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“What did you think when you first saw them?” David asked. “The bodies, I mean.”
Crawford leaned back in his chair with a grunt. “Three of them at first. Crushed legs, strangled throats. Figured they were a bunch of poor sons of bitches who were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Then we started digging. Found out they were addicts. Made sense.”
David’s eyebrows pinched together. “Made sense?”
“Addicts are always addicts. They’ll do anything for their next hit. Figured that’s what happened. Didn’t think much of it after that. Seemed like a waste of money to me.”
David had to work to keep his fist from clenching. “What do you mean, a waste of money?”
“Seemed cut and dry, is all. Lot of shit was going down back then. Missing kids. Dead women. We had bigger fish to fry than a guy killing off addicts.”
“I think the families of the victims would disagree.”
Crawford laughed. It was loud and obnoxious and devoid of any real humor. “What families? Most of them didn’t have anyone, and the ones who did had been disowned. If they had been married, their wives had left them. If they had kids, they had taken away their custody.”
“So, they didn’t deserve to have their cases solved?”
“I’m not saying that. Don’t put words in my mouth.” Crawford thumped his fist on the table. “You know as well as I do that the higher-ups prioritize some cases over others. This was a low-priority case.”
David didn’t know what to say. Crawford wasn’t wrong. David had seen it happen hundreds of times over the years. Some victims fell in the cold case files simply because they had a bigger crime to solve. Because the department didn’t have enough money. Because the dead didn’t have anyone who cared enough to keep asking.
But none of that made it right.
“You’re right, I’m sorry.” David cooled his tone. He needed Crawford’s cooperation more than he needed to let him know he was a jerk. “I’m trying to think if t
hat changed after we found the next bodies?”
“The ones in the woods?” Crawford shook his head. “Not really. The Captain was angry as all hell that he had to send us back out to investigate that.”
“I do remember that,” David said. “I was out in those woods every day for a week.”
Crawford guffawed. “Yeah, well, Cap liked to bust your balls, didn’t he? You were always asking so many damn questions.”
“Guess that’s why I became a detective.”
“You’re no better than the rest of us, Klein. The world needs cops like me and the boys to keep ‘em in line.”
“You’re not wrong.” David wondered if his laugh sounded as forced to Crawford’s ears as it did to his own. “What happened after that? I just remember one day we were working the case, and the next day someone shoved it to the back of some drawer.”
“We weren’t getting anywhere. It was a dead end. We didn’t have any evidence. There were no leads. What else were we going to do? We had other cases to solve.”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right. Cap was happy about that.”
Crawford eyed him, and his scowl deepened. “I know what you’re doing, Klein.”
“What am I doing?”
“You’re trying to get me to turn on Cap.”
“No, I’m not.” David paused, weighing his options. He went for the riskier move. “But it doesn’t matter. Cap’s retired. If you know anything else about the case that can help us now, then—”
Crawford stood up, bumping the table and nearly knocking over his chair. He jabbed a finger at David. “A cop never retires. You damn well know that. I’ve got nothing to say to you.”
David stood up. “Huck, come on.”
“No.” He was red in the face now. “No. Cap was a good cop. He did all he could for those people. He did his best with what he had. At some point, you’ve got to cut your losses. They were a bunch of addicts, a bunch of deadbeats. They drained resources when they were alive, and they drained resources when they were dead. Now, I’m sorry their families never got closure, but that’s just how it goes sometimes.”
David opened his mouth to speak again, but Crawford waved him off. Without another word, he left the room and slammed the door behind him. David could hear him barking at people to get out of his way as he walked down the hall.
