Airtight by David Rosenfelt Page B

reason to think it was strange that I was setting the meeting. Julie meets with cops all the time. But I knew that when Julie heard that I was coming in, she’d realize it was about Bryan.
    I couldn’t sleep after Chris Gallagher left my house, so I tried to be productive, filling the time by analyzing the options that I had. I was positive that everything he said was true, and that he was fully capable of killing Bryan.
    Goal number one had to be keeping Bryan alive until I could achieve goal number two, which was to free him. I had no idea yet how to get him out, but keeping him alive seemed achievable, as long as I followed Gallagher’s instructions.
    So I would conduct the investigation into Brennan’s death that Gallagher was demanding. There was no doubt about that. The only questions to be resolved would be how I would go about it, specifically who I would recruit and confide in.
    I couldn’t do it alone, and I certainly couldn’t do it in secret. I needed the access to information that my job provided, but people would inevitably become aware of my actions. I just had to make sure that they were people I could trust to exercise discretion. If the particulars of this situation got out, then I would have lost control, and Bryan would have lost a lot more.
    I was going to conduct a serious investigation, though I had no expectation of proving Steven Gallagher innocent. My hope was to find information that proved his guilt so conclusively that even his brother would accept it as the truth. Chris Gallagher seemed capable of anything, and that included rational thought.
    My first stop was to my office to speak to Emmit Jenkins. I needed him to be my right hand, if he was willing, and I was sure he would be.
    I told him the story, and watched him get furious as I told it. I’m not sure what it says about me, but Emmit was far angrier at the situation than I was. Gallagher thought I killed his brother with no justification. If I were in his situation, and I recognized the irony that soon I might be, there would be no place the killer could hide.
    “Give me ten minutes with him,” Emmit said. “He’ll be begging to tell me where your brother is.”
    I have great respect for Emmit’s physical prowess, but I didn’t think there was anyone, anywhere, who could get Chris Gallagher to do much begging.
    Then Emmit asked the key question, or at least the key question of the moment. “Who else are you going to tell?”
    I had my thoughts on the matter, but wanted his view. “What do you think?”
    “We gotta be careful,” he said, already using the pronoun that made us a team. “This gets out, somebody is going to want to arrest this guy for kidnapping.”
    I nodded. “I know. But I need to tell Barone.”
    He frowned his disagreement. “I’m not so sure that’s a good idea; the Captain will want to cover his ass.”
    “No doubt. But I need the resources of the department.”
    Emmit left and I went in to see Barone. There were two officers in with him, so I said, “I need to see the Captain alone.”
    They agreeably got up and left, and once they did, Barone said, “‘I need to see the Captain alone’ is not a phrase I like. The next thing I hear after that is usually a problem.”
    “This one’s a beauty,” I said, and proceeded to lay it out for him.
    “Damn,” he said when I was finished. “What are you going to do?” he asked, demonstrating that he and Emmit had little in common when it comes to pronoun usage.
    “I’m going to do what he says, while at the same time trying to find my brother. I don’t see any other way.”
    He nodded, but didn’t say anything.
    “I can’t do it alone, or just with Emmit,” I said. “I need the resources of the department.”
    “I’m listening,” he said. “I’m cringing, but I’m listening.”
    “No one except Emmit, you, and I will know about my brother. Everyone else involved will just think we’re covering our bases on the Brennan murder.”
    He