Dark Rivers of the Heart (22 page)

Roy would experience consequences similar to Ms. Solinko’s if he himself screwed up. Public service could sometimes be a brutally stressful career—which was one reason why comfortable offices, a generous package of fringe benefits, and virtually unlimited perks were, in Roy’s estimation, entirely justified.

Descoteaux didn’t like being frozen out. Trading his frown for a smile, speaking with soft island ease, he said, “It’s difficult to lend assistance without knowing the whole picture.”

It would be easy to succumb to Descoteaux’s charm, to mistake his deliberate yet fluid movements for the sloth of a tropical soul, and to be deceived by his musical voice into believing that he was a frivolous man.

Roy saw the truth, however, in the captain’s eyes, which were huge, as black and liquid as ink, as direct and penetrating as those in a Rembrandt portrait. His eyes revealed an intelligence, patience, and relentless curiosity that defined the kind of man who posed the greatest threat to someone in Roy’s line of work.

Returning Descoteaux’s smile with an even sweeter smile of his own, convinced that his younger-slimmer-Santa-Claus look was a match for Caribbean charm, Roy said, “Actually, I don’t need help, not in the sense of services and support. Just a little information.”

“Be pleased to provide it, if I can,” said the captain.

The wattage of their two smiles had temporarily rectified the problem of inadequate lighting in the small office.

“Before you were promoted to central administration,” Roy said, “I believe you were a division captain.”

“Yes. I commanded the West Los Angeles Division.”

“Do you remember a young officer who served under you for a little more than a year—Spencer Grant?”

Descoteaux’s eyes widened slightly. “Yes, of course, I remember Spence. I remember him well.”

“Was he a good cop?”

“The best,” Descoteaux said without hesitation. “Police academy, criminology degree, army special services—he had
substance.”

“A very competent man, then?”

“‘Competence’ is hardly an adequate word in Spence’s case.”

“And intelligent?”

“Extremely so.”

“The two carjackers he killed—was that a righteous shooting?”

“Hell, yes, as righteous as they get. One perp was wanted for murder, and there were three felony warrants out on the second loser. Both were carrying, shot at him. Spence had no choice. The review board cleared him as quick as God let Saint Peter into Heaven.”

Roy said, “Yet he didn’t go back out on the street.”

“He didn’t want to carry a gun anymore.”

“He’d been a U.S. Army Ranger.”

Descoteaux nodded. “He was in action a few times—in Central America and the Middle East. He’d had to kill before, and finally he was forced to admit to himself he couldn’t make a career of the service.”

“Because of how killing made him feel.”

“No. More because…I think because he wasn’t always convinced that the killing was justified, no matter what the politicians said. But I’m guessing. I don’t know for sure what his thinking was.”

“A man has trouble using a gun against another human being—that’s understandable,” Roy said. “But the same man trading the army for the police department—that baffles me.”

“As a cop, he thought he’d have more control over when to use deadly force. Anyway, it was his dream. Dreams die hard.”

“Being a cop was his dream?”

“Not necessarily a cop. Just being the good guy in a uniform, risking his life to help people, saving lives, upholding the law.”

“Altruistic young man,” Roy said with an edge of sarcasm.

“We get some. Fact is, a lot are like that—in the beginning, at least.” He stared at his coal-black hands, which were folded on the green blotter on his desk. “In Spence’s case, high ideals led him to the army, then the force…but there was something more than that. Somehow…by helping people in all the ways a cop can help, Spence was trying to understand himself, come to terms with himself.”

Roy said, “So he’s psychologically troubled?”

“Not in any way that would prevent him from being a good cop.”

“Oh? Then what is it he’s trying to understand about himself?”

“I don’t know. It goes back, I think.”

“Back?”

“The past. He carries it like a ton of stone on his shoulders.”

“Something to do with the scar?” Roy asked.

“Everything to do with it, I suspect.”

