“Jan,” Val said when her partner returned from the ladies’ room, “you’ll call me crazy, adding more to our plate right now. But I have an idea that might help break this case open.”
“I’m all ears,” Jan said. “Crazy or not, I’m amenable to anything right now.”
“I’ve noticed tension between Tank and Stevie Ray lately,” Val said. “I wonder if we could exploit it to our advantage.”
“How?”
Val glanced around and lowered her voice. “Drag Stevie in here and bust his balls like we did to Tank. If I’m right about my hunch, he’ll rat out his buddy faster than you can say ‘Fifth Amendment.’”
“On what pretense?”
Val shrugged. “He’s a witness. Remember, Tank used him as a reference for his alibi last Friday. None of that sat right with me. They’re covering up something, and I want to find out what.”
“Good enough for me,” Jan said. “Where can we reach him?”
Val checked the time. Not quite noon. “My gut tells me Maya’s a warm lead. If she and Tank were intimate, she might know how to get in touch with his partner. I wanted to check in with her anyway, see how her mother’s doing.”
“Brilliant,” Jan said. “Meantime, I’ll check out that RS Security company. That’s overdue, and something tells me Tank’s so-called ‘business associate’ had a strong financial reason to back up his alibi.”
Val secluded herself in the WAVE Squad’s empty meeting room, door closed, and kept her voice low. Jan and Simpson’s blunders in the Tank interview had spooked her, and she didn’t need anyone overhearing—and revealing—even her side of the conversation with Maya.
“First off, how’s your mom?” Val asked when Maya picked up.
“So much better. Thanks for asking.” Sadness and worry still tinged the edge of Maya’s voice. “She’s out of surgery and already complaining about the nurses, so I’d say she’s almost back to normal.”
“That’s great to hear,” Val said. “Listen, this is a sensitive subject, and if you don’t want to answer, I’ll understand. However, it might help us find the shooter.”
“Anything to help with that,” Maya said. “I want that guy in prison for the rest of his life!”
Val swallowed and chose her words with care. “Is there any reason Tank might have known you were heading to the clinic this morning? Did you tell him, or are you aware of anyone else that might’ve leaked word to him?”
“Tank? No way,” Maya said. “Like I told you the other day, he scares me. He’s so unpredictable. I wouldn’t want him anywhere near me at a time like this.”
Val swallowed. “Well, take extra care to stay away from him, in case he finds out.” She came within an inch of revealing the earlier blunder by Simpson and hoped Maya wouldn’t press the matter.
“Don’t worry. I’ve got no plans of going anywhere near him,” Maya said. “Thanks.”
Val cleared her throat and continued. “Might Stevie Ray have somehow found out?”
“Stevie? No, why?”
“Well, they’re such good pals, and—”
“Hah!” Maya sounded amused. “They can’t stand each other. Their relationship is all business. Codependent assholes. Oops, sorry, Mom!” She lowered her voice. “She hates when I curse.”
“Did Stevie know that you and Tank were, uh, intimate?”
Maya sighed, a loud burst of air into Val’s earpiece. “Probably. Tank brags about every conquest, and Stevie, well, he’s the most jealous creep I’ve ever met.”
“He was jealous of you and Tank’s, um…?”
“Totally. Get this. A week after Tank and I, uh…” She paused and the background quiet evaporated, replaced by a clamorous noise akin to a high school cafeteria food fight. “Sorry about the noise. I went into the waiting area so my mom doesn’t overhear this.” She cleared her throat. “So, Tank and I slept together, one time, and then he freaking ghosts me. Less than a week later, Stevie comes up and starts hitting on me, insinuating that I’m some sort of loose woman. Like all he needs to do is mention sex and I’ll throw myself at him. When I try to tell him ‘No, thanks,’ he gets all huffy and starts calling me names, like Mata Hari and Betty Boop or some such. Says I’m a whore and an uppity bitch and—and worse.”
“He called you Betty Boop? Not ‘a Betty’?”
“Something like that. He was a total jerk about it all.”
Val paused a moment to collect her thoughts. Stevie’s use of incel-style insults wasn’t a surprise, but it was telling. “Might you know how to reach him?”
