The Darker Hours Page 19

  Boyce snapped her combat light on. It had 1100 lumens and was blindingly bright. It lit up the entire room, which was cavernous and empty. Except at the far end, which was at least fifty yards away, there was a desk. A man was sitting hip cocked on the corner of it. He leaned over and turned a desk lamp on. It was Detective Bennett. He said something they could not hear, and Marcelino Torres stepped into the lamp’s cone of light. Bennett was bare headed but did have a topcoat on. He put both hands into the coat pockets. Boyce turned her light off.“Come on down,” Bennett said. “Mookie got nervous and called me. Asked me to join the party.”

  “I didn’t kill nobody,” Torres said, his voice echoing. He was looking at Bennett like Bennett was the one he had to convince. Mendoza and Boyce walked the length of the room to within a few feet of the two men. Mendoza had his hand in his coat pocket. Boyce had her hand on the butt of her Glock. No one said anything.

  Finally, Boyce said, “You drove by a group of kids having a party and you emptied your AR15 into them. You killed two kids. One of them was my friend and the captain’s niece. You going to stand there and tell me you didn’t do it.”

  “I didn’t do the shooting.”

  “You were there?”

  “Yeah, but I didn’t do the shooting.”

  “Who did,” Mendoza said.

  “Raoul did. I was driving.”

  “Raoul?”

  “Raoul Naruda. That stupid shit ain’t never shot an AK before. He pulled the trigger and it got away from him. He sprayed all over the place.”

  “That’s convenient,” Boyce said.

  “What’s convenient?” Mendoza said, without taking his eyes from Torres.

  “Naruda’s dead,” she said. “He was one of the two that attacked me in the river bottom.”

  “Copy that,” Bennett said. “I saw him there. Deader than a mackerel.”

  “Why did you choose that group of high school kids to shoot up?” Boyce said to Torres.

  Torres turned slightly and looked at Bennett.

  Bennett lifted his hands from his pockets, and he had a gun in each. He pointed them at Mendoza and Boyce. “Because I told him to. I didn’t know your niece would be there. All I wanted was to scare that Chinese kid. Scare his parents.”

  Neither Boyce nor Mendoza moved a muscle.

  “This is my turf,” Bennett continued. “The gangs belong to me. The Pistoleros work for me. They do the collecting and they get away with it because I let them get away with it.” These last words came in a rush.

  He shook his head in disgust. “That damned old Mama San was starting to piss me off. She was goading her old man to grow some balls and not pay. I figured she needed a lesson, so I had Mookie here do a drive by. Scare the boy. But ol’ Mookie lets some fucking moron do the shooting and, fuck, your girl got shot.” He looked at Mendoza, shaking his head. “Bad luck. Standing in the wrong place at the wrong time.” He looked at Boyce. “Then you started sticking your nose in it. Not even your beat. Fuckin’ bitch. I knew you’d never quit. God, it was such a sweet gig.”

  “So, what now?” Mendoza said.

  “So now, you forced me to clean this shit up.” He lifted the gun in his right hand and looked at it. “Old Mookie had it in for you. Got you here to shoot your ass.” He pointed the gun at Torres and shot the man twice. Torres crumpled. He lifted the gun in his left hand. “Hell of a shootout in here. Two cops killed. Good thing I came along.”

  He pointed the left-handed gun at Mendoza.

  Behind him, Barbieri stepped out of the dark and put the barrel of his gun against Bennett’s head. “You move, you die.”

  Nobody moved.

  “You are under arrest,” Barbieri said.

  Barbieri pressed the barrel of his gun hard against Bennett’s head, forcing it to the side. Mendoza and Boyce drew and put their front sights on him.

  “Twitch and I’ll burn you down,” Barbieri said.

  Bennett was incredulous. “What the hell are you doing?”

  “He’s here at my invitation,” Mendoza said.

  “You son of a bitch, you’re supposed to be my partner!” Bennett said in a strangled voice.

  “I was never your partner, and you are the son of a bitch,” Barbieri said. Boyce stepped over and took the guns from Bennett’s hands.

