Crucible Steele (Daggers & Steele Book 5) (12 page)

I grimaced. A greater Rex Winters fan than me would be hard to find, but after meeting Mr. Gregg himself during one of Shay’s and my cases and getting to see how the sausage was made, I’d begun to lost my taste for the series. Plus, the man had lost his go-to ghostwriter.

“I don’t know,” I said. “Have you read it?”

“Yes.”

“And how is it?”

“Dreadful,” said Carl. “But it’s a new release and I make a good margin off it.”

“Thanks, but I’ll pass,” I said. “How about something a bit more retro and a little less bombastic? I’m in the mood for one of those old gritty, noir thrillers. You know the kind. The ones featuring a tough as nails, hard-drinking, womanizing cop with a heart of steel, a barrelful of inner demons, and a vendetta against society.”

“Feeling introspective, are we?” asked Carl.

I paused, but I realized that rather than myself, I’d been describing Griggs—all except for the womanizing part. I don’t think either of us fit that particular bill. I shrugged.

“Alright, well, follow me,” said Carl. “I’ve got some ideas.”

He led me into the nearest stack, and after some back and forth, I eventually emerged with a dog-eared, yellow-paged novel thick enough to crush mice, the appropriately dark-sounding
Six Feet Under.

I paid Carl and headed home, the tome stuffed under the crook of my arm. It was an uneventful walk, other than a strange, unsettling feeling I suffered about three blocks from my building, one entirely unrelated to Griggs and his passing. I logged it but ignored it as best I could. Upon arrival, I whipped myself up a simple lunch of grilled meat and roasted tubers to satisfy my rumbling belly, then kicked off my shoes and settled into my favorite easy chair with the new (to me) novel clenched between my fingers.

I hadn’t really expected to be drawn into it, not with thoughts of Griggs and the case hovering at the edge of my mind like fruit flies, but boy was I wrong. Three hours into Detective Colt Strongbow’s sordid tale of squinty-eyed sadists, dope pushers, and dead hookers, I came up for air—and a quick bathroom break.

When I returned, I dove right back in only to slam my head into a metaphorical wall: the meditative portion. Every mystery had them. The part where the main character putters around, whines, thinks about himself a lot, and drinks. Despite of, or perhaps because of, the parallels between Strongbow’s and my own life, it bored me to tears, and quite frankly, I fell asleep.

When I stirred, the room around me had settled into a dark miasma. The sun had set without notifying me.
The cad…
Whatever the opposite of a rooster was, I apparently needed one.

I fumbled my way to the nearest floor lamp, lit it, and turned it up, bathing my well-loved living room in a warm glow. Then I took advantage of my freshly stocked pantry and brewed myself a cup of coffee. With a mug of dark, rich nocturnal nectar warming my hands, I headed back toward my sofa chair, contemplating my dinner options.

I stopped halfway and turned toward my front door. Not more than a foot from the bottom was a slip of paper, folded in half.

I walked over, plucked it from the floor, and unfolded it. It read, in a script that wasn’t unfamiliar but which I nonetheless couldn’t place:

Meet me at The Spice Grinder. 4035 W. 19
^th
. 10:30 sharp. I’ll be in the back left corner. Come alone.

I folded and pocketed the note, then returned to the living room. I checked my floor clock, which read about a quarter to eight. That left me plenty of time to finish my coffee, find somewhere to eat, and meet my mystery date. The only question was, who left the note…and what did they want?

18

I stared at the sign hanging over the coffee shop across the street from me. Based on the name, I wouldn’t have expected The Spice Grinder to be a café, but there was the sign, depicting a cascade of beans pouring into a burr-mill grinder and a steaming mug of the dark stuff pouring out the other side. I think they took some artistic liberties by skipping a few steps, but the overall gist of the place and its offerings came through.

While I could let the sign slide, the name was another matter. Sure, in the technical sense, coffee could be used as a spice, but brewing a drink out of it wasn’t one of the applications that fit the bill. Then again, in a city in which name recognition was king and each restaurant tried to out-clever the other, a swing and a miss was often more effective than a bunt. After all, how much foot traffic would ‘Bubba’s Coffee Place’ attract, and then what would you put on the sign?

