Good Girl Gone Bad (17 page)

“Officer Zorn,” he said, almost sneering.

Phil nodded, her eyes hard and focused. Dettmer pulled a chair out from the table, holding it for her. She accepted and sat down. “Lieutenant.”

Ponch piped up. “What’s this, a gang bang?”

Dettmer shook his head and pulled out another chair. “Not at all. Officer Zorn has a vested interest in this case.”

“Oh, so it’s an open case now?” Ponch snidely asked.

Dettmer smiled and conceded. “Poor choice of words, Torres. Sergeant Mossa will be arriving momentarily.”

No sooner had the words left Dettmer’s mouth than the door opened and Tony Mossa walked into the room. The man was from the streets. A nasty scar marred his face above his left eye, accentuating his pockmarked olive complexion. Like everyone else in the room, he was dressed casually. He set his briefcase down on the floor and made his intro.

The tension was so thick in the room you could have sliced it up and served it.

Ponch turned on his tape recorder and placed it on the table. Dettmer and Mossa did the same with their own devices.

Mossa established the date, time, and who was present.

Ty didn’t flinch. His green eyes flared hard and the muscle in his right cheek worked. He refused to look at Phil, afraid he might lunge across the table and strangle her. Betrayal stormed his gut. Hell, if he knew why somewhere in his heart he expected Phil to be any different from any other betraying woman. His mother had taught him well not to trust the gender. She’d never stood up for him, why the hell did he expect Phil to? And why did it bother him so much that she didn’t? That she’d come to see the IA vultures strip him down to bones, one sliver of flesh at a time?

“All right, boys and girls, what’s the charge?” Ponch asked. His arrogance did nothing to garner compassion from Mossa or Dettmer. Both men stiffened.

“Murder one, Sergeant,” Mossa said.

Ty stiffened. Son of a bitch.

Ponch grinned, a genuine smile. “Are you serious? Who’s the stiff?”

“One Scott Mason.”

Ty growled. “I didn’t kill that prick.”

“Shut up, Jamerson,” Ponch barked.

“The coroner gave an initial cause of death as blunt trauma to the head. Your client was seen fighting with him only feet from where his body was found, and plenty of witnesses will testify Jamerson threatened to kill him.”

Ponch didn’t flinch. Ty had to hand it to him. The guy was good. He glanced at Mossa. But the IA sergeant was good, too. Maybe even better. For the first time Ty could remember, fear clogged his arteries. He glanced down at his raw knuckles and the scrapes on his forearms, direct results of him pounding Scott Mason’s face.

Mossa smiled and casually opened his briefcase. “You have defensive wounds on your hands and arms, Lieutenant,” he said as if reading Ty’s mind.

Ty opened his mouth to respond. Ponch flashed him a warning glare.

“Where were you between the hours of three
A.M.
this morning and eight
A.M.
, Lieutenant Jamerson?”

Ponch nodded. “Answer the question.”

“Home.”

“Alone?”

“Just me and my buddy JD.”

“That’s all you’re going to get, Mossa. Not another word until we have the full report.” Ponch’s face looked like an oversize tomato, a sure sign his blood pressure had spiked to DEFCON 1. Ty almost smiled. He’d never seen the quiet rep so stirred up.

Mossa did smile. It wasn’t a pleasant gesture. “Your client can wait in jail. We’re officially charging him with murder one. There was means, motive, and opportunity.”

Blood froze in Ty’s mind. Son of a bitch. He glanced at Phil, but she seemed as stunned by Mossa’s words as he. Nice acting, sweetheart, he thought.

“I’ll have him out before the ink dries,” Ponch said. No sooner had the words left his mouth than the door to the room opened and two uniforms entered.

Ty fought down the urge to punch his way out of the room.

Ponch spoke up, outraged. “What the fuck are you doing?”

Mossa stuffed paperwork back into his briefcase. “Your client is under arrest for the murder of Scott Mason. He’s being taken to booking. I believe he knows the way.”

Ty stood. Phil sat silent. As he turned his back to the uniforms, presenting his hands, Phil erupted. “He was with me!”

Six pairs of widened eyes turned on her, jaws gaped, but no one was more surprised than Ty.

Phil smoothed her hands down her jeans, color flushed her cheeks. “Lieutenant Jamerson went home with me last night after his altercation with Mason. He didn’t leave until nine this morning.”

