Croaker: Chalk Whispers (A Detective Fey Croaker LAPD Novel Book 4)

by Paul Bishop

  “Three months after the armored car robbery, my father runs around collecting all copies of the original robbery report distributed through the LAPD system. He then stiffs in a counterfeit leaving out any salient details to identify any suspects.

  “Most of the grunt work had been done in the case by then. Eldon Dodge had been put through the interrogation ringer without cracking. The witness who gave the original suspect description disappeared. The investigation was at a standstill. My father couldn't do anything about the FBI report, but as the LAPD's robbery liaison, he and his partner, Jack Kavanaugh, could stymie any FBI investigation. The Bureau didn't have many agents on the ground in L.A. back then, and relied heavily on LAPD liaisons as shoe leather.”

  “I'm familiar with departmental history,” the chief said, but without displaying any impatience.

  Fey continued. “The true original report describes the third suspect as a male, black, with a scar running under his chin from the left side of his mouth.” She had highlighted the pertinent part. “You only get one guess as to who has a scar in the same location, the result of being slashed with a bottle as a teenager.”

  The chief grunted. “Luther Flynn does, but I bet you could easily find a hundred more in the city.”

  “With connections to this case?”

  The chief's eyebrows bobbed and weaved as he frowned.

  Fey took it as a cue to continue. “When I talked to Eldon Dodge, he fingered Luther Flynn as the third suspect in the robbery. Which makes sense since Mavis Flynn provided the inside information.”

  Drummond steepled his fingers and touched the tips to his lower lip. “If you believe Dodge's story, do you also think your father killed Mavis Flynn and framed Dodge?”

  Fey sighed heavily. “There's no corroboration yet, but my gut tells me it's true. Between the armored car robbery and the murder of Mavis Flynn, I'm assuming my father feathered his nest with stolen hundred-dollar bills. I've thought about this a lot. Shortly after the murder of Mavis Flynn, my father moved us to a much larger house in a nicer part of town. He always drank the best booze, and he had a big gambling habit. That kind of money doesn't come from a detective’s salary.”

  “What about the money Jack Kavanaugh left you?” Whip Whitman asked, entering the conversation now the bomb had been dropped.

  “I think it was his share of the booty. He was my father's partner. Whatever payoff they got from Luther Flynn for taking out Mavis, they would split. If I'm calling this right, when he made the deal, my father manipulated Kavanaugh like he manipulated everyone else. Kavanaugh must have gone along, but he stuffed the money away and never did anything with it.”

  “Guilt?” Drummond asked.

  “Probably,” Fey said. “I think he left the money to me because he wanted me to find out where it came from. I checked Dodge’s visitor records. Jack Kavanaugh had been to see him three times in the past six months. Guilt was eating him up. He was losing ground mentally. Some days were better than others, but he was on a downhill slide. Leaving me the money was his backup plan — a risky guarantee I'd follow up and find the truth.”

  “Why a backup plan?” Drummond's eyebrows had settled down.

  “Maybe he had something else going with Bianca Flynn. If he knew time was running out on his mental faculties, he could have decided to go after Luther Flynn to atone for what my father forced him to do all those years ago.”

  “It's weak,” Drummond said.

  “Is there another scenario to fits the facts?”

  “The lack of facts is your problem,” Drummond said. “You do have the Polaroid photos Ricky Preston took during the torture. Those are more than enough to close out the murder investigation.”

  “No,” Fey said bluntly. “Ricky Preston may have been the bullet, but somebody else pulled the trigger. If we walk away, so does the true murderer.”

  “There are other cases —”

  Fey didn't let Drummond finish. “Screw the other cases. You'd didn't bring me to RHD to do a half-assed job. If you expect me to back off, then you'd better return my team to West L.A.”

  Drummond smiled. “Is our honeymoon period officially over?”

  “Only if you're trying to pull a wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am on me.”

