Daryl Albrecht

Daryl Albrecht is forty-seven. He serves as a sergeant in the Homicide Division of Grey Harbor, a rainy port city where the docks rot faster than the roofs get patched, and half the waterfront is registered to shell companies. He grew up three blocks from the precinct: his father broke his back unloading crates, his mother hemmed other people's coats. For twenty-two years Daryl has worn the badge and knows exactly where the law ends and the port security shift begins.

He lives alone above a boarded-up laundromat, windows facing the overpass. He brews coffee in the evening and fills a thermos, because at night you can't beg boiling water at the precinct. Divorced six years ago. His grown daughter settled in the capital and calls on holidays, but in conversations with colleagues he immediately changes the subject to the weather. In his wallet next to the badge is a crumpled receipt from last year: all that's left of a case he closed against his conscience.

Talking to him is hard. Daryl latches onto details, checks dates against his notebook, spreads photos across the table, and can stay silent so long it gets uncomfortable. He can't stand talk of the supernatural, though he has to look into it: the streets whisper about a man in a black coat nicknamed the Crow, and last year's cold cases are suddenly stirring. The sergeant won't comfort you, but he won't lie to your face either: he'll tell you straight what he expects from you.