IA was after him, Timmy said. Dakin was trying to prove that he, Timmy, had paid to have Komfeld assassinated.. They had a witness, a snitch named Ross Keniston, who would claim that Timmy had tried to hire him to do the job. According to Dakin's theory (leaked to Timmy by an old friend on Dakin's disaffected staff), Timmy found another killer, and the rape and robbery portions of the crime were added to divert attention from the motive: Timmy's need to prevent Komfeld from speaking further about her role as hired forger of the Metaxas note.
"I'm not worried about Keniston," Timmy told Janek that night. "He's an addict and a liar. What worries me is Dalcin. I hear he's around the bend, so crazy he's faking up evidence. He's claiming he interviewed Komfeld before she was killed, and that she IDed me as the one paid her for the forgery."
Janek and Timmy spent the rest of that night frantically war-gaming the problem. There were, they decided, two ways to deal with an IA investigation: The first and most common was to let it take its course, dealing with it when and if charges were formally filed; the second method, rarely employed and filled with risk, was to preempt by lodging counter charges first. This was the route they decided to follow, with Janek acting as Timmy's counsel under a special provision in police regulations.
When the day of the departmental hearing arrived, they were prepared.
They had cashed in on all the favors they were owed, and had used all their skills as street detectives to compile a list of Dakin's abuses.
Rather than concentrating on his improprieties in the Komfeld case, Janek launched a broadside attack. Believing Dakin was obsessed with duplicity and plots, he intended to goad him until he acted out.
Dakin, preening in his virtue, was flustered by Janek's litany.
Attempting to take up each abuse in turn, he started out fairly well, then turned incoherent.
Janek let him ramble, keeping a close eye on the judges.
When he felt the moment was right, he gently interrupted.
"Everyone's against you. It's all a conspiracy. That's what you're saying, Chief-isn't it?"
Dakin, disarmed by the suggestion, which mimicked the very thoughts he was harboring, nodded fiercely and began to carve the air. He must have realized he was making a bad impression, because he suddenly sat rigid.
Then, thrusting his trembling forefinger at Timmy, his reedy voice went shrill:
"That snake killed my witness! They're trying to get me now ' I'm on to them! Don't you see, it's a diversion, this fuckin' hearing!
That snake's a fuckin' killer!"
After his outburst Dakin clamped his jaws. Everyone in the room could hear the crunch of teeth.
Janek turned to the judges, spread his hands and shrugged: "There you are," his gestures said, "the paranoid revealed."
The judges understood. Their voices turned solicitous. When one of them offered to fetch Dakin a glass of water, Janek knew he'd won. It was, he had felt at the time, a brilliant moment, perhaps his finest as a cop.
He had successfully sandbagged The Dark One, and, at the same time, lifted suspicion from his friend.
But contrary to expectations, the cloud was not so easily raised.
Because the IA case had been rendered incomplete, Timmy's role in regard to the Metaxas note was left unresolved.
The result of the hearing was that Dakin took immediate retirement and Timmy himself retired six months later. Although both men received full pensions, their reputations were besmirched. In the end the special hearing about Dakin's overreaching only added to the cluster of rumors and ambiguities that had come to surround the original Mendoza investigation, turning it into the phenomenon known around the Department simply as Mendoza.
"Whatsa matter? Dreamin'?" Dakin stood before Janek, clutching his paper, leering. "You took me. Didn't you, Frank?"
Janek glanced into Dakin's eyes. It was the first time the chief had ever called him by his first name. Dakin, however, quickly turned away.
Then he started back toward his building, his stride awkward, urgent.
"It was right out of that damn Caine Mutiny movie. Get me up there, throw me cream puffs, then watch me destroy myself batting them down too hard. I was never a sophisticated man. I was always up front direct.
One-track mind. Eyes forward, with the blinders on. So you blind sighted me and I never even knew it until I turned around and saw the looks on the faces of those judges. Lord, that was something! Then it hit me. I was cooked. I was going down and there was nothing I could do about it.
