Special Agent Tom Lange Box Set

by T. J. Brearton

  Tom considered switching the recorder back on, hesitated. “He said ‘make it look good’? The person who called you, put you up to this? Who was it? Ben Franco?”

  “Franco? Never heard of him. He never gave a real name, we never met face to face, just those calls. But Palumbo knew I was snitching, man. They were gonna come at me. My sister. My ex. My son. Unless I did exactly what they said.”

  “You’re sure it was Palumbo’s crew? You know that for a fact? Not someone else?”

  “Who else would it be?” Rapp sniffed back some snot and looked down.

  “Have you ever heard of Citizen Justice?” Tom stared, hunting for any trace of guile.

  The felon blinked. “Citizen Justice?”

  “An email address. Citizen-Justice at ymx dot com. Yes? No?”

  “Nah, man. I told you, just calls. That’s it. Okay, sometimes texts. And all from different numbers.”

  Tom took in a deep breath, deciding. He turned on the recorder. “You get phone calls and texts. Texts telling you what to do?”

  “Yeah. Just check my phone. 945 numbers.”

  “We will. These calls and texts instructed you to do all this? To shoot at Heather Moss, but not to kill her?”

  Rapp lowered his eyes and nodded.

  “Speak up, please.”

  “Yeah. I was supposed to shoot the place up. Try not to hit anyone. Make it look good.”

  “And Sergeant Coburn.”

  “Ah, man. You guys, bustin’ into my house like that. This is unconstitutional, man. This is system is bullshit.”

  “So you’ve said. On the other hand, if you’re telling the truth about your gun, you were granted the right to legal ownership after a felony conviction. So, the system isn’t all that bad, is it?”

  Rapp looked up, back into his woeful act. “This shit violates my human rights. The people of this country won’t stand for this. A reckoning is coming, cop. I want a lawyer. I want my lawyer here.”

  “You got a lawyer? Who’s your lawyer? Same person who got you your gun license back?”

  Rapp sulked. “What do you care?”

  “What’s your lawyer’s name?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know your lawyer’s name?”

  His eyes rolled around, bloodshot, the fight drained from him. “That was two years ago or some shit. His name’s fuckin Ernie somethin’. Or Eddie.”

  “Ernie? Eddie? You’re fucking with me, André. You’re blowing it. This is your shot, André. Your only shot.”

  “Yeah, Eddie, man, fuck. Or no, that wasn’t it. Ernie, maybe, like I said. I don’t remember.”

  “Ernst? Robert Ernst?”

  “I’m not admitting nothing. My gun is legal. Listen, you motherfucker — I did what I did to stay alive. I don’t care what that bitch says, I do have rights, you know. Or don’t you cops understand that there are real people in the world, people with—”

  Tom closed the door on André Rapp.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  MONDAY

  He could access court records online using PACER, which was Public Access to Court Electronic Records, but he didn’t trust his laptop and headed to the county courthouse.

  Tom took the hallway to the office of the court clerk, his footfalls echoing in the cavernous space. He entered the office and presented his badge to the clerk, then requested to see any court dockets with André Rapp as a defendant or plaintiff.

  “Hard copies, please.”

  Waiting for the clerk to find the information, he drummed his fingers on the counter, glanced up at the camera mounted in the corner.

  Wondered who was watching.

  She came back with a large file. Tom moved to a room adjacent to the office, which featured a long jury table, several chairs, bookshelves filled with legal reference material and a copy machine in the corner. The court dockets summarized the federal, civil, criminal, and bankruptcy cases on a given date, available to the public. Rapp’s file included daily digests during his criminal case for the drug possession. The case was from seven years ago. His lawyer was a man named Alfred Hale. Rapp had pled out and taken his five year bit.

  Huh. So much for that.

  * * *

  Daniel Coburn’s memorial service was held without a body; it was on ice at the morgue, one piece in an ongoing investigation. An empty casket adorned the altar, and a picture of the sergeant in his uniform propped on an easel, surrounded by flowers.

  Coburn’s wife was dressed in black, even wearing a veil. The widow’s five children stood soberly beside her, primped and slicked, everyone in their darkest clothes. Their ages ranged from four to seventeen. A girl with an angled blonde hair cut was the eldest, and she carried the youngest on her hip, bouncing the toddler throughout the service, like she was afraid to stop.

