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

  Fey didn’t reply.

  “Did you know who my son was before you interviewed him this morning?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you didn’t think it might have been prudent to call me before you questioned him?”

  “Never entered my head. He’s a big boy now, and he can’t expect Daddy to hold his hand forever.”

  “With an attitude like that, detective, I don’t see you going much further in this department.”

  Fey laughed. “I have to tell you,” she said. “The Chief and I have one thing in common. We’re both as high as we’re going to get on this job.”

  “Darcy is my only son, Detective Croaker.” Wyatt gave a short pause. “We have had our problems in the past, but he is still my son. I will be using every asset within my power to see that he is cleared of this ridiculous charge.”

  “Even if he’s guilty?”

  “What does guilt have to do with anything?”

  “What about the women he raped?” Fey felt her anger rising and tried to put a cap on it.

  “What about them? Even if he did rape them, so what?”

  “Let me get this straight,” Fey said through clenched teeth. “You figure Darcy should walk away from this simply because he’s your son. You figure that gives him some kind of carte blanche or diplomatic immunity?”

  Devon Wyatt gave a self-depreciating shrug. “I’ve spent the better part of my life defending justice from narrow-minded, political golems and the trolls, like yourself, who are their tools. I’ve seen enough police corruption in my time to know that charges like the ones brought against my son are more often than not simply a frame to hang on an innocent party so the police can clear their blotter. The real rapist is still out there, but you don’t have to worry about him now because you think you have my son to take his place and make cover yourself in roses. Well, think again.”

  “What a crock,” Fey said, voicing aloud her original thought.

  “Don’t think you can play with me,” Devon Wyatt said. “You have no chance against the weight of justice I represent. You have no idea the depth of the precipice on which you are standing.”

  Fey shook her head. “I don’t believe I’ve ever met a megalomaniac before, Mr. Wyatt. Thanks for the experience, but it’s not one I’ll want to repeat in a hurry.” She was astounded by Wyatt’s ego.

  “Detective Croaker, police departments, especially the LAPD, have a well-known reputation for taking care of their own. So do I. You will regret meddling in my affairs.”

  “I’m just doing my job, you schmuck. Darcy is going down hard.”

  Devon Wyatt smiled. “Name calling? Somehow, I expected better from you. But I’ll tell you something for free. Whatever the outcome regarding the charges against my son, I will make it my personal quest to destroy everything you hold dear.”

  Fey came up with a shark-tooth smile of her own. “Threats? Somehow, I expected better from you.”

  Devon Wyatt glared at her.

  “I think this interview is over,” Fey said. “I’m quaking in my boots too much to carry on.” She stood up and opened the door. “I’m sure you can find the exit,” she said. “Straight down the hallway and through the door. Don’t let it hit you in the ass on the way out.”

  Wyatt stood up and started to move past Fey. He hesitated in the doorway, their bodies in close proximity, but not touching. He looked up into her face. “I’m going to enjoy this,” he said. The stare-down continued for several silent beats, and then Wyatt turned and strutted away.

  Fey watched him until he reached the doorway that led through to the squad room’s front lobby. “Wyatt,” she called. He stopped and turned to face her. “You look better on TV,” she said. “Somehow, I thought you’d be taller.”

  Chapter 14

  Fey’s head was buzzing. There was almost more going on than she could deal with. She had to organize and delegate. The latter was something she still had a hard time doing as a supervisor.

  She looked at her watch. Two o’clock. She had a four o’clock appointment she didn’t want to miss. First, she had to get somebody to handle the Darcy Wyatt case. If everything wasn’t done correctly, Devon Wyatt would find a way to kick their collective butts all over the courthouse. She also had to find time to deal with Ash and dig into McCoy and Blades’ case.

  What she should do was tell Mike Cahill she needed to borrow a detective from one of the other tables. Rape and homicide were both high profile enough to justify reassigning detectives from units such as Auto Theft or Burglary if the need arose.

