An Absence of Light (4 page)

“I guess the best way to handle this,” Bricker said, fixing his eyes on Graver, “is for us to get a synopsis of the investigations Tisler was involved in. And some kind of risk factor assessment for each one. We’ve got to have some way of making a judgment as to the job-related possibilities here.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” Graver said.

“I’m going to put that in my report,” Bricker said, making it clear to Graver that he wasn’t going to be finessed, “that I’m requesting that kind of information from you before I can conclude my part of the investigation.”

“I understand,” Graver said. “Fair enough.”

He couldn’t blame Bricker for being a stickler about it. His captain was going to insist on that And besides, Graver could afford to be amenable. Whether or not he ultimately gave Bricker what he was requesting would not be solely determined by him anyway. The CID file was the most sensitive repository of information in any law enforcement agency, and persons having access to the entire file could be counted on the fingers of one hand.

The intelligence unit of a police department stood apart from all the other divisions in one central aspect: it had no active interest in crimes already committed. Instead, the intelligence division’s objective was preventive, to identify criminal trends, and to provide assessments of these trends to policy makers by collecting information about people and organizations who were either known to be, or who were suspected of being, involved in criminal acts, or who were threatening, planning, organizing, or financing criminal acts.

The key phrase in this mandate was “suspected of.” It was the source of a world of trouble. Suspicion carried with it a responsibility as delicate as nitroglycerin. Because the law gave intelligence officers the authority to act on their suspicions, implicit within that authority was the assumption that they would act responsibly. They were given considerable latitude in determining who should become a target of their “collection efforts.” (The term “spying” was considered a dysphemism, though many believed it to be a more honest description of domestic intelligence work.)

Intelligence investigators often collected information about persons who, at first glance, were not clearly seen to be involved in criminal activities. The intelligence file, therefore, invariably contained allegations, rumors, and hearsay that were in the process of being either corroborated or disproved. This information was known as “raw data.”

For this reason, the file was highly sensitive. In reality, every Intelligence Division operated under a tentative condemnation. If the raw data they gathered eventually was validated and the resulting intelligence was used to avert criminal activity, then the intelligence process was a prima facie success. It was justified.

On the other hand, if the raw data eventually proved to be false, then the information was purged from the intelligence file. However, during the time in which these allegations were in the process of being evaluated, the intelligence unit was in fact maintaining a file of spurious information about persons or organizations who were entirely free of any criminal taint In the eyes of many people this was clearly a violation of the individual’s right to privacy, a violation that was hardly justified by the system’s other successes.

For this very reason, then, the intelligence file was considered inviolable by the men and women who were responsible for keeping it The file’s raw data was considered unstable and susceptible to abuse, and only those persons who knew and understood the context in which the information was collected were allowed access. However, this narrowly restrictive guardianship of the CID file created an information elite, and like any privileged group the Criminal Intelligence Division was often resented. It was itself continuously under suspicion by those on the outside.

Marcus Graver had made a career of collecting other people’s secrets. He had learned early on that most men were so complex a mixture of what was traditionally considered good and bad that to assign either value to any one individual was to commit a gross oversimplification. His personal philosophy about human nature had ranged all the way to the farthest margins of cynicism and back again, and now his own views were so bedeviled by disappointments and buoyed to hope by those rare, but inevitable, acts of selflessness, that he no longer had a coherent philosophy at all. No one theory or doctrine seemed to him to contain a suitable explanation for the astounding diversity of behavior of which a single individual was capable.

He also had learned that if you were in the business of collecting the kind of information about people that they ardently wished to keep hidden, for whatever innocent or evil reasons, you had better accept the fact that you never would be free of suspicion yourself. Knowing other people’s secrets was, in itself, a kind of tainting knowledge.

They talked a few more minutes while the morgue van disappeared through the high weeds and the tow truck pulled up and hooked onto Tisler’s car. Graver said he would take the responsibility for notifying Tisler’s wife. The detectives finally left, and the Crime Scene Unit broke down its equipment and packed the van. Katz lighted one more cigarette.

