Not learning everyday vulgarisms was hampering his ability to be able to converse. Darc needed to be able to converse at times to better do his job. Ergo, Darc needed to learn how to speak “street” in order to better function as a detective. It was a troubling syllogism, but one that was completely accurate, according to the glowing threads of reason.
Unsettling. He would need to think more on this.
But fortunately, they had arrived at the captain’s office. Trey rapped twice on the door, and after the booming voice of their captain barked at them to enter, they did so, moving to stand in front of Captain Merle’s desk.
Seated to the side of the desk was a man that Darc had only seen once, and then only at a distance. It had been at a law enforcement fundraising party last year that Darc had been coerced into attending, although he had not understood why his presence had been requested. He knew himself to be less than competent at social functions. Perhaps the higher-ups in the precinct had not understood the possible negative repercussions of having Darc attend. He certainly had not been asked back since.
But this blonde, blue-eyed man with the chiseled jawline and high cheekbones had been present. He was one of the new senior deputy attorneys in the Most Dangerous Offender Project for the prosecuting attorney in King County, and his name was Bryce Van Owen. Not unusual, perhaps, that he was here in the captain’s office. Definitely unusual that he would be in the captain’s office during a routine reporting on a low-profile case. Something had changed, and not for the better.
“Darc. Keane. Sit.” Their captain was, as usual, terse. “I wanted you two to meet Bryce Van Owen here. He’s come at the request of the prosecuting attorney himself to check up on this case.”
Trey appeared to choke on his own saliva. “What... He… Um, sorry.” He cleared his throat and began again. “Why’s he down here for this case? I thought it was pretty low priority. Since it’s just a bunch of hookers, you know. No biggie, right?”
The Deputy Attorney grimaced at that. “I suppose that comment’s deserved. Look, I get the honor of serving the Prosecuting Attorney’s whim, and sometimes that whim’s less about justice and more about public perception. Which is actually kind of important if we’re going to do our jobs.”
Trey brushed aside his comment with a gesture. “No, no. I get it. I know how things work, even when they suck. I’m just surprised that he’s focusing on this case.”
“Keane,” the captain growled, a warning tone creeping into his bass voice. “After making so little progress, try not to embarrass the precinct any further by—”
“Captain, it’s okay.” The attorney held up a hand. “I’m not here to bust anyone’s chops.” He turned to face Trey. “My guess is you’ve been working on this without much support, right?”
“By myself, actually. Well, until just about an hour ago, when I called in Darc to help.” Trey seemed to have been placed off balance by the Deputy’s attitude. “But I still don’t get it. Did the Prosecuting Attorney just have a change of heart here? I didn’t think going after serial killers that targeted hookers played out well in the press.”
“Well, this one was closer to Pike Place Market than any of the others. With all the tourist traffic and the mutilations to make it more frightening… Well, it was just a matter of time.” The attorney pursed his lips and continued. “Plus, a local affiliate’s news program picked it up, and it’s caused a bit of a splash. This isn’t just a back-alley slasher with a nail fetish anymore.”
“You seem more than current on the specifics of the case,” Darc asserted.
“I should be. I was the deputy attorney that got called out on this last one. Saw it up close and personal.” Bryce Van Owen indicated to Trey. “I understand you were out working a kidnapping at the time. Everything turn out okay?”
“We got her back, so I guess so. But we haven’t tracked down the kidnapper, so maybe not as okay as we’d like, Mr. Van Owen.”
“Please. Call me Bryce. We’re going to be working together on this one, and I can’t stand formalities. We’re all supposed to be working on the same side.”
“Look,” Captain Merle grumbled from his seat behind the desk. “The reason we brought you in here, beyond meeting Bryce here, was to make sure you understand that you need to make progress on this case. Like, now.”
“Not to contradict you, Captain,” Bryce interjected, his tone soft, “but I want to make sure we get a conviction. Fast progress is great, but not if it compromises the detail work that leads our perp to prison.”
