Covenant

65

Lopez stood outside the door of Captain Powell’s office and hesitated, her knuckles touching the cheap wood. She could hear the captain talking on his phone and it gave her a moment to reconsider.

Tyrell was going too far, she couldn’t deny that. There were political channels to consider, etiquette to ensure a senator’s compliance with any investigation. Tyrell’s crusade would get Lopez far deeper into the shit than she was prepared to accept, and though she’d struggled with the decision for two hours, it was time to make a stand.

Warring against her determination to avoid a catastrophic black mark against her name was a sense of loyalty to Tyrell. It felt as though she was ratting on a classmate, a stool pigeon butt kissing her way into—

“Are you coming in or are you going to stand there all goddamn day?”

Powell was off the telephone. Lopez opened the door and stepped into his office.

“What is it?” Powell demanded, surrounded by teetering mounds of paperwork.

Lopez took a deep breath.

“Tyrell is headed for Senator Isaiah Black’s offices in the District. He’s looking for help to link a pastor named Kelvin Patterson to the homicides at Potomac Gardens yesterday.”

Lopez expected Powell to spontaneously combust in fury. Instead, the captain leveled her with a somber expression.

“When did he leave?”

“A couple of hours ago, but he doesn’t have an appointment.”

Powell set his pen down.

“Let me take care of it,” he said. “I’ll head down there and have the Capitol Police pick him up before the damned fool can do any more damage.”

A weight lifted from Lopez’s shoulders at the same time as an unfamiliar self-loathing churned deep inside her.

“Tyrell wanted me to run a few checks on some of the leads we were chasing. I’m going to head down to see Larry Pitt and try to figure out what Casey Jeffs might have to do with all of—”

“You’ll do no such thing,” Powell growled, standing up behind his desk and leaning forward with his balled fists resting knuckle-down before him. “You’ve wasted enough time on this.”

“It ain’t right to leave it.”

“It’s not right,” Powell agreed, “but it’s necessary. Tyrell’s crusade’s getting in the way of the department’s work. You’ve done the right thing, Lopez. I don’t want to see your name dragged down with Lucas Tyrell’s charades.”

“He’s onto something,” Lopez said.

“Yes, he is,” Powell admitted, “but we’ve been here before. The guy can’t investigate anything without thinking it’s the work of a secret cabal of nymphomaniac vampire zombies.” Lopez shot him a curious look. “You know what I mean.”

She sighed.

“I’ve worked with him for three years and he’s never been wrong about anything. Sure, he gets big ideas about small fry but what’s the deal with that anyhow? There’s too much about this case that doesn’t fit without the players being somehow connected, and I can’t see the sense in letting it all go just ’cause Tyrell’s going off the range.”

“Off the range?” Powell repeated. “Walking into the Capitol and laying into a senator? Tyrell can’t walk around here thinking he’s DC’s fat-assed answer to Jack Bauer.”

“All the same,” she said, “I think we should keep playing his hand here and see what comes up.”

“And if you come up with nothing?” Powell challenged.

“Then all we’ll have wasted is my unpaid overtime and the world will be safe again.”

Powell sighed, grabbing his jacket and folding it over his arm.

“Just sit back from it for a couple of days then look at it afresh. Christ’s sake, Lopez, your shift ended four hours ago. Take a break, okay?”

“But the links,” Lopez said. “Maybe there’s something else behind all of this and we can—”

“The district attorney isn’t going to start handing out warrants on something as slim as correlating but obscure medical procedures. Look at what happened in Peru, people being murdered for body fat that was sold in Europe for cosmetic surgery purposes. At the same time there’s a black market for spare body parts in Asia and India, but nobody’s suggesting the two are connected.”

“Is anyone suggesting that the two are legal?”

Powell shot her a severe look over his shoulder as he turned and strode from the office.

“Go home. That’s an order, Lopez.”