anything of the like that I know of.”
“I see,” CJ murmured, and picked up her coffee for a sip, her expression thoughtful.
“So?” Mrs. Vesper prodded as CJ set her coffee cup back down. “Were you able to interview him or will you be staying another night?”
Mac watched as CJ struggled briefly with her conscience, but finally she sighed and admitted, “No. I wasn’t able to speak to him last night. When I got to the police station he was supposedly at the fire, which is what Captain Dupree used to convince me to go help out there. He suggested I could ask him questions while I assisted in evidence collection. Which—” she added grimly “—would have been next to impossible if I didn’t want to risk missing evidence.” CJ shrugged. “But it didn’t matter anyway since he’d left the site by the time I got there.”
“Why are you investigating him?” Mac asked with curiosity.
CJ’s gaze shifted from Mrs. Vesper to him and she frowned. He was positive she was too professional to answer, so wasn’t surprised when she started to shake her head.
The moment she did, though, Mrs. Vesper explained, “Because a month back Officer Jefferson beat the hell out of Keith and put him in the hospital with a broken arm and whatnot. Jefferson says Keith was resisting arrest and got injured in the struggle to subdue him. But Keith says Jefferson pulled him over for no reason and just went off on him and started beating him up when he challenged him about pulling him over without cause. He lodged a complaint, and said he had a witness who could back up his version of the story.”
Mac ignored the frown CJ was casting Mrs. Vesper and raised his eyebrows. “A month ago? And it took this long for the SIU to send someone here to investigate?”
“The complaint only crossed my boss’s desk two weeks ago,” CJ explained, turning her frown on him now at the implied criticism.
“Hmm,” Mrs. Vesper grunted, and then told them, “Keith lodged a complaint with the captain first, but when the boy realized the captain wouldn’t do anything about it, he did some research, found out about the Special Investigation Unit, and sent his complaint to them.”
“Did he?” CJ murmured with interest, and judging by her expression, the fact that the captain hadn’t passed on the complaint was a bad thing.
When Mrs. Vesper nodded in response to her question, CJ frowned.
“So, your boss assigned it to you two weeks ago and you are just now getting around to speaking to him?” Mac had no doubt the question would piss her off, but he also knew the truth of the matter. However, he knew it from reading both Mrs. Dupree’s and Simpson’s minds, and he wanted her to say it out loud because she would never believe that Simpson had told him all of what he already knew. He didn’t want to slip up later and say something in conversation that might have her questioning the source of his knowledge.
“He assigned it to me and I called and talked to Keith Kaye right away to set up an appointment,” she assured him grimly. “But Keith ended up telling me his version of events over the phone. I still plan to see him in person, but it isn’t really necessary until I talk to Jefferson,” she explained. “Only Officer Jefferson wouldn’t even take my calls when I phoned his cell. When I called his home, his wife always answered and claimed he was out, and I wasn’t getting anywhere with the police station either. I would call and they’d say he was unavailable.”
CJ heaved out an irritated breath just at the memory of the runaround she’d been given, and then said, “In the end, I resorted to calling Dupree, but it didn’t get much better. He hemmed and hawed and put off setting up an appointment at first. When he finally agreed to one, it was canceled the day before, rescheduled, and then canceled again. I had to resort to threats at that point to make them cooperate.”
“What kind of threats?” Mac asked with interest.
“I said that if Officer Jefferson wasn’t going to talk to me, I’d just have to base my evaluation of the case solely on Keith Kaye’s statement and that wouldn’t go well for Jefferson,” she told him with a slow, satisfied smile. “That’s when last night’s appointment was finally set up. I suspect the captain suggested midnight on Friday night in the