“You never answered my question,” Father Soltera asked. The darkness outside was now almost absolute.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Ikuro replied. “Which question was that?”
“Why do you move inside when the mist comes?”
“And the darkness . . .” Michiko added.
“Ah. Yes. Well . . .” The old man hesitated, then took a deep breath before he said, “Because the mist brings the spirits. That was the knocking you kept hearing in the woods. And as for the darkness? That is worst of all.”
Father Soltera looked outside the cave. “Why?”
“Because the darkness brings the dire wolves.”
Maggie sat in a small chair just inside the lobby of the Lomita Women’s Shelter, leaned the back of her head against the wall and closed her eyes.
Luisa was in the next room, with a counselor who was on the phone with Luisa’s mother. The assault on the shelter had gotten the police involved now too.
Tonya had checked in to say that a Detective Murillo had called to inquire as to what she knew about the assailants. She’d told them everything except Luisa’s current location, citing safety reasons, and then punted to Maggie, who now had a call ahead of her that she was not looking forward to at all. She had no idea who this Murillo guy was, but if he was close to Hopkins, then the whole situation was screwed.
Luisa needed her to be strong, but Maggie wasn’t sure she could do this again: face an insane, stupid, obsessed man.
But she didn’t have a choice, did she? Because she was not the type to walk away, was she? That was a lie. She was. She had. Not only had she walked—for five years she had run, like a coward. And innocent people had gotten hurt along the way, hadn’t they? Because of her cowardice. Until one day, in New York City, on a small street in Harlem, when she could run no more. When she knew she would never run again, including right here and now.
Around her, phones rang and people chatted. Someone walked by in a hurry, their shoes dragging across the carpeted floor. She could feel the air they’d displaced as they walked by like a mini-breeze. Anyone who saw her would think she was taking a nap, but no. She was here, in the present, anchored. And after fifteen minutes or so, she knew she was okay to make the call.
Opening her eyes, she reached into her pocket and pulled out Detective Murillo’s number. It was written on a piece of paper that Ann, the assistant director here, had handed her after her chat with Tonya. “She says to call at your convenience, but not to wait too long,” Ann had said.
Maggie pulled out her cell phone and dialed the number hurriedly, so as not to lose her nerve.
A young-sounding man answered. “Hollenbeck Station.”
“Hi. Yes. My name is Maggie Kincaid. I’m trying to reach a Detective Murillo.”
“Hold, please.”
Maggie looked up at the ceiling, which was beige and split by a row of fluorescent light fixtures that ran down the center of the room. She waited one minute, then two, before someone finally came on the line.
“Detective Murillo.”
His voice sounded warm. Still, she was going to be very, very careful.
“Yes, Detective, this is Maggie Kincaid. From Eden Hill Women’s Shelter.”
“Ms. Kincaid. Yes. Good to hear from you. How’s Luisa?”
For starters, it was the right question. Not “where is she” or “where did you take her” or “you need to bring her into the station.” At least not right out of the gate. Instead, he was concerned for Luisa. “She’s fine, Detective. Despite everything. Thanks for asking.”
“Good to hear. I spoke with Tonya, your shelter director, and she said you were moving her to a new location?”
“Yes.”
“Have you made it there or are you still en route?”
“We’re here.”
“Good. That buys us some time.”
“Time?”
“Yeah. Despite what you see in the movies, getting someone into protective police custody is not always easy.”
Maggie sighed and scratched at her chin. “I didn’t even know that was being discussed.”
He cleared his throat, sounding a little shocked as he replied, “After her boyfriend just shot up the last shelter she was in?”
“Yeah. Well. Yeah.”
“Damn straight. This guy’s a loose cannon. And to make matters worse, he’s got some very bad friends.”
You hear a voice, you paint a picture of a person’s face; it’s human nature. She imagined Murillo’s to be round and friendly.
