Chapter 18

The hard-ass, bad-cop version of interviewing people had never been Sawyer's strong suit. He wasn't the sort of person who enjoyed pushing his version of events and breaking someone else's will; in his experience, those people had been the worst kinds of directors, and they made pretty bad detectives too. He preferred to take a cooperative approach: show the suspect certain pieces of evidence, tell them the conclusions being drawn, then give them time to explain. It worked way more frequently than he'd first expected it to, especially given that so many people lawyered up in an effort to prevent just those incautious explanations.

Sawyer hadn't expected Tami to be a challenge in the interview room. She didn't like him, that much was plain, but she also didn't seem to be a very good liar. While Nan showed her the video of her driving Kurt's car, Sawyer watched Tami's face carefully. He waited for the spot where they got a good look through the window, and—there. The tiny furrow in her brow, the way the corner of her lip trembled .

That was her, all right.

"You can see why we had to bring you in," Sawyer said once the video ended. "It's very clear that you're driving, Ms. Glen."

"I…" She shook her head. "No, that's not me."

"It is, though." Sawyer tapped his left ear. "Even if the look at your face wasn't enough, those earrings are definitely yours." The video was grainy but the earrings she'd been wearing—and was wearing now—were big and distinctive.

She gave him a half-hearted shrug. "Anyone could wear hoops like that."

"But we're not talking about anyone. We're talking about you."

Tami shook her head again and shifted in the chair. "It wasn't me. I've never driven that car in my life. I didn't do anything."

Sawyer leaned a little closer, tilting his head and affecting curiosity. "What is it that you think we're suggesting you did?" He gestured at the screen. "All we've shown you is footage of you behind the wheel of a car."

Tami opened her mouth to speak, but froze, her eyes wide and some color slipping out of her face. The oh fuck was plainly evident. She rallied quickly, though, and she crossed her arms as she sat up. "You wanted to talk to me about—"

"We never told you why we wanted to talk," Nan jumped in. "Only that we had some questions."

Tami's eyes flicked back and forth between them. "But it's… Why else would…" She swallowed hard as if trying not to throw up.

Now that she was off-guard, Sawyer pressed. "Ms. Glen, you already stated that you don't have an alibi for last night. "

"I told you I was at home—"

"We know you weren't at home," Nan snapped before Tami could start lying to them again. "We got access to the Ring camera from—"

"You can't do that!" Sawyer was a bit surprised by her sudden flare of temper. This was more like the Tami who'd snarked at him every time he entered the morgue, rather than the quiet, subdued version he'd seen so far today. "You can't access the cameras in my home without a warrant!"

"If you'd let me finish," Nan said through gritted teeth, "you'd know that we were given access to the Ring camera that belongs to your neighbor . She got clear footage of you leaving your home at ten p.m. last night and not returning until after two."

Tami shivered but didn't quite lose her newfound spine. "You're lying. Cops are allowed to lie to get confessions, I know that. I'm not stupid though; I'm not going to fall for it. Ring cameras don't record all the time."

"They do if you're security-conscious and pay for an upgraded policy," Sawyer said, already pulling up the video from Tami's neighbor. Getting this footage had been a lucky break; the neighbor had been more than willing to cooperate once they learned that Tami Glen was a person of interest in a case. Apparently, she never picked up after her dog.

Sawyer pushed play, and they all watched in silence as the camera showed Tami exiting her front door, heading down to the car on the street in a hurry, and driving off faster than was legal. "That's you leaving." He skipped ahead to where Nan had already keyed up the next part of the recording. "And here's you coming home at two." And she was staggering in this footage, either incredibly drunk or incredibly exhausted .

If she'd been hauling Kurt's body around, the exhaustion would make a lot of sense.

Stop it. Sawyer couldn't let himself focus on that part of things. If he thought in terms of what had been done to his partner, if he thought about the sheer terrible unfairness of his death and the breakdown it had caused in his wife, he wouldn't be able to keep his temper in check. He shouldn't have even been here. He shouldn't have been involved in this at all. But this was his case, damn it, so he'd stay until someone physically dragged him away from it.

"That doesn't mean anything," Tami said after a moment, but her fire was fading now. "So I went out for a drive. That's not a crime."

"It's a crime when you're driving the car of a police detective who'd just been murdered ." Nan crossed her arms over her chest. "That's the assessment of your friend Dr. Ramin, isn't it? Don't you trust his judgment?"

Tami scowled. "Bashir has nothing to do with any of this."

"I didn't say he did," Nan agreed, which—good, because Sawyer wasn't happy with the direction she was taking things. "But unless you're going to argue with his skills as an M.E., then the verdict stands—Detective McKay was murdered."

"We're not saying you killed him," Sawyer said in a calm voice. It was important that one of them stay calm. "All we want to know is how you came to be in his car last night, Ms. Glen." He leaned forward slightly, placing his elbows on the table. "Sometimes things happen that are outside our control," he said, doing his best to project trustworthiness. Tami Glen didn't like him…but Sawyer knew how to seem like someone that she could trust. "Sometimes life goes off the rails. I know you're not a killer, Tami. I trust Bashir's judgment, and I know that he likes you."

