“We also know that she kissed him,” Paddy went on, yanking the precinct door open.
“No.”
Paddy raised an eyebrow.
“She said he kissed her and that she pushed him away. That meshes with what the Last Stop owner saw, which was a pretty woman trying to get away from a man who wanted more than she intended to give him.”
Paddy nodded and followed Ronan through the door toward their desks. “I stand corrected, brother. But Jennifer Crandall feels suspicious to me, even if she didn’t do the deed herself. What if she kissed him to distract him while someone else stabbed him in the back?”
He’d floated a similar theory in the car when he was driving her home, but her face said that wasn’t how it had gone down. “We’ll talk to her again.”
“You want to talk to her again,” Paddy fired back but kept his voice low. The bullpen was bustling with other officers, the air thick with the stench of stale coffee, cardboard files, and the macabre heaviness that comes with too much death. “That’s what you mean.”
“We still need a reason for Mercer to end up dead,” Ronan said instead of responding to Paddy’s sniping. “We know she didn’t stab him. We know Waylon didn’t stab him. But what if someone besides Jenny didn’t like that he kissed her?”
“Jenny?” Paddy blinked, then went on, “You think this was jealousy?”
“I have no idea what to think. He had no reason to be there outside of her. He’s never robbed a business during working hours or had any involvement in the sex trade. Petty theft, house burglaries—empty houses—and drugs. That’s it.”
They’d spent the morning putting together Jason Mercer’s last week on earth. He was an off-again-on-again mechanic—off this week. His mother had been less than welcoming; she’d said two other officers had come by the house in as many months to speak to her son, seemed to blame the department for his death.
But there was no information about that in the system. Mercer’s mother didn’t have the other officers’ business cards, didn’t know what they’d questioned him about, but he was clearly into something shady. Was that why he was dead? And what did it have to do with The Velvet Cage? Was that club simply where the killer had caught up with him?
“He’s been staying with his mom three blocks over,” Paddy said. “If he was dealing drugs again or acting as a fence—both things he’s done before—maybe someone followed him to the club, waited until he was alone, then stabbed him and stole whatever he was slinging.”
“We have another witness, too,” Ronan said. “Whoever was in the office with Waylon.”
“I know, you keep saying it, but he keeps denying it. We questioned him for a damn hour.”
Ronan rolled his eyes and slumped into his chair. “You know as well as I do that he’s a lying asshole. Not a single one of his girls likes him.”
“That might be true.” Paddy collapsed into his own chair across the way and leaned over the desks, voice almost a whisper. “But if you keep saying that shit, people will want to know how you’re so sure that these girls don’t like him. You really want to tell them it’s because you’ve been watching them interact for weeks? A month?”
Longer, Ronan thought. But he said, “I think Brittany Sinclair, or should I say Dorothy Kensington, lied about the argument. She’s new, thinks there’s someone better to take Waylon’s place. She’s also naïve enough to believe that we won’t tell him who ratted him out.”
Paddy shrugged. “To be fair, we didn’t.”
“Any other working girl wouldn’t make that assumption. She’s pissed at him. And he clearly has a reason to hide what he was doing in that office. Like I said yesterday, it’s not against the law to get a blow job. He’s not worried about an HR complaint. He’s worried about something else.”
Paddy’s eyes narrowed. “You think whoever was in his office was underage.” Not a question.
“I do. He has a history.” Ronan’s cell jangled, and he pulled it from his pocket. “And you know as well as I do how some of these club owners audition their girls.”
The cell jangled again. He glanced at it, but it wasn’t Jenny—he hadn’t realized he’d been hoping for that until he looked. The morgue? He’d call them back. Those guys weren’t going anywhere.
“Either way, we have no proof,” Paddy went on. “We interrogated every dancer and customer in that place. Everyone said that Waylon was alone. And he doesn’t have security cameras out back—we looked. We can’t hold him much longer just because one of his girls said he was arguing with the deceased. Hell, he even had the balls to ask if I’d arrested you for being there.”
Ronan tried to suppress a smile but failed. For the last six months, he’d been peppering the club with false information through Ellen, then Yasmine, then Shonda. Rumor was that a new law had been passed after a sting exposed several high-ranking police officials engaged in sexual activities at strip clubs.
The fabricated Officer Conduct Act made it illegal for officers to visit adult venues without written approval from their department. Any officer caught inside for personal pleasure could face arrest.
“What the fuck are you grinning about? The fact that he’s willing to tell any and everyone that you were in that club is a black mark for you, buddy.”
Ronan cleared his throat. His partner was right. He had spread the rumor as a cover—to ensure Waylon wouldn’t kick him out even if he realized Ronan was a cop. Guys like that loved to have blackmail fodder. He’d also hoped Waylon might let his guard down a little because of it—enough for Ronan to catch him red-handed with an underage girl.
When Ronan didn’t reply, Paddy pushed himself to his feet. “Until we have something more… I’m going to cut him loose. Do me a favor and find something that’ll stick, eh?”
Ronan watched Paddy meander through the bullpen and into the hall. When he cut a right toward the interrogation rooms, Ronan called up his email. The information he’d requested from their tech guy had come through. He clicked the link and frowned.
