The First Rule

by Robert Crais

  Sarah cocked her head, and seemed engaged for the first time.

  “Yeah. How’d you know?”

  “Ana had a picture of the three of you in her room. She had a picture of you and her dressed like flappers, too. That’s how I found your name.”

  Sarah stared at him for a moment, then looked away. She blinked several times, and her eyes grew pink.

  Cole said, “You sure I can’t get you something? Water?”

  She shook her head, glancing away as if eye contact was painful.

  “No, I’m just—I don’t know—”

  She suddenly reached into her purse and came out with her cell phone. She punched in a number, then held the phone to her ear. Voice mail.

  “Hey, honey, it’s me. There’s this guy here, his name’s Elvis Cole and I guess he’s working with the police or something, he wants to know about Ana. Call him, okay—”

  She covered her phone.

  “What’s your number?”

  Cole told her, and she repeated it. Then she put away her phone.

  “She’ll call. It’s her you should talk to.”

  “Purple hair.”

  “Not anymore, but yeah. She goes to school in New York, but they stayed in touch.”

  She seemed sad when she said it, and Cole wondered why.

  “Great. I will. But you’re here, and you’ve known her since the seventh grade, too, so I’ll bet you can help. My understanding is she lived with her sister. Is that right?”

  Sarah nodded, but stared at the street.

  “That’s right. Her parents were dead. They died when she was little. Back in Serbia.”

  “Uh-huh. And what was her sister’s name?”

  Cole made as if he was poised to take notes. He had two objectives. He wanted to see if Rina’s story checked out, and, if so, he was hoping to learn something that might help find Darko.

  Sarah said, “Rina. I think her full name was Karina, with a K, but we called her Rina.”

  So far so good.

  “You knew the sister?”

  “Well, yeah. They lived together. Kinda.”

  “What’s the ’kinda’ mean?”

  Sarah suddenly shifted, and grew irritated.

  “Dude, I’m not an idiot. I know you know. Rina was a prostitute. That’s how she paid the rent.”

  Cole put down his pen.

  “Did everyone know?”

  “Ohmigod, no. Just me and Lisa, and we had to swear. Rina didn’t want anyone to know. She didn’t even want Ana to know, and Ana only told us because she had to tell someone. It was demented.”

  “Her sister being a prostitute.”

  “Yes! I mean, we were kids. We thought it was cool, like this glammy, sexy Hollywood thing. But it was creepy. After a while when you thought about it, it was just gross.”

  She wet her lips and looked away again, and Cole sensed this was probably why they had grown apart.

  “Did Rina see clients at home while Ana was there? Is that what you mean?”

  “No, nothing like that. She would go away for a few days. I guess she worked at one of those places. She would go away for a few days, and then she would come back.”

  Sarah made an exaggerated shiver.

  “Yuck.”

  Cole wondered how many people knew, and how far word had spread.

  “Did you and Lisa tell anyone?”

  Sarah glanced away again, and it took her a while to answer.

  “We wouldn’t do that to her. She was our friend.”

  “You ever hear them mention the name Michael Darko?”

  “I don’t know. Who’s Michael Darko?”

  “How about where she worked, or who she worked for? You remember anything like that?”

  “Nothing to remember. Rina wouldn’t tell her anything about that part of her life. She absolutely refused to discuss it. Forget about us. She didn’t even know we knew. She wouldn’t tell Ana. It was like an open secret they had. Ana knew, but they didn’t talk about it.”

  “How did Ana know if Rina wouldn’t talk about it?”

  “Rina got arrested. Ana always thought Rina was a waitress or something until this time Rina called her from jail. Ana got really scared. That wasn’t until, like, ninth grade. I wanted to tell my mom and dad, but Ana totally freaked out. She made me swear. She said she’d never speak to me again if I told. So she came over and stayed with me for a couple of days like nothing was wrong—just like a regular sleepover. That’s how we explained it. Then she stayed with Lisa. She was really scared, ’cause she didn’t know what was going to happen, like, what if Rina went to prison? What would she do?”

