Page 88 of Necessary Evil
“Two gangbangers burned to death in a meth lab explosion after they did a drive-by of a school. It wasn’t their meth lab. They were dealing heroin.”
That was different. “Maybe they decided to switch their product?”
“Not in this market.” He rubbed his fingertips together to indicate a lot of money. “Any idea what these cases have in common?”
Lucy shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“In two of them, the perpetrators never had a trial. One of them was tried but walked. The pedophile was out on parole. The gang members were never charged with a crime because of lack of evidence. The rapist got off because the woman he raped was a slut.”
She flinched at the word.
“I’m not saying I agree with the decision. I’m saying that’s what the jury dealt out. The rapist had previously been convicted of rape.”
“Could their victims have killed their attackers?”
“Highly unlikely without leaving forensic evidence or some type of trail back to them.”
Lucy flipped through the files. “You’ve got a whole lot of nothing,” she said. “You’ve got coincidence and circumstantial evidence. Why are you looking at Evan’s crew instead of the gangs in the area?”
“Because none of them give a shit enough to kill those assholes.”
“Any other evidence?” she asked, narrowing her eyes at him.
“Several Pyros have had the absolute crap kicked out of them and their motorcycles blown up. Know anything about that?”
She shook her head. She also wasn’t too sure about the fate of the mugger who’d stolen her purse at the train station or about what had really happened to Chloe’s pimp. The SOBs might not have killed Zane, but they’d known that Zane’s phone had been planted in Lenny’s desk. She decided to keep those two to herself. “If there’s evidence that the SOBs beat up the Pyros and used explosives, why haven’t you arrested them?”
“No one’s reported those incidents. The Pyros aren’t going to run to the police. The only property damage was to their motorcycles. A controlled blast done by a professional, by the way.”
That could have been either Sentinel or Ryder again. Or maybe just Ryder?
“As of right now, no Pyros have turned up dead or missing, but if they do, Evil and his friends are going to be the first ones brought in for questioning.”
“That’s a lot of ifs. Why are you so focused on Evan? Is it because you think he was a dirty cop?” Albert’s final shot had hit its mark, and even though she had sworn she wasn’t going to ask that question, Lucy found herself blurting it out.
Travis shook his head. “No. He was charged with assault a few times, but it never stuck. I can’t prove he didn’t beat confessions out of people, but I also can’t prove he did.”
“Albert seems to think he was involved in a lot of police brutality.”
“I have a small file on Evan Villiers. He has anger management issues and likes to use his fists to solve problems, but nothing that would put him behind bars. I think it’s Evan because these killings are escalating. The old victims had gone through due process and the system failed to put them behind bars. The new victims were never charged with a crime. I think a frustrated cop, like Evan was, would get behind the notion of delivering justice. I’m afraid the next step is that he starts deciding who lives and dies based on criteria that only he knows.”
“That’s not Evan,” she said. But a thought nagged her. Was it? Could it be she wasn’t seeing something?
“I’ve received anonymous messages on my phone saying to let these cases drop or I could get hurt,” Travis added, rising from his chair.
“Once the vigilantes start killing cops it’s all over.” Lucy knew the police wouldn’t look the other way anymore if one of them went down over this—if looking the other way was indeed what they were doing.
“Even if the cop is me?” He smiled again without humor.
“Evan isn’t out to get you. It’s the other way around, especially with that bullshit OxyContin raid you did.” Lucy shook her finger at him.
“It wasn’t bullshit.” He perched on the edge of his desk, so he was looming over her.
“You didn’t find drugs in that building,” she scoffed.
“Have Detectives Miles and Fitch spoken to you yet?”
Those were the two California detectives assigned to the murders her brother was accused of. “On the phone, briefly.”