David Lindsey - An Absence of Light

by An Absence of Light (mobi)

  Last nodded his head. “Very disciplined. Admirable. Really.”

  He started toward his car and Graver followed him a few steps across the patio. When Last got to the Mercedes, he walked around to the driver’s side, put his hand on the door handle and looked across the top of the car. “I’ll be in touch,” he said.

  “That’s fine,” Graver said, and Last opened the Mercedes door. “But, Victor,” Graver added, “don’t ever come back here again.”

  Last grinned at Graver across the top of the car, got inside, and closed the door. Graver watched as Last backed down the cinder drive to the street and drove away.

  TUESDAY

  Chapter 20

  The Third Day

  Too much was happening; sleep had become a rare commodity, and Graver no longer had the peace of mind to acquire it After Last’s departure there remained only a few hours for him to toss among the sheets, trying to turn off his mind. When the alarm finally sounded, he was both exhausted and grateful and rolled out of bed with a headache. He showered and dressed and left the house without even considering making his own breakfast Instead, he stopped at a coffee shop on the way downtown and sat at a window table while he downed several cups of stout, black coffee with his bacon and eggs and watched the city slowly awaken to a clear hot day.

  Because he had got out of bed immediately and had not taken the time to make his own breakfast, he beat Lara to the office by nearly an hour. That was fine, he needed the time to get himself together. After putting his briefcase on his desk, he went across the hall and started a pot of coffee. While he waited for it to brew he stepped into Lara’s office and left a note on her desk to tell Paula, Neuman, and Burtell to be ready for a nine o’clock meeting in his office. He also asked her not to disturb him. Then he poured himself a cup of coffee and went into his office and closed his door.

  There was a lot to think about, and while he had eaten breakfast he had made some decisions. The first was that he resolved to have Westrate’s report ready by the end of the day.

  He turned on his computer and tapped in the license plate number he had seen on Last’s Mercedes. The car belonged to a Camilla Reeder who lived in a condominium in far west Houston. Ms. Reeder was thirty-one years old and listed her employment as a cosmetics representative for Laurel Cosmetics. She had no criminal history. Last seemed to have become acquainted with an unmarked woman—on the face of it at least—which was an improvement for him.

  Graver then turned his computer inquiries in another direction. He typed Last’s name into NCIC to get a report on Last’s most recent activities. He hadn’t kept up with his career in nearly a decade, not in detail anyway. After that, he typed a brief inquiry document to be sent to the major intelligence agencies requesting MO and crime analysis subject category matches on Victor Last’s career markers. It was time to see if Last had been back to his old ways.

  After sending this out on the lines, Graver turned back to his desk and set about making notes on these as well as the essential elements of his conversations with Paula and Neuman.

  At five minutes before nine o’clock, he opened his door and said good morning to Lara. Standing at her desk, he gave her a list of things he wanted done, briefly discussing each item on the list before he turned and went back into the office.

  He went over his notes again and was making last-minute notations when he heard Paula’s voice outside in the hallway followed by Lara’s laughter. The door opened and they came in one after the other, Paula, Burtell, and Neuman, each of them carrying notebooks and folders and something to drink. Everyone said good morning as they shoved their chairs around to suit them and sat down.

  Graver, trying to cover the self-consciousness he felt in Burtell’s presence, moved brusquely into business. He knew Paula and Neuman would be watching to see how he was going to play it.

  “First thing,” he said. “Late yesterday afternoon Jack Westrate called and told me that Homicide and IAD had agreed to call Tisler’s death a suicide. Nothing sinister to it.”

  Casey Neuman sipped from the canned soft drink he had brought in, and Paula stared straight at Graver without comment. Burtell turned away and looked out the windows. The file folders of the five Tisler investigations were on his lap, and he was holding a mug of coffee which rested on the folders. Graver couldn’t really tell how he was taking this news. He did not want to dwell on it and was glad Burtell was going to let it pass without comment.