“Well, congratulations, Marcus, this is a first,” he said. “I don’t believe a CID officer has ever died in circumstances that required an investigation.”

“No,” Graver said, “I don’t think so.”

It was completely dark now except for the jerking beams of flashlights as the two CSU investigators put in the last of the equipment and closed the doors. They had a brief conversation with the remaining uniformed officer who was waiting to be the last to leave the scene, and then they climbed into their van and plowed through the weeds to the ruts that led them back to the paved street.

The uniformed officer started toward them, his flashlight bouncing across the trampled grass.

“It’s all right, go on in,” Katz said to him across the darkness.

“Okay, sir. Just checking.”

“Yeah, thanks,” Katz said.

The flashlight beam bounced back to the patrol car, the door slammed, the headlights came on, and the car made a turn away from them and headed for the ruts that everyone else had followed.

For a moment the city seemed far away, having nothing to do with them. There were no more planes taking off from the airport Katz’s cigarette glowed brightly then faded, absorbed by the darkness that was close around them. Graver was waiting for him to make his observation. He knew Katz had something on his mind, or he would have been gone with the rest of them.

“I’m not telling you anything, I know,” Katz said, clearing his throat and spitting a whorl of smoker’s phlegm into the weeds. “God knows you’ve steered CID like a Kremlin gambler, but if I were you, I’d watch out for the cross fire on this one. I don’t think Lukens is going to let Westrate off with a simple ‘suicide.’ The rumors about Hertig retiring have got the AC’s jumping from foot to foot like a bunch of little boys needing to pee.”

Katz was a schmoozer and a lover of scuttlebutt. It came naturally to him. He would risk a trip to hell if he thought the devil could give him some juice on St Peter. As it was, he was satisfied with regular happy hour visits at the right taverns and with belonging to the right health club where his sole exercise was lifting Bloody Marys—in one of his jogging suits—the tomato juice standing in as a health food.

“Westrate’s like a rutting buck for that slot,” he went on. “But I think Lukens’s determination to keep him out of it could be just as nasty an ambition. I wouldn’t expect you’d matter much if you got in the way of that fight.”

Graver stood up from leaning against the fender. “No, I guess you’re right about that.”

He didn’t want to have this conversation. He hated talking departmental politics. In his job he had to take it into consideration every time he stepped off the sidewalk, but he didn’t like to talk about it. No matter what you said in a conversation on this subject, people like Katz inevitably would pass it on, usually with a spin on it Graver didn’t need that.

“Sorry you had to be dragged out here,” he said.

Katz straightened up too, dropped his cigarette and stepped on it. He was used to Graver cutting conversations short Graver was well known for it, for never kicking off his shoes, sitting back, and gossiping with the boys.

“What about Tisler,” Katz asked, spitting between his feet, “was he a good investigator?”

“Yeah, actually, he was,” Graver said. He paused. “I’m just hoping he wasn’t better than I thought he was.”

He guessed Katz wouldn’t understand that.

As Graver drove toward the west loop on the Southwest Freeway, he rolled down his windows despite the warm and dense humidity. He wouldn’t have cared if it had been raining, he had to have some fresh air, and he wanted a lot of it.

Graver eventually would have to pay his respects to Peggy Tisler. As the captain of the Division, that was his responsibility. But he had met the woman only once or twice, three or four years ago, and he did not want to be the one to break the news to her of her husband’s death. The messenger’s role properly fell to Dean Burtell.

Dean Burtell probably knew Arthur Tisler better than anyone. In order to run a successful “collection operation,” it was imperative that a symbiotic working relationship exist between the investigator and the analyst. As an analyst Burtell was on the receiving end of the operation’s take and was responsible for applying critical thought to it, trying to ferret out the tortured patterns of criminal relationships and activities, and envisioning new possibilities not only for the way the targets might operate but also for the way law enforcement might act to preempt them to the greatest effect.

