Page 53 of Charmed Forces

I walked out of the office and headed towards the elevator. When I reached it, I saw Jord pausing at the stairwell doors. He waved an envelope on the other side of the window and I punched in the code and pushed the door open.

“This is an unofficial visit,” he said, looking around.

“I figured that. Come through.”

“Well, this is an abrupt change of affairs,” said Jord, following me into the office. “Usually you’re busting through my office, causing chaos.”

“You never stop me,” I said. “And my chaos is stealthy.”

“Hardly,” snorted Jord.

I grabbed him a seat and parked it next to mine at my desk.

“So this is where you work, huh?” he said. “Nice place. Empty.”

“Everyone’s busy working their butts off trying to help our brother.”

“I was merely observing, not complaining. Here.” Jord placed the large envelope he carried on my desk.

“What’s this?” I asked, opening it and pulling out a slim sheaf of papers.

“Read it and see.”

I skimmed the front page, my eyebrows rising, then the pages that followed before looking up at Jord. “How did you get hold of the evidence list?”

“Would you believe someone happened to leave a copy in the photocopier just as I was standing in line? Of course, they hurried away before I realized their mistake.”

“I’m sure you couldn’t catch them,” I said, amused at his implausible suggestion. Like that person didn’tknowJord was standing behind them. Like theyaccidentallyleft the evidence list on the photocopier.

“I didn’t see where they went,” he replied with a shrug.

I believed Jord did not make one step of effort to catch up with the accidental photocopier. I sent up a small thank you into the ether to whomever had taken it upon themselves to help Daniel out by leaking some information to our brother.

Despite that momentary nod from the universe, there was a city-wide police search for Daniel. I couldn’t believe that everyone would so readily jump on the bandwagon of believing he’d killed three people in cold blood, and left another to be killed by an assassin.

Didn’t Detective Wayne’s assassin prove his innocence?

And for that matter, why did no one seriously interview Solomon or me about it? Weren’t we already the prime witnesses to the terrible crime? Surely Captain Brandt couldn’t be so blind! I’d barely had chance to say a thing before he let us go. Although maybe that was owing to the excellent lawyer Solomon retained?

Part of me wanted to march down to the police station and demand a second interview but I had a feeling that wouldn’t go down too well with Captain Brandt... or with me.

“I’m gonna take off,” said Jord. “My partner thinks I’m out getting our lunch.”

“Thank you for this.”

“For what?” asked Jord, winking as he got up.

I showed him out and returned to my desk. There were three other people on my deep dive list, all detectives: Frank Desmond, Pete Wayne and Anne McGinney.

I was reasonably sure my research so far exonerated Daniel but what about the others? That two were dead indicated their innocence in the horrible affair, but perhaps there was an elaborate setup where they were double-crossed; or what if the traitor was only meant to be injured as part of their cover but it went horribly wrong? It was plausible until I factored in that both of them were dead. If I presumed one of them got paid off, what was the point? The money couldn’t be spent by a dead man. Although, maybe that didn’t matter to a killer tying up loose ends.

My coffee was almost too cool to drink, and I took one last sip before I discarded the mug to deal with later. Then I set to work. The only way I could find the answers was to peruse the data available to me.

I credit-checked Frank Desmond first, and discovered he was living close to the wire in terms of income and expenditure. If anything unforeseen and expensive happened, he was probably only a couple of paychecks away from disaster. Yet there was nothing to indicate he needed a bribe. No car payments, no wife or partner, no alimony, no kids, no credit cards, low mortgage on a nice house, and none of his expenses were avaricious. He just didn’t save. Unless he owned an irresponsible sum to a loan shark who was due to break his knee caps imminently, I couldn’t see why he would sell out his squad for a quick pay day. Even that scenario was a stretch. One thing did strike me as disappointing; Desmond led a simple life, which translated to: there was no one I could even question about him.

Detective Wayne was in a better position financially and he and his wife were both doing fine. Their savings to debt ratio was excellent, they’d made a sizeable sum on their last property, enabling them to buy and renovate the Arcadia Avenue house with a low mortgage. Suki had more money saved than her husband, which I figured was earmarked towards the salon dream Alice mentioned.

Anne McGinney wasn’t any more interesting. She’d inherited her parents’ home after they passed young, and lived there with her husband and their two children. They took an overseas vacation every year, but otherwise lived quite modestly with comfortable savings.

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