Playing the sympathy card

Neal had spent the weekend trying to find out where the music box was without success. That was the troublesome thing with Nazi loot. Once people realized they had bought plundered items from the losing side of a war, the items that were not returned were often hidden.

He had visited the Solomon R. Guggenheim museum to dispel his thoughts for a few hours. It had been relaxing but had not helped. The break had not made him see things in another light. He still did not know where the music box was.

On Monday he called Peter and said he would walk to the office and did not need to be picked up.

When he stepped into the elevator Peter was there, on his way up from the garage.

"Morning, Peter."

"Morning, Neal."

It was a warm day and Neal had his suit jacket over his arm. Shirt, vest, tie and hat, Neal was pretty certain it was formal enough for work. Besides, with four years in an orange jumpsuit behind him, he loved the wardrobe that came with the apartment. Even if he had been able to use his financial assets in the open, he would have bought suits, ties, and vests. And hats. Why did not everyone use hats?

"Good weekend?" he asked and the door opened to the 21st floor.

"Great!" Peter grinned. "New York won 4-3 in overtime. How was the Guggenheim?"

Peter had checked his anklet, no surprise there.

"Excellent!" Neal replied. "Saw a rumination on the physicality of space and the nature of sculpture." It had indeed been fine hours there.

"Glad I missed it," Peter said with a smirk.

"Back at you." How someone could prefer baseball to the magnificent experience of fine art and modern sculpture was beyond his understanding.

Jones met them.

"David Sullivan is waiting for you in the conference room."

Peter made a frustrated sound.

"Perfect."

"What's wrong?" Neal could not remember hearing anything about a 'David Sullivan', but on the other hand, he only had access to a minimal part of the cases the department was working on.

"He's been calling all week about a mortgage-fraud case," Peter explained. "It's a pretty cut-and-dry foreclosure. I don't know what else we can do for him."

Neal turned his head and saw a man and a child in the conference room.

"He brought his little girl," Jones said.

"Aw, jeez," Peter sighed and scanned through the glass wall too. "He's playing the sympathy card."

Neal did not move his eyes from his handler.

"Is it working?"

"Yep," Peter admitted and accepted the folder Jones was handing him. "Thanks," he added to Jones who left for other work.

"Let's go talk to him," his handler said with a gesture that indicated that he should come along.

"What, you need me for this?"

Peter nodded and Neal understood why his handler did not want to go alone on this one.

"You're uncomfortable around the 6-year-olds."

"I don't speak their language." That was true. Neal remembered Peter with the little girl Bai about two months ago.

"I do?"

"Yeah, you do, Peter Pan. Come on."

Neal followed Peter up the stairs to the conference room. Had he been out for only a little over four months? It felt like the four years in prison was a distant memory.

"Mr. Sullivan," Peter greeted the man, who rose on the other side of the table. "And this must be…"

"Allison," Sullivan filled in. The girl gave the two of them a glance and returned to her drawing.

"That's a five one five form, not a coloring book," Peter mumbled with a shocked voice.

"I'm sure the Bureau will get by without it," Neal broke in. He winked at the girl. "Encourage that artistic ability."

"What's going on, Mr. Sullivan?"

"The bank forecloses on our home in a week."

"Mr. Sullivan's father recently passed," Peter updated Neal.

"I'm sorry to hear that," Neal said to Mr. Sullivan who acknowledged with a nod.

"He left him his home," Peter continued. "And before his death, he took out a second mortgage on it."

"He didn't take out a second mortgage," the man protested. His eyes flickered between the two of them and finally settled on Neal. "He would never do that. Someone cheated us."

Neal who felt he was there only because of the presence of little Allison lowered his eyes and kept quiet.

"I looked at your case, Mr. Sullivan. I'm sorry, but things like this happen."

"Was your father in debt?" Neal asked.

"He wasn't in debt. I know him!"

"Do you?" Peter bounced back. "Last three years of his life, he was in an extended-care center. You only visited four times. I told you, I looked at your case."

Ouch, Neal thought. That man is thorough.

"Look…" Sullivan fought to find the right words. "My dad was a hard man. Near the end of his life, he wanted to know his granddaughter. She got us past our differences. He wanted to give her a home to grow up in. That's how I know my father wouldn't take out a second mortgage to play blackjack, okay. You're our last chance."

