Walk in Darkness - A Thriller (Jon Stanton Mysteries) (20 page)

42

Stanton stood outside the
Szleky’s condo and called Slim Jim. The photo of Beth was still in his hand; her father had given him permission to take it. Slim Jim answered on the third ring.

“Yeah, Jon, what’s up?”

“Run a check of the three girls’ sports teams.”

“What?”

“Yvette, Sarah and Beth all played sports. Either softball or soccer.”

“You think it’s someone involved on their teams?”

“No, run a check of who did their photos. They all had similar photos. We need to cross reference all the names involved with the team photos. All the photographers, assistants, secretaries, and then if nothing hits on all three we need to see where the photos were developed and do the same thing there.”

“You think that’s really it?”

“I know it, Jim. This is the connection. This is what all three have in common. We’re gonna get this guy . . . Jim, you still there?”

There was a sound that Stanton had grown accustomed to that he heard now off in the distance. He wouldn’t have noticed except that Slim Jim
had stopped speaking when he heard them through the phone. They were sirens.

“What was that?” Stanton said.

“What?”

“You stopped speaking when you heard the sirens.” 

“Jon, you need to know something: I didn’t have a choice.”

“Choice for what? What did you do, Jim?”

“I’m sorry, Jon.”

The sirens were growing near and were just around the block now. Stanton realized they were for him.

“What’d they give you, Jim? What’d they give you to sell me out?”

“It’s not like that.”

The patrol cars screeched to a halt in front of the condos and two officers jumped out. Behind them was another unit and one of the officers had a shotgun. They took aim and demanded he get down on the ground and put his hands behind his head.

Stanton dropped his phone, and did what they wanted.

The cell was cold though outside the precinct was nearly eighty degrees. Stanton sat on a cot. There was a steel toilet and sink and they appeared like new. In fact, this cell was never used anymore. It was in the back of the precinct
, only used temporarily years ago when the building had to be renovated and they’d needed a place to hold the inmates.

N
o one else was nearby and the door leading to the rest of the precinct was locked. He stood up and paced the cell for a while, but soon grew bored and lay down on the cement floor, staring up at the harsh lights in the ceiling. He put his hands behind his head and ran Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos through his head. He pictured himself on the beach, lying on his back in the soft sand, hearing the laughter of people playing in the water.

Stanton heard the door open but didn’t respond. He kept his eyes glued to the ceiling and the light that after some time could’ve just as easily been the sun. He heard a chair brought near the cell door and the slow, deliberate, breathing of the person sitting there. Stanton eased himself out of his mind’s eye and returned to where he was. He looked over and saw Ransom
Talano sitting backward on a folding chair.

“Do you want something to eat?”

“No, I’m fine. Thank you.”

“You sure? You may be in here a while.”

“I know. I’m not very hungry.”

“Do you know why you’re here?”

“Yes.”

“Then you know what I’m going to be charging you with.”

“My guess would be impersonating an officer and obstruction of justice.”

“I had just thought about the obstruction but the impersonating charge’s brilliant. That was what you were doing, you know
, acting like a cop when you weren’t one. That’s what you’ve been doing a long time now, isn’t it?”

“Who exactly is it that you think I am?”

“I think you’re Harlow. And Eli Sherman. And Meadgers, and Rogers and Rojas and the whole damned lot of ‘em.”

“I’m not. I testified against Harlow. I was the one that provided everything to the Feds. I did everything I could to stop him.”

“And how many Nazis said the same thing after the World War? It’s easy to look back and say ‘you did everything you could.’ It’s much harder to actually help.”

“What did you expect me to do?”

“I expected you to stop them. To come to IAD with your information and wear a wire. To bring those sonsabitches down.”

“I didn’t know if his reach extended to IAD or not. I couldn’t trust you.”

“Bullshit. You can’t trust yourself because you don’t know what you want. That’s how it works: you figure out what you want, see it in your mind, and then work to it. You didn’t know if you wanted to bust your pal Harlow or not. Granted, you were in a tough fucking spot. But you made a choice and crapped out. Now it’s time to pay the piper.”

“What you did was entrapment
. I’ll beat it.”

“I know. But you’ll spend some time in jail
while the case is pending and be in all the papers. You wouldn’t even be able to find a job as a security guard after this is all done.”

“I’ve already quit. I don’t think that’s it. There’s something else with you.
Something driving you. This is personal, not professional.”

Ransom stood up and moved the chair back against the wall. “Your bail’s been set. I’m sure you can get someone in here to post it. If you’ve got anyone left.”