  Personnel lent to other units, however, were usually about as sharp as Nerf Balls. No unit was willingly going to give up their best and brightest. They had their own cases to clear and couldn’t afford to let their top workers disappear for an extended length of time. Also, there was always the fear that if a unit was able to get along without the reassigned detective, then that unit would never get the position back. Borrowing detectives from other tables was sometimes done, but it always lead to harsh feelings and other problems.

  There was also another dilemma. If Fey went to Cahill and said she needed extra personnel to run her unit’s cases, it would immediately prove the Cahill’s point that the current murder case should be sold to Robbery-Homicide.

  Fey quickly realized borrowing personnel wasn’t an option. Her people were just going to have to suck it up and go for it. She did a quick inventory. She, personally, had to take care of Ash, and deal with McCoy and Blades’ case. Alphabet was at the autopsy. He be gone for at least three or four hours and then he’d have to write up everything and follow any leads that were produced. Monk and Brindle were chasing down the identity of the murder victim. Depending on where that information led them, they could also be tied up for an extensive period.

  At one end of the MAC table, Fey could see Arch Hammersmith was elbow deep in paperwork. It was clear Hammer and Nails were going to be swamped handling the regular MAC case load. Fey knew there were three separate bodies in custody for spousal abuse, and there must have been fifteen or sixteen new misdemeanor battery cases in the unit’s in-box that morning. All that plus the on-going cases were going to be enough to keep the pair off the streets and out of trouble no matter how good they were. Fey couldn’t ask or expect them to do any more.

  She sighed. Her only option appeared to be splitting up Monk and Brindle. It wasn’t something she wanted to do. Identifying the murder victim was of prime importance to breaking the case, and there were too many tangents for one detective to chase down.

  Feeling slightly stressed, Fey turned to look for Brindle and found herself instead confronted by Rhonda Lawless.

  “Hell, Nails. Don’t you know better than to sneak up on a trained detective?” Fey blew out a heavy gust of breath.

  “Sorry, boss, but I wanted to ask you about this rape arrest.” Nails held out the paperwork on Darcy Wyatt. “You want Hammer and I to run with this thing?”

  Fey took stock of Nails. She was forty-seven but looked thirty-five. Tall and lean with short, thick hair so black that it caught purple highlights in the station’s florescent lighting. Fey had seen Nails naked in the locker room and knew that she had the musculature of a female body builder. There was nothing soft about the woman at all. She had a reputation as an ice queen, but she seemed to fit together with Hammersmith as if the two of them shared the same brain – psychic twins.

  “I was going to give it to Brindle. You two have enough on your plate.”

  “Give me a break,” Nails said. “No offense, but if you give this thing to Jones it will get screwed up nine ways to Sunday.” Nails nodded her head toward where Brindle was bending over a table giving Cahill a free view down her cleavage. “If she doesn’t give the Lieutenant a heart attack, I’ll be surprised. Why don’t you just tell her to put her tits away, go home, and leave the detective work to the professionals?”

  Fey had to laugh and saw a rare smile cross Nails’ face. “I’m sorry,” Nails said. “Some d
ays she just pisses me off.”

  “I know what you mean.”

  Brindle had heard Fey laugh. She stood up, as if knowing Nails had said something about her, and walked off. She gave Cahill a sly smile and the Lieutenant almost jumped back out of her way. His face flushed as if he were a school boy caught looking at dirty magazines.

  “Look,” Nails continued. “Leave this case with Hammer and me. We’ve got the other MAC stuff under control, and if this case isn’t followed up properly, we could end up losing it. You know who this jerk’s father is, don’t you?”

  “In spades. I just spent an uncomfortable ten minutes in an interview room with him.”

  “Like swimming with a shark, isn’t it?”

  “You know him?”

  “Hammer and I have been up against him before. He’s far from a cream puff, but he is beatable.”

  “ If you want the case, you’ve got it, but there’s a lot to do.”

