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

  The attorney/client visiting room at West Los Angeles Station did not provide much room for Devon Wyatt to pace. Each half was an eight-foot by eight-foot square, barely big enough to contain the anger that washed out of Devon Wyatt in tsunami-size waves.

  “You are a stupid little turd,” Devon Wyatt said to his son. “You have been nothing but grief since the day you were ripped out of your mother’s stomach butt first. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear your mother had been screwing somebody other than me when you were conceived.”

  Darcy Wyatt snorted a laugh. “The only way you know Mom wasn’t fooling around was because nobody else would have her after you kept proving your manhood by beating her. Personally, I think the Menendez brothers had the right idea.”

  “You shut your mouth!” Devon was back with his hands spread on the Plexiglas.

  “Where do you think I learned all my dirty little quirks, Daddy dearest? Monkey see, monkey do.”

  “You little butt-wipe. Do you have any idea how much this is going to cost to keep quiet? Let alone what it’s going to take to get you acquitted.”

  “Get me acquitted. What are you going to do? Plead me not guilty? I confessed.”

  “You were manipulated and taken advantage of because of your youth. You were tricked by an experienced detective into confessing because the stress of the interview was too intense. You were refused the counsel of your parent.”

  “I’m nineteen.”

  “With the provable intelligence of a twelve year old.”

  “The old lady can identify me.”

  “A blind grandma with a sense of smell? Give me a break. She’ll get torn apart on the stand.”

  “I knew what I was doing.”

  “No you didn’t. If you did, you wouldn’t have done it. Psychiatric examination will prove your actions were beyond your control. Extensive therapy is needed, not incarceration. A few large contributions to the current District Attorney campaign and a plea bargain will look like a good deal.”

  Darcy Wyatt shook his head. “I gotta see this. You think you can get me out ?”

  Devon Wyatt slapped the flats of his palms on the Plexiglas. “When I get you out, it will be the last time you will embarrass me. You better cooperate fully. Think about it. A young boy like you? A convicted grandma rapist? In less than week your rectum will be big enough to park a motorcycle.”

  For the first time the sneer on Darcy Wyatt’s face faltered. Devon Wyatt saw the expression change and grinned like a jackal. “That’s right, boy. You didn’t think of that when you were spilling your guts. If I leave you to rot in this place, you’ll soon be getting a taste of your own medicine. Every cop knows a con inside who’ll be more than happy to take care of someone like you for the price of a few privileges, or maybe the turning of a blind eye during a prison visit dope exchange. Croaker will set you up big time.”

  Darcy stood up, knocking his chair over. “What about bail?”

  It was Devon’s turn to snort a laugh. It was a curious noise, almost a family trait. “It’s sitting at a million dollars, and they may petition the judge for a no-bail stipulation. Your balls are in the ringer.”

  “Tell me you can get me out.”

  Devon Wyatt gave his son a pitying look. “I almost can’t believe you sprang from my sperm.” He turned and opened the door to leave the small visiting room.

  Darcy started banging on the Plexiglas. “Come on, Dad. Get me out.”

  Devon let the door swing closed behind him, cutting off his son’s pleas. He took a phone out of his inside jacket pocket and pressed a memory button. One of his many assistants answered the call.

  “Get me everything you can on a detective named Fey Croaker,” he said without preamble. “I want it on my desk when I get to the office. I’m leaving West LA now.” He disconnected without saying goodbye.

  Chapter 16

  Fey felt like a drink, but she didn’t order one. It would have been inappropriate on several levels; she was on duty, there was still a hell of a lot of work to do before she could call it a day, and she didn’t know how Ash would react. Eliminate any one of those reasons, and a cold beer would have gone down well. As it was, she ordered tea. Coffee in this particular setting would have been a blaspheme.