43

Stanton spent another two hours in the cell before a uniform came and told him bail had been posted and he was free to leave. He gathered his wallet, belt, and keys from the front desk and expected to walk outside and see Melissa standing there. Instead, he saw Danielle leaning against her car, smoking.

“What are you doing here?” he said.

“Something I never thought I would.” She threw the cigarette on the ground and stepped on it. “Do you need a ride home?”

“I need to get my car out of impound, but I can just call a cab for now.”

“I posted three grand for your bail. I think that’s worth a conversation.”

Stanton nodded and got into the passenger seat. As they pulled away Danielle lit a fresh cigarette and rolled down her window.

“I can’t believe I let this happen to you.”

“What do they have on you, Danny? It wasn’t just drugs; lots of cops are strung out. What is it? No lies.”

She took a few long draws from her cigarette and ashed out the window. She waited until they came to a stoplight to start speaking again.

“I was fresh out of the academy, not even a year. They needed girls to volunteer for some busts the county was doing with the LAPD. There was a meth house ran by some white supremacists, the Fourth Reich
, a prison gang out of the Midwest that made their way here. I was under almost six months. I did things they never trained me for. They made me strip for them once and I had to make out with another girl. They were going to gang rape me but I got out of it by telling them I was infected with AIDS. You have to say AIDS because if you say gonorrhea or genital warts or anything like that they won’t care. They’ll still rape you. That was one thing I learned from the other girls that were there.

“After about six months of hanging out with them they trusted me enough to keep me around when they were packaging their drugs. I got a
lotta good stuff. Distribution channels, profits, we even found out they had a judge on their payroll. Everything was going good. But some fucking rookie cop that I was at the academy with saw me and came up to say hi. I pretended like I didn’t know him and everything seemed fine. I wasn’t experienced enough yet to know that they kill people even suspected of working with the cops.

“When we got to the house that night two guys grabbed me and dragged me into a room. They smacked me around and took off their clothes. They said they were going to call everyone they knew to come over and rape me and when they got a piece they were going to take me to a field and light me on fire. That’s what they did to people that worked with the cops. But the room they put me in was where I slept most nights. I kept a gun under the bed. They threw me on the floor and I went for it and got it. I put a slug into the first one’s head and the other one tried to jump on top of me and got three into his chest. He died right there, on top of me. I saw his face as he died.

“I was scared, Jon. I was new and I didn’t know what was going to happen. One of the other girls, the one that told me about the AIDS thing, she ran into the room when she heard the shots. She hadn’t heard that I was suspected of being a cop. She thought the two guys were just going to rape me and I shot them. She took the gun from me and told me to get out of there and never come back.”

“What’d you do?”

“I left. When I went in to the station and talked to the detectives running the undercover, I thought they could charge me with murder. So I didn’t say anything. I just said that there’d been a fight and two guys had shot each other and I tried to stop them so they thought I was a cop and I couldn’t go back. I knew none of those guys would talk so no one would ever find out what really happened. They sent some patrols to check out my story but when they got to the house the bodies were gone and no one would talk.

“So
, after, I transferred from LA to San Diego and I thought it was over. Then I got a box in the mail. It was from Ransom. The gun I used to shoot those men. I don’t know where he found it or how, but he did. He called me the next day and said that he wasn’t going to tell anybody but that I would have to do some work for him now.”

“You didn’t do anything wrong. Deadly force was justified.
And they had no right sending a rookie undercover with a prison gang.”

“Who would believe me now? It would be IAD doing the investigation; do you really think they would believe me? If Ransom knows where the bodies are they will charge me with murder, Jon.”

Stanton looked out the window. They were passing a homeless shelter and the line for food stretched around the building and down the sidewalk. There were several families with children standing in line next to meth-heads and the insane.

“He needs to be stopped,” he said.

“How?”

“I don’t know. But I think there’s one person that might.”

44

The Federal Correctional Institution in Lompoc, California had a special building on the prison complex grounds used to house
minimum security inmates. As the cab dropped Stanton off at six in the morning in front of the facility, the prison was just going through their morning rituals of waking everybody up and getting ready for breakfast hour.

Danielle had called ahead and used her detective credentials to set an appointment for him. While he was gone, he had given her specific instructions: run a crosscheck of every person associated
with the sports team photos of the victims in the Sandman cases. Danielle had reluctantly agreed after he told her there was no one else he could rely on.

Stanton walked inside the white rectangular building with the metal awning over the front entrance. He fiddled absently with the lighter in his pocket a few minutes before taking a deep breath and walking to the reception area.

