“Huizenga is expecting you back at the office. We’ve got you on noncontact status for the time being,” he told me.
“Noncontact?” I said.
Whatever relief I’d been feeling had just been cut in half. Noncontact means that you come into work every day, sit at a desk, and answer the phones, or do the filing, or any of a hundred other things nobody else wants to do.
It also meant I was removed from all investigative duties at a time when the squad could least afford it.
“I don’t suppose I can appeal to your better judgment,” I said. “We’ve never been busier.”
“Believe me, I wish you could,” he said, shaking his head. “You’re not out of the woods yet. You’ve still got these charges against you. If the US Attorney’s Office decides to hand down an indictment, then it’s out of my hands.”
“As far as I can tell, Internal Affairs is gunning for it,” I said.
“If the mayor had his way, you’d be sitting home without a paycheck. And not because he doesn’t like you,” Perkins said. “Dammit, Alex, I don’t believe that druggie horseshit for a second—but I wish to hell you hadn’t hit that guy.”
“He deserved it,” I said. “And then some.”
“No doubt,” the chief answered, just as the elevator doors opened onto the third-floor hall. “But that’s justice. This is politics.”
I think it might have been the most cynical thing I’ve ever heard from Perkins.
Which isn’t to say that it wasn’t also true.
CHAPTER
62
WHEN I WALKED INTO THE MAJOR CASE SQUAD OFFICE, I WASN’T EXPECTING much—a meeting with Sergeant Huizenga and a year’s worth of backlogged filing to do. What I found instead was more like a surprise party.
“Here he is!” Valente shouted as I came through the door. Suddenly, everyone was on their feet, either prairie dogging out of their cubicles or coming my way. All of them were applauding and cheering, and slapping me on the back. And all of them were wearing the same yellow T-shirts pulled over their shirts.
The T-shirts all said FREE ALEX CROSS. It felt like the first laugh I’d had in days.
“Got any new tattoos?” Valente asked, with an arm over my shoulder. Jarret Krause handed me a cup of coffee.
“Good to see you, Alex. Welcome back.”
“I wasn’t even gone,” I said.
“Close enough,” Valente told me.
The truth is, I was deeply touched by the whole thing. Lying in that cell all night, I had no way of knowing who stood behind me on this, and who didn’t. Now it seemed like a no-brainer. The Major Case crew is one of the best squads I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with. They gave me exactly the response I would have hoped for and the same support I would have given any of them.
Then I saw Sergeant Huizenga. She was standing in the door of her office, watching me as I came in. She wasn’t smiling, and she wasn’t wearing one of the T-shirts, either. But I did notice that she looked like hell. She was also wearing the same blazer and pants as the day before. It didn’t look like Marti had gone home at all.
When I came into her office, the first thing she did was extend her hand across the desk.
“No hard feelings?”
she asked.
I shook, gladly. “No hard feelings,” I said. If anything, I respected her for locking me up herself and not passing it off to someone else.
“Have a seat,” she told me. “We’ve got to do some technicalities here.”
She gave me two release forms to sign and then returned my personal effects, with the exception of my Glock. Then she ran down the particulars of Guidice’s restraining order. I wasn’t to come within five hundred feet of him for as long as the temporary restraining order was in effect. If that went through, and it became permanent, I’d be informed accordingly.
It was one of the strangest twists of right and wrong I’d seen in a while. All things considered, wasn’t it me who needed protection from Guidice?