The Investigators (Badge of Honor 7)

It was late, and not shift-change time, and there was hardly anybody in the place. Except, sitting at a table in the rear, a stocky, swarthy man in his late thirties, who raised his bottle of Ortlieb’s beer in greeting when he saw them.

Coogan and Calhoun stopped at the bar only long enough to get beers of their own and then walked to his table carrying them.

“What did you do to your face, Calhoun?” Assistant District Attorney Anton C. Phebus asked.

Calhoun touched his face gingerly. Under three days’ growth of beard on his right cheek was an angry red bruise.

“There was this guy, six feet six, one of them Zulus,” Calhoun said. “Skinny as a rail. I don’t think he weighed 130 pounds,” Officer Calhoun explained. “I started to put cuffs on him, got one on him, and then he decided he didn’t want to be arrested . . .”

He mimed the action, spilling a little beer in the process, of someone suddenly spreading his arms to avoid being handcuffed.

“. . . and the loose cuff got me,” he finished.

“And what did you do to him?” Phebus asked, chuckling.

“He’s gonna sing soprano for a while. You wouldn’t believe how strong that skinny fucker was!”

“Maybe he was on something,” Phebus suggested.

“Maybe,” Calhoun said, considering this. “But I don’t think so. He was just strong, is all. And he took me by surprise.”

“Aside from that,” Phebus chuckled, “how was the arrest?”

“Zip,” Coogan offered.

“Zip?” Phebus asked, surprised, and then looked at Calhoun. “Zip, like in zero?”

“You told me to think, I thought,” Calhoun said. “What they had wasn’t worth the risk.”

“Good boy,” Phebus said. “There’s always another day.”

“So you keep saying,” Calhoun said.

Phebus looked as if he intended to reply, but changed his mind.

“Two things,” he said. “They’re going to let me prosecute Leslie, which means I can get—”

“Who’s Leslie?” Coogan interrupted.

“The junkie shit who popped Kellog,” Calhoun furnished, contemptuously.

“Sorry,” Coogan said, flushing, aware he had just said something stupid.

“Which means,” Phebus went on, “that I can finally get to listen to what’s on Kellog’s fucking tapes.”

“There’s probably nothing on them,” Calhoun said. “Kellog wasn’t stupid.”

“He was covering his ass,” Phebus said. “Which means he was scared. People who are scared do stupid things.”

“Where are the tapes now?” Coogan asked.

“We have them,” Phebus said. “But I just couldn’t go to the evidence room and ask for them. Before. Now that I’m prosecuting Leslie, I’ll be expected to look at them, listen to them.”

Coogan nodded, then said, “You said ‘two things.’ ”

Phebus did not reply directly. He looked at Calhoun and asked, “Calhoun, you planning to go to Harrisburg anytime soon?”

“Should I?”