BEFORE FOLLOWING the trail of bread crumbs Maeve had thrown his way, Darian had to bake a few of his own. The first trick in avoiding the police was to get all the information he could about their investigation into Moses Guerra’s murder. It had been handled by DI Corey, which meant Cnocaid station, so he called up his senior contact there.
A good investigator makes sure they have someone in each of the six police stations in Challaid, preferably more than one. Darian didn’t often pay them to talk; it’s important you understand how it worked. There were rare occasions where money changed hands, but typically it was a favor for a favor, one scratched back for another. Darian did things for these cops, typically gathered information they couldn’t reach, which helped their own investigations along, so they did the same for him.
His senior person at Cnocaid was DC Cathy Draper, a woman in her early forties and one of his earliest and most willing contacts. Her story is for another time. For now we’ll mention only her very small role in the story of Moses Guerra, meeting Darian to provide information, and to gain a favor from him by so doing.
Meeting with DC Draper was an elaborate operation, Darian assumed because she worked in the same station as Corey and so had more reason to be careful than most. It was early in the morning, half past six, and she wanted to meet in the back office of Siren’s record store on MacUspaig Road, just north of Sutherland Square, so it was only a fifteen-minute walk from home for Darian. It meant he had to get up at an ungodly hour. The fact she wanted to meet there, the back office of a record store run by an incalculably dubious former record company boss, was cause for surprise, but not necessarily concern. Cops were entitled to keep strange friends, too. She would have parked out front on the long, shop-filled street, just about the only time of day you could find a spot in the whole Bank district. Darian cut down the alley from the back and went in the side door, next to the entrance for From Cambalu, a clothing store that sold the finest, handcrafted items twelve-year-old Indonesians could produce.
She was there ahead of him, in a windowless storeroom filled with plastic containers, looking nervy, a small, tanned woman with short, dark hair. Her arched eyebrows and downturned mouth gave the look of a constant frown, and mood often matched appearance. Contacts all had to be handled differently. Someone like Vinny was a pal; you could joke with him, chat about shared interests and family matters, have your meetings somewhere you could get a drink and relax. Others, like Draper, had to be handled like a bottle of nitroglycerine, so there was no sarcasm in his voice when he said, “Thanks for meeting me.”
“You shouldn’t be sniffing around Corey.”
He had mentioned that he needed to know about Moses Guerra to make sure she was armed with the right information when they met. “I’m not; he’s finished with the Guerra case. I know Corey took over the murder investigation and didn’t get very far, and I need to know exactly where he did go with it.”
“It’s still his case and you’re still taking a risk.”
“It isn’t through choice, trust me.”
“I should be staying away from the bastard, too.”
“You work with him.”
“He’ll crush you, if he finds out. That’s his way with people who go against him. You and your family. Anyone he can get at you through, he will. He’s smart, as well as dangerous.”
“I’m not going after Corey, just whoever killed Guerra. The worst I’ll do with Corey is annoy him, not attack him. I need to know what he found out about the killing.”
She sighed but didn’t try to discourage him further; it wasn’t in her best interests. “He didn’t find much, but he doesn’t always look for much. He has his own priorities. I know Guerra was a lifetime criminal, but he stood close enough to legality to get away with it. They found connections to very clean financial people that didn’t go far. They decided it was probably the girlfriend. She knew about the money and wanted some.”
“They talk to anyone interesting?”
“Nobody in Guerra’s building heard anything, and they don’t think it started inside the flat. Might have been someone jumped him outside when he arrived home and he ran for it, ended up dead in an alley when that same someone caught him up a few streets over. He didn’t get far. There was a waiter, the restaurant backs onto the alley, he said the body wasn’t there when he went out for a smoke, but he must have been lying, body would have been there for a couple of hours by then.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it from me. I wasn’t on the team. I’m not one of Corey’s people. He has his own group in the anti-corruption unit, cops that are all loyal to him. Mostly younger detectives, they owe him their rapid rise. Even when they’re moved out of his unit to other stations or leave the force, they’re still Corey’s detectives before they’re Challaid Police Force’s.”
“It’s not a lot.”
“It’s more than you’ll get from anyone else. No one inside his unit will talk to you. They’re a team, and you’re an outsider. They don’t even talk to other cops, so your family connection won’t help. Corey will hammer you for sticking your nose in, and he’ll hammer me twice for helping.”
“I know. I owe you one.”
“A big one.”
“Fine.”
The thought of another favor acquired seemed to satisfy DC Draper and she left through the front of the record store. Darian left by the side door and went to the office, first one there, for another day of watching warehouses that had nothing to show him.