Jake checked his watch. “He’s probably home by now.”
“Let me go turn off the oven and then we can go.” Dinner would have to wait.
Twenty minutes later, they crossed the 14th Street Bridge in bumper-to-bumper late-day traffic on the way to Conklin’s home in Alexandria. Normally they’d be talking sports or politics, but today they coexisted in tense silence. It took forty-five minutes to make the five-mile trip.
“What’s our plan?” Jake asked when they pulled into a guest spot in the condo complex.
“Let’s ask him to come out and talk, so we can’t be overheard.” Conklin was remarried, but none of them knew his second wife that well. She didn’t often socialize with them.
“I’ll do that,” Jake said.
While Joe stood next to the car, Jake went up the stairs to the front door and rang the bell. A minute later, the inside door swung open. Conklin seemed surprised to see Jake. He pushed opened the storm door.
“Can we talk?” Jake gestured to where Joe waited. “Out here?”
Conklin glanced at Joe and then at Jake. “Uh, yeah. Sure. Let me grab a coat.”
Jake came down the stairs and joined Joe at the car.
Conklin joined them a minute later. “What’s going on?”
Joe took the lead. “We’ve been following up on some info that came into the tip line after Skip died. Does the name Frank Davis mean anything to you?”
Conklin thought about that for a second. “No. Should it?”
“He claims he was on G Street the day Skip was shot, rendered aid to him in the aftermath of the shooting and gave a statement to you that we have no record of.”
“He said he talked to me?”
“He named you and picked you out of photos of the department’s top leadership.”
“I never talked to anyone on G Street that day. I wasn’t even there. I went to the hospital after I got the call about the shooting.”
“You’re sure about that?”
“I’m positive. I was at HQ when the officer-down call came in, and I went straight to the GW ER.” His stance took a defensive edge. “You really thought I’d keep something like this to myself for four years? Just because I didn’t tell you about Wallack? Skip was my friend. He saved my life and my career once upon a time.”
The story of Conklin’s downward spiral after the end of his first marriage was well-known by Joe and Jake.
“Who brought this to you?”
“Holland and Cruz.”
“Of course it was her.” Conklin’s laugh had a bitter edge to it. “Why’d I even ask?”
“Don’t blame her,” Joe said sharply. “What was she supposed to do with this and the Wallack info?”
“No worries.” Conklin scoffed. “I certainly know whose side you both are on. Everyone knows.”
“I’m on the side of the department and the honest men and women who serve this city,” Joe said, infuriated. “Are you? I didn’t take your badge on the Wallack thing, but if I find out that what you told us about Davis isn’t true, you’re done—and I’ll see you prosecuted. So think about it tonight. Think long and hard about that day and make sure you’re remembering correctly. You know where to find me in the morning.” To Jake, he said, “Let’s go.”
They drove by Conklin, still standing where they’d left him, as they exited his development.
The drive back to the city was no less tense than the first half of the trip had been.
“You believe him?” Jake asked after a long silence.
“I don’t know what to believe.”
“We could ask him to take a polygraph.”
“And what if it gets out that we’re polygraphing our deputy chief?” Joe cringed at the thought of that PR nightmare.
“So, it’s basically the word of a guy we’ve known and worked with for decades against this Davis dude, who swears he talked to Conklin that day?”
“If the thing with Wallack hadn’t happened, I’d take Conklin’s word for it. But after that... I just don’t know what to say.”
Jake looked over at Joe. “Why don’t we dig into Davis a little deeper and get a sense of how credible he is?”
“We can take a high-level look but nothing too in-depth. I don’t want to rip the guy’s life apart after he was good enough to call the tip line.”
“One question I have is where’s he been the last four years? He gave the report to Conklin, and that was the end of it for him?”
“He probably thought we’d do the right thing with the info and what more could he do?”
“I dunno. If I witnessed something like what he did, every time Sam mentioned the case was still open, I’d be calling to see if I could do anything more to help.”
A knot of dread tightened in Joe’s gut. “Maybe he did.”
