to the lake with him a couple times. Just on one overnight trip. Eight years or so, I guess it was. There were five of us.”
“Do you remember their names?”
He did, because he’d spent the afternoon tracking down the information. It didn’t matter if they had the names. None of them but he and Giovanni had been from the John Squad. “Paul Schwartz. Carmine Knowles. Ted Andersen. Frank Paulus.” He stopped, as if trying to remember. It’d seem rehearsed if he could rattle them off without any trouble. “Shit, what was that guy’s name?” He rubbed his jaw. “Big guy. Used to play hockey. Always had the jokes.” He shook his head, gave them a rueful smile. “It’ll come to me. When I’m not thinking about it.”
Chandler smiled back. “That’s how it goes, isn’t it?”
Oh yeah. Definitely fuckable.
“How’d you meet Christiansen?”
“At the gym. Probably fifteen years ago.” Which was a lie, but since they couldn’t check it out, it didn’t matter.
“Which gym?” McGuire wasn’t smiling. Maybe that was their playbook. Let the bitch act all warm and friendly, with that raspy voice of hers causing a man’s thoughts to stray far off path. Then the other cop digs for the details. The prick.
“Hell, I don’t know. I’ve belonged to several over the years and it was a long time ago.”
McGuire shoved a blank yellow tablet at him. “Would you mind writing down the names of the gyms you’ve belonged to? And the people you recall being on that trip with you and Christiansen.”
Walt wrote slowly as if trying to recall. Which he was, because the gym answer had been bullshit. He’d belonged to the same gym for nearly eighteen years. But he wrote down the names of a few others anyway. It’s not like they’d have records going that far back.
“Did you work with Detective Christiansen after shift?”
The blood in his veins turned icy. Sneaky bitch. The only other job Giovanni had had—that any of them had had—had been the work they’d done in the John Squad. “Huh?” If in doubt, play dumb.
“Christiansen and you. Did you work the same second job?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know about Pat, but I’ve never moonlighted. The department is more likely to sanction it these days, but frankly, I like my free time.”
“So he never said anything about a second job.” This from McGuire.
“Not to me.”
“But the two of you were close.” Chandler looked puzzled. “You were fishing buddies.”
“That’s right. But we’re not women.” His look invited McGuire to share in the joke. “We went fishing; we talked about fish. Not our life stories.”
“Maybe you did other things together, then,” she suggested. “What about sports? Poker?”
“Naw.” He relaxed a bit in his chair. “Just fishing.”
“When’s the last time you saw him?”
As if he didn’t have a ready answer for McGuire’s question, Walt rubbed his chin and looked at the ceiling. “Man, I don’t know. Last year? Yeah, maybe last summer sometime. He called and asked if I wanted to go to Raystown with him.”
“So you say you were friends.” His attention switched to Chandler. She was smiling again but it was different this time. Cool. Not at all friendly. “Fishing buddies. Known him for years, you said.”
Definitely a bitch that needed to be shown her place. A different time, under different circumstances, Walt would have been glad to show it to her. “That’s right.”
“Then we’ll see you in the footage taken at his funeral? His memorial service?”
He stared at her, his mind racing. Hell no, he wouldn’t be on the footage. He hadn’t gone to any of the services because none of the John Squad were supposed to attend. That had been Hans’s idea. Dumbest thing in the world to get tied to the victims by showing up and having someone be able to place you there later, he’d said. Walt had pointed out that plenty of cops would go who didn’t know the victims. A show of support. But Hans had won that argument, at least Walt had thought so at the time. But who the hell knew if the others had followed the man’s orders?
He looked at the table. Let his jaw work, as if the question got him emotional. “I’m not good at that stuff.” A moment later he met her gaze head-on. “It just pisses me off, you know? Thinking of him dead, and like that? And the asshole is still out there. I wanted to go, but . . . I couldn’t handle it.” He let the words trail