What the fuck is going on?
“You want to explain what the hell you were thinking?” Lo demands as she leans back in her chair.
“Nuh-uh. I need you to tell me whatyouwere thinking, letting her go.”
“Byher, I assume, you mean Faith Baker?” The look she gives me makes me sweat a teeny bit, which is odd since the station house is cold and it’s close to Halloween and low temps in Silverton.
“Yeah.”
“Sit your ass down, Cain.”
I do it with ill grace.
She taps some keys on her computer. “You say she stole ten grand from the safe?”
“Yeah.”
“We dusted the safe. No prints were hers.”
I sigh. “Gloves? Maybe you need to watch CSI or some shit, Lo.”
She arches an eyebrow and continues. “Besides Paula and Melody, no one can verify that she was seen going into your office. Georgia, in fact, is adamant that she saw Paula and Melody in there.”
I shot her a look of exasperation. “You know how Georgia is with Paula.”
Lo continues. “We searched Faith’s place…actually Kyle did without a fucking warrant. He just went ahead and tossed her apartment.”
Something uneasy slithers up my spine. Of course, he did. I’d watched enough television to know that would be the procedure, but I hate the idea of Kyle touching Faith’s things in that pathetic little studio she called home. She never let me in, said she was embarrassed.
“Found nothing. She doesn’t have a car. She doesn’t have anything or anywhere to hideanything…so…what we have here is hearsay and assumptions. Not a single piece of evidence.”
I frown. “Kyle said?—”
“Kyle went ahead and made an arrest based on gossip and the word of his girlfriend that won’t stand up in court, and definitely not in my station.” Lo was fucking furious now.
I swallow. “What are you saying, Lo?”
“I’m saying Kyle’s on desk duty for a week, and he’s lucky that’s all. His partner's getting a write-up, too. If I’d been in town, this never would've happened. This station is not a personal clean-up crew.”
“That’s not what this was. She stole and?—”
“How do you know, ace?”
“She did this before.”
Lo regards me thoughtfully. “I just have this problem about taking the word of an ex-boyfriend, you know? They teach us to be skeptical of evidence given by people who may have an agenda. I talked to Seattle PD this morning and”—she pauses to scan her computer screen—“Jamie Da Silva is a douchebag. Been in and out for domestic violence. Likes to beat up his girlfriends. But when it comes to charges, they all say they walked into a door.”
My lungs forget how to work for a moment.
“How did you get this?” I trace the scar above Faith’s eyebrow.
“I walked into a door.”
“Kyle fucked up but I can’t do much, because we’re already under-staffed and people find out we’re just recklessly arresting people for no reason, I’ll have a riot on my hands.” Lo hunched forward, knuckles tapping lightly on her desk. “That poor girl was in jail without counsel, without anything, and for no reason for two nights.”
My jaw tightens. “She did it. I know she did.”
Because if she didn’t then…. NO! It was unthinkable. She was a thief, and that was that.
