In Dark Places

by Michael Prescott

  The words had angered her. Without thinking, she snapped, "Shut up. You don't know me."

  "I know the type."

  "Well. I know your type."

  "Meg" her mom began, then stopped herself. Clearly she hadn't wanted Gray to know her daughter's name.

  "Meg, huh?" Gray said. "Short for Margaret? Marjorie?"

  She ignored the question. "You don't scare me. I know all about you."

  "Bullshit. You don't know nothing. I ain't exactly bedtime-story material for little girls."

  "You're Justin Gray."

  "Hey, you do know me. Cool. It's always nice to be recognized by a fan."

  "You're a psycho. And you'll always be a psycho. I don't care what my mom does for you."

  "That's enough," Robin cut in.

  "Your mom?" Gray smiled. "Hey, what d'you know? Can't believe I missed the family resemblance. Here I thought you were just another screwed-up Angeleno getting her head shrunk."

  "Take him inside," Robin said to the deputies.

  "Stand aside, miss," one of the deputies told Meg, but she stood her ground, blocking their path.

  "I don't need my head shrunk," she said staunchly. "I'm not crazy. You are. You kill women."

  "No I kill girlslike you."

  Her mom tugged at her. "Get out of the way."

  "They weren't like me," she told Gray. "I would've killed you if you'd ever touched me."

  Gray smiled at Robin. "She's a spitfire. I could have some big fun with her."

  "Shut up!" Robin yelled, losing it. She pulled Meg away, and the deputies led Gray forward, into the office.

  "Don't sweat it. Doc." Gray hadn't lost his smile. "Everything's copacetic."

  Meg had never heard that word in conversation before, and she had been forbidden to use it ever since.

  "So what's he like?" Gabe asked, leaning on the kitchen counter.

  Meg shrugged. "Nutcase."

  "Some of these guys can be pretty charming."

  "Not him."

  "He scare you?"

  "No."

  "It's okay to be scared, Meg."

  "He didn't scare me. He pissed me off."

  Gabe laughed. "Justin Gray pissed you off."

  "Like I said, he's a jerk. Would've liked to"

  "What?"

  "I don't know, punch his face."

  "I'm not sure I see you as the warrior-princess type."

  "I was thinking more along the lines of vampire slayer."

  "I don't see you that way either."

  "How do you see me?" She felt her mouth slide into a seductive smile. She wasn't used to drinking beer. It was going to her head.

  "I see you"he came forward and draped his arms around her waist"as a beautiful and sensitive young woman who shouldn't let a creep like Justin Gray get under her skin."

  There was that word she loved to hear him say. Woman. She was a woman, whether her mother realized it or not.

  A thought occurred to her. "Were you part of the serial-killer task force?"

  "Maybe I was, maybe I wasn't. I can tell you about the case, though, if you want to hear it."

  "I do."

  "On second thought, it might give you bad dreams."

  "I don't get bad dreams."

  "Well, you know the basics, I guess. Like how he specialized in abducting and killing teenage girls."

  "How did he amp; do it?"

  "Kill them? Execution style. Single gunshot to the head. Twenty-two-caliber round, mashed up so badly when it penetrated the skull that you couldn't even make a ballistics match. Death was instant. Cerebral pulpefaction, the coroner calls it. Midbrain disruption. Those are fancy ways of saying that the slug turned the victim's brain to ground chuck. Bang, lights out. She never even saw it coming."

  It chilled her to hear him speak of murder so coolly, but she supposed all cops were like that. "At least it was quick," she said.

  "At the end, sure. But he kept them prisoner for a while, about four, five hours usually, before the big sendoff."

  "Did he amp; rape them?"

  "Nah. No penetration."

  "So what did he do with the girl during the four hours?"

  "He's never said. Talked to her, maybe. Or maybe he just let her sweat. Big fun, huh? The clock's ticking, she's waiting, praying, and the time just crawls by."

  She wasn't sure she wanted to hear any more, but if she asked him to stop, it would be a display of weakness. She never allowed herself to be weak around him.

  "Why did he do it?" she asked. "Just for kicks?"

