Chapter Two

John looked up after the tape finished. Carter was looking expectantly at him. It must have taken her a lot of courage to show him the recording. Especially considering that it contained personal messages.

"Did you show anyone else?" He asked after a moment of silence.

"No. I didn't know who else to trust. Right now I only trust you, your friend, and Fusco."

"Good," John said "HR is protecting their own. Killing anyone that starts asking questions. Had you told anyone else they might have gotten wind of it."

"What do you want me to do?" Carter asked.

"What Beecher said," he began. "I want you to be careful. I'll keep my eye on Quinn; try to figure out how high he is."

"I want to talk to him," she said. John could see a spark of anger hidden behind her eyes. Anger toward Quinn for killing Beecher to be sure. But John also suspected that at least part of her anger might be toward him for not being there to save him. He knew she would never say it, but it was still there.

"I know you want to talk to him," he began. "But right now our priority is to protect you. If this guy finds you asking questions he might want to kill you. He's certainly proven that he willing to kill anyone to protect himself."

"I'm a cop, John," she shot back. "And believe it or not, talking to suspects is always dangerous. There's always a chance that they could lash out. I want to talk to him."

John took a deep breath. A thousand ways this could go wrong and they all led to Carter ending up dead. He could not let that happen. But he knew he would never be able to talk her out of this. Her decision was made.

"Alright," he consented. "But if you find anything you let me handle it, alright?"

"Fine," she sighed and stood up to leave the restaurant.

XxXxXx

Finch sat at his computer monitors looking for anything that might confirm what he had heard on Carter's recording. He tapped his earpiece as Mr. Reese called him.

"Got eyes on Quinn, Finch," he said. "Anything you can tell us about our mayor's assistant?"

"Alonzo Quinn, fifty-years-old never married. Doesn't have much family left and his only friend was a police officer that was killed some twenty years ago. He was raised in a wealthy family and went to Yale University where he studied law and political science."

"Two of the least trusted majors in America at this point," John commented.

"Mr. Quinn is definitely worth looking into, Mr. Reese," Finch said. "With his position in the mayor's office he would have access to unlimited amount of information circulating around the city. Nothing happens in New York that he wouldn't know about."

"Would explain how HR knows exactly how to pull the strings." Mr. Reese said.

"Indeed it would," Finch whispered mostly to himself. "Stay close to him Mr. Reese. Detective Beecher might have been on to something."

XxXxXx

Carter sat in her car driving to Quinn's office. His office had agreed to let her come and talk to him. She hadn't given him any specifics just that she needed more information on a homicide case. She parked her car and walked into the office.

"Hi, I'm Detective Carter NYPD, I have an appointment to speak with Quinn," she said flashing her badge.

"Of course, he'll be ready in just a minute," the receptionist said.

Carter didn't want to sit down. She had too much anticipation. She didn't know what to expect from Quinn, but she did not plan on taking it easy on the guy.

"Mr. Quinn is ready for you, Detective," the receptionist said.

Carter went into Quinn's office and sat in the chair across from him.

"Mrs. Jones tells me you wanted to talk to me about a homicide," he said warmly. Warmly! As if he wasn't guilty of at least one count of murder. As if he wasn't in an organization that not only looked the other way and had tried to kill her, but had killed the only person she had opened her heart to since Taylor's father had been killed. But she suppressed the urge to lash out at him and forced a smile on her face.

"Yes I was looking into the death of a narcotics detective: Cal Beecher," she said.

"I heard about that," Quinn said. "I also read that it was a simple drug bust gone wrong. Didn't read anything about it being murder."

"We think it was an HR killing," Carter said, and was pleased to see Quinn freeze for a second before he covered it up. "We think Cal was getting close to figuring out some major player in HR and they killed him for it."

"And what makes you think that?" Quinn asked his voice still warm and friendly.

"We were looking into his files and found evidence that suggests he was looking into someone with connection to HR," she answered. It wasn't the truth of course, but she didn't want him to know about the recording.

Quinn gave her an indulgent smile. A smile that a grandfather would give to a child; and again it peeved her that his friendly personality didn't match his cruel character.

"You know Detective," he said casually, "I am the middle man for all the information around the city. I happen to know that you and Detective Beecher were friends. Maybe even more than that. So even if there was an investigation into his death, you shouldn't be involved in it at all. Conflict of interest, you see." He leaned forward, his smile faltering somewhat. "So I don't see any reason why I should answer any questions from you. Have a nice day." With that he returned to his things completely ignoring her.

Anger burst in her heart and Carter wanted nothing more than to take a page out of Donnelly's book and hold this guy in jail until he confessed. But she couldn't do that. This guy had too much power.

Resisting the urge to lash out, Carter stood up and left Quinn's office with no doubt in her mind that Quinn was guilty.

XxXxXx

John watched the exchange between Carter and Quinn outside Quinn's office window. He'd heard every word exchanged between them since he had blue jacked Quinn's phone when he was following him to his office. He watched as Carter left the office. Then he watched as Quinn pulled a disposable phone out of his desk and called someone.

"We need to meet," were the only words said before he hung up.

"Finch, he just used a disposable phone to set up a meeting," John said. "Tells me he doesn't want anyone to know about this."

"He could be meeting with someone from HR," Finch speculated.

"Looks like he's wasting no time," John commented as he watched Quinn grab his coat and head for his door.

A few moments later he came out of the mayor's office and John waited a few minutes before falling behind him being sure to keep an eye on his head. He followed him to central park: the perfect place for a covert meeting. Large crowds so that no one would notice two people meeting.

John turned toward the lake so that Quinn wouldn't notice him watching and waited for his friend to arrive. He didn't have to wait long before Simmons showed up and greeted Quinn.

"You were right, Finch," John said. "He's meeting with Simmons." And he turned his attention to the two men meeting.

"Terney's making the Szymanski investigation go away," Simmons reported. Something in the back of his mind found it strange that Simmons would be reporting to Quinn but he was too focused on the object of the meeting to think about it.

"Good," Quinn began, "Because we've got another problem. Detective Carter is looking into Cal's death. She knows it wasn't a drug killing."

"How?" Simmons wondered. "We were careful. We didn't leave any loose ends."

"Obviously we weren't careful enough," Quinn said.

"What do you want us to do?" Simmons asked.

"Do you really have to ask?" Quinn asked.

John felt a horrible jolt as he realized what the whole scene meant. The fact that Simmons was reporting to him; the fact that Simmons asked him what to do; it all led to one conclusion: he was higher than Simmons. And he could only imagine one person being higher than Simmons. He was following HR's boss. And not only that but the head of HR wanted Carter dead.

He could tell by Simmons' demeanor that he was uncomfortable with the idea of going after carter. Quinn noticed as well.

"There a problem?" Quinn asked him.

"The guy in the suit. He has a soft spot for Carter. And we both know he's not in Riker's anymore." Simmons said.

"Since when did that stop you?" Quinn asked. John noticed that for the first time since he started following him there was a slight coldness in his voice as he threatened Simmons.

A silence broke over the two men as they looked at each other. Finally, Simmons looked away.

"Fine," he said. "We'll take care of it." The men shook hands and Simmons left.

"Finch, we have a problem," he said not bothering to hide niether his worry nor his anger.