An Absence of Light

Every morning when Graver came into his office, he found his desk clear and neatly arranged, a condition in which he seldom left it. Lara was responsible. She dusted the amber glass shade on the lamp he had brought from home to offset the anemic fluorescent lighting in the ceiling. She made sure that the marbled fountain pen that Nathan had given him was in the narrow green glass tray on the front of his desk. She made sure the bone-white coffee mug with its silhouette of Charlie Chan on it that Natalie had given him was clean. And she made sure that his book-style calendar was held flat open with the black, smoothly worn cobblestone that a hundred years ago he and Dore, slightly inebriated and laughing, had dug out of a narrow lane near St. Paul’s Cathedral.

That was another thing about Lara. She had an intuitive understanding of the lingering power of small things, of old gifts from a son and daughter, or of a mnemonic cobblestone that was not a reminder of the woman who was no longer his wife, but of the girl he once had married.

“Sorry,” he said, motioning for her to close the door, which she did, coming back and standing in front of his desk.

“Some bad news,” he said. “Arthur Tisler was found dead in his car last night. It looks like he killed himself.”

Her mouth dropped open, and she sat down slowly in one of the chairs.

“My God,” she said. “He killed himself?”

“That’s what it… seems.”

“Seems?”

“It’s got to be investigated, Lara, that’s all.”

“I know, but… My God…” Her black eyes looked at him, and he could see her remembering Tisler.

“Of course Westrate’s worrying about damage control, the way it’s going to look.”

“Nobody knows about this yet?”

“Burtell knows. He notified Peggy Tisler last night.”

“Jesus, poor woman.”

Graver would have liked to talk to her a while, just discuss it as he would have done with Dore years ago, but there wasn’t time. Reluctantly he moved on.

“I guess you’d better call each of the squad supervisors and have them meet me in here at nine o’clock,” he said. “I’ll let them take care of telling their people. And you’d better hold all calls for me for the rest of the day except any from Jack Westrate or anyone in Homicide or IAD.”

He briefly explained to her about the requisite inquiry and how it would have to take precedence over the normal routine of his responsibilities. Graver monitored the activities of his squads by the daily review of a steady stream of investigation summaries, intelligence reports, initial investigation summaries, operational requests, contributor management reports, and on and on, a seemingly endless flow of cumbersome but necessary forms, files, contracts, vouchers, records, summaries, lists, and logs. All of these-all but the most urgent of them-would now have to be set aside until Graver could complete a report that would give the CID’s file a clean bill of health, free from any stain of Tisler’s suicide. Lara was going to have to help him deal with more than he could handle.

At nine o’clock the three squad supervisors filed into his office. Ray Besom was the fourth, though absent on his Fishing trip. Graver told them straight out what had happened. He told them as much as he had told Burtell the night before, but none of them was close to Tisler and kept their reactions to a soft curse or a wincing, jaw-clenching frown. He explained everything, the situation at the scene, who was on the investigation from Homicide and IAD.

“And I’m going to head our own inquiry myself,” he said. “Review his investigations, make sure we’re all right.” They all knew what he meant. He looked at Matt Rostov, a thin, angular man in his early forties, who supervised the Research and Analysis Squad. “Matt, if it’s all right with you, I’d like to pull Dean Burtell and Paula Sale to help me. Can you spare them for a week maybe?”

Rostov nodded and said sure.

“When you go back to your office would you let them know I’ll be calling them a little later in the morning?”

Again Rostov nodded. Sure.

“I’m going to get Casey Neuman out of OC also.”

“What about the people in OC,” asked Lee Stanish, “they know yet?”

Stanish had been in Ray Besom’s position as head of the Organized Crime Squad four years earlier. He was a superb supervisor, and Graver had moved him to the Anti-Terrorist Squad when the supervisor there had retired. He had had an excellent relationship with his investigators and never had thought that Besom had done a good-enough job with his old group.

“Not yet,” Graver said. “I’m talking to them after this. I decided against making a general announcement. It’s touchy, and there’s a lot pending. I just thought it would be best if we kept it low-key.”

Everyone nodded, everyone understood, and Graver dismissed them. Only Bob Penck, who supervised Technical Services had said nothing, which was normal for him. He might have said something if a bomb had gone off in the office… or maybe not.