  "If you want to know his motive, you're asking the wrong person. Even the shrinks can't figure out a serial killer. Well, maybe your mom can."

  "Maybe I'll ask her."

  "You should. I'll bet she's got a theory. Shrinks always have theories. And your mom's pretty sharp. She might have a handle on Justin Gray."

  He reached out and touched Meg's long blond hair, stroked it.

  "Bet he thinks about you in his cell," Gabe whispered.

  "Stop amp;"

  He drew back, studying her face. "Whoops. I shouldn't have said thatany of it. It's got you all worked up."

  "I'm okay."

  "You don't need to hear about that kind of craziness."

  "I think I could use some craziness in my life. My boring, predictable, sheltered, overprotected life." She smiled up at him. "You know, as long as you're here and we've got the place to ourselves amp;"

  "You're not worried about Robin?"

  "She's a workaholic. Obsessive-compulsive type. Goes along with her paranoia. Won't be home till after dinner."

  "She seeing Justin Gray today? That why she's working late?"

  "No, today's Monday. She sees him on Tuesdays and Thursdays. She must have some other thing going on. She's always busy, you know. Always on the go."

  "She should learn to loosen up." He kissed her. "Have some fun. Enjoy life." He kissed her again. "Stop and smell the coffee."

  Meg giggled. "She really should. She doesn't know what she's missing. You know, my room's just upstairs."

  "I'd like to see your room."

  "I thought you would."

  They left the kitchen together. Meg thought she'd been wrong to ask him if he had kids. His private life was his business. She didn't need to know anything about it. She didn't even need to know his last name.

  Gabe was enough. It was the name of an angel. Wasn't it?

  Chapter Eleven

  The sun was drifting lower in the western sky, caught in a mesh of utility lines and billboards, when Robin found Wolper in the coffee shop at Santa Monica and La Brea. Across the street, a jacked-up Monte Carlo had skidded over the curb and plowed through one wall of a comic-book shop. Copies of Batman and Spider-Man and Wonder Woman were scattered on the sidewalk, the four-color pages flapping in the breeze. A crew of young boys loitered at the edge of the crime scene, surreptitiously collecting the comics.

  Wolper was seated in a window booth. Without his uniform, wearing a turtleneck and jeans, he looked like a different man, but she noticed that he was still squeezing the rubber ball in his left hand.

  "I hope I didn't keep you waiting," she said as she took the bench seat opposite him. "I had trouble finding a place to park."

  "No problem. I got here just a couple minutes ago." She nodded toward the window. "It's a real mess out there."

  He shrugged. "No serious injuries."

  "I take it you talked to the officers at the scene."

  "I checked in for a second. Force of habit."

  "Was the driver drunk?"

  "Just a moron. He was changing a tape in his cassette player. Took his eyes off the road."

  "Hopefully he'll lose his license."

  "Even if he does, he'll keep driving. Half the people in LA drive unlicensed."

  She looked out the window at the small crowd of onlookers. "I'm surprised there weren't more witnesses."

  "There were a million wits. They all ran off. Illegal aliens. Afraid we'll turn 'em in
to INS. Which we wouldn't, but they don't trust us. It's getting so the only wits we can count on are the panhandlers and the pallet guys."

  "Pallet guys?"

  "You know those wooden crates they ship things in? You can break them down into pallets, sell them for reuse. You see guys hauling them around in shopping carts. Pallet guys. Anyway, they'll stick around and talk. Never show up to testify in court, but this thing won't get to court anyway. Too many higher priorities. Too much insanity in this city." He gave her a look. "You have a kid?"

  The question, coming out of nowhere, surprised her. "A daughter. Fifteen."

  "Fifteen? What did you do, get married at age twelve?"

  She shrugged off the compliment. "I'm thirty-nine. I had Meg when I was in med school."

  "Isn't med school tough enough without raising a baby?"

  "You'd think so, wouldn't you? It wasn't exactly planned. I had my life all worked out. Four years of premed. Five years of med school, hospital internship for one year, three years to a master's in psychiatry, two-year psychiatric residency, private practice by age thirty-two."

  "I'll bet you stayed on schedule, even with a kid."

