“I had no clue he was still working with Castro. If I had any inkling of how things would have transpired that night, I would have demanded that the raid be called off immediately, but I was just as blinded by the turn of events as your team was.”
Genuine remorse fills her face, but some things still don’t make sense. “How did Crombie know about the sting? Informants give us times, places, and locations. We don’t share that information with them.”
Anger burns me alive from the inside out when Phillipa scratches the back of her ear. If that isn’t as obvious as a snitch asking to speak to the DA in private, I don’t know what is.
After dropping her hand into her lap, Phillipa says, “Crombie didn’t feel comfortable meeting in public.”
Hearing the words she didn’t speak, I ask, “So you held your meetings in hotel rooms?”
“Yes.” The swiftness of her reply authenticates the honesty of it.
Too curious to hold back, I ask, “Did you sleep with him?”
Phillipa immediately shakes her head. “No. Our relationship wasn’t like that.”
I slant my head and arch my brow. “Relationship?”
She waves her hand around like a professor giving a lecture on ethics. “Studies have proven intimate relationships between undercover agents and their informants are far more beneficial than casual relationships because intimacy involves a deep level of trust.”
“You just said you didn’t sleep with him.”
Her hair slaps her face when her eyes rocket to mine. “I didn’t. I flirted with him. I acted as if I was interested in having sex with him, but I didn’t. I stroked his ego while doing my job! That’s all I did.”
Phillipa sounds honest, but I’m still wary. “Then how did he know about our sting?”
“I don’t know! Even when I was undercover, I never discussed other ops around him. We barely talked, for crying out loud. He was one of those stare-at-you-from-across-the- room guys who thought adjusting his hardened crotch a hundred times a day was a turn-on.” As she sucks in a sharp breath, the rattle of her vocal cords becomes more noticeable. “I had planned to ask him how he knew about the raid when his signature popped up at a warehouse fire in Ravenshoe, but I lost the chance when I discovered him hanging in his cell.”
Although her face reflects her anger, there’s also an immense amount of pain. Crombie’s death isn’t her fault, however, she’s taking the blame for it.
“Do you believe Crombie killed himself?”
Her head shake isn’t as quick as the one she gave me earlier, but it’s still brimming with determined confirmation. “He was apologetic and remorseful, but I didn’t see any indication he was suicidal. Cocky men like him don’t commit suicide.”
My thoughts drift to Joey for the quickest second. It isn’t long enough to dispute Phillipa’s claims that only the depressed end their lives, but it does award me a moment of clarity.
“If Castro killed Milo to garner favors from Henry, why didn’t he wait for him to finish the job before killing him?”
Phillipa wipes her nose with her sleeve before leaning forward to grab her briefcase she dumped on my dining room table before my tour of the perp boards. “I don’t have solid proof, but I’m beginning to suspect Henry is always one step ahead of his competitors because he has access to intel his enemies don’t.” When she pulls out a massive stack of paperwork, my eyes bug out. “You weren’t the only one burning the candle at both ends the past week. My relationship with Crombie deserved scrutiny. It could have been perceived as immoral, but what I’m not okay with is being dumped into IA as punishment and being told to keep my mouth shut. That’s not the way things work. You can’t get answers if—”
“You don’t ask questions.”
She nods. “I’ve been asking questions for months, but since no one was willing to answer me, I went higher.” She doesn’t mention her father’s name, but her face tells her story without additional words needing to be spoken.
When she dumps the massive file onto the table with a thud, a handful of photographs fall out. They’re all of the same man—Kwan Turgenev.
“You were right. Kwan was on the scene at the Greggs’ accident. He also took a witness statement after the death of Marjorie Hawke and her unborn son, and he was the first ‘officer’ on the scene when Police Chief Rory Langfield was gunned down.” She slaps down photographs to each corresponding event. “He’s