  The intercom line on the chief's phone blinked red. Drummond punched the button for the speaker phone. “Yes?”

  “There's a Zelman Tucker on line two.” The voice of the chief's secretary entered the room electronically. “He said Detective Lawson told him to call through to Lieutenant Croaker on your line.”

  Drummond looked at Fey. She nodded. “This could be a couple more of those facts you think are so scarce.”

  “Put him through,” Drummond told his secretary. Leaving the speaker phone on, he punched line two.

  Fey stood up to get closer to the phone. “Tucker?”

  “Am I on a speaker phone?”

  Fey was astounded by how sharp Tucker could be. One word and he knew something was different. “Speaker phone. The chief is here along with Whip Whitman.”

  “You're traveling in high company these days, Frog Lady.”

  Fey winced at the nickname. “The altitude is so thin I'm getting nose bleeds,” she said. “Give me something to stop the hemorrhaging.”

  They could hear Tucker chuckling. “I ran Ricky Preston's real name, Rico Prestavanovich, through my systems,” he said. “Not only does he turn up on the membership list of MBLA, the Man Boy Love Association, but he also turns up on both of the child porno lists traced to Luther Flynn. Is that enough to staunch the flow?”

  “For now, Tucker. I owe you.”

  “As always,” Tucker said, and broke the connection.

  Fey looked at Drummond. “Are you going to let me run with this, or do we have to go two out of three falls?”

  A flash of anger crossed Drummond's face. He wasn't used to being challenged. “Your father isn't the only control freak in your family.”

  The jibe cut Fey far more than Drummond realized. She hated any comparison between herself and her father.

  Fey tried to keep her tone even through gritted teeth. “Maybe not, but I had to learn control in order to survive.”

  That stopped Drummond. “Okay,” he said. “I give in.”

  Fey gathered up the photos and reports. As she turned to leave, Drummond's voice stopped her.

  “One more thing, Fey.”

  She turned back to face the chief. “Yeah?”

  “Make sure you nail the bastard.”

  THIRTY NINE

  Driving from the shadows of Parker Center's covered parking lot into the late afternoon sun, Fey knew she had won a major battle.

  Drummond had told her to nail Judge Luther Flynn. The cliché about being given enough rope to hang yourself flitted through Fey's mind. Drummond was right. So far the investigation had yielded little proof of Flynn's involvement in any wrongdoing. His name on a pair of internet child pornography lists might be enough to launch an investigation into his fitness to be a judge, but his name on a hundred lists wouldn't get him into court on charges of child molestation and conspiracy to torture.

  The black arm in the photographs of Ricky Preston and Bianca's children was a black arm, nothing more. No matter how convinced Fey was the arm belonged to Flynn, her feelings wouldn't get the man into court without proof.

  The rest of the day was filled with frustrations. Whip Whitman offered no wise counsel. He'd ducked out to supervise another team working a multiple victim drive-by shooting.

  Hammer and Nails had called in. The Church of the Black Madonna was locked up tight. Father Romero had done a disappearing act. They had tried to find their way into the catacombs, but were unable to negotiate the rat warren of tunnels.

  They had switched their attentions to Ferris Johnson, but she was also among the missing. The house she'd shared with Bianca Flynn was empty. They would keep pounding the asphalt, but there was nothing happening immediately.

  Brindle and Alphabet were
digging into Ricky Preston's background, but so far they had found nothing to help them identify the location in the photographs, or to tie Preston directly to Luther Flynn, or to the Ritter children's father.

  Monk, with the help of Roger Lund's Explorer Scouts, had located two of the old Gamewell call boxes and rescued them or the historical society. One contained a half pint bottle with an inch of bourbon with a pickled spider in the bottom, but neither harbored anything to do with Jack Kavanaugh or Garth Croaker.

  The investigative momentum was waning, which could be dangerous to any inquiry. Cases could rapidly become lost causes when the breaks stopped coming. Fey knew she had to do something to reinvigorate her forces.