Mossa’s eyes narrowed. “Officer Zorn. Your badge is on the line here.”

Phil nodded. “I understand the repercussions, sir.” More than her badge, she could kiss getting her father’s file good-bye.

“Why are you lying for him, Zorn?” Dettmer asked. Fury underlined his question.

“I’m not, sir. We spent the better part of the evening brainstorming our case.” She couldn’t believe the hole she was digging for herself. She had no idea where Ty went after he left her house, but she was sure it wasn’t to track Scott Mason down and kill him in cold blood.

She went with her instinct, and it was screaming “setup.”

She could hear Ty now:
Letter of the law, Officer Zorn, and the spirit of the law…. Sometimes you have to work the rules to justify the end.

She would not allow her undercover case to get blown to hell, and she sure as hell wasn’t going to allow some twisted misunderstanding land her commanding officer in jail for something she was sure he didn’t do.

Phil threw her shoulders back. “I’d be happy to take a polygraph.”

Mossa nodded. “Okay, Zorn.” He looked at Ty, who stood silent. “Why didn’t you just say you were working, Jamerson?”

Ty remained silent. He had to hand it to Zorn. The lady had a quick mind. He’d thought of it, but he didn’t think she’d go along. Miracles never ceased.

“Did you or did you not spend the night with Officer Zorn?” Mossa demanded.

“Let’s clear this up here and now, Ty. Answer the question,” Ponch said.

Ty shrugged and his eyes lit up. “I’ve never been one to argue with a lady.”

Dettmer spoke up. “Until we’re clear on this, you’re on admin leave, Jamerson.”

Before Ponch could utter a word at the absurdity of Dettmer’s action, Phil piped up. “I’d advise against that, sir. The union will have your badge before the paperwork is filed.”

He glared hard at her, but she went on to explain, keeping her voice neutral. “Lieutenant Jamerson has an airtight alibi. While he may, in IA’s opinion, have means, and if you really stretch it, motive, to kill the slimeball, Scott Mason was alive and well the last time he had contact with Lieutenant Jamerson. I can vouch for his whereabouts. It all boils down to you having squat. The last time I checked, squat got you nothing but the union breathing down our backs and liable suits against the department. If Jamerson chooses to go public with this, there would be hell to pay.” She looked at Mossa. “Besides all of that, the undercover operation he’s heading up is making headway. To pull him now for something inconclusive would severely jeopardize the case.”

She stood. She had them by the balls and everyone in the room knew it. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have three missing ladies to find.”

Phil hurried out of the room. She was just about to exit the front door when Captain Dettmer caught up with her. “Phil!”

Damm it. She turned to face him. “Sir?”

“Why are you covering his ass? He turned a long time ago. This is what we need to finally nail him.”

Phil swallowed hard and ignored the hard thump in her chest. “Sir?”

He steered her away from the door and lowered his voice. “He’s a vigilante cop. If we don’t contain him, he’s going to take the entire PD down with him.”

Not very long ago she would have swallowed her captain’s words whole. But now? She went with her gut. “Sir. Please trust me with this.” She would not lie again if she didn’t have to. It went against her every moral fiber. But…

The word reverberated in her brain and made her want to scream. Before Ty Jamerson there had never been any buts. Now, out of IA and down in the trenches, she realized there was a pile of buts. So long as they served the sole purpose of catching the bad guy.

But was lying to her superior going too far? Even if it meant keeping a man she believed, hoped was innocent from being wrongly charged? Even if it meant keeping a rogue cop on the streets to nail the real bad guys?

Dettmer smiled, a fatherly smile. Her father had never smiled so benevolently at her. “Your old man would have taken Jamerson out in that room.
After
he took you over his knee. Be careful.”

He pushed past her to the parking lot. She followed more slowly.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

H
alfway across the parking lot, Phil heard Ty call her name. She stopped, her back rigid. She could just see that smirk on his face. The one that said, “I got to you and we both know it.” She pressed her lips into a hard line and strode away from his voice. Damn him anyway. It wasn’t about sex, it was her going with her gut.

It was about doing the right thing.

She hopped on her motorcycle, hit the electric ignition, and strapped on her helmet. Then she kicked into gear and sped past her stunned lieutenant. Hah! Didn’t think she had it in her to ride a bike? It was her only guiltless pleasure.

