The Blue Hour

Four

“We need to get some ground rules straight,” said Merci Rayborn. She walked half a step ahead of Hess, her hands on her hips and a pair of aviator shades on. This was their first time out of the building and earshot of other deputies.

They moved across the impound yard, past cars last driven by drunkards, thieves, batterers, killers or more moderate citizens who had simply neglected to pay traffic fines. The late morning sun was hot and the sky was dusted with smog. The dirty windshields held the sunlight in opaque planes.

“First of all, this is my case,” she continued. Her voice was clear and certain but not loud. She was tall and big boned, dressed in chinos, a sport shirt and one of the ubiquitous black windbreakers of law enforcement, OCSD on the back in orange block letters. Black duty boots. Her hair was dark and pulled back.

She slowed a step and looked directly at Hess. “So I make the calls. If you’ve got a problem with that, you should probably excuse yourself from this one.”

“I need the benefits.”

“I heard.”

She was just ahead of him again and they continued walking. Merci Rayborn’s head turned and her glaze fixed on her new partner. Hess wondered if he’d lost half a step or if Merci was just fast. His neck was stiff from his fall out of the oak tree.

“Here’s my wish list,” she said. “One, don’t smoke in my car. I quit again two months ago and I’m prone to recidivism. Two, don’t bother asking me to lunch because I don’t take lunch hours. I eat fast food in the car or cafeteria food at my desk. Don’t talk to the media about Jillson or Kane. I’ll handle all media, or else leave it to Wally the Weasel in press information. We’re walking a tightrope here. You saw the Journal this morning so you know how it’s going to be. ‘The Purse Snatcher’ — isn’t that cute? They’re on this and they’ll stay on it until something better comes along. This is real middle-class fright-night stuff — not drive-bys in the barrio, not white trash, not narco. If women in this county stop going to malls it’s going to ruin the local economy. So just let me control the temperature, okay?”

“Okay.”

“If you have things to say, just say them. I’m a big girl. But I don’t owe you any favors, no matter how many mastodons you slew with my father. I don’t need any action behind my back, the way things are around here.”

“That’s concise. I understand.”

She stopped and guided Hess to a halt with a hand on his shoulder. “Last, if you want to play grab-ass and titty-pinch I’ll have your dick on a plate immediately. There, that’s my wish list. Now, can we all just get along?”

Hess watched the small smile lines form at the corners of the woman’s mouth, but with her eyes lost behind the glasses he didn’t know if they were born of humor or something else. The something else was what concerned him.

Hess understood now why Brighton had kept her on the case — a case that would surely get hot. He was trying to force either her triumph or her defeat. And his own role would be as witness to one or the other, depending on how it went.

She had to know it too. He nodded and shook her offered hand: dry, strong, smooth.

“I’m really not that hard to work with,” she said. It sounded to Hess like something she wanted to believe.

They came into the high bay where the impounds are processed. An old Toyota being examined by one of the lab techs featured a bloody head-sized impression on its roof and two smaller ones high on the hood. Hess guessed kneecaps for the hood dents and guessed the impact speed at over 30 mph. A tech turned to them with no expression at all and a pair of tweezers clamped around a human tooth.

Janet Kane’s BMW stood at the far end. It was still partially disassembled — doors off, side windows removed, seats pulled and now sitting against the bay wall. A loose tent of clear plastic had been taped over it.

Nearby was Lael Jillson’s Infiniti, as promised by Robbie Jillson, shining black in the fluorescent light. The driver’s door was open and one of the techs was lifting the window assembly from the side panel.

“What’s this car doing here again?” she asked. “We did the processing months ago.”

“I talked to her husband last night.”

She moved between Hess and the cars, then turned to face him. She pulled off her glasses. Hess could see absolutely nothing patient or forgiving.

“No. Hess, no. Do not conduct interviews without clearing them with me first. Do not request impounds, lab procedures or anything else without clearing them with me first. Do not reexamine crime scenes without talking to me first. I am the lead investigator. You are a retired, part-time consultant. You do not follow hunches or make arrangements in private. We move forward as a team. Do you understand?”

“I think you forgot something.”

“No, I did not.”

“On the cars. We need to see the bottom of the window glass. All four panels. Both cars.”

She was still standing in front of him with her head cocked just slightly to her right. She was surprisingly tall. Hess could see the anger in her eyes, and the suspicion.

“Kemp requested the car work,” he said. Hess wasn’t trying to blame Kemp on her behalf, but it sounded that way.

He watched as she forced her reason to override her emotion.

“Why dust the glass below the door line?” she asked. “Nobody can touch it down there unless the window’s off to start with.”

“Not for prints. For marks.”

“From what?”

“A Slim Jim.”

“Thieves quit using Slim Jims two decades ago.”

“He’s not a thief.”

She turned and walked over to the BMW. She lifted away the plastic sheet. Hess helped her lift one of the heavy window assemblies and angle it into the overhead light. He looked down the gentle curve of the glass. The first two were clean.

Hess found what he was looking for on the third window — rear, driver’s side. The jimmy tool had left three inches of dull scuff along the outer bend of the glass, near the bottom. It was the kind of shallow abrasion made by a steel tool as the operator moved it up and down, trying to hook the door release. You couldn’t see it when the window was in the door. It looked to Hess like this one had taken a little time. He knew old-time car thieves who could hook a latch in five seconds or less, depending on the make and model. The rub was the alarm.

A few minutes later, Ike, one of the lab techs, got the rear driver’s side window assembly out of Lael Jillson’s black Infiniti. Black infinity, thought Hess, bending down to see the Jim marks low on the glass.

Rayborn brushed her fingertips against the mark and stood. “If he’s forcing in with the Jim, then he has to shut off the antitheft alarms.”

“That’s first. If they’re turned on to start with.”

“I’ll get Ike to tear them apart wire by wire. Find out how he’s doing it.”

Hess wondered how long a job Ike could make it, if you ordered him around like that. Cooperation in a bureaucracy was never free. It wasn’t really Hess’s business, but if something hurt the efficiency of the work, then it was his business. Merci Rayborn was his immediate supervisor, but the Purse Snatcher was running them both for now. He dropped the thought, something Hess was learning to do after sixty-seven years on the planet.

“It’s all electronic now,” he said. “On the later models.”

Then Merci said something that surprised Hess. His own thoughts were moving in the same direction as hers, but she’d gotten there first.

“If he’s not making them open up the cars,” she said, “maybe he’s already waiting for them when they get in. The backseat, behind the driver. That’s why he’s used outside parking lots, at night.”

Hess looked down at the scratched window, then up at Rayborn, nodding.

“I hate this bastard,” she said quietly. Then, over her shoulder, “Ike!”