  Blythe whispered to Tom, but the priest’s elocution overwhelmed her voice.

  “I said,” she repeated, “Sherry really pushed for the expedited memorial service. She’s a cop’s wife, alright.”

  It was the first thing Blythe had said to Tom since they’d parted ways after interviewing André Rapp. Not communicating was no way to run an investigation, so they’d been emailing and texting in lieu of actual talk. Pretty much like the rest of the world.

  They’d met outside the church and taken their seats together, the air between them retained a brittle tension. She was wearing her hair down but tucked behind her ears; it didn’t quite reach her shoulders. She wore a black skirt and suit jacket, a white blouse.

  She was right — Coburn hadn’t been dead a full two days and there was already a memorial service. A funeral, but minus a corpse. Sherry Coburn probably understood how investigations could drag out and saw no sense in prolonging the grieving process.

  He continued to sneak glances at Sherry until he felt eyes on him. Tom turned around and saw Katie Mills a few rows back. She caught his gaze, then looked away.

  The church was filled to capacity. The priest’s words resonated. Behind his sunglasses Tom’s eyes wandered to the stained glass, it took him back to his teenage years with Pastor Johnson. He recognized most of the depictions — the Birth of Jesus, the Ascension of Mary, even some of the more obscure, such as Christ’s Charge of Peter. Pastor Johnson had been fond of calling stained glass the poor man’s bible, pointing out times when many in a parish were illiterate. “God has a way of getting His message to anyone,” the pastor would say.

  Even though Tom had spent those Sundays in a Protestant church, the Coburn family’s Catholic church felt similar. The lingering smells of incense, the creaking wood of the pews. The effect was calming. His time with the Johnsons had marked a new beginning in his life.

  Now the darkness that preceded it was haunting him.

  How do you live with your secrets?

  When the service ended, he searched for Katie in the crowd. He stayed back as she spoke with Sherry Coburn, and watched as the two of them shared a tearful embrace. Katie bent toward one of the children, a boy with large dimples. She smiled at him through the tears brimming in her eyes, then she moved toward the entrance.

  Tom wanted to catch up with her, but he waited with Blythe to pass his condolences on to the widow. He watched Katie stop and talk to some other County cops by the font containing holy water. The font was a young angel holding a basin.

  When it was his turn, Tom took Sherry’s hand and looked her in the eyes. “I am so sorry for your loss, Mrs. Coburn.”

  He started to move on, but she held onto him. “You’re Agent Lange.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  She was as tall as Tom, round-faced. Her bright eyes were red from crying behind her veil, but still captivated him. Her grip was strong. “Coby liked you.”

  “I liked him too.”

  She moved subtly closer, and her smile vanished. “Don’t let this go,” she said in a low voice. “I know you picked someone up, I know who he works for. You’ve got to finish what Coby started. You need to end this,
Tom.”

  She released his hand and stepped back, then immediately turned to Blythe, next in line. Tom eased away, his head heavy with the contradictions. Coburn’s work was one of secrecy, but even his wife seemed sure that Palumbo was behind his death.

  Unless, though, she’d meant that she knew André Rapp was Coby’s C.I. and only that.

  The whole thing seemed vulnerable and porous as a sieve. Coburn’s surveillance was protected by court order, yet outsiders had access to it thanks to knowing where and how to look for that information. But the more he considered it, the less he thought Shelly’s words referred to any of this, exactly. As he drifted toward the exit, he thought her words were an attempt to drown out the complexity, to make things simpler — Coburn was a cop, a good cop, and his death needed to be answered.

  He avoided the eyes of other deputies, city cops, state troopers, and prison guards, as he left. It suddenly felt like he was caught in between two worlds — the organized crime of Mario Palumbo, and the tribe of Floridian law enforcement.

  Somewhere in the middle of it, pulling strings it seemed, was Citizen Justice. And only Tom knew, only Tom occupied the same ground.

  * * *

  He managed to catch Katie outside, about a block from the church, getting into her personal vehicle, a compact Honda Fit. She was about to get in but saw him coming and closed the driver’s side door.