Racing down the road, she didn’t give a damn if she was pulled over for exceeding the speed limit. She shook her head. Speeding? Lying to her superiors? Possibly getting a murderer off before he could be charged?

“Phil, you are going downhill fast,” she muttered quietly.

Who killed Scott Mason? And why? Had he bothered someone else? He was annoying, rude, and a slimeball, but that wasn’t grounds for someone to take him out. What purpose would that serve? Why would anyone want him dead? She tamped down the urge to nudge her way into that homicide investigation. She had enough on her plate.

She blew a red light and told herself it was okay because there wasn’t a car anywhere near the intersection. The thrill of breaking yet another law electrified her. Shit, she was going rogue. Was it any wonder? She had the master as her mentor.

She turned off the main street to her neighborhood.

An hour later, Phil’s house had never been so clean. Her adrenaline-charged energy could have launched an atomic bomb. She decided to shower and go back to the office and pore over files. There was nothing else to do, no one to visit. She plopped down on a straight-back chair at her small kitchen table. How pathetic was that? No one to visit. Her mother was inconsolable. It was always the same thing. Guilt washed over Phil. She needed to make more of an effort. But how? She wasn’t a people person.

The ring of the doorbell startled her out of her pity party.

“Captain,” she said surprised. She opened the door wider and motioned Dettmer in.

“Zorn, we need to talk.”

“Okay. Let’s go into the living room.”

He followed behind her and she motioned for him to sit down on the recliner. She suppressed a smile. Ty filled it out much better than the captain. While Dettmer was in shape for a man in his early fifties, he didn’t carry himself with the sexy arrogance Ty did.

She rolled her eyes. Since when was arrogance sexy? Phil sat on the sofa across from her captain.

“So what brings you here, sir?”

Dettmer didn’t waste any time getting to the point. “Your lieutenant is walking both sides of the law. I want you to keep a log on him.”

“I—sir, I can’t do that!”

“Why not?”

“I—” Why not? “I have my hands full with this case. I don’t have the time to hide in the shadows and make book on my lieutenant.”

“I’m not asking you to shadow him. Watch him in the club.”

“For what?”

“I think he’s skimming off the dancers. I have it from one of them he’s coercing sex from not only her, but two others.”

Phil gasped. No way. Ty kept his distance, well, except from Candi, but she didn’t seem to mind. “Which one told you that?”

He shook his head. “I gave her my word I wouldn’t release that information. You’re going to have to trust me on this one.”

Phil shook her head. “I’ve found Lieutenant Jamerson to be gruff and direct, but he hasn’t shown any sign of bullying the dancers into the back rooms, and I haven’t heard any rumblings about him taking his own cut above the house cut.”

“He’s good, Phil. I worked with him years ago and watched him butcher a UC case, but he came out smelling like a rose.”

Phil’s brain couldn’t comprehend her captain’s accusations. Had she gone soft? Lost her objectivity?

“I’ll keep my eyes open.”

He stood and handed her the thick manila envelope in his hand. “Be careful of him, Zorn. He has a way about him that sucks people in.”

She nodded. Didn’t she know it. “What’s this?” she asked, taking the file folder.

“As much of your father’s IA as I could get my hands on without breaking GO.”

“I’ve read the bullshit report they gave us.”

“This has more.”

Her heart kicked up a notch. Were the answers in her hand?

“Thank you, sir.”

“Don’t disappoint me, Zorn. I want Jamerson’s ass.”

Two hours after her captain left, Phil continued to read the thick report. Many of the pages were written by StreetSmart, the code name for a UC who shadowed her father. They depicted the mundane details of her father’s daily life as a patrol sergeant. How long had he been followed?

In the file, StreetSmart stated he witnessed her father pistol-whip a pimp for no good reason. Phil snorted. She’d bet if her father did do it, he had a million reasons.

But, she chewed her bottom lip, what he did was wrong. An abuse of his authority.

“Shit!” she said. “I’m believing this crap.”

Impossible. While Mac Zorn breathed fire and brimstone, he also respected his fellow human beings, and more than that, he respected the law. God’s law and the penal code. StreetSmart’s comments were lies.

Phil scrolled through the reports, looking for the notes on Ruby, the woman who claimed her father beat her after he raped her. It was the only name they had been given during the trial and her father would never name her outright. That had infuriated both her and her mother. It was as if he were protecting the woman.