Croaker: Grave Sins (Fey Croaker Book 2) Read online

  “You just can’t stay away from those ladies you make deliveries to. Can you, Darcy?”

  The helmet went up and down. Up and down.

  “There’s something about them. Isn’t there, Darcy? Something telling you to go back and do the things you did. Isn’t there?”

  Raise and lower. Slap a little harder in the palm. Not too hard. Didn’t want the mike to pick up something it shouldn’t. The movement was a subtle intimidation. It wasn’t a physical threat, but a mental one – Fey letting Darcy know she knew what he had done. She was telling him that she knew exactly, in every detail, and was only waiting for him to admit.

  Fey was hitting her interrogatory stride. Under other conditions she would spend more time building her theme – giving her suspect a way to justify his crimes. Interrogatory themes allowed a suspect to buy into a rationale behind their actions that would appear to make them more socially acceptable; she made you do it... if she didn’t want it, she wouldn’t have dressed like that... after what she said, you had to hit her... you didn’t mean for anyone to get hurt, it just happened; anything that would bring a suspect to the point of confession.

  Fey didn’t believe in the excuses she dangled before a suspect, but she laid them out just the same in order to get the confession. It didn’t matter how a suspect justified the crime. What mattered was the confession. The crime was just as bad, the punishment just as severe.

  With Darcy, however, Fey could already feel him coming to boiling point. He was jumping out of his skin, and Fey just needed to push him a little further and he would be over the brink. Like taking candy from a baby.

  “Nobody has really understood the real you. Have they, Darcy?” Fey’s voice had a soft, almost grandmotherly comfort in it. She knew Monk would call her a whore for getting a confession this way, but what the hell.

  She put the motorcycle helmet gently down on the table and then reached out and placed a hand on Darcy’s shoulder. “I can tell that about you already. Nobody really listens to you. Do they, Darcy?” The constant use of the first name established an intimate bond. Ever so gently she began to rock Darcy’s shoulder back-and-forth. The young man’s whole upper torso began to sway with the motion.

  “Darcy, what you did to those ladies wasn’t right. Was it?” Soft questions now. Closed ended. Not asking for elaborate answers, just a simple yes or no.

  “I didn’t do – ”

  “Yes, you did, Darcy,” Fey immediately interrupted the denial before it was completed. She was in total control of the interview. “I know you did these things.” Fey deliberately avoided harsh, accusatory words like rape and beat. She kept everything on track, but soft. Lull the suspect into thinking things weren’t as bad as they were. “You know you did them. We have to get to the truth. And that’s all I want, Darcy, is the truth. You can tell me the truth. Can’t you, Darcy?”

  There was a few seconds of silence as Fey continued to rock Darcy’s shoulder, and then there came a quiet, “Yes.”

  Fey watched as Darcy’s eyes scrunched closed. A huge tear broke loose. Fey knew she had him now, just needed to press a bit further.

  “Darcy, you can tell me about what happened tonight.” Get the most recent crime cleared and the others would follow like falling dominos. “You’re sorry about what you did. Aren’t you, Darcy?” Again the close ended question with the assumption of guilt built in. Not, “Have you ever hit your wife?” but, “The last time you hit your wife, you really didn’t mean to hurt her, did you?” Close ended questions. Assumption of guilt. Looking for simple yes or no answers.

  Fey waited in silence for the answer to her last question. She knew Darcy had heard her, and she was giving him time to feel the pressure of the silence and fill the void. It was a trick lawyers and reporters all learn when they went to belligerence school – ask, “How do you feel now your entire family has been killed?” then sit back in silence and wait for an answer. We’ve all been trained to respond to questions. It’s a natural habit. We answer even when we don’t want to because we know we’re expected to answer.

  Finally, Darcy surrendered a quiet, “Yes.”

  Fey felt jubilant inside, this was the first admission of guilt, but her exterior remained cool and non-judgmental. There was a hole in the dike, but now she had to break the dam.

  “You are sorry. Aren’t you, Darcy?” Hit the same point again.

  “Yes.” The answer coming quicker, easier this time.

