I shook my head. She nodded resolutely and exited the car. The wind lashed at her hair and clothes as she walked toward the SUV. Things weren’t much calmer in the vehicle’s interior. Harry saw Gardner and went stiff. “Who the fuck is that?”
Morales smiled. “That’s Special Agent Miranda Gardner. Over in Detroit they call her the Velvet Hammer.”
Harry frowned. “Why?”
“Because she’s got a way of making people talk who don’t want to.”
Harry swallowed hard. “I want to speak to my lawyer.”
“Relax,” Morales said, patting him on the shoulder. “We’re just giving her a ride to the precinct.”
Gardner pulled open the SUV’s side door. The cold wind whipped through the small space like a nor’easter. “Gentlemen,” she said, nodding to the two in the back. “Prospero, take us to the precinct.”
Harry blew out a long breath. “Thank Christ.”
Gardner smiled. “Drive slowly.”
I nodded and put the SUV in Drive. As I drove, I chewed on my bottom lip and kept checking behind me. What we were doing was highly unethical. Even Gardner, who had come up with the plan, looked tense. Only Morales appeared to see the whole thing as some sort of joyride.
“Mr. Bane, I need you to understand that once we reach the precinct, you will be arrested.”
Harry jerked in his seat as if she’d stuck him with a hot poker. “What? I already told them that gun wasn’t mine.”
She shook her head. “It’s not about the gun. In the last couple of hours, my team stumbled on some evidence linking you to the murder of Marvin Brown.”
Harry’s face morphed into a practiced mask, but his complexion had paled about five shades. “Who the fuck is that?”
Gardner tilted her head. “He was a Herald for the Votary Coven before he was brutally attacked and his body left on the premises of Volos Towers.”
“So?”
“So, we know you were there, Mr. Bane. At the very least, you conspired to move the body onto Mr. Volos’s property in an effort to frame him for the murder.”
“You can’t prove that.” Harry looked too sure of himself. No doubt he was thinking back to how he and his partner had disabled the video cameras. Also, he happened to be correct. We couldn’t prove shit yet, which was precisely why we were applying the heat in the hopes he’d crack.
Gardner looked at Morales, who handed an evidence bag to her. She held it up high so Harry could see it. “Vice Royals. It’s your brand, right?”
He frowned. “Yeah, so?”
She reached into the briefcase she’d brought with her. “This bag contains a cigarette butt found at the crime scene.” She paused and let that hang there for a good thirty seconds. Even from my vantage point, watching everything unfold through the rearview, I could see the large beads of sweat that appeared on Harry’s upper lip. “Did you know that the MEA’s lab techs can now process DNA from crime scenes in less than twenty-four hours, Mr. Bane?”
His mouth worked like a fish trying to dislodge the hook Gardner had just wedged in there nice and tight. “Me being there isn’t proof I killed that asshole.”
Boom. Morales and Gardner exchanged a quick victorious look. Now we had the proof we needed that Harry had been the one dumping the body.
“Regardless, we’ll be able to pin an aiding-and-abetting charge on you. Combined with the gun charge, you’re looking at a nice, long vacation.”
“So?” Harry laughed. “I’m Ramses Bane’s son. I’ll be treated like a fucking prince in Crowley.”
“You won’t be in Crowley,” Gardner said. “I already checked with State Attorney Stone. The murder rap doesn’t fall under federal Arcane statutes. You’ll probably go to a Mundane state prison.”
Morales whistled low. “Ouch. Better start limbering up your jaw now, son. You’re gonna make sweet cell candy for some Bubba.”
Harry swallowed audibly. “This is bullshit. I want to see my lawyer.”
Look, I didn’t like this guy at all. Harry had been a pain in my ass since we were kids. He used to throw tantrums whenever all the kids got together to play Wiz versus the Fuzz. If he didn’t win, he’d throw these ridiculous fits. He was so easy to rile up, Volos started calling him “Harry” just to watch how his face turned purple with rage. Plus, given what we knew now, I was reasonably sure he was knee-deep in the Gray Wolf bullshit, along with his father. Still, watching him get shaken down by Morales and Gardner left an acrid taste in my mouth. The one thing that separated the cops from the criminals was that cops followed the rule of law. Those principles were the razor-thin line between them and us. But watching Morales and Gardner work, I felt as if they hadn’t just crossed the line but leaped over it with abandon.
On the other hand, I knew that if we granted his request and delivered him to the precinct without getting what we needed, we’d be sunk. His daddy’s high-priced lawyers would have him out on bail by nightfall and then he could disappear. Or worse, he and his father could take the next step in whatever their fucked-up plan was to create havoc in the Cauldron.
As I navigated the tricky morality of the situation, I aimed the SUV in tighter and tighter circles nearing the station. Every now and then, we’d pass a BPD cruiser and my fingers would tighten on the steering wheel. “Guys, we need to wrap this up.”
Gardner looked up and nodded. “The problem is the murder is the BPD’s case, but they don’t have the same evidence I’m sitting on. See, my goal is to find the person behind Gray Wolf. If I hand the evidence to the BPD, you’re going down, but I’m left empty-handed. Unless…” she trailed off. “Never mind.”
Harry sat up straighter after a brief struggle with his cuffed hands. “What?”
She sighed. “Well, it’s like this: The US attorney assigned to this case has a real hard-on for getting the guy behind Gray Wolf. So if someone had good information about the wizard behind it, the attorney would be very grateful.”
“Don’t insult me.” Harry pressed his lips together. “You just saw what happens to snitches in the Cauldron.”
“You ever heard of the game they play in Mundane prisons? ‘Scalping,’ they call it.” Morales waited for Harry to narrow his eyes before he explained. “It’s where they see who can cut off more fingers from the left hands of Adepts. They call it ‘scalping’ on account of it’s like how the Indians used to collect scalps from the gringos who tried to take over their land.”