“You’re worried. And not normal worried, either. Can’t-sleep worried.” I lifted my head and looked him in the eye. “You said you wanted to talk about this in the morning. But I think we need to talk now. I think—”
“You’re right. I need to tell you. What I can.”
I held out the medicine bottle. He opened his hand, and I shook two tablets in his palm. I offered the bourbon, but he swallowed them dry.
“Talk,” I said.
He kept his eyes down. “Someone gave me the files. I wasn’t supposed to have them. Neither of us were.”
I was beginning to understand. It was odd to think of this past Trey breaking rules and sneaking home forbidden files. Current Trey would be positively apoplectic at the thought.
I shrugged. “So you have files you shouldn’t have? Big deal. You’re not a cop anymore, they can’t—”
“It’s a crime, Tai. A violation of Georgia code 50-18-72. Section 4. This isn’t simply a violation of procedure. It’s illegal. For me, and for the person who gave them to me. But that’s not the problem. Not exactly.”
“What is the problem?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“I swear to God, if you say that one more time, the top of my head is gonna come off.”
Trey kept his eyes on his folded hands. “I have to find the files before I can tell you anything. I have to talk to her.”
“Who?
“The person who gave them to me. The person I suspect took them back.”
“And who is this person?”
He hesitated. Then he told me. I pondered the information for a second, threw back the rest of the whiskey. Trey watched me like maybe he’d changed his mind, like maybe getting hammered on Jack was a fine idea after all.
I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand and handed him the bottle. “Here. You need this more than I do.”
Chapter Nine
The noonday sun beat at Garrity’s car like a deranged hitchhiker. Even in the mottled shade, we had to keep the air conditioner running. He’d already started on his sandwich—the rest remained in the box in the backseat along with a cooler full of soft drinks and water bottles. The car smelled strongly of pulled pork and grande sauce, this ominous concoction involving ghost pepper and Vidalia onion jam.
He pulled out another wad of napkins. “I never thought I’d hear the name Nick Talbot on Trey’s lips again, and now you tell me he’s going face-to-face with the guy?”
“Once he gets the files back.”
“And he thinks Price has them?”
“Yep.”
“That’s gonna be hard country there. She’s still active SWAT.” Garrity licked sauce from his fingers “Why’d she give him those files in the first place? And what possessed him to keep them?”
“He hasn’t explained. I was hoping you could.”
The parking lot at Constitution Lakes was packed. As usual, Trey had parked his Ferrari far away from the rest of the vehicles, some Dekalb County sheriff, others civilian. The park was closed to the public for the day. The water oaks beyond the rutty dirt lot were tall and slender and close, textbook bottomland. This was a young forest, reclaimed from the degradation of a former brickworks factory. It filled me with homesickness, this spot of boggy wildness in a sea of concrete and asphalt.
Garrity shook his head. “I’d moved on to Major Crimes when all this happened, so we weren’t partners anymore. I got the off-duty vent and fume from him, of course, but Price was by his side during the investigation and the OPS interviews. If anybody knows what’s going on, it’s her.” Garrity shoved three tortilla chips in his mouth and talked around them. “Still, it’s been what, almost four years ago? Nobody’s going to retroactively prosecute him for having those files. Confidentiality only applies to current investigations or pending cases, and the Talbot case isn’t either of those things. That case is cold as old stone.”
“He seems to think otherwise.”
“So I’m learning.” Garrity reached in the backseat and pulled a Coke from the cooler, shook the ice water from his hand. “Every cop’s got that quicksand case, you know, and I think the murder of Jessica Talbot is Trey’s. One dirty cop fouled the works, and the bad guy got away with it.”
Got away with it. Every cop’s sticking point. Revenge is a dish best served cold, they say, and Trey could do ice-blooded with the best of them. But when he’d told me about the case, what I’d seen flashing in his eyes had been the opposite of cold.
Garrity took another bite of his sandwich, a torta cubana with hot pickle relish falling out the sides. “That was the angriest I’ve ever see him. I’m talking spitting, cursing, foaming-at-the-mouth furious.”
“I’d be mad too, if my testimony got thrown out.”
“It was more than that. I mean, testimony gets thrown out all the time. You get used to cases going south.”
“This one seemed to go south very quickly.”
“This case had no brakes from the get-go. No matter how meticulously Trey documented that scene, it was already tainted when he got there. The prosecutor knew any half-decent defense attorney would have destroyed it in court.” He dropped mustard on his jeans, cursed and dabbed at it with the napkin. “You know the story of how Price got tangled up in all this?”
“I know nothing, Garrity. That’s why I’m sitting here with you.”
He eyed me over the sandwich. He had this way of looking at me like I was on the witness stand, but he was my go-to source if any blanks needed filling in about Trey. He wasn’t training today, so he was in jeans and a tee shirt. My brain kept superimposing images of him from the day before, tactical gear over denim, ballistic helmet over Atlanta Braves ball cap.
He finished chewing and wiped his mouth. “Price had ridden with Macklin herself, back when she was
