“You as well. Thanks for coming down.” Tom held out his hand, which Jake shook. “If I think of anything that might help figure out who archived for Stahl, I’ll let you know.”

“I’d appreciate that. I wish you peace and Godspeed in your journey, Tom.”

“Thank you.”

Jake forced himself to leave Tom with a smile, even as he was filled with sadness for his old friend.

Amanda walked him to the door. “Thanks for coming. Your visit made his day.”

“Thanks for having me at such a difficult time.” He handed her his business card. “If there’s anything our department can do for either of you, don’t hesitate to reach out. The blue family takes care of its own.”

“I appreciate that.”

“Please keep me posted on how Tom is doing.”

“I will.”

“Take care of yourself, Amanda.”

“I’m trying.”

Jake walked down the block to summon an Uber back to the Quarter. On the ride to his hotel, he called Joe. “It wasn’t Tom. He said he kept his distance from Stahl, like most people did. He was disgusted when he heard what he’d done with the Deasly case and asked what was with him trying to kill Sam twice.”

Joe’s deep sigh came through loud and clear. “Who does that leave us with?”

“Skip and Conklin, who I probably should’ve started with.”

“Son of a bitch. It must be him. There’s no way it was Skip.”

“I would’ve said there was no way it’d be Paul either. He hated Stahl.”

“Stahl must’ve had something on him,” Joe said, sounding as disgusted as Jake felt. “Can you talk to him when you get back to town?”

“Yeah, I’ll take care of it.”

“In the meantime, Forrester is pressuring me for a full investigation into all of Stahl’s cases, starting with the successful convictions. I’m going to divide that up among the various squads that investigated the cases. Deputy Chief McBride is going to oversee it for me.”

“That’s an excellent plan. She’ll do a great job.”

“I fear this situation is going to get a whole lot worse before we see the end of it.”

“I agree.”

“When are you coming home?”

“Going to try to get a flight tonight.”

“Keep me posted, and tomorrow, I’m going to work on getting you back here where you belong.”

“Hey, Joe…”

“Yeah?”

“Seeing Tom so sick has me thinking about a lot of things.”

“Such as?”

“Life after the MPD.”

“Don’t you do this to me.”

“We need a plan to exit together before too much longer. Tom was living his best life, happily married for the first time, then lightning struck, and now he’s got months to live, if that. I don’t want to see that happen to either of us.”

“I don’t either, but we’ve got to clean up this mess Stahl left us with before we go anywhere.”

“Agreed, but after that, we need to have a conversation.”

“I’ll talk to you then.”

“It’s a date.”