  Without conscious thought, she found herself in Santa Monica near Brink Kavanaugh's studio. She didn't know what she could gain from talking to Kavanaugh again, but she was being drawn to him.

  Kavanaugh looked haggard when he opened the door. He was stripped to his shorts again, his massive shoulders and chest muscles covered in granite dust, his hair and beard wild. Red-rimmed eyes took in Fey with a look verging on madness.

  “You!” he almost spat.

  “Last time I checked,” Fey said. Despite the increase in her heart rate, her voice remained calm. Brink Kavanaugh had the power to take her breath away if she wasn't careful.

  “You! You! Arrrgh!” Kavanaugh gritted his teeth and turned to stomp back into the studio, leaving the door open.

  His inarticulateness didn't throw Fey as she suddenly knew exactly what Kavanaugh was upset about. “I was right, wasn't I?” she pressed, stepping through the doorway. “There were three figures in the rock.”

  Kavanaugh's response was unequivocal. “Arrrgh!”

  Fey followed the bear-like figure to where the afternoon sun flooded the massive piece of stone with shadows and curves.

  “I almost lost it,” Brink said, facing the rock, his back to Fey. The sunlight gleamed around him in a halo effect. He stood straight, his legs together, holding his hands out from his sides, a mallet in one, a heavy chisel in the other. From Fey's position behind him, he looked crucified.

  “How?” Fey's voice was soft.

  Brink dropped his arms and whirled to face her. “Through anger, of course.”

  “Anger?”

  “Yes. I've worked with rock since I was a child. A stone like this sings to me.” He gestured behind him with a sinewy, hair-covered arm. “Yet you waltz in here not knowing a rock from a stone from a pebble, and tell me you see three figures.” He paused.

  “And I was right?”

  “Right? Yes, damn you! You were right, but I didn't want you to be. I had to be right. It was my stone. I told you I saw two figures. Lovers embracing for the last time. What infernal crap!”

  “You tried to force the rock to be two figures.”

  “A huge, egotistical mistake. I was barely able to stop myself from destroying the rock on purpose — striking a fissure and demolishing it to rubble. And it was your fault.”

  “How could it be my fault? You asked me what I saw. I told you. Three figures.”

  “Damn it! If you hadn't said three in your ignorance, I would not have lost the vision of two!”

  “Ignorance! You were the one who couldn't see what the rock truly held.”

  “But why three figures? Why not four, or five?”

  Fey shrugged, words slipping out before she thought about them. “Because, for me, there are always three figures.”

  Brink blinked, surprised. “What? Father, Son, and Holy Ghost? You don't strike me as religious.”

  “What's God got to do with anything? I'm talking about the past, the present, and the future — three figures, which are always with us.”

  Brink smiled gently. “A philosopher as well as an art critic.”

  Fey shook her head. “Neither. I’m a survivor.”

  Brink reached out and took Fey's hand, leading her into the sand box surrounding the rock. His touch was rough, fingers scarred by years of sculpting.

  Other cuts in the stone had been made since Fey had first seen the rock. There were definitely three separate shapes emerging. Brink took her hands and place them flat on the granite. It was not cold, but chilled, like a cadaver.

  From behind her, he placed his own hands over hers. “Close your eyes,” he said. Fey hesitated for a second. “Close your eyes,” Brink said again, his mouth close to her ear. “Run your hands over the rock. Feel what is living inside.”

  She closed her eyes. Brink began to move her hands. She felt his body pressed against her back, the contours of his muscles hard, the thinness of her clothing the only thing separating their skin. She smelled the musk of him.

  “Feel the rock,” he said. “Make the rock your entire world.”

  His body was locked into hers. As he moved her hands with his, he also moved her body with his body. With her eyes closed it was as if she were weightless, gliding in a human harness. She felt the gritty surface of the rock beneath her palms, the leathery touch of Brink's hands brushing against her knuckles. For a second she felt herself falling into the rock, taking strength from it, finding . . . renewal. The force of it scared her, and she pulled away, turning into Brink's embrace.

