Trey looked down at the file still clutched in his fingers. “What’s with the sudden interest, Bryce? I’ve been working this case for nearly a year now without anyone saying ‘boo.’ Can’t even get enough press on this sucker to give the killer a decent nickname. That’s ten deaths. Almost one a month.”
Another clearing of the throat before Bryce answered. “This one was in an area where people take notice. And it was more brutal than the others.”
“So because there were tourists around, and the vic got her face hacked up, this one gets the attention of our beloved D.A.?”
“I don’t like it either, but there it is.” Bryce paused for a moment before continuing. “Anything interesting pop up with this one?”
“No, nothing. I’m pretty frustrated with it,” Trey began, but then recalled his earlier train of thought. “Although I’m not positive this one is the same guy.”
“Oh, really? What makes you say that?” Trey could feel Bryce’s attention laser in as the A.D.A pressed for more details. The poor guy must really be getting pressure from his boss.
“Just a sense of it. The escalation seems out of character, considering the rest of the guy’s M.O. I’m not sure the woman was a pro. Gut level stuff. Nothing concrete.”
“Well, that’s something. A guy like you gets a ‘feeling,’ and I for one start paying attention. Let me know if you need any additional help, and I’ll try to get it for you. And keep me up to date on it, okay?” Bryce asked. To Trey’s surprise, he realized the guy sounded totally sincere about the offer to back him up.
“Yeah. Will do, Bryce. Thanks.” He set the receiver back in its cradle.
This was the first time that Trey could recall where an A.D.A. was looking to be helpful. Usually, they were just busy covering their asses and sucking up to the rich and powerful. This guy seemed like the real deal.
Trey slapped the file in his hands down on the desk in front of him. He needed a different perspective on this. He needed the big guns.
He needed Darc.
*
The lines snaked and swirled and snarled, then snagged on themselves and ended in darkness. No light. No new paths. There were no viable routes left for Darc to take.
Darc was inside the mock apartment that had been built by the unsub. There had been no logical reason for him to come here. Taking a hard look at his own motivations, Darc realized he had done so out of a vague hope that he might see something the C.S.I. unit had not. While that might have been a realistic assessment of some of the individuals that worked for the department, the captain had sent out the best of the best to process this particular scene.
It was almost as if the person he was attempting to find did not exist. Considering what had occurred to date, that was not a viable possibility, and nor was the idea that Mala’s abductor had somehow suffered some kind of accident. That would leave loose ends that Darc’s abilities would easily detect and follow.
Instead, he was confronted with dead end after dead end. When the C.S.I. unit had reported back in from the crime scene, Darc was unsurprised to find that they had found nothing. No prints, no tracks, no video evidence. Nothing that could be linked back to the man who had drugged and taken Dr. Charan.
Indeed, Darc would have been shocked if they had uncovered anything usable. He had calculated the probability of the man leaving trace evidence, using as a reference his caution in taking Mala from the hospital and the precision with which he recreated her apartment. He had placed the odds at less than four percent.
But to come to a halt in every other vein of inquiry was beyond precision. It indicated an intellect that was on a par with that of Darc himself. Even the priest had not achieved that level of precision in his endeavors.
And the level of destruction Father John had managed had been devastating. Darc found himself experiencing something distinctly unpleasant that was a new sensation. It included a clenching of the stomach muscles, both the exterior abdominal muscles and the inner workings of the digestive tract. There was also a heightened cardiovascular response that included an elevated heart rate and light sweating along his brow.
Summing up the details of his response left Darc with only one acceptable conclusion. A viral infection that affected the stomach had briefly been considered and rejected due to the absence of fever.
Darc was afraid.
A noise behind him caused Darc to spin on his heel to confront the new stimuli. The door to the “apartment” swung wide as he turned to reveal Trey. His partner nodded as he caught sight of Darc.
“I thought you might be here.” Trey pointed at Darc’s pocket. “You weren’t answering your phone.”