Nothing..
"Look, I don't think we should-"
"What?" Dakin snapped. "Rehash it? Want to pretend it never happened?
We'd do better to act like a couple of old generals, crusty World War II types, shooting the bull at a reunion, finding out what the other had in mind the day of the big battle, maybe even fessing up to a few mistakes.
Be interesting, I think." Janek thought through his answer. "But we're not like two old generals. You were a chief-"
"Still am! Don't ever forget it!" -and I was and still am a lieutenant. Also, I don't think enough time's passed to heal the wounds."
Dakin nodded. "Fine, that's the way you want it. It was just my way of saying I respect you for what you did, even though I'm the one bore the brunt of it. Your job was to get me. You got me good. I don't hate you for that. The one I blame… well, never mind… "
Who the hell does he blame? Janek wondered. Some power behind me pulling my strings?
In the end, he knew, it was impossible to probe the labyrinth of a paranoid's mind. There was always one step in the thinking you couldn't make yourself, one room full of conspirators you could never find because it was hidden too deep within the maze.
But Dakin was still rambling:
"Sheehan's your buddy," he sneered. "You don't have the balls to take him down. That's the trouble with having buddies, see. A man calls you ''-he'll always expect a favor. Me, I never had any buddies and I never granted any favors. Not once! Ever! I'm proud of that.
They can carve it on my gravestone if they dare. ' buddies and no favors. ''d be pleased to rest under a stone like that. I could rest under it forever!"
Oh, Jesus!
But that wasn't the end of it-Dakin was on a heavy riff. The words continued to tumble out:
"Trouble today is everyone's forgotten the point. You got a department, you keep it clean, no matter who falls in sacrifice. A slime snake like Sheehan poisons the well, then everyone drinks from it gets sick. The Department's been drinking putrid water nine years.
Soon the venom'll kill it. Then you'll see the ruin, my friend. The blood'll flow. The city'll drown in puke and gore. It won't be long now, unless someone's got the guts to reach deep down the well and pull the vile slime snake out!"
He must always have been this way, Janek thought, and nobody noticed because they took his ravings as rhetoric. But Janek knew that it wasn't rhetoric, that what he was hearing was deeply held belief. Dakin was too honest to obfuscate. With him, what you heard was what you got.
God help us! For years we treasured this man and all that time he was a lunatic. Then he thought: Is it any wonder that so many of us end up putting our pistols in our mouths?
The Threat.
When Janek arrived at Special Squad, he found a fax on his desk. It was from an officer he didn't know named Tom Capiello, a member of the police artists unit. The message was simple and to the point: "Drop by.
I've got something to show you."
While Janek was pondering what this might mean, he received a call from his zone commander, Joe Deforest. Deforest said a man named Stephen Kane, chief of security at Sonoron Corporation, had arrived in New York and wanted a briefing on the Dietz case.
"Fine, Joe," Janek said, "send him over. He can tell us more about that stolen chip."
There was a pause at the other end, then Deforest cleared his throat.
"Seems Kane's boss, some big shot named Cavanaugh, called the mayor's office last night
. Word came down from Kit. The briefing's to be held over there."
"Fine," said Janek. "I'm coming over anyway. I'll drop by early and fill you in."
When he put down the phone, he had no doubt about what had happened.
Cavanaugh, the Sonoron chairman, had posed some difficult questions to the mayor-such as, how often are visiting businessmen assassinated in their rooms at top-of-the-line Manhattan hotels? By the time this needling query reached Kit, the order was clear: Kane, Cavanaugh's security chief, was to be shown special deference, which meant don't send him over to Janek's grubby Special Squad, brief him in a plush suite in the Headquarters building.
Janek quickly gave instructions to Sue and Ray. They were to continue to show the police sketch until they got a lead on the redhead who had accompanied Dietz to his room. Leaving Aaron in charge of the office, Janek taxied downtown to Police Plaza. When he got there he went straight to the artists unit, where he asked the receptionist to point out Capiello.
