Code of Vengeance: The Complete Collection, page 7
Someone at the scene of the assault had also been at Kleon’s. That was why he had taken the case, and that was why he was banging his head against the metaphorical wall. Hard.
“Have you made an arrest yet?” The captain was still angry, but Bryce was certain the anger wasn’t directed at him.
“No.”
“No? You’ve got the DNA, go pick up the perp.”
“It’s not quite that easy.”
Now the captain was mad at him. Furious, by the looks of it. Bryce rushed to explain.
“I’ve done all the standard ops, Dick, but someone has covered their tracks well. The DNA matches to a young girl out in Kansas. I’ve got local police investigating her, but I’m pretty certain our murderer isn’t a fourteen-year-old girl half the country away.”
“False DNA records? You don’t come across that often.” Now the detective had his captain’s full attention, and any hint of rage had died away.
Bryce nodded. He had heard secondhand rumors of a few cases. With everything digital, nothing was entirely secure, but this was still unusual.
“This happened downtown. Why not track her on the cameras?”
Bryce looked up at his captain, exasperated. It wasn’t his first time on the job. He’d worked cases before this one.
Dick read and understood the look. “The perp somehow lost the camera tracking.”
Bryce nodded. That was another new one for him. Biometric tracking could be fooled, although not as easily as the media seemed to believe. But the young woman had disappeared into a store downtown after the assault and completely vanished. Bryce had scrubbed tapes all morning, trying to find something the computers missed, but he couldn’t change what he had seen the first time. Somehow, she’d done something that wasn’t supposed to be possible.
“So, what do you think we’re dealing with?”
This time Bryce did shrug. The captain’s curiosity was piqued, just like his was. Both were old enough to have lived in an age when not every crime was almost instantly solvable through DNA and video information. In a way, it almost felt like it had thirty years ago. Bryce didn’t necessarily wish for those days, but he didn’t deny the appeal of them. The pursuit, the mental puzzles, piecing together a story from disparate parts, these were the reasons he had become a detective. These days, he felt more like he was supervising the computers as they worked.
“Honestly, I couldn’t tell you. Either the person we’re dealing with is a professional, or we’re dealing with someone who has a lot of support in places I can’t even begin to guess. Maybe both. Right now, your guess is as good as mine.”
Dick sat back down and rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Bryce, I’m not sure what to tell you. I thought I was going to chew your ass for wasting time, but I should have known better.”
The silence stretched between them, the captain deciding what advice to give his detective.
This was one of the reasons Bryce had never been interested in promotion beyond detective. There had been opportunities. He was a good cop, and he was about as clean as they came. More than once he had been approached, but he always turned down the offers.
Most of it was because he loved solving cases. He liked closing the books and knowing that the truth had been found. Justice was less appealing than a peaceful society, but it was something. He liked the challenge, and he liked knowing that a challenge successfully solved had a conclusion.
Captains didn’t have the luxuries Bryce had. They worried about budgets and staffing and making sure the crime rate stayed low, as though it was something they could control through a force of will.
In short, he was grateful he was on this side of the desk.
Finally, Dick spoke. “Keep on track, Bryce. I’ll cover for you as well as I can, but I think you’re dancing near the edge of the fire on this one. Stay safe, and for God’s sake, make sure every fucking link in your case is solid, okay?”
Bryce breathed out a sigh of relief he didn’t even know he’d been holding in. This meeting could have gone a different way. A murder, an assault, political pressure, and a criminal who knew how to hide her tracks. Bryce could have had the case taken from him and pushed up the ladder. He wanted this case. He wanted to pit his skills against this new enemy. “Yes, sir.”
“And, Bryce,” the captain said as the detective stood up and walked towards the door. “Be careful, okay?”
Bryce nodded and stepped out.
After returning to his office, Bryce spent a little more time looking over the files and notes he had collected. He was leaving soon for the hospital, but after his conversation with Dick, he decided it might be wise to take a little more time and review everything before diving too deep.
Unfortunately, he didn’t find anything new or useful. His only lead was sitting in a hospital downtown. Hopefully, the suspect wouldn’t become another dead end.
Bryce called for a car and was whisked downtown in short order.
As the car drove, Bryce reviewed footage from the assault. All of it had been captured on camera, and thanks to the mayor’s influence, Bryce already had it on his phone.
The girl had been chased into the hotel from the street. Bryce had scrubbed the footage backward and tracked the girl for quite a while. She had been with someone Bryce assumed was a man, based on his height. But he had on a hoodie that obscured his features. Bryce had tried running biometric matches on him, but came up with nothing.
As he kept moving backward in time, he eventually lost them. The first time they appeared was out of a store with no cameras.
The trend was disturbingly familiar. Whoever these two were, they were taking steps to make sure they couldn’t be tracked, at least not without a tremendous amount of effort.
What interested Bryce the most, though, was that the two of them had circled a building downtown. They got chased off by two men, one of whom Bryce was about to visit.
Twirling his thumb over the screen, Bryce ran through the chase in high speed. The pair got separated early, and the mysterious man in the hoodie had been lost to cameras soon after.
