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shook my head, my jaw clenching.  
    “Why not?”  
    “Because fuck him, that’s why not.”  
     
    We went to the interview. Falkner was cool and professional, but there was a definite buzz of hatred coming off him. Maybe I was the only one who noticed.  
    He clicked on his tape recorder, identified himself, the date and the time. He asked us to identify ourselves for the clerk who would eventually transcribe this interview, and give permission to be recorded.  
    “Butch Atwood, union delegate. Permission granted.”  
    “Tina Crowne, attorney for the police union,” came a voice from the telephone speaker. “You have my permission.”  
    I leaned toward the recorder. “Officer Jake Stankovic. Permission granted.”  
    Falkner frowned slightly when I spoke, but the expression quickly disappeared under the flat expression he maintained.  
    He started his interview by calling me “mister” instead of “officer”. Every time he did it, I could feel the intent behind it.  
    You’re not worthy of being a cop.  
    This is going to be the end of the line for you.  
    I’ve got you, motherfucker.  
    I’d read the reports he’d filed already. Butch got copies almost as soon as they were filed, within a day at least. He asked me most, if not all, of the same questions he asked witnesses. Did I know the other person involved? Was this a planned event? He kept planting those little seeds. Even though I said, “I decline to answer on the advice of my attorney” to every question, I knew those seeds of doubt were going to take root.  
    When the interview was over, he stood first. “I’m sure you’ll want to consult after this,” he said, before gathering up his notes and leaving. He said it as if he’d just proven that I’d been on the grassy knoll in 1963. Like now was the time I’d want to chat with my lawyers about how to cut a deal to avoid the electric chair or a perp walk with a Jack Ruby kicker.  
    When he’d gone, I turned my fury on Butch and Tina. “How long have we been in here?”  
    Butch shrugged, but Tina answered immediately. “An hour and twelve minutes.”  
    It figured that the lawyer would know. Billable hours and all.  
    “Seventy-two minutes?” I asked. “And in all that time, neither one of you had a single thing to say? No objections, no clarifications? Nothing? What the fuck?”  
    Butch opened his mouth to speak, but Tina beat him to the punch. Her firm voice blared from the speaker phone. “It’s his interview, officer. And when you invoke the Fifth Amendment, it puts me in a difficult position to object to his questions since you aren’t going to answer them, anyway.”  
    “This was a dog and pony show,” I said.  
    Turns out I was wrong. The dogs and ponies were yet to come.  
     

SIX  
     
     
    When Falkner trotted his case over to the prosecutor, I expected him to be in for a huge disappointment. I read the case, courtesy of Butch and Tina keeping me in the loop. I was no Major Crimes detective, but even a cadet at the Academy could see that he didn’t have probable cause for robbery. And even if he did, there was no way a prosecutor would be able to convince a jury beyond a reasonable doubt that I’d conspired with this unknown shoplifter to commit a robbery for beer and cigarettes. The public might be buying into some of the newspaper’s line about police corruption, but this was going too far.  
    I should’ve never underestimated people where politics were concerned, though. Even though this was a shit case, the deputy prosecutor still signed it up as a robbery. There was simply too much pressure on the Chief and on the Prosecuting Attorney, who was running for re-election. Some of the other high-profile cases had been dumped, one lost at trial, and one had resulted in the guy being fired but then getting his job back via arbitration. Their record was hurting.  
    Next thing I knew, I got arraigned in Superior Court on robbery charges. They