  Barbieri began, “You have the right to remain silent…..,”

  ***

  It was afternoon before the reports were all made, the interviews concluded, and Boyce was sitting in Mendoza’s office with Mendoza, and Danny Rich. Barbieri had just come in with a carrier full of coffees and passed them around. He put a handful of creamer and sugar packets on Mendoza’s desk.

  “How did you know it was Bennett all along?” Danny Rich said.

  Mendoza had taken the lid from his cup and was stirring two packs of sugar in with the skinny wooden stirrer they provided.

  “I didn’t,” he said, taking a careful sip.

  Barbieri stopped what he was doing and looked at Mendoza. “You thought it was me?”

  “Didn’t know who it was,” Mendoza said. “Knew it was a cop, didn’t know which one. The only one I was sure it wasn’t, besides Detective Boyce was DiMartini.”

  “Thanks for the vote,” Boyce said.

  “You asked me to watch Bennett,” Barbieri said.

  “And, I asked Bennett to watch you. In fact, I told Bennett I was pretty sure you were dirty. You’re the one that had the street reputation.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “It means you are a hard ass on the street, and we all know it,” Danny Rich said.

  “Thanks a lot,” Barbieri said.

  “You deny it?”

  He shrugged. “It’s a hard job.”

  Mendoza smiled.

  “When did you know it was Bennett?” Danny Rich said.

  “When it was Bennett sitting on the desk in the hockey rink,” Boyce said. She looked at Mendoza. “Right?”

  “Pretty much,” Mendoza said, taking another careful sip.

  “So, Bennett had Torres rousting these small businesses, but why did he kill Livvy?” Danny Rich said.

  “It was like Torres said. He gave the AR-15 to some punk that had never shot one, and it pulled on him and he couldn’t control it. It probably wasn’t deliberate.”

  “What was that Calle de Rojo shit?”

  Mendoza shook his head, “Absolutely nothing. Just kid stuff. Keep in mind Torres had the I.Q. of a fifth grader. He thought he was being clever.” He looked at Boyce. “Then Bennett saw a chance to get rid of Detective Boyce because he knew the detective would hunt him down like the dog he was.”

  Boyce ducked her head, smiling.

  “So, he had Torres do it again at the Burger King while he set himself up across the street.”

  “So, you’re saying he wasn’t shooting at DiMartini, he was shooting at Boyce?”

  “The fucker,” Boyce said.

  “That’s what I think. DiMartini stepped into the bullet. Or, maybe he would have hit DiMartini anyway. That rifle had been in an evidence locker for years. It may never have been sighted in.”

  “This is a lot of crap for some measly shake down money,” Danny Rich said.

  “He gambled,” Barbieri said. “He’s like, up to his ears in gambling debts. I already knew that.”

  “Who with?” Danny Rich said.

  Barbieri shrugged. “Wouldn’t tell me.”

  “He’s lawyered up,” Mendoza said. “We probably won’t know all of it until he goes to trial and he might not even talk then.”

  “There’s a silver lining in every cloud,” Boyce said.

  “What’s that?”

  “Now I can kick Jackson the hell out of my house.”

  54

  Marianne was playing to a packed house. Boyce and Jackson and Blackhawk and Elena were sitting at the back table. Boyce was on her third tequila. Wedges of lime and a saltshaker were close to hand. Jackson was nursing a scotch. When he watched the third te
quila go down, he knew the scotches would be few. Somebody had to drive.

  Elena was matching Boyce, shot for shot.

  “So, you’re not jealous of her having all these fans?” Boyce said.

  “That’s the whole point,” Blackhawk said. “We want to fill this room.”

  “Diversity darling,” Elena said. “She does this Sinatra stuff. I do salsa.”

  “Oh, you do more than salsa,” Boyce said. “I’ve watched you work some Stones and Tom Petty and the Beatles into your stuff.”

  “Diversity darling,” Jackson said. He looked over at Boyce. “So, which one was Bennett again?”

  “The tall guy. The guy with the dark curly hair is Barbieri.”

  “And Barbieri was working for Mendoza?”

