False Witness (John Steel series Book 3) (20 page)

Steel scowled at her, which made her smile wickedly.

“Trust me, she is not my girlfriend,” Steel told her firmly. McCall could sense his anger just at the thought of such a thing.

“Yeah, well whatever. So they are looking into him much more closely. If that guy did have anything to do with it there might be a trail they can follow.”

Steel stood up and studied the pictures of the victims once again, this time more closely.

“Why were they injected with truth serum?” she went on. “It don’t make sense. They didn’t know each other by all accounts, so why do it?”

Steel shook his head. He had a million theories but that’s all they were. The killer could have been smart and done it just to add a false clue, but Steel felt that was unlikely. They knew something.

“Yeah, very Cold War stuff, you know KGB, CIA. Hey, why don’t we ask your—?” McCall stopped. She could see that the joke had run its course and Steel had real anger in his face, and this led to another question. What the hell had that woman done to him all those years ago?

McCall quickly apologised and got back to her real reasoning, hoping to change the subject. Hell, the last thing she needed was an angry John Steel. She had seen a glimpse of it and she really didn’t like what she saw. It was the sort of rage you would see from a rabid T-Rex on heat.

“Anyway they stopped doing that years ago, right?” She chuckled.

Steel leant over and grabbed the files on the victims. “Ten years ago, something happened to these men. Look. Our schoolteacher leaves his job and bums out and our reporter starts doing a story from something that happened ten years ago.”

McCall was still sitting with her cup half tilted towards her mouth as she listened to his idea. It was a theory that made a lot of sense.

“Okay. We need to find out what happened back then,” Steel went on.

McCall shot him an evil look: she had plans—more specifically she had plans with Daniel Cruise. “Look, Steel, I have plans for tonight, we can worry about all this tomorrow.”

The Englishman looked at the time. It was getting on and it had been a hell of a day. He nodded and shot her a smile. “Go home, Sam, and I’ll take care of this.”

McCall blew him a kiss to thank him, and Steel smiled like a Cheshire cat.

“So who is the lucky man?” Steel thought for a moment then his jaw dropped. He shot to his feet and grabbed McCall. “It’s that editor bloke, isn’t it? You can’t go out with him—he’s a suspect.”

Sam McCall looked confused at this news. “Since when?” she asked suspiciously. The whole thing sounded like a sordid plan of Steel’s to ruin her evening.

“Since phone records showed that our victim Edward called Daniel at his office but he never picked up; however, Edward tried your boyfriend’s cell phone and he
did
pick that up.”

McCall grabbed the piece of paper with the information on it and read the incriminating facts. Her face went pale as she read the rest. “It says here it pinged off a tower near the victim’s location. In fact he was close to both victims’ locations on the night they died.”

Steel felt bad about telling her but knew that she would find out sooner or later.

McCall sat down hard, making the chair slide back slightly, her eyes staring into nothingness as her brain tried to sort out a simple explanation, but came up short of one.

“Look, Sam, I am sure there is a simple explanation for this and that he is innocent,” John Steel said calmly. “However, for now we have to treat him as a suspect.”

McCall nodded and shot him a broken smile. She knew he was right and that he was only trying to save her from a massive mistake.

Samantha looked over at the Edward Gibbs file, which lay on top of the stack of others. “So what the hell happened ten years ago that started all this?”

Steel began to answer, just as Captain Brant came out of his office, looking as unfriendly as he usually did after a conversation with the Chief.

“The boss man wants updates, so what we got?” Brant asked.

McCall sat back in her chair. Her hard composure had returned. “We think something happened ten years ago and that these men are paying for it. Probably someone is shutting them up.”

Brant nodded. It was a sound theory, he was glad to have something to feed to the new chief to shut him the hell up.

“Where’s Tooms and Tony?” Brant nodded towards the pair of empty desks.

“They are checking out that security guard’s place, to see if something comes up.”

Brant nodded and looked out across the sea of half empty desks. “Okay, detectives, keep me apprised of any developments.”

