In the end, they had enough answers to know the rot had spread widely and likely even more widely than they could ever learn on their own. They still weren’t any closer to figuring out who coordinated the ring and who had killed his parents. He and Parker were chasing down the most promising lead to come out of the effort.
A cop who’d been shot in the line of duty after the Callaghan murders, yet not killed, lived southwest of Boston. Internal affairs had started a file on him shortly before an unknown person shot him in the head. Now the guy lived with significant brain damage at his mother’s home. Everyone agreed that his severe mental disability might account for his still being alive. He wouldn’t be in any shape to rat out his former cohorts. Of course, that also meant he probably wouldn’t be of any help to their investigation. It was a long shot to go see him, but everyone also agreed it was worth the effort.
Parker obviously had to be the one to do the questioning, hence the fact that they travelled in a department vehicle with her in the driver’s seat. Official business meant official car. Daire wondered, though, if he might talk her into letting him drive on the way back. He carried a badge, too, after all. On the other hand, with his focus on the hairy ride, his libido remained in check. Sort of.
He’d learned the previous night that a room full of people had almost zero impact on his desire for her. His body yearned for hers with such intense persistence he worried he wouldn’t be able to restrain it much longer. His need to get some distance between them served as another reason why the case had to be solved soon. Once they were on the other side of things, he would have the physical and emotional space to know whether a relationship with Parker made any sense at all.
Parker made a two lane switch and glided down the off ramp. Daire’s foot hit an imaginary brake while he gripped his seat. The GPS woman told them to take a right. Parker smoothly joined the existing traffic and mercifully slowed to a respectable speed. She glanced over at Daire. “I need you to let me take the lead on the questioning, sir.”
He angled his body to look at her. “Of course. You
are
the lead investigator on this. I’m just tagging along. And when did we go back to sir?”
She shrugged. “It feels right. We’re on duty in the very real and legally binding sense of the word.”
Daire cracked a smile. “Did you just make a Monty Python reference?”
“Maybe.” She took her eyes of the road long enough to look at him. “Is that a problem?”
“It is considering I’m trying like hell not to be attracted to you.” The reality of what he’d said hit him a split second later. “Oh, fuck.” There it was, the elephant in the car.
Parker didn’t respond right away. She followed the GPS’s order to turn left and left again into a narrow road filled with neat ranch style houses. She pulled over and parked the car along the curb in front of one of them. When she turned off the ignition, she turned to face him.
“I’m glad you said it.” Her voice was soft and her expression thoughtful. “I’ve been pretty sure the attraction was mutual, and I’ve been fighting it hard, I must confess.”
“So have I.” He mentally screamed at his dick to stay out of the discussion. “Our getting involved is a bad idea on so many levels.”
“Agreed. It’s never a good idea with a co-worker.”
“Right.”
She tilted her head to one side. “And I’m in a place in my life where I’m not looking for emotional entanglements. I want to focus on my career.”
“Understood. I’m right there with you on that score. Being a lieutenant is a tougher job than I thought.”
“Yeah, I tell myself all of that and still I want to jump in your lap.” The searing look she sent him made him groan. In her eyes was the same intense longing he felt.
He had to look away. “You’re killing me here.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
They sat in their mutual corners of hell for about a minute before Daire pulled himself together. As the older, higher ranked person, he held the responsibility to keep the situation under control. “We need to do the job. Maybe when the dust on all of this settles, we can revisit this conversation?”
“That’s a perfectly sensible idea.
Sir
.” Her right hand came into his field of vision.
He looked at it, then looked at her face and shook his head with a rueful grin. “I don’t think so.”
He jumped out of the car before he took not only her hand, but everything else, right here on this quiet suburban street. He slowed his gait enough for her to catch up and overtake him, so that she ended up ringing the doorbell. Expecting something of value to come out of this impromptu interview with a brain-damaged man was probably a waste of energy. At least the anticipation building in him helped to shove aside his need for Parker.
An older woman opened the door. “Yes?”
Both Daire and Parker held up their badges, although as agreed, Parker did the talking. “We’re sorry to bother you, ma’am. I’m Officer Li, and this is Lieutenant Callaghan. We’d like to speak with Frederick Lahey.”