Darc approved of this kind of thinking. Too often, those from the prosecuting attorney’s office were so focused on showing demonstrable movement on a case that they sacrificed the integrity of the evidence. An attorney that understood detail work was unusual, and as far as Darc was concerned, vital to the success of the precinct.
The captain, not used to being contradicted, harrumphed a bit before responding. “Sure. Okay. But let’s still try to get some traction here. With precision, of course.”
The meeting was clearly concluded, but Darc wanted to find a way to show the attorney that his support was valued. According to Trey, that was an important part of interpersonal communication. Perhaps now was a good time to use a colloquialism. Darc searched for the perfect one for this scenario.
“Thank you, Bryce. Meeting you was… bitchin’.” Darc stuck out his hand to shake that of the attorney. Trey made a sound somewhere in between a laugh and a sneeze. Captain Merle seemed to be choking on something, as his face was turning an unnatural shade of purple. After a brief pause, Bryce grabbed Darc’s outstretched hand.
“Nice to meet you, too. Darc, right?”
Darc nodded before turning on his heel and marching back out of the office, Trey at his back. Once the door shut behind them, Trey burst into laughter.
“Bitchin’? Did you really just say that? And to the Deputy Attorney?”
“Was that not appropriate?” Darc asked, unsure of where he had gone wrong.
“I thought it was awesome. Merle looked like he’d swallowed his own tongue.”
Moving back toward their desks and the case that was awaiting their attention, Darc shook his head. There were intricacies to using this kind of language that seemed beyond him.
Perhaps Trey could include it in his list of dating rules.
CHAPTER 8
As Trey sauntered back to his desk in the wake of his partner, trying his best not to look like he was a puppy following after its master, he noticed a woman hovering near his workspace. While women were not uncommon in the precinct, since he’d been dating Maggie, they rarely spent much time close to his desk, and they never hovered. What was going on here?
The moment Trey entered her field of vision, she oriented toward him. There was no flirtation here, no pretense at attraction. There was only what looked to be a digital recorder clutched in a hand that was slightly extended. A reporter.
The woman was one that Trey recognized. Charity King, one of Channel 13’s reporters for their evening news program. Channel 13 was Seattle’s local FOX affiliate. Trey watched FOX News, not because he agreed with everything they were saying, but because it was the only one that didn’t make him feel stupid. In fact, he was pretty sure he could take a couple of those guys on in a debate.
Not Charity, though. She was sharp, and not just smarts-wise. Everything about her was razor-like. Her face was all angles. Her body was lean and mean. Even her hair looked like it was honed enough to cut, all dark shine and clean lines. The woman screamed professional cutthroat with every move she made.
“Detective Keane?” the reporter asked, stepping forward with a smile to shake his hand. Even her teeth looked ready to cut, the flat edges of each tooth so precise they didn’t seem natural. “I’m Charity King, from FOX News.”
“Yeah, I know,” Trey blurted, before he could stop himself. “I mean… right. I’ve seen a couple of your reports. Nice to meet you.” Not that I obsessively listen to every word that falls f
rom your mouth. Probably best if she didn’t know that part. In fact, he probably had her recorded on his DVR right at this very moment. He’d been kind of busy the last couple of days and had some catching up to do on his TV watching.
“Anyway, sorry to barge in on you without an appointment. I was doing an interview nearby, and wanted to chat with you about the Nail Biter Case.”
“Nail Biter?” Trey was taken off-guard. “I didn’t know it was being called that. Actually, I didn’t know until two minutes ago that anyone was calling it anything.”
“Well, honestly, that name was my idea. And no one else is covering it. Just me at this point.” Her face hardened, the sharp angles of her face intensifying. “I seem to be the only one who cares about women getting slaughtered here in the city.”
Trey scrunched up his face. “You may be one of the few that thinks of prostitutes as living, breathing human beings.” Charity snapped her head up at that statement, peering into Trey’s face as if trying to determine whether or not he thought that way himself. Whatever she saw there must have satisfied her, as her expression softened.