The girl was a different matter, though. She got chased into the hotel and up to the pool deck.
Bryce watched everything.
Nothing in the video was concrete evidence, but Bryce knew what he was watching. The gentleman he would visit, Walt Drixler, had tried to drag the girl along. She had gotten away.
Any number of narratives could be constructed for the event on video. Bryce had been in enough courtrooms to know that any defense attorney worth their hourly wage would be able to produce reasonable doubt.
But Bryce was building his case, one link at a time. There was a good chance the girl was a murderer, but there was a lot more here. Someone in the mayor’s office was interested, and Bryce didn’t have the slightest understanding of how Mr. James’ death and Drixler’s assault connected with each other.
With the few minutes remaining in the car, Bryce closed his eyes and focused on his breath. He had discovered meditation about thirty years ago, around the same time he became a cop. Focusing on the breath, living in the present moment, these were the practices that kept him sane in a mad world.
He felt the car slow to a gentle stop and opened his eyes. They were at the hospital. Bryce used his badge to pay for the ride and stepped out of the car. The autonomous vehicle drove down the block and picked up its next ride.
Bryce hated hospitals. Cynthia had died in one.
He hadn’t done anything more than his mandatory annual physical in years, no matter how sick he felt.
They smelled too clean, that antiseptic smell that permeated everything, the ultimate disassociation of human and machine. Hospitals treated humans like they were robots, tinkering and repairing as best they could, but ignoring the soul.
Bryce forced his shoulders to relax and stepped in, asking for directions from the assistance bot manning the front desk.
Mr. Drixler had been moved out of intensive care. The injuries he had sustained falling down the stairs were severe, but not enough to threaten his life in this age of fantastic medical care. He suffered several cracked vertebrae and one broken rib, and had broken his nose and leg for good measure on the way down. After looking at a mug shot, Bryce wasn’t sure that the change wouldn’t improve his appearance.
Bryce found the room after only two wrong turns. He never understood why hospitals seemed to be designed by the same people who made mazes. The interior designs always seemed terribly inefficient.
He took another deep breath before stepping in the room. Hospitals got to him, memories of those weeks seared into his memory. Every time he entered a hospital, it felt as though he was carrying her in again, never to bring her back out.
When it came to interviewing suspects, he needed to be fully present, fully aware. He didn’t want anything the suspect said getting away from him.
He stepped in, grabbing Mr. Drixler’s attention. From the quick glance Bryce caught of the man’s phone as he hid it, the suspect had been watching porn.
“Mr. Drixler. Good day. My name is Detective Lewis, and I’ve come to ask you a few questions about the assault you suffered last night.”
Bryce watched the play of emotions over the man’s face and body. Drixler showed immediate signs of tension the moment he walked into the room, his badge in hand. He saw how the man tightened up, how his eyes darted about just for a moment before settling back on Bryce’s.
Then he saw the relaxation as Walt heard him say that he was here to investigate “his suffering.”
Yeah, this guy was guilty. Of what exactly, Bryce didn’t have the slightest clue. But of something.
He didn’t let any of it show on his face. He kept his arms open, his voice concerned, and his gaze attentive.
“It’s about time,” Walt gruffly replied.
Needless aggression, Bryce noted.
“I’m very sorry,” he said with his best placating voice. “We had to run video of the incident, and then we had trouble finding the woman who assaulted you.”
Walt's face was like an open book. He tensed again when Bryce mentioned the video, then relaxed when it sounded like the investigation was focused on the woman. Every instinct Bryce had honed over thirty years on the job told him this was a man who had been up to no good last night.
“Did you find her?”
“I’m sorry to say that we haven’t yet. She went into hiding someplace where there are no cameras.”
“So why are you here?” Walt demanded. “Why aren’t you out there, trying to find her?”
“Unfortunately, Mr. Drixler, it’s not quite that easy. We’ve got all our patrol bots searching for her, and I’m certain it’s only a matter of time before we find her. But I was hoping, while that was happening, I could get your version of events. If there is anything you remember that might help us find her, it would be of great help.”
Walt fixed him with a questioning stare, but Bryce didn’t react. He was just an idiotic plain-clothes cop.
“Sure, I’ll do what I can.”
“Thank you very much. Can you tell me what happened last night?” Bryce took out his phone to take notes.
“So, last night I was on my way to the hotel bar,” Walt began. “Rough day at work, figured I could use a little relaxation. When I get to the hotel, I see this woman. I’m a single guy, and I’m liking my odds. Just when I start to go to her, though, she leaves and goes upstairs.
“Now, I realize this sounds a little creepy, but I thought she was very attractive, and I knew the pool was upstairs. I figured I’d go try to talk to her. Anyhow, I get up there, and maybe I’m a little too forward. I can be like that sometimes. I think that I scared her a little, and she goes back to the stairwell.”
Walt fixed Bryce with his most innocent stare. “Now, detective, I know this probably wasn’t the right thing to do, but I’m a decent guy. I’ve had some bad times in my past, but I’m trying to live a good life. I follow her, only because I want to apologize. I reached out to her, and she assaulted me.”