Neal glanced at Peter. He knew the man had the heart in the right spot, but that did not change the facts that the man's dad had taken a loan.

The little girl put her pens down the held out her drawing to Peter.

"That's you," she said.

A tree, a house, and a man in a striped sweater. Under it was 'Agent Burke' written in colorful letters. Poor Peter. His handler sighed.

"We'll look into it. No promises."

The girl smiled all over her face. Mr. Sullivan said his many thanks and Jones showed them out.

Peter handed him the file.

"Catch up on this and tell me if you see something I've missed. I'm going to make some phone calls."

For a second they remained where they were. Neal thought he could use the conference table and Peter would go to his office, but Peter did not.

"I thought you…" he began.

"Go to my office. You're a fast reader. I'll join you."

Neal sat down in Peter's office by the little extra table and flung his feet up and began to read.

"It's pretty cut and dry," he said as Peter came in and smacked his feet on the table as he passed. Neal took them down. "Bank has paperwork signed and notarized. I see why you didn't wanna take this on."

Peter sank down in his chair behind his desk.

"Maybe I'm glad I changed my mind."

"Find something?"

"Tried to call the N.Y.P.D. detective Sullivan spoke to originally."

"Yeah?"

"Turns out he's retired."

"So?"

"How many detectives you know retire at thirty-five?"

That was indeed unusual, Neal agreed.

"It's worth looking into. Think we should ask him for coffee?"

"I never say no to coffee."

Peter knew how to find people. At least those who did not deliberately tried to hide from the law. The same evening Neal and he sat at a diner waiting. They had chosen a table where they both had a clear view of the entrance and could be easily spotted by the man they were waiting for.

A man Peter recognized from a photo came in. He spotted them and walked straight to their table.

"Mr. Herrera, thanks for coming. I'm Agent Burke."

Herrera remained standing and pointed at Neal.

"Who's this?"

"I'm with the FBI," the kid answered after a second's hesitation.

"Um, no," Herrera said and sat down on the other side of the table and nodded in Peter's direction. "He's with the FBI. Fed couldn't afford those cuff-links."

Great, Peter thought. His convicted felon outmatched him in clothing. Why could not inherited clothes by definition look cheap?

"For a retired detective, you don't seem out of practice," Peter noted.

"You didn't answer my question," the former Detective shot back.

"He's my consultant," Peter said and hoped he did not have to explain it further, considering it seemed as Neal had more than the meager salary from the FBI at his disposal. "We're investigating the Sullivan case."

"Really? Why?"

Peter noted that Herrera seemed to remember it well, without a blink.

"Mr. Sullivan has a daughter," Neal said with his charm on, "and Peter's a sucker for kids."

Yeah, right, very funny, Neal, Peter thought.

"You know, you cleared over 90 percent of your cases," Peter said honestly impressed. "If you don't mind me asking, what made you turn in your resignation?"

"Well… I got tired of the grind," the man replied with a wide smile. A man so dedicated that he solves nine out of ten cases just do not get tired and leave, in Peter's experience.

"I swung an early pension. I don't know if you're recording this conversation. But I don't have anything to say. I appreciate the coffee."

Herrera rose and Peter and Neal exchanged a quick look. It seemed as they were both thinking the same thing.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. Burned your career for this case. You're gonna walk away?"

"Like I said, I got nothing to say. Sullivan's a dud. Let it go. Thanks for the coffee."

He turned and took a few steps towards the door when he stopped. They watched his back, waiting. Then he returned to them.

"You know what? Let me leave a tip."

"Oh, I got it," Peter mumbled, dumbfounded.

"I insist. It's the least I can do."

Then he placed four dollar bills on the table and checked the coins in his hand carefully before he placed them on top of the bills. He gave them a nod each and left.

"That was cryptic," Neal said and counted the money. "Four dollars and seventy-six cents."

"For three cups of coffee." The tip for three cups of coffee.

"Pretty generous for a retired cop's salary."

"Very generous and very specific."

Neal nodded.

When Neal was picked up the next morning by Peter they discussed what those number could be. Peter had arranged for Herrera's case files to be transferred to his office. As soon as they arrived, they dug in.