“For all the moralizing that happens on my program, there’s a hefty streak of misogynistic thinking that runs through the staff.”
“Misogynist? Gesundheit,” Trey whispered as he leaned in, a grin on his face. Charity’s face went blank, and Trey was sure that he’d offended her, until an answering smile grew. Unlike the one she’d approached him with that was all teeth and aggression, this one reached her eyes, turning her hard, professional demeanor into something quite different. This was a person Trey could actually talk to. Well, you know, if she wasn’t a reporter.
“Don’t play the fool with me, Detective. I’ve been watching over the years. You’ve taken more than your fair share of cases that involve women who work the streets. And didn’t you use to work in Vice?” Her tone was conspiratorial, and she leaned in toward him, mimicking his movement a moment earlier.
Wow. She’d done her homework. It was flattering. It also threw him for a bit of a loop. “You got me. I’m a sucker for the red light girls, what can I say?” Trey stopped, then stammered a bit. “Wait. That’s… I didn’t mean…”
“Relax, Detective, I know what you mean. At least, I hope I do.” Her gaze narrowed in, and her features took on a predatory cast once more. “But I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions about the case. Off the record, of course.” She made a production out of powering down her recorder and placing it in her purse.
“Hey, I’d love to, but you know the rules.” He shrugged. “Active case, no talkie-talkie. Sorry.”
“Yeah. It was just wishful thinking.” She made a slight pout with her mouth, but her features didn’t soften. “But listen. If you need to get any information to the public about the case, maybe we can scratch each other’s backs.” She held out a business card that seemed to have appeared out of nowhere.
Trey took it with caution, as he would handle a spider that might or might not be poisonous. “I’ll do that. Thanks for stopping in.”
Charity King waved a hand as she walked out, her heels clacking against the tiles of the floor. Man, even the way she walked was whetted down like a well-sharpened knife. There was no shake with those fries.
Darc’s voice cut into his observations, bringing him back to the task at hand. “Now that the reporter has exited, I want to show you something I found.”
Trey trotted over to his partner’s desk and looked over his shoulder at the crime photo of the last victim, the one with the mutilated face. He had seen the picture so many times he’d practically memorized it, but it never got any prettier. Trey had developed a certain tolerance bordering on respect for the killer Charity King was calling the Nail Biter. This picture had changed all that.
“Okay, dude. Whatcha got? Did you find a picture of an ocelot in there somewhere?”
“No,” Darc answered, his tone flat. Someday, Trey was going to teach his partner how to recognize a joke. “I found a Babylonian symbol.”
Trey did a double take. “You say what now? Baby-what?”
“Babylonian. From Babylon. An Akkadian city-state of ancient Mesopotamia in modern-day Iraq.”
“I know what Babylon is.” Trey huffed in exasperation. “Well, actually, no. I didn’t know any of that stuff you just said. But I’ve heard of Babylon. In Catholic school. It was supposed to be this really wicked place or something.”
“In reality, it was a dominant cultural center that contained one of the Seven Wonders of the World at one point in history.”
“Whatever. But they didn’t believe in God or anything. I think that’s what the nuns were getting at.”
“The ancient Babylonians were polytheistic,” Darc continued, as if Trey had any idea what polytheistic meant. But apparently his partner caught his own mistake, as he clarified with his next statement. “Their worship included multiple deities, including one named Ishtar, the goddess of love and sex.”
“Right. I can see why the nuns might’ve had a problem with that. If anyone so much as thought the word ‘sex’ in their vicinity, the rulers would fly fast. Oh, and they were pretty sure the words ‘love’ and ‘fear’ were synonyms.” Ah, memories. And Trey’s mom wondered why he didn’t go to Mass.
Darc held up a magnifying glass to the victim’s forehead in the photograph. What had appeared to Trey to be just a part of the rest of the mutilations of the face was, at a closer view, a symbol slightly separated from the other cuts. It looked like an upper case Y, with the two upper arms of the letter connected with a horizontal line.
