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CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

“ In the news tonight, police are asking anyone with information on the shooting outside the Palace Hotel on Monday to contact the NYPD tipline. The suspect in the incident, Joseph Miller, remains at large and is considered— ”

Rav’s phone buzzes. It’s Will. At 7 P.M. on a Friday night. This can’t be good.

“How far are you from work?” Shepard asks.

“Not too far. Why?”

“We just got a walk-in. Tyler Higgs.”

“Doesn’t ring a bell.”

“Right, you were on leave. You remember that apartment the FBI raided, where they found Greg Watson? There were two of them living there, Watson and a guy named Tyler Higgs. The feds have been looking for him ever since the raid.”

“So he’s turning himself in?”

“All I know is he’s asking for you personally.”

“Me? How does he even know my…?” Right, the skate park memes.

“If you wanna talk to him, you’d better hustle. Won’t be long before the feds show up to claim him.”

“I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

Howard and Will are waiting for him outside the interview room. “I’ll be observing,” the lieutenant informs him, “since Higgs is a person of interest in a federal case.” And because I don’t trust you not to let your personal issues interfere with this interview. She doesn’t say it, but she doesn’t have to; Rav knows he’s on unofficial probation. “Stay focused in there, both of you.”

The man seated at the table is about thirty, with darting blue eyes and a bushy blond beard. Rav has seen that beard before, if only from a distance. “I hear you’ve been asking for me.”

Higgs doesn’t respond. He slouches in his chair, knee bobbing, trying to telegraph cool indifference and doing a shit job.

“I remember you from the skate park,” Rav goes on. “You were with Joe Miller and Greg Watson. The three of you were ejected for assaulting a pair of NGO workers.”

“Assaulting.” Higgs snorts. “I barely touched the guy.”

Where is Joe Miller?

The question is practically burning a hole in Rav’s tongue, but he needs to be patient. If he tries to interrogate this guy, he’ll shut down; better to let Higgs think he’s in the driver’s seat. “You came here to tell me something. I’m listening.”

Higgs glances at the door, as if he’s having second thoughts.

“How about I get you started? Your mate Joe Miller is in some pretty deep shit. You’re facing charges of your own, as an accessory. But you didn’t come here to cut a deal. You would have gone straight to the FBI with that. You’re here because you know something, or think you do, that might help him out. You’re worried the feds won’t listen, but I’m friends with Jack Vale, at least according to social media, so maybe whatever you tell me will make its way back to him. How am I doing, Tyler?”

Higgs shakes his head. “Cops. Always think you know everything, but you don’t.”

“What don’t I know?”

“For starters, Joe Miller may be a fucking idiot .” He sighs. “But he’s no killer.”

“He didn’t try to kill Jack Vale?”

“Never. No way.”

“We have security footage of him forcing his way backstage at the Concord.”

“Yeah, but he was just trying to get the word out about Tommy. The gun—that was for protection. A lot of people don’t wanna hear the truth. Joe’s had death threats, you know.”

The irony is thick, but Rav stays on script. “And the shooting at the Palace Hotel?”

“I don’t know nothing about that. But if Joe shot that guy, it’s ’cause he’s not himself.”

“How do you mean?”

“Joe may not be the brightest bulb, but he’s harmless. He talks a lot of shit online, but who doesn’t? It never meant nothing.”

“Until he threatened a congressman in Georgia,” Will puts in.

“See, that’s what I’m talking about,” Higgs snaps. “You think you know things, but you don’t. Those threats didn’t come from Joe. His account was hacked.”

“Hacked.” Will nods. “Okay.”

If Higgs notices the sarcasm, he ignores it. “Wasn’t the first time, neither. Every time Joe posts something they don’t like, his account gets hacked and they do something to make him look bad.”

“Who is they ?” Rav asks.

“I dunno, man, the government?”

Rav’s heart sinks. This is a waste of time.

“Yeah, I see that look on your face,” Higgs says with a scowl. “That’s why people like me don’t go to the cops.”

“I’m just a bit confused. Whatever happened back in Georgia, there’s no disputing what he’s done here. There are multiple eyewitness accounts, not to mention security footage from several locations.”

“Look, the Concord thing… Joe fucked up there, no question. But it’s not like they’re saying in the papers.”

“Why don’t you tell us how it is?”

Higgs leans forward, animated now. This is why he came: to set the record straight, at least in his own mind. “So he goes down there, right, and he’s got this big sign, and he’s hoping people will video him and take pictures and stuff, so it’ll go viral. The gun was just for protection. But some kid sees it and freaks, and suddenly everybody’s losing their minds, and the whole thing goes to shit. Now he’s wanted by the cops, so he comes to Greg ’n me, asking if he can lie low at our place.”

“This is Greg Watson, your deceased roommate,” Rav says for the benefit of the recording.

