Robert Crais - Chasing Darkness

I was still thinking about it when a grey Crown Victoria eased up the street and took forever to reach me. It idled to a stop, and two men in sunglasses stared at me. The passenger and the driver were both in their early thirties with short dark hair and ties but no jackets. They wore short-sleeved shirts and the flat, empty faces that came with having to wear bad clothes while riding around in a bad car. The passenger’s window rolled down.

I said, “You’re either cops or the Men in Black. Which is it?”

The passenger held up his badge, then tipped it toward the backseat.

“I’m Darcy. He’s Maddux. Let’s talk about Debra Repko.”

I didn’t want to get in their car.

“So talk. I can hear you.”

Darcy glanced in his side-view like someone might be behind him. Maddux leaned across his partner to see me.

“You’re Cole, right? The dude who got off Lionel Byrd?”

“Tell you what, Maddux-how about you kiss my ass?”

“We don’t think Byrd killed her. Now get in, and let’s talk about it.”

I got in, and we talked.

MADDUX PULLED into the shade of an enormous elm, but left the engine running with the AC on high. Darcy was the larger of the two, with fleshy hands and the slow moves of a man who thought things through. Maddux was different. He flicked and fluttered like a man wound tight by a grudge. Once we were parked, they hooked their elbows over the top of the front seat, propping themselves sideways. Darcy faced me, but Maddux glanced everywhere as if he was worried someone might see us.

Darcy said, “Nice set of lumps there, bro. Those brothers are something, aren’t they?”

“It’s an acne flare-up.”

“Sure. Mrs. Repko called us this morning. She wanted us to do something about you.”

“So this is you, doing something?”

Maddux stopped squirming long enough to glare at me.

“This is us sticking our necks out. One day we’re ordered to give up our work, a week later, Marx and his asshats clear seven cases.”

“Maybe the asshats are better than you.”

“And maybe they pulled Byrd out their ass.”

Darcy and Maddux were watching me. We were under an elm tree in Pasadena, and they shouldn’t have been here and they shouldn’t have been talking to me. They were probably detective-twos, but they probably hadn’t been on the bureau for more than six or eight years. They might be guys on their way up or they might be guys who had already topped out, or maybe they were working for Marx. If they weren’t, they were hanging out over the edge just by talking with me.

I said, “You have a problem with what the task force is saying, you should take it up with them.”

“We tried. They told us to eat it.”

Darcy smiled at his partner.

“Actually, they told us the case was no longer our concern. We didn’t like that. Then they refused to return our case files. We liked that even less.”

“So this is what we call an off-the-record conversation?”

“Something like that. Either way, we don’t think they should have closed the case.”

Their curious cop gaze rested on me, content to wait beneath the elm for the world to turn and the seasons to change and the sun to cool.

I said, “What if I told you the case isn’t closed? What if I said the task force was here pulling fibers off the girl’s clothes at the same time Marx went public about Byrd?”

Darcy’s eyes narrowed to tiny slits.

“I’d tell you to keep talking. I’d say if we like what you’re doing, we might be willing to help.”

I walked them through Bennett first, then sketched out Byrd and what I knew of the other murders and how Debra Repko was different. I told them about Ivy Casik and the reporter who might or might not be a reporter. Darcy and Maddux knew almost nothing about Byrd or the previous five murders, but they had worked on Debra Repko’s case for almost five weeks before it was taken, and were willing to tell me about it.

Debra Repko had spent the day performing her duties at Leverage Associates, then accompanied five other Leverage employees to an evening political event where she assisted with media interviews. Once the interviews ended, Debra and her supervisor, a woman named Casey Stokes, walked to their cars together. Casey Stokes was the last person known to have seen Debra Repko alive.

Darcy and Maddux caught the case the following morning, and thought they lucked into a game-winning break right away.

Darcy said, “One of the shop owners where her body was found called, saying he had a security video of the murder. We thought we had the killing on disk.”

“Waitaminute-you have something on tape?”

“DVD. It was digital.”

Maddux waved his hand like he was chasing away a fly.

“It was nothing. The guy rigged up a do-it-yourself surveillance kit because kids were tagging the building, only the cheap fuck set it up wrong. All he got were shadows.”

“Could you see any part of the incident?”

“Not even. SID dicked around with it for a couple of weeks, but said the digital information just didn’t exist, so Darcy here gave it to his brother-in-law.”

“My brother-in-law works for a CGI house in Hollywood. You know what that is?”

“Sure.”

Computer-generated images were a mainstay of Hollywood special effects.

“He offered to take a look, but it was a long shot. By that time, we had other lines-”

Maddux interrupted.

“The manager at her apartment house looked pretty good, a dude named Agazzi. I’m all over this guy. I still think he’s good for it, and he could have gone into her apartment any time he wanted. If Bastilla and Munson were out here looking for fibers, they might have been looking for him.”

Darcy shook his head.

“Maddux and I don’t agree. He likes Agazzi, but one of Repko’s neighbors at the apartment, a woman named Sheila Evers, told us Repko was seeing a married man.”

Maddux shook his head.

“If there’s a boyfriend. Personally, I think the broad made up that stuff. We couldn’t find anyone who confirmed a boyfriend.”

I showed them the names Mrs. Repko had given me.

“You check with her friends?”

Darcy glanced at the names, then passed it to Maddux.

“Yeah. They didn’t know anything. Said Debra never mentioned a boyfriend or lover or seeing a married guy, but here’s this good-looking young woman, it’s easy to think we’re talking about someone she met at work.”

It was reasonable, especially considering the amount of time Mrs. Repko complained her daughter had worked. If Debra was always working, then her only opportunity to meet men was through work.

I said, “Mr. Repko told me Bastilla and Munson were asking about Leverage. They made out they were just making conversation, but they were asking about the people Debra worked with.”

Darcy and Maddux traded another glance.

Darcy said, “When we talked to Leverage about Debra’s evening, they were cooperative. Then the boyfriend angle presented itself. When we told them we wanted to interview the male clients she worked with, they hit the brakes.”

“They wouldn’t tell you who she worked with?”

“They didn’t have a problem letting us talk to the male employees at Leverage, but they dug in hard when it came to naming their clients. We pushed, and we were told to lay off.”

“Their clients are politicians, Cole. We got a call saying the brass would review the matter and get back to us.”

“The brass. Parker Center?”

“It came through Parker, but who knows where it started? Couple of weeks later, Leverage got back to us, but they basically chose who we could talk to.”

“You think Leverage is hiding something?”