Jonathon King - A Visible Darkness

I stood up and snapped the cell phone off my belt.

"I've got to let Billy know," I said. "We're supposed to meet with McCane this afternoon."

I got Billy at his office and ran through the ledger file and the Milo connection and told him to stall McCane if he called.

"Not a problem," Billy said and then went silent. I knew my friend, knew those silences meant he was trying to collect a thought, pare it down before putting it into words.

"What? All this doesn't surprise you, counselor?"

"I've been trying to track Marshack's stolen hard drive," he said, finally letting it go.

"Yeah. So's every cop with a pawn shop connection."

"Might not be in a pawn shop. If the killer needed to find out what was inside, he'd take it to a hacker who could get into it. A hacker who wouldn't tell what he found or who he found it for."

"Ideas?" I said.

"I've been thinking maybe someone who was very good with computers who'd stretched themselves in an insurance fraud and might have come into contact with an insurance investigator."

"Jesus, Billy. You found someone who McCane's company nailed for hacking?"

"Not yet. I'm working on it, but Sherry might be able to help us if they've got a computer crime investigator with a good memory."

I handed the phone to Richards and sat staring out into the sunlight flashing off the chrome and glass in the parking lot, letting them talk, my head gone to another place.

Richards closed the phone and slid out of her side of the booth.

"So what did he say?"

"He thinks if he can track our dead doctors computer to McCane, then it's a lock that McCane took out Marshack to cover any link to your women," she said. "He's got access to the insurance company files and we've got access downtown to all the known hackers who've been snagged in the past few years. It'll be faster if we work together."

I got out of the booth and took a fold of money out of my pocket, looking at the denominations.

"Max. If you guys are right on this McCane guy, and I'm not so sure you are, then it's a race for Baines."

I was still looking at my money.

"And if you're wrong and this guy is legit, then…"

"Then it's still a race," I interrupted.

I drove back into the off-limits zone. My posse had been good to me once. They knew the streets. Their chances of digging out the junk man were better than anyone's. I was looking for them when I pulled onto Ms. Thompson's street. Their shady spot on the corner was empty. But when I passed the Thompson house, a rental car was parked in the swale instead of up in the empty driveway. I realized that in my earlier meetings with McCane I had never seen the kind of car he was driving and wondered if it had been intentional. The easier to tail you with, bud.

I pulled up in front of the rental, nose to nose, and got out. I was shifting into cop mode, tasting a bubble of adrenaline in my throat. Thrill of the chase, a thrill I once wanted to believe I could leave in the past.

Ms. Thompson's house had a southern exposure and the sun was bright on the front windows. As I walked up I couldn't see any movement behind them. The front door was closed tight and I stood there for a second, listening. I instinctively reached down to my hip but my 9mm had long been retired. After the ranger shootings the gun had been retrieved from the river and bagged as evidence. I had never asked for its return.

I knocked. It was quiet. I knocked a second time and this time I heard a shrill but composed answer come from around the corner.

"Round back here. On the patio," came the old woman's voice.

I passed through the open carport and found them there, McCane and Ms. Thompson, sitting at a wrought-iron table, cups of coffee before each of them. An old photo album was opened between them.

Ms. Thompson looked at me and I could tell from her eyes that she was searching to recognize where she had seen me before. McCane saw it, too.

"Well, Mr. Freeman. What a pleasant surprise," he said, pushing his chair back. "Ms. Thompson, this is Mr. Max Freeman, an associate of mine. I believe you two may have met the day of your very unfortunate situation."

He smiled up at me, showing his big, blocked teeth. I could imagine it had been a false smile seen by many clients and inmates in the past.

"Why yes, I do believe I recall now," said Ms. Thompson, who had lost some of her rough exterior in McCane's presence. "Would you care to join us, Mr. Freeman? Mr. McCane has stopped by to discuss an insurance policy I have with ya'll's company, but we have been a bit sidetracked on this lovely day."

"No doubt," I said, looking from one to the other.

"May I get you some coffee, Mr. Freeman?" she said, starting to get up.

"No, please, don't bother yourself," I said, but she was already motioning me to sit.

"It is never a bother to be a gracious hostess, sir," she said, moving slowly toward her back door."

"Thank you, ma'am."

I continued to stand, putting my back to the house and facing McCane. He crossed his thick ankles and did not look up.

"Y'all didn't do much of a job interviewing Ms. Thompson here," he started, slipping back into his good ol' boy cant. "You and your detective girlfriend ought to learn how to lay on a little sugar when you're trying to get something out of these folk."

"Do tell," I said.

"Specially the old ones. Trick is to get them using their memories to kind of loosen their stopped-up brains a little. Oh yes, we been reminiscin' 'bout old times, all her pickaninnies and her poor deadbeat husband.

"Hell, she even pulled out the old pictures here," he said, touching the photo album with the blunt tips of his fingers. "Showed me the one of her mother sittin' at a nightclub in Overtown with Cassius Clay long before he become the droolin' and shakin' poster boy for the Olympics."

The adrenaline had soured in my mouth and been replaced by a warm anger that was spreading into my neck. Still he did not look up.

"So the old lady didn't see a damn thing the night her boyfriend. got his throat crushed. But she did recall smelling something, Freeman. You've got to remember all the senses in this line of work, bud," he said.

"She smelled the garbage can in her bedroom after he left is the way she put it. And a man's hand pushin' down on that pillow that had to be the size of a big 'ol catchers mitt how it fit over her entire face and head.

"That fit with anybody you and your girlfriend been trackin'?"

I was counting to myself again, swallowing a growing rage.

"You've been tailing us, McCane. You see anybody that you were hoping we'd lead you to?" I said.

He continued to smear his fingers on the plastic cover of the album.

"No. I didn't think so," I answered myself. "If you had, you wouldn't be here."

Richards had been right getting Hammonds to call in an overtime squad to step up the BOLO on Baines while she and Billy tried to get a lock on the doctor's hard drive.

Ms. Thompson reappeared and McCane stayed quiet. She put a cup down in front of the empty chair and said, "Oh mercy I have forgotten our milk, Mr. McCane. Please, please, sit down Mr. Freeman. I'll be right back."

McCane took a long sip of his black coffee while the woman tottered away.

"You ought to know by now, Freeman. These are just simple minds you're dealing with."

"And you ought to know how to manipulate them, Milo, considering the practice you've had," I said, holding his eyes and watching the twitch behind them at the mention of his old prison nickname. He sat quiet for a minute, glancing out toward the alley.

"I see your boy Manchester been busy checking my past," he. said, trying to sound unfazed.

"And your boy Marshack's, too," I said. "You have some interesting coffee hours up at the Georgia state pen?"