  “Actually, you really like Mrs. Mattheson. Don’t you?” Fey named the most recent victim.

  “Yes,” Darcy replied, his eyes still scrunched closed, tears flowing silently.

  “Look at me, Darcy,” Fey said.

  Darcy shook his head negatively, but Fey rocked his shoulders back and forth in an affirmative manner. “Come on, Darcy. Look at me.”

  Darcy opened his eyes.

  “You went back there tonight. Didn’t you? You went back to Mrs. Mattheson’s house and you pushed your way in. Didn’t you? And you pushed Mrs. Mattheson over that table and you put your dick inside of her.” Fey raised her voice. She dropped her hand from Darcy’s shoulder and picked up the motorcycle helmet again. “And you hit her in the head with your motorcycle helmet because you were angry. Because nobody understands you. Because your father doesn’t care about you.” She thrust the helmet into Darcy’s lap. “You did that didn’t you, Darcy? Didn’t you?”

  Tears flooded down Darcy’s face.

  “Didn’t you, Darcy? You did that to Mrs. Mattheson.”

  “Yes!” It came out on a wail of inner pain.

  “And you did it to the others, Didn’t you? Mrs. Basil, Mrs. Cranston, Mrs. Greaves, and Mrs. Plimpton…” Fey named off the other victims. “Didn’t you?”

  “Yes!” Darcy stood up screaming, tears streaming.

  “What did you do to them, Darcy?” The question was perfectly timed and executed.

  “I screwed them! And I hit them! I hit them over and over. They didn’t like me. Nobody likes me. Everybody hates me!” Darcy collapsed back onto the hard chair burying his head in his arms.

  Here was silence except for Darcy’s sobbing.

  The electricity in the room ebbed.

  There was a knock on the interrogation room door. Fey flashed a look at Monk. If the knock had come a few seconds earlier, it could have destroyed the whole dynamics of the interrogation. The interruption could have clammed Darcy up and blown the whole confession.

  Fey jerked her head at Monk, indicating he should answer the knock. Monk was glad of the chance to move. His muscles had been cramping. He opened the door and stepped outside.

  Fey sat back, watching Darcy who still had his head buried in his arms. His muffled whimpering was barely audible. She felt drained and looked over at the pack of stale cigarettes on the table. Heaven knows she could have done with a smoke right then. She picked up the pack and then set it down again almost immediately.

  Monk stuck his head back in the door. “Grab your boots and saddle, partner. We’ve got us a cold one.”

  Chapter 7

  Fey turned the gold Chevy into the Will Rogers state park entrance. In the passenger seat Monk was busy gathering up his notebook and pen.

  “You see anybody?” Fey asked as she drove past the empty ranger shack.

  “There’s a couple of black-and-whites up there,” Monk said, pointing toward the far corner of the parking lot. One of the cars was in plain sight. The other was mostly hidden by the drooping boughs of a pepper tree.

  Fey cruised toward the location. She liked working with Monk. He was still young for a homicide detective, but he took pride in what he did. He was intuitive, methodical, and rarely made mistakes. He was also happily married, which made him a rarity in a profession that tore wedded bliss apart like wet tissues in a cyclone. Monk’s devotion to his wife and three young kids also relieved Fey of having to deal with a partner who was more interested in his next sexual conquest than in solving crime. Working with partners who were constant
ly trying to get her into bed – not because they felt anything for her, but simply because she was female – was something Fey abhorred.

  Parking the Chevy behind the second black-and-white, Fey clambered out of the vehicle. She pulled on a dark blazer to cover the Smith & Wesson .38 in the shoulder holster under her left arm. A number of years earlier, the department authorized the use of Smith & Wesson and Beretta 9-mm semi-automatics.

  At the same time, the department also began phasing out the standard issue Smith & Wesson .38 by issuing 9-mm weapons to police academy recruits. But even though Fey had completed the training and owned a 9-mm Beretta, she still carried her favored .38 wheel gun. It had become an old friend, and she was loath to carry anything else. She knew it made her an anachronism, but she didn’t care. She was certain she could hit and kill with the.38, but she wasn’t comfortable yet with the 9-mm. Given time. she would get used to the 9-mm, but she wasn’t sure she had enough time left on the job to make the effort worthwhile.

