Whisper in the Dark (A Thriller) Read online

  The Palm Pilot in question had been found in Janovic’s nightstand drawer, and was bagged along with everything else worth bagging. Hopefully it would give them something to work with, like names and phone numbers. And an appointment calendar.

  “It’s a top-of-the-line model,” De Mello said. “But the goddamn thing is password protected. I sent it up to Billy.”

  Billy Warren was their resident computer wiz.

  “I ran Janovic’s name through the system,” De Mello went on. “Guy’s a real piece of work.”

  “Oh?”

  “Been in and out of custody since he was thirteen.”

  “What charges?”

  “Drugs, mostly. Some petty theft. And two counts of prostitution.”

  Blackburn frowned. “So how’d he wind up living at a place like the Fontana Arms? It ain’t the Taj Mahal, but the monthly’s gotta be pretty stiff.”

  “Good question. Guy doesn’t make that kinda coin giving blowjobs on The Avenue. Maybe he’s got a sugar daddy. I’ll take a look at his financials.”

  De Mello glanced again toward the coffeemaker, saw that the pot was finally ready and waiting, and rose to make its acquaintance. “How’d it go with your witness?”

  “Don’t ask,” Blackburn said, figuring there was no point telling him about Tolan’s meltdown. Instead, he returned his attention to the plastic bag, unfastened the twisty tie, and pulled open the bag.

  The stench hit him before he knew what he was dealing with: urine, a hint of feces, an amalgamation of street smells so strong it made him gag.

  “Jesus,” De Mello said. “What do you got in there? A body?”

  Blackburn ignored him again, reaching inside to pull out a wad of clothes. Dirt-caked jeans, ratty T-shirt, faded Army jacket.

  In a corner of his brain he saw the old homeless guy, a bundle of clothing tucked under one arm as he climbed into the ambulance to get a closer look at Psycho Bitch. Blackburn hadn’t thought anything of it at the time, but now he had to wonder.

  Were they hers?

  They looked about the right size.

  Maybe the old guy hadn’t been a nutcase after all. Maybe he’d been telling the truth. She was a friend of his. But why, then, had he spooked when he saw her, ranting on about her face not matching her body? And why, for that matter, had she attacked him?

  Weird. Very weird.

  Of course, it probably wasn’t any weirder than disappearing needle tracks. Blackburn still couldn’t figure that one out. This case was making about as much sense as a foreign film without subtitles.

  Maybe he’d be better off without it.

  He was about to stuff the clothes back in the bag when he noticed something poking out of the right rear pocket of the jeans. Looked like a folded piece of paper.

  Retrieving a pair of tweezers from his desk drawer, he carefully pulled out the paper, dropped it on his desk top, then gingerly used the tweezers and the eraser end of a pencil to unfold it.

  It was a battered page from a magazine.

  The top left corner said BOMBSHELL, which Blackburn immediately recognized as one of those men’s magazines aimed at horny young males. The cover was usually graced by a scantily clad, marginally famous TV star showing off her new boob job.

  The page in front of him featured a rundown of the latest and greatest gadgets for the man on the move: cell phones, iPod clones, and a watch that spoke the time in a sexy digital voice.

  It was all pretty dated. At least three or four years old, which, by current technology standards, was ancient history. He doubted the page had been saved because of this.

  Using the tweezers again, he flipped it over, surprised by what he saw.

  It was a woman. Petite. Curvaceous. Wearing a barely there yellow bikini and smiling precociously for the camera. Cool green eyes that said, without apology, “Let’s fuck.”

  She was holding a bottle of men’s cologne. Something called Raw, which was apparently like catnip to the ladies. One drop could get you into some serious trouble—the kind of trouble most red-blooded American males welcome.

  Including Blackburn.

  The woman looked only vaguely familiar, but what struck him about the photo was the tiny Hello Kitty tattoo on her left shoulder.

  Just like Psycho Bitch.

  Was it her?

  Was this what had once been beneath all the blood and grime?

