Sager scoffed. “Like they’d talk to you, anyway, once it got around Carter and you are related.”
“Why is he mad? Administrative leave is standard after something like this.”
“Getting charged with murder isn’t, not when a cop is only doing his job.”
Bran let his eyebrows climb. “Is that what you think? I don’t know, two witnesses both say the attack was unprovoked and brutal.”
Sager thrust out his jaw. “I don’t know either of them.”
“You ever worked directly with Andy?”
Sager’s hesitation was telling. “I won’t say he doesn’t have a temper,” he was honest enough to concede.
Bran nodded a greeting at another couple of deputies leaving the building for their vehicles. Neither was within earshot, but he lowered his voice anyway. It was a technique he’d used before, sucking the other person into believing the two of them were exchanging confidences when, in fact, only one of them would be sharing any.
“Between you and me?” he said. “He swaggers around like he’s God. I can see him letting his personal feelings bleed over into the job.”
Unaware he was being played, Sager lowered his voice, too. “If what I heard is true, he might have done that.”
Bran shook his head as if dismayed. “Yeah, I heard something like that, too. I guess that Alvarez got a little too friendly with Hayes’s girlfriend.”
He was taking a logical leap from the little Zach had overheard as he’d raced to futilely save a man’s life. Bran hoped he wasn’t way off track.
But the guy didn’t even hesitate this time. “Yeah, she’s a checker at that little market on Laurel.”
“I know the place. Wonder if I’ve ever seen her there,” Bran mused, even though he had stepped foot in the place only once, and that was over two years ago, to ask questions in pursuit of an investigation. Mostly he knew of it. A small grocery store, it catered to the surrounding Latino population. Everyone who worked there spoke at least rudimentary Spanish, unlike at the Safeway or Haggen stores.
“She’s pretty enough, I guess. Kind of quiet.”
“Yeah? I guess Andy wouldn’t like a girlfriend who argued with him.”
The other deputy gave a bark of laughter. “That’s safe to say.”
“So she met Antonio at the market?” Bran was prodding.
Sager grimaced. “Way I heard it, Hayes decided to surprise her by picking her up after work and found her lingering in the parking lot with Alvarez. He took a swing then, but the girlfriend found herself some guts and got between them. Alvarez took off.” He shrugged. “Guaranteed to piss off Andy.”
How many people knew this story and had kept their mouths shut? Bran tried to hide his fury but said, “That’s more than I heard. You know, you should tell the special investigators about this. And maybe the DA. Uh, Christine Campbell, I think.”
Sager looked alarmed and backed up a few steps. “I have a wife and kids.”
Time to quit pretending. “So it’s okay to let the witnesses be terrorized by that asshole and his friends? Damn it, you’re a cop.”
Maybe he was projecting more menace than he’d intended because Sager talked fast. “I wasn’t there. It may not even be true.”
Bran straightened, pushing away from his car. “Tell me who you heard it from.”
Dave saw the steel in his eyes and shuffled a few more steps back. “You’re kidding, right?”
“I won’t say where I heard it. I promise.”
He hesitated, his basic decency at war with his sense of self-preservation. At least, Bran hoped that’s what was happening. Hearing laughter and a shouted goodbye from somewhere near, Bran tensed. It wouldn’t be good if anyone interrupted them right now.
Fortunately the voices receded.
Dave groaned, wiped a hand across his face, and said, “Bobby Ketchum and Todd Vance were talking in the locker room. I don’t think they saw me.”
Ketchum, Bran knew, was tight with Andy Hayes. He’d have thought better of Todd Vance, but didn’t really know him.
“There are times we have to back each other when civilians don’t understand what came down,” Bran said, “but this isn’t anything like that. Wearing a badge shouldn’t give us immunity when we kill a guy because of a personal beef.”