The Rogue Element (Scott Priest Book 1)

by John Hardy Bell

  Kimball frowned. “I never get invited to meetings with the big dogs, Jimmy. You know that.”

  “The Man still holding you down, eh Kim?” Krieger asked with his trademark smirk. “Aren’t there programs in place to prevent that kind of thing?”

  “As usual your lame-ass sarcasm adds nothing to the conversation,” Kimball countered with a smirk of his own. “But if you can find a program that would make Hitchcock not act like such a prick every moment of every day, please let me know about it.”

  “Me too,” Parsons added as he fished around in his jacket pocket, no doubt hoping to catch a stray candy bar.

  Krieger turned back to me. “So how were you lucky enough to earn an audience with his royal majesty?”

  I kept my poker face tight. “He wanted to swap stories about the wife and kids, discuss plans for the weekend, compare spring gardening tips. Usual nonsense.”

  “Aside from the fact that you don’t have a wife or kids, you’re a social hermit, and you wouldn’t know a spring garden from a beer garden, I’m sure it was a great conversation.”

  Krieger and Parsons laughed at Kimball’s quip like it was the funniest damn thing they’d ever heard. I joined in the laughter, hoping it would help push the conversation in a different direction. It didn’t.

  “You must’ve earned a big shiny gold star somewhere along the way, Scott,” Krieger hissed. “The only time I ever got called into the lieutenant’s office for a solo visit was when that cache of AK’s went missing in evidence. To this day I think the SOB believes I took them.”

  “That’s because he knows all about your apocalypse-prepping nonsense,” Parsons chided.

  “Zombie apocalypse-prepping to be exact. And it isn’t nonsense.”

  I cut off Parsons’ asinine response before he even had the chance to think it up. “Can we at least pretend that we’re interested in doing our jobs here?”

  Krieger’s brow furrowed. “We’ve done our jobs already. And because you Sallys were late, we did yours too.”

  “Then by all means fill us in.”

  Krieger hit me with a cold look before turning to Kimball. “Hotel security is combing through surveillance tapes as we speak. The cameras on this floor and the two floors below were malfunctioning last night, so all they have to go through is elevator, lobby, and parking garage footage. So far, the victim hasn’t turned up in any. Obviously neither has the perp.”

  Parsons took over where his partner left off. “And I just finished a rather heated conversation with Natalie Glassman, the hotel manager on duty last night.”

  I felt my face flush with embarrassment. The purpose of coming back this morning was to interview Ms. Glassman. The only thing worse than dropping the ball is having your backup pick it up and score. “How did that go?” was all I could manage.

  “Heated,” was all Parsons could manage.

  “Let’s just say she didn’t agree with our assessment that the entire hotel should be treated as a crime scene,” Krieger added.

  “Does she really think she can just go back to business as usual after what happened here?” Kimball asked.

  “That’s exactly what she thinks,” Parsons answered. “You’d figure all she would want to talk about is her dead employee. Instead, she spends the entire time complaining that the uniform presence is panicking the guests. I told her the guests should be panicked, and she should be too. She wasn’t as inspired by that as I’d hoped she would be.”

  “So what are the chances that we can actually shut it down?” Kimball inquired.

  “Logistically it wouldn’t be easy,” Parsons replied. “People would have to scramble to make different accommodations, and with the Shriners convention in town most every other room in the city is booked.”

  “The longer people are allowed to come and go as they please, the more our potential for finding evidence is compromised,” I snapped back.

  Parsons’ dark eyes narrowed. “Tell that to Ms. Glassman. Oh wait, you were supposed to do that already.”

  “I’ve apologized for being late, Jimmy. What else am I supposed to—”

  Krieger cut me off. “You were handling important business, Scott. We get it. But the next time you choose to shoot the breeze with Hitchcock instead of working your crime scene, all we ask is that you don’t do it on our time.”

  “Chill out, Alan.”

  Kimball’s terse directive was enough to get Krieger to back down. At that point, I decided that the next directive would come from me, and it wouldn’t be nearly as diplomatic.

  Kimball continued. “Unfortunately we can’t force the hotel to completely shut down, so we have to focus on what we can control. Where are we at with interviews?”

  “We’ve talked to just about everyone who could offer anything useful,” Parsons said. “Patrol has been conducting door-to-doors all morning. So far it hasn’t produced any meaningful noise.”

  “I suppose everyone heard about the Dispatch leak?” I asked the group.

  “What else is new with that piece of garbage?” Krieger muttered.

  “Any idea how they got her name?” Kimball asked.

  “Probably one of the first responders looking for a quick dollar,” I speculated.

  The snarky glint in Krieger’s eye returned. “Are you suggesting that someone connected to this investigation is on the take?”

  “I’m not suggesting that anyone is on the take, Alan. Don’t put words in my mouth.”

  Krieger put his hands up in mock surrender. “Easy, kid. I was just joking around. What’s with the sensitivity?”

  I needed to take a deep breath before responding. “Who’s sensitive?”

  “Right now I’d say the entire department is,” Kimball answered. “But this isn’t the time for a group therapy session to explore our feelings about it. Has Marisol’s family been given a formal notification?”