  The eye color was off, but that could be faked. And except for her size and, frankly, her tits—which were the best money could buy—Blackburn had a tough time reconciling this photograph with the woman he’d taken to Baycliff. But he’d seen the street do some pretty nasty things to people.

  He stared at that tattoo and felt a twinge of excitement. This was the first possible lead he had to Jane’s identity. Something to latch on to. Something that might help to get her to open up and tell them what had happened last night.

  Something that might lead them straight to Vincent.

  Except for one small problem.

  He was about to lose this case.

  Wasn’t that always the way? Just when you get a break, they yank the reins away from you.

  Maybe he should take a cue from De Mello. Content to be a bench warmer, a glorified research hound. Drink your coffee, eat your danish, and get involved only when it’s absolutely necessary.

  But Blackburn wasn’t cut that way. He’d grown up in a family full of competitors, scrambling for attention. The Blackburn engine simply didn’t run without high-performance fuel.

  As he stared at the photo, a voice called out, “Hey, Frankie boy, heads up.”

  He looked up just in time to see something hurtling toward him. Caught it just short of being beaned in the forehead:

  A bag of carrot sticks.

  What the hell?

  Leaning against the squad room doorway was Kat Pendergast, a crooked smile on her face.

  Blackburn glanced at the carrots. “What’s this about?”

  “Your oral fixation. Remember?”

  It took him a moment before it came back to him. When it did, he allowed himself a smile. “The important thing is that you remembered.”

  “Just doing my part. I know what it’s like to kick a nasty habit.”

  Blackburn was about to ask her How nasty? when he realized De Mello was staring at them from the middle of the room, coffee cup in hand, a dazed look on his face. Just the hint of sexual tension had stopped him in his tracks. Blackburn was willing to bet the guy hadn’t been laid in years.

  He showed De Mello the bag. “Your mouth’s hanging open, Fred. You want a carrot?”

  De Mello snapped out of it and indicated the danish he held in his other hand. “Uh, I’m good.”

  “You might want to get that coffee and danish to go,” Pendergast told him. “I was sent to corral you guys. Fourth floor.”

  Uh-oh, Blackburn thought. Here it comes.

  De Mello looked pained. The coffee didn’t seem to be doing the trick, so maybe he did need that colonic after all. “Both of us?”

  “Anyone involved with the Janovic case,” Pendergast said. “You’re working background, right?”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “They want us all. On the double. Got some major shit going down.”

  Major shit, indeed, Blackburn thought, then watched Pendergast turn on her heels and head toward the elevators.

  Damn, she looked good in that uniform.

  16

  THEY WERE IN the elevator, headed to the fourth floor, when Blackburn’s cell phone bleeped. He dug it out and checked the screen.

  Tolan.

  Christ. Great timing.

  He clicked it on. “Hey, Doc, I’m gonna have to get back to you.”

  “We need to talk. Now.”

  “I’m at the station house, about to go into a meeting.”

  “This is a little more important than a meeting.”

  That sounded ominous. “What’s going on?”

  “Not over the phone,” Tolan sai
d, sounding like Mats. Another drama queen. “Meet me here in forty minutes.”

  “Is it Jane? You get her to talk?”

  “No. This doesn’t have anything to do with her.”

  “Then what’s the urgency?”

  “Forty minutes,” Tolan said, and hung up.

  Blackburn closed his phone, wondering what the hell that was all about. Had somebody told Tolan about Vincent? Not likely. So what had gotten the guy so keyed up and why was he being so cryptic about it?

  It seemed to Blackburn that just about everyone on this godforsaken planet took the most circuitous route possible to get to the point.

  Whatever happened to the direct approach?

  He was pondering this question when he realized Kat was staring at him. “Bad news?”

  “My doctor,” Blackburn said. “Wants me to cut down on my carrot intake.”

  She grinned, then the doors opened and the three of them stepped off the elevator, making the short walk to the fourth-floor conference room.

  Kat’s partner, Dave Hogan, was waiting outside the door.