That brought a sheen of tears to her eyes, which gave Sawyer a surge of satisfaction. There was a hook. Now he needed to pull.

"Bashir thinks you're a good worker, a good person. He was stunned when we had to take you in earlier. I think he's right about you, Tami. I think this is a case of you being forced to do something you clearly didn't want to do." He lowered his voice a bit. "Who made you take part in this? How did they get you to do it? Whatever they have on you, we can help you." Confidence, assuredness, comfort. "We can make sure they leave you alone. Everything you're afraid of, all the consequences of your actions—the things you had no choice in—all that can be mitigated. You can get through this with a clean conscience, Tami."

"I—my conscience is fine."

Oh, it wasn't though. Sawyer knew the signs of someone who was on the verge of losing their shit, and Tami was getting there. If he could get her there before her lawyer showed up and she remembered not to talk…maybe it was time for another pivot.

"I called up Felix Daughtry this morning." He waited to see if she would react, but she was looking down at the table, her hands passive in her lap. "He runs the Stab in the Light podcast. Do you ever listen to it?"

For a second he thought she was going to deny it, but then… "Yes."

"Mm." Sawyer nodded. "You know, that podcast has been a real puzzle to me. The things Felix knows about the murders, all the details that he's been able to put in there—it's stuff he shouldn't have access to. I figure he's got to have an accomplice, either on the police force or at the morgue, who's been feeding him information."

Tami raised her eyes defiantly. "I've never spoken with that man in my entire life. You're fishing with bad bait, Detective Villeray, and I'm not going to bite."

"We don't need you to," Nan said, venom in her voice as she grinned across the table. "See, that's the thing about a conspiracy—it takes everyone being equally able to shut their damn mouths to make it work."

Tami frowned. "What are you talking about? There's no conspiracy, I'm not—I mean—"

"No, really, I want you to shut up for this part," Nan said. "I listened to a lot of fucking podcast episodes and endured a phone conversation more aggravating than talking with my ex for this, so I'm gonna lay it out for you, okay? Over the past three months, Felix has made sure to thank a ‘special researcher' on many of his episodes. In fact, he thanked this person on every episode that involved analysis of a body in some way. The sort of thing a medical examiner or one of their assistants might know about."

Tami was going to twist her fingers into knots at this rate. "I—I'm serious, I've never talked with him. Ever."

"Maybe you haven't talked to him face-to-face," Nan allowed. "But as soon as I told Felix that we had a member of the staff at the city morgue in custody, he was suddenly more than willing to share, of his own volition, a string of emails between himself and—well, I'm sure you can see where I'm going with this." Nan brought up a new screen on the computer, with an email selected that bore a familiar, very formal byline. "You really shouldn't have used your work account for breaking the law," she said with faux-commiseration .

"I didn't!" Tami's eyes were wide with horror as she looked at the email. "I didn't—I—it's not me!"

"Then who is it?" Sawyer asked, coming back to the fore as Nan effortlessly read his cues and ceded control of the interview to him. The ease of it gave him a little secondhand guilt when he remembered how hard it could be to do interviews like this with Kurt. "Who's making you do this, Tami? Who's forcing your hand? I know this sort of thing isn't like you. You're not the kind of person who would break the rules at work like that."

"Especially not when it could reflect badly on your supervisor," Nan chimed in. "You wouldn't want Dr. Ramin to get in trouble on your behalf, would you?"

Sawyer stiffened. Wait, what?

"Of course I don't want to get Bashir in trouble!" Tami protested. "This has nothing to do with him!"

"So who does it have to do with?" Nan asked. "You want us to leave your boss alone? Then you better give us another name—someone else to focus on—or Dr. Ramin could be brought up on charges just as easily as you."

That was…no, that absolutely wasn't true. Sawyer turned and looked at Nan, who was still staring at Tami, unflinching.

"Think of the damage you could do by not speaking," Nan said. "The damage to his career. You think he's ever going to forgive you for that?"

"Nan." That was Sawyer's knock-it-off tone of voice. He hoped she listened to him.

Tami's hand shook as she pressed it against her mouth. She didn't speak, but tears spilled from her eyes and down her cheeks, then onto the table. "Can I have some water?" she asked in a tiny voice. "I really need some water."

"You get water when we get answers, you— "

"Sure," Sawyer said. He felt the heat of Nan's glare against the side of his face but stood up without acknowledging it. "We'll bring you some water in just a minute, okay?" He left the room and Nan followed, slamming it shut behind them.

"What the fuck was that?" she demanded as soon as they had some space. "That woman knows way more than she's letting on—she's on the verge of giving her contact up! You don't stop a successful interrogation for a water break!"

"First, it's an interview, not an interrogation," Sawyer said. "And either way, we don't have any reason not to give her water. She needed a chance to regain a little equilibrium. Not to mention, you—"

"No," Nan insisted. "You don't give murder suspects—people who are suspected of murdering your damn partner —a chance to regain their goddamn equilibrium! You push them until they break, then you mop up the pieces well enough to keep the DA from breathing down your neck about police brutality. You think we're going to get the chance to apply that kind of pressure once her lawyer shows up?" Nan narrowed her eyes. "Wait. Is this about what I said about Dr. Ramin?"

