James Grippando - When Darkness Falls

Detective Barber had twenty years on the force, and he was probably about six months away from perfecting his Joe Friday monotone. Miami was rarely cold enough for a trench coat, so the chilly weather was like costume day for Barber. He was standing at the counter near the cash register, his hands buried deep in his coat pockets, his fleshy brow furrowed into the anatomical equivalent of the Spanish Steps. A glossy color photograph, Falcon’s mug shot, lay flat atop the glass. Last night’s desk attendant was leaning on one elbow, staring down at it, studying the image. It was Barber’s standard interrogation tactic. Never ask the witness to describe someone out of the blue. Put the photo in front of him, let it jog his memory. “Ever seen this guy before?” said Barber.

The young man scratched at the tattooed dragon on the left side of his shaved head, just above the ear, directly below the scalp ring. “Nope.”

It wasn’t the response that Alicia or the detective had expected. “You sure?” said Barber.

“Dude, I think I’d remember this loser if I saw him.”

Barber kept his composure. Alicia resisted the urge to jump in with her own line of questioning. Standing on the sidelines with a virtual gag on her mouth was proving much more difficult than anticipated.

The computer in question was in pod number three. The crime-scene investigators were proceeding in their usual methodical fashion, dusting for prints and searching for other physical evidence that might identify the person who had sent Alicia the e-mail.

“Do you remember who was using that computer last night?” asked Barber.

“What time?”

Barber fumbled for a copy of the e-mail. Alicia filled in the blank for him: “The e-mail was sent from your computer number three at ten twenty-two p.m.”

Barber shot her a look, as if to say “No talking, that was our agreement.”

“Ten twenty-two p.m.,” he repeated.

“Don’t remember exactly. But I think it was a woman.”

“A woman?”

“Yeah. An older woman.”

Barber shoved the photograph toward the clerk again. “You sure it wasn’t this guy?”

“I don’t think so.”

Barber seemed annoyed. “Can you describe for me the last three customers you dealt with last night?”

“Sure. One was a woman, and-Uh. No, two were women, and the last one was a man. I think. I don’t know. It was either a man or a woman.”

“That certainly narrows it down,” said Barber.

Alicia waited for him to follow up, but the detective was suddenly more concerned with the text message on his vibrating cell. Alicia asked the clerk, “Do your customers sign a log book or anything like that?”

“No, they just pay by the hour and go.”

“The woman who rented pod number three, did she pay with a credit card? Anything to create a written record?”

“Uh-uh. We don’t take credit cards for anything under twenty dollars. I’m pretty sure I had only one credit card transaction all night.”

Barber was still reading from his text message, so Alicia forged ahead. “Do you have a security camera on the premises? Could we get a look at her that way?”

“No. We respect our customers’ privacy.” Translation: How would you like it if someone watched you surf the porn sites?

Barber was suddenly drumming his fingers across the glass counter-top. “Anything else you’d like to ask, officer?”

Alicia backed away. She wasn’t trying to upstage him, but she could tell that his heart wasn’t in her case. Barber was a top-notch homicide detective, with plenty of homicide cases that needed his full attention. He was assigned to a stalking case only because Alicia was the mayor’s daughter. Alicia didn’t like it any more than he did, but if he wasn’t going to pursue the obvious questions, she would. Perhaps she’d pushed it a little too far. “You go right ahead, detective. Sorry.”

Barber said, “Can you describe this older woman for us, kid? The one who rented pod number three?”

The clerk made a face, as if it hurt to search his memory for something that happened all of fourteen hours ago. “Not really. Hispanic, maybe. Kind of short. Just another customer, you know. We get lots of customers.”

Barber asked a few more follow-up questions, none of any consequence. He ended by passing the clerk his card and asking him to call if anything came to mind.

“I hope I was helpful,” said the clerk.

“You were, thank you,” said Alicia.

Barber checked with the CSI team, which had about another hour of work on computer pod number three. They could handle it on their own. Barber gave the signal, and Alicia followed him outside to the sidewalk.

“You think the boy’s covering for somebody?” she asked.

“No,” said Barber. “I don’t think he pays much attention to who comes and who goes from the place. It’s just not important to him.”

“You don’t actually think it was an old woman who stole my purse and sent me that e-mail, do you?”

“Could have been a woman who sent you the message. I have no idea who stole your purse.”

“Are you saying two people might be involved in this?”

“Look, Alicia. You ask a lot of questions, and that’s a good thing in this business. But see, the trick is to ask people who might possibly know the answers. How the hell do I know if there’s two people involved or not?”

He started walking toward his car. Alicia followed. She was thinking about what the clerk had told them. “It just doesn’t add up. Someone steals my lipstick, and then a little old lady sends me an e-mail saying that it’s only out of love that she seeks me?”

“The kid could have been confused.”

“What if he’s not? What if it was a woman who sent me the message?”

“Hey, stranger things have happened, honey.”

She climbed into the passenger seat and closed the door. Barber started the car and backed out of the parking space. Alicia looked out the window toward the Red Bird Copy Center.

“Not to me,” she said as they drove away. Honey.

M ayor Raul Mendoza didn’t like what Jack Swyteck was telling him.

“This is my daughter we’re talking about,” the mayor said into the telephone.

“I’m definitely sympathetic to that,” said Swyteck. “But I would see it no differently if we were talking about a member of my own family.”

The mayor sank back into his big leather chair at his office in Miami City Hall. Felipe, his trusted assistant and bodyguard, was seated in the armchair on the opposite side of the old teak desk. All of the mayor’s furniture was made of teak, a nautical decorating theme that, together with his corner-office view of the marina, only served to remind him that he never had time to sail anymore. He barely had time for anything that wasn’t official business. Except when it came to his daughter.

Mendoza had always made time for Alicia, from her soccer games as a little girl-he never missed one-to her graduation from the police academy. He loved his wife, and they were still together and happy after twenty-nine years. Even after he was married, however, the concept of dying for someone else seemed a bit unreal, more like a melodramatic metaphor for the depth of one’s feelings than an actual commitment. That all changed with Alicia. When she was sick as an infant, he begged God to make him sick instead. When she cried, he couldn’t bear to hear it. When some homeless pervert was stalking her-well, all bets were off. It didn’t matter that the mayor was nearing the end of his term and facing an uphill battle for reelection. It didn’t matter that the fund-raising had to be done long before voters went to the polls, or that he had places to go, hands to shake, checks to cash. He was trying hard to be diplomatic with Falcon’s lawyer, but this was about his daughter’s safety, and he had little patience for anyone who refused to open his eyes and see things as any father would see them.