The Gift of the Darkness

by Valentina Giambanco

  “Damn!” she said, not loud enough for even the bird to hear. She stepped closer, and the gull hopped backward, not yet ready to leave his find.

  Madison crouched on her heels and lifted the branches under which the cat had sought refuge. There was a deep cut on one of its hind legs. It was curled up. The gull had done a lot of damage to the soft tissue around the face. Madison picked up a small stick and ran it gently along the side of the neck. No collar.

  She picked up a handful of leaves and bits of wood and placed them on top of the small body, covering it up completely. The gull stood by.

  Madison straightened up and took a quick step toward the bird, and it flew off.

  The fence was tall enough to say “Go away” without being too unfriendly toward the neighbors. The Camerons had likely wanted safety and privacy for their boy while he was recovering from the ordeal on the Hoh River Trail.

  Madison looked left and right: nobody around and completely out of sight from the street. She gripped the top of the fence with both hands and kicked up, straightening her arms at the same time. She leaned forward for balance, half of her over the fence, her hips taking her weight against the wood.

  The backyard was large, a patio behind a sunroom, a brick barbecue to the side. It was bare, the grass burned by the frost. Dry leaves carried by the wind had come to rest against the glass door—nobody had pushed it open for some time.

  Sometimes places carry a kind of memory of what happened within their walls: this house seemed merely a blank space.

  The gull flew above her and perched on the roof, keeping an eye on Madison. She let go and hit the ground easily on the other side of the fence.

  “See ya,” she whispered to the gull, and she walked back to the front of the house.

  Brown was coming out at the same time from the opposite corner.

  “Nothing?” he asked.

  “Nope,” she said.

  “May I help you?” The voice came from behind them. Brown and Madison swung around quickly.

  It was a man in his seventies, with short white hair and a nice red Gore-Tex jacket, a bag of groceries in one arm. The front door of the house across the street was open, and a woman with a matching jacket was carrying in more shopping bags.

  “Hello,” Madison said. “We’re from the Seattle Police Department.” They showed their badges.

  “Clyde Phillips.” The man smiled. “I’m a neighbor. If you’re looking for Jack, he’s not at home.”

  “Mr. Cameron,” Brown said.

  “Yes. He’s out of town on business. Is it about the burglaries on Surber Drive?”

  “No, it’s a personal matter. Do you have a couple of minutes?”

  “Sure.” He put the bag on the ground by his feet. He was in good shape for his age; his walking boots looked as if he had put some miles on them.

  “What, exactly, do you need with Jack?” Although Brown was clearly the senior officer, Clyde Phillips had turned very slightly toward Madison. “Is everything all right?”

  She picked up the ball. “We need to talk to him very urgently. Do you know where he is or when he’s coming back?”

  “And you are . . . ?”

  She gave him a reassuring smile. “Detective Sergeant Brown and Detective Madison, Seattle Homicide.”

  Phillips moved his head back an inch. Homicide was not a polite word in Laurelhurst.

  “Oh,” he said, and then it registered. “Is it about the family in Three Oaks?”

  The media were still feasting on it; the same footage was being played over and over again.

  “Yes, they were acquaintances of Mr. Cameron’s. That’s why it’s important that we talk to him as soon as possible.”

  “Is Jack in some kind of danger?”

  Jack.

  What would be most helpful? Telling the man that they suspected his neighbor of at least four brutal murders? Would that get them his cooperation?

  “He might be in danger; we don’t know yet.”

  Score one for the pants-on-fire team.

  “He comes and goes, but . . . I tell you what. I have a telephone number for a friend of his in case of emergency, for the house. He would know where Jack is. Let me get it for you.”

  He came back with a piece of paper. His writing was neat.

  “I hope this helps. I hope Jack is going to be all right.”

  “I’m sure he will be.”

  “Please tell him we send him our best wishes.”

  “I will as soon as I see him.” Madison shook his hand, feeling like a thief. “Thank you.”