  “That, of course, is a big break for us,” he went on. “I don’t know if you’ve come up with anything, but the momentum of presumption is in our favor with that ruling. But I’ve still got to produce a summary, a ‘clean slate’ document to put in the files. So let’s get down to it. You guys finding anything in Tisler’s folders that raise questions?” He went straight to Burtell. “Dean, what about it? You see anything noteworthy in the documents you reviewed?”

  Burtell turned from the windows and shook his head. He looked down at the folders resting in his lap.

  “No, I didn’t see anything in here,” he said. “Nothing even remotely curious. Art had routinely updated them as per regulations, but nothing significant had changed in any of them in over a year. Unremarkable in just about every way.”

  Graver waited a moment, looking at Burtell who had recovered considerably from the day before. He appeared to have got more sleep, got his emotions in order, though he was subdued as the occasion required. But Graver watched him for something else, perhaps an unnatural insouciance, a glimmer of an affectation in his manner, however slight.

  “Okay,” Graver said. He turned to Paula.

  “No, nothing here, either,” she said. “But for the record I want to state that I had only one day to look over these folders. I can’t say that represents a thorough examination. It was just enough time for a… cursory review. But, no, in my cursory review I didn’t find anything that would make me suspect anything untoward in the collection process.”

  Burtell kept his eyes on some vague spot on the front of Graver’s desk and sipped his coffee.

  “Do you think you need more time, is that it?” Graver asked. He had to. Paula had practically said she didn’t have enough time.

  “I don’t know that that would be justified now, in light of the ruling from Homicide,” Paula said. “I just don’t want it recorded that I conducted a major audit here.”

  “Okay, noted,” Graver said.

  Paula, as usual, was playing her game with unyielding rigor. Even when deceiving Burtell, she didn’t want him to think he could put something over on her. If there was something there to discover, she implied, she would bloody well find it if she were given the proper amount of time to examine the documents. Jesus. Graver could have shot her, but, in the end, her reaction was probably best Burtell might have sensed something awry if all three of them had just rolled over. Paula, after all, was being Paula.

  “Casey?”

  Neuman repeated essentially what he had told Graver the night before about his search of Tisler’s records, though he now went into more detail. As Paula had done, he said there was a lot more he could do, but a preliminary check of the records, with the view that Tisler might possibly have had financial difficulties, turned up no flags that would make him want to pursue the issue further.

  Graver nodded and tapped the eraser of his pencil on the cobblestone. For a moment no one said anything. Neuman was studying the top of his soft drink can again, Paula was still looking straight at Graver, and Burtell had lifted his coffee mug and was straightening a document inside one of his folders.

  “Okay. If no one has anything they want to add, then I’m going to go ahead and write a summary reflecting that we turned up nothing suspect in our audit, and as far as we’re concerned their judgment that Tisler had died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound will go into his file. End of inquiry.”

  He looked at Burtell again. “Dean, will you continue to follow up with Peggy Tisler? Lara’s going to get the details about when the famil
y can claim the body. You can check with her on your way out. She’s also going to see to it that the necessary paperwork is put together regarding the suicide ruling. Tisler’s insurance company is going to want that. And there are a few other things… arrangements for a memorial service… whatever.”

  Burtell nodded. “Okay, sure, be glad to.”

  “Now, let’s see, the next thing I want to get out of the way is deciding the best way to move ahead on the Seldon investigation.”

  There was a quick stirring behind Burtell’s eyes.

  “It looked to me like it was on track, a fast track,” Graver said.

  “Well, yeah”—Burtell straightened up in his chair, trying to move smoothly past his surprise—”it was. But Art… on this one his source was the linchpin to the investigation. In fact, the guy was all there was to it.”

  “Okay, all the more reason to get right back on it. Are you the alternate controlling officer?”

  Burtell nodded, but it seemed tentative. Graver couldn’t quite read it.

