The Darker Hours

by Sam Lee Jackson

  ALSO BY SAM LEE JACKSON

  The Jackson Blackhawk Series

  The Girl at the Deep End of the Lake

  The Librarian, Her Daughter and the Man Who Lost His Head.

  The Bag Lady, the Boat Bum and the West Side King

  They Called Her Indigo

  Also

  Shonto’s Kid

  “I must become a borrower of the night for a dark hour or two”

  Macbeth

  The Darker Hours

  A Detective Boyce Mystery

  SAM LEE JACKSON

  The Darker Hours

  Copyright © 2019 SAM LEE JACKSON.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted by any means—whether auditory, graphic, mechanical, or electronic—without written permission of both publisher and author, except in the case of brief excerpts used in critical articles and reviews. Unauthorized reproduction of any part of this work is illegal and is punishable by law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed “Attention: Permissions Coordinator,” at the address below.

  Piping Rock Publications

  3608 E Taro Lane. Phoenix AZ 85050

  www.samleejackson.com

  ISBN: (sc) 978 164 633369-1

  ISBN: (e) 978 164 633368-4

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2019909753

  Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

  Dedication

  To CJ, AJR and LR

  True believers all

  Acknowledgements

  Thanks to my painstaking editor, Ann Hedrick. My amazing cover illustrator, Mariah Sinclair, and my website and advertising guru, Lance Robinson. This team helps me produce the best product I can.

  Table of Contents

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  Sample: The Colonel, the Cove and the Dog That Didn’t Bark

  Did you enjoy The Darker Hours?

  1

  Boyce was dreaming. In one of those places where you are eighty percent asleep, but aware of the other twenty. She was irritated because Jackson was in the dream. They were trying to fit bolts on the bottom of something and the bolts wouldn’t thread right. And then Jackson was grinning at her and making a weird noise, and it pissed her off.

  She said, “Shut up Jackson,” and woke up. Her phone was buzzing. She looked at the clock. It was three thirty-four in the morning. She slid over to the side and sat up. She picked up her phone. She was a detective of the Phoenix Police Department and if the phone rings, you answer it.

  “Boyce,” she said.

  “Detective, sorry to bother you at this hour.” She recognized the voice of Lieutenant Hicks. He was the late show watch commander.

  “Yes, sir,” she said, resisting the urge to tell him she had to get up to answer the phone anyway.

  “We have a situation here that, I think, needs your attention.”

  “A situation?”

  “A homicide.”

  “I thought Grennel was on duty, I’m assigned to Gangs.”

  “He is. He’s here, but I think you need to come down. I know, you have fifty questions. I don’t want to get into them on the phone. I’d just like for you to come down.”

  “Yes, sir,” she said. “Give me the address.”

  He did.

  It took her a half an hour.

  The location was a quiet residential neighborhood west of 32nd Street and north of Shea Boulevard. A normal neighborhood. Close to the high school, moderately priced homes, safe, secure, a family place. People here had kids that went to that school. There were block watches, PTA meetings. A great neighborhood to trick or treat. Now full of black and whites, with lights flashing eerily against the modest ranch style homes, and the street blocked off.

  Boyce pulled up to the black and white and flashed her badge at the patrol officer blocking the street. He waved her through, and she pulled up as near as she could to the PPD Coroner’s wagon. She pulled crosswise in a driveway and got out. She knew the civilian who owned the driveway would be screaming about having to go to work in about an hour. She hoped she wouldn’t be here that long.

  There were teenagers and some parents huddled in groups. Strangely quiet. Some of the teenage girls were crying. Two ambulances were being loaded by EMTs. These kids were the lucky ones. There were two not-so-lucky ones on the front lawn, covered by army green tarps. Hicks was standing next to one of them. She walked over to him, pulling on the rubber gloves she’d taken from the crime scene bag in the trunk of her car.

  She took her time. She looked all around. Looking at nothing and looking at everything. She noted a bullet-starred window behind the bodies. Chunks of plaster dug out of the stucco. The home was just as ordinary looking as the others. Common for this neighborhood.

  Henderson was making notes on his phone. The crime scene team was taking pictures. All the professionals were busy. When Boyce reached him, Hicks held a finger up to ward her off while he finished his notes.

  She waited.

  Finally, he put the phone away. He pulled another phone from his jacket. It had one of those cases that holds your credit card and your driver’s license, so you don’t have a lot of baggage. He slipped his finger in the sleeve and worked a folded photograph out. He unfolded it and handed it to Boyce.

  There were two women in the photo. She was one of them. They were in a potato sack race and laughing hysterically.

  “Oh shit,” Boyce said, her heart sinking. She squatted down and slipped the tarp back. The girl was seventeen. Dark hair, a real beauty. Her torso was soaked with dark blood. She was face down her face turned slightly. A strand of her hair was across her face. She wore a striped green top with no sleeves and faded maroon shorts. One foot still had a flip-flop on it. The other was bare.

