An Absence of Light

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.

Chapter 4

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.