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Regardless, he was definitely offensive guard sized.
    “I don’t think anything at this point.”
    “Missus F was the best, man. She was great.” That came from the slight red haired kid named Swenson, sitting on Scotty’s right, hanging onto his arm. Through his trendy black eyeglass frames Tony could see he had been crying too.
    “That’s what I’m finding out. That’s why I said I was sorry.”
    “So what’s this talking bullshit?” Hong, protecting his friend, Tony thought, not hiding anything.
    “We’re trying to get a handle on where everyone who knew Scott’s mother was from Sunday night through Monday morning, anyone with any connection.” Tony took out his pad but didn’t open it.
    “Why separately?” the Swenson kid asked. He had an innocent look to him. Tony guessed that in his whole life he’d never been involved with the police, probably never in trouble with the law, certainly not hip deep in a murder investigation.
    Tony decided to lay a few cards out, try to get them on his side. “Because that’s what the instruction book says to do.” He tried a smile.
    “Instruction book?” Hong’s accusing tone told Tony that the both the smile and the joke had failed.
    “Look, I was trying to lighten things up a little. I just made detective. This is my first case. Help me out here.”
    “Oh great! Just fucking great.” Scotty buried his head in his arms. “My mom’s dead and we’ve got
you
on the case. The newbie. A noob. Just fucking great.”
    “Scott.”
    “What.” The young man looked up with something close to a sneer on his face.
    “I’m a new detective, not a new cop, all right? I’ve got almost seven years on the force and I spent the last year and a half undercover with the Narcotics Unit. Any of you guys read about the big meth bust, what, four months ago?” Hong and Swenson nodded. Scotty didn’t care. He didn’t seem to hear him.
    “I was the inside guy. Look, we’ve got a whole team working this one, a great team. Rayford Bankston is a legend in the department and he’s my partner. We’re going to find out who killed your mother, Scott. I promise. But I need to talk to you guys…separately. And I need to talk to your other roommate. What was his name again?”
    “Sean. Sean Stuckey.”
    “Right. He around?” Three heads shook. “I’ll catch him later. Scott, let’s you and me go in the kitchen, talk for a bit, and then I’ll get a statement from your friends. Okay?”
    “Detective de Luca?”
    “Tony.”
    “Tony, what’s it like being undercover?” Hong seemed to have calmed down. Scott paused on the way to the kitchen to listen.
    “What’s the most frightened you’ve ever been? I mean piss-your-pants scared.”
    David thought for a second.
The time he’d bungee jumped? The car crash when he totaled his
brother’s pickup?
He shared both of those stories.
    Tony realized they were all listening closely. “Now be
that
scared 24/7 for something like six months. That’s undercover. If the bad guys make you you’re dead. If you slip up, you’re dead. Hell, during the take-down, if one of the cops isn’t in on who you are, you’re dead. I don’t want to do it again.”
    “But you got ’em, right? You busted them all? That’s what the paper said.”
    “We got all of them involved in the meth operation. The Latin Kings is a pretty big gang though.”
    “Holy shit.”
    Tony knew he had their attention now, maybe even their respect. And
holy shit
was right, because there were still a lot of the LKs still out there and he had a lot riding on keeping his true identity secret. The trial was still a month away.
    The interviews went well after that. Tony had a short list of specific questions he wanted to get into with each of them but he let it run conversationally. He knew he was amassing a lot of information and a lot of it would ultimately be useless. But Ray said they needed to get into these people’s lives to make any progress on this one, so