  Approaching the second black-and-white, Fey was surprised to see it was not an LAPD vehicle. Instead it bore the logo of the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department. There was also another plain detective sedan, parked further forward and almost completely hidden by the drooping pepper tree surrounding foliage.

  Fey glanced between the roof antennas of her gold Chevy, catching Monk’s eye as she shoved her door closed. He raised his eyebrows in reply and shrugged his shoulders. It looked like there a jurisdiction dispute was about to break out. The border between LA City’s bailiwick and the province covered by LA County ran along the north edge of the park. Since there was nobody around to direct them otherwise, Fey and Monk started hiking the dirt trail leading away from the front of the foremost vehicle.

  The announcement of a possible homicide had brought an abrupt end to Fey’s interrogation of Darcy Wyatt. She had left him in the hands of Dick Morrison, who was very capable of finishing the booking process.

  Morrison had been listening to the interrogation through earphones in the cramped quarters of the tape room. He knew exactly where Fey left off. Morrison would run with the confession by getting Darcy to make a fuller statement, typing it out, and having Darcy read it and sign it after initialing any changes.

  Several mistakes would be made on purpose in the typed confession. This would be done strictly to get Darcy to point them out, make the changes, and then initial them. The reasoning behind this procedure was later in court, Darcy couldn’t claim he’d signed a blank piece of paper, which was then filled in without his knowledge. Having him change and initial the mistakes proved he’d read and confirmed the statement.

  Fey didn’t like leaving the interrogation at the halfway point, but she didn’t have much choice. Murder took precedence. In the back of her mind, however, there was something tickling her intuition. She didn’t know what it was yet, but there was something there.

  The confession had been clean. It had been a little easier than most, but it was still a good piece of work. Morrison had done a good job of catching Wyatt and she had done a good job of breaking Wyatt down and getting the admissions. But something didn’t feel right. Somehow, she knew she was far from done with Darcy Wyatt.

  As she walked up the trail, she began a concerted effort to wipe Wyatt out of her mind. She would need all of her attention centered for the immediate task and could not afford to be distracted. Mistakes could let a killer slip away like water through a cup of interlaced fingers.

  Both she and Monk kept their heads on the swivel as they hiked, checking the ground around and ahead of them before they stepped. They were looking for anything out of place. They didn’t know what the situation was yet, but they were operating on automatic pilot, keeping their senses attuned for anything, no matter how small, that might later be able to help them crack the case.

  Monk had already started his notes. He’d written down the date and time they’d been notified about the body’s discovery, who told them, and the location where the body was found.

  It was approaching six-thirty, and the sun was making itself known. It was already warm, and the day promised to be another scorcher in the on-going heat wave. The Santa Ana’s were slated to kick in later in the day. On the way to the scene, the Chevy’s static-ridden AM radio spat out the information the high for the day was expected to break a hundred and three degrees in downtown L.A. for the sixth day in a row. Tempers in the city were already flaring, and there was no hope of relief.

  One side of the trail was bordered by rough, four-foot high, split-rail fencing. Beyond the fencing was a thick tangle of shrubs and trees. The other side of the trail ran along the gradient of a hillside reaching above the detectives’ heads and then flattening to be covered by more shrubbery – the city giving way to the rural.

  The trail itself was worn from constant use. The prints of horseshoes could be seen molded into the dry dirt. Here and there droppings from the same animals testified to the trail’s main use.

  As Fey and Monk walked around a bend in the track, they were brought up short by a stream of yellow crime scene tape stretching from the fence to the hillside, where it was tied around a sturdy manzanita branch. Beyond the tape stood two uniformed LAPD officers, a uniformed Sheriff’s officer, a citizen in jogging shorts next to a large German short-haired pointer on a leash, and McCoy and Blades – two suits from the Sheriff’s homicide detail.

  “Ah, give me a break,” Fey said sotto voce when she saw the two rival detectives.

