Michael Prescott - In Dark Places

Wolper was seated in a window booth. Without his uniform, wearing a turtleneck and jeans, he looked like a different man, but she noticed that he was still squeezing the rubber ball in his left hand.

"I hope I didn't keep you waiting," she said as she took the bench seat opposite him. "I had trouble finding a place to park."

"No problem. I got here just a couple minutes ago." She nodded toward the window. "It's a real mess out there."

He shrugged. "No serious injuries."

"I take it you talked to the officers at the scene."

"I checked in for a second. Force of habit."

"Was the driver drunk?"

"Just a moron. He was changing a tape in his cassette player. Took his eyes off the road."

"Hopefully he'll lose his license."

"Even if he does, he'll keep driving. Half the people in LA drive unlicensed."

She looked out the window at the small crowd of onlookers. "I'm surprised there weren't more witnesses."

"There were a million wits. They all ran off. Illegal aliens. Afraid we'll turn 'em in to INS. Which we wouldn't, but they don't trust us. It's getting so the only wits we can count on are the panhandlers and the pallet guys."

"Pallet guys?"

"You know those wooden crates they ship things in? You can break them down into pallets, sell them for reuse. You see guys hauling them around in shopping carts. Pallet guys. Anyway, they'll stick around and talk. Never show up to testify in court, but this thing won't get to court anyway. Too many higher priorities. Too much insanity in this city." He gave her a look. "You have a kid?"

The question, coming out of nowhere, surprised her. "A daughter. Fifteen."

"Fifteen? What did you do, get married at age twelve?"

She shrugged off the compliment. "I'm thirty-nine. I had Meg when I was in med school."

"Isn't med school tough enough without raising a baby?"

"You'd think so, wouldn't you? It wasn't exactly planned. I had my life all worked out. Four years of premed. Five years of med school, hospital internship for one year, three years to a master's in psychiatry, two-year psychiatric residency, private practice by age thirty-two."

"I'll bet you stayed on schedule, even with a kid."

"Well amp; yes. I'm kind of determined once I set my mind on something."

"I noticed."

"Why did you ask if I had a child?"

"Because I've got one, too. A son, Zachary, twelve years old. I don't see him as much as I'd likemy wife and I split up. But whenever I get to spend a night or a weekend with Zach, I think about this city. The insanity here. More and more of it every day. I think about thatand what it might do to him."

"I know what you mean."

"You worry about your daughter, huh?"

"Too much. All the time."

"The curse of parenthood. You bring them into the world, and then you can't let go, even when they want us to. It would be easier if I was there more often, but you know how it is in a divorce. Well, maybe you don't."

"I do, actually. My husbandexis up in Santa Barbara, creating art."

"Art? He make a living at it?"

"A surprisingly good living."

"Hope he keeps up the child support."

"That's the one area where he's proven reliable."

"Good for him. A man should never abandon his own child. That's the worst thing he can do." Wolper smiled. "Listen to me. With all the crap I've seen, you wouldn't think a guy missing his support payments is the worst crime I could think of." He shook his head. "You didn't come here to talk about this."

"Not really."

"So what exactly is the problem, Doctor?"

She hesitated. "How much do you know about the Eddie Valdez shooting?"

"I know it was thoroughly reviewed by the OIS teamthat's short for officer-involved shooting. Brand's actions were found to be within use-of-force guidelines."

"But there was no witness to the shooting, correct? There was only Brand's account of what happened."

"There was ballistics evidence," Wolper said carefully.

"Lieutenant, what is a patch?"

It was his turn to hesitate. "A patch amp; well, it's a cop's take of the bad guys' take. A payoff to look the other way while crimes are committed. I need to know why you're asking me this."

She ignored him. "Who are the Gs?"

"Drug gang in our division. Gs is short for Gangstas. The San Pedro Street Gangstas is what they call themselves. What the hell did Brand tell you?"

"More than he intended. The technique I use has a way of releasing a person's inhibitions."

"Like truth serum?"

"There's no such thing as truth serum, but this procedure may be a pretty close equivalent."

"You're saying he witnessed a payoff?"

"I'm saying he received a payoff, then shot Valdez when he came up short."

"That's ridiculous."

"It's what he told me."

"There has to be a mistake."

"There may be. I can't be sure Brand's story was true. That's what we need to find out. Tell me about the shooting."

A waitress interrupted them, delivering menus. Wolper gave back the menus, unexamined, and ordered two cheeseburgers, two Cokes. "You're not a vegetarian, are you?" he asked Robin belatedly.

"Cheeseburger is fine."

"Okay. The shooting. Sergeant Brand was riding in his unit, alone"

"Shouldn't he ride with a partner?"

"Sergeants don't have partners. They function in a supervisory capacity. As a matter of fact, Brand was on his way back from supervising a crime scene."

"Isn't that the watch commander's job?"

"Brand had the watch that night. The lieutenantnot mewas off."

"All right. So he's heading back to the station amp;"

"When he sees Valdez enter a parking garage on foot, going down the ramp. Right away Brand is suspicious. Valdez is known in the neighborhood. He's been picked up for ripping off car stereos, boosting vehicles, and being an all-around pain in the ass."

"Was he a member of the San Pedro Street Gangstas?"

"Good question. We never made him as a G, and the coroner didn't find any gang tats on him."

"So he wasn't?"

"He could've been a wanna-be, or someone they used as an errand boy. But he had no gang ties we know of, and there was no gang presence at his funeral. Far as we know, he was just a small-time street criminal."

"And Brand saw him going into a parking garage. What time was this?"

"Two hundred hours. Two a.m., I mean."

"I can translate. What happened next?"

"Brand calls it in on his radio. Says he's checking out a five-oh-threepossible auto theft."

"Did he request backup?"

"No."

"Isn't that unusual? Especially considering he was alone?"

"He may not have shown the best judgment. Like I told you yesterday, Brand is a street cop. He figures he gets paid to take chances. He's not one of these guys who sit behind a desk waiting to go twenty and out."

"So he's a cowboy."

"Christ, you're like a goddamned reporter putting words in my mouth." He shook his head. "Sorry, but I get tired of hearing good men called cowboys or vigilantes whenever they show any balls. Let's put it this way. When you call nine-one-one to report a hot prowl, do you want the cop who responds to wait around for backup or to suck it up and do his job?"

"I'm not trying to be confrontational, Lieutenant."

"Right. Whatever. Anyway, not calling for backup isn't cowboy stuff. It's Sergeant Brand's assessment of the threat level. He knows Valdez. He has him pegged as a knuckle-head, a troublemaker, but not violent. If he catches Valdez boosting a tape deck, he can handle the arrest on his own."

"All right. Now Brand is in the garage."

"And he looks around for Valdez, but the assholesorrythe kid isn't visible. Brand thinks maybe Valdez has already gone to another level of the garageit's one of those multistory things. Then he sees movement in a corner, and he heads toward it. He thinks Valdez is trying to bust into an SUV. He's wrong. Valdez heard Brand come down the ramp and he's waiting for Brand with a thirty-eight Special."