McCall and Steel could see the stressed look on his face. The Chief was obviously squeezing him hard, probably for his own personal gain.

“We need to find out what happened ten years ago!” McCall’s voice sounded as tired as she looked.

“No,” Steel replied. “
I
need to find it and you need to go home and relax. You can catch up tomorrow.”

McCall smiled and stood up—she wasn’t about to argue. She was beat and an early night would be good.

Steel looked over to Garry Sanchez, who was sitting alone nursing a cup of coffee.

“What happens to him tonight?” McCall asked, looking over as two patrolmen walked over to Garry.

“He’s going home but with a protective detail.” Steel watched as Garry waved at the two detectives with a broad smile and mouthed a ‘Thank you’ at them. John and Sam waved back and watched him disappear into the elevator.

“How are you getting home?” Steel asked, also getting ready to head on out.

“Subway, I guess, unless you want to take me car shopping?”

Steel laughed as she logged off on her computer. “See you tomorrow, Detective.” Steel bowed and walked towards the stairs, and Sam shook her head and made for the elevator.

*

Samantha McCall stepped out of the station house into the unwelcoming cold wind that had a nasty bite to it. The sun was almost gone, however the dull light would still remain for another hour or so. She looked around to see if there was a cab approaching but all of them ignored her.

Sam stood next to a black town car that was parked with a Hispanic man in a driver’s uniform waiting patiently by the back door.

“Hey, buddy, you know you can’t park there, right?” Sam told him politely.

The man just smiled and shrugged. “Sorry, ma’am, but I was told to wait here and pick up a detective. My boss said that the guy who paid would take the slack.” McCall shook her head. She had a feeling she knew who this cop was. Hell, it had Steel’s arrogance written all over it.

He was being picked up by a driver while she had no ride because of him.

“So tell me, who are you picking up? Would it be some arrogant jerk named Steel?”

The small driver shook his head and shrugged. Suddenly he smiled awkwardly as he remembered he had forgotten to display the ‘passenger calling’ sign and turned towards the front passenger side.

“Oops, I forgot!” He laughed as he reached inside the car and pulled out the sign and held it proudly as if nothing was amiss.

“Thanks for reminding me, ma’am, that could have been real embarrassing.” He giggled.

McCall looked at the sign and her jaw dropped as the small board clearly read
Samantha McCall.

“You’re picking me up?”

He looked at the sign then back at her. He shrugged and smiled broadly. “Now I am embarrassed. My name is Felipe, and I will be your driver.”

McCall shook her head and laughed at her own harsh thoughts. The chauffeur got out and opened the back door, but was slightly shocked when she got into the front.

“Okay, Felipe, I am Samantha. So whose dime is this on?”

The man shook his head, but his smile remained.

“Never mind, I can guess. So have you ever taken a fare as far as Canada, Felipe?” Sam’s joke confused the poor man as they both got into the car.

Brian Armstrong, Megan Armstrong’s
father, sat in an old but comfortable armchair in one of the rooms that the disused apartment had to offer. He sat alone, reading a book he had found amongst the many that lined a bookshelf to his right.

The room was small—it was probably once a child’s bedroom or a study before the gangs had taken the building over as a safe house. The whole apartment was sparse in furnishings, a couple of beds or sofa beds—like the one in Brian’s chosen room. All there was were tables and chairs for dining, and a large old TV set—nothing more was required.

This was, after all, a safe house and not the Ritz. Brian had left the door open, not so much because he needed company—he didn’t. It was more a case of keeping an eye on the others.

Brian looked up from the pages of his book to see Darius walk in with a plate of hot food: nothing fancy, just some frankfurters and beans, but it was food.

Darius looked at the book cover as he entered. He raised an eyebrow when he saw it was a book on poisonous insects.

“Readin’ up on nasties, Teacher?” Darius said, smiling as he handed over the plate and the fork.

“Got to keep the mind active,” the ex-schoolteacher replied. “Who knows when it will become useful? Besides, out of the many books there this was the most interesting one.”

Darius nodded and shot a quick nervous smile. He sensed that something had changed in the teacher: he was focused on something and that could be dangerous.

