Shadow Man

'No further word on her yet?' she asks.

'No,' James replies.

'Christ . . .' she says, staring off.

I hold up my briefcase. 'But we got a good hit from VICAP.'

The detective in her comes out, sharp and interested. 'Tell me.'

I give her the gist of it.

'Twenty-five years ago. I came on the force when I was twenty-two. That's before my time. Who was the primary on the case?'

'Detective Rawlings,' Alan says.

Jenny stops still. Looks at Alan. 'Rawlings? Are you sure about that?'

'Yeah, I'm sure. Why?'

She shakes her head. 'Because things may really be looking up for you now. Rawlings is a first-class fuckup. Always has been, from what I hear. He's boozing it up, counting time till retirement.'

'And how is that good for us?' I ask.

'It makes it a lot more probable that he missed something back then. Something you guys wouldn't miss.'

At SFPD, Jenny taps a pencil on the desk while waiting for the phone to be answered. 'Rawlings? This is Jenny Chang. Yeah, I do know what time it is.' She frowns. 'It's not my fault you're a drunk.'

I give her a pleading look. I need the guy to come in, not hang up on her. She closes her eyes. I get the idea she's counting to ten.

'Look, Don. I'm sorry. I got woken up out of bed too. Made me cranky. The head of NCAVC Coord LA is here, about an old case of yours. A'--she consults a pad in front of her--'Renee Parker.' A look of surprise crosses her face. 'Sure. Okay. See you in a few.' She hangs up the phone, musing.

'What?' I ask.

'The moment I said her name, he stopped complaining and said he'd be here right away.'

'I guess this one meant something to him.'

Don Rawlings shows up within the half hour. I can tell just by looking at him that Jenny was right on target. He's about five foot nine, with a large gut, rheumy eyes, and the florid face of a dedicated drinker. He looks aged before his time.

I stand up and shake his hand. 'Thank you for coming, Detective Rawlings. I'm Special Agent Smoky Barrett, head of NCAVC Coord in Los Angeles. That's James Giron and Alan Washington, who also work in my unit.'

He squints at my face. 'I know you. You're the one whose home got broken into.' He grimaces. 'Every cop's nightmare.'

I notice he's holding a folder in his hand. 'What's that?' I ask. He plops it down on the desk as he takes a seat. 'That's a copy of the file on Renee Parker. I've kept it all these years. Pick it up in the early hours sometimes when I can't sleep.'

Rawlings's face undergoes a change when he speaks about Renee Parker. The eyes become more alert. His mouth grows sad. I was right. This case had meant something to him.

'Tell me about it, Detective.'

His eyes go distant. Empty, with no horizons. 'Takes a little bit of backstory, Agent Barrett. Detective Chang here probably told you I'm an alcoholic fuckup. And she's right. But I wasn't always that way. Once upon a time, I was where she is now. The best homicide guy here. First grade.' He looks at Jenny, smiles. 'Didn't know that, did you?'

Jenny raises an eyebrow. 'I had no idea.'

'Yeah. Don't get me wrong, now. When I started on the force I was young, and I was a real prick. A racist, a homophobe, with a hair-trigger temper. I used my fists on more than one occasion where it might not have been needed. But the streets have a way of teaching you the way things really are.

'I stopped being a racist the day a black cop saved my life. Perp came up behind me. This cop tackled me out of the way and shot the perp down at the same time. We were fast friends for years, till he died. Killed in the line of duty.'

Those sad eyes grow even emptier and more distant.

'I stopped being a homophobe after a year in homicide. Death does that to you. Tends to give you a perspective on things. There was a young man who was--well, flamboyant about his homosexuality. He worked a roach coach near the station, and he picked up on my hate real fast. Little fucker would tease me, do all kinds of things just to make me uncomfortable.'

A faint smile ghosts across his lips. Disappears, torpedoed by sadness.

'God, he made me crazy. Well, one day a group of guys beat that young man to death because he was a homosexual. And wouldn't you know it, I caught the case.' He gives me a sardonic grin. 'How's that for karma? During that case I got to see two things, and I was never a gay hater again. I got to see his mother scream and pull her hair out and just die inside right in front of me. I watched her world end because her boy was dead. Then I went to his funeral, looking for suspects. You know what I saw there? About two hundred people. You believe that? I don't think I even know two hundred people. Not who would come to my funeral, that's for sure.' He shakes his head in disbelief. 'And they weren't just people from the community, there because he was gay. They were people whose lives he'd touched. Turns out he volunteered all over the place. Hospices, drug-rehab centers, crisis counseling. That young man was a saint. He was good. And the only reason he was dead was because he was gay.' He clenches a fist. 'That was wrong. I just couldn't be a part of it. Not anymore.'

He waves a hand. 'Anyway. So . . . yeah. Here I was, new to the homicide bureau, and a new man. No longer thinking words like faggot or nig- ger. I was different, I was dedicated, life was good.

'Now jump forward five years. I was about three years past my peak and sliding down the other side fast. I'd started to drink; I was fucking around on my wife. I thought a lot about eating my gun. All because of those damn dead babies.' His eyes grow haunted, haunted in a way I recognized. I'd seen that same look in the mirror. 'Someone was killing babies. I'm talking toddlers or younger. Snatching them, strangling them, and tossing them out on the sidewalks or the streets. All it took was six of them and no suspects, and I was dying inside.' He peers at me. 'You know that feeling, I'll bet, doing what you do.'

I nod.

'Imagine that it's six dead babies you're letting down. That you not only haven't caught the guy doing it, you don't even have any suspects. I was fucked.'

Just a year ago, I'd have looked at Don Rawlings and would have to have suppressed a sneer. I would have considered him weak. Someone blaming the past for the present, using it as an excuse. I can't forgive him entirely for giving up, but I don't feel that need to sneer at this moment. Sometimes the weight of this job is just too much. What I feel now is not superiority but compassion.

'I can imagine,' I say, looking at him. I think he sees that I mean it, and he continues his tale.

'I was already fucking up and not caring about it. I did anything I could to try and get those dead babies off my mind. Drinking, sex--anything. But they'd keep showing up in my dreams. Then I met Renee Parker.'

A genuine smile, one belonging to a younger Don Rawlings, appears. 'I ran into her when her boyfriend got killed. He was a small-time dealer, pissed off the wrong guy. She was a stripper who'd only just started shooting up. You see it all the time and learn to write it off real fast. But there was something different about Renee. There was someone home. Some life in there, right near the surface.' He looks up. 'I know what you're thinking. Cop, stripper, end of story. But it wasn't like that. Sure, she had a great body. But I didn't think of her like that. I saw her, and I thought maybe this was my chance to do something good. To make up for the babies.

'I got her story. Went to LA to act, ended up dancing topless to make ends meet. Met a scumbag, he said, 'Hey, try a little bit of this, you won't get hooked.' Nothing original there. But there was something original with her. This kind of desperation in her eyes. Like she was still hanging on to the edge of the cliff and hadn't fallen off it yet.

'I grabbed her and I slammed her into rehab. When I was off duty, I'd go see her. Hold her while she was puking. Talk to her. Encourage her. Sometimes we'd talk all night. And you know what? She was my first female friend.' He looks at me. 'You know what I mean? Think male-chauvinist stereotype. Women are for marrying or fucking. You understand?'