  Cole counted backward to ninth grade, and compared it with Rina’s arrest record. The year matched with the date of her first arrest.

  Cole sighed. Ninth grade meant she would have been fourteen. A fourteen-year-old girl home alone, not knowing whether her only family and sole support was ever coming back. She would have been terrified.

  “And nobody knew? Just you and Lisa.”

  Sarah glanced away again, nodding.

  “What about the other Serbian kids? Who were her Serbian friends?”

  “She didn’t have any. Rina wouldn’t let her. Rina wouldn’t even tell her about the people they left behind.”

  “So all she had was you.”

  Sarah nodded again, looking lonely and lost.

  Cole tried to read her, and thought he understood what she was feeling, both then and now.

  He said, “Hey.”

  She glanced over, then quickly away.

  “Sounds like Rina was trying to protect her. I think you were trying to protect her, too.”

  She didn’t look at him, but he could see her pink eyes fill.

  “I should’ve told someone. We should have told.”

  “You didn’t know, Sarah. None of us ever know. We just try to do our best.”

  “She might be alive.”

  Sarah Manning stood and walked away without looking back. Cole watched her go, hoping, for her sake, that she was wrong.

  21

  PIKE WATCHED THE TWO LATIN COPS. They stayed in the street, one making a short phone call while the other spoke with a dep. They did not approach Pike or acknowledge him, though the shorter of the two circled Pike’s Jeep before rejoining his friend. They left the scene while Pike was being searched.

  The senior dep was named McKerrick. While his officers spread through the trailers, McKerrick placed Pike under arrest, cuffed him, and went through his pockets.

  McKerrick said, “Christ, man, you’re an arsenal.”

  He placed the things he found in a green evidence bag. These included Pike’s watch, wallet, weapons, and cell phone, but not the baby’s bib. McKerrick probably thought this was Pike’s handkerchief, and the stains were snot.

  At no time did McKerrick Mirandize Pike, or question him. Nothing about the bodies, or why Pike was there, or anything else. Pike found this curious. He also wondered how the two Latin guys had followed him since he left Yanni’s apartment. Even if they had run a split-team tail, Pike was certain he hadn’t been followed. He found this curious, too.

  When the search was complete, McKerrick walked Pike to a sheriff’s car, placed him in the backseat, then climbed in behind the wheel.

  As they drove away, Pike looked back at the dog. The dog watched him go.

  Willowbrook was not technically part of Los Angeles. It was an unincorporated area, and used the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department as its policing agent. Pike expected McKerrick to bring him to the nearest sheriff’s station, which was the Century Station just off the Century Freeway in Lynwood, but when they climbed onto the freeway, McKerrick headed away from the station. Pike found this curious, too.

  Twenty minutes later, they pulled off the freeway into downtown L.A., and Pike knew where they were going.

  McKerrick reached for his radio mike, and spoke two words.

  “Three minutes.”

  McKerrick brought him to
Parker Center, the Los Angeles Police Department headquarters. They drove around the side of the building to the processing entrance, where three uniformed LAPD officers were waiting. Two men and a woman, all in their late twenties, with short hair and freshly polished shoes. The female officer opened the door, and gave him two more words.

  “Get out.”

  The lead officer was a rangy, athletic guy with spiky blond hair and buff shoulders. He steered Pike by the upper arm. They brought Pike inside without processing him, directed him onto an elevator, then up to the fourth floor. The fourth floor was special. Robbery Special. Rape Special. Homicide Special. The three divisions of the Robbery-Homicide Division. Terrio and his task force would live on the fourth floor.

  “Gotta pee?”

  “No.”

  When the elevator opened, the officer carrying the evidence bag split off, and the other two steered Pike along an ugly beige hall to an interview room. Pike had been on the fourth floor before, and in their interview rooms. It was one of the smaller rooms, sporting the same bad paint, bad flooring, and cruddy walls as the rest of the building. A small table jutted from the wall, with a cheap plastic chair on either side.

