Dark Fissures

by Coyle, Matt;

  “You seem to know a lot about a man you claim not to know that well.” I gave him my version of his smile. It would have looked better without a bent nose and raccoon eyes.

  “Jacks asked me about life insurance and I turned him on to my insurance guy.”

  “And you know most life insurance policies have a clause that absolves it from paying benefits if the policy holder commits suicide in the first two years?”

  “Sure. The insurance companies have to protect themselves from some guy paying a couple months of premiums and then eating his gun so he can take care of his family.” The smirk again. A disconnect from what had happened to a friend three months ago.

  “Colton only had a few more months on the policy to hit two years. You really think he’d kill himself and deprive his family of the payout instead of gutting it out for a while longer?”

  “Maybe. Depression can be a strong motivator. Like I said, I didn’t know him that well anymore. It’s been eight, ten years since we ate sand together in the Middle East.”

  “Yet, he called you on the day he died.” I watched his eyes. They gave away nothing.

  “Yeah, I guess he did.”

  “Why did he call?”

  “Just to say hello. Talk about old times.”

  “Did he seem happy, sad?”

  “Honestly, he seemed a little depressed.” Bates’s eyes dropped to the desk and his lips followed. This from the guy who’d sounded so cavalier about someone eating their gun a minute ago. “After I found out what happened, I wondered if I could have said something that would have changed his mind.”

  “You’re convinced he killed himself ?”

  “I figured the cops wouldn’t rule a suicide about one of their own if they weren’t certain.” Bates slowly nodded his head. “So, yeah. I’m convinced.”

  Bates stood up like we were done and led me through the house to the front door. I was struck again by the expensive furnishings. He opened the door, but I stopped short of the threshold.

  “What kind of consulting do you do?” I did a one-eighty with my head. “Looks like it pays pretty well.”

  “The kind that’s confidential.” The thirty-two-tooth grin. “Enjoy your time with Miss Bowlegs.”

  “Excuse me?” I’d stepped out onto the porch, but turned around.

  “I was just wondering how you were being compensated for your time.” He raised an eyebrow like we were sharing a secret. “She can be a very giving person when she wants to be.”

  “Something you want to tell me, Bates?” My face flushed with anger, not embarrassment. “Or do you just throw innuendos around to be an asshole?”

  “Hold on, chief.” He held up open hands like he didn’t want a problem. But his eyes said he’d welcome one. “You’re taking this a little personal.”

  “She’s a client. I take them all personally.”

  But he was right. I’d overreacted. Nothing had happened when Brianne had come on to me last night. Only because I had to fight myself not to let it. I’d felt special that she’d chosen me. Was I angry now because she’d been slurred or because I was afraid I wasn’t so special?

  “This isn’t an innuendo.” The grin. “She came on to me at a party down at the beach. Wanted to do it right behind a sand dune. I was tempted, but you’ve seen my wife. Couldn’t risk losing her for one night of some strange. Would have been fun, though. I’m sure you already know that. Say hello for me.”

  Bates closed the door in my face.

  The clouds were still winning the battle with the sun. I put my sunglasses on anyway so as not to frighten other drivers on the road. I took the main drag out of town that dumped me onto the Coronado Bridge, climbed up to the top of the long curve two hundred feet above the water, and looked down at the dark blue expanse below. Since the bridge was built forty plus years ago, more than two hundred people had taken in the same view right before they jumped to their deaths.

  Jim Colton hadn’t been one of them. His death had happened quietly in the comfort of his own garage. Talking to Kyle Bates hadn’t gotten me any closer to figuring out whether Colton’s death had been his choice or someone else’s. Bates was on the side of suicide. Oak Rollins leaned that way, too.

  The only thing I knew for sure was that I didn’t know Brianne Colton very well at all.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  ACCORDING TO BRIANNE, Jim Colton’s closest friend on the La Jolla Police Department had been Sergeant Hector Ruiz. I didn’t want to talk to Ruiz at the Brick House or call and leave my name if he wasn’t there. The less Chief Moretti and LJPD thought about me, the better. Brianne called him at home last night and set up today’s meeting for me. I left choice of venue up to Ruiz so he’d feel comfortable and maybe open up. He chose Pacific Beach Bar and Grill. I’d expected something in La Jolla, but then it made sense. He didn’t want to be seen with me by anyone from LJPD. Whatever it took to get him to talk to me.