Beyond that, at times at least, you could also know, by instinct she guessed, that someone was either good or bad. Like she had with Hopkins. She just knew there was something bad about him. But with Murillo, it was just the opposite. There was something good about him.
“Yeah,” Maggie replied, “I know. He’s gang-affiliated, right?”
“Luisa told you about him?”
“Yeah. Plus, look what he did to her priest.”
There were a few seconds of silence on the other end of the line. “You’re talking about the priest from St. Francis Church?”
Somehow, he didn’t know. This made Maggie feel better and worse at the same time. “Yeah. I assumed you were aware?”
“That’s the same guy? This Felix guy, you mean? The one who stabbed the priest and—”
“The one that’s after Luisa, yes.”
She could hear him typing on his computer. “That’s good to know.”
“Are both cases being handled—”
“By our station? Yes. Things are moving incredibly fast on this end, Ms. Kincaid. I haven’t had a chance to cross-reference this yet because it’s been nuts around here.”
Maggie chuckled. “Yeah, well, I know the feeling.”
Then Murillo said something she really didn’t want to hear. “Looks like Detectives Ivy and Hopkins are the leads on that case. Only makes sense that I forward this on to them, as well.”
“No!” Maggie said, almost desperately.
Again, silence. Awkward this time. “Uh, Ms. Kincaid, I’m sure both of them will—”
“Detective Murillo, please . . . don’t.”
She heard him sigh into the receiver. “I don’t understand.”
“I’ve met them, already.”
“Who? Ivy and—”
“Hopkins, yes.” She practically spat out his name.
“Was there a problem?”
“With Detective Ivy, no. But . . .”
He chuckled. “Look, Ms. Kincaid, I’m sure you—”
“Do you know them both?”
“Well.” He hesitated. “Sure. I even work with them both, from time to time.”
“How long have you known them?”
This time he outright laughed. “Ms. Kincaid, I feel like I’m the one being interviewed here . . .”
“Listen. I know you don’t know me. I imagine we’ll meet soon enough. But I need you to trust me on something.”
“What’s that?”
“Detective Ivy seemed straight as aces. But the other one, Hopkins . . . Look, they asked me to come to the hospital to see Father Soltera and tell them what I knew. But Hopkins couldn’t have cared less about what I knew about the Father. From the minute I got off the elevator, all he wanted to know about was Luisa.”
“Ms. Kincaid—”
“Does that make sense to you, Detective Murillo?”
“Look. Often we have information that you don’t know about—”
“No. He was pressing like no tomorrow. I was so uncomfortable about it that I bought time by visiting the Father’s bedside. Then, by the time we got out? He’d already tracked down where Luisa was by getting ahold of the church secretary!”
“Well, again, that’d be a normal—”
“And? Shortly thereafter? Chaos at the shelter. How? I mean, what’re the odds, Detective? I don’t mean to offend you or anyone there, Detective Murillo. Please. Just listen to me. Prior to that, the only other person that knew where
she was? Her mother. Are you going to tell me that she told Felix?”
Maggie knew she was being reckless, but reckless was all she had now. He’d opened the conversation by bringing up police protective custody, which showed where his thinking was headed. And that might end up being exactly what Luisa needed, even soon, but not before Maggie made it clear that said custody might not be as safe as one might hope.
This time he was quiet for a long time. That didn’t make sense, either, and Maggie knew it. He should be rising to his colleague’s defense right about now, maybe espousing Hopkins’ long service history or redeeming qualities. If not that, then he should at least be trying to pacify her and reassure her that her concerns were completely unfounded, that maybe he’d have his superior call her and so on. Instead, silence. Which made the hairs on Maggie’s forearms stand up.
Finally, surprisingly, he replied, “Okay, Ms. Kincaid.”
Just like that, she knew that Murillo knew something she didn’t. Something was off, with this whole situation.
“What does ‘okay’ mean, Detective?” she pressed.
“It means that myself and my partner on this, Detective Klink, will be holding on to this case, for now.”
Maggie was exasperated. “For now?!”
