Shadow Man by Alan Drew

Author:Alan Drew
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2017-05-23T04:00:00+00:00

“Postmark?” Ben said, handing the letter to Carolina.

“Santa Elena,” Hernandez said. “Saturday.”

“Sent the morning after the killing?”

“Appears that way,” Hernandez said.

“He’s still in town,” Ben said.

“Got this, too.” He handed each of them a cassette tape. “Marco picked it up at Viral Records. Made copies. L.A. County’s got people trying to decipher it; think the lyrics might be some kind of code.”

“This guy’s not making a secret out of this, is he?” Carolina said.

“He wants us to know,” Ben said. “It’s a power move that way.”

Carolina set the note on Hernandez’s desk. “What does he mean? Where don’t we want to look?”

“Someplace obvious,” Ben said. He picked up the letter and reread it.

“I don’t know,” Hernandez said. “But let’s get on it.”

When Carolina left, Ben stood and set the letter on the desk.

“Stick around a minute,” Hernandez said. Ben sat back down.

“This is a suicide,” Hernandez said, dropping Lucero’s case file on the desk in front of him.

“That doesn’t take care of the serial.”

“The serial’s random,” Hernandez said. “But serial plus dead kid looks like a crime spree.”

Ben nodded: The mayor was shutting the case down. “Investors,” he said.

“ME’s report will be in tonight,” Hernandez said. “Besides, we need all our resources on the serial.”

Ben opened the report and saw that the box had been marked suicide. All Hernandez needed was Ben’s signature. Sign it, file it away. Some screwed-up kid kills himself. It happens. No one to blame but the kid. Sign it and it all goes away. The master-planned illusion intact.

“What was the deal with you and Coach Wakeland the other night?” Hernandez said.

Ben scanned Natasha’s report—bullet penetrated the meninges, causing traumatic damage to the cerebral cortex and corpus callosum, ischemic cascade resulted.

“He asked too many questions,” Ben said. “Had to remind him that I was the one doing the asking.”

“Didn’t you swim for him years ago?”

Ben nodded once, flipped the pages, and found a ballistics report. No one told him the report had come in.

“Had some kind of falling-out, right?”

“I blew states,” Ben said. “He didn’t like that.”

Ben glanced at the report: .45 caliber. Purchased Chula Vista, down near the Mexican border, 1977.

“Unfinished business, huh?” Hernandez said.

“Just lost my patience, Chief.”

Hernandez’s secretary called him over: L.A. Times on the phone, wanting a quote about the investigation.

“Keep it professional, Ben, especially with pillars of our little society,” Hernandez said. “And drop that file on my desk before heading out.”

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