  The King George V was a British-style pub/restaurant with a patio eating area that sprawled out into the pedestrian walkway of the Third Street Mall in Santa Monica. It was slightly outside of Fey’s jurisdictional area, which was a plus as far as she was concerned. She had originally been turned onto the spot by a detective partner who had been born and raised in England and frequented the predominantly British haunts of Santa Monica as a stop-gap against homesickness.

  Fey’s mother had been Irish, and while Fey had never set foot on the old sod, she’d come to find an affinity for things British. Despite her genuine cowgirl ways, the pub suited another side of Fey’s personality. She now used it as private getaway when she didn’t want to patronize the local cop spots in West LA. The food at the King George V was plentiful and passable, the tea strong and hot, and the management knew Fey well enough that they were happy to leave her alone if she occupied a table for an extended period of time.

  It was hot in the sun, but Fey had chosen a table shaded by an umbrella that made the heat bearable. Ash had settled down across from her and was browsing the menu. He ordered quickly, and then leaned back in his chair as if waiting for Fey to set the pace of the conversation.

  They had driven to the restaurant in two separate cars, parking in a nearby lot. By mutual consent their conversation while walking to the restaurant had been small talk of the do-you-know-so-and-so variety. It was an exploratory period, one used by cops everywhere to ascertain preliminary boundaries with a new associate. The process was akin to two dogs sniffing each other’s rear-ends, albeit not as blatant. The aim was the same – a determination of trust.

  Blood may prove thicker than water when choosing between family or friends, but The Badge was a far tighter bind than any church vow or blood relation. Despite the public push toward the concept of Community Policing, what goes on within the police culture is kept as secret and separate as possible from outsiders. Spouses and friends may catch a glimpse or an insight now and then, but they are still outlanders to be kept at bay.

  When a new contact is made between two insiders, there is an instant recognition of mutually shared experience. This translates into an initial trust associated with being part of the most exclusive club in the world. Anything beyond those original reactions, however, has to be earned. Personalities have to blend, and a common ground of philosophy and work habits has to be established before a full relationship can be created. A cop may cover for another cop they don’t like, but they won’t trust them or work with them to advantage.

  “Okay, Mr. Special Agent,” Fey said, “let me bring up my previous point. You don’t look like any anal-retentive, buttoned-down, brown-suit and black-wingtips FBI man I’ve ever come across. So, who exactly are you? And while you’re at it, could you take a minute to explain what the Female Bra Inspectors are doing in the middle of this investigation?” Fey’s questions were pointed, but her tone of voice was not particularly aggressive. It was an opening gambit to see how much Ash would give her up front.

  He laughed softly. “You don’t think much of the FBI do you?”

  Fey took off her sunglasses and placed them on the table. “I’ve known a lot of good individual agents. They’ve been hard workers and good detectives. As an organization, however, I can’t say that I’m impressed with the FBI’s bureaucracy or their attitude. If there’s a more pompous law enforcement organization on the face of the earth, I’ve yet to find it.”

  “How about the LAPD?” Ash drawled.

  Fey gave a shrug and a smile. “Maybe. I’ll give you that there are a number of similarities. We always like to think that LAPD is number one, but I’d hate to be the one responsible for running the comparisons.”

  “Okay. So, are we don
e with the name calling?”

  “Sure, but how about some answers to my questions?”

  “No more bobbing and weaving?”

  “No more.”

  “All right. I don’t look like an FBI agent because I’m not anymore.”

  Fey remained silent, figuring she’d let Ash tell it his way. She noticed again the slight periodic tick beneath his right eye.

  “I’ve been officially retired for over a year,” Ash continued, “but since that time I’ve been retained as a special consultant. Full rank and pay, but a very long leash to play on.”

  “Sounds like nice work if you can get it,” Fey said, as their food was delivered. “But you don’t look old enough to be retired.”

  “I appear young for my age?” Ash’s voice was light.

  “I’m not buying it,” Fey said. “You may have seen the front end of forty, but you don’t look like the type to do a runner after a quick twenty years. You look more like a bury-me-with-my-boots-on lifer.”