“Ms. Kincaid, our captain has the final say on the case assignments and he might deem it logical to put this case with the other one and—”
“Can’t you ask him to assign you the Father’s case too, just as easily? I mean, it’s paperwork, right?”
Now his voice took a turn. Not to anything negative, but to something more serious. “You sure know a lot about how things work with the police, Ms. Kincaid.”
It was Maggie’s turn to hesitate. But not for long. “Detective Murillo, I want you to look up my name in the system. You’ll see why I know so much about what the police can and cannot do, and why, maybe, I’m hesitant to trust you. But I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that I can’t trust Hopkins.”
“Okay. I have your number. I’ll talk to my captain and get back to you. But let’s make sure we’re both on the same page, Ms. Kincaid.”
“Fine.”
“Luisa is currently located in a secret location and safe, correct?”
“Yes.”
“If we need to speak to her or reach her, you will—”
“I have no intention of obstructing justice or doing anything stupid.”
He cleared his throat. “Good.”
“But for the record, Detective?”
“Go ahead.”
“I have no intention of letting any harm come to this girl. She’s sixteen and pregnant . . . and if this Felix guy tracks her down here, too, like he did at the last place?”
“Yeah?”
Maggie took a deep breath, feeling her nerves vibrating in her voice. “I will kill him or die trying.”
Chapter Seventeen
After the briefing, Agent Sharma, Klink and Murillo left, but Parker was asked to stay behind. He now sat opposite Captain Holland and Special Agent Clopton, his hands folded in front of him on the conference table.
“Technically, he’s on a three-day leave. Department policy after a shooting,” Captain Holland muttered somberly to Clopton while motioning his head at Parker.
“As you’ve said. And I understand. I’d like to bring him in on an advisory capacity, at least for the next forty-eight hours, until he’s off leave.”
“Wait,” Parker said, “you mean—”
“Like we discussed earlier, Parker. No gun. No active fieldwork,” Captain Holland said.
“I’ll be a desk jockey?”
“It’s only for two days, Detective,” Clopton said calmly.
“If he gets cleared by IA and the chief signs off,” Captain Holland interjected.
Parker was surprised and instantly wary. “If?”
An awkward silence filled the room. Finally, Clopton spoke up. “Is there something going on that I’m not aware of?”
If only you knew, Parker thought sarcastically.
A dozen images of guts, gore and combat flashed through Parker’s mind before he fixed on one in particular: a sniper they’d cornered in a building outside of Ramadi who’d blown the top half of an informant’s head clean off, mid-sentence, as he was speaking to Parker’s sergeant.
The sniper had kept screaming his religious dogma as they’d closed in on him, Parker on point with a group of three up the main stairwell, Davis and Finch each flanking the building exterior. The sniper was all bravado until they came through the doorway, all macho man until he saw the bullets coming. Then? He tried to scream away the consequences.
Tapped twice in the face, he looked like a tragic clown when the life left his eyes. Davis had spat on him.
Later that night, back in the barracks, they’d drank a few beers and looked at naked celebrity pics online, as if they’d spent the day at a baseball game or something.
“Parker?” Captain Holland said, a little too firmly.
“Y-yeah, Cap,” Parker stammered. “What’s that?”
“I was just telling Clopton here that I didn’t think there’d be anything unusual in the investigation, and that I thought you’d agree?”
Shit. I phased out. Right in front of them.
“Yeah. Of course. Sorry,” Parker replied. Thinking quickly, he added, “I was just buried in thoughts of the case already. Of this Güero guy and what to do next.”
His lie seemed to work. Clopton nodded with a tiny smile, “Yeah. I figured. That’s why I’m asking for your help. I’ve seen your file.”
“His file?” Captain Holland queried, his eyes glancing from Clopton to Parker and back again.
“I’m sure you know Parker here is ex-military, Captain?”
“Of course I do.”
