What You Don't Know(29)

“I’m fine,” Hoskins says. “I was about to head home, Chief. Is there something I can do for you?”

“I guess you heard about the two floaters out at Chatfield?”

“Yeah.” He tosses his coat over the back of his chair and sits. Kicks back his feet. “I read about them this morning, in the paper.”

“And Loren told you, didn’t he? He keeps you filled in?”

Hoskins presses his lips together, doesn’t say a word. He might be a cop, but he’s not a goddamn snitch.

“You don’t have to answer that,” Black says. “Loren’s never been able to keep his mouth shut. But in this case, I don’t give a damn.”

A part of Hoskins is glad to hear that Black won’t put a stop to Loren’s calls, there’s a part of him that likes those calls from Loren, looks forward to them. Wants to hear the latest goings-on. It keeps him in the loop, but that loop is the problem. The reason why he can’t move on.

“Listen, I’m calling because another victim’s been found, looks like she’s connected to the first two.”

“Okay.” Hoskins knows exactly where Black’s going with this, and he has the sudden urge to hang up the phone, to throw on his coat and run out the door, don’t let it hit your ass on the way out, and pretend like he never got this call.

“It looks like Seever’s work.”

“Seever’s in prison.”

“I know where he is, Hoskins. But now we have three women who’re all connected to Seever in some way—and they’re all dead.”

“So why’re you calling me?”

“I want you working this case with Loren.”

“No.”

“You seem to think that was a request,” Black says. “Believe me, it’s not.”

“My answer’s still no.” Hoskins stuck his thumb in his mouth, chewed on the skin around the nail bed. It was a habit that used to piss his father off, and Joe would smack him upside the head when he caught him at it, complain about how nasty it was.

You afraid the nail-biting’s gonna keep me from landing a husband, or something? Hoskins had asked once, and Joe had laughed, more out of surprise than anything else, and he’d laid off on the nagging. For a while.

“The scene’s down in Lakewood, on the east side of 470,” Black says, as if Hoskins hadn’t refused. “I need you out there in the next half-hour.”

“You’ve got lots of detectives upstairs,” Hoskins says. “Give it to one of them.” He’s trying to worm his way out, but he already knows he’s going. Not just because Black is giving him an order but because he wants to go, no matter what he says.

“Do you know that Loren hasn’t been able to keep a partner since you went down there?” Black asks. Angrily, but also amused, but Hoskins guesses that to be the chief of police you can’t have the stick crammed up your ass all the time. “He can’t seem to figure out how to play nice with anyone else.”

“So let him work alone. He’s a good detective. He took down Seever, he’ll figure this one out.”

Black laughs. “Why do you do that, kid?” he asks.

“Do what?”

“Why do you play down the work you did? Why do you let Loren take all the credit?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Yeah, you do,” Black says, softly. “You might think you’ve got everyone fooled, but you’re wrong.”

“Loren’s a good detective.”

“Yeah, I heard you the first time,” Black says. “But so are you. But you’d be better off upstairs, we both know that. With Loren.”

“Tell me more,” Hoskins says, only half-joking. “Flattery will get you absolutely everywhere.”

“You’re really going to make me do this?” Black asks. “Maybe you’d like a handjob while I’m at it?”

“I’ve seen all the calluses you’ve got on your palms. I don’t want your hands anywhere near my dick, thanks. It’d be like sharpening a pencil.”

“Look, I’m sorry I put you down in the basement, but it’s the only way I could keep you on the payroll after that stunt you pulled,” Black says. “Is that what you want? An apology?”

“I don’t want anything.”

“You’re the best fucking detective I’ve ever had on my team,” Black says quietly and quickly, like he doesn’t want to take the chance that someone else might hear what he’s saying. “I need you on this case with Loren. He’s got a few suspects in mind already, and I need an arrest made, all these loose ends tied up as soon as possible. No one else can handle this the way you can.”

“This is—”

“Listen, that article those assholes at the Post published this morning is scaring plenty of people. I asked them to chill out, give us some lead time on this before they start up, but you know how those reporters operate, and they’ll throw this city into a panic. If the people around here start thinking this is Seever Junior, that’s going to cause a lot of issues. You remember what it was like before.”

Hoskins closes his eyes. He does remember those weeks before they arrested Seever, when the city had gone batshit. Everyone had been scared, people were turning on one another. Gun sales skyrocketed. People were being killed in their own homes, because they’d gone to the toilet in the middle of the night without turning the lights on and spooked a family member. People were acting like Jack the Ripper had come to Denver; everyone was waiting to hear about the next disappearance, expecting to turn a corner and see a monster coming down on them with a knife and a grin, no one ever expected it to be Seever the Clown, sitting pretty behind the wheel of his German import in his fancy suit.