She yawned, hugely. “Jesus, Vernon, you’re boring me.”
“That’s the deal.”
“Here’s mine. Peabody, dump this piece of garbage in lockup. And see if Bruno’s back in town.”
“I believe he is, and he’s lonely.”
“Wait, Jesus. What’d you bring me in for if you didn’t want to deal? I gotta have immunity. You put me in, I don’t come out. We both know it. What’s the point in my talking if I’m going to get stuck in the heart?”
“Gee, Vernon, now you’re breaking mine. Immunity, for everything up to conspiracy to murder. You get hooked to that, you go down. As for the new name, face, location, that’s your problem.”
“That’s not enough.”
“That’s it; that’s all. And even that leaves a taste in my mouth it’s going to take weeks to get out again.”
“I didn’t have anything to do with killing cops.”
“Then you don’t have to worry, do you?”
“I got a right to my union rep.” He whined now, in a voice that reminded her of her father’s in the flashback.
“Sure you do,” was all she said and turned to the door.
“Wait. Okay, wait. Reps just complicate things, right? We’ll do it straight. You put the immunity on the record, and we do it straight.”
She turned back to the table. Sat. “Interview with Vernon, Detective Jeremy, conducted by Dallas, Lieutenant Eve. Also present are Feeney, Captain Ryan; McNab, Detective Ian; and Peabody, Officer Deliah. Subject Vernon has agreed to give statements and answer questions in return for immunity on any related charges of corruption and misuse of authority. Do you give these statements and agree to answer these questions of your own volition?”
“That’s right. I want to cooperate. I want to make things right. I feel—”
“That’s enough, Vernon. You are a ranked detective in the NYPSD, correct?”
“I’ve been a cop for sixteen years. Been a detective in Illegals at the One twenty-eight for the last six.”
“And at this time you are prepared to admit that you have accepted financial bribes and other favors in exchange for passing information to, aiding in the illegal practices of, and generally following the orders of Max Ricker.”
“I took money. Fact was, I was afraid not to. I’m ashamed of it, but I feared for my life and well-being. I’m not the only one.”
Once he got started, Eve thought, you couldn’t shut him up. In the first hour, he reeled off streams of names, activities, connections.
He brought down the One twenty-eight, even as he doggedly treaded water to keep his own neck above the swamp.
“Captain Roth?”
“Her?” Vernon, feeling perkier, sneered. “She didn’t see. Didn’t want to, you ask me. Has her own agenda. Wants to make commander. Plays a good game of politics, but she’s got this problem. She don’t have a dick and wishes she did. Always going off about how some of the men didn’t like taking orders from her ’cause she’s a woman. Then she’s got that useless husband s
crewing around on her. She drinks. She got so hot on this op to take Ricker down, she didn’t watch her back or look down at her feet neither. Made it easy to pull the rug out, you know. We just passed the data along, lost some key evidence, skewed a couple of reports, and that was that.”
“Yeah, that was that.”
“Listen.” Vernon leaned forward. “Ricker’s smart. He knows he doesn’t need the whole squad. He gets key men, and they keep a look out for him, and for other recruits. You know who’s up for a take and who’s not.”
“Kohli wasn’t.”
“Straight as a damn arrow, Kohli. One of the guys in the One two-eight, see, he’d heard something on an op from say, the Six-four. Easy to poke around, talking shop. Then you got a guy knows how to hack data, and you get the deets. Pass that to Ricker, and you get a nice fee.”
He lifted his hands, actually smiling. “Smooth. Simple. If the op was after one of Ricker’s connections, he had time to change locations, pull out, whatever, so the op’s a bust. If it’s one of his competitors, he can sit back, wait for the shit to fly, then pick up the clients, maybe even the merchandise, after. He’s got key men in Evidence when he needs them. Then the media guys to spin stories his way, the politicians to keep the heat off. Thing is, I’ve been noticing, last couple years the guy’s getting erratic.”
“Ricker?”