She gestured across the busy room to a man sitting at a desk against the far wall. As Janek walked over he passed a row of artists working at computer terminals with witnesses.
"Now let's try some noses," he heard one say. "Was it short, long, fat or thin?"
"It was kind of squashed," said the witness, a black lady with steel-gray hair. "You know, like a boxer's."
Capiello looked up just as Janek approached. He was middle-aged with bags under his eyes and a sorrowful, earnest face. He was also one of the few artists in the room who was not sitting before a computer. From the array of art materials in front of him, Janek could see he was one of the last of the breed who sketched freehand with charcoal and pastels.
"Janek?" Janek nodded. Capiello gestured for him to take a chair.
"Thanks for coming down, Lieutenant. I could have sent the material over, but I wanted to show it to you myself."
Capiello struck him as the sort of technical policeman who probably didn't get much satisfaction from his work. Now that he had come up with something, he wanted to squeeze a little pleasure out of it.
Capiello pulled out the sketch of the redheaded girl in the Dietz case.
"This isn't my work," he said. "I don't usually look at other artists' composites, but I was working late last night, and on my way out I noticed this one posted by the door.
Don't know why it caught my eye. It just did. I thought the girl looked familiar. But I was too tired to put it together. It didn't hit me till I got home." Janek smiled. "Happens to me all the time." "Anyway,"
Capiello continued, "I wasn't positive till I got in this morning. I came early to check and soon as I saw it I sent you the fax."
Capiello opened the center drawer of his desk, extracted a hand-drawn sketch. He laid it beside the computer generated drawing of the redhead, then turned both portraits around so that Janek could compare them.
"I drew this three months ago, beginning of the summer, on another case.
Hair color's different, cut's different, too but otherwise the girls look the same."
Janek could see the similarity, especially in the eyes the same vulnerable eyes that had held his interest the day before.
"What was the complaint?" "Well, that's the thing," Capiello said.
"There wasn't any homicide.
Still, I think it's the same person."
Janek studied the two sketches as Capiello explained. Something about this girl touches me. I wonder why.
"It was an odd case," Capiello said. "The complaining witness was a magazine editor. I dug up the data." He passed a complaint sheet across the desk. "Anyway, this guy was pretty anguished about what happened to him and adamant about tracking the girl down. Seems he picked her up in a neighborhood bar, then took her home expecting to, you know… But then she put something in his drink that put him to sleep. When he woke up she was gone and so was his money and his watch."
Janek looked up from the sketches. "Anguished?"
Capiello nodded. "That's why I remember him, He talked while I drew.
He was very disturbed. Seems the girl did some fairly weird things while he was out, like going through his personal stuff and cutting up his underwear. She also wrote something nasty on his chest. It was strange the way she wrote it, he said@ It looked like nonsense till he looked at it in a mirror."
"So, how was Cuba?" Deforest asked when Janek stepped into his office.
"You didn't get much of a tan."
"It wore off," Janek said. Deforest laughed. "I was supposed to be on a covert mission."
"That's always the trouble when you get involved with Mendoza." Deforest shook his head. "Sooner or later everyone finds out."
Deforest was a big, blocky man in his early forties, with pale skin and arctic eyes. Although transparently ambitious for bigger and better commands, he was what Aaron called a stand-up guy." Janek respected him for his intelligence, his record as a working detective and his intense loyalty to subordinates. He also thought Deforest could end up one day sitting behind Kit's desk.
Janek briefed him on the Dietz case. Deforest agreed that finding the girl was the only way to go and that if the artist's sketch was shown on TV, it could scare her off. He also agreed that the mirror-writing connection to Capiello's complainant was a promising lead. "But I'd hurry if I were you," Deforest said. "A scent like this can go cold pretty quick."
Promptly at eleven, Deforest's secretary announced the arrival of Stephen Kane. The moment Kane entered, Janek knew he didn't like him.
The security man was in his midthirties, with a flashy, vain appearance.