  "Well amp; yes. I'm kind of determined once I set my mind on something."

  "I noticed."

  "Why did you ask if I had a child?"

  "Because I've got one, too. A son, Zachary, twelve years old. I don't see him as much as I'd likemy wife and I split up. But whenever I get to spend a night or a weekend with Zach, I think about this city. The insanity here. More and more of it every day. I think about thatand what it might do to him."

  "I know what you mean."

  "You worry about your daughter, huh?"

  "Too much. All the time."

  "The curse of parenthood. You bring them into the world, and then you can't let go, even when they want us to. It would be easier if I was there more often, but you know how it is in a divorce. Well, maybe you don't."

  "I do, actually. My husbandexis up in Santa Barbara, creating art."

  "Art? He make a living at it?"

  "A surprisingly good living."

  "Hope he keeps up the child support."

  "That's the one area where he's proven reliable."

  "Good for him. A man should never abandon his own child. That's the worst thing he can do." Wolper smiled. "Listen to me. With all the crap I've seen, you wouldn't think a guy missing his support payments is the worst crime I could think of." He shook his head. "You didn't come here to talk about this."

  "Not really."

  "So what exactly is the problem, Doctor?"

  She hesitated. "How much do you know about the Eddie Valdez shooting?"

  "I know it was thoroughly reviewed by the OIS teamthat's short for officer-involved shooting. Brand's actions were found to be within use-of-force guidelines."

  "But there was no witness to the shooting, correct? There was only Brand's account of what happened."

  "There was ballistics evidence," Wolper said carefully.

  "Lieutenant, what is a patch?"

  It was his turn to hesitate. "A patch amp; well, it's a cop's take of the bad guys' take. A payoff to look the other way while crimes are committed. I need to know why you're asking me this."

  She ignored him. "Who are the Gs?"

  "Drug gang in our division. Gs is short for Gangstas. The San Pedro Street Gangstas is what they call themselves. What the hell did Brand tell you?"

  "More than he intended. The technique I use has a way of releasing a person's inhibitions."

  "Like truth serum?"

  "There's no such thing as truth serum, but this procedure may be a pretty close equivalent."

  "You're saying he witnessed a payoff?"

  "I'm saying he received a payoff, then shot Valdez when he came up short."

  "That's ridiculous."

  "It's what he told me."

  "There has to be a mistake."

  "There may be. I can't be sure Brand's story was true. That's what we need to find out. Tell me about the shooting."

  A waitress interrupted them, delivering menus. Wolper gave back the menus, unexamined, and ordered two cheeseburgers, two Cokes. "You're not a vegetarian, are you?" he asked Robin belatedly.

  "Cheeseburger is fine."

  "Okay. The shooting. Sergeant Brand was riding in his unit, alone"

  "Shouldn't he ride with a partner?"

  "Sergeants don't have partners. They function in a supervisory capacity. As a matter of fact, Brand was on his way back from supervising a crime scene."

  "Isn't that the watch commander's job?"

  "Brand had the watch that night. The lieutenantnot mewas off."

  "All right. So he's heading back to the station amp;"

  "When he sees Valdez enter a parking garage on foot, going down the ramp. Right away Brand is suspicious. Valdez is known in the neighborhood. He's been picked up for ripping off car stereos, boosting vehicles, and being an all-around pain in the ass."

  "Was he a member of the San Pedro Street Gangstas?"

  "Good question. We never made him as a G, and the coroner didn't find any gang tats on him."

  "So he wasn't?"

  "He could've been a wanna-be, or someone they used as an errand boy. But he had no gang ties we know of, and there was no gang presence at his funeral. Far as we know, he was just a small-time street criminal."

  "And Brand saw him going into a parking garage. What time was this?"

  "Two hundred hours. Two a.m., I mean."

  "I can translate. What happened next?"

  "Brand calls it in on his radio. Says he's checking out a five-oh-threepossible auto theft."

  "Did he request backup?"

  "No."

  "Isn't that unusual? Especially considering he was alone?"

  "He may not have shown the best judgment. Like I told you yesterday, Brand is a street cop. He figures he gets paid to take chances. He's not one of these guys who sit behind a desk waiting to go twenty and out."

