might have been true the other night. Not anymore. Things are about to get very hot for everyone involved in this case, including our friend with the red magic.”
We fell silent, and after a few moments I pulled out the list of protest arrests Kona had given me.
“Check on page three,” Kona said. “A bit past the middle.”
I read several names before I saw it. I stopped dead in my tracks and gaped at her. She stopped, too.
“Robby Sommer?” I said.
“Interesting, don’t you think? You’re trying to find the source of Claudia Deegan’s drugs, and look who gets his ass arrested at that protest Claudia put together.”
Robby Sommer was a small-time drug dealer who I’d busted several years back. He catered to high-end, low-volume buyers; rich college students for the most part. Kids like Claudia Deegan, although he wasn’t above selling to anyone he could find.
“You think he was connected to any of the other kids?” I asked.
“It’s possible,” Kona said. “A few of them were at the university; most of them were using.”
“But this is the first time we’ve—” I smiled self-consciously. “That you’ve had any kind of link between Robby and a victim.”
“Yeah. This is the first.”
We started walking again, and I stared at Robby’s name on that list. His address hadn’t changed since I arrested him. “I guess you should go see him.”
“Why don’t you?” Kona said. “Kevin and I have more than enough to keep us busy, and this is the type of thing you’d be doing for Wriker anyway.”
“All right.”
I expected her to remind me that since I wasn’t a cop anymore, I couldn’t push Robby too far, but she didn’t.
“I’ll let you know what I find out,” I said.
She nodded. “I’ll do the same.”
“Thank you, Kona.”
We’d reached Washington again.
“No problem, partner. Talk to you soon.”
She continued back toward 620; I turned toward the City Hall parking lot, my chest aching. I’d never begrudge Kona her badge, but at that moment I wanted mine back more than I wanted anything.
Nobody would be surprised to learn that a drug dealer like Robby Sommer was a screw-up. What always amazed me about the kid, though, was how lucky he’d been. In the years since I’d arrested him, he had been hauled in at least three or four more times. But he’d only been convicted once, and then on a reduced count. Something always seemed to go wrong with Robby’s arrests—evidence was misplaced, procedures got fouled up. One time an assistant district attorney was found to have manufactured evidence in a number of cases—it was a huge scandal at the time—and while the evidence against Robby was completely legit, all of the perps in all of the assistant D.A.’s cases were released as a matter of course. This was the luckiest kid on the face of the earth.
I turned that thought over in my head as I drove to his place, amazed that this had never occurred to me before: What if Robby wasn’t merely lucky? What if the punk had access to magic? What if he had been hiding it from us all these years? Most of the time I could identify a weremyste on sight. They usually appeared to shimmer and waver, as if there were heat waves in front of them. A powerful runecrafter might look like little more than a blur. I’d never noticed anything like this with Robby, but maybe he wasn’t strong enough for me to notice, or at least hadn’t been the last time our paths crossed. I thought of that faint hint of beige glow on the door of the building where I had found Jessie Tyler. Could that have been Robby? Had luck saved him yet again?
Maybe. But with Claudia Deegan dead, with drugs found in her backpack and in her blood, and with some connection established between her and Sommer, it was possible that Robby’s winning streak was about to end.
Robby might have been thinking the same thing. As soon as I knocked on the door of his house, a small place on Hermosa, near the interchange of
We fell silent, and after a few moments I pulled out the list of protest arrests Kona had given me.
“Check on page three,” Kona said. “A bit past the middle.”
I read several names before I saw it. I stopped dead in my tracks and gaped at her. She stopped, too.
“Robby Sommer?” I said.
“Interesting, don’t you think? You’re trying to find the source of Claudia Deegan’s drugs, and look who gets his ass arrested at that protest Claudia put together.”
Robby Sommer was a small-time drug dealer who I’d busted several years back. He catered to high-end, low-volume buyers; rich college students for the most part. Kids like Claudia Deegan, although he wasn’t above selling to anyone he could find.
“You think he was connected to any of the other kids?” I asked.
“It’s possible,” Kona said. “A few of them were at the university; most of them were using.”
“But this is the first time we’ve—” I smiled self-consciously. “That you’ve had any kind of link between Robby and a victim.”
“Yeah. This is the first.”
We started walking again, and I stared at Robby’s name on that list. His address hadn’t changed since I arrested him. “I guess you should go see him.”
“Why don’t you?” Kona said. “Kevin and I have more than enough to keep us busy, and this is the type of thing you’d be doing for Wriker anyway.”
“All right.”
I expected her to remind me that since I wasn’t a cop anymore, I couldn’t push Robby too far, but she didn’t.
“I’ll let you know what I find out,” I said.
She nodded. “I’ll do the same.”
“Thank you, Kona.”
We’d reached Washington again.
“No problem, partner. Talk to you soon.”
She continued back toward 620; I turned toward the City Hall parking lot, my chest aching. I’d never begrudge Kona her badge, but at that moment I wanted mine back more than I wanted anything.
Nobody would be surprised to learn that a drug dealer like Robby Sommer was a screw-up. What always amazed me about the kid, though, was how lucky he’d been. In the years since I’d arrested him, he had been hauled in at least three or four more times. But he’d only been convicted once, and then on a reduced count. Something always seemed to go wrong with Robby’s arrests—evidence was misplaced, procedures got fouled up. One time an assistant district attorney was found to have manufactured evidence in a number of cases—it was a huge scandal at the time—and while the evidence against Robby was completely legit, all of the perps in all of the assistant D.A.’s cases were released as a matter of course. This was the luckiest kid on the face of the earth.
I turned that thought over in my head as I drove to his place, amazed that this had never occurred to me before: What if Robby wasn’t merely lucky? What if the punk had access to magic? What if he had been hiding it from us all these years? Most of the time I could identify a weremyste on sight. They usually appeared to shimmer and waver, as if there were heat waves in front of them. A powerful runecrafter might look like little more than a blur. I’d never noticed anything like this with Robby, but maybe he wasn’t strong enough for me to notice, or at least hadn’t been the last time our paths crossed. I thought of that faint hint of beige glow on the door of the building where I had found Jessie Tyler. Could that have been Robby? Had luck saved him yet again?
Maybe. But with Claudia Deegan dead, with drugs found in her backpack and in her blood, and with some connection established between her and Sommer, it was possible that Robby’s winning streak was about to end.
Robby might have been thinking the same thing. As soon as I knocked on the door of his house, a small place on Hermosa, near the interchange of
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