His loafers were fancy, crafted out of exotic reptile skins, with little tassels affixed to the tops that flopped back and forth as he walked.
His watch was showy, a thick Rolex with a diamond encrusted bezel. These accessories were consistent with the grooming of his hair-long on the sides, fastidiously combed back, meeting and crossing behind his head, then tapering down to a point. To keep up a cut like that, Janek thought, he'd have to see his barber every other day.
After introductions, they sat down in easy chairs at the informal end of Deforest's office. Janek was amused to see Kane position himself so that he could give his primary attention to the zone commander.
"What've you got to tell me?" he asked in a manner not contrived to endear him to Deforest.
Deforest looked over at Janek. "It's Frank's investigation., "It's more like what can you tell us?" Janek said. "We understand Dietz was recently fired."
"That's right."
"What for?"
"Unsatisfactory performance."
"What does that mean?"
"He wasn't up to the job. Also, he and Mr. Cavanaugh weren't getting along." Kane turned back to Deforest. "You know, this is a very serious matter."
"We always take homicide seriously, Mr. Kane." Deforest glanced at Janek. "Is there some reason you think we don't?"
"Hey, please, no offense! And I'd appreciate it if you'd call me Steve."
Deforest didn't respond. Janek was happy to discover he wasn't the only one who didn't like Kane.
"So," Janek said, "why don't you tell us more about Dietz and this missing chip?"
"He took it."
"Got proof?"
"We don't need proof. Dietz and Cavanaugh were negotiating the terms of Dietz's severance. Then Dietz stole the prototype.
I '?" I "Power play. He wanted to blackmail the company. He was going to sell it to one of our competitors unless we bought it back."
"Dietz threatened that?"
"Not in so many words. But that's what he had in mind. The payoff would be his golden parachute." Kane paused, then he grinned. "I understand there was a redhead involved. "
"Where'd you hear that?" Deforest asked.
"I'm staying at the Savoy. It's where our people always stay. This morning I had some time to kill so I asked a few questions. I got a look at the sketch your guy's been showing around."
Janek turned to Deforest, who was glaring
at Kane. You just blew it, buddy. Kane, too, must have realized that he was not ingratiating himself.
"Hey, guys! What's the problem? All I did was talk to some people at the hotel. Nothing wrong with that."
"So long as you didn't leave the impression you were on my squad," Janek said.
Kane smiled. "Look, we're all pros. I used to work in the L.A. sheriff's office." When neither Janek nor Deforest acted impressed, Kane sputtered on. "Something valuable's been stolen from Sonoron. We feel we have the right to try and get it back." "Tell us about this chip,"
Deforest said. "What does it look like?"
"It's small. Like this." Kane reached into his pocket and pulled out a mock-up. "You can keep this if you want." He handed the mock-up to Deforest, who inspected it carefully, then passed it to Janek.
"Find anything like this, Frank?" Janek shook his head. "If we find it we'll let you know," Deforest said.
At that point Kane had to understand he was'in major trouble. But he seemed incapable of breaking his momentum.
"I hear Dietz's room was tossed," he said. "Look, guys-it would be great if we could share."
Again Deforest turned to Janek. "You want to respond, Frank?"
"It's like this, Mr. Kane," Janek said. "I'm investigating a homicide.
You're looking for a chip. Maybe they're connected, maybe not. As for sharing, my suggestion is you tell me everything you know about Dietz and who he may have contacted here. Then go back to California. I'll keep you informed."
Kane's eyes turned mean. "Mr. Cavanaugh will hear about this. Your superiors, too."
"Hear about what?" Deforest asked. "That we won't co-investigate with a corporate security man? That's policy, Mr. Kane, so I don't see our superiors getting too upset about it. Anyway, they're not the investigator. Janek is, and he's one of the finest in the city. You're getting our best man. If Cavanaugh calls me, I'll be happy to explain that to him myself."
"Okay, all right." Kane looked resigned. "What do you want to know?"
"What's so important about this chip?"
"Proprietary information available to any knowledgeable person who examines it."
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