An Absence of Light

Graver then turned his computer inquiries in another direction. He typed Last’s name into NCIC to get a report on Last’s most recent activities. He hadn’t kept up with his career in nearly a decade, not in detail anyway. After that, he typed a brief inquiry document to be sent to the major intelligence agencies requesting MO and crime analysis subject category matches on Victor Last’s career markers. It was time to see if Last had been back to his old ways.

After sending this out on the lines, Graver turned back to his desk and set about making notes on these as well as the essential elements of his conversations with Paula and Neuman.

At five minutes before nine o’clock, he opened his door and said good morning to Lara. Standing at her desk, he gave her a list of things he wanted done, briefly discussing each item on the list before he turned and went back into the office.

He went over his notes again and was making last-minute notations when he heard Paula’s voice outside in the hallway followed by Lara’s laughter. The door opened and they came in one after the other, Paula, Burtell, and Neuman, each of them carrying notebooks and folders and something to drink. Everyone said good morning as they shoved their chairs around to suit them and sat down.

Graver, trying to cover the self-consciousness he felt in Burtell’s presence, moved brusquely into business. He knew Paula and Neuman would be watching to see how he was going to play it.

“First thing,” he said. “Late yesterday afternoon Jack Westrate called and told me that Homicide and IAD had agreed to call Tisler’s death a suicide. Nothing sinister to it.”

Casey Neuman sipped from the canned soft drink he had brought in, and Paula stared straight at Graver without comment. Burtell turned away and looked out the windows. The file folders of the five Tisler investigations were on his lap, and he was holding a mug of coffee which rested on the folders. Graver couldn’t really tell how he was taking this news. He did not want to dwell on it and was glad Burtell was going to let it pass without comment.

“That, of course, is a big break for us,” he went on. “I don’t know if you’ve come up with anything, but the momentum of presumption is in our favor with that ruling. But I’ve still got to produce a summary, a ‘clean slate’ document to put in the files. So let’s get down to it. You guys finding anything in Tisler’s folders that raise questions?” He went straight to Burtell. “Dean, what about it? You see anything noteworthy in the documents you reviewed?”

Burtell turned from the windows and shook his head. He looked down at the folders resting in his lap.

“No, I didn’t see anything in here,” he said. “Nothing even remotely curious. Art had routinely updated them as per regulations, but nothing significant had changed in any of them in over a year. Unremarkable in just about every way.”

Graver waited a moment, looking at Burtell who had recovered considerably from the day before. He appeared to have got more sleep, got his emotions in order, though he was subdued as the occasion required. But Graver watched him for something else, perhaps an unnatural insouciance, a glimmer of an affectation in his manner, however slight.

“Okay,” Graver said. He turned to Paula.

“No, nothing here, either,” she said. “But for the record I want to state that I had only one day to look over these folders. I can’t say that represents a thorough examination. It was just enough time for a… cursory review. But, no, in my cursory review I didn’t find anything that would make me suspect anything untoward in the collection process.”

Burtell kept his eyes on some vague spot on the front of Graver’s desk and sipped his coffee.

“Do you think you need more time, is that it?” Graver asked. He had to. Paula had practically said she didn’t have enough time.

“I don’t know that that would be justified now, in light of the ruling from Homicide,” Paula said. “I just don’t want it recorded that I conducted a major audit here.”

“Okay, noted,” Graver said.

Paula, as usual, was playing her game with unyielding rigor. Even when deceiving Burtell, she didn’t want him to think he could put something over on her. If there was something there to discover, she implied, she would bloody well find it if she were given the proper amount of time to examine the documents. Jesus. Graver could have shot her, but, in the end, her reaction was probably best Burtell might have sensed something awry if all three of them had just rolled over. Paula, after all, was being Paula.

“Casey?”

Neuman repeated essentially what he had told Graver the night before about his search of Tisler’s records, though he now went into more detail. As Paula had done, he said there was a lot more he could do, but a preliminary check of the records, with the view that Tisler might possibly have had financial difficulties, turned up no flags that would make him want to pursue the issue further.