  Boyce stayed beside the girl for a very long time. Using one finger, she moved the hair off the girl’s face. She finally covered her again and stood.

  She looked at Hicks. He was watching her.

  “You know who this is?” Boyce asked him.

  “I know what her driver’s license says, but no, I don’t,” he said. “But it appears you do. That’s why I called.”

  Boyce took a long breath and let it out, ever so slowly. “Her name is Olivia Cromwell.”

  “She related?”

  Boyce shook her head. “Not by blood. But she’s family. Livvy is the eldest daughter of Dorotea Cromwell.” Boyce looked at Henderson. “Dorotea is C
aptain Mendoza’s youngest sister.”

  “Well, shit,” Henderson said.

  2

  Hick’s immediate reaction was to call Mendoza, but Boyce stopped him.

  “There is time enough to ruin his day,” Boyce said. “Let’s see how much we can determine and figure out before he gets here.”

  Hicks nodded. He looked at his watch. “One hour,” he said. “Then I’m calling him.”

  “I’ll call him,” Boyce said, looking at her watch.

  Hicks shrugged. “Whatever. One hour.”

  Boyce went to move her car. She was going to be here for a while. She had to move it down the street a way to find a space. She walked back slowly, staying in the middle of the street. The shooter’s perspective. She stopped in the spot she thought was the likely location of the shooter’s car when Livvy was hit. She could see the kids partying. She couldn’t see it, but she knew there would be a keg of beer somewhere. She could see the bullet marks in the stucco behind where Livvy lay. There were no bodies between Livvy and the wall, but that didn’t mean there was no one there at the time of the shooting. Maybe wounded and taken away by now. She noticed how the pock marks were grouped there and then spread all over the place. Whoever had done the shooting had used the AR like a garden hose.

  The garage door was up, and the interior light spilled out onto the driveway. Detective Grennel was talking to some kids there. Boyce walked over to listen. One of the girls was sobbing so hard she couldn’t talk.

  A skinny, good looking kid was talking as Boyce walked up.

  “Just a series of pops,” he was saying. “Like a string of firecrackers. In fact, that’s what I thought it was. Then the girls started screaming and I turned around, and …” he waved a hand at the bodies on the lawn, “that’s when I saw them. I didn’t know who it was at first, but then I saw it was Livvy, and some kid named Wade.”

  “Did you see the car?” Boyce asked.

  Grennel turned and looked at her. “I got this,” he said. He gave Boyce a look. He turned back to the boy, “Did you see the car?”

  The boy shrugged, “Not really. Everyone was screaming and running around.”

  “I think it was an SUV,” said the girl standing next to him.

  “Did you see what kind of SUV?” Grennel said.

  The girl shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t know about cars and shit.”

  “I don’t suppose you got a look at the license plate?” Boyce said.

  “No,” the girl said. “Everything was a mess.”

  A girl that was off to the side said, “I heard them yell something.”

  Boyce and Grennel looked at her, waiting. She didn’t say anything else.

  Grennel finally said, “Well, what did they yell?”

  She shrugged. Boyce started to get irritated. “I’m like Austen,” the girl said. “I thought it was firecrackers. And they were yelling at the same time. But it wasn’t English. It was like Mexican or something.” She looked at Grennel. “I don’t speak Mexican.”

  “What did it sound like?” Boyce said. “Did you hear enough to hear what it sounded like?”

  Another boy, who had been standing a few feet away, came over. “They yelled something about red something.”

  “Red?”

  “Yeah, I took Spanish last year. They yelled something about rojo. That’s red in Spanish.”

  Grennel was making notes. “What’s your name?”

  The boy said “Mason Edburgh.” Grennel wrote it down.

  Across the street, a car pulled to the curb and the short stocky body of Detective DiMartini stepped out. He was day shift homicide. The word must be out. Day shift was starting early.

  Out of the corner of her eye, Boyce caught the movement of another dark vehicle pulling up. She turned to look, then started walking back toward Livvy’s body. As she reached the body, Hicks said, “Did you call him?”

  Boyce shook her head as she watched Captain Mendoza climb out of the backseat of his sedan. Detective Henderson was driving. She swallowed hard and waited as he made his way toward them. Boyce could tell by his demeanor that he already knew who the victim was.

  Hicks and Boyce looked at each other. There was nothing to be said. They stood silently as Captain Mendoza came and stood over the body. He stood there for a long time. Then, with a small wave of his hand, he indicated he wanted the tarp removed. Hicks squatted down and pulled the tarp off the girl’s body. Captain Mendoza stood for a very long time, staring at the girl. Finally, he turned and looked all around. Boyce was watching him closely. She didn’t expect any reaction and she didn’t get any. After a long moment, Mendoza turned and walked back to the sedan and as Henderson opened the back door, he climbed in. He spoke to Henderson and Henderson returned to the spot where he had been leaning against the front fender. He folded his arms to wait. Mendoza wasn’t going anywhere.

