Faye Kellerman - Walking Shadows

Decker said, “Karl, you’ll have to take that up with the city council. I just do crime.”

“And not very well,” Floyd said.

“That was uncalled for,” Annie said. “If you hadn’t taken off the camera, we might have caught them in the act.”

Floyd muttered under his breath. Then he said, “I’ll get the damn camera.”

Decker said, “Go home, people. I’ll start at the end of the block and work my way up.”

As people slowly started filing back into their houses, Decker walked down the street. Greenbury was a rural eastern upstate town, but some places were more rural than others. This particular road—Canterbury Lane—backed up into woodlands, now green and leafy with the advent of summer. The days were longer, the sun was brighter, the sky was brilliant, and despite the uprising, Decker was in a good mood.

The warmer nights also brought out the local teenaged punks. They loitered in the streets, smoked weed in the back alleys, and when they really wanted privacy, they met up in the forest to get high, have sex, and do whatever crazy rituals underdeveloped frontal lobes do. Decker figured the kids entered the street through the woodlands, full of meth and Satan, and decided to vandalize for fun.

The last house on the block—surrounded by the wilds on two sides—belonged to Jeb Farris, a retired money manager who usually summered in Greenbury. He had yet to arrive, so Decker didn’t have his permission to tromp around the yard, but he figured Jeb wouldn’t mind. He was looking for evidence of teenage delinquency—cellophane wrappers with white powder, pills, ashes from crack pipes, marijuana butts. He didn’t find that, but what he did find took him aback.

It took Decker a few moments to regroup his thoughts. Then he took out his phone. The first call was to McAdams, who said, “How’s the walker brigade doing?”

“Harvard, I just found a body.”

“What?”

“At the mouth of the forest where Greenbury bleeds into Hamilton. The north side of Jeb Farris’s place. I need two uniforms with tape to cordon off the area, the Scientific Investigative Division, and a coroner. His head was bashed in on the right side, and next to him there’s a bloody bat.”

“How old?”

“Early to midtwenties. A male with facial hair, although not much of it. Send out Kevin Butterfield if he’s available. He can direct the procedure.”

“Any ideas who the victim is?”

“No. He’s lying on his side, face partially hidden, and I’m not touching him until the coroner gets here. Call up Hamilton. They should have someone qualified in their ME’s office. Are you writing this down?”

“Every word.”

“After you get the cops, Kevin, and the SID guys, I need you to round up the following dickheads: Riley Summers, Noah Grand, Chris Gingold, Erik Menetti, and Dash Harden. I want to know where each and every one of them was last night and what they were doing.”

“Don’t those guys live in Hamilton?”

“The body is in Greenbury.” Decker thought a moment. “I’ll run it by Radar. Let him handle Hamilton PD. But we need to talk to them.”

“The dickheads.”

“Yes. How are you doing, by the way?”

“What?”

“How are you settling in? Everything okay?”

“I’d prefer to stay with Rina and you.”

“Not happening.”

“It’s just for the summer, Old Man.”

“Still not happening. But you can have dinner with us tonight … if we’re done by then. And even if we’re not, Rina can make us sandwiches.”

“Okay. It sounds better than what I had in mind.”

“Which was?”

“Canned tuna served on a bed of self-pity.”

THE BIGGER MUNICIPALITYof Hamilton abutted the college town of Greenbury, but the two places had entirely different demographics. Hamilton had the big box stores, the supermarkets, the fast-food chains, and a real city government with real problems and real crime. Greenbury and its university village was a town filled with boutiques, farmers’ markets, cafés, gastropubs, and a quaint little city hall—a Beaux-Arts wannabe—around a hundred years old. The station house sat in the center of the village—a rectangular brick building as modern as a one-room schoolhouse. But it did have Wi-Fi, and the HVAC had been recently renovated, so it was comfortable in all seasons.

Decker looked up the names on the computer. The Hamilton boys had multiple citations for tagging and vandalism, but none had ever been charged with a violent felony, let alone murder. The boys’ MO seemed to be to create as much havoc as they could in Greenbury, then run back to the safety of their own city. Decker had every right to haul them in, but it would be much easier to get to the little buggers if he greased the skids. If he wanted full access to Hamilton PD files, he needed Hamilton PD cooperation, and that was always a delicate dance. Mike Radar could help, and Decker pleaded his case to the captain.

Decker said, “Certainly Hamilton hasn’t been very successful at curbing their activities.”

“I’m sure Hamilton would love hearing that.” Radar was nearing his second retirement. His first was leaving the big city to take on the captain’s job in Greenbury. Decker had echoed his path, leaving Los Angeles for something quieter and less time consuming. But in the past three years, he had dealt with three very unusual homicides. Like the noir title, trouble followed him.

Decker said, “I don’t want to walk in and make demands. I wouldn’t want that done to me, but I need those boys.”

Radar was wiry with thinning gray hair. He was sharp and insightful, but sometimes a little too cautious. He looked at his watch. It was a little after nine in the morning. “Who’s at the scene right now?”

“Kevin Butterfield. Maybe McAdams. We’re waiting on the coroner.”

“Do you have any officers from Hamilton?”

“The crime was in Greenbury. It’s our territory. It has the earmarks of these punks, and all I want is a little interdepartmental cooperation.”

“What makes you think that any of the boys committed the murder? You told me that none of them have violence in their criminal histories.”

“Vandalized mailboxes are their signature.”

“They could have done the vandalizing without doing the murder.”

“If they found the body, they didn’t call it in.”

“Maybe the murder happened after the mailboxes?”

“Or maybe one of them did it. Or maybe they didn’t do it, but they saw who did. The smartest thing would be to call them in as witnesses and see what they have to say.”

Radar agreed. “I’ll make a couple of phone calls. But without proof of what and who was involved, it gets sticky.”

“Like you said, the body may not have anything to do with the teens.”

“And we don’t know who it is?”

“The body? No idea. I’m waiting for McAdams or Butterfield to call me.”

“Maybe we should wait for an identity before I made the calls.”

“Tell Hamilton I just want to find out if the boys saw anything. Keep it simple.”

“And when it gets more complicated?”

“Not a problem.” Decker grinned. “I do complicated very well.”