  “Good,” Graver said. “I’d like Casey to work with you on this. I know we don’t normally do this, but under the circumstances I’d rather you didn’t continue the case alone.” Graver was too close to Burtell. He had no idea how he was carrying this off, if the incredible tension he was feeling was showing through his feint. “From the looks of it there’s the potential that it could mushroom, and I think you ought to team up on it again. You think the guy will go for that?”

  Burtell involuntarily shot a look at Neuman and then back to Graver. He shifted in his chair. “Jesus, I, uh, I don’t know, Marcus. He’s already paranoid, and Art was really having to massage him, coax him along. When he finds out Art’s dead… I don’t know. I just don’t see how we can.”

  Graver looked at Burtell and hesitated as if he was trying to figure out just exactly what it was Burtell was getting at.

  Burtell went on, putting the best face on it that he could muster.

  “This guy… was having a hard time believing we could keep his identity confidential. I know that’s a routine concern, but… he’s not a routine source.”

  There was a moment’s silence.

  “What do you mean?” Graver asked, but he wasn’t sure his tone of voice conveyed what he had intended.

  Burtell looked around at each of them. Had Graver unintentionally betrayed something? Paula and Neuman both met Burtell’s glance. Then everything turned, and it seemed to Graver that at that moment Burtell realized there was no way he was going to be able to finesse this. Graver could see it coming. As he had predicted, Burtell was about to pull the plug.

  “We need to go into this, Marcus,” Burtell said. Suddenly his tone was brittle, clinical. “Just the two of us.”

  Neuman and Paula didn’t even have to be asked. They simply got up and walked out of the office.

  Chapter 21

  When the door closed behind them, Burtell stood, putting his files and his coffee mug down on the corner of Graver’s desk. Though he tried to appear composed, something that normally came easily to him, his agitation was apparent, just beneath the surface. He stepped to the windows and looked out at the city which was hard and bright in the clear morning, collecting his thoughts. A handsome man, well dressed… and composed. Almost.

  “The damn case wasn’t that healthy.” he began, leaning one shoulder against the glass wall, one hand in his pocket. “You saw yourself there aren’t that many documents in the folder. Not that much corroborated information.” He looked outside again, squinting into the eastern skyline. “Art had only three meetings with this guy.”

  Graver looked down at the opened folder on his desk. “Nieson.”

  Burtell nodded, not bothering to hide a look of disgust.

  “Right, Parnell Nieson. At each meeting Nieson wore a wig, an expensive one. Art thought it was a hairpiece after the first meeting, but he couldn’t be positive. Second meeting he was satisfied it was. Nieson… always had several days’ growth of beard, though Art said it didn’t hide the fact that he was obviously an executive type, expensive clothes, manicured nails, obligatory Rolex, all the stuff. He wore blue contact lenses. Art said he didn’t try to pretend he wasn’t disguised, though the alterations in his appearance were subtle enough, well done. Art never saw him drive anything. The guy always arrived at the meeting sites after Tisler, and he always left first.”

  “What?” Graver zeroed in on the irregular procedure. “Every time?”

  “I know, I know.” Burtell nodded, placating. “I jumped him about this. I told him he was crazy to let the guy dictate the terms of the meetings, that he was violating the basic rules of handling contributors. But Art smelled something big, and he argued that compromising on the meeting arrangements was insignificant compared to what he stood to get from the guy. He said he would humor him on that point He didn’t want to risk alienating him right from the beginning by insisting on something that, at this stage of the game, Art thought was trivial.”

  Burtell paused, stepped over to Graver’s desk, and picked up his coffee mug. He sipped the coffee tentatively and returned to the window. Graver didn’t take advantage of this hiatus to speak. He didn’t want to relieve any of the pressure Burtell was feeling, or give him an extra moment to collect his thoughts. He let all the silence fall on Burtell’s shoulders.

  With his free hand still in his trousers pocket, Burtell bent his head in thought and continued.

