For quite a while after Verdant's abrupt exit, all three men remained quiet, pondering about the threats and insinuations thrown their way by a man who was more than eager to use every opportunity possible to tarnish the reputation of the police force.
Worse yet, he'd chosen a high-profile case with a slew of difficult emotions to play his disconcerting game of who's to blame.
Eventually, it was Mike who cleared his throat and glanced back to the glass-walled vestibule, making sure the lawyer was gone, before raising his voice.
"The only thing I trust about that man is that he will waste enormous amounts of tax payer's money to shove this thing all the way into the court level."
"You better believe it…", Olsen countered somberly, "He's already put a blurb about it in the six o'clock news. I would expect this thing to snowball by tomorrow morning. While I will do everything in my power to fight this sorry excuse of a human being, be sure that you are ready to take a stand in court, just in case. Both of you."
With a brief nod of the head, Mike pointed his chin to the handful of notes in his inbox.
"Have the Feds been able to contribute more evidence to shut Verdant down before this goes too far?"
"Not yet. I thought about that too. I checked with them just before I met with this clown and they're still doing a lot of forensic checks. Between the circumstantial evidence and the word of a stoolie, that's about all we got until they finalize their investigation. They won't release anything in the meantime."
"That's ridiculous…", Mike scoffed and clenched his hands into tight fists, "Vargas' parents should be ashamed of themselves for raising a killer- and now they are trying to clear his name by using this ambulance chasing idiot?"
"Word has it he's barely charging them a penny.", Olsen added, unable to hide the disgust in his voice, and ran a hand through his receding hairline, "He's doing this just for publicity. Whenever I think this guy can't stoop any lower…"
Another long silence ensued before the Captain glanced back up, having an increasingly hard time moving on from the infuriating subject.
"How did it go down in Burlingame? Any headway?"
Upon Mike's momentary silence, Olsen looked over at Steve, who ran a nervous hand across the bruise forming on the side of his face.
"You got something, Keller?"
"After we looked at the house, we…I made contact with a guy who might have seen what happened. At first I thought he might be involved, but now that we learned about him, I think he might just be a witness to the crime. He's the local hermit and lives in a nearby park. Problem is, he's not very talkative. And very illusive."
"A hermit?", with a deep frown, Olsen reached for his coffee long gone cold, and took a sip, then cringed at the bitter taste.
"The Homicide Captain down there was rather…reticent about what he knew about the guy. My guess is there's a lot more than what meets the eye. I tried to get his help in organizing a search party for that man but he blatantly denied."
Sensing the next request in the making, Olsen raised a cautious hand.
"Tread it lightly on this one. We've got enough problems as it is. I can't authorize personnel from up here to go down to Burlingame with you either, Mike, no matter how much I'd like to return some of the treatment you've been getting. That's still their territory. Do the best you can but don't push it. This is a cold case and you're welcome to work it as long as things remain somewhat calm here, but when your guys' number comes up for the next case up here in San Francisco, I expect full cooperation."