I told him what I needed. He did a little dance and said to come back in an hour.
Barlow lived in a brick split-level, nothing spectacular. The garage door was open and we saw that the sergeant liked big toys, including a tri-wheel ATV, a couple of dirt bikes, and the vintage Harley Panhead Pettigrew had mentioned, a low-slung hog encrusted with chrome.
We pulled into the driveway and got out, Harry carrying a bucket of fried chicken from Popeye’s. He fished out a drumstick, set the bucket on the hood. We leaned against the Crown Vic and ate chicken until a drapery twitched, followed by the front door banging open. Barlow stepped to the stoop and looked at us in disbelief. Harry waved his drumstick in greeting.
“Howdy, Cade. Join us for lunch.”
Barlow pointed down the road. “The dump’s a mile thataway. Take your fuckin’ picnic there.”
Harry made a point of scoping out the house, the bike. “Nice digs, Cade. Cool ride, too. What’s a scoot like that cost, twenty-five grand? Thirty?”
Cade strode off the stoop, walked to us, his eyes dark with anger.
“Get off my property.”
Harry held the drum at Barlow like a microphone.
“Where’s the material from the Holtkamp case, Cade? Remember her, the teacher got killed on your watch? You didn’t tell us the case materials got mislaid.”
“Don’t remember you asking. I want you off my driveway. I got nothing to say to you.”
Harry fished around in the bucket, pulled out a biscuit.
“You implied the state cops had all the materials. They have bupkus. Where’d it go?”
“How the hell would I know? For all I know, it got picked up by a maintenance crew, tossed in the trash.”
Harry studied his biscuit like he was deciding something. He came up with a packet of honey, squirted it over the biscuit. He started to take a bite, paused, looked at Barlow.
“We talked to Pettigrew, Cade. In person.”
I saw Barlow freeze. But a split second later he was smirking.
“Pettigrew ain’t been around here in four years. He ran off to Montgomery to be a big shot. What’s he know about anything?”
Harry took a bite of biscuit and chewed with his eyes closed. He smiled, like the honey had been the answer.
“You saying you don’t know jack shit about the Holtkamp murder? Never went near the evidence?”
“You fuckers are big-time crazy. That’s my answer.”
“Say it again,” Harry challenged.
“Glad to: You’re crazy.”
Harry made a show of looking at me and raising an eyebrow, like he was weighing something. I looked back, nodded, like I’d come to the same conclusion. Harry turned to Barlow and applauded.
“Chill out, Cade, m’man. Have a piece of chicken. You earned it.”
Barlow looked at Harry like my partner had lapsed into Gaelic.
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“Like they say on TV, this has been a test. You passed.”
“Make sense, dammit.”
Harry said, “We were sent here to make sure the past stays buried.”
Barlow’s eyes narrowed at the word past.
“I got no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Which, as I said, is the right answer. And the right answer just won you a little something for your silence. A bonus for passing the test.”
Harry pulled an envelope from his pocket, flipped it to Barlow. The county cop trapped the package against his chest. His fingers danced over what was probably a familiar rectangular shape inside the envelope.
“Where’d this come from?” Barlow said, squeezing the package.
I slipped my hand into my jacket pocket, fished out my own envelope. “Is a picture worth a thousand words? Or is it a photo?”
I slid the photo from the envelope, shooting a final glance at Claypool’s computer handiwork as I passed it over: Harry and me at Bellingrath Gardens, between us a manipulated photo of Crandell. We were all grinning. Shadows weren’t exact, and Claypool had blurred everything a notch to help conceal the problems, but for a one- shot roll of the dice, it was damn good.
I passed it to Barlow. He looked down and froze, his eyes wide.
“You mean you guys know Cran-”
It was the wrong thing to say. Barlow knew it one second too late, eyes trained to spot forged registrations and licenses, finding the photographic discrepancies. He threw the photo to the ground. Kicked it away.
“I don’t know who that is.”
“You think we’re stupid?” Harry said. “You just said the name.”
Sweat beaded on Barlow’s forehead. His left eye ticked and he swallowed hard.
“You’re running a game on me.”
“Crandell who?” Harry asked. “Crandell what? Crandell where?”
“I never saw him before.”
“Am I going to have to get my chalk, Barlow?” Harry said. “Make you a free space?”
“What?”
“Why’d you mess with Pettigrew’s investigation?” Harry shot.
I said, “What are you hiding?”
“What’d you get paid?” Harry asked.
Barlow’s eyes bounced between Harry and me like a rabbit between two wolves. He rubbed his palms down his thighs to dry them.
“Who the hell are you?” he said. “State? Federal?”
Harry stepped whisper-close, narrowed his eyes. “We’re just two cops who have you figured out, Cade. And when we get to the bottom of what’s going on, your ass is mulch. Want to talk about it?”
“Get out of here.” Barlow’s voice quivered. “Now.”
Harry shot me a look. We’d done all we could. I grabbed the chicken from the hood, Harry headed back to the driver’s side. He turned, looked at Barlow.
“We heard you used to be a good cop.” Harry flipped one of his cards to the ground. “Call me when you make the right decision, Cade. When you remember what side you represent.”
We drove away. When I turned, Barlow was as still as a statue, torn envelope in his hand, white paper the size of money fluttering at his ankles.
We needed time to make sense of all we’d seen and heard in the past few hours. Then decide how to proceed. Flanagan’s was too public and distracting, my place too far, so we went to Harry’s. He poured the coal into Ellington’s “A Train.” The chair in Harry’s living room held a box of Rudolnick’s case histories, so he pulled a ladder-back chair from the dining room and set it backward, facing me on the couch. He was in lecture mode: I’d seen it at the Police Academy when he taught classes there.
“There are a fair amount of cops like Pettigrew around, Carson. Bright and talented hotshots in quiet burgs. Some get press, nail someone from the FBI’s most-wanted list, take down a major pedophile, talk a jumper off a building in the glare of TV lights, that kind of thing. Pettigrew was first-rate, but probably never made any splash that would have carried to Montgomery. Why was he selected? What even got him noticed?”
“I don’t know, but it sure seemed like he was plucked away just in time to keep him from the Holtkamp investigation, good cop or not.”
“I don’t believe in coincidence anymore,” Harry said. “Not on this case. I want to know exactly why Pettigrew flew the coop.”
“Call him and ask.”
Harry shook his head, not an option. “Pettigrew told us the outside details. I want inside details. Plus, I ain’t