  I arrived at PB Bar and Grill fifteen minutes early out of habit. Ruiz had a habit of his own. He was already there, mashed into a booth in the back. Brianne had given me a rough description of Ruiz, but I could have found him cold. His physique and demeanor shouted cop or military. Or just plain badass. A squat brick of muscle stretching the seams of jeans and a leather coat that must have measured 60 short. Though sitting, I guessed Ruiz couldn’t have been taller than five eight and couldn’t have bench-pressed less than 580.

  I walked over to the booth and introduced myself even though I knew he’d spotted me the second I came in the bar. I put my card down on the table in front of Ruiz. He didn’t look at it. Instead, he eyeballed my black eyes and swollen nose.

  “Have a seat.” A tenor voice didn’t match the baritone body.

  I slid onto the bench across from Ruiz. “Thanks for meeting me, Sergeant.”

  A crew cut flattened the top of Ruiz’s round head. He looked to be late thirties. The only fat on his body puffed out his cheeks. His enormous lats shot sharp ridges up through his coat. He had the look of a roided-out power lifter. I’d try not to piss him off.

  The waitress arrived right away and dropped menus. Ruiz told her he wasn’t eating, but I ordered a burger before she left. A beer would have been a nice accompaniment, but I didn’t drink on the job. At least not during the day.

  “I don’t have much time, Cahill. What can I do for you?”

  “You a former Marine?” You could trace a yardstick along his spine, if the pencil didn’t break. A military background would have added to his camaraderie with Colton. Plus, I didn’t buy his claim that he was short on time. I saw it as a ploy to control the conversation. We both had the same idea.

  “I don’t see what my military background has to do with anything. Brianne Colton told me you wanted to talk about Jim. I’m here out of respect to her and to him, not to talk about my military career.”

  Well, at least I’d been right about the military. Ruiz had been the first of Colton’s friends to mention Brianne in favorable terms. I wondered what he knew that they didn’t. Or vice versa.

  “How long you been on LJPD?”

  “Long enough to know about your old man.” Ruiz gave me interrogation room cop eyes. “And you.”

  That hadn’t taken long. Another fan of the Cahill clan at LJPD. So much for control of the conversation.

  “And yet, knowing who I was, you still agreed to meet me.” I held his glare to let him know I’d been in the square room with the bright lights on the wrong side of the table and could take it. Finally, I leaned back against the booth. “I don’t know whether Jim Colton was murdered or committed suicide. I don’t think you do either. But neither one of us is satisfied with the way LJPD investigated Colton’s death. That’s why you’re here.”

  “You got something solid or you just pounding your chest for Brianne.”

  He kept up the glare. More than just the tough-guy cop look. Personal. About Brianne? I checked Ruiz’s ring finger. Wedding band, which matched what Brianne had told me about him
. Not that a ring had ever stopped anyone. Didn’t matter now. She was paying me to find out if her husband had been murdered, not to vet potential suitors.

  “I don’t have anything solid, yet.” I opened a portfolio that contained a copy of the police report of Colton’s death and my own file on the case. I slid a picture of the rope I’d found in Colton’s truck across the table to Ruiz. “Just a lot of little things that could add up to something solid. You ever see that rope before?”

  “No.” He looked up at me. Sad eyes. “Where did you get it?”

  “Found it in the toolbox of Colton’s truck. The strand of rope that Colton was found hanging from looked to have been cut from it.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I saw the crime scene photos. Have you?”

  “No.” He shook his head. “I never saw the report. Chief Moretti kept it buttoned up.”

  “SOP?” Standard operating procedure.

  “Yeah, by the book . . . but . . .”

  “But what?”

  “What’s in this for you, Cahill?” His pushed brown cop eyes into mine. “You looking to get back at LJPD for kicking your father off the force? Wasn’t the Eddington mess last year enough? Or do you just like seeing your name in the paper at LJPD’s expense?”

