Parallel Lies Read Online Free PDF Page A

own security guys, their own
investigators,”
the detective answered, beating Madders to it. “And it sucks, as far as I’m concerned—the whole damn arrangement.”
    “Security guards have authority to make arrests?” Tyler asked, incredulous. He was thinking
rent-a-cops,
but he didn’t say it.
    “You bet they do,” Madders answered, jumping in. “Do it all the time.”
    The detective answered, “They dump ‘em off with us. We house ‘em until their hearings.”
    “And these security guards,” Tyler said. “Where are they now? We’d like to talk to them.”
    “It’s a big yard,” Madders replied. “We got six guys total. Two guys each shift. They’re around here somewhere.”
    “I’ve already asked,” the detective told Tyler. “One of our guys is rounding them up.”
    “They ever hear of radios?” Tyler mumbled.
    “We got radios,” Madders told him.
    “Use ‘em,” the detective barked. “Get those guys over here!”
    “The ones on duty, or the ones on day shift? ‘Cause that’s gonna be a problem,” he said, checking his watch. “Three-thirty. Shift rotates real soon.”
    “Find ‘em!” the detective ordered.
    Madders hurried off into the storm, cursing under his breath. Not a minute had passed before he reappeared with two security guards. “Already on their way,” he said proudly.
    “I thought you said there were two,” Tyler said, observing a third.
    Standing between two football-player types who made their plain blue uniforms look undersized stood a tall black woman who wore a long chic overcoat with the hood up. The hood was trimmed in faux fur meant to look like a tiger’s tail. The whites of the woman’s eyes showed from within the shadow of that hood, her lips pursed in concentration.
    “Who’s in charge?” she asked, her delicate voice rising above the clatter of a nearby train. Then she caught sight of the flags and the enormous quantity of blood in the boxcar. Her eyes wandered over to Tyler’s. “You?” she asked.
    Jurisdiction had not yet been discussed. Tyler answered, “It’s his crime scene.” He considered introducing the detective, but he still wasn’t sure of the man’s name.
    “John Banner,” the detective told her. This time Tyler caught it clearly. “Detective. SLPD.” Either Banner didn’t like blacks or he didn’t like women. Or maybe it was that hedidn’t like black women, but an attitude change came with the introduction. “And you are?”
    “Here to observe and help out if I can,” answered the woman as she approached the stepladder. “Nell Priest. Northern Union Security, corporate.” Tyler felt she had sized up Banner immediately, and this impressed him. “You don’t have a problem with that, do you, Detective?”
    Tyler’s live-in companion for two years, Kat, had walked out at the height of his legal problems, leaving him alone and despondent. He blamed the media’s invasion of their privacy rather than his own inability at the time to communicate. He’d put Kat behind him now, along with nearly everything else of his former life. But Nell Priest had Kat’s spunk, reminding him of her and winning his spontaneous admiration. Not every woman could hold her own with self-important bastards like Banner.
    The two forensic technicians observed this exchange without moving. Clearly Banner came with some baggage that his co-workers were aware of. For a moment the air seemed unusually still. “I’d rather not contaminate the scene,” Banner answered, looking right at her.
    She looked to Banner, back to Tyler, seemed to consider the situation, and elected to answer with a faint nod. Some snow broke from the faux fur and flew around her face.
    “He’s federal,” Banner said, pointing to Tyler, as if that explained something.
    Tyler introduced himself. He stepped toward the edge of the boxcar and reached down to shake hands—gloves actually—with her. “I’m working for the NTSB.”
    “Meaning you are regular army or a