That picture came through clear enough, Eve thought. “How about the prison shrink? Lyle met with him on and off, too. Do you know him?”
“Sure.”
“Would Lyle have told him anything he wouldn’t tell you or Detective Strong?”
“I can’t say, but from what I know Lyle just wanted to keep that connection open. He credited Ned with helping him turn the corner while he was inside.”
Matt shifted, leaned forward a little, met Eve’s eyes straight-on.
“Addicts are liars, Lieutenant. I spent a good part of my life smoking, popping, drinking anything I could get my hands on, and lying about it. I’m spending this part of my life dealing with people who are either doing the same thing or trying to break the cycle. I’m probably nearly as good at spotting a liar as both of you. And I believe Lyle told me whatever weighed on him, whatever lifted him, worried him, made him proud. Being a CI made him proud, but he’d never have done it if they hadn’t put that boy in the hospital. He talked to me about it before he made the call.”
He looked at Strong, smiled a little. “Backup,” he repeated. “I was his backup, so I said how it might’ve been him. Not in the hospital, but putting some kid in there. Beating on some kid just because he could. And until he’d gotten straight, he wouldn’t have given a damn. Kid should mind his own, right? Shouldn’t get in front of Banger business. Asking for it. He saw things different now.”
“Okay. If you think of anything else, let me know. Detective Strong, I’ll be in touch.”
When she rose, so did Matt. “Lieutenant? Is it all right if I go see Lyle’s grandmother? I know the family. Hell, they invited me to Thanksgiving dinner. I’d like to go see them, do something.”
“I’ve got no problem with it. Keep his CI status out of it, for now.”
Eve went to get her coat, her partner. “Lyle’s sponsor comes off solid and steady. It’s clear they had a tight, personal friendship, also solid and steady.”
“How’s Strong holding up?”
“She’ll stand. Did you make notification on Duff?”
“Yeah. Duff’s mother took it like she’d been waiting for notification most of Duff’s life. Sad, resigned, unsurprised.”
They headed out of the bullpen as Peabody ran it through.
“She said she hadn’t spoken to Duff in more than a year. Duff’d gone home, claiming she was in trouble, needed to come home to get well, and so on. Not for the first time,” Peabody added. “A couple of days in, the mother comes home from work, the daughter’s gone, the living room screen, costume jewelry, and the cash gone with her.”
“That couldn’t have been a big surprise, either,” Eve said as they rode down to the garage.
“Not really. The mother had taken her in with the warning if she screwed up again, she’d never let her come back. She screwed up. The mom had all the locks changed, and told her neighbors if they saw her daughter, they should get the police. And she left a message saying the same on the ’link number she had.”
They worked their way down to the garage.
“She said her daughter didn’t have friends. She had losers and thugs. Always blamed everybody else when something went wrong, started using when she was about fourteen. Took off whenever she liked, would come back crying, being sorry, making promises, then do it all again. Took up with the Bangers, and the mother laid down the law. If she ran with that type, she couldn’t come home. Anyway, she didn’t know who she ran with, specifically, just the gang, the type.”
And that picture, Eve thought, also came though clear enough. “Okay.”
“On the journal search,” Peabody said as she settled into the car, “there are
mentions of Duff, of the gang, Slice and other members, of Strong, his sponsor—but, at a glance, he doesn’t write about being a CI.”
“Kept it confidential, even from his journal. It wasn’t passcoded, probably to show his sister he had nothing to hide, but he’s careful. Maybe somebody breaks in, takes it, reads it.”
“He didn’t have any trouble writing down his thoughts about Duff. You go back a few months, they’re conflicted. She needs help. Maybe he can help, that sort of thing. But I read an entry he put in just a few days ago where he wrote about deciding he had to cut her off, all the way off, and why. What he said to her, what she said.”
“That jibes with the sponsor’s take. What was the why?”
“He finally realized what his sponsor, the prison shrink, his family, his boss, the waitress at work had been telling him all along. He wasn’t helping, but enabling. In the case of his boss, it was a little more direct. She was a junkie whore, and just because he wasn’t doing her didn’t mean she wasn’t screwing him, and he paid her for it.”
“Sounds like his boss had it right. But Lyle still let her into his apartment.”
“From some I skimmed in the journal?” Peabody began. “He had a lot of soft spots. The wit said she was crying, and how she needed help. In the journal, Lyle wrote he told her she could come to him if she was ready to admit she needed help—for her addiction. He’d help her get into Clean House, take her to meetings, ask his sponsor to sponsor her. Otherwise, blow basically. If she kept coming around, high or jonesing to get high, he’d call the cops.”
“So she comes to his place, says she needs help. Maybe says he had it right, she’s ready to ask for help. Please help. He buys it, opens the door. She can spin him a load of bullshit, but she has to get him out of the room long enough for her to let the muscle in. So, can she have some water—crying, shaking. He goes into the kitchen to get it, takes out his ’link. Likely to tag his sponsor. And that’s that.”