  Boyce walked over and around the vehicle and opened the other back door. Henderson started to stop her, but she waved him off. She slid in next to the captain. He didn’t look at her. He was staring straight ahead. After a moment, Boyce reached over and took his hand. He gripped hers hard, and it hurt but she didn’t flinch. She just held his hand. He lowered his head against the front seat. This went on for a very long time. Then his grip lessened. She let go. He leaned back and lowered his chin to his chest and took a very long breath.

  “You have work to do,” he said.

  She climbed out.

  3

  It was almost noon before Boyce felt she had wrung every fact out of every witness. The bodies of Livvy and the other kid had been taken away. The camera crews and the reporters had left. The neighbors had been questioned. The remaining teens had been released into the custody of their parents. No one had seen anything. The party had no reason. It was just a party. The boy who lived at the house had parents out of town. A good opportunity for a keg and a party. Hell to pay when the parents got home.

  The only thing that itched in Boyce’s mind was that the shooters seemed to have yelled something as they shot. When questioned, at least three of the kids had heard it. Two out of three agreed that the word rojo might have been used.

  Mendoza had stayed for about an hour, then left. Boyce knew he was going to inform his sister. She had offered to come with him, but he had shaken his head.

  Boyce lifted the yellow crime scene tape and went under it. She walked down to her car. She felt grimy, so she drove home. She showered, changed clothes, then drove downtown to the barn. She walked up the stairs instead of taking the elevator. She always did this. Some exercise is better than none.

  She stopped at the ante room where the coffee resided. The coffee maker and the surrounding counter space were stained with years of slopped coffee that had never been wiped up. She poured a cup, black. There was a donut box from yesterday, maybe even the day before. There were two tired glazed donuts left. She took one and munched a bite out of it. It was hard and stale, but she hadn’t had anything to eat, so she took the bite.

  She went to her desk and set the donut and coffee on the copy of an old report that was lying there. Habits of her mother. Don’t leave a ring on the furniture. She sat in the swivel chair and grunted with irritation. Someone had used her desk and had changed the height of the chair. She adjusted it and opened the bottom drawer and pulled out her spiral notebook. She opened it to a new page, put the date at the top, added Livvy’s name and began journaling everything she could remember from the crime scene. She underlined the word rojo three times.

  She was so engrossed with her writing, she barely noticed when someone sat next to her desk. She did notice a hand picking up her donut.

  “Hey,” she said.

  Danny Rich took a bite, made a face and set the donut back down. “Jesus, Boyce. How old is this thing?”

  “Don’t like it, don’t eat it,” Boyce said. “I was going to look you up.”

  Danny Rich was another detective assigned to Gangs. He had about three years seniority on Boyce
. He could have made sergeant by now, but he didn’t want it. Boyce leaned back to look at him.

  “Have you heard about the Captain’s niece?”

  He nodded, “Yeah, it’s all anyone is talking about. Were you out there?”

  “Yeah. Hicks called me. He found a picture of her and me in her phone case. From last year. We were in a potato sack race together. Mendoza’s sisters always have a large Fourth of July hooraw at one of the parks. They had invited me.”

  “Did you win?”

  “Damn near.” Boyce looked away.

  “Sorry about this. It’s tough.”

  Nothing to say to that. She took a breath. “Kids having a kegger. Some asshole drives by and opens up with an AR. Three kids wounded, two dead. Livvy and another boy. Up by Shadow Mountain High School.”

  “Sounds like gangbangers. Could be an initiation.” Sometimes gangs initiated new members by having them spray rival gangs in a drive-by.

  “Some of the kids say they heard the shooters shouting something. In Mexican. Nobody there spoke Mexican but one of the kids said he had enough sophomore Spanish to recognize the word rojo. You got any idea what that means?”

  Rich thought a minute. “Rojo, red? No, not off the top of my head.” He picked up Boyce’s coffee cup and took a sip. “The donut is awful,” he said, making a face. “But, thank God the coffee is disgusting enough to make up for it.”

  “Maybe you should get your own.”

  He stood up. “What’s the fun in that?”

  “If you think of something,” Boyce said.

  “Righto,” Rich said. He walked away.

  Boyce leaned back. She picked up the cup of coffee, started to drink, looked at it and sat it back down. She read her notes over. Why waste an initiation on a bunch of high school kids? She felt tired and on the verge of tears. She never cried. Her stepfather always yelled at her if she cried. Don’t be a little girl! Don’t be a sissy.