“That,” Darc said, pointing at the letter, “represents the number one in the Babylonian system.”
“I’ll have to check, but I’m pretty sure none of the other victims had anything like this on them.” Trey was sure he’d remember if there were any weird cuts or slashes on the other bodies.
“They do not. I have already examined both the photographs and the examiner’s reports. The only reason this symbol was not noticed was that it was thought to be part of the random slashes already present on the face.” Darc paused, looking like he was doing that processing thing he always did when he was working a case. “I may need to get the M.E. to examine the body again. The mutilations were done pre-mortem. I want to know if the symbol was, as well.”
“I’ll call him,” Trey offered. He moved to the phone, but before he could pick up the receiver, it started ringing. Trey scooped it off the cradle and answered. “Detective Keane.”
“Keane. It’s Halliwell over in Missing Persons. Just wanted to let you know that we had a report called in earlier today. Matches your vic. I sent you an email with the deets.”
“Halliwell, you rock, man,” Trey thanked him. “I’ll take a look and call you back if I have any questions.”
Darc looked at Trey as he slapped the phone back down and rubbed his hands together. “What did Halliwell say?” Darc asked, with more curiosity than he normally exhibited. What was going on with his partner? Trey shook his head, putting it aside for another time. He pulled up the email to confirm his suspicions.
“This case just got a lot more complicated.”
“For what reason?”
“Because,” Trey replied with a half-smile-half-grimace, pointing at the email on the screen, “this time, our vic isn’t a prostitute.”
*
The way Mala was talking to her made Janey nervous. Not nervous bad, but first-day-of-school nervous. Like fieldtrip-to-the-zoo nervous. The good kind.
She was saying things like foster care and adoption and home. Words that didn’t mean the same thing to Janey that they seemed to mean to Mala. Janey had heard words like that when the people from the home had taken her away from Darc.
But this was Mala. She was so nice, and she was smiling and even crying a little bit. Not crying like when Janey missed her parents. More like when she watched E.T. and she thought the alien was dead but then found out he was alive. Like that.
And
she was so pretty. Not pretty like Maggie. Maggie’s skin was pale, even paler than Janey’s. And her hair was almost like watching a fire in the fireplace. Warm and cozy but crazy and beautiful, too.
But Mala was dark. Dark eyes, dark hair, dark skin. She was like the magic guy from The Little Princess, the one that made breakfast appear. Like magic. But also soft and comfortable, like Popeye.
And even though Darc used to make Mala cranky, it didn’t seem like that was happening any more. She liked Darc now. At least that’s how it seemed. So maybe if she went with Mala, she could still see Darc. That would make her happy.
So when Mala asked her if Janey would like to come back and live with her, at least for a little while, Janey had nodded her head, yes. And Mala had cried even harder. Good crying. And she gave Janey a hug. That had felt nice.
Mala even rubbed Popeye on his head. She liked her bear. That was important. Popeye hadn’t even gotten mad, and he usually hated it when people touched him. Except Janey. Of course he didn’t hate it when Janey touched him. He loved to get cuddles from her. He was such a silly bear.
But if Popeye thought it was a good idea, then it must be right. No one could fool Popeye. He might be a silly bear, but he was a super smart bear, too. The only thing he was worried about now was whether or not the covers in their new bed were going to be soft. He’d hated the scratchy sheets at the home. He said they smelled like plastic. He hated plastic.
The only bad part was when Janey looked at Maggie. Her eyes were sad, even though she was smiling. She reached over and ruffled Janey’s hair, like Trey did all the time. She was trying to look happy, but she wasn’t.
So Janey did the only thing she knew how to do. She leaned over, gave Maggie a big hug and kissed her on the cheek, real soft like her mommy used to do to her when she’d get tucked in at night. Maggie cried a little bit when she did that, but Janey was pretty sure it was good crying.
7th Sin: The Sequel to the #1 Hard Boiled Mystery, 9th Circle (Book 2 of the Darc Murders Series) Page 8