  She turned and started toward the car. Brown was already inside, talking on the radio. She looked at the piece of paper. In red ink and well-spaced letters was Nathan Quinn’s work number.

  They wove in and out of the traffic, driving south on I-5.

  “So, say the house is on fire: Phillips’s second call would be to Nathan Quinn,” Brown said.

  “Yes.”

  “And Quinn knows how to reach Cameron.”

  “Yes.” Madison drummed her fingers on the dashboard. “Is Quinn dirty? Has there ever been any talk?”

  “It would be easier if he was, wouldn’t it? He’s a pain in the neck, but as far as I know, he’s clean.”

  “By the way, I ran a check on both the senior Sinclairs. Neither of them has ever had any arrests.” Madison flipped through the notes she had taken in the library about the Hoh River kidnappings. “In one of the papers from the library, last night, there was a picture of David Quinn’s memorial service. The Sinclairs were there.”

  “That case was a disaster,” he said. “There were no leads. No ransom demands. The boys wouldn’t or couldn’t talk about it. There was absolutely nothing to go on. They never even recovered the third boy’s body. A total mess.”

  “I remember. A lot of parents feared it could be the start of a wave of kidnappings.”

  “No.” Brown tapped the steering wheel. “It wasn’t about that. It was personal to those three boys and their families. Except, of course, nobody was saying diddly-squat to us. Also, we didn’t have the forensics we have today. The crime scene was no good to anybody.”

  “Quinn is Jewish,” Madison said after a pause. “The custom is to hold the funeral as soon as possible after a death.”

  The flat gray waters of Lake Union were a blur past Madison’s eyes.

  “They buried some of the earth from the place where they think he died,” she said.

  “Hell.”

  Madison didn’t know whether Brown meant it as a comment or a state of mind, but it didn’t matter; it fit too well one way or the other.

  “The thing with Quinn,” he said, “either he doesn’t know what Cameron has been up to all these years, which is unlikely, or he does know and is involved.”

  “There’s another possibility. He does know, and he’s not involved.”

  “He’s an attorney, an officer of the court. Knowledge of a criminal act implies involvement.”

  “Cameron doesn’t have any known associates. He’s never had a crew. He’s never had people.”

  “A smart man.” Brown put his foot down hard on the gas. “It’s time for Mr. Quinn to make an in-case-of-emergency phone call.”

  The first drops of rain hit the windshield as they flew back toward Elliott Bay and downtown Seattle, surrounded by water and defined by it. Cameron’s house was on fire.

  Chapter 14

  Brown and Madison once again stood in the offices of Quinn, Locke & Associates, waiting to meet with Nathan Quinn. Paralegals were once again rushing around, envelopes were being delivered by couriers, and expensive art still hung on the walls. And yet nothing was the same, nor would it ever be. Flowers had replaced the Christmas decorations; every client and every business in the building had sent condolence bouquets. There were looks when the detectives walked in.

  Downstairs, they had met Tommy Saltzman, on loan from Treasury, who would be going over the tax returns James Sinclair had filed for John Came
ron.

  Saltzman, a tall, pale, forty-something who looked as if a stiff breeze would blow him over, was enjoying this diversion from his routine. All he had been told was that one of the Three Oaks homicide victims was a tax attorney, and would he run a check on some work he’d done? He’d jumped at the chance.

  Carl Doyle walked over to them, immaculate in a charcoal suit and black silk tie. He looked as if he’d had, maybe, three hours’ sleep. Brown shook hands with him, his eyes found Madison’s, and they nodded hello.

  The first time they’d met, the pair had brought unbearable news; today they had come with a legal crowbar.

  During the elevator ride Brown had left it to Madison to answer Saltzman’s many questions. He knew all too well that a warrant was only a blunt tool if they didn’t get Quinn on their side: fraud was small potatoes when the top prize was murder in the first.

  Quinn waved them into his office and closed the door behind them. His attention was focused on Brown, and he barely registered the others. They were not asked to sit.