  The lead officer uncuffed Pike, then re-cuffed his right hand to a steel bar built into the table. When he had Pike locked down, he stepped back, but didn’t leave. The female officer waited in the door.

  He said, “Joe Pike.”

  Pike looked at him.

  “I’ve been hearing stories about you since I came on the job. You don’t look like so much.”

  A video camera was bolted to the wall in the corner up by the ceiling. The interview room didn’t have a two-way mirror; just the camera with its microphone.

  Pike studied the officer for a moment, then tipped his head toward the camera. The two officers followed his gaze. When the male officer saw the camera, he turned red, realizing a senior officer might be watching him act like an ass. They stepped out, and closed the door.

  Pike looked around. The interview room smelled of cigarettes. Even though smoking was not allowed in city buildings, the last suspect had probably been a smoker, or the last detective. The table and the wall beside the table were covered with a jigsaw of scribbles, drawings, gouges, stains, and jailhouse slogans, most of it cut so deep into the Formica it could not be erased. Biggie. ThugLife. LAPD187. OJWUZHERE.

  Pike considered the camera, and wondered if Terrio was watching. They would probably let him wait for a while, but Pike didn’t mind. He took a slow, deep breath, paused, then emptied his lungs, taking exactly as long to exhale as to inhale. He focused on the camera. He emptied his mind of everything except the camera, and breathed. There was just Pike and the camera and whoever was on the other side of the camera. Then there was just Pike and the camera. And then only Pike. After a few breaths, he felt himself float, his chest expanding and contracting with the rhythm of the sea. His heart rate slowed. Time slowed. Then Pike simply was. Pike had spent days like this, waiting for the perfect shot in places that were not as comfortable as an LAPD interview room.

  Pike pondered why they had pulled him in, and what they expected to learn. He knew they weren’t going to charge him with anything because they had not Mirandized him, and had bypassed the normal booking procedure. Hence, they wanted to talk, but the question was why? He also wondered why they bounced him at Williams’s home. If they were on him all day, they could have bounced him at any time, yet they waited until he found Williams.

  Pike was still pondering these things two hours later when Terrio and Deets came in. Pike saw them as if he were hovering at the bottom of a deep, clear pond, and rose through the water to join them. Maybe now he would get answers.

  Terrio unlocked the cuff from the metal bar, then from Pike’s wrist. He pocketed the handcuffs, then took the remaining chair. Deets leaned into the corner and crossed his arms. There was a carefulness to his expression that Pike thought was composed.

  Terrio said, “Okay, listen. You are not under arrest. You don’t have to talk to us. I’m hoping you will, but you don’t have to. If you want a lawyer, here—”

  Terrio took out a cell phone, slid it across the table—

  “—you can use this. We’ll wait.”

  Pike flicked it back.

  “I’m good.”

  Deets in his corner, chin down, looked up from under his brow.

  “Did you kill those people?”

  “No.”

  “You know who did?”

  “Not yet.”

  Terrio pushed closer to the table.

  “What were you doing down there?”

  Down there. As if Willowbrook was another world.

  “I was looking for a two-time felon named Earvin Williams. Williams might have participated in or had knowledge of Frank’s murder.”

  “Why did you think Williams was involved?”

  “Williams was a D-Block Crip. He put together a crew of his homies, some of whom have shown a sudden increase in personal wealth.”

  Terrio arched his eyebrows.

  “You know other D-Blocks who were involved?”

  “Jamal Johnson.”

  Terrio turned white, and Deets snapped a glance as fast as a nail gun.

  “How do you know about Jamal Johnson?”

  “His cousin, Rahmi.”

  “No way. SIS is on Rahmi Johnson. They’re on him right now. You couldn’t have spoken with him.”

  Pike shrugged, believe what you want.

  “Williams and Johnson were both D-Block. I don’t know about the other guy. Was Johnson one of the vics?”

  Deets said, “Screw that, Pike. We ask, you answer. This isn’t a conversation.”

  Terrio held up a hand, cutting him off.

