S White - Hermit

‘Ricardo Alvarez? Biggest drug dealer in the state? Jeez, you need that bit of general knowledge. Not everything is a specialism. Okay, so the Alvarez family have been up to their buckets in various aspects of organised crime. Currently drug kingpins, though the word is they’re trying to diversify.’

The whole world of sources bewildered Dana. It wasn’t how she operated, as a detective or a human being. She couldn’t imagine cultivating someone who would want to tell her something dangerous to them. She never knew what ‘the word’ currently was, or what the street thought.

‘How is Cassavette attached?’

‘Maybe not at all. He went to school with two of the brothers. One of the brothers is the financial chief of the family empire, another is in prison for murder. Cassavette’s previous business was a corner store in the city – they’re a natural for laundering money. I mean, high turnover – and much of it in cash – with plenty written off for shoplifting or damage. So it was a potential link that Central never followed up, but it stayed on the radar. The Alvarez family like doing business with people they know.’

‘Relevant to this investigation, though?’

‘Still chasing. Cassavette might have moved to get away from that sort of thing. Maybe it followed him down here. Perhaps they leaned on him, and he leaned back. It’s an option.’

‘Okay. That lawyer of Megan’s – Lynch. Is he here yet?’

‘I imagine he’ll be here shortly. Because I set Lucy on him.’

‘Ah.’

Lucy’s view of lawyers was a conversation piece: she basically saw them as vermin. Her ‘tolerance’ was narrower than a human hair, but more fragile.

Dana turned and headed down the corridor. She could hear Lucy before she reached the office door.

‘Mr Lynch, I’m not inviting you to an elegant soiree with canapés and we don’t have a lawyer quota to fill each month. This is a serious crime that requires your immediate presence.’ Lucy looked up, saw Dana and tapped the button for conference call.

Lynch’s delivery sounded odd in the echo-ridden, tinny speaker: a well-educated fox purring in a drainpipe. ‘Seriously? I haven’t committed any crime, and I mainly deal in divorce law. I think you’re getting a little, uh, dramatic. Matters are rarely as urgent as people think they are. I can fit you in… around four?’

‘Mr Lynch, I am not asking you. I’m telling you to come to the station straight away. Now. This minute.’ Lucy did a cross-eye and puffed her cheeks. Dana raised an eyebrow.

‘Really, I’d love to help, but I’m tied up in client meetings for at least two hours. Can’t it at least wait until lunchtime?’

Lucy sucked her gums for a second and took a deep, long breath before launching.

‘Mr Lynch, are you currently talking down a novice pilot whose trainer has had a heart attack? No? Are you currently guiding someone in the Congo jungle to perform surgery on themselves before they bleed out? No? Client blubbing on a ledge somewhere? No? Then what you are doing isn’t as important, or urgent, as what we’re doing. I know where your offices are. It takes six minutes to walk here. I expect you here in under ten, or we’ll march over there and we can all do that “perp walk” thing. Personally, I love that, but those on the receiving end seem to find it embarrassing. Not to say a career-screw. Under ten minutes, and counting, Mr Lynch.’

She stabbed the end-call button with the tail of her pencil. Her face shifted from glowering to perky. ‘Hey, Dana. I’m practising my people skills.’

‘Jeez, Luce, you’re terrifying. Let me apologise in advance for anything I ever do to upset you.’

‘Nah, you’re gold. Lawyers, on the other hand: their sanctimonious, patronising crap. They aren’t even the bottom of the barrel. They’re the thing you use to scrape it.’

Dana grinned. ‘When he gets here, stick him in Interview Three. No drinkies, no one with him. On his own to stew for fifteen minutes, then Mikey can have at him.’

‘Ooh, gently simmering lawyer. My favourite. Will do.’

Dana gave her a thumbs-up and walked on to Bill’s office. There was a small window in his office door, and she peered through it as if it were a speakeasy entrance until he waved her in.

‘Hey, Dana. Grab a chair. I just need to sign off on these.’

She sat and gazed out of the window, watching the breeze pick up on a pair of trees that had finished with the scenic gold and were now turning bare and frigid. Up here, it was difficult to hear much of anything. Dana could understand why some bosses stayed in their office the whole time; dealing with politics but relishing the serenity.

Bill’s sideboard had a picture of his wife: clearly professionally taken and, Dana reckoned, about a decade ago. Melinda’s face had a calm assurance and self-possession, like an early Bacall, with a glint that said she knew more than she’d ever need. Dana briefly wondered if anyone – no matter the equipment, diffusers and post-production software – could get her anywhere near looking like that.

Bill perused a report, running his pen rapidly down the centre of each page. Speed reader. Dana had always wondered about taking that course. Central offered it, but it was a three-day residential and she didn’t like being away from home for that long. It spooked her. She’d had to do a week’s residential on investigative techniques, and she wound up driving in and back each day, even though it was a six-hour round trip. She had to admit, though, Bill’s ability to absorb and retain vast chunks of information was impressive.

‘Test me.’ He slung over the report.

‘Hmm. Page seventeen, there are two photos. The upper one – who took that?’

He closed his eyes, and the pupils danced like REM sleep. ‘Top right, italics, Brian, Brian… Mulcahey.’

She put the report back on the desk. ‘That’s creepy – and a really flimsy super-power.’

‘Yeah, I was offered invisibility or flying. I went with “memory for trivia”. A mistake in retrospect.’

‘On the other hand, PrettyGoodMemoryMan doesn’t have to wear tight spandex.’

He smiled. ‘For which we’re all grateful. Especially me. Something on your mind?’

‘I wanted to collect your thoughts before the next go at Whittler. Lucy thinks his body language says he’s softening.’

‘She’s right,’ agreed Bill, ‘although some of that is him simply adjusting to being around people generally, not necessarily warming to you. That particular road is limited, though. Be ready for him to pick a fight about nothing.’

Dana tilted her head. ‘Because?’

‘Because he’s spent the last fifteen years being a particular person with a particular view of the world. You being pleasant to him puts a dent in that.’

‘Ah, yes, that occurred to me, too.’ Dana settled back and rubbed her recalcitrant knee. ‘He’s defined himself by that “lone wolf against everyone” personality. Getting on with someone, and not getting screwed over, undermines his sense of self.’

‘Exactly. Don’t get me wrong; he welcomes what looks like friendship. You’re doing an outstanding job: being precisely the kind of person he’d warm to, in exactly the right way. But be prepared for his long-term persona to give one more kick, one more moment representing him.’

Bill took off his glasses to rub his eyes. It struck Dana that he had been there when she arrived at Jensen’s Store; he must have been at work before 5 a.m.

‘You believe he went fifteen years without speaking?’ Bill asked.

‘Yes, I think he did. There’s a… spirit, a determination. I think he found his niche out there. Around people, that single-minded independence would have grated; they wouldn’t have appreciated it. The modern world rewards confidence and self-absorption: he’d have been derided.’ She could feel herself blush with emotion. ‘But out there? Oh, he’s king of his own little world, and that world doesn’t need any chitchat, does it?’