  “What do you have?” Quinn said.

  “We have a lead.” Brown went straight to the point. “Evidence was found at the crime scene that might link the murders with one of James Sinclair’s clients.”

  “Who?”

  Brown ignored the question.

  “The evidence implies that there might have been financial impropriety on Mr. Sinclair’s part,” he said.

  “Impossible.” Quinn’s tone was contained but unequivocal, his reaction strong enough that Madison felt Saltzman shrink a little.

  “We have a warrant.” Brown offered it to him.

  Quinn took it without looking. “Understand this: James was never less than completely straight in everything he ever did. If your lead suggests otherwise, you’re wasting your time. Who’s the client?” he asked again.

  Again the detective ignored the question. “What I ‘understand’ is that we have evidence we must pursue. This is a warrant. Help us clear this up now, and things will go a hell of a lot faster. Mr. Saltzman, here, is going to look at the relevant files.”

  Quinn’s eyes did not acknowledge anybody but Brown. “What evidence?” he asked.

  “We’d like for you to come down to the precinct. We’ll talk about it there. It’s the best thing you can do for your friends now.”

  Quinn had spent years in front of juries, judges, and opposing counsel. He scanned the warrant for less than a second, called Doyle on the intercom, and set up an associate to help Saltzman find the files he needed.

  Doyle unlocked the door to Sinclair’s office and turned on the light. It was a space suitable for a partner in a successful law firm. His vast desk, larger than Quinn’s, was covered in well-organized piles of papers. To the left of the door a whole wall was occupied by a bookcase; legal reference tomes lined every shelf.

  Behind the desk, on the right of the leather chair, was a small antique table. On it were three framed pictures of Sinclair’s wife and children: one of the whole family, two school pictures. A vase, with wilting white freesia doing its best. Madison noticed footprints in the pale blue carpet around the desk—maybe the overnight cleaner’s, maybe Sinclair’s own.

  There was a conference table by the windows. Doyle asked Saltzman if he needed anything, his voice as polite as if he had been talking to a guest in his own home. Polite, and as warm as a January shower. Madison liked him a lot.

  “Let’s go,” Brown said to her once Saltzman was settled.

  They went to the elevator.

  When Doyle had shown them to Sinclair’s desk, Quinn had not come to look into his late friend’s office; Madison had a feeling he still hadn’t ventured in there.

  “He didn’t really look at the warrant,” she said quietly.

  “No.”

  It was a bad sign: it meant that Nathan Quinn truly believed that there was nothing for them to find. If Sinclair’s conscience had been lily-white, then it followed that so was Cameron’s. And that, they knew, was impossible.

  “Hungry?” Brown asked.

  “Starving,” Madison replied.

  They had about thirty minutes to spare; Quinn needed time to brief the partner who would take over his afternoon meetings. There was a deli on Fourth just past Seneca—they had long enough for a quick bite.

  Madison couldn’t remember whether she had had any breakfast. She loaded a plastic salad box with everything minus sliced cucumber and beets, which she didn’t like, grabbed a bread roll, and took a seat in a booth by the window.

  Brown was working quickly through a smoked-salmon-and-cream-cheese bagel.

  Neither of them said a word; they ate their lunch and drank juices from the bar. They had eaten lunch together most days since Madison had joined Homicide. She knew he liked chicken but not beef, fish but not shellfish, and drank at least as much coffee as she did. On the other hand, before yesterday, she wasn’t sure he could have picked her out of a lineup.

  Brown wiped his fingers on a napkin. Lieutenant Fynn had called him into his office earlier that morning, before the briefing, and closed the door. He had asked him if he thought Madison would do okay on the case or whether he wanted a more experienced partner to back him up. It was a straight-up question: there was no time for on-the-job training on this one. Madison would just take a less prominent position, that was all.

  Brown balled up his napkin and put it on his plate.

  She’ll be fine, he had said.