Seeing as how Darc often neglected to answer his cell phone, he did not feel the need to respond to Trey’s statement. Instead, he looked at his partner, waiting for the inevitable explanation that would follow.
“Yeah,” Trey said, as if he were responding to something Darc had said. “Why am I here? Well… I need your help.” Trey waved his hands. “I know, I know, you’re working on finding Mala’s kidnapper, but I’m really stuck here and the D.A. is—”
“All right,” Darc answered, cutting Trey off.
“Wait. What?”
“I said, ‘all right’.”
“Okay, yes, but… really?” Trey’s face was devoid of any discernible expression. That generally denoted extreme surprise. “Just like that? I was sure you’d throw a fit. Or… you know… just not help.”
There were gray mists covering this entire exchange. Something was off in their interaction. Something that Darc needed to understand before he went any farther. Trey knew Darc well, and was rarely surprised by his behavior. The surprise was an anomaly.
Trey’s unusual response caused Darc to reexamine his own motives. It was true that when Darc was focused on a task, he rarely allowed for outside distractions. What was causing his change in attitude in this instance?
Had the urgency of the case changed any? No, it had not. Janey and Mala were still at risk, due to their being the only individuals who were known to have had contact with the abductor. And the symbols from Janey had indicated an escalation in his plans, which seemed to now include murder.
If the necessity of the search had done nothing but escalate, what could account for Darc’s readiness to abandon the case? The gray fog of emotion covered over his attempts to follow the clear, lighted paths that logic would take.
Was it possible that he was acquiescing to Trey’s request in order to avoid his current failure? That seemed uncharacteristic. But so did his newfound sense of fear.
No.
This was a simple matter of prioritization and compartmentalization. Darc did not have the leads that he needed at the moment to continue to pursue this case. Trey needed help. It was exigency, not fear, that was guiding his actions. Having a better understanding of his own motivations, Darc answered with assurance.
“I can go no further at the moment, so I have time to assist you,” Darc responded to his partner, whose eyebrows went up his forehead in response. More surprise? “It was a simple assessment of available resources.”
“Yeah. Okay, dude.” Trey turned to head back out of the apartment, then muttered over his shoulder. “Maybe you could just keep that in mind next time I come asking.”
Darc began to follow Trey out, leaving behind the only remaining evidence of Mala’s abductor that he knew of. It was fine. It was not a problem. He would return, and when he did, he would find the man responsible.
But for some unknown reason, Darc still felt uneasy.
It was not a good feeling.
CHAPTER 7
Bureaucratic mazes made Mala’s head hurt. She had spent several hours now at the offices of the DSHS, trying to make sure that her foster care license was up to date. It was not out of the question for someone in her position to hold that license, although it was unlikely for it to see much use.
But not only was Mala wanting to become Janey’s foster care parent, she was
looking to go much further down that path. She had already spoken to her superior about her desire to take an extended leave of absence, and to Captain Merle about the possibility of some part-time consulting work with the precinct.
Now all she had to do was make sure that she was in a position to take responsibility for little Janey when that became a necessity. Technically, the girl was still in protective custody. In real world terms, that meant that she was back at the station house with Maggie while Mala tried to sort everything out.
Part of the problem in dealing with government agencies, Mala had decided, was the redundancy involved. In cases of legal guardianship, no one wanted to be the one to make a bad decision. And since there were multiple people who could take the rubber stamp to Mala’s documents, whomever she was speaking to at the moment was more than happy to shuffle her case off to someone else. Mala had now made three complete revolutions of the DSHS department without ever getting to a single person willing to accept responsibility for a decision.
In the meantime, Darc and Trey were off trying to track down Mala’s abductor before he could start on the killing spree Darc had decided was on its way. That was more than fine. Mala knew that Janey wouldn’t be completely safe until her captor was behind steel bars. She also knew that those two detectives could use her help.