  Parsons nodded. “Her oldest daughter was contacted an hour ago. A patrol unit has already paid a visit.”

  “We should follow up,” Kimball suggested.

  I agreed. “Do we have an address for her?”

  “I’m assuming you can get it from the hotel’s HR office,” Parsons said.

  I looked at Kimball. “I’ll send one of the uniforms for it.”

  “As long as you don’t mind making the trip to see the Alvarez kid by yourself,” Kimball responded. “I could do without the grieving family piece this morning.”

  In two years as his partner, I’d never known Detective Kimball to be comfortable with the grieving family piece, particularly when children were involved. In one of the rare moments of vulnerability I managed to pry out of him, he confessed that the grief over the disintegration of his own family was largely to blame.

  When I first met Kimball, I could always count on Monday morning stories about his fun-filled weekend visits with his two boys Jordan and Tyler. Over time the stories became less and less frequent, until one Monday morning when he showed up to work with the court-approved petition by his ex-wife to move his sons halfway across the country. The boys had come to visit him four times since the move. Those visits were the best times of his life, he’d say. Until it was time for them to leave. “It feels like dying every time,” was how he described those tear-filled moments of saying goodbye. It is a feeling he says he relives after every meeting with a victim’s family.

  “No worries. I got it covered,” I said with a pat on Kimball’s shoulder.

  “Great. Now that that’s settled, what are we going to do about this no witnesses, no suspects, no murder weapon issue we seem to have?” Krieger asked.

  I didn’t hesitate to answer. “We’ll keep checking in with hotel security regarding the surveillance footage, we make sure every single person who was in the hotel last night is interviewed, and we keep reiterating to hotel management the importance of keeping a lid on the extra-curricular activity. It might be impossible to close them down completely, but we can at least get them to monitor the traffic flow a little
more closely. Beyond that, we trust everybody else to do their jobs and wait for the break that we all know is coming.”

  Parsons smiled. “Spoken like a true lead detective. For a while Alan and I were starting to think you didn’t want the job.”

  “I swear Jimmy, if you say one more thing about us being late…”

  Parsons laughed so hard his distended belly shook. Unfortunately, his partner wasn’t so jovial.

  “Hey kid, next private meeting you have with the lieutenant, make sure you vouch for me regarding those AK’s. Maybe if he had a trusted ear to vet my character, he’d finally stop shooting me dirty looks.”

  Despite his open smile, I couldn’t tell if Krieger was joking or not. I was leaning toward not. “I don’t know what makes you think I’m such a trusted ear, but whatever.”

  Krieger shrugged. “Call it a healthy distrust of the brass. Don’t mind me.”

  “I’m doing my best not to.”

  “On that note, why don’t we break up this little sewing circle and try our hands at some police work,” Kimball said.

  “I haven’t heard a better idea all morning,” I declared as I made my way toward the front door. The relentless browbeating about my time in Hitchcock’s office was starting to wear thin, and even though I was fairly certain I’d maintained adequate composure, I had no confidence in my ability to keep cool for much longer.

  Kimball met me in the hallway, followed by Krieger and Parsons. Krieger, as usual, was the first to speak.

  “I’m on my way to meet up with hotel security to see if there is any progress on that footage. Jimmy is going to catch up with some of the uniforms to see how the door-to-doors are coming.”

  “Then I’ll take another crack at Natalie Glassman,” Parsons said with a subtle smile.

  “Just make sure you don’t hold back the Parsons charm this time, huh big guy? Kimball joked.

  “Yeah Jimmy. Bat those luscious eyelashes of yours a few times,” I added for good measure.

  Parsons’ pale face turned beet red. “I’ll see what I can do.”

  “We’ll catch up with you guys at HQ,” I continued. “Hopefully there will be some decent notes to compare by then.”

  “Hope so,” Krieger said. “And good luck with Marisol’s family.”

  It was the first time I had detected sincerity in his voice. “Thanks.”

  “You got it. And as far as all the Lieutenant Hitchcock stuff, that’s just me busting your balls a little bit. I personally don’t trust the guy as far as I can throw him. There aren’t many of us who do after what’s been happening lately. You’re still fairly new around here, so you haven’t been burned the way some of us have. Nobody wants to see that happen.”

  Even in his apology Krieger was still pressing. I tried to remain nonchalant as I responded. “Thanks for the concern, but it wasn’t a big deal. He only called me in for a quick progress report on Alvarez.”

  “Without the other lead detective?” Krieger asked as he pointed at Kimball.

  “I told you Alan, I don’t get invited to the meetings with the big dogs,” he replied with a wink.

  “Hell, I’ll file the EEOC paperwork for you, brother.”

  Krieger and Kimball shared a laugh. I would have joined in had I not already known that the laughter was at my expense. “I have a family to talk to. I’ll see you old hens later.”

  Kimball and I made our way to the elevators while Krieger and Parsons lingered in the doorway of the suite.

  “Remember kid, I’m just busting your balls,” Krieger yelled as I stepped on to the elevator.

  I un-holstered my middle finger and was preparing to fire in response, but the elevator door closed before I could.

