Daniels’ office was growing smaller, the air thicker. “I shouldn’t say anything more until I have a lawyer. Shouldn’t you have read me my rights by now?” Tom asked.

“Your rights?” Daniels did smile at that. “We’re just having a friendly chat, Tom. No need for all that commotion. You feel the cuffs on you yet?”

Tom tried to appear unfazed. The chat hardly felt friendly, but he wasn’t cuffed, and he wasn’t in a cell. That much was true. “Then I can leave? I don’t have to stay here?”

“Have to?” Daniels repeated. “You don’t have to do anything, Tom.”

Tom thought about their phone call only an hour earlier. “‘You’re going to need to come in’. Those were your exact words on the phone,” Tom said.

“Just inviting you to stop by,” Daniels said.

“That or I can bring you in’.” Tom leaned forward. “Hardly sounds like an invitation.”

“Just offering you a ride, son.”

Tom jumped from his chair and spat, “You cops go around doing whatever you want — no one does a damn thing about it!”

Daniels’ eyes gleamed with amusement. “Is that right?”

“You’re no better than those assholes shooting kids.”

“That may be a bit of an exaggeration.”

“Who keeps you in check, huh?” Tom went on preaching. “When you pull crap like this, who am I supposed to call to do something about it?”

“Ghostbusters,” Daniels offered, to Tom’s fury. “Nah, nah, simmer down. We keep ourselves in check. Through self-flagellation.”

Tom could have hit him then. “Yeah, this is hilarious, detective. Keep making jokes.”

“Purging of the flesh is purging of the conscience. Remember your Jesus now, Tom. Seems to me though, you the one with a weighty mind.” He leaned forward and put his hands on the desk. “Got something you need to confess?”

Tom shook his head at him in disbelief. “You don’t have a thing on me but circumstance. I’m leaving.”

Daniels sipped his coffee and held a hand towards the door, in case Tom had forgotten where it was.

When he pushed through the precinct doors downstairs, Tom was greeted by pouring rain and a reporter huddled under an umbrella. “Mr. Hooper,” she began, walking hurriedly next to him while her cameraman followed blindly, juggling umbrella and camera. “We understand you are being investigated in relation to two murders. Would you care to comment?”

Tom was at a loss for words trying to figure out how they knew any of this. He looked over his shoulder at the office windows, searching for Daniels in one of them. He expected to see him sipping his coffee and watching, but the shaded frames were void of spectators. He kept walking, his eyes set forward.

“Sources say you work as a delivery driver at Tonino’s when you’re not in classes and that you didn’t like the way your victims tipped?” She turned to her cameraman and asked, “Does that play? It felt forced.”

He peered out from behind the view finder. “Try a few more, we’ll just cut it together later.”