  Kat nodded to him. “They call you in yet?”

  “Just finished up,” Hogan said. “You could cut the tension in that room with a friggin’ bolo knife.”

  “Who’s in there?” De Mello asked, a nervous edge to his voice.

  “The chief, assistant chief, a bunch of bigwigs, and about a half dozen members of the task force. I don’t think I need to tell you how huge this is.”

  “Task force?” De Mello said, looking lost. “What the hell’s going on?”

  Hogan and Pendergast eyed him as if he were on crack, not realizing, of course, that Blackburn hadn’t gotten around to telling him about Vincent. Blackburn, being the bastard he was, thought about letting him stew awhile longer, then decided to be charitable.

  But before he could get a word out of his mouth, the conference-room door opened. The chief’s executive assistant—an attractive young thing in gray slacks and a white blouse that did little to hide her curves—stuck her head out. “Detective Blackburn? They’re ready for you.”

  Blackburn exchanged looks with the others, then followed her inside.

  THE CONFERENCE ROOM was filled to capacity, the oblong table jammed with bodies.

  As Hogan had said, Chief Escalante was there, sitting at the head of the table.

  The rest of the room was occupied by various and sundry departmental brass and high-muckety-mucks, along with the six members of the task force itself, including Homicide stars Ron Worsley, Jerry Rossbach, and—

  Shit.

  Blackburn almost froze when he saw her. Felt his feet get heavy as he stepped through the conference-room doorway.

  Just to his left, at about the middle of the table, sat Sue Carmody, her blond Republican hair pulled into a tight ponytail, her face taut with displeasure at the sight of him.

  He could only imagine what his looked like.

  Carmody’s presence here meant only one thing: She’d been assigned to the task force. The lead detective had retired, either Worsley or Rossbach had taken his place—

  —and Carmody had been bumped into the empty slot.

  Wonderful. Just wonderful.

  So not only was Blackburn about to lose his case, he’d have to turn it over to Goldilocks. Whoever she was sleeping with obviously had major muscle in the department.

  Maybe it was the big man himself.

  He glanced at Escalante, looking for some hint of silent communication between the two. The guy normally had about two layers of gloss and hairspray coating his perfectly coiffed head, but right now he looked like a man who needed that cup of coffee De Mello was nursing outside. The news of Vincent’s return was not the kind of thing you wanted to wake up to.

  If he and Carmody were bumping uglies, there was no indication of it in this room.

  Escalante waved Blackburn to an empty chair at the near end of the table. “Have a seat, Detective.”

  Blackburn did as he was told.

  “As you may have guessed, word of Vincent Van Gogh’s reentry into our lives is not being taken lightly. As soon as I got the call, I ordered the reassembly of the task force, with a few new additions.”

  A few? Blackburn thought, glancing around the room. Who else had been tagged?

  “I don’t know if this latest victim is merely an anomaly or the start of another spree,” Escalante went on, “but I want this sonofabitch stopped cold. I understand we may have a witness on tap?”

  “That’s still to be determined,” Blackburn said. “At this point, all we know is that she was present at the scene.”

  He gave them an abbreviated rundown of the morning’s events, leaving out the incident with Tolan, but making it clear that Jane wouldn’t be easy to crack.

  “What made you take her to Baycliff? Don’t we usually go to County with this kind of thing?”

  “No offense to the doctors at County, but I’ve had some previous experience with Tolan, and they’re minor leaguers compared to him. The woman is clearly disturbed and I needed the best. I doubt many people here would argue there’s anyone better. Not in this half of the country at least.”

  “That may be true, but the man’s wife was one of Vincent’s victims, for godsakes. You do realize this is the one-year anniversary of her murder.”

  Surprised, Blackburn glanced at his watch. November 15th. Jesus. He hadn’t even thought of that.

  Now Rossbach spoke up. “Considering the conflict of interest, we’d better get her transferred out of there as soon as possible.”

  “My thinking exactly,” Escalante said.

  “Has anyone asked Dr. Tolan how he feels about this?”

