I’m eventually gonna have to tell her this was Drake and Conroy. Amber hates being kept in the dark, and rightly so she’s already gonna be salty, I lied to her.
I walk away from the body and study the ground for clues. I kneel when I notice a cigarette butt lying on the ground, but then I realize Drake is not a smoker, so this is likely trash.
I stroll to the Forensic techs casting a mold for a boot print. “Find anything?”
“Just some blond hair fibers and this boot indention in the dirt here, but so far zero fingerprints found.” Drake doesn’t have blond hair, so it’s the victims, and prints won’t help me find the bastard.
“Devi, you really need to come look at this!” Ingrid calls out.
I rush over to the bridge pillar where she is standing, and there is some familiar poetry scribed in blood. “It’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.” I close my eyes and open them, trying to pretend I’m seeing things, but the message is still there.
She glowers. “Why did the killer just use one of Drake’s poems? Devi, what the hell is going on?” Her voice laden with suspicion.
Damn it. So begins my swan song, no sense putting it off. She will just ask me again later and no sense telling Ingrid it’s nothing, she’s too sharp for that.
“Come with me. I need to talk to you.” I nod toward the street.
She looks at me, confused. “O… kay. Tell me why the killer is acting like Drake?”
I light up a cigarette and offer her one, and she takes it. “What I am about to tell you has to stay between us, got it?” I hand her the lighter.
She lights the smoke and takes a drag, exhaling smoke. “Just talk to me.” She throws her hands out to her side.
“The killer is acting like Drake because it is Drake. He’s alive and running free.”
She flicks a piece of ash on the ground. “What the hell are you talking about? Are you drunk again?”
“I wish I was drunk right now.”
She smirks. “Devi, you told us you gunned him down when you tried to arrest him.”
Exhaling smoke, staring down at the ground. “Yeah, I lied. I was forced to drop the Moonlight Killer case by the US Government and the Military to let Drake leave with his handler. The assholes had him here carrying out missions.”
“So, all the victims were targets by the US Government?”
“Yep, all of Drakes victims turned out to be really evil pieces of shit except for Jason’s kids his handler killed.”
She scowls at me. “Whoa hold on a minute. You mean to tell me Drake didn’t kill Jason’s daughters?”
“Yes. It was his handler Conroy. The man who showed up at the station to offer us his help. The same prick who whacked me over the head to help Drake escape.”
“What the fuck? Wait a minute. If Drake killed Jason's wife, does that…?”
“Do not tell Jason it will really fuck him up. You gotta promise me.”
She nods. “I promise. Now tell me.”
“His wife was a notorious arms dealer. She was selling weapons to Islamic terrorist factions and to Cartels in Mexico. Her restaurants and sex therapy sessions were just a way to launder money so the IRS wouldn’t get suspicious of her.”
She exhales smoke. “So what we thought was a serial killer is actually a government assassin? So what about Jason’s kids the Government is just going to sweep that under the rug?”
A cloud of smoke billows from my mouth. “Welcome to America, where justice is not for all, but that is going to change. The FBI and MI5 are going to help me bring these corrupt bastards to their knees.”
Her eyes widen. “Dermo! So that in front of the station was…?”
“I was forced to play a false hero for them, but worst of all, the families of the victims were lied to. I promised Jason I’d get the guy who killed his family, and I didn’t deliver on that promise.”
Her face turns to a slack-jawed gaze. “Goddamn it, Devi. What were you thinking?”
“Let me finish before you jump my shit. I had no choice, it was either be their little dancing monkey or prison. But, like it matters now because when word gets out, Drake is still alive me and Sullivan will be torn apart in the media whirlwind. You know the Mayor will throw us under the bus to save his own ass.”
“Oh shit! Sullivan, the Mayor was is on this?” Bile rises in my throat and vomit erupts out of my mouth on to the sidewalk. I feel her hand rubbing my back. “Devi, we’re going to sort this out.”
“Listen, I have to go. This is a lot of shit to take in.” I wipe the vomit from my lips as I get into my car and drive off, feeling lost in a daze.
***
I call up Frank as I’m heading down 41. “Sir. Drake, he’s killed again. That was his victim down under the bridge.”
“Son of a bitch! So this has come back to bite us in the ass. Goddamn ass-hats! They demand we play our role, and they can’t even play theirs. I’m glad I made a deal with that Fed.”
“So, you did make a deal?”
“Yes, I did, Lobos. Because I had a feeling, this shit would eventually blow up in our faces.”
“Sir, there is something you should know.”
“Lay it on me.”
“Ingrid knows Drake is still among the living, and she knows about the song and dance we had to do.”
“How the hell did she find out?” He snaps.
I take a deep breath. “The