“Right. Then, couple weeks later, he finds out Jack Vale is doing this charity thing, and he figures this is his chance to get close to Jack and say his piece. Like, maybe if he explains about the Concord, how it all got out of hand and he wasn’t there to hurt nobody, Jack will get the charges dropped.” Rav’s eyebrows jump at that, and Higgs laughs darkly. “I know, man, trust me. Greg ’n me told him it was nuts. But he says he’s going, and he’s still our boy, so like idiots, we go with him. We try to get those smug college pricks organizing the thing to get us five minutes with Jack, but they won’t. Things get a little heated, so we bounce—only when we turn around, Joe’s gone. We figured the cops must’ve got him. Then he turns up back at our place saying he stabbed some guy.” Higgs throws up his hands. “On top of which, now they’re saying he murdered this record executive. That’s when he really starts losing it. Spending 24/7 online, posting on his little forums about how he’s being set up. Which, don’t get me wrong, he definitely is. He never even met that Vanderford guy.”

Rav studies him closely. “What if I told you the FBI has photos of Miller and Vanderford together?”

“I’d tell you that shit’s fake . Just like those threats in Georgia.”

Will leans back in his chair until it creaks. He thinks this is bullshit.

Higgs jabs a tobacco-stained finger on the table. “If you wanna know who killed that record executive, you should be looking at Jack’s bodyguard. Did you know he used to be CIA?”

“I’m aware of that, yes. How did you come to know about it?”

“From those online forums Joe is always on. There’s this user, goes by the name of Overwatch. He’s the one who told Joe about the bodyguard being CIA. He said Vale and Vanderford were beefing, and Vale got his bodyguard to take care of it. Just like he took care of Tommy, so he could be lead singer.”

Rav forces himself to take a breath. God, he hopes Jack never hears that rumor. “Sounds like a conspiracy theory to me,” he says coolly.

“If you say so, man. Point is, Joe believes it. That’s why he’s so scared. He legit thinks the CIA is out to get him. He even left the apartment ’cause he didn’t want Greg ’n me to get caught in the cross fire. Look how that turned out.” His voice frays, a shimmer coming into his eyes. “You tell me, if this is all some conspiracy theory, how come Greg is dead? They’re saying Joe did it, but that’s bullshit. He’s not a murderer.”

“He shot Vale’s bodyguard.”

“Like I said, I don’t know nothing about that. But if he did, it was self-defense, at least in his mind. This Overwatch guy is in his head. He’s just scared, man. Scared to death and flailing.”

There’s a knock at the door. The FBI must be here. Rav is out of time. “Do you know where Miller is now?”

Higgs shakes his head. “If I did, I’d tell you. ’Cause at this rate, he’s gonna get himself killed.”

A uniformed officer comes in to collect the witness, and then he’s gone, scooped up by Thing One and Thing Two, and all Rav is left with is a bizarre tale about a serial screwup who got himself in way over his head and ended up shooting someone.

Howard finds her detectives debriefing by the coffee machine. “You did well in there, Trivedi. I wasn’t sure you could keep your personal issues out of it, but you handled it like a pro.” She pours herself a cup of stale coffee. “So, what do you make of it?”

“Assuming any of it’s true, it puts Miller’s actions in a different light.”

“Does it?” Will makes a face. “Sounded like a bunch of half-assed excuses to me. The guy on the internet made me do it? Come on.”

Howard grunts into her coffee. “At a minimum, it’s pretty clear Joseph Miller craves attention and makes bad decisions, which means he won’t be too hard to catch. He’s been lucky so far, but luck runs out eventually.”

“I hope you’re right,” Rav says.

“Whether I am or not, Miller isn’t your case. You need to hear me on that, Detective.” She eyes him pointedly. “I let you talk to Tyler Higgs because he asked for you personally. What you do with that information on your own time is your business, but in here, you work for the NYPD, and Joe Miller is not our fish to land. Copy?”

“But I can keep digging on my personal time?”

“Provided you don’t cross the line and interfere with a federal investigation. You do know where that line is, don’t you?”

He does.

More or less.

He grabs a cab back to the city, mind whirring. Will isn’t wrong: on the face of it, most of what Higgs said sounds like bullshit. And yet it tracks with what Mo told him the other day. We know who you are , Miller supposedly shouted before he pulled the trigger. We know what you did. The we in question must be Miller and his fellow conspiracy theorists. Then there’s Higgs’s insistence that Miller wasn’t trying to kill Jack. Never. No way. So maybe Mo was the target after all. But what has any of that got to do with Dick Vanderford?

Rav can’t shake the feeling that all the pieces are right in front of him, if he can just figure out how they fit together.

He fishes out his phone and calls Mo. The bodyguard picks up right away; Rav hears traffic noise in the background. “Does that mean you’ve been discharged from hospital?”

“On my way to the studio now. Heard you dropped by.”

Rav’s stomach does a pleasant little flip at the memory. It already seems like ages ago. “Listen, does the username Overwatch mean anything to you?”

The bodyguard grunts. “Been trawling the online forums, Detective?”

“That, and I’ve just had an interesting conversation with a witness. I take it the name rings a bell?”

“You could say that. Listen, I can’t really talk right now, but can we meet on Sunday?”

“Sure, but can it wait that long?”

“It’ll have to. I’m up to my eyeballs with security arrangements for the show.”

“I thought you said it was low risk?”

“Doesn’t mean I’m letting my guard down. I plan to have all the bases covered and then some.”

“That makes me feel a little better, at least.”

“Don’t worry, we got this. You’re coming to the show, right? You ever seen the Nicks before?”

“I have not.”

“Well, then,” Mo says, “you’re in for a treat.”