Sawyer was thrown. "Excuse me?"

"Are you going easy on her because she works for him? I swear to God, Sawyer, if you're throwing this just because you're sleeping with her boss—"

"This has nothing to do with Bashir," he said firmly. "A break gives her a chance to contemplate her options, that's all. She knows we have her on camera in Kurt's car, she knows we can charge her with unauthorized disclosure of classified information—"

"A decent lawyer can argue circumstantial evidence with the first one, and the second carries a max of five years. And no judge I've ever heard of has bothered with sentencing someone for that long without priors." Nan pointed a finger at him. "You're fucking this up, and if she ends up getting away because of your soft hand and hard dick, we're going to have problems."

Right, because you're doing such a brilliant job.

The hell of it was, though, Nan was kind of correct. She was within her rights to push Tami in her soft parts, and Bashir was clearly a soft spot for her. Still… "Let me handle it now," he said. "Text me when her lawyer shows up." He filled a small plastic cup at the water cooler, then headed back into the room before Nan could do more than throw up her hands.

Tami was wiping her eyes clear as he came in. "Thanks," she said when she saw the water. "Do you have a tissue? My mascara has to be a wreck."

Wrong foot, wrong foot.

Sawyer needed to regain some ground. "No tissue, sorry. We need to—"

"Please? It's running into my eyes, I can barely keep them open."

"Use your shirt," he advised.

Tami scowled at him. "I thought you were nice! Why won't you do one little thing for me?"

Because you're trying to delay me, and it's working.

"I can't do anything else for you until you do something for me, Ms. Glen."

"What, like confess?" She snorted. "No way. I didn't kill anyone, and I'm not talking about the car thing. For all I know, you used a computer to fake that. Cops will do anything to get a confession, but you can't prove it's me or you would have already charged me."

Shit, Nan had been right. They should have pressed harder when she was low. "We don't have to charge you to maintain you as a person of interest in the case."

"Do that, then." She stood up. "If you're done, I'm leaving." She mustered a little smirk from somewhere. "Bashir won't be happy with you when he hears about what you've done today."

"You think he's happy that you're fucking around with his work?" Sawyer asked coldly. "Sit down, Ms. Glen. We're not done yet."

"But you haven't charged me. You said I was free to go."

"I did and you are," he said calmly. "But that could change. I can hold you for forty-eight hours without charging you if I want to."

Her eyes widened. "You can't do that!"

"I don't want to, but I absolutely will if you don't sit down right now." He was treading on thin ice, but he didn't apologize for it.

She sat, a wary look coming across her face once more. "This is pointless," she muttered.

"I agree. I think you're absolutely capable of murder, myself." Sawyer leaned in a bit. "I just don't think you're smart enough to pull off something like this."

"I'm smart! You don't get where I am without being smart!"

He shrugged. "Sure, you're smart, but you're not dedicated. The way your engagement fell apart speaks to that." He watched her start to go red. "You tried to trade up and failed. Your fiancé left you, and you're still working for the man you confessed was not only the reason your engagement failed, but he also turned you down. You're probably furious."

"I—what—"

"I get it. I might be mad too, if I drove my life off a bridge for no good reason. No husband, a boss who doesn't trust you…yeah, you'd definitely try to pin these killings on him if you were good enough."

"How dare you!"

"But you're not. All you're doing is making it look like someone smarter is pulling your strings. Are you so desperate to ruin Bashir's career that you'll sit here in silence instead of telling the truth?"

Now the tears resurfaced. Sawyer didn't care this time. "Do you hate him that much?" he continued. "So much that you want to see him ruined at all costs? So much that you'll smile when he's investigated and mistakes are found in his files—mistakes that you yourself put there?"

"I didn't!" Tami insisted.

"How you can hate a man you once loved enough that your engagement ended over it is just…it's appalling on so many levels. And now you're going to get his license to practice medicine pulled for no other reason than—"

" Stop it! " she shrieked, standing up and hitting her hands on the table. "Stop saying that! I don't want Bashir to be hurt! I love Bashir! I would never let him—"

The door burst open. "What is going on here?" Tami's attorney rounded the table to put a quelling hand on his client's shoulder. "This is absolutely disgusting! Is this how the police conduct their interviews in this department? My client is giving you the courtesy of her time, and you treat her like this?"

Sawyer glanced over his shoulder at Nan, who grimaced and mouthed "Too fast to text."

"I ought to sue the department!"

"Suing us won't make your client any less guilty," Nan said, taking over the argument. It ended in mutual threats but none actually triggered, with the lawyer leading Tami out and into the lobby…where Bashir was waiting.

Tami wailed and ran forward, throwing herself into Bashir's arms. "They're saying such terr—terrible things about you," she got out. "Terrible things!" She wept long black streaks across his camel-colored coat, and when Bashir looked over at Sawyer with betrayal on his face, a cold knot began to grow in the pit of his stomach.

Shit. Things were about to get really fucking complicated.