“Sure. His number’s blocked on my phone. He called me like twelve times in two days, the last few times to leave nasty voice and text messages. I didn’t even give him my number—he stole it from the computer at the dojo.”
Val wrote down the number Maya gave her. “Sorry to bring all this back up for you, but do you have any idea of how he spends his daylight hours?”
“Hiding from sunlight and garlic would be my guess.” Maya snickered. “Seriously, he works at a day job somewhere.”
“Logistics or something?” Val recalled Stevie’s vagueness on the topic.
“Logistics?” Maya burst out laughing. “Typical Stevie, exaggerating his importance. Val, he drives a damned delivery truck.”
Val nearly dropped the phone. “Did you say delivery truck? For what company?”
“Got me,” Maya said. “Ask him. My bet is he’ll claim to be president and CEO. Anyway, I need to get back to my mom. Good luck.”
Val hung up and set down her phone, numb with excitement. Maybe they’d been chasing the wrong man after all.
Val rushed over to Jan’s desk and filled her in on Maya’s revelations. “You should call him,” Val said to her partner. “Given our relationship at the dojo, I’m not sure how he’d react to me. He might run, he might laugh. But you could scare him into coming right in.”
“Are you saying I’m scary?” Jan laughed. “To you, too, or only to men?”
“I’ll take the Fifth.” Val grinned.
Jan side-eyed her but took the number and dialed from her desk phone.
“Hello?” Stevie’s voice sounded weak and unsure over Jan’s speaker.
“This is Detective Morgenstern of Clayton PD. We need to speak with you about your friend Richard Steiger.”
“T-Tank?” Traffic noise filled the background—horns, voices, the hum of engines. “What about him?”
“We have several questions,” Jan said. “Could you come down to headquarters for a chat? It’d be the two of us and my partner.” She met Val’s gaze and mouthed, “Say your name?”
Val shook her head no.
“I’m working right now,” Stevie said. “Is T-Tank in trouble?”
“It would be best if we covered all this face-to-face,” Jan said. “Do you know where our headquarters are?”
“Y-yes. How long will this take?”
“Only a few minutes.” Jan crossed her fingers and grinned at Val. “We’ll respect your time. We’d appreciate if you could come in right away.”
“What’s this about?”
Val scribbled a note and passed it to Jan. Play to his jealousy. Their infighting.
Jan gave Val a thumbs up. “We’re hoping you can clear something up for us about Tank’s—Mr. Steiger’s—business dealings.”
“At the dojo?”
Val shook her head again. Jan took the cue.
“There are some irregularities regarding his relationship with a certain Maya Suwan,” Jan said, “and how that affects his ability to lead the organization.”
A few seconds passed. “I’ll be there in ten minutes,” Stevie said.
True to his word, Stevie Ray showed up at WAVE Headquarters within the quarter-hour, and Jan escorted him to a small meeting room where Val sat waiting.
“What the—?” Stevie froze in the doorway. “I thought—”
“I believe you’ve met my partner, Officer Valorie Dawes.” Jan nudged him into a chair alongside the six-foot table that occupied most of the room.
“Thanks for coming in, Stevie,” Val said. “Can I offer you some water or coffee?”
“W-water, thanks.”
Val stepped out into the hallway and signaled a uniformed officer, who returned a moment later with a cold bottle of water. She wiped off the condensation—and all fingerprints—with a napkin and handed the bottle to him.
Stevie mumbled thanks, tore off the cap, and swallowed a big swig.
“So, we understand that Tank and Maya are…friends,” Val said with a deliberate pause. “Outside the dojo and the MMA arena, I mean. Would you know anything about that?”
“I guess.” Stevie considered it a moment longer and added, “Yeah. They’ve hung out, I think.”
“Hung out?” Jan said. “Dated…maybe more?”
Stevie chuckled, a nervous laugh reminiscent of a teenage boy hearing a double entendre. “I wouldn’t call it a date.”
“Had…relations,” Val said.
Stevie stared at them, one then the other, and sipped his water.
“It’s okay,” Jan said. “Nothing you say here gets repeated to Tank.”
“Or Maya,” Val added.
“Okay,” Stevie said in a rush of air. “Yeah, they…got together once or twice.”