  “Look-it here,” McCoy said spotting Fey. “If it ain’t the fabled Frog Lady herself. How’s it shaking, darlin’?” His tone was lounge-lizard sincere.

  “You’re not even registering on my Richter scale, McCoy,” Fey replied, ducking under the crime scene tape and moving forward. “Nice suit,” she said to the sheriff’s detective as she got closer. “How often do you have to take it in to keep the seat shined?”

  Blades, the other Sheriff’s detective, laughed. He got a dirty look from McCoy in return.

  There wasn’t much love lost between the two sets of detectives. It had less to do, however, with the rivalry of the two big LA law enforcement agencies than with straight personality conflicts. There were a number of Sheriff’s deputies who Fey liked and respected. McCoy, however, always managed to get under her skin, and Blades wasn’t much better.

  Things escalated between Fey and McCoy two years earlier. While working a gang shooting in West Los Angeles, Fey came across information leading to an unrelated suspect in a sheriff’s murder case. Fey had not only come up with hard evidence, but she also obtained a confession. The fly in the ointment was McCoy had already cleared the sheriff’s case as a murder/suicide.

  When Fey marched in with her suspect’s confession and the evidence to back it up, the situation belched egg all over McCoy’s face. If the same thing were to happen again, Fey might play things differently – she already had all the on-the-job enemies she needed – but the damage had already been done and McCoy would never forget.

  “What do we have?” Fey asked.

  “Excuse me for not getting right down to it,” McCoy said. “I didn’t realize you were so serious these days, Frog Lady.”

  “Murder is a serious business,” Fey replied, not rising to the bait of her despised nickname. “Or is the Sheriff’s Department still handling it like dark comedy?”

  “You should have your own sitcom,” McCoy snapped back.

  “You’re quick,” Fey said. “Bet you’re a howl on the stand-up circuit. However, this is the lay-down dead circuit we’re working.”

  McCoy took another shot. “When somebody gets you to lay down, I’ve heard it’s like you’re dead.”

  Fey didn’t ruffle. “Typical Sheriff’s sources,” she replied. “All hearsay, and never reliable.”

  “Children, please,” Monk cut in. “Can we cut the comedy act? I’ve got to be in court in a couple of hours.”

  Fey and McCoy glared at each other, but a silent, uneasy truce appeared to be de
clared.

  Blades cleared his throat. “The body is over here.” He gestured with his arm, and the four detectives began to move down the trail. Blades pointed at the citizen in the jogging shorts, who along with his dog had been watching the repartee between the rival detectives. “That’s Cory Parsons and his dog Spot. Spot found the body while he was looking for a place to crap along the edge of the trail.” Blades’ voice was low enough that it did not reach Parsons’ ears.

  Both man and dog, however, appeared to know they were being talked about. Parsons looked upset, and Fey realized that, as usual, Blades and McCoy hadn’t handled their witnesses with kid gloves. She figured she’d try to salvage some kind of rapport and shot a smile in Parsons’ direction. “We’ll be with you as soon as we can,” she said.

  “I certainly hope so. I have an important early business meeting to attend, and I’m beginning to stiffen up,” Parsons said. He started a series of stretching exercises as if to emphasize his point.

  Fey knew Parsons’ type. She dealt with them all too often in West Los Angeles. More money than sense, and a highly inflated perception of their own importance. She was also aware of West Los Angeles Area’s unofficial motto, The rich are different, and will be treated that way. It stuck in her craw, but that didn’t make it any less true.

  Fey and Monk both gave their names and serial numbers to the uniformed LAPD officer who was keeping the crime scene log. The officer noted the information and added their arrival time.

  “Is the dog’s name really Spot?” Monk asked Blades.

  “Who the hell cares,” Blades replied, loud enough this time for Parsons to hear. “It’s just a dog.”

  “Oh, good,” Fey said. “He can identify mammals all by himself now. What an improvement since the last time we worked together.”

  Blades had his back to Fey and didn’t respond verbally. However, Fey saw a dark red blush run up the back of his neck.

  “Why do you always have to be so antagonistic?” Monk asked Fey in a soft voice. They were walking a few paces behind Blades and McCoy.