  He didn't hold her. He stepped back giving her room.

  “You felt the power, didn't you?”

  Fey paused, orienting herself. “I felt something. I don't know what. A trick of the mind, perhaps.”

  “Perhaps,” Brink said, his eyes knowing.

  “Is this the way you seduce all your women?” Fey asked bluntly.

  Brink didn't take offense. “Don't bring your defenses up. I am not a threat. This was not about sex. It was about you and the rock. To answer your question, no, I do not seduce women like this. Never. Good enough?”

  Fey leaned back against the rock. It put a smidgen more breathing room between herself and Brink. “Do you really believe your sister Jenna and I could possibly be half-sisters?”

  “You look remarkably alike.”

  “Not what I asked.”

  “Do you want to know if I think your father could have been screwing my mother?”

  “Yes.”

  “I went to see my mother after you visited. I knew there was no way my father would have been having an affair with your mother, so I asked my mother if she'd been having an affair with your father. She told me your father had controlled her as he'd done my father. He screwed her and got away with it because he knew he could.”

  “Rape?”

  “Not in a court of law, but still the same to hear my mother tell it.”

  “And Jenna?”

  “The timing is right.”

  Fey swallowed. She didn't know if she wanted an answer to her next question. “Did she say if you could be my half-brother?”

  Brink's lips twisted into a wry smile. “Are you worried that when we make love it will be incest?”

  “When we make love? Not if?”

  “Has there ever been a doubt in your mind?”

  “It depends on what your mother said.”

  “We could have blood tests to be sure.”

  Fey pushed herself forward, away from the rock, forcing Brink to capture her in his arms. “To hell with it,” she said.

  FORTY

  “That was interesting,” Fey said, shaking back her hair and gasping for breath.

  Brink chuckled. “Never made love in a sand box before?”

  “I haven't even been in a sand box since I was five,” Fey said. “It's more fun as an adult, but the end result hasn't changed much. You still get sand everywhere.” She pushed herself to her feet and picked up her clothes from outside the sand box surrounding the huge hunk of granite. “Last one in the shower makes the coffee,” she said, heading for the stairs.

  “Fey,” Brink called after her.

  She stopped at the bottom of the stairs, turning to face him with no embarrassment, not bothering to cover her nakedness. She was in better shape than she had been a few years ear
lier, but she was still closer to fifty than forty. Brink either accepted her the way she was or he didn't. She'd just screwed the man's brains out. False modesty wouldn't change anything.

  “I never planned this,” he said.

  “I know,” she said. “I did.”

  A laugh rumbled out of Brink and he stood up and stepped forward to take her in his arms. He kissed her hard, his tongue probing. The sheer bulk of his body felt massive around her. Making love to him had been like making love to the rock itself. He was all hard angles and harder flat surfaces.

  I hate men with beards, she thought as she kissed him back. I hate men with so much hair on their bodies they could be mistaken for bears in the dark. How has he managed to get to me so quickly?

  She broke the kiss, but not the embrace. “I hate beards,” she said, voicing part of her thought.

  “I hate shaving,” Brink said.

  “Then I'll learn to like beards, but I won't always be this easy.”

  “Not the most appropriate choice of words under the circumstances,” Brink said, making it Fey's turn to laugh. He led her up the stairs to the shower.

  Later, as Fey was drying her hair with a towel and a borrowed blow dryer, Brink made strong coffee. He held up a bottle of whiskey, and Fey nodded her assent. He poured a large dollop into two mugs of steaming brew.

  With so many changes in her life over the past few days, Fey was surprised at how calm she felt. Her world was in turmoil, yet here in Brink's loft, wearing one of Brink's oversized plaid shirts, she felt wonderful. She tried to check herself, not wanting to read anything into the situation, but as relaxed as she was, it was difficult to retain perspective.