  “Hammer has already been on to the other jurisdictions and has everything organized. Since we have the arrestee here, we’re going to file all the cases with McNamara, our DA. She’s agreed to go out with us to reinterview all the victims. It will be quicker than trying to get them all to come to us. We already have SID on-line to analyze semen evidence recovered from the victims, and we think we can get some trace evidence off Wyatt’s motorcycle helmet.”

  “Whew. You two are a constant source of amazement.”

  “Rabbits out of hats are our specialty.”

  “I really appreciate it,” Fey said. “But I’m also depending on you both not to let the other stuff slide.”

  “Piece of cake,” Nails said with a shrug. “We can handle that stuff standing on our heads.”

  Fey saw Hammersmith glance up at his partner and wink. He looked like a California beach boy. Blond with piercing blue eyes, wide shoulders and narrow hips. Except for a crooked nose, he would appear right at home on ESPN’s beach volleyball coverage. The nose, however, was a legacy from his days as a gold medalist boxer in the International Police Olympics.

  The team was an odd pairing, and nobody knew what they did off-duty. They were both single, so it was anybody’s guess. Rumor Control had them running the gamut from celibacy to heavy bondage and discipline. Fey didn’t much care one way or the other. She was simply grateful for their attitude. In her mind, she could put Darcy Wyatt on the back burner knowing the case was in good hands. Either Hammer or Nails would get back to her if there was a problem. Until then it was their baby.

  “Croaker, line five. Croaker, line five.” The squad room pager intruded loudly into the air.

  Nails gave Fey a nod and headed back to her partner.

  Fey scooped up the closest phone and barked into it, “Croaker.”

  “Fey, it’s me.” Jake Travers’ voice came down the line. “I know you must be busy, but I just called to say I’m sorry about last night.”

  “Me too, Jake,” Fey said, although she wasn’t really, and it irritated her to have to deal with Jake’s hurt feelings when she had so much on her plate already. “But I don’t think being sorry is going to help fix things between us.”

  “Are things really that bad?”

  “I think so.”

  “Can we talk about it?”

  “Not right now. I’m up to my ears in a double homicide and a separate triple rape.”

  “I meant we can talk about it tonight. I’ll pick you up about seven.”

  “Tonight ...” The hesitation in Fey’s voice was clear.

  “Come on, Fey.” Jake matched Fey’s hesitation with his own irritation. “Surely, you haven’t forgotten tonight’s fund raiser. I need you there.”

  “Jake, I’m sorry. I can’t. There’s just too much to do on this case. It’s a big one –”

  “They’re all big ones, Fey. But there are other things that are bigger.” Jake’s anger was rising.

  “Preening for dollars may be more important to you,” Fey counterattacked immediately. “But it sure as hell isn’t to me. I’m not good at simpering around and sucking up to a bunch of old men who think the height of humor is to goose the cocktail waitress.”

  “Fey, those old men control a lot of money. They’re also married to a lot of old women who think nothing of grabbing the closest hard young prick for a quick tumble and tip. It cuts both ways. If I’m going to get the funds for a successful campaign, I need their support.”

  “If that’s what it takes, Jake, then I don’t think it’s worth it.”

  There was silence from the other end of the line. Across the room Fey could see Ash talking into the phone on her desk. “I’m sorry,” she said, eventually, bringing her attention back to her own conversation. “I know how hard you’ve worked for this campaign, and I know I’ve been a bitch about it at times, but my work is just as important to me and I’ve got to see this thing through tonight.”

  “If that’s the way you want it.”

  “It’s not the way I want it, Jake. It’s just the way it is.”

  “Okay. Okay. I give in,” Jake said. “Call me later.”

  “You got it.” Fey waited a second and then hung up. She realized neither of them had said, “I love you.” They hadn’t said it for a while now, and Fey knew it was no longer true. In many ways, she was relieved by the realization. She’d already made three trips to the altar that had ended badly, and she was glad she hadn’t let Jake push her into making it four.

