Robert Crais - Chasing Darkness

“She was your assistant?”

“Debra was what we call a first-year. All our first-years work as floaters to experience the different aspects of what we do. I had Debra join me that night so she could gain experience with the media. Once the interviews were over, our job was finished. We walked out to our cars together.”

“Did Debra tell you her plans for the evening?”

“No, nothing like that.”

“Maybe mention she was going to meet friends or wanted to stop for a drink?”

Ms. Stokes studied me, then cocked her head.

“What does this have to do with a chance encounter with a maniac?”

“It has to do with her personal life.”

Something that might have been sadness flickered in her eyes.

“Now I understand. That rumor about her seeing a married man.”

“It’s eating at her parents. Especially her mother.”

Casey Stokes sighed, and something in her sigh made me feel bad for having said it.

“Mr. Cole, I don’t know what to tell you. If Debra was seeing someone, married or otherwise, she never mentioned it to me or anyone else here at Leverage. My understanding is that this rumor started with someone at Debra’s apartment building.”

“Yes, ma’am, that’s where it started.”

“Then perhaps you should be asking that person. Debra and I only spoke about politics. She was excited by politics. She wanted to work on a national level. She might have. She was serious about her career.”

Her phone rang as she finished. She glanced at her watch, then excused herself to take the call. While she was on the phone, I looked at the people in the conference room. Two men in conservative business suits were making a PowerPoint presentation to the five people who were now seated at the table. The man at the head of the table was a balding guy with a large stomach and white shirt rolled to his elbows. Everyone else was twenty years younger.

While the suits made their presentation, a young man seated beside the older man was texting on his PDA. Nobody seemed to mind. He nudged the older man, then showed him the PDA. The older man took out a PDA of his own and fired off a message. The two guys with the PowerPoint looked as if they didn’t know whether to keep going or not.

Stokes put down her phone and checked her watch again.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t be more help, but perhaps you’ll have better luck with Debra’s neighbors. Please tell her parents that, personally, I think this rumor was-and is-absurd.”

She stood to show me out, but I didn’t stand with her. When I didn’t get up, she sat.

“I’m sorry. I don’t know what more I can say.”

“I’m speaking with you and not Debra’s neighbors because of something we learned from the police. I feel awkward about bringing it up, but her family is in a great deal of pain. We need to clear the air.”

She waited without saying anything, so I went on.

“The Repkos recently learned that when the rumor first surfaced about Debra being involved with a married man, you folks here at Leverage refused to cooperate. In fact, the detectives felt you were sandbagging them.”

Her mouth drew into a knot as she tapped a perfectly manicured nail on her desk.

“That’s not precisely true.”

“Seems like it should be either true or not true, Ms. Stokes. Without the ‘precisely.’”

She tapped the nail again.

“You have to understand. As a first-year, Debra attended meetings with most of our clients. The police wanted to talk to these people. I understood that. We all understood. But our clients are people who live their lives in the public eye, and here were these officers wanting to question them about a young woman most of them probably didn’t remember. Just being questioned could be used against them by their enemies.”

“It was a murder investigation. Questions have to be asked.”

Ms. Stokes shifted uncomfortably.

“And those questions were asked. You can assure the Repkos we cooperated.”

“Stonewalling the investigation for two weeks doesn’t sound like cooperation.”

“No one here stonewalled. We simply went over the heads of the original detectives and consulted with the command structure. They understood our concerns.”

I stared at her.

“The command structure where?”

“The police. We reviewed our concerns with Deputy Chief Marx. He made what could have been-and was-an uncomfortable situation much more tolerable.”

“You mean the task force?”

“No, no. This was during the original investigation. Chief Marx personally ensured that a thorough investigation was conducted, and had our full cooperation. He even interviewed some of the clients himself.”

I stared at her so hard she frowned.

“Mr. Cole?”

“Chief Marx oversaw the investigation?”

“That’s right. The chief is one of our clients.”

I tried to smile. I tried to look as if this was the best news the family could hear.

“Well. That changes things.”

Casey Stokes looked relieved.

“I’m so sorry for this confusion.”

“Of course. The family will be glad to hear it.”

“Please. Tell the Repkos to call me. If they have any questions at all, they can call me.”

I nodded. I smiled.

“So. The chief is going into politics?”

“He’s considering it. We believe he can be positioned to fill Councilman Wilts’s seat when the councilman retires next year. The councilman is quite a fan of Chief Marx.”

I smiled even wider.

“How could he be anything else?”

“So please assure Mr. and Mrs. Repko the police had our full cooperation. We simply worked at a level where discretion could be guaranteed.”

Her PDA buzzed again. She glanced at the message, then stood.

“I really do have to go now, Mr. Cole. It’s been awful for all of us, but I know it’s been worse for the Repkos. Please tell them we would never have done anything to hamper the investigation, and we didn’t.”

“I’ll tell them, Ms. Stokes. Thank you.”

Her PDA buzzed once more, and now she touched a button to make it stop. Everyone at Leverage seemed to have them.

“Does everyone here carry one of those things?”

“It’s how we stay in touch. One of the perks, but also one of the pains. We carry them twenty-four/seven.”

“Did Debra have one?”

Across the hall, the meeting in the conference room was breaking up. The young guy who had shown his PDA to the older guy was still texting.

Ms. Stokes said, “She did. All of our associates and principals have them. Leverage provides them.”

“You saw her with it that night?”

She gave a halfhearted shrug.

“Of course. We used them to coordinate the interviews.”

Her PDA buzzed again, but this time she didn’t look at it. She touched my arm to herd me toward the door.

“One more thing about this rumor, and I hope her family will find some solace in this. I can’t definitively say Debra wasn’t involved with someone, but she never hinted at such a thing, or acted the way young women act when they’re infatuated. She never mentioned anything like that to me or the other first-years. I know because I asked them, and so did Chief Marx.”

Casey Stokes walked me out, but did not say good-bye. I didn’t say good-bye, either. I was too busy thinking about Marx.

WHEN I reached my car, I shuffled through the papers Mr. Repko had given me. Among them was the receipt Darcy and Maddux provided when they returned the items they had taken to examine. A cell phone and a laptop were on the list, but not a PDA, and I didn’t recall seeing it at the Repkos’ home.

I found Darcy’s card, called him, and asked if they recovered a PDA with Debra’s body.