  Twenty minutes later they walked into the precinct together. Madison picked up a small pile of messages from the desk sergeant and handed a few to Brown. While they waited for Nathan Quinn to arrive, Madison asked Brown how he wanted to run the interview, if he thought they could get to Quinn their first time around.

  Brown’s reply was terse. “I want him to forget what he thinks he knows.”

  When it came down to it, it was a question of turf: they could have questioned Quinn in his office, but in any other situation, a witness would be brought into the precinct so that he would feel the importance of the proceedings and the formality of the occasion. A trick of the trade, so to speak. Nathan Quinn, however, was not likely to be intimidated by a drab room with a two-way mirror. They didn’t think his answers would change with the location. Still, it was the way the game was played, and they all knew the rules.

  Standing by the desk sergeant’s raised position, two detectives stared long and hard at Nathan Quinn when he arrived, their eyes staying on his back as he walked past them to join Madison and Brown. He didn’t have many friends in the police precinct. He didn’t exactly ignore them—they weren’t even blips on his radar.

  They found an empty interview room on the second floor.

  Madison turned the doorknob. “We can go in here,” she said.

  Quinn glanced in. A square room, a table with some chairs around it, and a two-way mirror concealing an observation box for officers and DAs. He turned to Madison.

  “How many people will I be talking to today?” he asked, nodding to the mirror.

  “Just the two of us,” Madison replied.

  “That’s good. I like that,” he said. “Let’s find somewhere else.”

  He was there at his own discretion—plenty of time to get him cranky later on. They took over the rec room.

  Brown excused himself for a couple of minutes with the pretext of checking up on a message. He went to Lieutenant Fynn to bring him up to speed.

  “What is he? A material witness, emergency contact of the victims and of the prime suspect?” Fynn asked.

  “Right now he might be sitting on the fence between them, but he’s going to have to jump one way or the other. Where he lands will tell us a lot.”

  “You think?”

  “I hope.”

  For the first time Madison was alone with Nathan Quinn, and it suddenly struck her that she had probably said no more than five words to him since they had met, maybe not even that.

  He sat across the table from her, his coat neatly f
olded on the back of his chair, a glass of water by his right hand. He flicked an invisible speck of dust off his sleeve. His dark eyes glowed without warmth as he silently considered Madison.

  She knew he would be familiar with most senior detectives of the Seattle PD; the fact that he had never met her meant only that she hadn’t had her gold shield very long.

  “Let’s get this over with, shall we?” he said as Brown came in.

  Madison flipped open her notebook. Brown closed the door, sat down next to her, and put a folder on the table. The rules of the game.

  “Your evidence?” Quinn asked.

  “Enough to get us a warrant,” Brown replied.

  “You’re going to have to be a little more specific.”

  Brown’s right hand was palm down on the file.

  “Let’s put that aside for a moment and bring you up to speed on our investigation so far. I assume you’d want to know where we are?”

  Quinn nodded. “Of course.”

  “Well, we have a pretty good idea of the sequence of events on Saturday night.”

  Madison knew in that instant that the folder contained the pictures of the bodies at the crime scene.

  “Go on,” Quinn said.

  “It’s not going to be dainty.”

  “Go on.”

  “All right. Sometime during Saturday night or the early hours of Sunday morning, someone let himself into the Sinclairs’ house. I’m saying ‘let himself in’ because there is no sign of forced entry. Doors and windows all check out. We think the intruder might have had a key.”

  Quinn sat slightly forward in his chair but didn’t even blink. Brown paused for a second to let him absorb the information.

  “He went to the master bedroom, where he hit James Sinclair in the face with the butt of a gun. Sinclair was likely asleep at the time, then probably passed out for at least a few moments. Then the intruder put his gun to the head of Anne Sinclair and shot her. After that, he went into the children’s room. He put his gun to their heads and shot them—the boy in the top bunk first, then the boy in the bottom one. From the hole in the blankets, it looks like the second kid was trying to hide.”