Darker Than Any Shadow

Chapter Sixteen

My previous engagement met me at the front entrance of Turner Field with my ticket in hand. Garrity was impossible to miss, with fox-red hair and a sharp canny face to match. Even in blue jeans and a faded Metallica tee-shirt, he looked every inch a cop.

He chewed a toothpick. “Another murder, huh? You’re turning into a walking, talking Bermuda Triangle.”

I ignored the insult. “A club killing downtown is hardly your jurisdiction.”

“You and Trey are my jurisdiction. Your names pop up, everybody finds me and tells me all about it. And sweet Jesus, Tai, why in the hell is your name popping up again?”

“Freakish coincidence.”

But it wasn’t. It was very much like last time—someone I love loses someone he knows, and perhaps has a problematic relationship with, to homicide. Last time it had been my brother. Now it was Rico. I didn’t want to explore this with Garrity, however. He had a way of looking at me that reminded me of bare light bulbs and two-way mirrors.

He handed me my ticket. “Come on. I’m dying to hear more about this freakish coincidence.”

***

Garrity had seats under the casino box, with a sideways view of the field. I’d barely gotten popcorn and beer before he started the interrogation, propping his feet on the empty seat in front of him and pulling his cap down low over his forehead.

“Let me guess,” he said. “You want me to spill what I know.”

I cooled my tongue with a sip of beer. Down below, Jason Heywood knocked a clean hit into the stands, and Garrity hoisted his beer in salute. He was Trey’s best friend and former partner, with almost ten years in the Atlanta Police Department major crimes division. He kept his ear to the ground, and as far as heart went, he’d gotten a helping and a half. But sometimes it was all I could do not to scream in shrill harpy tones at him.

“What if I bought you some wings? Would that get you to shut up long enough to let me explain things?”

He fanned his hand in a chivalrous manner. “Go ahead.”

I gave him the condensed version, starting with the fire alarm and ending with the blood on the pavement. I left out the blood on Rico’s shoes entirely—I knew Garrity knew about it, but I also knew that if he knew the story behind it, he might have to do something about it. Murders weren’t his detail, but he was still a cop, and had rules as dense as Trey’s.

“Hold up,” Garrity said. “Trey almost beat up who?”

“Jackson. He owns the restaurant, he and his wife Cricket.”

“Jackson Bentley? Used to play football at UGA?”

“Yeah. Why?”

Garrity closed his eyes and shook his head. “Damn, Tai, you know how to pick ’em.”

“What are you talking about?”

He turned in his seat and faced me square. “Jackson Bentley was a linebacker for the Bulldogs a few years ago. He got kicked off the team his senior year.”

“He wasn’t kicked off, he was injured.”

“That’s the official story.”

“You know an unofficial one?”

“I have friends on the Athens PD.” Garrity leaned back in his seat and pulled his cap back down. “Jackson was using steroids. He denied it, of course, but the evidence was clear. Unfortunately, it was also circumstantial, so the charges didn’t stick. He ‘hurt’ himself and quit senior year. Worse than that, there were several domestic disturbance calls to his place during that time. The girlfriend refused to press charges, however.”

I sat there stunned. Jackson? Steroids? Physical abuse? But then I remembered Lex’s taunt the night he was killed: Cricket understands how you get, right?

“Lex knew.”

“Probably. Does Jackson’s wife know, what’s her name, Cricket?”

“I don’t know.”

“I hope she does, for her sake.” He eyed me seriously. “You watch yourself with that man, you hear?”

“I hear.”

Down below, a foul ball popped into the stands, and a crush of hopeful fans clotted at its landing spot. A young boy emerged triumphant, the ball held aloft. The big screen magnified his grin, missing front teeth and all.

Garrity snagged a handful of my popcorn. “Tell me more about this Lex person.”

So I explained what I’d discovered, including my theory that Lex Anderson was a perfectly coordinated phantom.

Garrity kept his eyes on the field. “That would explain a few things.”

“Like what?”