He checked in, got a locker to hold his wallet, lighter and keys, and received a visitor’s badge. He sat for twenty minutes in the waiting area before a federal correctional officer came and got him and led him to the inmate visiting area.

He was surprised how different a
minimum security federal facility was from a state prison. The state prison was stained cement and steel stools. The federal facility was couches and coffee tables and even a vending machine.

Michael R. Harlow came out in his prison jumpsuit. He stood for a long time as the correctional officer began pac
ing up and down the hall, waiting for them to finish. Harlow waited until he was on the other end of the hall before speaking.

“I dreamed about this moment, but I never thought it would happen.”

“I have something to talk to you about, Mike. So say what you need to say so we can get to it.’

Harlow sat down across from him in a recliner. “Say what I’m going to say? I’m going to spend the rest of my life in here because of you.”

“No, Mike. You’re going to spend the rest of your life in here because of you.”

There was a long pause as the two men looked to each other.

“You know, the guard’s not paying attention. I could probably snap your neck before he even looks in this direction. I got nothing to lose.”

“That’s not true. You’d get transferred from all your
minimum security white-collar buddies and be put in gen pop at the federal pen. You’d be a former cop serving with high-level drug dealers, rapists, and gang bangers. I hear they let you play golf in minimum security; is that true?”

Stanton watched Harlow crumble before his eyes. His posture went from proud and defiant to weak and apathetic. He slouched on the chair and took a deep breath.

“What do you want, Jon? Did you just come here to see me like this?”

“I take no pleasure in your suffering. I never wanted this.”

“I know you didn’t. You gave me a chance to turn myself in. That’s what that was, wasn’t it? I could’a told ‘em the story from my side of things.”

“To be honest, you were my friend. I was
kinda hoping you would run to Mexico and we would never see you again.”

Harlow grinned. “I’ve gotten to know everybody in here and you know what I’ve realized? It wouldn’t matter. When you do evil, evil has a way of coming back on you. Weird as hell, but it’s true.”

“I’ve never thought otherwise.” Stanton cleared his throat, an act of nervousness he didn’t think he had anymore. “Mike, there’s a reason I’m here. I need to ask you for something.”

“This ought to be good. What is it?”

“You read the news about what’s going on?”

“Yeah, I know about the suit and all that. What is it exactly you need help with?”

“Ransom Talano, from IAD. He wants to destroy me and every other detective that ever happened to be working when you were chief.”

Harlow scoffed. “I hated that guy. You know I was the stupid bastard that actually promoted him from detective to IAD?

“It’s more than an investigation for him. It’s personal. He’s obsessed with me. He even showed up at my house.”

Harlow leaned forward. “I know, deep down, it’s my fault I’m in here. But part of me still wants to jump over this table and strangle the life out of you, Jon. I can’t help you.”

“You can’t or you won’t?”

“I won’t.”

“What if I were to give you something in exchange?”

“What could you possibly have that I would need in here?”

“Your wife will eventually get remarried and have a husband to take care of her. But there’ll be things you need with the kids. Family will do those things for a while, but they’ll find it a hassle and realize they don’t see you that much anyway. You’ll need someone to do those things for you.”

“And what things would those be?”

“I have no idea. But things will come up. Maybe you’ll need to talk to your son about sex or drugs and he won’t come here. I could take what you want to tell him down to him. Or maybe bring you information on whoever your wife marries. Stepdads are usually abusers, Mike. You’re going to want someone keeping an eye on that.”

Harlow looked back to the officer
, who glanced to them and then turned and walked in the other direction again.

“How do I know you’ll keep your word?” Harlow asked.

“You don’t. But you know me. Do you think I won’t?”

“No, I don’t think that.”

“Then help me beat this. And I’ll help you. You know I’m right; you’ll need things and eventually there won’t be anyone else.”

Harlow thought a long while, rubbing his face and looking off to the lights on the vending machine.

“Ransom won’t destroy you. Not until you’re useless to him. I saw him take people to the brink, where they thought they couldn’t make it, and then pull them back. But you owe him after that. That’s what he wants: people he can control. You’re no good to him as a civilian. He won’t toss you from the force if he can help it.”

“I already quit.”

“No, don’t quit. Get your job back. You’re in the middle of a lawsuit; it doesn’t look good for you to quit or be let go. Talk to Chin, I’m sure he’ll give you your job back. IAD will have jurisdiction over you again, but I’m telling you, that’s why Ransom won’t go all the way on this.”

“Then what?”

“Then, you gotta dig up his skeletons before he digs up yours. And I’ve known that nasty fucker a long time, Jon. He’s got a lot of skeletons.”