  “Nieson told Art from the beginning that he hated Seldon. He knew that much, that Art would be looking for a legitimate motive, and he gave him an ‘honest’ one. They were competitors in the same business and Seldon had burned him once, burned him big-time. Nieson wanted to see him hurt.” He nodded to the folder opened before Graver. “You can see from the contact reports that he gave Art a lot of information relating to Seldon’s business, detailed information that he knew Art could corroborate. He knew what he was talking about But he never named names other than Seldon’s, never gave away a piece of geography that Art could work from—the ranch for instance—never mentioned relationships we could draw inferences from, never… well, shit, never gave us anything we could work back on. If we went any further with this, he was going to have to take us there.”

  Graver turned a couple of pages in the folder before him.

  “What about the information on the contributor’s ID record? What did you find when you checked into that?”

  Burtell nodded, knowing this question was coming, and he clearly wasn’t looking forward to it.

  “Yeah, I went into it” Pause. “None of it checked out.”

  “None of it?” Graver was genuinely surprised. The Seldon investigation was losing blood with every revelation.

  “None.”

  “How long have you known this?” Graver flattened his tone. He wanted to sound cold, not worked up, as if he had gone past agitation to something more serious.

  “After the first meeting we corroborated everything he’d told us about Seldon personally,” Burtell said. “After the second meeting, we corroborated everything he told Art about Seldon’s business. It was all checking out This was looking good, both of us could see the potential of these relationships considering the enormous price tag on the chemical industry here in Houston. The drug business speaks for itself. It was checking out It was solid. I have to admit, we were both getting worked up over this one.”

  Burtell was good, aligning himself with Tisler and hoping to avoid the appearance that he was foisting all the blame for the investigation onto a dead man who couldn’t defend himself. He was putting just enough mea culpa into his explanation to keep Tisler from being a total scapegoat He took a deep breath and exhaled. The deceit was painful for Graver to watch. Burtell did it so well, with just the right nuance of uncertainty to make it look like he was defending himself—or admitting to poor judgment.

  “Third meeting,” Burtell continued, “he gives us information about the actors on the drug end of the deal. We check it ou
t through DEA, it’s good. But he doesn’t give us too much, not enough for us to initiate anything on our own. He still held the key to the relationships. He also finally gave Art his name and showed him an ID. That was two weeks ago. When Art came back and filled out the paperwork I got right on it There is in fact a Parnell Nieson who is an executive with Rochin and Leeds Chemicals. But Tisler’s source was not Parnell Nieson. I found a picture of Nieson in Rochin and Leeds’s most recent annual report Showed it to Tisler. Wasn’t him.”

  “And Tisler confronted the source with this?”

  “Yeah, four days later. Guy just laughed. He said we’d worked a lot faster than he’d thought we would.”

  “What happened then?”

  “Art finally went out on a limb. He told the guy we wouldn’t be able to work with him. Told him he wasn’t reliable, that we couldn’t deal with him because we had to have a dependable relationship in order to assemble a proper investigation. Art gambled and just walked away from it, which was pretty gutsy considering how much he wanted this to work. He was betting the guy wanted it as bad as we did.”

  “And when was that?”

  Burtell calculated. “Ten days ago, I guess.”

  “That was a fourth meeting. Why wasn’t that meeting recorded in the folder? There’s no contact report on that.”

  The question was disingenuous. Graver knew exactly what was happening, or he would have known if any of this had actually taken place. Contrary to by-the-book regulations, the working relationship between analysts and investigators commonly involved a mutual agreement to relax the rules of the game. This was especially likely when a new investigation was being developed and an investigator, and/or the analyst, wanted to massage a reluctant contributor long past the time when a prudent superior would have advised them to walk away from it.

  Such was the situation here. Tisler’s source was proving to be reliable as far as the information he was providing was concerned, but his actual identity was crucial, and if he wasn’t willing to provide it, working with him was going to be difficult to justify. Tisler and Burtell wanted more time to try to bring the man around. It was a cat-and-mouse game everyone was used to playing. To buy more time, they agreed to pretend the last meeting never happened.