Tropical Depression (Billy Knight Thrillers 1)

I could feel it going against me. It was the same feeling I used to get in court, trying to explain how the good-looking, clean-cut guy in the well-tailored suit did all those awful things I had arrested him for, and seeing the jury eat up his innocent expression and admire his tailored elegance. No sale.

“Nancy, just give me a chance to lay this all out for you. None of this is what it seems.”

“It never is,” she said.

“Please,” I said.

She gave it one more long pause, for effect or for real, I couldn’t tell. I felt my greasy jail breakfast knot in my gut while I waited. “All right,” she said at last. “Meet me after work. Six o’clock at my place.”

“I’ll be there,” I said.

“You better be,” she said, and hung up.

I lay back on the bed and thought about what to do with Doyle. My first thought was to take the whole thing to Captain Spaulding. He would figure he owed me, and he was the ultimate stand-up guy.

The problem was, there was really nothing he could do. He would have to turn it over to Internal Affairs, and then it was back in Doyle’s court and Doyle had enough muscle to squash it. If Spaulding investigated it himself, he would hit the same blind alleys Roscoe had hit.

I needed somebody with even more clout than Doyle. I could think of only one person. I didn’t exactly have a warm relationship with him, but I was pretty sure he’d let me in the door.

I put on clean clothes, the best I’d brought with me, and headed out.

A police cruiser blocked the entrance to the small parking lot outside the hotel. The lights were flashing, and two officers stood beside my car, looking into it.

They looked up as I approached. “This your car?” asked the first one. He was maybe twenty-eight, white and baby-faced with a small, fuzzy mustache.

“It’s mine,” I told him. “Is there a problem?”

“Could I see some identification, please?” He asked it politely, but his partner had moved into the Academy-approved position to cover his partner in case I had a bazooka in my wallet.

I took my driver’s license from my wallet and handed it to Babyface. He glanced at it. “It’s him,” he told his partner, and they drew their guns.

“Against the car. Move!” Babyface said. I leaned against the car.

“Am I allowed to ask what this is about?”

He kicked my feet apart, frisked me, and put his cuffs on my wrists without answering. “In the car,” he said, and he walked me to the cruiser.

Three and a half hours later I was still wearing the handcuffs. I was sitting in an interrogation room at the Hollywood bureau where Babyface had dumped me while he filled out paperwork.

I had one anxious eye on the clock. I wasn’t worried about spending another night in jail, but I didn’t want to miss my appointment with Nancy.

The door swung open and a potbellied guy about forty came in. He wore a cheap suit, a vague expression, and several gallons of cologne that smelled like he’d found it in the rest room of a disco.

“You Knight?” he asked, turning a chair around and leaning thick forearms on its back.

“That’s right.”

He put a grimy toothpick in the corner of his mouth and started chewing. “Detective Mancks. I’d like to ask you a couple of questions.”

“Too bad,” I said. “Because I don’t have any answers at all.”

He cocked his head to the side. “That so?”

“Yup. I’m afraid my lawyer has all my answers. He’ll be happy to talk to you.”

“I’m investigating a capital crime, Knight.”

“And I bet you’re doing a bang-up job, too.” I held up my wrists with the cuffs on them. “This one of your investigative techniques?”