“What do you mean?”
“Get Davis’s phone number and then personally take a look at the records of every call Conklin has received in the office since the day Skip was shot. Find out whether Davis ever called him after that day. Ask Archelotta for the records for all the top leadership so he won’t know who we’re focused on. Tell him to call me for approval.”
“I’ll take care of it first thing, and I’ll ask Holland and Cruz to take a high-level look at Davis.”
“Maybe Davis remembered incorrectly.”
“What if he didn’t? Will you really bring charges against Conklin?”
“You bet your ass I will.”
* * *
SAM HELPED NICK tuck Aubrey and Alden into bed and then went in to check on Scotty. “Everything ready for tomorrow, bud?”
“Define everything.”
She rolled her eyes at his predictable comment. “Is most of the homework done anyway?”
“Define most.”
“Scotty!”
He laughed. “Chill, Mom. It’s all good. Dad has already gone through my planner and my backpack to make sure I did everything.”
Hearing him call her Mom never got old. “Thank God for Dad.”
“He really is essential to the entire program.”
“You know it. Celia said you were there this afternoon. She really appreciated your visit.”
“I love going there after school. It’s weird that Gramps isn’t there, though. I keep waiting for him to come rolling in.”
“I know. I was just there and felt the same way. I can’t bear to look in the dining room.”
“Will we take down the ramps?”
“Eventually, I suppose. I don’t think we need to do that right away.”
“It’ll be so different out there without them, like it’s different without him.”
Sam nodded.
Scotty sat up, reached for her and gave her a hug that brought tears to her eyes.
She held him for as long as she could before he began to squiggle to get free. “Thanks. I needed that.”
“No problem.”
She leaned in to kiss his forehead. “Love you.”
“Love you too.”
“Lights out.” She waited until he’d shut off the light before she left the room and closed the door, recalling when her father used to do the same with her. Every night, she turned the light back on, and every night, he came busting in to catch her, scaring the crap out of her. Then they would laugh. The joke never got old.
Her whole life, they’d had the ability to crack each other up. She could meet his gaze across a crowded room and know exactly what he was thinking and vice versa. They understood each other on a cellular level. It had been no surprise to anyone who knew them that she’d followed him into the MPD. She hadn’t seriously considered any other profession.
Until Nick, she’d never had that kind of connection with anyone but her father. That feeling of being so deeply understood would be the thing she would miss the most about her dad. Thank God she had Nick to fill some of the void.
He was in bed, wearing sexy reading glasses and flipping through a binder full of briefing documents, or what he referred to as his nightly trip through hell. As vice president, he was privy to things most people would never know about, and for that, he said, they should be thankful. No wonder his insomnia had been worse than ever since he became vice president.
Her cell phone rang and she took the call from the chief. “Hey. Did you talk to him?”
“Yeah. He says he was never on G Street that day. He says he went right from HQ to GW after he got the call about your dad being shot.”
“So that’s it? He’s going to deny it, and that’s the end of it?”
“Did you get a phone number from Davis by any chance?”
“Yeah, hang on.” Sam retrieved her notebook and gave him Davis’s number. “Are you going to call Davis?”
“I’m going to investigate further. That’s all I can say right now.”
“You can’t tell me anything else?”
“I can only ask you to be patient and trust me.”
“Patient,” she said with a laugh. “Four years, Chief, and the guy who replaced my dad as deputy chief has possibly been sitting on a bombshell all that time? You’ll have to pardon me if my patience is sorely lacking.”
“I understand, and I feel the same way. I have to do this by the book.”
“I hear you.”
“If there’s anything to it, you’ll be among the first to know. That’s the best I can do.”
“Okay.”
“Try to get some sleep. If nothing else, we know more today than we knew yesterday.”
Oddly enough, that didn’t bring comfort. She thought of all the meetings and encounters she’d had with Conklin in the last four years, the visits he’d made to her father and the friendship he’d shown them both. Had it all been an act? Had he been hiding critical information about the shooting while pretending to be a friend and ally?