I scratched my neck and glanced over my shoulder. I’d suffered another of those odd, unsettling sensations as I headed here from dinner. I was fairly sure of what it was, but nothing jumped out of the shadows to claw my face, so I swallowed my suspicions and went inside.

The café’s interior wasn’t much better lit than the street, but its smells were an order of magnitude more pleasant. A barista at the counter nodded at me. I was tempted to reach into my pocket for change, but I’d already plowed through my fair share of the brew today and another cup would almost certainly play havoc with a sleep schedule that had been thoroughly mussed already. Instead, I headed into the gloom, past sparsely populated tables and chairs in search of the establishment’s far left corner. It reminded me a lot of Jjade’s, except without the avant-garde musical stylings and a decided lack of flair on the part of the counter jockey.

Someone heard my clumsy footsteps. “Over here. Have a seat.”

I knew the voice well. Gruff and hard and bristling with enough empathy to make a rock crack in half.

“Captain?” I spotted him as my eyes adjusted, sitting in the farthest booth from the entrance, just as he’d written he’d be. And it
was
indeed his handwriting on the note. His hardened grumble had knocked that tidbit out of my memory.

The bulldog nodded to the empty bench across from him, and I slid on in. He didn’t say anything, so I broke the ice. “You know, Captain, I like late night trysts as much as the next guy, but you’re not really my type. Too weathered and pessimistic and old. And male, let’s not forget that part.”

He ignored me. “I heard about you at the station today.”

I snorted. “So much for a free pass. Thanks a lot, Steele.”

“She didn’t tell me,” said the Captain. “Nor did Miss Moonshadow down in the morgue, sadly. Trust me, I had a word with both of them.”

“So how did you know?” I asked.

The Captain smiled. “I have my ways.”

I lifted an eyebrow. “You’re the one who stuck the tail on me.”

This time, it was the Captain’s turn for brow gymnastics. “You noticed? Apparently I’ll need to have a word with Peterson, too. And here I thought he was the best shadow we had.”

“To be fair, I only just figured it out,” I said. “But I first noticed it this morning. Suffered a nondescript creepy feeling.”

“That’s not important,” said the Captain. “What’s important is the conversation we had yesterday, and your inability to follow orders. What about ‘you’re off the case’ didn’t you understand?”

I sighed. “Okay, look. I’m sorry I snuck into the station earlier. I went in with the intention to say my goodbye to Griggs, which I did. It’s just that while I was there, I spotted Cairny’s exam log, and I couldn’t help myself. I mean, trust me, I’ve tried to take my mind off Griggs and the case. But I’ve met mental and physical roadblocks at every twist and turn. I tried to visit my son, but he wasn’t around. I tried walking everything off, but my feet led me to the precinct. And after getting kicked out, I tried to distract myself with literature, but that only worked for a while. The point is, I can’t stop thinking about it. What happened? What was Griggs involved in? Who killed him?”

“And you think the rest of your team isn’t good enough to solve this without you?”

“No, of course not,” I said. “I have full faith in Steele and Quinto and Rodgers. They’ll get it done. But that doesn’t mean I can shut my brain off. It doesn’t work that way. When I think about it, I want to be involved in it, especially when I know I can contribute. The difference is, this time, I don’t feel emotionally compromised. I know you’ll disagree, but that’s the honest truth. I thought I’d be ravaged, but I’m not. I just…want justice for Griggs, that’s all. He deserved better.”

The Captain chewed his lip. “That’s pretty much exactly what I thought you’d say, Daggers.”

“We’ve known each other for over twelve years,” I said. “I’m not that tough of a cookie to crack.”

“The thing I didn’t expect,” continued the Captain, “was to believe you when you said it.”

“Which part?”

“About you, not being emotionally compromised,” he said. “You are, whether you believe it or not. It’ll affect your judgment. But it’ll also press you that much harder, make you willing to take a chance on a line of reasoning or evidence you otherwise wouldn’t, as long as it might lead you to the killer.”

My eyebrows lifted. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying? Are you putting me back on the case?”

“No.”

I blinked a few times. “So…why are we here? Don’t tell me you asked for a clandestine meeting at a coffee shop to tell me to stay the hell away from the precinct until otherwise notified.”

The Captain lowered his voice. “I brought you here because I need to talk about Griggs.”

