Titan Song Dan Stout (top 20 books to read txt) 📖

even cut a deal. And we’d learn who was behind her operation, and discover the real source of the buzzing and the sinkhole.

I strolled over to Vandie’s office, with an internal window so she could gaze out on her engine of change whenever she wanted. The shelves were lined with ledgers and files, all of them being documented by tech teams before being categorized and moved to evidence processing. A heavyset Mollenkampi was photographing the contents of a desk: a reel-to-reel tape player and a box of tapes and notebooks that I recognized at once. They’d been at Vandie’s residence at the festival.

It was just a matter of time before those were analyzed, and Gellica’s secret exposed. Once that happened, the whole raft of lies and secrets would come crashing down. We needed to get the truth out of Vandie first.

I struggled to keep my composure. We had Vandie dead to rights. But getting her confession and closing the case had suddenly become a race against the clock, and only I knew it.

The Bunker was teeming with curious souls that night. The arrest of Vandie Cedrow meant that Paulus was likely about to be cleared of wrongdoing, and everyone wanted to say they were there to see the city’s most famous detainee go free.

For myself, I wasn’t excited about the thought of Paulus walking out the Bunker doors. But I had no illusion that she was guilty of collapsing the sinkhole. And a confession from Vandie would immediately take pressure off of Paulus, and through her, Gellica.

So even though there was no true call for a Homicide detective when the crime was technically disruption of utility services and endangering the lives of the public, I stayed close at hand. Before long, I proved my usefulness with my face. Anytime Vandie caught a glimpse of me, it set her off on another speech about how the city needed to put right decades of graft and corruption. Between her and the men from the alley, I was almost on a carousel, visiting each one in their respective interview rooms.

The star of the show, Vandie sat in room 7D and stared at the back wall with the patience of a wealthy person waiting for her lawyers to arrive. She was calm and unresponsive, except when I was in the room. Then the corners of her mouth pulled down and her jaw set, still silent but with burgeoning rage. The interrogating officer was a weary-looking guy named Vignolini, who talked with his hands as he tried a mix of threats and appeals.

“We know what you were up to.” Vignolini dealt out photos like a card shark. Each one showed the interior of the warehouse, and the hole in the floor leading into the vents. “Crawling through the vent system like rats.”

Smart rats, maybe. Vignolini threw down a spread of three more photos, showing the antechamber Vandie’s crew had built around the hole. The whole thing was careful, ambitious, and clever. Much like Vandie herself.

“Who owns the building, Vandie? That’s who’s bankrolling your little operation, isn’t it? You tell us that and we can make things go easy.” Vignolini’s hands fluttered, a verbal violinist. “We’re gonna find out who it is anyway, so tell us now, while it’s still worth our while. Once we figure it out, then your leverage is . . . Poof!” He spread his fingers, a pantomime of her evaporating time.

Unfortunately for Vig, I very much doubted he’d be figuring out the owner anytime soon. Paulus was no fool, and I’d seen this play out before in white-collar crimes. Whatever holding companies she’d created to hide behind, it would take our forensic accounting team months of digging to crack through the legal shell game.

Of course, I knew the building belonged to Paulus. But I could hardly tip my hand. Not to mention that would sabotage the whole point of the arrest, since she was absolutely not behind Cedrow’s operation.

“C’mon, Vandie,” Vignolini said, now making come-here movements. “Don’t you want to help the good guys?”

Finally breaking her silence, Vandie turned her eyes on me and said, “I don’t think there’s anything good about you.”

That, at least, we had in common. She closed her eyes and shut her mouth, so I clapped Vignolini on the shoulder. “Be back in a bit, Vig.”

Then I walked across the hall to room 7F, where the wide-bodied guy with tattoos listened to his interviewers and drummed his fingers on the table.

“You know what her uncle did to the workers at his family’s rig, don’t you?” The interviewer was a detective named Jordan, who rolled up his sleeves as he spoke. “Practically turned them into animals. Used them as shields while he did his dirt. You know that?”

“Yeah.”

“And you don’t care?”

“I care.” The wide man’s voice rattled and wheezed, like a graffiti artist’s spray cans. “But you know who doesn’t? My landlord. I gotta eat, gotta pay rent. The military’s shut down most drilling, and taking all the manna for themselves. Oil built this town, and now that we’re in trouble, they’re mumbling apologies while stepping over our bodies.” He scowled, working himself into a proper rage. “So when I get a call about some rich lady who needs debris hauled out of a building, I don’t ask questions. Besides, Cedrow’s a name I know, and her money spends as well as anyone else. And what’s she doing that’s so wrong? Talking about taking care of her workers? Making it safer on the ice plains?” He hissed a curse between his teeth. “You want someone to roll on a lady like that, you keep on walking.”

The next room over was 7G, where the slender human who’d swung a crowbar sat with shoulders hunched and hands on his knees.

“Why’d you swing on a cop?” Kurachek was short, even for a Mollenkampi, and she compensated with a direct, in-your-face style of interrogation.

“I didn’t.” The guy’s shoulders didn’t even twitch.

Kurachek whistled through her speaking mouth’s needle teeth. “That crowbar you were