Read Online Shot of Tequila by J. A. Konrath - Free Book Online Page A

any?”
    “I’ve thought about that night many times. I was the one who found the stash. I could have filled my pockets without anyone else knowing.”
    “Why didn’t you?”
    “I guess,” Benedict said, opening the door for Jack when they reached the first floor, “because I’m an honorable man. It wasn’t my money. I was sworn by my duty not to steal. What would you have done?”
    “Same thing. Did you find drugs on that raid too?”
    “Yeah. I ripped off two keys of Mexican brown.”
    Daniels laughed.
    “Stuffed them down a pants leg,” Herb said. “How do you think I bought a house while still so young?”
    “You mortgaged the hell out of it.”
    “Damn right. Come to think of it, I should have stole some of that damn money.”
    They walked side-by-side to Jack’s office, and Jack plopped down in the ratty swivel chair behind her desk. She rolled over to the table where the computer perched, the screen saver a picture of Homer from The Simpsons . Punching a few keys, Jack accessed the data entry screen and fed in information on the killer with the Monarch butterfly tattoo. She programmed in three searches; one for white males under five seven, another for individuals with tattoos, and the last one incorporating both.
    “So why didn’t Butterfly just kill Binkowski?” Herb asked. “Why risk leaving a witness alive? He’d already killed one guy. Why not kill two and take all the money?”
    “That’s the million dollar question.”
    The dot matrix printer, big as a Studebaker and damn near as old, began to slowly spit out search results.
    “How’s things at home?” Herb asked.
    Jack’s face pinched. Last month, after a particularly mean-spirited fight with her husband, Jack had been off her game and Herb caught her on it. In a moment of weakness she’d confessed to some marital problems, which Herb apparently thought was okay to talk about at any given time.
    The thing was, unlike practically every other cop in the District—all sharing Y chromosomes and waiting to pounce on the female detective if she made the slightest mistake—Herb didn’t seem to be using the information as a lever or a bludgeon. He seemed genuinely concerned.
    Jack had no real friends, either on the Job or on the outside: Her eighty hour work weeks were already causing a big strain on her marriage, and there was zero time left over for herself. It was a high price to pay to be taken seriously in this old boys’ network, and because of that Jack didn’t really have anyone to talk about her problems with.
    Herb engaged in the normal station camaraderie that Jack was excluded from because of her sex, but he didn’t seem to have a chauvinistic bone in his skinny body. He was, in fact, the perfect partner.
    But could she trust him?
    “The usual,” Jack said. She figured she could skimp on the details, downplay the seriousness. “He’s worried he’s going to get the call to ID my body at the hospital.”
    “That’s crazy. I’m your partner. I’d be the one who IDed you.”
    Jack saw the humor but didn’t smile.
    “It’s not easy being a cop’s wife, Jack. Or husband. You have to be stronger than the cop you’re supporting. Bernice is much stronger than I am. I’d go nuts if I knew she was on the street, constantly in danger of getting killed. I couldn’t handle it.”
    “Maybe Bernice should talk to Alan.”
    “I can ask her, if you’d like.”
    Jack pictured Alan getting a call from Herb’s wife, how her husband would scream that she was airing their dirty laundry.
    “Probably not a good idea. It wouldn’t go well.”
    Herb opened his mouth to say something supportive, but Jack cut him off.
    “Computer says seven hundred and forty probables in the first search alone. Why don’t you go home, Herb?”
    “You should too.”
    “I will,” Jack lied.
    “See you tomorrow, Jack. Or later today anyway.”
    The skinny cop left the office, and Jack Daniels leaned back in the leather swivel chair and stared