  She walked back to her desk, arriving there just as Ash was terminating his own phone conversation.

  “Business or pleasure?” she asked.

  “It’s always business when there’s a monster hunt on.”

  “A monster hunt?”

  “You don’t think this killer is a monster?”

  “Wait a minute,” Fey said. “I know who you are now.”

  Ash raised his eyebrows.

  “There was an article on you a year or so ago in Police Chief magazine, right after that book came out ... What was the name of it? Here There Be Monsters?

  Ash cringed visibly. “Please…”

  “You tracked down Michael LeBeck, the Vermont Vampire, and Charlie Haddock, who cut all those children up in Wyoming. Something about how your mind can tap into the vibes of serial killers and figure out what they’re going to do next.”

  Ash was shaking his head violently. “That book was total crap from the first word. The hack that wrote it was a guy by the name of Zelman Tucker. He’s a reporter for the American Inquirer. Tabloid bird cage lining. I refused to be interviewed by him, and the FBI refused to cooperate. Tucker made most of the book up out of thin air. The rest came from newspaper and magazine articles of less repute than AI.”

  Fey was laughing quietly.

  “I’m telling you the truth here,” Ash said imploringly. “I don’t get into the minds of these killers. I don’t operate in some kind of trance state straight out of a Shirley MacLaine biography. I might have good instincts and some luck, but what I do is simple by the numbers police work.”

  “Well, Tucker, or whatever his name is, sure made you sound like Superman. You should hire him as your press agent.”

  “That’s the last thing I need. I just want to be left alone to do my job. I don’t need someone like ‘Tucker the Sucker’ making things more difficult than they are. Lives are at stake here, but every time I turn around he’s there, like a leach, looking for another story.”

  “He knows a gravy train when he sees one.”

  “Let it drop,” Ash said. There was steel in his voice.

  “Whoa,” Fey said, immediately serious. “I didn’t mean to push buttons.”

  Ash closed his eyes and leaned back in Fey’s chair. “I’m sorry. There’s stuff you don’t know. I don’t have a lot of time, and I want to catch this guy.”

  Fey let that pass by without comment. She didn’t want to rile the man any more than he was. She needed allies right now, not enemies.

  Monk’s voice cut across the squad room. “Pres
s on line two, boss,” he called out to Fey.

  “Tucker?” she asked Ash.

  “Or someone just as bad.”

  “Let whoever it is hold for a couple of minutes and then accidently disconnect them,” she said to Monk. “When they call back, give ‘em to Cahill.”

  Monk grinned at her.

  “Let’s get out of here,” she said, turning back to Ash. “I need a decent cup of coffee, and we’re never going to get a chance to hash this stuff out with all these distractions.”

  “You have somewhere in mind?”

  “Yeah. How about Tahiti.”

  Chapter 15

  “I can’t believe you opened your stupid mouth and talked to that bitch.” Devon Wyatt was so mad he couldn’t sit in the hardback chair that was the only piece of furniture in the attorney/client visiting room. Separated from Darcy by a Plexiglas window sitting on top of a four-foot-high wall, Devon Wyatt wanted to smash through the distorting clear plastic and throttle his son.

  For his part, Darcy leaned far enough back in the chair on his side of the room for the front legs to come off the ground. He supported the position by placing his feet on the wall just below the Plexiglas. A sneer cut through all other expressions on his face as he watched his father rant and rave.

  “What have I ever done to you that’s been so bad? Huh? Huh?” Devon Wyatt’s voice was approaching hysterics. For a man whose tactics and demeanor in the courtroom exemplified cool under fire, he was losing it big time.

  “You want to screw women? I’ll buy you women. You want to beat them up? No problem. I’ll pay the extra. But no! You gotta go out and rape grandmas. And then, as if that isn’t bad enough, you get caught and spill your guts to some dyke bitch of a cop.” Devon turned to face his son, placing both hands on the Plexiglas window separating them. “Just what is your problem?” He turned away without waiting for, or even seeming to expect an answer.