  “Johnson was confirmed as one of the vics.”

  “Who was the third male?”

  “Samuel ‘Lil Tai’ Renfro. He goes back to the D-Block with Williams and Johnson. How was it you came to believe this is the crew who hit Meyer’s home?”

  Terrio was staring at Pike so intently that he looked as if he might tip out of the chair. That’s when Pike realized that Jamal Johnson had still been only a suspect, and Williams hadn’t even been on their radar. They had not asked how Williams was involved, but why Pike thought he was involved. They hadn’t brought Pike in to find out what he knew—they wanted to know how he knew it.

  Pike said, “I came to believe Williams was running the crew. We’ll know for sure after you run their guns.”

  Deets shook his head.

  “There is no we here. No we.”

  The hand again.

  Terrio said, “We have no physical evidence tying these people with what happened to Meyer or the earlier six robberies.”

  “You do now. Run their guns.”

  “How did you come to identify Williams as a person of interest?”

  “Sources.”

  Deets glared at the camera.

  ‘This is bullshit.”

  Terrio slipped a spiral notepad from his pocket, and read an address.

  “One of these sources live in Studio City?”

  Pike didn’t respond. He was at Yanni’s apartment building in Studio City when he first saw the Sentra.

  “How about on La Brea just south of Melrose? Maybe we’ll find one of your sources there, too.”

  Terrio slipped the pad back into his pocket, then leaned forward again.

  “Who killed these people?”

  “ Don’t know.”

  “Do you care?”

  “No.”

  Deets made a “ha,” then pushed from the corner.

  “You would have popped them yourself, Pike. If you’d found those dudes alive, you would have fed them to the dogs just like the sonofabitch who left them there.”

  Pike shifted his gaze to Deets.

  “Not the lady.”

  Terrio leaned back in his chair, studying Pike as he tapped the table.

  “These three idiots—Williams, Johnson, and Renfro—
they weren’t in this alone. Someone was pointing them in the right direction. You and I on the same page with that?”

  “Yes.”

  “Your sources tell you who they were working for?”

  Pike studied Terrio for a moment, then glanced at the camera. Something about Terrio’s inflection suggested he already knew, and wanted to find out if Pike knew as well.

  “Williams was working for a Serbian OC gangster named Michael Darko. Darko or someone working for Darko probably killed Williams and his crew.”

  Terrio and Deets stared at him, and for a few seconds the interview room was quiet. Then a large, balding deputy chief opened the door. Darko was the magic word.

  “Jack, let’s clear the room, please.”

  Terrio and Deets left without a word. The chief followed them, and the woman Pike had seen in the backseat of Terrio’s car on the day they told him about Frank entered and closed the door. Blue blazer over a white shirt. Dark gray slacks. An angry slash for a mouth.

  She studied Pike as if he were a lab specimen, then glanced up at the camera, hanging patiently from the ceiling. She went to the camera, unplugged it, then turned back to Pike.

  She held up a federal badge.

  “Kelly Walsh. I’m with the ATF. Do you remember me?”

  Pike nodded.

  “Good. Now that we’ve met, you’re going to do exactly what I say.”

  As if she had no doubt it was so.

  Part Three

  It’s Personal

  22

  KELLY WALSH STOOD twelve inches from the table, close enough so he was forced to look up, but not so close as to touch the table. Pike recognized this as a controlling technique. By assuming a superior position she hoped to create a sense of authority. Like unplugging the camera. She was demonstrating she had the power to do as she wished, even at Parker Center.

  Pike thought it was all a bit obvious.

  Then she said, “Was Frank Meyer smuggling guns?”

  This was the first time one of them asked a question that surprised him.

  “No.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “Sure sure? Or you just want to believe he wasn’t?”

  Pike didn’t like this business about guns. He studied her face, trying to read her. Her eyes were light brown, almost hazel, but not. A vertical line cut the skin between her eyebrows, matched by a scar on her upper lip. No laugh lines, but no frown lines, either. Pike didn’t like her certainty.