Robert Crais - The First Rule

“Did you and Lisa tell anyone?”

Sarah glanced away again, and it took her a while to answer.

“We wouldn’t do that to her. She was our friend.”

“You ever hear them mention the name Michael Darko?”

“I don’t know. Who’s Michael Darko?”

“How about where she worked, or who she worked for? You remember anything like that?”

“Nothing to remember. Rina wouldn’t tell her anything about that part of her life. She absolutely refused to discuss it. Forget about us. She didn’t even know we knew. She wouldn’t tell Ana. It was like an open secret they had. Ana knew, but they didn’t talk about it.”

“How did Ana know if Rina wouldn’t talk about it?”

“Rina got arrested. Ana always thought Rina was a waitress or something until this time Rina called her from jail. Ana got really scared. That wasn’t until, like, ninth grade. I wanted to tell my mom and dad, but Ana totally freaked out. She made me swear. She said she’d never speak to me again if I told. So she came over and stayed with me for a couple of days like nothing was wrong-just like a regular sleepover. That’s how we explained it. Then she stayed with Lisa. She was really scared, ’cause she didn’t know what was going to happen, like, what if Rina went to prison? What would she do?”

Cole counted backward to ninth grade, and compared it with Rina’s arrest record. The year matched with the date of her first arrest.

Cole sighed. Ninth grade meant she would have been fourteen. A fourteen-year-old girl home alone, not knowing whether her only family and sole support was ever coming back. She would have been terrified.

“And nobody knew? Just you and Lisa.”

Sarah glanced away again, nodding.

“What about the other Serbian kids? Who were her Serbian friends?”

“She didn’t have any. Rina wouldn’t let her. Rina wouldn’t even tell her about the people they left behind.”

“So all she had was you.”

Sarah nodded again, looking lonely and lost.

Cole tried to read her, and thought he understood what she was feeling, both then and now.

He said, “Hey.”

She glanced over, then quickly away.

“Sounds like Rina was trying to protect her. I think you were trying to protect her, too.”

She didn’t look at him, but he could see her pink eyes fill.

“I should’ve told someone. We should have told.”

“You didn’t know, Sarah. None of us ever know. We just try to do our best.”

“She might be alive.”

Sarah Manning stood and walked away without looking back. Cole watched her go, hoping, for her sake, that she was wrong.

Pike watched the two latin cops. They stayed in the street, one making a short phone call while the other spoke with a dep. They did not approach Pike or acknowledge him, though the shorter of the two circled Pike’s Jeep before rejoining his friend. They left the scene while Pike was being searched.

The senior dep was named McKerrick. While his officers spread through the trailers, McKerrick placed Pike under arrest, cuffed him, and went through his pockets.

McKerrick said, “Christ, man, you’re an arsenal.”

He placed the things he found in a green evidence bag. These included Pike’s watch, wallet, weapons, and cell phone, but not the baby’s bib. McKerrick probably thought this was Pike’s handkerchief, and the stains were snot.

At no time did McKerrick Mirandize Pike, or question him. Nothing about the bodies, or why Pike was there, or anything else. Pike found this curious. He also wondered how the two Latin guys had followed him since he left Yanni’s apartment. Even if they had run a split-team tail, Pike was certain he hadn’t been followed. He found this curious, too.

When the search was complete, McKerrick walked Pike to a sheriff’s car, placed him in the backseat, then climbed in behind the wheel.

As they drove away, Pike looked back at the dog. The dog watched him go.

Willowbrook was not technically part of Los Angeles. It was an unincorporated area, and used the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department as its policing agent. Pike expected McKerrick to bring him to the nearest sheriff’s station, which was the Century Station just off the Century Freeway in Lynwood, but when they climbed onto the freeway, McKerrick headed away from the station. Pike found this curious, too.

Twenty minutes later, they pulled off the freeway into downtown L.A., and Pike knew where they were going.

McKerrick reached for his radio mike, and spoke two words.

“Three minutes.”

McKerrick brought him to Parker Center, the Los Angeles Police Department headquarters. They drove around the side of the building to the processing entrance, where three uniformed LAPD officers were waiting. Two men and a woman, all in their late twenties, with short hair and freshly polished shoes. The female officer opened the door, and gave him two more words.

“Get out.”

The lead officer was a rangy, athletic guy with spiky blond hair and buff shoulders. He steered Pike by the upper arm. They brought Pike inside without processing him, directed him onto an elevator, then up to the fourth floor. The fourth floor was special. Robbery Special. Rape Special. Homicide Special. The three divisions of the Robbery-Homicide Division. Terrio and his task force would live on the fourth floor.

“Gotta pee?”

“No.”

When the elevator opened, the officer carrying the evidence bag split off, and the other two steered Pike along an ugly beige hall to an interview room. Pike had been on the fourth floor before, and in their interview rooms. It was one of the smaller rooms, sporting the same bad paint, bad flooring, and cruddy walls as the rest of the building. A small table jutted from the wall, with a cheap plastic chair on either side.

The lead officer uncuffed Pike, then re-cuffed his right hand to a steel bar built into the table. When he had Pike locked down, he stepped back, but didn’t leave. The female officer waited in the door.

He said, “Joe Pike.”

Pike looked at him.

“I’ve been hearing stories about you since I came on the job. You don’t look like so much.”

A video camera was bolted to the wall in the corner up by the ceiling. The interview room didn’t have a two-way mirror; just the camera with its microphone.

Pike studied the officer for a moment, then tipped his head toward the camera. The two officers followed his gaze. When the male officer saw the camera, he turned red, realizing a senior officer might be watching him act like an ass. They stepped out, and closed the door.

Pike looked around. The interview room smelled of cigarettes. Even though smoking was not allowed in city buildings, the last suspect had probably been a smoker, or the last detective. The table and the wall beside the table were covered with a jigsaw of scribbles, drawings, gouges, stains, and jailhouse slogans, most of it cut so deep into the Formica it could not be erased. Biggie. ThugLife . LAPD187. OJWUZHERE.

Pike considered the camera, and wondered if Terrio was watching. They would probably let him wait for a while, but Pike didn’t mind. He took a slow, deep breath, paused, then emptied his lungs, taking exactly as long to exhale as to inhale. He focused on the camera. He emptied his mind of everything except the camera, and breathed. There was just Pike and the camera and whoever was on the other side of the camera. Then there was just Pike and the camera. And then only Pike. After a few breaths, he felt himself float, his chest expanding and contracting with the rhythm of the sea. His heart rate slowed. Time slowed. Then Pike simply was. Pike had spent days like this, waiting for the perfect shot in places that were not as comfortable as an LAPD interview room.