Desert Noir (9781615952236) Read Free Page B

Scottsdale’s laser-based Automated Fingerprint Identification System, which was linked electronically with all other state and federal fingerprint identification systems around the country. The suspect put his fingers on a glass plate smaller than a post card, the laser scanned them, and the results came back almost instantaneously. You could book somebody for a D.U.I. and within an hour find out if they’d killed their Aunt Tilly in Winnetka—even if they’d given you a phony name and were driving under a phony license. Cops loved it. Suspects hated it.
    Kryzinski grumbled. “Well, I don’t got any problem lettin’ you know ’bout that since that crazy Indian you’re working with can find it out in a New York minute. Yeah, Kobe had form. Back seven years ago, before he became an artsy-fartsy type, he worked as a nightclub bouncer out in Bakersfield. One night he got a little too rough with a patron and put her in the hospital.” 
    â€œHer?”
    â€œYeah, her. Some shaved-head punker with more piercings than Arizona’s got snakes. She was drunk and making a total ass out of herself, but shit, he didn’t have to go and do what he did. Busted her jaw, knocked out a few teeth. She came out of it okay, sued the club for a bundle. As for Muscle Man, he pulled six months.” 
    I thought about that for a minute. A nightclub bouncer? That was a long way from the art galleries of Scottsdale. I said as much to Kryzinski.
    â€œGod works in mysterious ways. Seems while he was sitting around the correctional facility counting his toes some bleeding heart came in and started giving art lessons. Guess it was supposed to make the cons appreciate the finer things in life or somethin’ like that. Turned out Kobe had a knack for painting. But you know something else?” 
    He gave a dark laugh, as he always did when confronted by the more twisted pathways of human nature. “When Kobe got released, he moved in with his art teacher, who apparently had been swayed by his highly sensitive nature. Two weeks after movin’in, our boy beat the crap out of her, too. What is it with these women, tell me that? When Clarice Kobe threw him out, he moved in with Alison Garwood within two fuckin’ weeks. He’s already knocked her up, too. Not that he let that stop him from having his heavy-fisted fun. When our guys got there the night of the murder, she was lyin’ in bed with an ice pack pressed to a black eye. Face swollen the size of a football. Kobe was passed out next to her, scabs all over his knuckles. Hell, Lena, I just can’t wait for this trial. Men like Kobe oughta be euthanized or somethin’.” 
    I closed my eyes. Whatever had possessed me to take the Kobe case? The man was an unrepentant thug. It was probably a miracle he hadn’t killed someone before now. Or maybe he had.
    â€œYou still there, kid?” Kryzinski sounded smug.
    â€œI’m still here and I appreciate you giving me all that information. Now what about the rest of it? The case file?” 
    He didn’t answer and I knew he wanted a promise I couldn’t give. Instead, I threw him a bone. “Look, Captain, you let me take a look at the case file and I’ll give some serious thought to coming back to the Department. How’s that sound?” 
    He sounded perkier. “Sounds good. The VCU just ain’t the same without you. But hell, kid, you know that case file’s classified information. It’s not supposed to leave department hands, or at least not until the prosecutin’ attorney gets his shot at it.” 
    â€œThe case file doesn’t have to leave the building. I’m a speed reader. Let me come up there, I’ll be done with it before you know it.” 
    â€œAh, shit, Lena.”
    That’s when I knew I’d won.

Chapter 4
    The next day, Jay Kobe’s first words attacked me as the jail guards