  “You may be closer to the truth than you think,” Ash said. He immediately regretted the statement, but there was something about the woman he was sitting with that was drawing things out of him - things he had vowed not to talk about. He tried to verbally cover himself. “Can we just accept the fact that I’m telling you the truth and skip the gory details?”

  “For now,” Fey said. “But you intrigue me. I’ll be ringing these same bells again later.”

  Ash looked down at the sandwich his fingers were toying with. “I’m tentatively attached as a consultant to the FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit based out of Quantico.”

  “I’m impressed. Why is the attachment tentative?”

  Ash took a bite of sandwich, chewed, and swallowed. “Because, in actuality, I’ve been given the freedom to pick and choose what cases I work on.”

  “It sounds as if Tucker didn’t have it all wrong in his book – the rogue FBI manhunter on the trail of a serial killer, a personal mano-a-mano vendetta.” Fey’s voice held a hint of impishness.

  Ash set his sandwich down with a sigh and wiped his mouth with a napkin. “Tucker is a rude pain in the butt, but he’s not an idiot. He knows what sells, I’ll give him that. He also knows how to embellish what won’t sell so that it will.”

  Fey watched Ash’s hands as he reached up and ran them both through the short tufts of hair on his scalp. His fingers were long with distinct knuckles, what Fey had heard referred to as gamblers’ hands.

  “If truth be told,” Ash continued, “for my first ten years on the job I was a run-of-the-mill agent at best.”

  “Let me guess,” Fey said. “Not good at following orders? Had problems with the dress code? Didn’t know when to let things go? A blind man in the mine-field of politics? Did not work or play well with others?”

  A wry grin escaped from between Ash’s thin lips. “I didn’t realize my personnel file had become public knowledge.”

  “Just call it feminine intuition.”

  “How about an experienced guess?”

  “Okay. So what happened to make you a hot shot?”

  Ash shrugged. “I had my law degree and passed the bar exam before signing on with the Bureau. I’d continued going to school and eventually picked up my doctorate in psychology. Thus armed, I was sent over to work the hostage negotiation team and later to the anti-terrorism task force.”

  “I know a couple of LAPD guys from our ATD unit that were assigned to that same task force. You worked out of the federal building over on Wilshire?”

  Ash gave an affirmative nod of his head. “I was working the domestic terrorism side of the task force. Most people, even coppers, don’t have any idea how many homegrown terrorist groups are festering among us.”

  “Does this lead somehow to you becoming Zelman Tucker’s favorite super cop?”

  “After a fashion. Have you ever heard of Robert Ressler?”

  “Yeah. He’s the guy that was most responsible for kick-starting the FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit.”

  “Right. He was the first person to take psychological criminal profiling seriously. He actually coined the term serial killer. Before Ressler, serial killers were referred to as stranger killers even if they knew their victims.”

  “What’s Ressler to you?”

  “A mentor of types. As an analyst with the terrorism task force, I initiated a project to apply Ressler’s criminal profiling techniques to terrorists and their organizations.”

  “Sounds a bit highbrow to me.”

  “Maybe so, but we had some success. Enough anyway to continue the project. The biggest fish we ever caught, however, was not a terrorist.”

  “I remember now from Tucker’s book. He had it down as your first major case. Not a terrorist, but some garden variety, whacked-out serial killer? What was the guy’s name? Wilson?”

  “Winslow. He was a low-level scientist working at a missile site near Point Mugu Naval Air Station just up the coast from here. We were looking at him because he had some connection with the RCP.”

  “Revolutionary Communist Party?”

  “Yeah. One or two very dangerous men surrounded by a petty bunch of raving loonies and deadbeats. When we first took a look at Winslow, he didn’t fit the profile we had developed in targeting terrorist. He appeared to be simply one of the group’s numerous hangers-on. But there was something odd about him, so I kept digging away. Eventually, it dawned on me that he didn’t fit the terrorist profile, but he sure as hell fit the profile Ressler had created for a serial killer.”

