School of Fish (Fish Out of Water #6) - Amy Lane Page 0,34

you people need him on your side.”

Fetzer let a low, sweet laugh erupt. “You do not mind your words,” she said after a moment.

“Well, there seem to be a lot of people who mind them for me,” Jackson told her, feeling a sunny sort of benevolence again. “So about those two arresting officers—what do you think they were doing at that party?”

“They had a tip,” Fetzer said grimly. “A CI they use.” She swallowed like she tasted something bad. “I don’t know why, but I do not like the sound of the guy’s voice, even over the phone.”

Jackson frowned. “You’ve met him?”

“No. But he’s got a thick, gravelly voice. Not the voice of that kid you showed us. He just sounds smug. You can hear him through an earbud. Hell, Lindstrom was talking to him in the ladies one day, and I could hear him through the walls. I just….” She shuddered. “I know it’s superstitious as hell, but I wouldn’t trust that guy.”

“Any sort of accent?” Jackson asked.

“German,” Hardison said, surprising him.

“Not Russian?” Because that kid who’d knifed Sean had sounded Russian.

“Nyet,” Hardison said and then laughed at his own joke. He sobered for a moment. “I took German in high school. It’s less liquid, more phlegm.”

Jackson rolled his eyes. “Gross. Moving on. Look, that bust, the Townsend bust, if I told you we think it was a distraction, could you tell me where you thought those guys were supposed to be that night?”

“Where was the bust made?” Fetzer asked, eyes narrowed shrewdly.

“I thought I’d told you,” Jackson said. “Dead kid—No Neck Cosgrove’s place.”

The open mouths were not a good sign.

“How…?” Fetzer bent her head and rubbed the back of her neck. “Wouldn’t Chambers have caught that?” she asked. “Shouldn’t somebody have turned this over to a detective?”

Jackson shrugged. “I would think so. I don’t know how it was missed.”

“Augh!” Fetzer wore her hair in a tight graying braid, much like the desk sergeant’s, and Jackson watched her wrestle with the urge to run her fingers through her hair. “This is no damned good at all!” she said finally, and Hardison shook his head.

“It’s Chambers,” he said after a moment. “She means well, but….” He shrugged. “Green. She legit could have missed that because she wasn’t looking.”

“I hope,” Fetzer said sharply. “Because…. Because there are too damned many questions here. And I’ve got three years to go before my pension!”

“I’ve got two,” Jimmy said dispiritedly, and at Fetzer’s wounded sound, he gave her a tired grin. “I was going to hang in there for you. Don’t go getting all girlie. My wife would never forgive me. She wants to start a Jimmy Hardison survivor’s club.”

Fetzer gave her partner a tired smile in return. “Good. I’ll hold you to that.” Then she looked at Jackson. “Look, we know who you are and what you did. And you probably expect the whole department’s crawling with snakes. But there’s crooked and there’s green and there’s lazy—and none of these things are the same. But you’re right about one thing. This shit can’t stand. These cases are linked, that Townsend kid should never have been busted, and whether he was part of this or not, James Cosgrove was barely eighteen and his parents are devastated. And the Dobrevk kid’s a victim too. So you’re right. We’ve got some shit to sort, and I’m grateful you brought it to our attention.”

Jackson held up a hand. “Oh no. Stop right there. I’m not leaving this shit. We’re getting the Dobrevk kid out of gen pop, and we need to get the Townsend kid off for reasons that have nothing to do with the rest of this shit, or he’s a target. You see that, right? He becomes a material witness for this other shit, and his life is over. And that’s if they don’t shoot him dead.”

Fetzer and Hardison stared at him, trying to digest. “Well, what, kid? You’re going to save the world all on your own?” Hardison sneered.

“I’ve got help,” Jackson told him, feeling grumpy. “And I wouldn’t mind if you guys did your share. But you can’t write us off because we’re about to clean up your mess, and you’d better not get in our way.”

The two seasoned officers stared at him. “You don’t think much of yourself, do you?” Fetzer asked.

And Jackson hated to bring this up again, but he and Henry were keeping to a schedule here. “Dirty/pretty killer,” he said, eyes narrowed. “Sampson drug ring. And there is some