The Misfortune Cookie: An Esther Diamond Novel by Laura Resnick Page B

slapped.
    “We’re dropping the charges.”
    “Good!” I said with relief. Then: “Um, why? Napoli seemed to think that
hanging
would be too good for me.”
    “I screwed up the arrest,” said Lopez, looking through the clerk’s window to check on progress. “This could take a few minutes. They’re understaffed tonight.”
    I frowned. “What do you mean, you screwed it up?”
    “Oh, I charged you with the wrong thing.” He sounded as tired as he looked. “I didn’t read you your rights. I filled out the report wrong. And so on.”
    I hadn’t even noticed any of this. I’d been too upset to be aware of the whole ordeal as anything other than a surreal nightmare.
    Lopez added, “I thought about sexually harassing you in front of witnesses, but that seemed like overkill. And I’ll have enough explaining to do, as it is.”
    I stared at him as I realized what he was saying. “You mean you screwed up on
purpose?
”
    “Of
course
it was on purpose,” he said a little testily. “Although you might not believe it, based on tonight, I’m not actually a raging incompetent.”
    “I don’t understand,” I said. “Why did you screw up?”
    Now he was annoyed. “Because seeing you at the restaurant—where you
weren’t supposed to be,
Esther—right in the middle of my bust . . . Well, it threw me off my game. I got rattled. And then you and I devolved into some kind of insane tabloid brawl. Which I
still
don’t really know how . . . Wait.
No.
I swore I wouldn’t go there again. Not here and now.” Lopez took a deep breath and regrouped. “I’m just saying, I’m normally a lot better at my job than that.”
    “Um, no, I meant, why did you screw up my arrest?”
    “Oh.” He blinked. “That?”
    “Yes,” I said, clinging to my patience. “That.”
    He scrubbed a hand over his face before answering, as if trying to wake himself up. “Well, I saw there was no way Napoli would let you go. Not in those circumstances. He was going to bring you in tonight, no matter what.” Lopez shrugged. “So I made sure that we can’t keep you.”
    Now I thought I understood. “By handling this so sloppily that you have to drop the charges?”
    He nodded. “You’d have to be a much more important collar for the prosecutor to stick with this and try to press charges after the mess I’ve made of your arrest. So we’re cutting you loose.”
    I remembered Napoli’s comments in the restaurant when Lopez decided to take over arresting me. “Detective Charm knew you were going to do this, didn’t he?”
    “Yeah.” He looked through the window again. “Oh, good, they’ve got your stuff.”
    “I don’t get it. Napoli is such a jerk. Why—”
    “He’s not the easiest guy in the world to get along with,” Lopez admitted, “but he’s a good cop, and he’s fair. We’ve learned how to work with each other. Though you probably couldn’t tell, based on tonight’s performance.”
    “But he can’t stand me,” I said. “So why did he let you go ahead and do this?”
    “Because it’s a fair compromise all around,” Lopez said dryly. “You got to slap me, which Napoli thought I deserved. He got to make his point in front of the Gambellos about hitting a cop. And me . . . well, I guess I won’t have to explain to anyone why you’ve got a criminal record.” As he handed my stuff to me, he concluded, “See? Everyone walks away a winner.”
    “Some victory,” I muttered. “No money, no job . . .”
No boyfriend.
    “You’ll find another job,” he said firmly. “You can do better than a mob joint that’s full of wiseguys hitting on you.”
    “I liked it there,” I said grumpily.
    His shoulders slumped. “I know.” His voice was soft, and he was avoiding my eyes again.
    “So I guess this thing happened because of the way OCCB has been putting the Gambellos under a microscope ever since the Fenster heists first hit the news?” I said.
    Lopez nodded, then said, “Now check to make