Robert Crais - Chasing Darkness

Her eyes came up, but they might have been focused on something a thousand yards away.

“Uh-huh.”

Bastilla touched me under the table, and Marx smiled from the corner.

“Levy told you about me, didn’t he?”

She shook her head vaguely, then went back to the pictures.

Bastilla said, “Cole’s involvement was never mentioned on TV or in the papers. He never personally mentioned it to you, and we haven’t talked about it with you or in your presence. You would have no other way to know that he worked for Alan Levy.”

I said, “Jonna, look at me.”

Her eyes came up again, but now they seemed dull and opaque.

“Levy used me the same way he used you, and I never saw it coming. I worked with him, talked to him almost every day, and he totally played me. That’s how good he is. Lionel Byrd didn’t kill your sister. I know you believe he killed her, but he didn’t. If Levy gave you the pictures, then Levy killed her, and now we have to prove it.”

Jonna said, “Levy.”

“Levy’s been using me to find out what the police know. He’s also been pushing me to find you. I believe he intends to kill you. We know from your phone he’s been calling you a lot. We also know you haven’t been answering his calls or calling him back. I think this is because you sense something is wrong with the guy.”

Marx stepped out of the corner.

“We see you as a victim here, too. We want to handle it that way. I can’t promise you won’t pull some time, but we’ll cut a good deal. Get you a reduced sentence and early parole if you cooperate.”

She looked at Yvonne’s picture again, the close-up showing the ugly red bubble of blood. She touched it, and her face settled into the same humorless, determined lines I had seen in her high school portrait. She picked up the picture, kissed it, then dropped it with the others. She once more seemed at ease.

“What do you want?”

“A recorded admission of guilt.”

“Okay. Whatever.”

Bastilla shook her head.

“Not you. Levy. Your testimony won’t be enough. We need him to acknowledge he gave you the pictures or helped plan the murder. All he has to do is indicate he had knowledge of these things, and that would be enough.”

“You want me to call him?”

“Levy’s too smart to make an incriminating statement over the phone, but we think Cole can bring him out.”

I said, “If I find you, I’m supposed to call him.”

“So he can kill me.”

“That would be my guess. He will probably try to kill me, too.”

Bastilla said, “We would pick a secure location. We would have plenty of protection, and-”

Jonna cut her off.

“I don’t care. I want to go get him.”

She said it without hesitation or remorse. Munson had been right. She was totally cold.

MARX COMMANDEERED a conference room, then called out an elite SWAT tactical team with supervisors and plus-one team leaders to plan the mission. They let me participate because my role was key-the task was not simply to capture Alan Levy, but to elicit a confession. They broke down a plan, selected a location, and deployed surveillance and tactical teams even before I made the call. We didn’t know if Levy would agree to meet, but the SWAT boys wanted everyone in place asap. If the plan changed, they would roll with it. They were the best in the business.

A surveillance technician named Frank Kilane stuck his head into the room and gave us the thumbs-up. Marx patted me on the back.

“Ready to make the call?”

I grinned, but my grin was too large and strained.

“I live for making calls like this.”

“Want some more of that coffee?”

“You trying to kill me?”

Marx grinned back with the same fractured leer.

“Not until after we get this bastard.”

Nervous humor.

Pike and Munson were waiting in the interview room, but Bastilla had moved Jonna so they could continue the interview. Frank Kilane had wired my personal cell phone into a recording monitor through a hands-free jack. We were using my phone so Levy would recognize my incoming number.

Kilane gave me the phone.

“All you have to do is use the hands-free like you normally would. Don’t worry about losing the signal. We have a pretty good signal here anyway, but I hooked you in with a booster.”

Marx waved toward the two-way glass.

“Okay, then. Everybody out. Let’s clear the room.”

They left me alone to minimize background noise.

I took Jonna’s seat. A yellow legal pad with Levy’s number and the address of the location was on the table. I was glad they thought of it.

Marx’s voice came over a hidden loudspeaker.

“Go when you’re ready.”

I dialed, and listened to the soft burring ring tone. The silence between each ring felt longer than usual, but Levy answered on the seventh ring. He sounded normal in every way.

“Hey, Alan, you still want to talk to Ivy Casik?”

“Fantastic. You found her?”

“Am I not the World’s Greatest Detective?”

Mr. Just-Kidding-Around-Because-Nothing-Is-Out-of-the-Ordinary. Levy chuckled, showing me nothing was out of the ordinary with him, either.

“Ah, well, did you speak with her?”

“Uh-uh. I figured I would wait for you. I didn’t want to spook her.”

I gave him the address without waiting to be asked. It was an abandoned meth lab in a residential area. The SWAT guys selected it because the location offered cover for the surveillance teams and other advantages. The light traffic would make Levy easy to identify as he approached the location, and if he lost his resolve and departed without stopping, he would be easy to follow. If he left, we would let him. We didn’t want him to know we were on to him until he had incriminated himself. I finished setting the stage.

“It’s a little house at the bottom of Runyon Canyon. A dump, man. She appears to be alone.”

He sounded hesitant for the first time.

“Okay, well, this is great work, Elvis, like always. You don’t have to wait. I can’t get over there until later.”

I did my best to sound disappointed.

“Alan, your call, but I really busted my ass to find her. She didn’t unpack her car. I don’t know how long she will be here.”

“Uh-huh, well, I have an appointment with some people at Leverage. They probably have more to offer about what Marx is up to than this girl.”

“I can’t watch her all day, Alan. I have things to do.”

“It’s all right, Elvis. Really. I have the address, but I have to see these people at Leverage first. Don’t stay. If I get by to see her, I’ll call you about it later.”

“Whatever you want.”

As soon as I turned off the phone, Marx pushed open the door.

“That bastard’s going straight for the girl. Let’s roll.”

JONNA HILL stated during her taped interview that she did not shoot Lionel Byrd and was not present at the time of his death. This might or might not have been a lie. According to Jonna, Alan Levy provided the seven Polaroid pictures, the necessary information about Byrd, and cash to rent both the apartment near the Hollywood Bowl and the room across from Byrd on Anson Lane. He contacted her not long after the murder of Debra Repko, claiming to be racked by guilt for his role in freeing a man he subsequently learned was responsible for multiple homicides. Jonna found him easy to believe. He was so smart, she said. So convincing. She was a willing and enthusiastic participant. Levy taught her to mask her fingerprints with plastic-model glue and bind back her hair, and also provided the camera, film, and the My Happy Memories album. Her part was simple. Over the course of a three-week period, she befriended Lionel Byrd while posing as a writer, which had also been Levy’s suggestion. She had Byrd handle the components of the death album to leave his fingerprints, then, on the night of his death, drugged his whiskey with the oxycodone, which Levy also provided. She stated for the record she was not witness to whatever happened after she left that night. This, too, might have been a lie, but it also might have been the truth.