“Like why there’s no next of kin in town to ID the body. Why his photograph is being sent to agencies all over the Southeast, especially the coastal area. Why his driver’s license turned up fake.”

“He supposedly lived in Brunswick.”

“Not that we can find. Can’t find his car either. Supposedly he drove a ragged-out navy blue Suburban, but it’s not showing up.”

I got a familiar buzz in my head. I imagined it was the same sensation bloodhounds get when a cold trail suddenly blooms all warm and strong.

“Something else is bugging me. Lex was stabbed, right? That’s a pretty bloody way to go, right?”

“Can be, but bleeding out isn’t the only way to die. Get some internal bleeding going on, and your victim is headed for corpsehood right fast.”

“Is it instant?”

“Depends. You’re thinking he had lots of time to scream, call out, crawl into the open. Maybe, maybe not. He could have been incapacitated, maybe unconscious.”

I remembered the bruising around Lex’s eye and the awkward positioning of the body. Could he have hit the sink on his way down, tumbled into his last darkness?

“But wouldn’t there still be blood spraying about?”

“Aha, now you’re thinking, wouldn’t the killer have blood on his hands? Maybe, but not arterial spatter. A quick wash in the sink, and your bad guy is good to go. Of course, that leaves contact, maybe fingerprints.”

“I’m thinking the killer burned all that up.”

“Oh yeah, I heard about the crime scene. Sopping wet piece of crap. I’m glad I’m not the poor sap has to work that.”

I thought of the damage the water did, and then the extra damage Jackson inflicted with a fire extinguisher. And then I got another ripple of warm trail.

“Do you know if they found Lex’s cell phone yet?”

“Not yet. But mark my words, you find that phone, you find your killer.”

“What about the murder weapon?”

“Still out on that too. Waiting on blood evidence now.”

I got a sinking sensation at the thought. “Trey says that’s five to seven days minimum.”

“Looking more like ten, and that’s with a push. People’ve been bloodying each other up left and right this summer.”

“But it could be that soon, right?”

“Could be, but I doubt it.”

I ate popcorn and drank more beer and thought about things. A cold beer was a miracle, good for clearing your head, especially during the dog days of Georgia summer, and I appreciated every amber drop of it.

Still, I never got the appeal of baseball—ninety percent of it seemed to be standing around, sitting around, spitting. Garrity kept explaining it was like jazz, that the meaning lay in the pauses and the spaces. For me, baseball was nothing but an excellent excuse to drink early in the day.

Garrity watched the field. “You told Eric yet?”

“Nope.”

“He’s your brother.”

“So?”

“So he’ll find out, even if he’s in…where is he again?”

“Sydney. And I’ll tell him, okay? Eventually.” I snagged one of Garrity’s fries. “Because I’d like to be able to tell him—when he does find out—that the killer is behind bars, and we’re all going about our normal lives once again.”

Garrity laughed. “Like that domestic drama you’re playing out in Buckhead is normal.”

I elbowed him for that, hard. “Like you know anything about relationships.”

“I know Trey. And I know you.” He squinted at the infield. “The boys are sucking today. I blame all that money. It makes them soft.”

Down below, the teams traded position, with the Braves moving to the outfield and the other team—some kind of bird-themed organization—getting ready to bat. Every single player looked like he’d downed a steroid shake for breakfast.

“This may sound weird, but did Lex’s murder look like a professional hit to you?”

“Like an assassin?”

“It fits. Lex was stabbed in exactly the right spot to kill him neatly and efficiently. That sounds professional to me.”

“The ME report did say the first jab was deliberate, no hesitation. But it was falling on the blade that did him in.”

“How can they tell?”

“Angle and depth of penetration, bruise marks from the hilt.”

“So it could have been an accident?”

Garrity made a noise. “Yeah, right. The knife was in him when he went down. Somebody stuck it in his heart. Not an accident.” He sipped his beer, eyes on the field. “Look, hit men are as rare as Bigfoot in my line of work. Most people are killed by someone they know, for some stupid hot-headed reason. It’s that simple.”