  “All the time. Which was perfect because Barbieri comes across as a hot-shot wise guy. You want to pick a bad cop out of the two, you’d pick Barbieri every time. Bennett has always come across as a Boy Scout.”

  “Jackson is a Boy Scout,” Elena said.

  “The only thing Jackson is scouting is your new girl singer,” Boyce said.

  “I’d make her my merit badge project any day.” Jackson said. “So, Mendoza had this thing set up the whole time. How did he know it was Bennett?”

  “That’s why he’s the captain,” Blackhawk said.

  Boyce looked around the room for her waiter. She caught her eye and waved. “I don’t think he knew. I think he suspected that maybe the drive-by was intentional and if the target wasn’t Livvy then it had to be the Huang kid.”

  “I would have picked Livvy,” Blackhawk said. “Revenge against the captain.”

  “Poor little girl,” Elena said, her face sad. The waiter brought two new tequilas and a fresh lime.

  “I was sure it was Livvy until I saw that Pistolero shaking down the Huangs. Mendoza was way ahead of me.”

  “So, who shot DiMartini?” Jackson said.

  “Bennett did,” Boyce said. “Got Torres to do the drive-by, pulled in across the street, behind the Walgreens and waited for his shot. He got a rifle that was tucked away in the old evidence warehouse. No one would have ever missed it.”

  “How about serial numbers?”

  “Been filed off.”

  “How were you sure it was Bennett?”

  “Torres’s fingerprints all over the rifle. But, one little itsy-bitsy Bennett fingerprint was on the spent cartridge that was still in the chamber. The rifle was a bolt action. You had to work the slide to kick out the spent cartridge and since he only took the one shot, he forgot about it. He was so excited and in a hurry to get out of there. Wiped it down and gave it to Torres to hide. Dumbass Torres had prints all over it.”

  Jackson was looking at her. “He was shooting at you, wasn’t he?”

  She took the wedge of lime and rubbed it on the back of her hand. She sprinkled salt on it. Elena did the same. They picked up the shots of tequila and clinked them in a toast. They licked the salt, tossed back the tequila, then sucked the lime.

  “He was a lousy shot,” she said banging the shot glass down on the table. It came out as loushy.

  55

  The air had finally cooled. The sun was still an hour away from setting and it had been a quiet Saturday afternoon. Boyce pulled her Miata onto the street that bordered Esteban Park. The park was busy. There were kids with frisbees. A group of boys were playing basketball. The pavilion was filled with boys and girls sitting on the benches. Most of them were smoking. They watched her warily as she drove slowly by. Two young mothers with the babies in strollers were sitting in the shade of one of the trees.

  She didn’t see Spark anywhere. She shook her head. She had decided not to call the girl Spark anymore. Annie Marie, that was her name, but it was a habit hard to break. She turned down the street to the trailer park. She pulled to the curb in front of Joanie Pilon’s house trailer. Joanie’s car was in the drive. It looked clean.

  She sat there a moment then reached to the passenger seat and picked up the manila folder she had brought with her. She slid out and went up on the porch and knocked on the screen door.

  It opened immediately. Annie Marie was smiling at her. She pushed the screen door open, “Come on in.”

  Boyce stepped inside.

  “Ma, Detective Boyce is here,” she called. “Come on in, have a seat. We have iced tea if you want some.”

  “I’d love some,” Boyce said. Annie Marie grinned at her. Happy to be doing something for her. She turned and went to the kitchen area. She pulled a plastic glass from the cupboard and filled it with ice. She then filled the glass from a Tupperware pitcher from the counter that was filled with tea.

  “You want some Sweet’n Low?”

  “No thanks.”

  Joanie Pilon came down the hall. She was still wearing her waitress uniform. “Sorry, I just got home. Would you like some iced tea?”

  “I got it, Ma,” Annie Marie said.

  Annie Marie brought the tea to Boyce. She sat down next to her on the couch. Joanie sat in the recliner across the small room.

  Annie Marie hitched around to look at Boyce. “George says that Mookie got shot by the cops.”