Descoteaux looked up from his hands. His huge, dark eyes were full of compassion. They were exceptional, expressive eyes. Roy might have wanted to possess them if they had belonged to a woman.

“How was he scarred, how did it happen?” Roy asked.

“All he ever said was he’d been in an accident when he was a boy. A car accident, I guess. He didn’t really want to talk about it.”

“He have any close friends on the force?”

“Not close, no. He was a likable guy. But self-contained.”

“A loner,” Roy said, nodding with understanding.

“No. Not the way you mean it. He’ll never wind up in a tower with a rifle, shooting everyone in sight. People liked him, and he liked people. He just had this…reserve.”

“After the shooting, he wanted a desk job. Specifically, he applied for a transfer to the Task Force on Computer Crime.”

“No,
they
came to
him.
Most people would be surprised—but I’m sure you’re aware—we have officers with degrees in law, psychology, and criminology like Spence. Many get the education not because they want to change careers or move up to administration. They want to stay on the street. They love their work, and they think a little advanced education will help them do a better job. They’re committed, dedicated. They only want to be
cops,
and they—”

“Admirable, I’m sure. Though some might see them as hard-core reactionaries, unable to give up the
power
of being a cop.”

Descoteaux blinked. “Well, anyway, if one of them wants off the street, he doesn’t wind up processing paperwork. The department uses his knowledge. The Administrative Office, Internal Affairs, Organized Crime Intelligence Division, most divisions of the Detective Services Group—they all wanted Spence. He chose the task force.”

“He didn’t perhaps
solicit
the interest of the task force?”

“He didn’t need to solicit. Like I said, they came to him.”

“Before he went to the task force, had he been a computer nut?”

“Nut?” Descoteaux was no longer able to repress his impatience. “He knew how to use computers on the job, but he wasn’t obsessed with them. Spence wasn’t a nut about anything. He’s a very solid man, dependable, together.”

“Except that—and these are your words—he’s still trying to understand himself, come to terms with himself.”

“Aren’t we all?” the captain said crisply. He rose and turned from Roy to the small window beside his desk. The angled slats of the blind were dusty. He stared between them at the smog-cloaked city.

Roy waited. It was best to let Descoteaux have his tantrum. The poor man had earned it. His office was dreadfully small. He didn’t even have a private bathroom with it.

Turning to face Roy again, the captain said, “I don’t know what you think Spence has done. And there’s no point in my asking—”

“National security,” Roy confirmed smugly.

“—but you’re wrong about him. He’s not a man who’s ever going to turn bad.”

Roy raised his eyebrows. “What makes you so sure of that?”

“Because he agonizes.”

“Does he? About what?”

“About what’s right, what’s wrong. About what he does, the decisions he makes. Quietly, privately—but he agonizes.”

“Don’t we all?” Roy said, getting to his feet.

“No,” Descoteaux said. “Not these days. Most people believe everything’s relative, including morality.”

Roy didn’t think Descoteaux was in a hand-shaking mood, so he just said, “Well, thank you for your time, Captain.”

“Whatever the crime, Mr. Miro, the kind of man you want to be looking for is one who’s absolutely certain of his righteousness.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

“No one’s more dangerous than a man who’s convinced of his own moral superiority,” Descoteaux said pointedly.

“How true,” Roy replied, opening the door.

“Someone like Spence—he’s not the enemy. In fact, people like that are the only reason the whole damn civilization hasn’t fallen down around our ears already.”

Stepping into the hall, Roy said, “Have a nice day.”

“Whatever side Spence settles on,” said Descoteaux with quiet but unmistakable belligerence, “I’d bet my ass it’s the right side.”

Roy closed the office door behind him. By the time he reached the elevators, he’d decided to have Harris Descoteaux killed. Maybe he would do it himself, as soon as he had dealt with Spencer Grant.

On the way to his car, he cooled down. On the street once more, with Guinevere’s treasure on the car seat beside him exerting its calming influence, Roy was sufficiently in control again to realize that summary execution wasn’t an appropriate response to Descoteaux’s insulting insinuations. Greater punishments than death were within his power to bestow.

