She could see supposed informants clamming up, refusing to talk to the police. She tried to understand how any of the Vice detectives ever managed to get anyone to volunteer any actual information.
“Given that, how would you hope to be able to cultivate a CI?” she asked.
That was simple enough from where he was standing. “Some people are smart enough to realize that they’re standing in quicksand and they feel that making a deal with us—i.e., trading us information for a reduced sentence, or at times no sentence at all, is their only hope of keeping out of jail.”
Toni eyed him rather skeptically. “And you let them believe that?”
Dugan frowned slightly. He didn’t see a problem with the method and rather resented her insinuation that he was lying.
“We let them believe that because it’s true. We’re their last hope,” he told her. “At least we won’t put a bullet in their heads,” he added.
“Not directly, anyway,” she countered.
His eyes narrowed as he regarded her. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Didn’t you say that your last CI won’t be making any more reports about possible shipments because he wound up going for a swim he hadn’t counted on—with a bullet in his brain?”
Dugan became a little wary. “I didn’t tell you that,” he said.
“Sorry,” she apologized offhandedly. “Must have been in the report I read.”
“That happened on the day you gave birth,” he said. “That was the phone call I got so I couldn’t go to the hospital with you,” he told Toni, looking at her. “How did you...?”
Toni shrugged, passing it off. “Like I said, I must have read it,” she admitted. “I’ve been boning up on the cartel,” she reminded him. “I didn’t want to come to the party empty-handed.”
“So far, you’re only offering me leftovers,” he told her, far from pleased at the way this investigation—and her part in it—was going. He still didn’t see an advantage to having her working with him. As a matter of fact, he could see it going the other way very quickly. To his way of thinking, journalists were not known for their caution.
She nodded, taking in what he had just said. “Then I guess I should tell my people to get busy and bring me something you can use.”
That caught him off guard. “What people?” he asked.
“People-people,” she answered.
He gave her a skeptical look. “You’re going to have to do better than that.”
But this time, she wasn’t about to try to win him over. She became serious. “Sorry, Cavanaugh. You know I can’t give up my sources or else they won’t give it up to me. All I can do is pass whatever I get on to you when I get it,” she told him.
This made him think that the woman had seen one procedural too many. She obviously thought this was a game. He had no patience with games.
“Look, any tip we get, we’re going to have to vet,” he told her.
Rather than back off, the way he thought she would, or just give up altogether, Toni said, “Then I guess it’s going to be a long time between tips, at least on my end.” She pressed her lips together for a moment, choosing her words carefully. “Look, how about if I promise that whatever I do pass on to you is legitimate? I’m not about to do it for brownie points, Cavanaugh. If what I give you turns out to be bogus, I know that you’d dump me.”
Dugan never hesitated. “In a heartbeat.”
That only proved what she was saying. “I know that, you know that, so there won’t be any phony leads just for the sake of leads.”
Dugan felt his patience beginning to slowly evaporate. He sighed. “So, after all that, do you have anything?”
He still half expected her to lie. Instead, she spread her hands wide. “No, not right now. But you’ll be the first to know when I do.”
He looked at her for a long moment, and then something occurred to him. “These leads that you get...” he began.
“Yes?”
He watched her expression the entire time as he asked, “Do they have anything to do with that gun you had on the passenger seat that night?”
The wide smile she’d had up until that moment faded. A serious expression came into her eyes. The whole tone of the discussion changed.
“They might have,” she told him guardedly.
“Anything you want to talk about?” he asked her, waiting for her to give him something to work with.
Instead, she said, “No.”
He tried another line of questioning. “Are you still carrying that gun?”
Dugan saw her raising her chin defiantly. He had his answer before she said another word. “I have a permit.”
“So I take it that’s a yes?” Whether or not she said anything, he knew that it was.
There was silence between them for a moment. And then Toni changed the subject. “Why don’t you tell me what you plan to do next with this investigation?”
He had questions he wanted to ask her. Questions that had to do with why she was doing something so ultimately dangerous when there were so many other things she could be writing about. Questions about why someone as savvy as she seemed to be would have gotten herself into a situation where she had wound up trusting the wrong man, as she obviously must have done, given the fact that he’d found her in an alley, about to give birth, instead of somewhere with her husband or boyfriend being taken care of.
Questions filled Dugan’s head that had absolutely nothing to do with why she was standing here beside him right now.
But she was standing here with him right now and he had to deal with that first and everything else, no matter how curious it made him, second.
He forced himself to focus on the case he’d been working on for over eighteen months. “We round up the people caught in the most recent drug busts and talk to them to see if they’d heard anything about the next shipment.”
“Just like that?” Toni asked him incredulously. Was he that naive?
“Well, I might be leaving out a couple of steps,” Dugan granted. “Like maybe their little brother or sister was picked up on drug charges, too. And maybe we could make that go away. Or make their second possession with intent to sell be knocked down to a misdemeanor if they have anything to trade.”
All right, now he was talking, Toni thought. It was beginning to make sense to her. “Do you have anything like that?”
“I’d have to check my roster,” he told her, unwilling to say yes or no. He continued looking at her for a moment, then he shook his head. “Do you realize