  “What did you do with that information?”

  “There had been a string of disappearances of young girls up and down the West Coast over a seven or eight-year period. I had a gut reaction Winslow might be involved, so I arranged for him to be kept under surveillance as if he were a threat to public security.”

  “And?”

  “And I got lucky. Halfway through the second day of surveillance, we observed him stalking a six-year-old girl. The next day we caught him in the act of attempting to kidnap her. We used the terrorism hook to keep jurisdiction over Winslow. He was our fish and we didn’t want to lose him to the locals, especially once he started singing.”

  “How many murders did you clear?”

  “He copped to five, but he was good for at least double that amount.”

  “Impressive.”

  “Lucky.”

  “I don’t think so. It sounds like it was good police work.”

  “You’re putting too much stock in Tucker’s book.”

  “What happened afterwards?”

  “I shifted over from the anti-terrorist task force to the BSU – Behavioral Science Unit. Ressler was retired by now, but his work was still going on strong and I found it fascinating. I also continued to be lucky.”

  “Michael LeBeck and Charlie Haddock?”

  “Or as Tucker called them, the Vermont Vampire and the Wyoming Whacker.”

  “The man has a way with words.”

  “There were also two others before LeBeck and Haddock, and one since. They didn’t garner the same type of national press, but were still equally gratifying. I’d finally found my niche – something at which I was very good. It gave me meaning.”

  Fey finished her tea and poured herself another cup from the battered metal pot on the table. “I guess I don’t understand. You were on a hot streak, but you still pulled the pin and retired?”

  There was a pregnant pause as Ash fiddled with his silverware. “I had to leave to take care of some personal matters.”

  “And now we have what appears to be a serial killer right here in River City, and you’re hooked into it as a consultant?”

  Ash’s expression became irritated. “Look, do you want help with this case or not? Does it matter exactly what my connections to the Bureau are? You can check me out. Call Freddie Mackerbee – he’s the Special Agent in Charge of the LA office.”

  “I know Mackerbee. Perhaps I’ll call him later, but tell me something up fr
ont. Do you have a personal interest in this case?”

  “Not in the way you intend the question. I don’t know the victims, I have no idea of the suspect’s identity, and there are no connections I’m aware of between this case and anything else I’ve ever worked on.”

  “But there’s still something personal. I can sense it.”

  Ash stared hard across the table. “I’m good at what I do,” he said in a hard, quiet voice. “I want to do it one more time. One more time ... before I can’t do it anymore.”

  Fey stared back, but left that statement alone. Sooner or later, she’d get to the bottom of Ash, but right now she needed all the help she could get. “Tell me about the case the sheriffs have dumped on me,” she said, levelly, as if declaring a truce.

  Ash took a thick file out of the Battenkill briefcase he had carried into the restaurant. He place it on the table and turned it around to face Fey. “This is a copy of McCoy and Blades’ murder book.”

  “Well, that should make interesting, if incomplete reading.” Fey took the file and began to flip through it. “Can you give me the Reader’s Digest version?”

  Sitting back in his chair, Ash seemed to be gathering his energy before talking. Most of his meal remained on his plate. Fey had watched him push the food around and break it up so it appeared that he was eating when he really wasn’t.

  “The body was found fifteen days ago in the hills above Pepperdine University. Shallow grave, like today’s. As far as I can tell, the body was trussed and laid out exactly the same with the one arm thrust out of the grave. Blades and McCoy figure the victim to be between twelve and fifteen. Personally, I’d say closer to fifteen or sixteen. He looked young, but I’d say he was simply immature.”

  “Male black?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Doesn’t jibe with the current one being a male white.”

  “Who knows at this point. It’s the only real inconsistency.”

  Fey looked thoughtful. “If you’re working with BSU, then you’re up to date with all that organized/disorganized killer stuff.”