A Visible Darkness - By Jonathon King Page 0,64

go through all the files Marshack may have had over in his office at the jail. Going on the supposition that Marshack’s killer was also looking for something, let’s see if what our burglar was looking for might have been stashed in a place even he couldn’t get into.”

We stood up and Hammonds reached for the phone and then realized that Richards hadn’t moved.

“Problem, Detective?”

“Suggestion, sir. Since I’m a lot better on the computer side and Vince has patrolled that zone before, sir, I think we’d be better served by switching the assignments, sir.”

Hammonds swept us all with his gaze, as if trying to figure something out.

“Whatever it takes to get it done,” he said, and dismissed us.

28

Richards avoided my eyes when we split up, her to the jail, Vince and I to the parking lot. I watched her disappear down a long hallway.

“Hey,” Diaz said. “Don’t let it get to you, man. She’s like that all the time with all these cops trying to hit on her. More than two years her husband is dead and she’s still cold, man. It’s nothing personal. Women hold onto their pain.”

I turned back to him.

“That’s real philosophical, Vince.”

“Hey,” he shrugged. “I’m Cuban. I know women.”

We took Diaz’s SUV, the new equivalent to the old unmarked four-door Crown Victoria that used to scream “cop” to any criminal with a brain. The advantage in South Florida was that there were so many SUVs on the road they could blend in most of the time. But we still got second looks from the people hanging on the streets in the northwest zone.

“I wasn’t so sure about Richards myself when Hammonds made us partner up,” he started in again. “Then one night we’re doing a job on this place the kids called a satanic worship site in this old shut-down trash incinerator. I tell her to wait outside while I check out this big empty furnace room. Inside it gets this weird red glow when you put the flashlight on and I’m checking this pile of melted candles and BOOM! Some fucking psycho drops out of the ceiling on me. Big, strong guy got a fucking tire iron, man. I’m going oh shit and the next thing I hear is Richards screaming, ‘Freeze it up, asshole!’ ”

I was trying not to grin at the scene in my head. Richards saving Diaz’s ass. So I stared straight ahead and let him finish.

“She’s got the barrel of her 9mm screwed into this guy’s ear and I believed her, man. I think she would have done the guy.”

“You ease up on her after that?”

“Sure, you see how nice I am now,” he said, smiling. “I’m just warning you, man.”

Diaz slowed and crawled, almost royally, down the street that was considered the Brown Man’s territory. Two middle-aged men walking with a bag of groceries watched us pass, not stopping but turning their heads to follow our taillights, looking to see if anything was going to happen.

“So we think this cat is a junkie, right?” Diaz said. “Shouldn’t be too hard to pick out if he’s as big as that report says.”

“Maybe,” I said.

“Maybe? Hell, guy like that everybody notices, man.”

He pulled even to the Brown Man’s stool, but the dealer refused to look up. Catching me off guard, Diaz hit the power button and rolled down my passenger-side window.

“Yo, Carlyle. Was up?” Diaz yelled, leaning forward to look out my window.

Again, the Brown Man didn’t move his head, but his eyes did and when he saw me, he gathered the moisture in his cheek and spat in the gutter.

Diaz laughed and moved on.

“Look, Detective. I know this is your turf, but maybe it’d be a good idea if we tried to be a little less conspicuous,” I said. “My sense of this Baines guy is that he moves a lot on the side streets, out of the main flow.”

“Yeah, sure,” Diaz said. “How ’bout we stop and get some coffee and then cruise over by his place. Maybe he’s hanging around the perimeter of his momma’s.”

Diaz pulled into a market he called the “Stop and Rob” and I got two sixteen-ounce cups for myself and held one between my feet while sipping from the other. We drove in silence. I kept my window down, watching the sides of the streets, the activity between houses and businesses and the shadows cast by the high-density security lights in parking lots.

My old partner in Philadelphia had a habit of trying to educate me