The Soul Collectors

42

Nahant PD's complimentary continental breakfast came early, at 6:00 a.m., served on a cardboard tray. Darby looked over the selection: soggy white toast, a mealy apple and powdered scrambled eggs, all of it wrapped under cellophane beaded with steam. She had settled on the apple when Detective Lu appeared.

His fedora and belted raincoat were gone, but he wore another cheap suit, this one black and made of some polyester-rayon blend designed to resist wrinkling and repel stains. The white shirt beneath it, though, was wrinkled. Was it the same shirt he had worn yesterday? Maybe. He had worn that atrocious-looking pink and purple striped tie yesterday, no question.

Lu, his hands deep in his pockets, jingled his keys and spare change as he stared at her through the bars. His eyes were bright and alert. Focused.

'Ready to play ball?'

'Sure,' she said between mouthfuls. 'You want to be the pitcher or catcher?'

'I was thinking of bringing you on as a consultant.'

'For what?'

'This case you're involved in.'

'You should loosen your tie. It's cutting off the oxygen to your brain, making you delusional.'

'I'm trying to help you here.'

'No you're not,' she said, tossing the remains of the apple into the toilet. 'You're here to make a last-ditch effort to find out what's going on because the case is about to be yanked from you, and you've just seen your lottery ticket go up in flames.'

A panicked anger flashed behind Lu's eyes.

'Who was it?' she asked. 'Feds or Secret Service?'

Lu said, 'What's the federal government's interest in what happened to John Smith?'

Darby grinned, letting him hang on the hook for a moment.

'Don't know,' she said. 'Maybe you should ask the feds or whoever's here.'

'The state of Massachusetts takes its gun laws very seriously,' Lu said.

'I'll take my chances in front of the judge.'

'I don't think the judge is going to look too kindly on the fact that you used hollow-point ammunition. Judges take that sort of illegal ammo very seriously, as I'm sure you know. But I'm willing to drop the charges if — '

'Talk to my lawyer.'

'The feds will use you. You're a fool if you think they're going to allow you into their investigation.'

'You're right. They won't. But that doesn't change the fact that you're an asshole.'

Lu stiffened.

'We're done talking,' she said. 'Let me know when my lawyer arrives.'

Lu didn't move away from her cell. He stood there, red-faced and dejected, running through his options and trying to calculate his next move while knowing, deep down, he had lost.

A moment later, he turned and motioned for one of the guards. A patrolman came and unlocked her cell.

Lu slipped a LifeSaver past his lips. 'Your lawyer is here.'

Darby grabbed her jacket and followed Lu out of the holding pen and into a maze of busy cubicles. Phones were ringing everywhere, but the people seated at the desks or standing in doorways — even the ones huddling near the row of coffee-makers on the far side of the warm room — had stopped whatever they had been doing or saying to look at her. Some took quick glances while others stared.

'In here,' Lu said, holding open a grey-painted door.

Darby stepped inside the boxy conference room and came to a full stop when she saw who was seated at the table.