I munched my popcorn, musing. “So does the APD have any suspects?”

“Got a BOLO out for some poet, crazy name, starts with a V.”

“Vigil?”

“That’s him. Hasn’t been seen since he got bounced on that weapons charge. Suddenly Lex takes his place on the team, Lex turns up dead. Yeah, they’re looking.”

“Are there any other suspects?”

He tossed off a quick shrug.

“What does that mean?”

“It means exactly what you think it means, that yes, you and Rico and everybody else there Friday night are under some intense scrutiny right now.”

“But we were all around the stage at the time of the killing! With cameras rolling. That’s no soft alibi, Detective.”

“You’re making a big assumption about time of death there.”

“But the fire—”

“The fire doesn’t prove anything. And that’s all I’m saying about that, you hear me?”

He pulled his cap back down over his eyes. Conversation over. I threw a piece of popcorn at a pigeon. The pigeon ignored it, choosing instead to chomp down on a cigarette butt.

“Fine. So there’s nothing you can tell me. If that changes, will you give me a call?”

“I work in Criminal Investigations, not Homicide. It’s not like they memo me. Besides, I like my job. I’m not going to jeopardize it by telling you privileged information.”

“Is that a yes?”

Garrity sighed. “Yes. But you know the drill. You don’t pump me, and I tell you everything I can, when I can. Deal?”

“Deal.”

Then he shot me one of those cop looks. “Really, how did you get involved in another murder?”

Garrity was a coonhound of an interrogator. He’d circle closer and closer, until with one pounce, he’d take a hunk out of your ear. I decided to get it over with.

“Rico asked Trey to watch out for things.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means Trey came to the party fully locked and loaded.”

“Why the hell would Rico do that?”

So I explained. Garrity shook his head and returned his gaze to the game. There didn’t seem to be anything happening, only a bunch of men standing around in tight dirty uniforms, helmets shadowing their faces, biceps straining their shirt sleeves.

“Doesn’t he know what Trey is capable of?”

“Not really. Unless you’ve seen it, you don’t really understand.”

Garrity understood. He’d seen Trey pull a gun and shoot a man right through the heart, without hesitation. And I’d seen the Trey who could do that, who could kill someone up close and personal and not feel one twinge of regret.

“You be careful,” Garrity said.

“That’s what you always say.”

“I mean with Trey. He’s doing okay, right?”

Garrity sounded casual, but I wasn’t fooled. “He’s fine. I kept the poor man up two nights in a row, and he was still out of bed at dawn, laced up and hitting the pavement.”

“Sounds about right.”

Garrity’s words were bittersweet. We’d had an argument once, about his and Trey’s estrangement, how they went from best friends to barely speaking. At the time, I hadn’t been very sympathetic. How hard could it be, I thought, dealing with a little brain rearrangement?

I’d had no idea what I was getting myself into. Trey was worth it, of course, even if I didn’t understand half of what went on in his skull. He hadn’t given up. His bookshelves were lined with thick volumes on neuroscience, cognitive behavior therapy, memory enhancement techniques. Some people claimed to be self-made men—Trey actually was.

But he wasn’t easy. Not by a long shot.

I put my hand on Garrity’s arm. “He’s doing good, I promise. And if he ever isn’t, I’ll tell you. I promise that too.”

We settled in to watch the game. I made it for four innings. The second beer helped, plus the fact that being with Garrity made for a relaxing afternoon. Even if we squabbled, he was easy to be with, a normal person with typical quirks. But eventually I had to go. I had a memorial to get ready for.

I popped my empty into his. “Sorry to run before the blockbuster finale, but I need to get back.”

I took the steps two at a time. Behind me I heard the crack of leather on wood, and the wait, the breathless wait, as the announcers laid down the happenings in a rolling cadence as rhythmic as a country preacher’s.

“Don’t you care how it ends?” Garrity called.

I shouldered my bag. “Somebody wins and somebody else loses. That’s how it always ends.”