Val chose her words with care, not wanting to violate Maya’s privacy. “To your knowledge, did they…continue to see each other after that?”
Stevie pondered a moment. “I don’t think they did.”
“You don’t think, or you know?” Jan said.
“I’m pretty sure.”
“Okay,” Val said. “Now, you and Tank are both leaders in the men’s advocacy group, right? The one you invited Gil to join. He loves it, by the way.” She smiled at him to cover the lie. Gil had never uttered a single positive word about them.
“That’s right.” Stevie’s chest seemed to puff out a bit. “I’m kind of in charge of recruiting.”
“And Tank? What’s his role?” Val asked.
Stevie made a face, almost a wince. “He’s like the events captain. Unofficial,” he added in a rush. “We have no ranks and such.”
“What qualifies him to lead that effort for the group?” Val asked. “What makes him stand out as the first among men? Instead of, say, you?”
“Well,” Stevie said, straightening in his chair, “in the past, he’s taken charge of organizing events and such. He leads discussions, stuff like that.”
“Heads up your meetings?” Jan asked.
Stevie shook his head. “We don’t hold ‘meetings’ per se,” he said. “It’s more like online conversations.”
“When you say ‘in the past,’ does that mean that others have stepped up lately to take on more of a leadership role?” Val asked.
“You could say that.” Stevie sipped his water. Total confidence emanated from his erect posture.
“People like you?” Val said in a casual tone.
Stevie seemed to consider his answer—a moment of false modesty, Val guessed—and took another long sip of water, almost draining the bottle. “Some people think so.”
“I’m not surprised,” Val said. “You’ve shown great organizational skills at the dojo.”
“Thanks.” Stevie smiled, leaned forward. “But we’re not here to talk about me, right? This is about Tank.”
“Right. We wanted to make sure we were talking to someone who…shall we say, has a certain vantage point on the situation,” Jan said. “Someone who’s more of an equal in the group, who understands how things ought to be run.”
“Yeah,” Stevie said, nodding. “That’s me.”
“The group’s philosophy,” Val said, “is pretty pro-men, right? I mean, masculine. When you recruit members, you’re looking for a man’s man, one who doesn’t get pushed around. By women, or by, say, woke liberals.”
“We prefer independent-minded guys, yes.”
“Like yourself. And Gil.”
Stevie nodded, his pride spilling out all over his open body language. Arms on the table. Legs uncrossed, spread a bit. Back straight, head held high.
“Especially in the men you consider leaders.”
“Especially so.”
“Men who aren’t beholden to women. Guys who wear the pants, so to speak.”
“So to speak.” He chuckled. Another prepubescent private joke.
“So if a man in the group—a leader—seemed to be, say, owned by his woman,” Jan said, “that’d be a problem with his ability to lead. Agreed?”
“Tank’s not pussy-whipped. I mean, he’s a lot of things, not all of them good. But no woman controlled him. Ever.”
“What if she tried?” Val asked. “What would he do?”
“He’d…put her in her place. In no uncertain terms.”
“Physically?” Jan asked.
Stevie scoffed. “He’s a big guy. He wouldn’t need to.”
“What if he needed to?” Val asked. “What if she wouldn’t go along?”
“Then he’d dump her. As would any guy worth his piss.”
“What if she dumped him first?” Jan asked. “How might he react?”
Stevie seemed to shrink in his chair, his face clouding with doubt. “I don’t know. Why don’t you ask him?”
“We tried,” Jan said. “He didn’t seem to want to talk to us much.”
“Can’t say I blame him.” Stevie shrugged, finished his water.
“Another?” Val offered.
He nodded and pushed the empty toward her. She picked it up with two fingertips near the bottom, walked it to the door. Out in the hall, she traded it for a fresh one and told the uniformed cop, “Prints and DNA, stat.”
The officer nodded, smiled, and hurried down the hall.
Val returned with the fresh bottle, not worrying about her prints this time. “So, Tank said he met with you this morning. True?”
Jan stared at her wide-eyed with surprise. Not protocol, but Val wanted to follow her instincts.
“Uh…yeah, yeah, we did,” Stevie said. “We talked about the, ah, MMA and dojo stuff.”