"Four, seven, six. Could be an area code," Neal suggested, browsing through a random file.

"Not in America," Peter replied, reading another file.

"Badge number?"

"I don't think so."

"For a dud case, Herrera generated a lot of paperwork."

"Yeah, he did," Peter agreed. "Wait… What do we got here? Four, seventy-six." He smacked his hand on the paper he was holding.

"What is it?"

"It's an ID number for a federal district judge," Peter said handing over a few pages. "They stamp these on the files for every case you preside over."

In the corner was a stamp, 'U.S. District Court' and 'ID: 476' with a written signature.

"'Judge Michelle Clark'," Neal read from the paper.

"Do you know her?"

"No…" he had never heard about her, but… "Herrera said he was leaving a tip." He started to like the retired detective. Peter got the play with words too.

"Yeah. Maybe Her Honor's not so honorable."

"One cop already lost his job over this," he reminded Peter. "You sure you wanna go down this road?"

His handler glanced at the drawing from little Allison.

"Yeah, I do."

Neal could nothing but admire Special Agent Peter Burke. He fought for what was fair and right. Maybe he was too naive that it would always lead to good things and happy endings, but still, it was men like Peter who made the society worth fighting for.

"All right. Where do we start?"

"We need to work fast. David Sullivan has less than a week before they take his house. I put every agent on collecting information about her, see if we can find more cases like this, if she has done it before. You, you search on your side, see if you can pick up something."

"Sure thing, Peter."

When he arrived home that evening he found, as expected, Mozzie at his table doing his research.

"Hey."

Neal saw the box on the chair was labeled 'Caffrey', which meant it was one of the boxes with material Mozzie, as his lawyer, had gained access to. He dropped his hat and suit jacket over the back of a chair.

"Find anything on Judge Clark?"

"As your legal counsel, I advise you to peruse the following exhibits," Mozzie replied and placed two open files before him as he sat down by the table.

"Court orders… Search warrants…" All with his own name on them. "This is everything Fowler used when he arrested me for the diamond heist."

"Check out the fine print."

Mozzie pointed at a signature. It was Judge Michelle Clark's signature.

"She was Fowler's go-to judge while he was investigating you."

"What's her name doing on search warrants? Peter and I are working a mortgage-fraud scam." Neal knew as much that judges had their area of expertise and did not cross borders that easily.

"Warrants which, if they'd been reviewed by an impartial judge, may have been thrown out."

True, they had had nothing on him that would have granted a search warrant of his home. Thank God Peter had joined and made sure they did not 'found' anything they had brought with them.

"So Fowler's got a judge in his pocket," Neal smiled. "That's handy. Peter's gonna love this." Pure luck had brought them something to use against Fowler, too.

"Have I taught you nothing?" Moz protested.

"Fowler's got Kate. If his pet judge is dirty I can use it against him."

"You tell the Suit, he files a report and Fowler sees you coming. Secrets are safer," Moz pointed out. Well, no surprise there. Mozzie did not trust any authority and especially not one that had arrested his friend. Neal rose from the chair. He needed to think.

"And when you say, 'Fowler's got Kate—'" Moz continued.

"He does."

"What does the Suit think?"

There was no way he could tell Peter's opinion in a way that matched his own even the slightest.

"Your keeper and I actually agree on something," Moz said as he rose from his chair. "What if she's working with Fowler?"

"I need to talk to her. Then I'll know." If she did, he needed to figure it out on his own and not by other people's judgments. She was his love, not theirs.

"Do you trust your FBI buddy?"

Peter had spent the night with them once, drinking beer, or in Mozzie's case gin, and had shown nothing but respect and a form of admiration. And not arresting any of them, even though Mozzie had a stolen gold coin he was not supposed to have. It had made an impression on Mozzie, sure, but Peter was still a fed and as far as Neal could remember, Mozzie had never used Peter's first name.

"Yeah, I trust him," Neal replied. "Till I can't," he added, considering he was talking to Mozzie and he did not want to hear another lecture from him about who to trust.

"Vague… in a Zen kind of way…" Mozzie noted. "Look, he met with Kate. He must know how to get hold of her. Do you trust him enough to deliver a message?"