The Last Detective by Robert Crais Page B

gray table. The room was painted beige because an LAPD psychologist had determined that beige was soothing, but nobody looked soothed.
    Richard said, “Finally. The sonofabitch called Lucy, Cole. He phoned her goddamned house.”
    He put his hand on her back, but she shrugged it away.
    “Richard, you're really pissing me off with the snide remarks.”
    Richard's jaw knotted, and he looked away. I pulled a chair beside her and lowered my voice.
    “How are you?”
    She softened for a moment, but then a fierceness came to her face.
    “I want to find this sonofabitch myself. I want to undo all this and make sure that Ben is safe and then I want to do things to this man.”
    “I know. Me, too.”
    She glanced at me with her fierce eyes, then shook her head and stared at the tape recorder. Gittamon took a seat opposite her, and Starkey and Myers stood in the door.
    Gittamon said, “Ms. Chenier, you don't have to hear this again. There's really no need.”
    “I want to hear it. I'll be hearing it all night.”
    “All right, then. Mr. Cole, just so you know, Ms. Chenier received the call at five-forty this evening. She was able to record most of the conversation, but not the beginning, so what you're about to hear is an incomplete conversation.”
    “Starkey told me part of that, yes. Did you trace back to the same number?”
    “The phone company is working on it now. This recording you're about to hear is a duplicate, so the sound quality isn't so good. We've sent the original to SID. They might be able to pull something off the background, but it isn't likely.”
    “All right. I understand that.”
    Gittamon pressed the Play button. The cheap speaker filled with an audible hiss, then a male voice began in mid-sentence:
The Voice: —know you had nothing to do with this, but that fucker's gotta pay for what he did.
Lucy: Please don't hurt him! Let him go!
The Voice: Shut up and listen! You listen! Cole killed them! I know what happened and you don't, so LISTEN!
    Gittamon stopped the tape.
    “Is this the man who called you last night?”
    “Yes, that's him.”
    Everyone in the room watched me, but Richard and Lucy most of all. Richard was slumped back in his chair with his arms crossed, looking sullen, but Lucy was leaning forward, poised at the edge of the table like a swimmer preparing to race. I had never seen her looking at me that way.
    Gittamon noted my answer in his pad.
    “All right. Now that you're hearing the voice a second time, does anything about it ring a bell? Do you recognize him?”
    “No, nothing. I don't know who it is.”
    Lucy said, “Are you sure?”
    The sinews and tendons stood taut on her hands and her breath labored as if she was holding an enormous weight.
    “I don't know him, Luce.”
    Gittamon touched the button again.
    “All right, then. We'll go on.”
    When he pressed the button, their voices overlapped, each shouting to be heard over the other.
Lucy: Please, I'm begging you—
The Voice: I was there, lady, I know! They slaughtered twenty-six people—
Lucy: Ben is a child! He never hurt anyone! Please!
The Voice: They were in the bush, off on their own, so they figured, what the fuck, no one will know if we don't tell them, so they swore each other to secrecy, but Cole didn't trust them—
Lucy: —tell me what you want! Please, just let my son go—
The Voice:—Abbott, Rodriguez, the others—he murdered them to get rid of the witnesses! He fired up his own team!
Lucy: He's a baby—!
The Voice:—sorry it had to be your son, but Cole's gonna pay. This is his fault.
    The message stopped.
    The tape recorder hissed quietly for several seconds, then Gittamon rewound the tape. Someone shifted behind me, either Starkey or Myers, then Gittamon cleared his throat.
    I said, “Jeez. If he knows all that, I must've let one get away.”
    The skin under Lucy's eye flickered.
    “How can you joke?”
    “I'm joking because it's so absurd. What do you want me to say to something like this? None