The three wings of the two-story apartment complex embraced a modest swimming pool. Cold wind chopped the water into wavelets that slapped at the blue tile under the coping, and Spencer detected the scent of chlorine as he crossed the courtyard.

The burned-out sky was lower than it had been before breakfast, as if it were a pall of gray ashes settling toward the earth. The lush fronds of the wind-tossed palm trees rustled and clicked and clattered with what might have been a storm warning.

Padding along at Spencer’s side, Rocky sneezed a couple of times at the chlorine smell, but he was unfazed by the thrashing palms. He had never met a tree that scared him. Which was not to say that such a devil tree didn’t exist. When he was in one of his stranger moods, when he had the heebie-jeebies and sensed evil mojo at work in every shadow, when the circumstances were
just right,
he probably could be terrorized by a wilted sapling in a five-inch pot.

According to the information that Valerie—then calling herself Hannah May Rainey—had supplied to obtain a work card for a job as a dealer in a casino, she’d lived at this apartment complex. Unit 2-D.

The apartments on the second floor opened onto a roofed balcony that overlooked the courtyard and that sheltered the walkway in front of the ground-floor units. As Spencer and Rocky climbed concrete stairs, wind rattled a loose picket in the rust-spotted iron railing.

He’d brought Rocky because a cute dog was a great icebreaker. People tended to trust a man who was trusted by a dog, and they were more likely to open up and talk to a stranger who had an appealing mutt at his side—even if that stranger had a dark intensity about him and a scar from ear to chin. Such was the power of canine charm.

Hannah-Valerie’s former apartment was in the center wing of the U-shaped structure, at the rear of the courtyard. A large window to the right of the door was covered by draperies. To the left, a small window revealed a kitchen. The name above the doorbell was Traven.

Spencer rang the bell and waited.

His highest hope was that Valerie had shared the apartment and that the other tenant remained in residence. She had lived there at least four months, the duration of her employment at the Mirage. In that much time, though Valerie would have been living as much of a lie as in California, her roommate might have made an observation that would enable Spencer to track her backward from Nevada, the same way that Rosie had pointed him from Santa Monica to Vegas.

He rang the bell again.

Odd as it was to try to find her by seeking to learn where she’d come from instead of where she’d gone, Spencer had no better choice. He didn’t have the resources to track her forward from Santa Monica. Besides, by going backward, he was less likely to collide with the federal agents—or whatever they were—following her.

He had heard the doorbell ringing inside. Nevertheless, he tried knocking.

The knock was answered—though not by anyone in Valerie’s former apartment. Farther to the right along the balcony, the door to 2-E opened, and a gray-haired woman in her seventies leaned her head out to peek at him. “Can I help you?”

“I’m looking for Miss Traven.”

“Oh, she works the early shift at Caesars Palace. Won’t be home for hours yet.”

She moved into the doorway: a short, plump, sweet-faced woman in clunky orthopedic shoes, support stockings as thick as dinosaur hide, a yellow-and-gray housedress, and a forest-green cardigan.

Spencer said, “Well, who I’m really looking for is—”

Rocky, hiding behind Spencer, risked poking his head around his master’s legs to get a look at the grandmotherly soul from 2-E, and the old woman squealed with delight when she spotted him. Although she toddled more than walked, she launched herself off the threshold with the exuberance of a child who didn’t know the meaning of the word “arthritis.” Burbling baby talk, she approached at a velocity that startled Spencer and alarmed the hell out of Rocky. The dog yelped, the woman bore down on them with exclamations of adoration, the dog tried to climb Spencer’s right leg as if to hide under his jacket, the woman said “Sweetums, sweetums, sweetums,” and Rocky dropped to the balcony floor in a swoon of terror and curled into a ball and crossed his forepaws over his eyes and prepared himself for the inevitability of violent death.