poorly for you, right?”
Ryker didn’t react outwardly, but Manning knew he had scored a hit. He backed off a bit.
“You don’t like this, and I don’t blame you, having to explain yourself to an outsider. I don’t like it either. For my money, Lin’s making a mistake by pulling so many strings. But the guy wants to know who killed his kid, and he wants to make sure he finds out before it hits the papers.”
“What do you know about Danny Lin?” Ryker asked suddenly.
“Nothing. But from what little I know, he was a serious prick who had some issues with a lot of people-you included.”
Ryker did nothing for a few moments, then nodded slowly. He finally lifted his hands off the notebook and opened it.
“This is the murder book,” he said. “It’s a log of every action we’ve conducted over the course of this investigation. Everything we do, everyone we talk to, every bit of evidence we collect, it all gets logged in here. You can read it, but you can’t copy anything, and you can’t talk to witnesses or suspects.”
“I just signed the NDA forms,” Manning said. “You don’t want Lin’s people stepping in and talking to people of interest and screwing things up more than they already are. I get that.”
“Lin’s already done that,” Ryker said. “The Russian-you know him?”
“I know him.”
“He’s already pounding the pavement after Danny Lin’s girlfriend. He’s supposed to stop. If he doesn’t, our little chats come to an end.”
“I know that, too. Lin’s called him off.”
“And replaced him with you, maybe?”
Manning sighed and got to his feet. “You know Ryker, you’re probably a really good cop. But you’re an asshole. Either give me the God damned book and shut up, or I’m out of here and someone’s going to break their foot off in your ass. Your call.”
Ryker got to his feet as well. “Are you
“I don’t really care. I get paid the same. This door’s unlocked, right?” Manning asked as he walked for the door.
“Read the fucking book,” Ryker snarled as soon as Manning’s hand landed on the door knob.
Manning returned to the desk and sat down. Ryker pushed the murder book toward him and leaned back in his chair, glowering. He crossed his arms over his chest and stared at Manning as he pulled the notebook closer and opened it.
It took an hour to go through the notebook. Ryker’s notes were neat and perfectly legible, and Manning had very little trouble following the case’s development. But other than the collection and categorization of the physical evidence and the attached autopsy results, there wasn’t a lot to go on. Manning asked Ryker questions here and there, which he answered as monosyllabically as possible. It was obvious the detective was more interested in sulking than in helping Manning understand some of the various acronyms and procedures.
“Departmental forms?” Manning asked finally, as he closed the murder book and pushed it back to Ryker. “Where are they?”
“They’re not here,” Ryker said.
“Have them for me tomorrow. I’ll be back at the same time.” Manning got to his feet.
“I may not be available,” Ryker said.
Manning shrugged. “I don’t really care, man. It doesn’t matter to me if you’re here or not, just make sure the forms are available to me. I need to review them. This was also agreed upon.”
Ryker got up and tucked the murder book under his arm. He walked to the door and opened it, then waited for Manning to step through.
“You’re some piece of work, Manning,” he said as Manning stepped past him and into the hallway beyond. “I still don’t get why you’re working for Lin.”
“Because he pays me,” Manning said.
“Or because you’re as dirty as he is.”
Manning turned and faced Ryker as he stepped into the hallway. Ryker left the door open behind him and stared back.
“You have anything on James Lin?” Manning asked.
“He’s a dirtball,” Ryker said.
“No shit? Thanks for your expert assessment. So what? You ever arrest him for anything? Even jaywalking? Even
“I was working up a nice case against his son before I got yanked off it.” Ryker hefted the notebook in one hand. “Poor Danny-boy…I guess things didn’t work out for him after all, huh?”
“That was the son, not the father-try not to get them confused. You don’t like Lin? Fine by me. But Lin wants you on this case, sergeant. For some reason, he has it in his head that you can solve it. Me, I’m not so sure. I think that when-
Ryker’s face darkened. “Pretty serious accusation.”
Manning shrugged. “You can always prove me wrong.”
With that, he turned on his heel and left.
“So how’d it go?” Chee Wei asked when Ryker returned to the office.
Ryker tossed the murder book onto his desk and sat in his chair. He shrugged.
“He’s not really easy to rile up,” he told his partner. “Didn’t give me much to go on. But a guy like that, there’s only one reason Lin hired him. He’s going to off the murderer as soon as we reveal her identity.”
Chee Wei raised one eyebrow. “You think?”
Ryker tapped a folder on his desk. Inside it was a sanitized version of Manning’s service record, which had been delivered by courier from the U.S. Army’s Total Personnel Command in Virginia.
“You’ve just got to read between the lines a bit,” he said. “The guy’s a pro. Maybe not a real assassin, but he has the capability. He’s no messenger boy. Lin hired him for his muscle.”
Chee Wee shrugged. “He’s got tons of people who can do that, like that Russian guy.”
“Lin wants to keep the Russian guy in his stable. This Manning, I don’t know. He might ship him off to Japan or China or wherever the hell he comes from, or he might just make him go away. He’s an outsider, he doesn’t fit inside of Lin’s organization. It might be easier to do that, and safer for Lin.”
“Why’s that?”
Ryker thought about his answer for a long moment before speaking. “Guys like Jerome Manning are a different breed,” he said. “I think this guy was a mover and a shaker in the Army, until his family got killed in Washington. I think he might be doing this as penance work, or something.”
Chee Wei laughed. “Wow, when did you get your degree, Doctor Freud?”
“Blow it out your ass, punk,” Ryker responded.
CHAPTER 17
Ryker’s head was swimming by the time he arrived at the police station. Most certainly, his life had taken an interesting swing, though in which direction he had no idea. Normally, he’d be ecstatic-it wasn’t every day that a hair shirt like himself found his way into a rich widow’s passionate embrace, especially one as alluring as Valerie Lin. The fact that he pretty much obliterated every departmental rule and regulation regarding officer objectivity was simply icing on the cake.
The fact that he had been presented with a goldmine of an opportunity didn’t factor in to it. While there
