’s my job to see that the investigation is run properly, that witnesses and suspects…and especially evidence is handled correctly. And in this case, it wasn’t. So, instead of a smoking gun with the suspect’s prints all over it, we got zilch. It falls on me. Doesn’t make me look too good. Not to mention the fact that the state’s attorney is all over me with accusations.”
“Accusations?”
She’d said more than she should have. Even to Tony—with whom she’d worked for three years—Claudia hadn’t revealed as much about the Brown case, nor had she mentioned the state’s attorney’s threats.
But for some reason, with Gavin Monaghan, Claudia felt more willing to discuss yesterday’s proceedings at the courthouse. Maybe she was tired, she thought as she stared at him across the Formica-topped table. Or maybe it was Gavin’s eyes. Something about him made her want to trust, even though trusting had never come naturally to her.
“It’s probably nothing,” she said, trying to minimize its importance.
“Come on, Claudia, accusations from the State’s Attorney Office aren’t generally ‘nothing.”’
“It was just a warning really. After the judge dismissed it, the state’s attorney pulled me aside and basically implied that if it weren’t for my otherwise flawless record, the office would suspect me of getting rid of the gun for a bribe, and they’d be looking to accuse me of evidence tampering.”
Gavin seemed to consider her revelation for a moment before responding. “Well, I wouldn’t let it get to you. It happens to the best of us,” he offered, calmly wiping his mouth and tossing his napkin onto his empty plate.
“It doesn’t happen to me. I mean, maybe that sounds arrogant, but as much work and precision as I put into the Brown case—all my cases—well, that gun going missing…it shouldn’t have happened. It’s a sign of sloppy police work. Bottom line.”
“So is that how you explain what happened to your partner then? Seems he had a similar problem with evidence ‘growing legs.’ Are you saying that was sloppy detective work?”
Maybe ten months of grieving had drained most of the fight out of her. Maybe, after finally believing that Frank had taken his own life, Claudia no longer felt as strong an impulse to jump to his defense. Or maybe it was just something about Gavin. Because instead of the usual surge of resentment that a comment like his would have normally spurred within her, Claudia found herself able to bite her tongue and respond calmly.
“Frank was never sloppy.”
“Fine. But he did have more than one case thrown out when evidence went missing, correct?”
Claudia studied Gavin. Was he attacking Frank’s reputation or simply using it as an argument to defend hers?
“You seem to know a lot about a unit you’ve only just joined, Detective,” she said.
“I hear rumors.”
“Oh yeah? What kinds of rumors?”
“Both sides,” he explained as he leaned back from the table. “For instance, you’ve got some who say your partner folded under the pressure of that whole IAD investigation. And then you’ve got others—fewer, mind you—who still think maybe he knew too much and was silenced because of it.”
“And which theory do you favor?”
She watched Gavin take his wallet from his back pocket and toss two fives onto the table.
“I don’t know,” he said, meeting her gaze. “I worked Homicide in D.C. I know it’s tough—the responsibility, the pressure, the expectations from your fellow detectives, your sergeant, the State’s Attorney Office. Not to mention the kinds of cases and suspects you deal with on a daily basis. But still, by the time a cop makes his…or her way to the level of Homicide, you figure that most of the weak ones have been weeded out. Face it, the burn-out rate in this job is high, but for the guys in Homicide? I think it takes more than an IAD probe to push someone over the edge once they’ve achieved those ranks.”
Claudia scrutinized Gavin, wishing the twitch of suspicion would leave her. It was breakfast conversation, she tried to reason; two detectives having coffee, new partners getting to know each other, that was all.
Why then did she get the feeling Gavin