“So where did you go after we all took different directions to throw the cops off?” Darius asked. “I know Tyrell went looking for his brother but you were gone for some time, man. Damn, we thought the cops had got ya.”

Brian just stared down at his food and stirred it for a while to cool it, but he never looked up even as he spoke. “Everyone has secrets, Darius, even you. Where did you go? And why the interest? Are you afraid I may have done something rash?”

Darius felt a shiver run down his spine as the teacher’s cold eyes met his. Darius backed off and shot a quick smile. “Hey, man, ain’t nothing really, we just chatting, that’s all, Teacher. Just chatting.” Darius left Brian to his food and his book. Even though Darius was taller and bigger than Brian Armstrong, he still knew not to mess with him.

Darius went back into the kitchen where the others were playing cards. Tyrell looked up and saw the concern on his face.

“You okay, man?” Tyrell enquired. “What happened? Didn’t he like your cooking?”

Darius looked back at the door of Brian’s room and then back to the others. His smile was insincere and nervous. “No, no it’s cool, it’s just his... It’s okay, everything is cool.”

Tyrell watched Darius head off into the TV room and close the door. Then his gaze fell on Brian’s door and he wondered what the hell he had said to spook Darius so much.

*

Daniel Cruise had been sitting in Interrogation Room One for over an hour. Steel had not rushed the uniforms into picking him up, in fact he had waited an hour before calling it in.

It was a usual tactic to let the suspect stew, to over-think things. But this time Steel had done it more out of spite than anything. The ex-soldier had noticed that people often did things while they thought they were not being observed that they would not do in the actual interrogation.

Some would be calm, some nervous. One guy actually got up onto the table and fell asleep a while back. However, what Steel was interested in was the change in body language. Would they stay calm? Or suddenly become defensive before knowing what they were there for?

Cruise looked good in his blue pinstriped ‘Burberry of London’ suit and he knew it. He sat there with his left leg resting comfortably on his right. Every so often he would calmly brush invisible dust from his left knee, but even more often he would check his Rolex, as if he was late for something.

Steel sat and watched him through the two-way mirror in the next room, and his gaze did not wane even as McCall came in to watch the show.

“I thought you had gone home hours ago?” Steel asked her, his eyes still set on his prey, just waiting for a sign of weakness.

“I did. But I remembered you have my date for tonight.”

He smiled at her sarcasm.

“So what do your instincts tell you, John?” she asked. “Is he a bad guy or a good guy?”

He could smell the fresh perfume and her heels sounded different, more high heels than high boots. He was tempted to look round but the image he had in his head was enough for now.

“My instincts say he is a lying bastard, but not a killer,” John Steel replied. “He is an editor of a major newspaper so he has it all. Even if the newspaper came crashing down he would still come out with a bank account full of cash. No, he is not a killer, because if he was, then he would lose everything he’s got, and this guy, well, he wants to keep everything he has got.”

John Steel leaned forwards and stared harder into the room. Once again Cruise checked his watch and Steel smiled secretively to himself. “So when were you two going out? Just so I can get him released in time,” he asked.

McCall looked at her watch. “Around nine-thirty. It was my idea. We didn’t know when we would be done for the day.”

Steel nodded in a show of understanding. It was nearly seven and Steel had a bad feeling about his instincts. He stood up and saw McCall for the first time in her going-out outfit: it was a tight black sleeveless dress with a collar to support the top half, which made her figure look amazing. She really did look amazing, but he dared not tell her.

“Why, Detective you scrub up nicely,” was all he said in the end.

Samantha smiled at the compliment. She just wished that she was looking good for him, and not the man in the interrogation room.

“McCall, Sam,” John said quietly. “Will you do me a favour? Go on out, but take Tina with you. Have a good time on me, it’s my treat.”

McCall suddenly became slightly unnerved by his request. “Why do you want to get rid of me, Steel? Afraid I will watch you shoot him or something?”

Steel shook his head, an almost sad look on his face. “No. I’m afraid that you will shoot him.”