  “Technically true. He was murdered by a cop, but he was a bad, bad cop.”

  “So, some cops are bad?”

  “Unfortunately, true.”

  “Honey, we’ve talked about that,” her mother said. “God didn’t make everybody good.”

  “Like Hitler,” Annie Marie said.

  “Good example,” her mother said. She looked at Boyce. “Are you here about what we talked about?”

  “Yes,” Boyce said. “Have you talked with Annie Marie about it?”

  Joanie shook her head. “No. I thought it would be better if you explained it all to her.”

  “Explained what?” Annie Marie said.

  Boyce picked up the folder that was on her lap. “The Phoenix Police Department has a Cadet program for young people between the ages of 14 and 20.”

  “A cadet?”

  “Yes. It is a program to teach those kids that are interested about law enforcement. It doesn’t always mean the kid is planning on going into law enforcement as a career, but it is a community-based program that interacts the kids with their community and with the police. You learn a lot of things and take part in many activities. You would be strictly a volunteer. But you would meet other kids with similar interests.”

  “Would I get a badge?”

  Boyce laughed. She looked in the folder, “I’m not sure. Here are some pictures of the kids in last year’s program.” She handed the photo to Annie Marie. “They all get official uniforms and take part in lots of different things.”

  Annie Marie’s eyes were gleaming. Boyce looked at Joanie and she was watching her daughter intently.

  “The thing you have to understand is that these kids are held to a very high standard. And other kids in the neighborhood may ridicule you. Or harass you in some way. You have to be prepared for that.”

  “George will shit,” Annie Marie said.

  “Annie Marie!” her mother said. “Cadets don’t talk like that.”

  “He will, you know,” Annie Marie said, grinning.

  “Are you interested?” Boyce said.

  “Oh, Mama, could I?”

  Joanie looked at Boyce. She almost had a tear in her eye. “There’s your answer.”

  Boyce left them the paperwork to fill out and the letter of recommendation she had typed up earlier. As she stood to leave, Joanie gave her a hug. “Thank you so much,” she said. Annie Marie took her around the waist and squeezed hard.

  “I don’t even know your first name,” Joanie said.

  “I hate my first and second name. Just call me Boyce.”

  “What is it?” Annie Marie said. “You have to tell us,” she pleaded.

  Boyce stood looking at them, then shrugged. She told them,

  “Oh my God,” Annie Marie guffawed.

  “Great aunts on my mother’s side,” Boy
ce said.

  Joanie was shaking her head. “Okay,” she said. “Boyce it is.”

  Boyce looked at Annie Marie “You tell anybody, I’ll have to shoot you.”

  She turned and went through the door. As she stepped off the porch, she heard Annie Marie’s voice. “Mama, I want to be just like her.”

  Following is an excerpt of

  Number six in the acclaimed Jackson Blackhawk series

  Coming soon

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

  by Sam Lee Jackson

  click here or go to samleejackson.com

  for all your special deals on

  Jackson Blackhawk novels

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

  When I answered the phone, I heard Martha say, “Jackson?”

  I smiled, “Martha. How wonderful to hear from you.”

  “Jackson,” she repeated. I didn’t like the sound of her voice.

  “Yes, Ma’am.”

  “You know the Colonel and know him to be a punctual man.”

  “Yes, Ma’am.”

  “The Colonel has told me to call you if I think something is wrong. I mean really wrong.”

  “What is wrong?”

  “He had a meeting. Two days gone. He was supposed to be back no later than this morning. It’s mid-afternoon. You know how he is. If he couldn’t make it, he would have gotten word to me. This has never happened before.”

  “Yes, Ma’am?” My heart was sinking.

  “He has shown me an envelope in his safe with your name on it. He told me if this should ever happen, I was to open it and call you.”

  “Yes, Ma’am.”

  “It just has two words. It’s in his handwriting.”

  I waited.

  “It says, Deep Purple.”

  “I’ll be on the next flight,” I said. I hung up and dialed Blackhawk.

  When he answered I said, “Martha called. It’s Deep Purple.”

  “Pick me up,” he said.

  Years Earlier