Bryce nodded sympathetically. “I saw that on the video feed. It looked like you took quite the tumble. I’m glad you didn’t get hurt any worse than you did.”
Walt bought it, completely. “Thank you.”
“It sounds like everything was a big misunderstanding. Are you going to want to press charges?”
Bryce wondered how Walt would respond. The story was obviously crap. Every piece of it sounded rehearsed, with all a reasonable person’s questions answered before they could be asked.
“Well, to be honest, I don’t want her to have to spend any time in the prison system. I’m sure by now you’ve looked up my records, and I don’t think anyone should have to go there because of the mix-up we had. But I would like to find her and have her help me with my hospital expenses, if that’s possible. I’m not a rich man.”
Bryce almost smiled. Walt was a good liar.
But he had given Bryce another piece of information. Whoever Walt was working for, they too wanted to find out who the girl was. She was one popular person at the moment. It didn’t seem like a prescription for a long life, the way Bryce saw it.
“I think we can make that happen, Mr. Drixler. Anything to help you out.”
There was never going to be a better time. Walt thought he would skate out of this without a problem.
“Now, tell me everything you know about Kleon James.” Bryce’s tone became deeper, more authoritative.
To Walt’s credit, his reaction was muted. He hadn’t seen the question coming, but he controlled himself well.
Still, his eyes darted, and he tensed up again.
“I don’t know who that is.”
“I think you do. He was murdered a few nights ago. The girl’s DNA, the same DNA we found at the scene of your crime, was present.”
He let Walt try to dig his way out of it. “You mean the same girl who assaulted me is also a murderer?”
“Let’s cut the bullshit, shall we, Walt?” Bryce didn’t like to curse, but sometimes the effect was beneficial.
There it was, the hint of fear in the corner of his eyes. The fear that the police knew more than they were letting on. The fear that he had been caught for something he didn’t even know he was wanted for.
“I know you’re lying. I know you were chasing that girl for blocks and she ran into the hotel to escape you. So why don’t you tell me what really happened?”
Walt’s mind was racing. Bryce had seen that expression on dozens of suspects, if not hundreds. What story would get him out of trouble? Both of them knew Bryce had him dead to rights, though.
Walt remained silent, and just as Bryce was about to press harder, he sensed movement behind him.
“Detective Lewis, it’s a pleasure to see you again.”
Bryce swore to himself and turned around. Bryan Adair stood behind him. “Counselor, it’s been a while.”
He was a man who kept a low public profile. If you asked most people around town if they knew Mr. Adair, Bryce suspected you would have earned little more than blank looks. But all the same, Bryce considered him one of the most powerful men in the city.
You wouldn’t know it from looking at him.
The first thing people noticed about Mr. Adair, Bryce suspected, was that he was shorter than average. Not so short as to be distracting, but enough that it was noticeable. In a group of men, chances were he’d be the shortest.
Despite his height, though, his appearance was unremarkable, giving no indication of the power or status he held in certain parts of the city. He wore a metallic gray dress shirt with khaki pants. Only a closer inspection revealed the quality of the fabrics and the precision with which he wore the clothes.
Bryan Adair was a defense lawyer.
The best in the city.
Perhaps one of the best in the country.
It wasn’t that he always won his cases. He didn’t. While the counselor certainly seemed selective, he sometimes chose open-and-shut cases, where not even the best defense lawyer could get his client off the hook.
But in every case, he got a reduced punishment for his client if he couldn’t get his client free. Bryce had come across him several times, and more than once had seen homicide cases get knocked down to manslaughter. Bryce wasn’t a lawyer and didn’t know how the man did it, but as a detective, Bryce didn’t like him very much.
How could Walt afford a man like Adair? Bryce had already been through his finances, been through his history. The guy was a lowlife without much of anything to his name.
Walt was connected.
Bryan’s presence erased any doubt about that in his mind.
“How can I help you today, Counselor?”
“I’m here because I represent Mr. Drixler, Detective Lewis. I wanted to make sure that he doesn’t answer any questions that may incriminate him in any future cases.”
Bryce fought the frown on his face. “Mr. Drixler hasn’t been accused of anything, or charged with any crimes, Counselor.”
“Good. So where were we?”
Bryce knew that he might as well leave the room now. There wasn’t any way he could get any information out of a perp with a lawyer of this caliber sitting right there. But he might as well try, even if it was hopeless.
“I was just asking Walt for more information on what happened last night. We have video evidence that before his assault, he was chasing a young woman through town. I hoped that Mr. Drixler could explain the events leading up to the attack.”
Bryan gave Bryce a thin-lipped smile. “I’m afraid that my client will not be able to answer any more of your questions, Detective. If he does get charged with anything, please let me know, and we would be delighted to assist your investigation to the fullest extent of our abilities.”
Bryce had known it was coming, but the stonewalling still angered him. He had been close. Walt might not have talked, but his reactions would have given Bryce a new direction to investigate.
