The Witness

Chapter Twenty-Eight

THE INTERVIEW OF KEVIN SYKES had been going on for five hours now, still without the reporter requesting a lawyer. Luke watched through the glass as his officers worked, Marsh and Connor switching around the conversation with the ease of being able to read each other’s thoughts, putting Sykes on videotape walking back over himself on details only the killer would know without ever trying to get him to directly confess. That would come, Luke knew, but not before they had the man so twisting in the wind he couldn’t remember what lie he had told to cover another. They would get him talking about the knife he had used soon. If he wasn’t the police chief and if those weren’t two of his own officers, he would be trying to hire them in an instant.

“They’re good.”

He glanced over at his deputy chief. “I was just thinking the same thing.” Luke drank more of his coffee. “Do we have room to move them up another pay grade?”

“I don’t think either one would see a promotion to head of major cases as a move up, even with the increased rank. And Marsh is going to get dragged into administration when the time comes.”

“Elliot is ready for something bigger than head of homicide-I plan to move him up to criminal investigations as a whole at his next review. Maybe move both Marsh and Connor up to share head of homicide? Goodness knows the job needs two people to cover the hours. Marsh is going to grieve Tracey by pouring himself more into the job-we might as well use that reality and give him more territory to handle. It will be harder to think about a personal loss when he’s grousing at 6 a.m. update meetings and hand-holding rookies learning homicide. We’ll let Connor make sure Marsh doesn’t end up firing the entire lot of detectives under him.”

The deputy chief smiled, thought about it, and nodded. “I’m for the move; it’s solid. Elliot’s been dealing with the narcotics murders, and it would be good to have that background in the overall criminal-investigations slot. And the detectives reporting up to Connor and Marsh will take the move to be a good one, promoting from within the group.” He nodded to the interview going on. “How long do you think it takes before the whole story comes spilling out?”

Luke watched them work. “Look at Connor. He’s begun to do his two-steps-forward, two-steps-back, lean-against-the-wall pacing. You can see Connor using Marsh’s questions like a one-two setup, five questions from Marsh, one from Connor, and always a new fact getting pushed with each group of questions. An hour tops, and they’ll have Sykes confessing to the two murders and then writing it all down-his one last great journalist coup-he’ll write his own arrest story and his unveiling as Henry Benton’s son.”

“Think Connor will spin it that way?”

Luke smiled. “I would. And they think like me.”

“There’s a compliment in there, I think.”

“I miss being down in the trenches. You?”

“I’ll always have a fondness for traffic duty. Crashes and chases and lots of drunk drivers, but it was my turf as a rookie. I was keeping the streets safe and proud of it.” The deputy chief watched the interview for a few more minutes, then nodded to the clock. “Want me to take the nine o’clock press briefing?”

Luke glanced at the time and figured he could let the press wait another two minutes. “I’ll do it. I want to do some public congratulating of the SWAT group; they did a nice job today. And this-” Luke nodded to the interview and let himself shrug-“reporters will love nothing more than tearing apart one of their own in custody, but I can do the dance around with no comment for an hour and get away with it while Marsh and Connor get everything on tape. You can call that press conference in the morning to announce the arrest and the charges against Sykes. I’m planning to sleep in.”

The deputy chief smiled. “Thanks.”

“You’ll have to do it without Marsh and Connor too, I’m afraid. I’ll give them twenty minutes after the interview concludes to scrawl together their report, and then they are going to give me the good-bye salute and take two weeks’ vacation and probably call in and request to make it three.”

“Let them have it; then promote them when they return.”

Luke laughed. “I like how you think. Page me when it looks like this is wrapping up. I’ll go fence words with the press for a while.”

“Sure thing, Chief.”