Part 6 (1/2)

”You don't know when to shut your mouth, do you?” Ramirez asked. He surged forward, reaching for his cuffs. ”If you'd kept your mouth shut, I wouldn't have to arrest you.”

”Arrest me?” Adam said. ”For what?”

Ramirez didn't bother with an answer. He grabbed Adam by the shoulder and tried to spin him around, pulling his arm back to cuff him. Adam, however, wasn't having it. He jerked away and held his hand out-not pus.h.i.+ng Ramirez, but keeping him at bay.

”Get your hand off of me,” Ramirez said as calmly as he could.

”You're not arresting me,” Adam said. ”I didn't do anything.”

”You've been hostile and rude from the moment you answered your door.”

”My girlfriend just died...burned right the f.u.c.k up! Of course I've been rude!”

”Oh, now you care about her dying?”

Adam gave a slight shove then, nearly making Ramirez fall down the stairs. Avery saw the look on Adam's face; he knew he had messed up with that one action. Ramirez responded by quickly squatting and launching himself into Adam. Both men stumbled backward and slammed into the closed front door.

Avery would have handled things totally differently but she saw where Ramirez was coming from. The guy did seem shady. She didn't think he was the killer, but he was certainly worth looking into...only not like this.

By the time she had dashed up the few steps and to the small stoop of a porch, Ramirez had Adam Wentz pushed face-first against the door and was slapping his cuffs on him.

”You're under arrest,” Ramirez said.

”For what?” Adam asked, his face still pressed against the door.

”I'll have to check the books for the proper terminology for being an a.s.shole,” Ramirez said. ”Accosting an officer won't look good, either.”

Avery stepped back for a moment as Ramirez led Adam Wentz down the stairs and to the car. Adam did not put up a fight. Avery wondered if this was some sort of resigned defeat on his part or just being smart and making sure he didn't get himself into any further trouble. She watched as Ramirez shut the door on Wentz and then opened his own door to get in.

Avery stood at the hood of the car and nodded him over. ”Come here,” she said.

”Yeah?” he asked, closing the door and meeting her in front of the car.

”You could have handled that better,” she said. ”This was an unnecessary arrest.”

”You don't think he's guilty?”

”I don't. He's certainly worth further questioning, but not worthy of what just happened. If he's a smart man-and that's probably a stretch, let's be honest-he could go after you with a lawyer.”

”Are you...what? Are you upset about this?”

”A little.”

”He was being really rude and inappropriate with you.”

”I've had tons of people be rude and inappropriate to me in this line of work,” Avery countered. ”This is no different. I have to wonder if you might not have cared quite as much if we weren't sleeping together.”

He looked offended at first but then grinned at her. She was a bit disarmed by it because, even in the midst of her frustration with him, it was d.a.m.ned s.e.xy.

”Maybe I wouldn't have,” he said. ”But it's done now. Let's take him back to the A1 and see what we can get out of him.”

Without allowing her time for a response, he went got into the car on the pa.s.senger side. Avery looked into the back of the car and saw that Wentz's face was like a stone-perfectly still and cold.

With an uneasy feeling in her stomach, Avery got behind the wheel and took Adam Wentz to A1 headquarters.

CHAPTER NINE.

Half an hour later, Avery looked at Adam Wentz through a two-way mirror. Ramirez was with her, as were Connelly and O'Malley. O'Malley was reading through Wentz's file, grumbling a few words here and there.

”If this cretin is smart enough to kidnap and then burn the body of someone, then I'll do a little dance on a bar tabletop right now,” he said. ”This guy's a waste of s.p.a.ce. Yeah, he likely deserves to be in jail for some reason, but not for the death of Keisha Lawrence.”

”We can't know that for certain,” Connelly said. ”Not until we've properly questioned him.”

”Yeah, good luck with that,” Ramirez said. ”It's like talking to a brick wall...a very badly tattooed brick wall.”

Connelly and O'Malley both looked at Avery. She shrugged and looked back out at Wentz. ”I can give it a try, I suppose.”

”And do it without Ramirez this time,” O'Malley said. ”The only thing Wentz has said since we sat him down in there was that Ramirez was too rough with him and arrested him on a bulls.h.i.+t charge. Which is technically true. But I can figure things out on that end. We can keep him here for a while.”

”I don't think we need to,” Avery said. ”It's not our guy.”

”How about you question him before you jump to such a conclusion?” O'Malley said.

Avery sighed and left the room. Before she entered the interrogation room, she took a moment to collect herself. She hated to play the s.e.xism card but she felt pretty sure that the men in the room she had just left might think more of her opinion if she had a p.e.n.i.s. It was a nice daydream to think that the workplace had evolved beyond such things but at the end of the day, Avery was well aware of the lay of the land.

Wentz will likely see me the same way, she thought. Got to make sure I don't give him a reason to.

She stepped into the interrogation room and closed the door behind her. She wasn't going to play good cop and she wasn't going to play bad cop. She was going to question him like a good little detective and provide enough proof to the men behind the mirror so they could let Wentz go-and so she could get back on the trail of the real killer. If she needed to, she'd get a little forceful but she didn't think it would come to that if she played her cards right.

She took the seat on the other side of the small table he was sitting at, ignoring the hateful look on Adam's face.

”What sort of relations.h.i.+p did you have with Keisha?” Avery asked. ”You've said it wasn't a fully committed relations.h.i.+p and you've also insinuated that there was s.e.x involved. Would you say you were emotionally attached to her?”

Adam thought about this for a moment with a lopsided smile on his face. ”Honestly...no,” he finally answered. ”I liked hanging out with her and the s.e.x stuff was really good. But we never lied to each other about what we had, you know? I saw other people and so did she.”

”There is a report in your file from about four months ago where she reported you beating her,” Avery said. ”She later dropped it. Why is that? Did you threaten her?”

”No. We got into an argument and I slapped her. Pretty hard.”

”Do you recall what the argument was about?”

”Over the stupid dog,” he said. ”I hate that dog. She'd bring it over to my place and it always jumped up on the couch. It would beg me to pet it. She brought it over one time when she wasn't feeling well and asked me if I'd walk it. I refused and the d.a.m.n thing ended up p.i.s.sing on my carpet. So I kicked the dog. And she got upset. We got into an argument, some things were said, and I ended up slapping her.”