  All eyes turned to Sue Carmody. Her question was directed at the entire group, but Blackburn knew it was meant for him. Bitch.

  “I haven’t had a chance to tell him,” he said. “We’re meeting as soon as I’m done here.”

  “What I’m suggesting is that a conflict of interest doesn’t necessarily preclude Dr. Tolan from working with us on this. Maybe he’d rather stay on board.”

  Rossbach snorted. “He’d have to be a friggin’ masochist.”

  “Well, I’ve worked with him too,” Carmody said. “Probably more than anyone here. And he once told me that the reason he left private practice and took the job at Baycliff was because of what happened to his wife.”

  “How so?” Escalante asked.

  “He said he wanted to get dirty. Spent too many years listening to neurotics complain about their cheating wives and their overbearing mothers, when what he really should be doing is trying to stop people like Vincent before they get started. Said he wanted something good to come from his wife’s murder. I can’t think of anything better than catching her killer.”

  The chief assistant district attorney cleared his throat and said, “You’re forgetting the legal implications. If any of this winds up in court, a defense attorney’ll have a field day. He could impeach Tolan in about two seconds flat.”

  Carmody shook her head. “I’m not so sure about that. Tolan has a solid reputation. Renowned therapist. Bestselling author.”

  “That was before his wife was murdered.”

  “He’s done some pretty remarkable work since then. I’ve seen it firsthand. And ask any of the ADAs who have called him as a witness. He’s pretty spectacular on the stand. Conflict or not, putting Tolan in a witness chair would likely work to our advantage no matter what some overpaid defense attorney throws at him.”

  Several heads around the table nodded, but Rossbach didn’t seem convinced. “I still think it’s a bad idea. Besides, we don’t want to put all our eggs in this one basket. What if this woman never opens up? What then?”

  Escalante frowned. “Nobody’s suggesting we put limits on the investigation. I want every possible avenue explored. That’s what you’re here for. But this woman could very well be our only tangible link to Vincent, and I think it behooves us to pursue this angle vigorously.” He looked at
Carmody. “Detective, I want you and Blackburn to follow up on this.”

  Say what?

  Carmody looked just as shocked as Blackburn felt. “Sir?”

  “You two were partners before you transferred to Homicide, right?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Then it makes sense to partner up again. We need all the help we can get on this. Does that work for you, Detective Blackburn?”

  A couple of thoughts raced through Blackburn’s head. It was obvious now that Carmody wasn’t boinking Escalante. It was equally obvious that he, Frank Blackburn, was one of the few new additions to the task force that Escalante had mentioned.

  He hadn’t lost his case after all.

  As distasteful as working with a hormonal basket bunny like Carmody might be, if the alternative meant being left out in the cold, he’d gladly take one in the gonads for the department. Besides, being up close and personal again with Miss Wonder Butt’s wonder butt was not entirely objectionable.

  “Detective Blackburn? Do you have any problem with that?”

  “Uh,” Blackburn said, feeling the heat of Carmody’s gaze on him. He was afraid to look directly at her. “No problem at all.”

  “Good,” Escalante said. “I want the two of you to talk to Tolan and try to determine if this conflict is more a hindrance than a help. If you still think he’s the man for the job, then get him back to work on that witness right away. I want to know exactly what she saw.”

  Easier said than done, Blackburn thought.

  “Did Detective De Mello come up with you?”

  Blackburn nodded. “He’s right outside.”

  “I understand he’s one of our best background analysts.”

  “And resident lard ass,” Ron Worsley murmured. The first words he’d spoken since Blackburn entered the room.

  Scattered laughter broke out, but abruptly ended when Escalante shot the offenders a look. He turned his gaze on Blackburn again. “Tell De Mello he’s part of the team. And, lard ass or not, I expect you all to utilize him fully and without remark. Understood?”

  Guilty nods around the table.

  “Loud and clear,” Blackburn said.

  He still didn’t look at Carmody. He could feel her outrage from ten feet away.