“Which is not good if you’re Hartley,” Remy said. “’Cause you think, here’s this assassin you hired to kill a cop’s family. And now the cop’s father-in-law and his P.I. are getting close to that assassin. And that kinda crap’s gonna lead back to you.”

“Shit, Rem.” I ran my hands through my hair, realizing something about the timing.

“The day Tarticoft cleared out his machine shop,” I said. “It’s the day before Johnson Hartley joined the suit against the department. Agreed to work pro bono.”

Remy flicked her eyebrows at me. “So now we’re seeing the whole chessboard like him. Tarticoft didn’t just disappear from your radar. He disappeared from Hartley’s radar. And Hartley had to do something about it. He had too much to risk if Tarticoft talked.”

I thought about this. About my father-in-law, Marvin, being on a trail that could lead from Tarticoft, the assassin, right to Hartley. The next day Hartley joined in on the lawsuit to get me fired.

“Yeah,” I said. “That tracks.”

“So Hartley tries to marginalize you,” Remy said. “To get you fired by suing the department. But instead, they don’t fire you. And I kill Tarticoft.”

“Hartley’s loose end is tied up,” I said. “And I’m suspended.”

“His problems are over,” Remy said. “Except you don’t go away after May. You got demoted, but you’re still sniffing out Hartley. Camped outside his house. Following him. So he gets a new idea. Maneuvers into a place to run the police board. Figures P. T. Marsh’ll do something stupid sooner or later. And then he’ll have you out on official grounds.”

“Hartley’s making moves to counter moves we don’t even know that we’re making.”

“We know we’re making them,” Remy clarified. “Just not against him.”

“So what now?” I said. “Adrian’s still dead.”

“Sure,” Remy said. “But Hartley can’t be pulling all this shit off by himself. Especially if that powder under the liquor store was drugs. He’s gotta have a crew, P.T. You got any leads on who else works with him?”

I pulled a pile of paperwork from my satchel. The stuff I’d printed at the precinct the other night when I had Hope’s log-in.

Remy saw me scanning a police report. “Does Hartley have a record?”

“No,” I said. “But he had some altercation with patrol back in 2004. He was young, but . . .”

I stared at a particular paper, making a connection.

“There was a passenger in the car with Hartley,” I said. “During this beef he got into.”

I paged through the old police report. “Hartley is twenty-eight back then. The other guy in the car is eighteen.”

“Family?” she asked.

“Different last names.”

“A friend?” Remy asked.

“I dunno,” I said. Moving to the next page of the police report.

“A special friend?” my partner continued, stretching her booted leg. “Hartley’s twenty-eight and this guy’s eighteen?”

“The passenger’s name is Steele Vankle,” I said, finding what I was looking for. “Nowadays he’d be in his thirties.”