There was a reason Merle had been more than happy to take her on as a part-time consultant for the department. She had proven herself to be a canny profiler. And while Darc could deduce the hell out of any situation he found himself in, and Trey could charm the pants off of the people they came into contact with, neither could truly spot a would-be killer. It was a serious blind spot in their otherwise picture-perfect partnership.
But for now, she was trapped in mediocre-minded hell. Perhaps it was time to put some of her vaunted skills as a psychologist to use here. Mala regarded the woman behind the desk in front of her, the latest human obstacle in her own personal game of parenting merry-go-round, with a dispassionate eye.
The woman was thin to the point of being gaunt, with the almost jaundiced look of someone who rarely got out from under the florescent lighting that illuminated the entire building here. Her hair was limp and somewhat stringy, there was no wedding ring on her finger, and the only picture on her desk was of a pygmy hedgehog.
This was also the woman who had just told Mala, in a condescending tone, that there was a problem with her paperwork that would necessitate Mala retaking the entire 27 hour P.R.I.D.E. parenting course over again. A course, that was a pale and anemic version of the training that Mala had already received as a child psychologist.
“I’m so sorry to interrupt,” Mala said to the woman, who had left her conversation with Mala to return to her game of Minesweeper, “but I couldn’t help noticing the picture of your adorable hedgehog.”
After glowering at Mala for daring to speak to her again, the woman’s face brightened a bit at the mention of the hedgehog. “Yeah. He’s pretty great. I’ve had him for almost three years now.”
“Wow. He’s a handsome one. African Pygmy, right?” The worker nodded her head. Mala chuckled to herself. “If I had one of those guys, I’d carry him around in my shirt pocket, forget he was there and end up taking him to work.
“I’ve done that more than once,” she responded with a crooked smile.
Mala smiled back. “What’s his name?”
“Oscar,” the woman responded, ducking her head. It was clear to Mala that the woman had some issues with shyness, something that would account for her abruptness when dealing with the public.
“That’s a perfect name for him.”
“I thought so. My ex-boyfriend didn’t. He hated the little guy.” She sniffed, looking with fondness at the photo of her pet.
“Probably part of the reason he’s now your ex, right? I think the way people treat animals is a big indicator of what they’re really like.”
The woman looked up at Mala with big eyes. “Totally. That’s exactly what I said to him when we broke up.”
“Well, you’re a perceptive woman.”
She muttered to herself, “He didn’t seem to think so.”
While they’d been talking about the woman’s pet, Mala had been scanning the desk to see if there was a name plaque or some other indicator of the social worker’s name. Nothing. That was another part of the problem. When a person felt anonymous, there was little to no reason to have any sense of accountability. Time to change that.
Mala sighed. “One way or the other, it’s nice to see someone so willing to commit to that kind of responsibility.” She shook her head suddenly, as if she were only now realizing she’d committed some kind of social faux pas. “I’m so sorry. My name’s Mala.” She extended her hand to the woman behind the desk.
There was no hesitation this time. The woman grabbed her hand and shook it warmly. “I’m Brenda. Nice to meet you.”
“You too, Brenda. And listen, I wanted to apologize.”
“For what?” Brenda seemed baffled by Mala’s statement.
“For earlier. I’m sure I must have come across as impatient and frustrated, and my guess is that I took it out on you. Totally not fair of me.”
Brenda got a look on her face that Mala could only interpret as chagrined. “It’s okay. I get it. At a guess, you’ve probably already talked to five people so far.”
“Seven, actually.” Mala grinned and waved off Brenda’s half-started apology. “I know that what I’m asking is outside of the norm.”
“Let me look at your file again. What did you say your full name was?” Brenda pulled up the departmental software and looked up at Mala, her expression expectant.
“Dr. Mala Charan.” There were moments for modesty. Mala decided this was not one of them.
“Doctor?” Brenda’s eyebrows crawled up her forehead. “What kind of doctor?”
