Page 85 of The Body in the Backyard

“Where are you going?” Riley asked.

Nick strolledinto the Harrisburg PD’s bullpen like he belonged there. He had once, back in his young idealistic days.

The smell was the same, old coffee and industrial tile cleaner. The desks were the same battered commercial furniture some chief had squeezed out of the budget in the eighties. However, with a few exceptions, most of the faces were different. It was either a sign that he was getting older as this chapter of his past got more distant in the rearview mirror…or it was that cop work sucked and burnout was inevitable.

He was leaning toward the latter, but to be fair, working in the private sector hadn’t been a walk in the park recently thanks to Griffin Fucking Gentry.

Nick’s stomach grumbled, reminding him that he’d missed lunch, so he veered off in the direction of the break room. There were two rookies in uniform sitting at the same shitty table with wobbly legs he’d eaten at. They were arguing about who ran a faster mile pace at the police academy.

Nick strolled to the refrigerator and opened it. There on the top shelf, all the way to the left where it had always been, was an old black lunch bag withWeberstitched across the top.

“How’s it going?” he asked the rookies as he rummaged through the bag.

“Who are you?” the one on the left asked.

The other one kicked the first under the table. “That’s Nick Santiago, dummy.”

“Oh. Shit.”

Nick was pleased to note his reputation was still part of departmental lore.

He pulled out the Lebanon bologna sandwich inside, took a big bite, and frowned. Weber never used enough mayonnaise. Something about his lame-ass arteries. Nick took two more bites just to make sure he’d ruin Weber’s day before shoving the remains of the sandwich back in the bag.

“Have a good one,” he said, tossing a salute at the rookies on his way out the door.

“Did he just eat Weber’s lunch?”

“Shit. Let’s get out of here before we get blamed for it.”

Nick’s phone buzzed in his pocket. It was a call from his cousin.

“What’s up, Bri?”

“Man, people really need to secure their home security components better. I got the footage from Larstein’s cameras. Our two friends from today were the ones who jumped the fence in gardener getup and broke Larstein’s unlucky neck,” Brian said.

“Nice work. Where’s Gentry?” Nick asked.

“He and Gabe are in Gentry’s house. He was whining about wanting new pants, so I figured I’d swing by the neighbor’s and poke around his network while he changed.”

“I really hate that guy,” Nick muttered.

Brian took a slurp of something on his end. “You and me both, coz. Get this. Mrs. Penny upped the fee to thirty grand. Still don’t see how she’s going to make him cough it up, but she said something along the lines of ‘Mind your business and get me a pizza.’”

“He’ll pay if I have to rip out his pancreas and sell it on the street corner,” Nick said, nodding to the cop holding the coffeepot.

“That’s the spirit.”

A crowd had gathered in the hallway outside the interrogation rooms. “I gotta go. Let me know if anyone finds anything.”

“Will do. Try not to get arrested.”

“I’ll do my best,” Nick promised and headed into the clump of cops. “What have we got, boys and girls?”

There was a collective groan as well as a few grins of recognition. “Who let you in here, Santiago?” asked a grizzled robbery detective Nick remembered for his devotion to his grandchildren and his extended bouts of heartburn.

“What? Can’t a guy say hi to his old coworkers?”

“Not when that guy is you,” Mabel said pointedly.