I laughed, short and harsh, and reached for a piece of pizza. Taking a bite, I shook my head and said, “I’m not going to second-guess the detectives working this case.”
“I’m not asking you to,” she said, taking a piece of her own. “But I would think that you’d have spent the last nineteen months second-guessing the department’s decision to fire you.”
I stopped chewing and glared at her. Her gaze didn’t flinch at all. Pretty, smart, and tough. At that moment, I wasn’t sure which I wanted to do more: get up and walk out, or ask her out on a date.
I looked away before she did. “I’m not talking about this.”
“Why were you fired, Mister Fearsson? Did it have something to do with the Blind Angel killings?”
“No.” I said it automatically, my gaze snapping back to hers. As soon as I thought about it, though, I wondered if this was true. I was fired because of the phasings, because my erratic behavior and my inability to function for three nights every fourth week became too much for my superiors to tolerate, and too much for Kona to cover up. I was fired because I’m a weremyste. And wasn’t that the same reason the Blind Angel Killer had evaded us for so long?
Billie must have seen the doubt in my eyes. “Did they blame you for the fact that they couldn’t catch him? Is that what happened?”
I shook my head, resisting the urge to say, You’re getting colder. “No. It wasn’t like that at all.”
“Then what?”
I bit into my slice of pizza and chewed.
Billie frowned and took a bite, staring right back at me, like we were kids daring each other to be the first to blink.
“Do you like prying into other people’s lives?” I asked after some time, breaking a lengthy silence and reaching for a second slice of pizza.
“That’s not what I do. I give people information. I tell stories about real-life situations. And occasionally I uncover truths that powerful people would prefer to keep hidden.”
“That’s what you think you’re doing now, isn’t it?”
She hesitated. “Yes, I guess it is.”
“I think you’re going for the cheap thrill. I think what you’re doing here with me is no different from what the tabloids do, or what you see on those cheesy news shows that come on TV after the real news.”
From the way she responded you would have thought that I’d slapped her. Her mouth was open in a little ‘o’ and her eyes were so wide I thought she might cry. But that look only lasted for the span of a heartbeat or two. Then she pressed her lips into a thin hard line and the muscles in her jaw tightened. It’s funny, but I didn’t notice until that instant that her eyes were vivid green and as hard as emeralds.
“You know what I think, Mister Fearsson?” Her voice had gone cold. She wasn’t trying to charm a story out of me anymore. “I think that all the stuff they wrote about you when you left the force was true. You’re a drunk or an addict, or you’re just too unreliable to serve in the PPD. I think you deserved what happened to you.”
Others had said much worse to me. People I’d known for years, fellow cops who I’d respected. Her insults came too late and from too great a distance to hurt.
I put down what was left of the slice I’d been eating, took one last sip of Coke, and wiped my face with a napkin. Then I slid out of the booth and stood.
“Thanks for dinner.”
I didn’t wait for an answer. And she didn’t try to stop me from leaving.
I went back to my office, intending to do a bit of billing work from my last few cases. I’d let it pile up, and I was still stewing over my conversation with Billie. This seemed as good a time as any to tackle a few mindless tasks. My hands were shaking, I was so mad. But I knew that would pass.
The answer machine was blinking-two messages. The first was from Kona and had come in around the time Billie and I were sitting down to eat:
“Hi, partner. Just got a call from Pete. The Deegan autopsy didn’t turn up anything too surprising. Cause of death is ‘sudden, trauma-induced cardiac arrest,’ just like the others. It’ll be a day or two before the toxicology report comes back, but Pete’s convinced that Claudia was high on Spark when she died. Otherwise, nothing new. Our friend doesn’t change much from killing to killing. Let me know what you found out from Robby. Bye.”
“Sudden, trauma-induced cardiac arrest.” I’d never heard the phrase before Gracia Rosado’s death. Now it had become a morbid joke I shared with Kona. Basically, it was the medical examiner’s way of saying “something really bad happened and it killed her.”
The second message was from Howard Wriker, who wanted to know if I’d learned anything yet about the drugs Claudia had been using. I wasn’t ready to tell him or the Deegans anything. I felt no need to protect Robby Sommer, but the last thing Kona needed was for the Deegans to be breathing down her neck about Robby, when we had no solid proof that he’d been involved in any way with Claudia’s murder. Hearing his voice did remind me though, that I needed to tell Kona that Robby had been running a Spark den over in the South Mountain District. She couldn’t arrest him on the little evidence I had for her, but she could pass the word to narcotics and they could keep an eye on him.
I called Kona at her home. Margarite answered, gave me a big hello, and insisted that I join them for dinner this coming weekend. I didn’t bother reminding her that the full moon was coming up; even with friends, the phasings weren’t easy to talk about. I asked for a raincheck. She said the following week would be good, and passed the phone to Kona.
“You been with Robby all this time?” Kona asked without saying hello.
“No. A reporter who I met at the Deegans’ tracked me down at my office and asked me a bunch of questions.”
“A reporter?”
“A blogger, actually. But Wriker was afraid of her, so I assume she’s pretty big.”
“You mean Billie Castle?”
Why was I the only person who’d never heard of her? I guess I needed to spend more time online. Or not.
“Yeah. You know her work?”
“Of course. Who doesn’t?”
“Well, anyway,” I said. “She wanted to know all about the Blind Angel case and why the PPD hadn’t caught the guy yet, and what my firing had to do with it all.”
“What did you tell her?”
“As little as possible.”
I could almost see Kona nodding. “Good. How’d it go with Robby?”
“He admitted selling to Claudia. Seems they were an item for a while. But he denied having anything to do with the other victims.”
“You think he was lying?” Before I could answer, she said, “Never mind. Of course he was lying.”
“I doubt we can prove it, though,” I said.
“Yeah, so do I.”
“And speaking of things we can’t prove, you should tell narcotics to keep one eye on Robby and another on a Spark den on 23rd near the freeway and the railroad.”
“All right. Care to explain that?”
“Not really. Not now.”
We both fell silent for a few seconds.
“Listen, Kona, I know this is the PPD’s investigation, and I should stay away from actual investigating-”
“I never should have said what I did, Justis. It’s not like we’re tracking down leads or focusing in on suspects. We’ve got nothing here.”
“Then you won’t mind if I poke around a little, maybe check in with some of my kind?”
“Not at all,” she said. “Let me know what you find out.”
“Of course.”
“And partner?”
“Yeah.”
“Watch yourself. If you start getting close to this guy, he’s not going to like it.”
“Right. Talk to you tomorrow.”
I hung up and took care of some of that paperwork. I would have preferred to head home, but I wanted to make sure that Billie Castle was long gone before I stepped outside again.
By the time I headed for the Z-ster, night had fallen and the moon was up. It was well past a quarter full and bone white in a velvet sky. And though we were still several days away from the full, I could already feel it tugging at my mind, bending my thoughts, making me shiver in spite of the warm air.