“Tell me where you are,” I managed to croak out.
“I—where am I?” I heard him ask.
“You’re at the First District,” someone told him.
“Okay,” I rushed out. “What floor?”
“Third floor,” he whispered, and there was the slightest whimper in his voice like he was on the edge.
“I’m coming,” I husked, and he hung up.
I didn’t say a word to anyone, I just left. I wasn’t supposed to do that, but I would take my boss’s ire later. Nothing was more important than getting to Cel.
It wasn’t often that I used my lights, but I was glad to have them in that moment. From my office to the First, I was there in less than ten minutes. I parked out front, where I shouldn’t have, but there were official plates on my vehicle, which was one of the perks of my position. Inside, I raced over to the stairwell because the elevator, I knew from the experience of riding it up to the fifth floor to see Stanhope the day before, took forever.
Arriving on the third floor, I saw Cel sitting in a row of chairs. If he was there for questioning, he should have been in an interrogation room, but for whatever reason, he was being given leeway to make everyone wait for me.
He was staring at the ground, moving something around on the floor with the tip of his clog. The man had the ugliest shoes, but his feet were his livelihood, so I couldn’t very well suggest he put on a Chelsea boot or monk strap shoes or even a nice pair of wingtips. He had to be completely comfortable, his arches supported, the front of a shoe with room for toe spacers, his feet breathing a sigh of relief when he was done performing or practicing every day. That was not the way I bought my shoes. If they looked good, that was the most important part.
“Cel!” I called over to him.
His head snapped up, and when he saw me, I saw the relief in the drop of his shoulders, the long exhale that compressed his chest, and how he straightened up and tried for a smile. He’d been hunched over a moment before, folded in on himself, but now he looked better. Not completely himself, not with his normal confidence and swagger, but he appeared a bit less gray.
Reaching him, taking no note of the people around him, I instantly took hold of his hand, squeezing tight so he’d know I was there.
“You got here so fast,” he whispered. “I asked if you could be here, and they said okay, and…I’m so glad to see you.”
He was completely out of it. I wondered if someone had given him something. “Why are you here?”
He shrugged and tipped his head at the man standing beside him, who was probably only a few years older than me, but the suit he was wearing and the cigarettes he smoked—which I didn’t see but he reeked of—put decades on him. He was swimming in his suit, the collar of his shirt loose, which made the tie look more like a dead fish hanging around his neck than an article of clothing. I had to wonder about the people in his life who let him go out looking like this. Perhaps he had no partner either. I was much more a clotheshorse than Jer, but back when we were riding together, I would have never allowed him out of his house looking sloppy and unshaven. My old partner was well over six feet, with bulging biceps and shoulders that could fill a doorway. Even with that, he never appeared disheveled. This man looked like all the dirty cops in the movies from the seventies, their clothes a dead giveaway for the audience that they were incompetent or, worse, on the take and therefore bad news.
“Who’re you?” the detective asked me.
“Who areyou?” I asked because I never answered first. It was law enforcement posturing, but at the moment, I was feeling every bit of it.
“Detective Bill Oakes,” he informed me. “Homicide.”
“Homicide?” I was stunned. “Who’s dead?” I asked, turning to Cel.
“Senan,” he whispered.
“How?”
He opened his mouth to tell me.
“I’m gonna ask you again,” the detective broke in, “who—”
“I’m Deputy US Marshal Eli Kohn, Public Affairs Director for the Northern District of Illinois,” I answered brusquely, meeting his gaze and holding it.
The slight step back was helpful to see. It told me, without any more information needed, that I had already intimidated the man. That was good.
“I’ll be sitting in during Mr. Harrington’s questioning.”
He took a breath. “This doesn’t concern the mar—”
“Please,” Cel said quickly, and sucked a breath in through his nose. I saw his chin wobble before he clenched his jaw to make sure it stopped. He was not the kind of man who allowed others to see him vulnerable. He was careful about that, and I respected that about him.
“Fine,” Oakes agreed, then turned toward a short hall, the rest of us just supposed to follow him even though he’d given no direction.