The woman frowned as she scrutinized their ID. “I’m Fred’s mother. Don’t you know that Fred was badly injured on the job, that he’s disabled?”
“We are aware of that, ma’am.” Parker’s tone was soothing and laced with sympathy. Not to be sexist or anything, but it did seem to him that a woman was a better person for this job. “We were hoping to speak with him anyway. I promise we’re not here to upset him. We just hope he can help us clear up some matters from back when he was on the force.”
Lahey’s mother didn’t look convinced, yet she stood aside and let them in anyway. “I’ll see if he’s in the mood for visitors. He does like to have them, even though he has trouble remembering people and having conversations. Please have a seat.”
She ushered them into a neat living room cheerfully decorated in various shades of yellow, then disappeared into the back of the house. Neither he nor Parker bothered to sit down as they waited for the mother to come back.
They scanned the room out of habit. It was for him. Sometimes he could learn a lot by pictures and stuff people left lying around. Other than family photographs and a single magazine for home decorations, nothing in the room caught his interest and nothing provided useful information. Parker looked at him and they shrugged at each other.
“Fred’s willing to meet with you.” The mother’s tone indicated that she didn’t agree with the decision.
She led them back to Fred’s room anyway. Although it was as brightly decorated as the rest of the house, an oppressive air that Daire associated with sick rooms greeted them. A hospital bed dominated the space, but Fred sat in a wheelchair. It was hard to reconcile the young, robust man from his official file with the frail man sitting before them. The bullet had damaged his motor coordination as well as his mental faculties. A jagged line cut through his short prematurely silver hair where the bullet had hit and permanently killed the follicles.
“Fred, these are the people from the force, Detective Li and Lieutenant Callaghan.”
It might have been Daire’s imagination, but he thought Fred’s expression changed for a moment when his mother spoke Daire’s name. If it had, it went back to a slack sort of look immediately.
Parker stepped closer to Lahey. “Hi, Fred, I’m Parker. Thanks for agreeing to talk to us. We just have a few things to ask you. It won’t take long.” She glanced at the mother over her shoulder. “If you don’t mind, ma’am. This is official police business and best done in private.”
Mrs. Lahey stiffened. “I’m Fred’s legal guardian. I should be here while you question him.”
Parker gave her a disarming smile. “I would agree if Fred were in some kind of trouble. He’s not. This is about other people. I promise we’re not here to cause your son any problems.”
A silent war of female will was waged in front of him, before Parker proved victorious. “All right. He tires easily, though. I’ll give you ten minutes, no more.”
Parker smiled brilliantly. “Thank you. That’s sounds perfect.”
Daire wasn’t so sure ten minutes would be enough. On the other hand, Fred didn’t look like he’d be able to say much anyway. Daire stood over in a corner, giving Parker room to do the questioning.
Pulling up a straight back chair from another corner, she sat right in front of Lahey. She smiled at him, too. “Fred, we need your help. You may be the only person in the world who can help us. We’re asking you to call on the sense of duty and service that must have led you to joining the force in the first place. Something went wrong, though, didn’t it? Somewhere along the way, someone talked you into doing things you didn’t think were right. They were your friend, I bet, someone you looked up to maybe?”
Daire concentrated on Lahey’s face as he listened to Parker. They hadn’t talked about how she would play this, but she was right on point as far as he was concerned. Paint Lahey as a victim. Give him an opportunity for payback.
“Turned out they weren’t your friend, huh? The moment things got rough, they ditched you. Worse, they tried to silence you, didn’t they?”
Lahey’s face contorted into a frown. His eyes darted about, and he worked his lips for long seconds before any sound came out. “Lies,” he finally blurted out.
“What were lies, Fred? Did people lie to you to make you do things you shouldn’t?”
“Cocksuckers!”
Parker sat back for a second as that word and a few flecks of spit flew at her. She knitted her brows. “They lured you in with promises of money, but when things went wrong, they turned on you. Is that how it went down, Fred?”
Fred stared at his hands for more than a minute, his chest heaving with obvious agitation. Just when Daire thought he’d clammed up for good, Fred’s head reared up. “Bad men!” he shouted. Then more softly, he repeated, “Bad.” His gaze flicked over to Daire. “Good man.”
