I didn’t tell them about shooting Vanessa. Chris had taken the heat for it. For me.

And probably most of the officers I walked past suspected as much. And being the only one who knew for sure was making me crazy. I wished more than anything that Chris could remember. I wished I could tell him.

“He’s in his office, waiting for you,” the woman up front said, gesturing for me to head on back. This was the first time I’d walked through the station by myself. I tried to imagine doing it every day, on my way to my own desk, mulling over my own open cases. Yellow and brown pulsed in my temples, a relentless mix of determination and depression. Instant headache. No way could I work in this place. Never.

Martinez was standing behind his desk, sifting through a stack of papers. His cane was leaning against the wall, abandoned.

“Hey,” I said, knocking lightly on the door frame.

He looked up. “Oh, hey. You’re here. I was just trying to catch up.” He shook his head. “Don’t know if I ever will. Do you see this?” He gestured to the several piles of papers on his desk. Normally, his office was stark and overflowing with paperwork, but he’d seemed to know where everything was, even if it all looked like never-ending stacks of confusion to me. Having someone else dump a bunch of random things on his desk undoubtedly stressed him out.

“You’re not technically back on the clock, are you?” I said, stepping through the doorway. “You don’t have to catch up today.”

“It’s not going to get any better next week when I am back.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Next week?”

He nodded. “I’m getting around without the cane. And I’m sick of hanging out in my apartment. If I can sit on a couch, I can sit at my desk. As long as I can concentrate.” He narrowed his eyes at his computer, as if trying to remember what it was. Or maybe trying to remember what he’d been doing on it.

“Heriberto somebody,” I said.

He shifted his gaze to me, eyes still narrowed.

“You were investigating someone named Heriberto. I can’t remember his last name because words in other languages come to me in gr—” I caught myself again; felt my face flush. I tried out a shrug that felt fake as shit. I hoped it didn’t look as phony as it felt. “It was an unusual last name,” I said.

“Heriberto,” he repeated.

I pointed to the stack of files on top of his filing cabinet. I’d seen him set open cases there before. “Maybe he’s one of these?”