“What about him?”

The Captain stared at his hands. “You know he was my partner, right? Before we brought you on board, before I was promoted.”

“Yes, I know that,” I said.

The old bulldog kept staring into nothing, and he shook his head ever so slightly. “I didn’t want to mention anything at first. Not until I’d had time to mull it over and delve into the evidence. But now? I don’t see any other logical explanation. Not considering how he went out.”

“Captain, what are you talking about?” I asked.

The old man met my eyes. “The following conversation is strictly off the books. Do you understand?”

I nodded, and I felt my heart beat louder in my chest.

“Griggs, well…there’s no easy way to say it. He was dirty.”

19

I blinked. “Come again?”

“Are you deaf?” said the Captain. “He took hush money. Bribes.”

I saw the mark of the garrote in my mind’s eye and heard Cairny’s initial suspicions. “You mean from organized crime?”

“No. From a small-time dope pusher on the corner of thirty-seventh and Macintosh by the name of Lucky Eddie. Of course, organized crime.”

I leaned back in my booth, feeling the stiff leather upholstery push against me. My mind swirled, and a maelstrom of emotions overwhelmed me. Anger at Griggs for letting himself be corrupted. Disgust with myself for not picking up on any of the clues, as surely there must’ve been over a period of twelve years. Confusion because I didn’t understand how he could’ve let himself get involved with such a thing or how it had come back to haunt him. And most surprisingly and most unwelcome, guilt.

I still felt awful for Griggs. I still yearned to avenge his murder. Those two thoughts I understood. A former friend of mine had been murdered, and solving homicides was my job. But stripped of his sunny disposition and uplifting death glare, all the old guy really had going for him had been his golden heart, as evidenced by the tale I’d regaled Shay with. Now that gold had been shown to be nothing more than gilt, hiding a black, throbbing corruption underneath. So why did I still care so much?

Perhaps I needed more time.

The Captain read me like an open book. “It’s not exactly what you think.”

“Then explain it to me.”

The Captain glanced into the rest of the coffee shop, but no one had approached us. “Have you ever heard of the Wyverns?”

I snorted.
“The Wyverns?
Come on. You might as well tell me a ghost story.”

“Laugh it up, smart ass,” said the Captain. “But you’d be wise to recall you’ve only been on the force for a little over a decade, and there are others around who have more experience, more knowledge, and prettier faces. You’re looking at one.”

I let the last bit slide. Despite the deadpan, it must’ve been a joke. “Fine. Enlighten me. Tell me about the Wyverns.”

“Back when I was young,” said the Captain, “just a regular detective on the force, the Wyverns were one of the most well-known gangs in New Welwic. But they weren’t on the streets peddling dope, or extorting people, or running protection rackets. They were smugglers, and they were the best. They had their fingers in everything from drugs to weapons to luxury goods. And more importantly, their influence extended far beyond the streets. Rumor had it so many flatfoots, elected officials, and councilmen were in their pockets that beat cops started referring to the Wyverns as the Heavycoats.

“Well, about twenty years ago now, a new DA got appointed, and he didn’t take the Wyvern threat lightly. He created a special task force, which he picked by hand, to infiltrate and dismantle the Wyverns. Against all odds, they did just that. They arrested a number of Wyvern bigwigs, which they tried and sentenced in exceedingly public fashion. Their shipments dried up and their bank accounts collapsed. It looked as if their organization had been chopped off at the head.”

I recalled having heard some of the Captain’s shared knowledge before. It was why I’d treated his mention of the Wyverns as I had. By all accounts, they no longer existed.

“I noticed your use of the words ‘looked as if.’”

The Captain shook his head. “It was too clean. One day the Wyverns were ruling New Welwic’s underworld, the next they were gone. Nothing’s ever that simple. As good as the DA’s task force was, they weren’t
that
good,
that
thorough. The Wyverns simply went dark. But the DA and the commissioner and everyone else was happy to sweep that tidbit under the rug so long as they didn’t rear their ugly mugs again.”

“This history lesson is all fine and good, Captain,” I said, “but how does Griggs fit into it?”

“Griggs was an informant,” said the Captain. “I saw him take money from a source once. It wasn’t until months later I connected the individual to the Wyverns.”