  "So he's a cowboy."

  "Christ, you're like a goddamned reporter putting words in my mouth." He shook his head. "Sorry, but I get tired of hearing good men called cowboys or vigilantes whenever they show any balls. Let's put it this way. When you call nine-one-one to report a hot prowl, do you want the cop who responds to wait around for backup or to suck it up and do his job?"

  "I'm not trying to be confrontational, Lieutenant."

  "Right. Whatever. Anyway, not calling for backup isn't cowboy stuff. It's Sergeant Brand's assessment of the threat level. He knows Valdez. He has him pegged as a knuckle-head, a troublemaker, but not violent. If he catches Valdez boosting a tape deck, he can handle the arrest on his own."

  "All right. Now Brand is in the garage."

  "And he looks around for Valdez, but the assholesorrythe kid isn't visible. Brand thinks maybe Valdez has already gone to another level of the garageit's one of those multistory things. Then he sees movement in a corner, and he heads toward it. He thinks Valdez is trying to bust into an SUV. He's wrong. Valdez heard Brand come down the ramp and he's waiting for Brand with a thirty-eight Special."

  "A three-eighty wheel gun?"

  "I'm surprised you know that term."

  "Brand said that was the kind of gun he planted on Valdez after the fact."

  "That doesn't prove anything."

  "Did Valdez use a gun in any of his earlier crimes?"

  "No, but it's not hard to believe he'd be carrying. Hell, everybody in Newton is carrying. Shootin' Newton, we call it. So Valdez makes a move on Brandthey struggleBrand pops him at close range. Calls in a nine-ninety-eight. Requests the captain, the coroner, and a shooting teamall by the book. When units respond, they find Valdez dead of a single gunshot to the head, and Valdez's thirty-eight on the floor by his body."

  "Case closed."

  "No. Not case closed."

  The waitress returned with their orders. They said nothing until she was gone. Then Wolper leaned forward, elbows on the table,
his left hand furiously squeezing the rubber ball.

  "There was a thorough investigation. Brand was put on leave, sent to Behavioral Sciences for trauma counseling. Ballistics came back clean. Tapes of his two radio calls were consistent with his story. He's a decorated veteran officer, and Eddie Valdez was street scum. There was no reason to doubt that it went down exactly like Brand said."

  Robin sampled her cheeseburger. It was good. "And the gun? Did it belong to Valdez?"

  "It couldn't be traced."

  "Then Brand could have planted it, just as he said. It could have been a throwaway."

  "Throwdown," Wolper corrected through a mouthful of burger. "Police officers don't carry those."

  "Oh, come on."

  "Not in my jurisdiction."

  "How can anyone believe that, after Rampart?"

  "We cleaned up the department since Rampart. We don't tolerate rogue cops. Even if we did, Al Brand isn't one of them."

  "Then why did he say what he said in session?"

  "I don't know. But I sure wouldn't convict a man on the basis of something he said while he was undergoing some kind of experimental therapy."

  "Fair enough. And I admit there are legitimate questions. That's why I came to you."

  "To me?"

  "As opposed to Deputy Chief Wagner. He's the one I probably should be talking to, but I didn't want to do anything rash. I didn't want to risk damaging Sergeant Brand's career unnecessarily."

  "You bring this to the top brass, you'd better know what the hell you're getting into. Brand can't be a bad cop. This stuff he said amp; it's gotta be a glitch or something. Faulty wiring, maybe. You had the thing set on high when it should've been medium."

  "It's not a toaster, Lieutenant."

  Wolper took a long, thoughtful swallow of soda. "Valdez was a righteous shooting. Had to be."

  "I hope you're right," Robin said. "I really do."

  "How's this? I'll take a look at the file on the Valdez shooting and see if there are any loose ends."

  "You have access to the file?"

  "I have access to somebody who can get me a copy. What do you say we meet tomorrow and go over it?"

  "All right."

  "Your office? Afternoon?"

  "My last session is at three P.M. Should be over by four."

  He looked worried. "Not Brand again?"

  "No, you don't have to worry about that. It's just a nice, safe inmate from County."