But in addition, he played a significant role in shaping the collection process itself. If he needed more information to confirm or disprove his suspicions about expanding linkages and connections, he consulted with the investigator. Working together, often for long periods of time, they designed a collection plan that each considered feasible and realistic.

In this way, step by step, they created a “folder” on their target, a process that might require years to develop. It was a long-term working relationship and was rarely successful if the investigator and analyst were unable to establish, at some level, a compatible association. Simultaneously, moreover, each investigator and analyst also worked in tandem with other investigators and analysts, sometimes carrying as many as six or seven targets. It just so happened that over time, Tisler and Burtell had worked a lot of targets together, and Burtell had come to know the reserved investigator very well.

Burtell was Tisler’s physical opposite: strikingly good-looking, just over six feet tall, an enthusiastic handball player, a smart dresser, slightly wavy black hair which he wore full but well cut, a heavy beard that, even when closely shaved in the mornings, contributed a faint shading to his complexion. His personality, too, was in opposition to Tisler’s. Dean Burtell had the at-ease manner of a man who never doubted himself. He was a fluid conversationalist, articulate and adept in social situations. Though he was gregarious by nature and enjoyed being around people, he was never so extroverted as to draw attention to himself. He was unusually polite, in an old-fashioned sort of way. In former times he would have been called a gentleman.

He had only two things in common with Tisler: he, also, was in his mid thirties; and he and his wife had no children.

Dean and Ginette Burtell lived in an upscale condominium complex just off Woodway in the vicinity of the Houston Country Club. This was more than a little out of the reach of an analyst’s salary, but Ginette had a very good position with an international marketing firm headquartered in Houston, and her salary far surpassed her husband’s. Ginette Burtell was a good match for her husband both in physical attractiveness and intelligence, though she was decidedly quieter.

Turning off of Woodway, Graver drove through the limestone pillars that marked the entrance to a complex of two-storied clusters of condos that the developers had given a distinctly Gallic flair, and which sat well back from the street behind a thick stand of loblolly pines that rose on stalky legs into the darkness.

He found the right cul-de-sac and parked at the curb in front of Burtell’s home which, he was relieved to see, was lighted. Locking the car, he made his way along a meandering sidewalk through dampish odors of freshly mown grass, to a walled courtyard with an iron gate. As he opened the gate and went in, he immediately noticed the scent of roses which he barely could see on either side of the sidewalk in the soft light coming through the front windows. He pressed the doorbell and heard the muted response of distant chimes somewhere in the house.

The front light came on over his head, and while he was considering asking Burtell to join him outside rather than going in, the door opened and Ginette stood in the light wearing a pair of brief peach shorts which were very nearly hidden by the loose tail of a tank top.

“Marcus,” she said with a smile of surprise. “Dean didn’t tell me you were coming by.” She stepped out and hugged him.

“Sorry, Ginette,” Graver said. Her neck smelled vaguely of perfume. “He didn’t know I was coming… I just need to see him a few minutes.”

She looked at him with just a flicker of worry in her eyes and then pushed it aside. Even if the men and women who worked in intelligence told their husbands and wives more than they were supposed to about their work, the spouses were well trained to act dumb about it. In reality, they consistently behaved unnaturally incurious.

“Well, come on in,” she said, stepping back into the entry. “We were sitting out in the patio. It was cool after the rain, but it’s already warming up.” She closed the door behind him. “We’re having drinks… would you like something?”

Throughout the ordeal of Dore’s well-publicized affair, Ginette Burtell had been exceptionally compassionate. He had learned that her late father had been through something similar years earlier, and she gave Graver all the understanding that she had gained in her own experience. In doing so, she had won Graver’s lasting appreciation, and an unspoken bond grew between them that, despite a long friendship, had not been there before. She was a good bit shorter than Graver, with very white skin and short, jet hair. She was the kind of woman who woke up in the morning looking fresh and unruffled, showing none of the rigors of sleep.