“She’s my aunt,” I tell him like he insulted me. “We were close for a lot of years.”

“I didn’t mean to suggest anything by that.”

“I know.” Sip some coffee. “Fuck, I taught him how to swim. Aunt Linda has a pool at their house in Ohio. I took a couple weeks’ leave from the department after she got divorced to be with him. He was more like my little brother than a cousin. Gotta tell ya, there were moments when I was surveilling him that I wanted to break off and try to pull him outta all that shit. Maybe that’s all he needed.”

“You can’t question yourself like this, what you should’ve done. Probably wouldn’t have made a difference. You know that.”

“He wasn’t a criminal, Joe.”

He doesn’t respond.

“Fuck. I gotta get out from under this,” I say and realize how it sounds.

“Well, hopefully we’ll get to the bottom of it soon.”

“Hopefully?”

“Frank, listen. The case we just wrapped up took a year. I was surprised they didn’t pull the plug on it months ago. They sure as hell would have now because of this case. I don’t want to be stuck on this. I like my world of burglary, not bodies.” He looks like he realizes how that sounds. “I’m sorry. It’s your cousin. I didn’t mean for it to sound like that.”

“No worries. Anything on that kid at the club, the one with the dreadlocks?”

“We’re working all the leads, Frank.”

For obvious reasons he’s keeping me out of the loop. For all I know they already picked him up and he’s in the box getting drilled by Millhoff. I leave it alone.

Hurley seems like he cares and loves the job. That’s rare these days, especially with all the shit the guys go through both departmentally and with the general population. Sometimes when you’re dealing with cases that involve robbery, burglary, or narcotics, a whole new level of crime can come out of one arrest. Organizations like MPDC don’t like that kind of thinking because it usually involves a long-term investigation, which is a dirty combination of words. It’s a wrap-it-up culture now. It’s about numbers, about procedure. Think outside the box, and you’ll end up being like the redheaded stepchild. Come to think of it, Hurley has reddish-blond hair.

I know how difficult burglary cases are to close. It’s even harder to recover whatever was stolen. Hurley seems to have mastered it. That alone gives me hope.

Sandwiches finally arrive. Another thing that hasn’t changed. If you’re gonna eat here, you’d better make sure you have the time. It doesn’t matter if it’s crowded or if there are just a few people, like now. The orders come slow.