The Darkness of Evil (Karen Vail #7)(41)

He licked his lips and canted his head toward his hands. “Name was Eddie. He was just a kid who hung out at the playground. Talked shit, smoked reefer. I don’t think he went to our school.”

“How old were you?” Curtis asked.

“Fourteen.”

“And what happened?”

“We’d been smoking. Rocky got us some angel dust and we was real wasted. Eddie came by and …” He shook his head, as if he had some water trapped in his ear. He slapped his forehead a few times. “And he had a gun. And Rocky took it from him and shot him. And me.”

Vail recoiled. “Why?”

Stuckey looked up at her. “I don’t f*ckin’ know, we was high. Rocky had a temper, even back then. Maybe Eddie was talkin’ shit again, but whatever. It happened real fast. After the gunshots, I didn’t hear or see nothin’.”

“Where’d you get shot?” Curtis asked.

Stuckey pulled back a lock of hair and revealed a dime-shaped scar overlying his temple.

That might explain Stuckey. But … “And Eddie. He died?”

Stuckey nodded, his gaze again somewhere on the floor.

Vail ran a hand across her mouth. “What about the police?”

“Well, Scott told me him and Booker and Rocky left. The cops came and found me there, took me to the hospital. Next thing I know, when I woke up after they did surgery and I got out of the hospital, they found Rocky and arrested him.”

How come I don’t know about this? It’s not in his file. Unless—

“But Rocky didn’t do time,” Curtis said. “In prison. Did he?”

“Booker was the only witness who remembered what happened. And he said it was Eddie’s fault, Eddie came at him and pulled the gun on us and Rocky was trying to get it from him and it went off.”

“Is that what happened?”

“That’s what Booker said. That’s all that mattered.”

“But didn’t you just say—”

“I don’t remember!” He slapped a hand against the chair arm. “The bullet. It made a hole in my brain.” His face was red and he had started to perspire.

“Okay, Vincent. It’s all right, I understand.” Vail stood up and pulled out a card from her pocket. “If Rosc—if Rocky calls you, I want you to let me know right away. I really don’t want to have to arrest you and put you in jail. And don’t mention we came to visit you because you’ll never hear from him again. Can you do that?”

“But that’d be like telling on him. And Rocky’s my friend.”

“Look. Vincent.” Vail gathered her thoughts. “Rocky did some bad things. He killed a lot of innocent people, men and women who were just living their lives. And he’s doing it again. I know he’s your friend, but he’s a dangerous guy. It’s our job to keep him from hurting more people. You can help us do that. That’d be best for everybody.”

“You help us out,” Curtis said as he came around to Vail’s side, “you’d be a hero.”

That’s not his motivator. “I can even see about getting you some reward money.” She pulled out her wallet, removed a twenty, and offered it to Stuckey.

He snatched it with the alacrity of a cheetah.

“Okay?”

Stuckey nodded sheepishly. “Yeah, okay.”

AS THEY PULLED AWAY FROM THE CURB, Curtis looked back at the apartment building. “You think he’ll call us?”

“More relevant question is whether Marcks will call him again.” She was silent a minute, then said, “Poor guy.”

“Drugs, guns, and stupidity are a bad mix.”

“We’ve gotta find that juvie case. It’s obviously sealed. There was nothing like that in Underwood’s file—or in yours.”

“Nope.” Curtis looked out at the passing snow-covered foliage. “Think it went down like Vincent said?”

“Knowing our buddy Marcks, no. He probably killed the kid. No struggle necessary. But who knows. Maybe it was just a dumb fight between two kids who were high.”

“Either way, probably doesn’t matter.”

Vail tilted her head. “Actually, it does. Because now we’ve got another friend of theirs to follow up on. This Lance joker.”

“Vincent said he never saw him again after that.”

“Vincent didn’t see him again. Doesn’t mean Marcks didn’t.”





20


Curtis hung up his phone. “That was the sergeant in charge of the records room. It’s a bit of a quagmire.”

“How so?” Vail negotiated a turn onto Chain Bridge Road, then slowed behind a line of cars. The temperature had dropped and snow had begun falling again.

“Fairfax County used to be on an old CAD—computer-aided dispatch system. Back in ’97 or ’98, we brought in Northrop Grumman and migrated over to new records management software. Idea was to go to a paperless reporting system. Problem was, the integration was a massive data dump. All sorts of shit happened, records got … well, not lost per se, but misplaced. Well, not really misplaced. They weren’t compatible with the new system so they didn’t transfer over.”

“So does this Marcks file still exist or are we wasting our time?”