Disturbance

THIRTY-SIX

Frank Harriman knocked the clock radio off the nightstand as he reached a fumbling hand to find the cell phone. He answered groggily but came more awake when he realized what his lieutenant, Jake Matsuda, was saying to him.

Jake wasn’t a ranter, but by the time he had killed you with kindness and long explanations of how you might be compromising a case, you wished he would have just yelled and gotten it all over and done with in one tenth of the time and one one hundredth of the guilt.

At one point, Frank said, “Reed and Vince knew I was going to talk to him.”

“Yes, they told me, when I talked to them after Mr. Moore’s attorney called me.”

“I didn’t harm him or threaten him or anything of that nature.”

“No. You’re far too professional for that sort of thing, I’m sure.”

“I hear the warning in that, Jake, but I promise you, I talked everything over with Reed and Vince, before and after. All I really did with Quinn Moore was look for his reactions to a couple things, like the art.”

“Under other circumstances, I think it would have been an excellent line of investigation to pursue. Perhaps without tipping our hand to him, however.”

“You’ll have to forgive me if I don’t see it that way.”

“Nothing to forgive. Still, I find I have to ask you to choose one of two options here, Frank, or this will end badly for all of us. Either take some time off or let me load you up with so much other work you won’t have time to get involved in Reed and Vince’s cases.”

“If you think I can just sit this out-”

“Oh no, I don’t,” Jake said mildly.

“I’ve got three more weeks of vacation time coming to me this year. I’ll take a couple of weeks of that now.”

“You don’t have to use up vacation time. We can call it administrative leave.”

“I find myself not wanting to be in the department’s debt.”

There was a long pause, then Jake said, “All right. Have a good vacation, Frank.”