“Well, don’t worry, you’re not going to hear any James Bond bullshit next. But Parker was special ops and his unit was often tasked with recon missions for hard-to-task targets.”
Holland looked at Parker. “You were a ghost hunter?”
Parker shrugged. He knew Holland was a vet as well. Clopton evidently didn’t.
She looked at Holland. “You served?”
“Yeah. Iraq. 1991. My turn over there wasn’t nearly as glamorous. Just grunt shit in 120-degree weather while Saddam’s Tonka-toy army ran the other way.”
Clopton nodded. “Well. I’ll keep this short. But suffice it to say, Parker knows how to find people who don’t want to be found. He knows he has to do so within the confines of the law, Stateside, don’t you, Parker?”
Parker looked at her again, this time noticing a small freckle on her chin. She was a wily one, for sure. Pretty. Confident. With a bitchy edge that threw him off. He nodded. “Of course.”
“Good. Here’s the file. It’s all we have. Captain, here’s yours.” She slid each of their manila folders to them.
Parker opened his, and by force of habit got to work.
“Okay. I’ve gotta get back to my office, so I’ll leave you two to it,” Holland said.
After he left, Parker waited a few seconds, then looked at Clopton.
“Lemme guess,” Parker said with a sigh. “My file’s clean. His has an Easter egg?”
Clopton smiled. “Sorry.”
“You’re not going to take any chances that he’s not the mole for this Güero asshole, are you?”
“Correct. But trust me, it’s more to clear him at this point than it is to test him, you know?”
Parker smiled back at her with absolutely no humor whatsoever. “I know no such thing. I barely know the man. I barely know you.”
“What about Murillo and Klink, or for that matter, your partner, Campos, who’s laid up in the hospital?”
“I’ve known them all about six months.”
Clopton narrowed her eyes as a mild look of surprise came over her face. “That’s hardly a ringing endorsement, Detective Parker.”
“I like them. They seem to be good men. I was just now getting to the poin
t where I could maybe trust my life to them, and then you show up.”
“I’m sorry about that. So now what?”
“So now I go back to square one. To trusting myself to know only one thing.”
“Which is?”
“The enemy. In-country, that was the Taliban or Al Qaeda. Here?” Parker said, taping the file in front of him firmly. “It’s Güero Martinez.”
She pursed her lips, nodded, then got up and left, closing the door behind her. The room was mostly silent now, with only the sound of the HVAC running softly overhead.
When Parker turned his head back to the table, Napoleon Villa was seated directly opposite him, his dark, droopy, St. Bernard-like eyes tinged with amusement. “That was very ominous, Parker.”
Parker jumped at the appearance of his dead partner. “Dammit, Nap! Don’t do that to me.” Napoleon chuckled, and once Parker had composed himself, he replied to his ex-partner’s original statement. “It’s what she wanted to hear.”
“Yeah?”
“If she’s read my whole file, and not just the parts she wanted to see to help her with this case, she’ll know I also spent a little time in PSYOP. She’s smart. She’s up against a monster. I think he’s rattled her a bit. So? She’s recruited a monster to fight a monster.”
“You’re not a monster, Parker,” Napoleon said firmly.
“But not quite a man, anymore. Ain’t that right . . . partner?”
“Listen . . .”
Parker cut him off with a soft voice. “No. Nap. Please. You listen. I don’t know if you’re an angel or a ghost or a figment of my jacked-up imagination. Just seeing you makes me feel like I’ve stepped completely out of reality. But you wanna know something else?”
Napoleon looked sad. “What?”
“I don’t care. As long as you’re here, you’re here. And I’m happy for that. I’m not a good person. I’ve done horrible things. So, I’m kinda hoping you’re an angel, because if you are then that means God wants you to help me, I guess.”
“Well,” Napoleon replied with a sigh as he put his hands on the conference table. “All I will say is that a ghost couldn’t have stopped Jin Yeung from shooting you, and your mind isn’t nearly as . . . jacked . . . up as you think.”
The Parker Trilogy Page 47