Those simple words were like a punch to his gut. He knew when Lahey looked at him, he saw Daire’s father. The intensity of it all proved too much. Suddenly, the likely wild goose chase had turned into a genuine lead. Daire swallowed back the bile rising in his throat and curled his fingers into fists. Parker’s concerned face angled into his vision. With a quick shake of his head, he turned so that she couldn’t see his expression.
“Fred, can you tell me the name of the bad men? Can you tell me the name of the man who was the worst?”
Silence reigned over the room for long seconds before Lahey blurted out, “Bad men!” He kept saying those two words over and over, the volume of his voice climbing with each iteration. His fists pounded on the arms of his wheelchair. Parker jumped up in alarm and tried to calm him down until his mother flew into the room.
“That’s enough! I’m sorry, you’ll have to leave now.” The woman rushed over to put a protective arm around her son’s shoulders. She glared up at Parker. “Please leave.”
“Of course. I’m sorry to have upset you, Fred,” she added in a soft voice before turning and exiting.
Daire followed her after briefly nodding at Mrs. Lahey. Before he cleared the threshold, however, Fred called out.
“Callaghan! Good man!”
“Shh,” his mother soothed.
Daire looked at the man over his shoulder. “Yes, a good man. And we’re going to get the bad men.”
He found Parker leaning against the car, her head down. He hustled over to her. “Hey, are you okay?” He put his arm around her shoulder, much as Mrs. Lahey had done to her son, without thinking. The touch didn’t turn erotic, however. He only sought to comfort her.
When she looked up, her eyes were shiny with unshed tears. “I’m fine. That was just tougher than I expected. I went in thinking he fell into the category of bad guys, and he probably did long ago. Now, he’s just pathetic. And his poor mother is going to spend the rest of her life caring for him and worrying about who will care for him when she’s gone. It’s sad.”
He rubbed the top of her back in small, slow circles. “Yeah, it is.”
“We didn’t learn anything, either.”
“Yes, we did. Maybe nothing that propels the investigation the way we want, but we have confirmation that we’re on the right track. You know as much time as my brothers, Regan, and I have put into investigating my parents’ deaths, you’re the first to pull together these important pieces. None of us thought to dig into my father’s graduating class the way you have.”
Parker shook her head in dismissal. “It’s no great detective work. I’m good at finding patterns and solving puzzles. Besides, being in internal affairs allowed me access to information you didn’t have. And that miraculous box of goodies you found helped tie things together even more. It’s the right time, I guess, to finish this. It’s going to get ugly, though.”
Daire pulled her into a hug, because Christ knew he needed it as much as he figured she did. The feel of her body against his brought back those wrong ideas, so he stepped back and let her go sooner than he wanted.
“Why don’t I drive back?” As self-serving as the idea was, he did think she needed time to relax and process the emotional interview.
“Okay.” Parker handed over the keys and climbed into the passenger seat.
By unspoken agreement, they didn’t talk on the drive back. Saturday traffic on the highway remained light given the early afternoon hour. Daire set a sedate pace in the middle lane, ruminating over the interview with Lahey and how they might proceed from this point. He didn’t think much of it when a large SUV with tinted windows closed in on his bumper. Boston drivers had a reputation for a reason.
When he shifted to the right lane to let the shithead pass, however, the SUV switched with him and got even closer. Alarm bells didn’t go off yet. Maybe the asshole needed to get off at the next exit, except they had at least another mile to go before it came up.
“What’s going on?” Parker straightened in her seat and looked in the side mirror. “They’re too close.”
“Yeah, they are.” Daire sped up and watched with dismay as the SUV kept up and closed the gap even more. “Shit.”
The word had barely left his mouth when the SUV rammed into them. Parker let out a squeal. Daire hit the gas once more and tried to switch over to the left lane, his brain still unwilling to believe this was all deliberate. The guy behind the wheel in the other vehicle proved him wrong by sticking with him and ramming him again. The weight difference alone between the department sedan Daire drove and the SUV made the impact bone-jarring. Although traffic was light, there were still other vehicles in front of him and in other lanes. As Daire tried to maneuver his way out of the SUV’s range, he fought to stay clear of the innocent drivers around them.