“I’m a child psychologist.”
Brenda made a silent “O” with her mouth until a beep from the computer drew her attention back down to the screen that had pulled up all the information in Mala’s file. “It looks like your P.R.I.D.E. classes were marked as being incomplete.”
“Really? I was there for all of them…” Mala thought back on the classes that at the time had felt unending. “Wait. There was one time where I got called in on an emergency and had to leave early. But it was less than an hour from ending.”
“Hmm,” Brenda muttered, looking at the file. “Let me see who your instructor was.” She leaned in toward the screen. “It was Richard. Well. That explains a lot.”
“Oh?”
“He’s an ass. Probably felt threatened by an intelligent woman like you and got pissy that you were called away on something important.” She glanced up at Mala, then back down at the screen. “You know what? I shouldn’t do this, but…” She made a few clicks with her mouse and then grinned. “Done.”
“Done?” Mala asked. “What do you mean?”
“I mean that you’re all taken care of. Official. Give it a day to update in our system, but as of then, you’ll be good to go.” Brenda smiled up at her. Mala was amazed at the change. This was not the woman that had completely blown her off just a few minutes ago. And all that it had taken was a little bit of kindness on Mala’s part.
“Thank you, Brenda. You have no idea how important this is to me.”
“No problem. Honestly, when they found out you were a child psychologist, they should have just let you skip most of the classes. You just get a few idiots that have to count every single bean, you know?”
Mala nodded, having decided that pointing out that Brenda herself had been one of those bean counters until a few moments ago wasn’t such a good idea. Better to get out while the going was good.
“Take good care of Oscar.” Mala nodded at Brenda, then turned back. “There’s a little girl that I’m trying to take in as a foster child. I’m pretty sure she’d love to meet Oscar, if you could ever arrange to “forget” him in your pocket.”
“I think we might be able to figure something out.” Brenda winked at her, and Mala thought as she walked out the door that she had done more than just having to redo 27 hours of parenting classes.
She may have also made a friend.
*
“Pimps.”
The word, uttered by Darc’s partner, interrupted the flow of the paths inside him momentarily, jolting him out of his process. He was sitting with all of the previous case files from the fingernail killer open in front of him, sifting through the information provided within each folder, each box.
“You are referring to the prostitutes’ procurers.”
“Yeah. Well, I guess so. Except I think people stopped calling them ‘procurers’ back in the 1800s.” Trey flipped one of the chairs around and sat backwards in it, looking past Darc’s shoulder at one of the files. “But maybe there’s a link there.”
“Possible, but unlikely. Some of these women seem to be on their last rung. Making sure they were protected by having a procurer might not be the highest thing on their list of priorities.”
Trey shook his head. “Pimp, dude. Just call them pimps. Seriously, no one will understand you.”
The phone on Trey’s desk rang at that point, cutting Darc off just as he was about to begin a lecture on vocabulary. It was unfortunate. It was an excellent lecture that Darc had been preparing in his mind for quite some time.
“Detective Keane,” Trey answered, then paused for the response. “Right. We’ll be over there in a sec… Yeah, we. Darc’s helping out on it.” Trey hung up and turned to face Darc. “Captain wants us in his office ASAP. Sounds pissed.”
As they moved through the hallway leading to Captain Merle’s office, Darc pondered the meaning of the word “pissed.” It linked with the word “pimp.” His preempted speech on the value of vocabulary was still threading its paths of logic through his mind, and some of the tendrils attached themselves to those two words.
Trey had a penchant for colloquial speech. He called it “colorful.” Darc had always eschewed language that didn’t have its basis in the Oxford English Dictionary, or at least Webster’s, but the very arguments he had been formulating to convince Trey to expand his mind were now working against him.
7th Sin: The Sequel to the #1 Hard Boiled Mystery, 9th Circle (Book 2 of the Darc Murders Series) Page 7