“What time was your meeting?” Val asked.
“Um…like, nine? I think we started earlier,” he added. “Eight forty-five?”
“Are you asking or telling me?” Val said.
“Telling. Eight forty-five. Until, well, about an hour. Then I went to work.”
“Driving a delivery truck, right?” Jan said. “Like Amazon Prime or FedEx?”
“Kind of like that.”
“Did you drive your truck here today?”
“I had to. I was working when you called. I really gotta get back, actually. So if we could wrap this up?”
“We can validate your parking.” Val stood and brought a small notepad and pen to him. “It’s the least we can do. If you give me your vehicle info…”
He did, and Val circled around behind him, signaling Jan: Stretch this out. She texted Fletcher in forensics: Inspect the delivery vehicle in the guest lot. She added the make, model, color, and plate. Get the truck ID. See if the plates or company name looked messed with. Lacking a warrant, they couldn’t search inside. Yet.
Oh, and validate his parking. She’d almost forgotten her excuse already.
Meanwhile, Jan kept him talking. “What time did you clock in?” She asked. “At work.”
“Nine forty-five, I think?”
“Kind of a late start for a delivery guy, isn’t it?”
“What, are you my fucking boss now?”
“Sorry. I don’t know a lot about your line of work. So, is that your normal start time?”
“Yeah, well, I mean, I started earlier, like six, but I clocked out for the thing with Tank.”
“Did you clock out for this meeting, too?” Jan kept her tone conversational and inquisitive, rather than confrontational.
“Um…I’m not sure. Can I check? It’s an app on my phone.”
“Please do.”
Stevie unlocked his phone and tapped a few times. When he paused to read the screen, Jan grabbed it from him.
“Hey!” Stevie stood and snatched it back. “The fuck?”
“Sorry. Just wanted to check before you made any changes. I wouldn’t want you to perjure yourself.”
Val suppressed an eye roll. Stevie wasn’t under oath.
“Yeah, well, fuck you. I mean, uh, that’s pretty screwed up, Detective.”
“Like I said,” Jan said, nonchalant. “Sorry.” She gave him back his phone.
“I thought this was all about Tank, anyway. Why are you busting my balls about my timecard at work?”
“It is about Tank,” Jan said. “I don’t want you covering up for your friend.”
“I wasn’t.”
“Clearly.”
Val’s ears perked up at that comment.
“I’m telling the truth.”
“Of course. You would never lie to help your friend. That’s part of the code, too, right?”
Stevie froze, his eyes darting to Val and back to Jan. “What does that mean?”
“Nothing,” Jan said. “Just that neither of you would so much as consider fudging the truth, even a little, to help his friend with the cops. I mean, that’s clear.”
“Why is that clear?” Stevie said, suspicion all over his words.
“Well,” Jan said, “we’ve talked to you both now today, and neither one of you said anything to protect the other. Quite the opposite, really. Which I find interesting.”
“What do you mean?” Stevie’s voice rose. “What did Tank say about me?”
“About you?” Jan shook her head. “I can’t say.”
“What? Why? Come on, man, you gotta tell me!” Stevie stood and leaned over the table. “Did he say something bad about me? Did he tell you something different? What the hell did he say?”
“It’s against protocol to—”
Stevie cursed and, with unexpected quickness, he rushed toward the door. Val, still on her feet and only a step behind him, tripped him with a quick kick to his ankle and a chop to the shoulder blades. Stevie Ray sprawled face-first on the floor, gasping for breath.
Val squatted next to him. “Now Stevie. You know better than to run from a police officer.” She held out a hand and helped him back onto his feet. He backed off, panting. “I just spared you some major jail time,” she said, hoping he bought into the bluff. “I hope you appreciate it.”
“Fuck you both.” He pushed Val back a step, then opened the door and fled down the hall.
Val started after him, but Jan grabbed her arm. “Let him go,” Jan said. “We got what we needed from him today.”
“Let’s hope so,” Val said. “I’ll ask for a rush on the DNA and fingerprint analysis from his water bottle and go see what the techs found on his vehicle.”
“With luck,” Jan said, “we’ll have a warrant by nightfall.”
Val hoped that would be soon enough.