  Hatred for the Cahill name was imprinted on LJPD’s DNA. Ruiz couldn’t get past it.

  “I don’t like seeing my name anywhere, Ruiz. I’ve seen it where it didn’t belong enough for a lifetime.” I leaned across the table to invade his massive space. “And I don’t want a thing to do with that corrupt Shit House you work out of.”

  He’d mentioned my father twice. Once had been too many. My father’s legacy was my domain. No one else’s.

  The waitress arrived with my food before I could do anything stupid. I took a bite of the burger. Ruiz continued to eye me like I was a street punk. I swallowed the bite and the anger. Everyone at LJPD hated me. The sun rose in the east. Just another day. I couldn’t control the sun or the hate. Just myself.

  “Brianne Colton hired me because she doesn’t believe her husband committed suicide. I took the job because I needed the money.” I set the burger down on the plate and wiped my hands with a napkin. “I read the police report and thought LJPD got it right. I told Brianne that but she kept me on the case. I dug deeper. Now I’m not so sure. And the fact that you’re still sitting here makes me even less sure. What’s bothering you about the way Moretti handled the Colton investigation?”

  Ruiz eyeballed me some more. Dead cop eyes, but I knew his mind was working behind them. Finally, “I need a beer.”

  I got the waitress’s attention and ordered two IPAs with backups in another five minutes. I didn’t drink on the job unless the job demanded it. Today it did.

  Ruiz didn’t speak again until he’d swallowed half his beer in one gulp. “I’ve been at the Brick House for seventeen years. Chief Moretti’s been there for twenty-five. I know this isn’t news to you, Cahill, but Moretti is a world-class asshole.”

  I nodded my head to something we finally agreed on.

  “But the little prick is a cop first. Even with all the politics that goes into being chief, he’s still a cop.”

  He didn’t have to tell me. “What’s bothering you, Sergeant?”

  “In my seventeen years, we’ve had one cop eat his gun. Ed Reeves, about ten, twelve years ago. The chief at the time took the medical examiner’s suicide call as gospel.” He swallowed the rest of his beer and wiped his mouth. “Moretti went ballistic and pushed for an investigation. He went to the union when the chief wouldn’t budge. The chief finally relented and put Jimmy Riley and Buzz Garrett on the investigation. The best homicide dicks we had back then. They came back with the same finding. Suicide.”

  “So what’s your point?”

  “Moretti didn’t even like Reeves. In fact, I think he hated him. But he couldn’t abide that a cop would take his own life. He needed to be one hundred percent certain there wasn’t a cop killer roaming free on the streets.”

  “But when it came to Jim Colton, he took the medical examiner’s word as gold and buttoned the investigation up tight.”

  “Right.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know.” Ruiz dropped his eyes to his empty beer mug.

  Ruiz may not have known why Moretti didn’t investigate Colton’s death further, but he knew something. His body language wanted to tell me, but his fidelity to the thin blue line wouldn’t let him. Or something else wouldn’t. Fear? I sensed it would take a lot to physically scare Hector Ruiz. But I also sensed that losing his job as a cop would scare him more than any physical danger.

  “Brianne told me that Colton didn’t trust Moretti. Do you know why?”

  He kept his eyes on the beer mug and stayed mute. I let the silence work on him. It started to work on me instead, but I stayed mute until the waitress arrived with round two. Ruiz hit his beer, then leaned back.

  “I’ve given you enough, Cahill.”

  “Do you think Jim Colton committed suicide?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You just willing to let the suicide stand?”

  “I don’t have a choice.” Again, he kept his eyes low.

  “But I do. The only way to get the case reopened is from the outside.” I leaned across the table and waited for Ruiz to look at me. “You’ve seen I haven’t written anything down today. Nothing you tell me goes into the report with your name on it. Why didn’t Colton trust Moretti?”

  “I’ve told you what I know.” But his eyes told something different. “Thanks for the beer.”

  “You don’t care if there’s a cop killer out there somewhere?” I grabbed Ruiz’s lead-pipe wrist before he could slide out of the booth. “You think Jim Colton would just let it lie if you were the one found hanging in your garage?”