  “Crotchety old bastard,” Kimball sniffed as he pressed the lobby button. “Don’t let him get to you.”

  Too late, I thought as I stared straight ahead, wondering how I was going to tell Kimball that he had gotten to me too.

  “There’s just a lot of unnecessary paranoia floating around the squad room right now, and the brass, including Lieutenant Hitchcock, is largely to blame for it,” Kimball continued. “If they would show some actual leadership and sit down openly with us for ten minutes that would probably be the end of it. But because they choose not to tell us anything, we assume they’re hiding stuff. Our time on the street trains us to think the worst about most situations we encounter. Makes us all more hypersensitive than we should be. I think Krieger has got it worse than most.”

  “And where do you fall on that spectrum, Nate? Are you hypersensitive too?”

  “Not about your meeting with Hitchcock.” Kimball cracked a smile. “But I am curious.”

  We stepped off the elevator into a lobby that was largely empty except for a front desk clerk and two uniforms standing near the entrance. We waited in silence as one of the officers made the trip to the Human Resources office for Marisol’s address. I didn’t speak again until we were settled in the car.

  “Hitchcock and I weren’t talking about Alvarez, by the way. I would never discuss a case in-depth without you being there.”

  Kimball nodded his understanding, but his silent stare indicated that he was still searching for an answer, so I gave him one.

  “We were actually talking about my father.”

  The explanation had apparently been satisfactory as Kimball promptly redirected his attention out the window. After a prolonged silence, he asked, “How is Carl?”

  I started the car and pulled out of the docking bay where we had parked. The Tuesday morning traffic seemed heavier than usual. “He actually remembered my name yesterday.”

  I cursed myself as I forced down the lump that had suddenly infiltrated my throat. I had no business using my father as a cover story, especially because I couldn’t seem to talk about him these days without something inside of me cracking, but it was the best diversion I could come up with.

  “That’s great,” Kimball replied in the stiff tone he used when he needed to temper his emotion. He looked up to my father almost as much as I did, even visiting him a few times while he was still lucid enough to live with my mother. Kimball walked out of the last visit with the same look on his face that he had right now. I would definitely burn in hell for this one. Still, it was better than the alternative that the truth provided.

  We fell back into silence for much of the trip back to HQ. Kimball complained about the pile of statements he would spend the rest of the morning logging, but that was the extent of his conversation. I tried to keep my mind focused on Marisol Alvarez’s family and the hope that speaking to them would offer at least some insight into a murder victim that we currently knew nothing about.

  But my thoughts kept drifting to Hitchcock and his sidekick from the AG’s office. As much as Krieger’s insinuations irritated me, I understood his distrust of the lieutenant, now more than ever. I didn’t believe for a second that he would be completely forthright in his intentions, even if I did agree to help him. Just like I didn’t believe for a second that Robert Fitzgerald was only in that meeting as a passive observer.

  Kimball may have bought the cover about my father, but it did nothing to change the reality, and the thermonuclear fallout that would most likely result. If I were being honest, I would admit that Krieger was one hundred percent right to question me. Without realizing it, I had already betrayed him, Kimball, and every other hypersensitive member of the force, simply by not telling Fitzgerald to fuck off the moment I learned who he was. That betrayal would be something I would have to live with at least until tomorrow morning’s meeting.

  I could only hope to summon the will to do the right thing by then, even though I still had no true sense of what the right thing was.

  CHAPTER 3

  Marisol Alvarez’s children didn’t learn about her murder through the Mile High Dispatch leak as I had feared. They instead got the news via a phone call from the Four Seasons’ management. Not that it mattered. There is no such thing as an ideal way to receive the new
s of a loved one’s sudden, violent death.

  By the time I arrived at the tiny Northwest Denver apartment that Marisol shared with her two daughters, the shock and despair of the initial news had given way to detached numbness.

  The thirteen and sixteen-year-old sisters sat quietly on the couch, arms tightly interlocked, as if their collective existence was dependent on the physical contact. They were surrounded by aunts and uncles, cousins and friends, but no one could seem to penetrate the force field of protection that the sisters had built around themselves. I’d had a difficult time penetrating that force field myself, as my ten-minute visit had thus far yielded little more than a chorus of angry demands from the other family present that I find whoever was responsible, and do it quickly. This was followed by the standard “I’ll do whatever I can” response that every detective is obligated to give in such a situation. My assurances were met with a silence that I could only interpret as disbelief. The reaction was one I had grown quite accustomed to in recent weeks.

  Choosing to ignore the rest of the room, I moved my chair close enough to the girls so that only they could hear me. “I will find the person who did this to your mother. You have my word.”

  Christina, the younger of the two, was the first to look at me, her damp eyes sending pleas that her voice could not. I smiled and offered a nod of reassurance as her older sister finally summoned the will to speak.

  “How exactly do you plan to do that?” Dana Alvarez asked pointedly. “Do you even have a suspect?” The maturity in her voice betrayed her young age. She would need every bit of that maturity going forward.

  “Not yet. We’re doing the absolute best we can, but we could use some help.”

  “Help with what?” Christina asked in a voice that didn’t possess nearly the measure of her sister’s.