Back in Black (McGinnis Investigations #1) - Rhys Ford Page 0,72

“What are we hoping to get out of this guy?”

“Should have had this conversation out in the car,” I grumbled. “Okay, here’s the thing. Watson’s their friend, so he probably socialized with them, maybe even met a few of their other friends. Adele was out there to meet someone that night. She was probably killed where I found her, and O’Byrne hasn’t found a connection to put Adele there. No one around the area she knew, but maybe it’s just someone we haven’t found yet. Watson might have some answers. He might not know it, though.”

“Our boy Ivan isn’t talking, but he seems to be more killer than criminal mastermind. So we’re looking for someone the old man and his wife hooked up with recently. Maybe even someone who made them uncomfortable,” he mulled, nudging me again. “Knock on the door, Princess. We can play this by ear and see where it goes.”

“Do you know him?” I searched for a doorbell, but it seemed like the building was more old-school, depending on a brass knocker hanging from the middle of the door. “Watson, I mean. Did you ever run into him?”

“Do you know how many tens of thousands of cops have worn the uniform?” Bobby scoffed. “It isn’t like retired LAPD cops all get together at the beach and sing ‘The Lion Sleeps Tonight’ around the bonfire. And if we did, don’t you think you would’ve gotten an invitation?”

“Wouldn’t do you any good to invite me,” I snarked back. “I don’t even know the words to that damn song.”

The man who opened the door couldn’t have been more of a stereotype if he tried.

I guess I was too used to Bobby. When I thought of retired cops, I thought of him working to keep himself fit and on top of his game. Truth be told, there’s tons of cops who push the limits of their waistbands while on the job, and they were a dime a dozen after desk-sitting for years. George Watson was definitely one of those cops.

He was old-school LAPD, dragged up through the days of bloodied batons and race riots quelled with gunfire and sharp elbows to young kids’ faces. His face was square, held up by a thick neck and embellished by a thinning silvery crew cut, the sides shorn down nearly to his skull, leaving a glittery fur wrap around the base of his head. His eyes were sharp, steely, and mean, and they flicked back and forth between us. It was easy to see the wheels turning behind them, shuffling through scenarios where Watson would gain control of any situation that might erupt.

Dressed in navy chinos and a tucked-in dark blue polo shirt, Watson gave us a pretty good idea of how he looked in the final years of his career. His chest was broad, jutted out over a spreading belly, but his hips were lean and his legs bordered on skinny. The only way I knew he had pencils for limbs was because a small white dog poked out from between the yards of fabric swaddling his legs, pulling them tight against his knees. The chinos were worn big to accommodate his belly, their pearly button straining against the heft pushing behind it. The dog barked once, then slipped back away, leaving its master to deal with the two men standing in the hallway.

He was not the kind of cop I would ever want to pull me over. Maybe I was prejudiced based on the tightening feeling in my gut when I looked at him, but he seemed like the kind of guy who would break a taillight just to say he had a reason to search the trunk.

“Well if it isn’t the faggot Dawson.” Watsons’s high-pitched voice didn’t match his barrel-chested body. He sounded like he’d sucked on a helium balloon before he opened the door, but the menace in his eyes didn’t subside, despite the light, teasing tone he affected. Glancing over at me, he nodded and asked, “Who’s the gook?”

Wow. It’d been a long time since I’d heard that name.

I forget I’m half Japanese. It sounds stupid, but I was raised by a fairly stereotypical military man and the corn-fed, blond-haired woman he married after my mother left. While I pulled more of my father’s Irish features, the shape of my eyes was definitely my mother’s. I knew I looked a little Asian—definitely not as much as my older brother, Mike—but for the most part, I was pretty ethnically ambiguous.