  “Careful, Cahill.” He looked down at my hand then back up at me. Smoke building behind his eyes.

  I let go of his wrist and pushed the Colton file across the table at him. “You said you haven’t seen the police report. It’s in there.”

  Ruiz eyed me and let the smoke build. Finally, he opened the file and started reading. I ordered another round of IPAs. Ruiz finished reading the report by the time the waitress came back with our beers. He slid the file back at me.

  “What in that report makes you think Jim didn’t commit suicide?” Ruiz asked me. “Nothing sticks out.”

  “It’s what isn’t in the police report.”

  “Such as?”

  “Why did he have a rock climbing rope when he was afraid of heights?”

  “I didn’t know that he was.”

  “Was Colton a good family man? A good father?” Brianne had told me that Ruiz had two sons that he doted on.

  “Yes, but what does that have to do with anything?”

  “Why would he commit suicide when the act nullified a life insurance policy worth two million dollars that would have taken care of his family?” I shook my head. “You wouldn’t do that to your family.”

  He seemed to be thinking it over before he finally spoke. “Seventeen years on the job has taught me that you can never know what’s in a man’s heart.”

  “Maybe not, but working alongside Jim Colton for three years must have told you something about him. Something good, otherwise you wouldn’t have been his friend.” I pulled the photo of Colton’s body hanging limp in the garage and tapped it. “This was a selfish move. If Colton did this, he had to know his son would be the one to find his body. He could have driven his truck into an embankment or off a cliff. He could have swum out into the ocean and opened his mouth. He could have killed himself a hundred different ways that wouldn’t have screamed suicide and wouldn’t have allowed his son to find his body. What if it were your son finding you?”

  Ruiz looked at the picture of his dead friend. He dropped his eyes for a second and they then came up angry. I’d pushed too hard.

  “There’s nothing here that would convince C
hief Moretti or anyone else to reopen the case.” He slid out of the booth and stood up.

  “Put it together with what you’re not telling me about Moretti.”

  “Thanks for the beer, Cahill.”

  I jumped out of the booth and blocked his way. A brick wall in front of a Mack truck. “Give me something, Sergeant. Tell me what I need to know.”

  I knew if he wanted to, Ruiz could make my wall come tumbling down, but I stood firm. He cocked his head and eyeballed me. I couldn’t tell if he was wondering if he should tell me what I wanted to know or take me down. He wasn’t in his jurisdiction so he couldn’t slap steel bracelets on me just for fun. If we went at it, he might get into a jackpot with his chief. He straightened his head and I braced for a collision. But his eyes went from tough to something else. Sad? Frightened?

  “Moretti likes to use CIT for arrests that result in asset forfeitures.” Just above a whisper.

  “And Jim had a problem with it.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Why?”

  Ruiz’s eyes scanned the room. “Jim didn’t think the seizures were always warranted.”

  “What do you think?”

  He cocked his head, pursed his lips, and raised his eyebrows but didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to. He agreed with his dead friend.

  “But what about the judicial procedures people can follow to get their assets back?” I kept my voice low.

  “There are other ways to get the assets back.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Ruiz put up his hands. Palms out. “I’ve told you enough.”

  “Is that why Jim called the FBI?”

  “I don’t know anything about that. Good-bye, Cahill.” He stepped around me and left the bar.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  I POINTED MY Mustang in no particular direction and drove. I didn’t see the road, I sensed it. The car made turns on its own as I stayed inside my head.

  Moretti.

  My nemesis. The man who could put me behind bars forever. Did everything surrounding Jim Colton’s death come down to Chief Moretti? Had he been using CIT to run shakedowns and seizures on crooks who couldn’t prove their assets hadn’t been ill-gotten? Most asset forfeitures come from drug busts. Where were the arrests? The trials? I couldn’t remember reading about any big drug busts in La Jolla. Or big arrests of any kind. But LJPD didn’t need convictions to keep their 65 percent off the top of seized assets. They just had to make sure no one filed a claim within a year of the seizure.