212 LP: A Novel Read Online Free PDF Page B

court.
    “‘What if Sparks did it?’” Rogan asked Ellie in a hushed voice. “How about, what in the big bad fuck were you thinking?”
    What if Sparks did it? It had been a little more than twenty-four hours since Judge Paul Bandon read those words in Ellie’s notebook. She had scribbled them next to a cartoon drawing of a stick figure with stubbly hair and a striped jumpsuit, standing behind prison bars.
    “Apparently I was thinking that we’d been too quick to give Sparks a pass.” She removed her tiny gold hoop earrings from the plastic bag and began looping them through her lobes.
    Rogan held the bridge of his nose and shook his head. “Like jewelry’s gonna do anything for you looking like that.”
    Partners were like families that way: the booking clerk had best keep his mouth shut, but for Rogan, the subject of her incarceration was fair game.
    Ellie had been replaying the scene in the courtroom for twenty-four hours, and she still couldn’t believe Bandon had pulled the trigger on her. She was convinced that until that moment—when Bandon had said, “Your notes please, Detective Hatcher”—she hadn’t even been aware of the words and images that were forming in her scribbles.
    Her mistake had been trying to persuade Bandon of that fact. If she had simply admitted to carrying vague suspicions that she hadn’t disclosed on the stand, she probably would have gotten off with a lecture.
    But instead Ellie had tried to explain. And Bandon, instead of understanding, had accused her of being “cute.” And then when she argued even more insistently, as Max tried to quiet her down, Bandon had concluded that she was lying. To him. Personally. And that , no judge would tolerate.
    And now because Bandon thought she was a liar, she had spent the night in a holding cell.
    “No bo-hunk boyfriend to bail you out?” Rogan asked.
    “You didn’t bail me out. I was released after fully serving my twenty-four-hour sentence.”
    “Whatever. Where’s your man, Max?”
    “I didn’t want to chance Bandon finding out about us. I’m obviously on his shit list now. No need to add Max to that picture. Besides, you’re the one who insisted on picking me up. I could’ve gotten back to the precinct on my own.”
    “What? And miss the opportunity of you doing the walk of shame in your jelly slippers?”
    Ellie looked down at her black leather flats, happy to have her own shoes back. “Please tell me that smell in my nostrils is just the memory of my overnight sojourn at the lovely Centre Street inn.”
    “Sorry, chica . I’m afraid you absorbed the permeating funk of your surrounding atmosphere.”
    “I’m so happy that my personal and professional misery has brought you such happiness.”
    “So are you going to explain those notes that landed you in this shit pile?”
    “My mind was wandering in court. We both get some of our best ideas when we aren’t even trying.”
    “Are you forgetting that we looked real close at him early on? Real close.” Rogan’s arms were crossed, fingertips tucked beneath his underarms. Always well dressed, today Rogan wore a black wool suit, a crisp lavender dress shirt, and an Hermès tie worth more than Ellie’s entire outfit. He might have a cop’s blue-collar values, but, thanks to a grandmother who married well late in life, he could live beyond a cop’s salary.
    “Look, you mind if we talk about this in a slightly less depressing environment?”
    Ellie led the way out of the holding floor onto the street, and Rogan didn’t stop her. By the time they reached the fleet car that Rogan had parked on Centre Street, she was ready to talk.
    “So we took a look at Sparks and cleared him.”
    Rogan glanced back at the building from which they had just exited. “Pretty sure I was the one saying that back there a couple of minutes ago.”
    “Keys.” She held up her right hand for the catch. In the six-plus months they’d been partners in the homicide task force of the