  “Hey,” he said, approaching.

  “Hey.”

  She wore the requisite mourning ensemble, black pants and a black button-down shirt. Her brown hair was loose, nesting on her shoulders. Her eyes showed the same fatigue as Sherry’s.

  “Saw you in there.”

  “Yeah . . . I can’t believe Sherry. That woman is something.”

  “No kidding.” Tom could still feel the cool, dry grip of her hand, her laser eyes seeking his soul. “She’s very strong.”

  “I can’t even imagine . . .” Katie sagged against the vehicle. “Left without a husband; five kids. I would be in pieces.” She scrutinized his face. “Tom, what did you do?”

  “Can we get a cup of coffee?”

  Their eyes connected, then she looked at her feet. “Ah, this is a tough time. I do want to talk, but right now is . . .”

  “It’s not about us.”

  He had her full attention again.

  “I mean, I do want to talk about us. Actually, I want to apologize to you. For a lot of things. But right now I need your help. So can we meet? Maybe right around here? Get a table in the back somewhere? It won’t take long.”

  She finally nodded. “Okay. I can give you a half hour. I’m just swamped.” He held her door open, she dropped into the seat and looked up. “You must be, too.”

  There was something in her face that made him wonder if word had gotten out that he’d had Heather Moss stay at his house. He knew Blythe wouldn’t talk, or Culpepper, but this was a cop’s world, and cops were always watching.

  “Yeah, things have been pretty crazy.”

  * * *

  It was hard, sitting across from her, not to reminisce. Katie seemed more like a stranger now than when he’d first met her. He hated to think it was over. If it was, it was his fault.

  He’d been far more open with Heather than his own girlfriend. Why? Maybe because with Katie he’d seen a future, and it scared him, so he’d kept a distance.

  Funny how that worked.

  “Coburn came to see me,” he said.

  “I know. The night he died.”

  “He said his unit was hacked.”

  “He did?”

  “We don’t know the extent of the damage. Turnbull is scrambling to find any leaks from within the department. The whole thing is obviously being kept under wraps. I’m just telling you because . . . I want you to watch your back.”

  The waitress appeared, interrupting. They gave their orders, a couple of coffees, a piece of apple pie. Tom thought of Iowa Schnell as he watched the waitress pick her way through the crowded café to put in their order.

  Katie was eyeing him. “Tom. What is it? Who hacked Coburn’s unit? Palumbo?”

  “We don’t know.”

  “Same person as whoever was spying on the jail, though, right?”

  “Right. You should protect CID. Talk to your supervisor, make sure your firewalls are all up to date, that sort of thing. Have you gotten any strange messages? Emails or texts?”

  “No. I don’t know. Not that I know of.”

  Tom nodded and drummed his fingers, feeling restless. “When is someone going to just fucking take down Palumbo? When are the feds going to make a move? When was Coby? Ever?”

  She was silent a moment. “You know how it is, Tom. It takes a lot of time to build a case like that . . .”

  “Two years, Katie. Or close to it.”

  “Sure. Coby’s unit put all sorts of people in jail. They get some of them working for them. Others, at least they’re off the streets. They make drug seizures. But Palumbo is getting slicker all the time. He’s using more boats now, working with other people.”

  “He was trying to work with the Vasquez family. I think he took out Edgar Vasquez to create a void he could fill, stone crabbers down in Everglades City . . .” Tom shook his head. “It just keeps going on and on. There’s no switch to turn it off.”

  “Maybe this is it. This case. Pinning Declan’s death to Palumbo. Proving Palumbo used Declan to get rid of Edgar— Why are you shaking your head?”

  “It’s not him. It’s not Palumbo.”

  “Why? How can you know?” She pointed at the cut on his face, the bruise around his eye. “Is that where you got this? What — did you just show up, start harassing people?”

  “Look at how Declan was killed. Blythe said it: a text book organized crime hit. It’s like someone was trying to hand us Palumbo. ‘Here’s a potential accomplice to a mob murder, and then he gets taken out — in jail.’”

  Katie’s voice was measured. “You think someone in county has been back-channeling? I mean, framing Palumbo when there’s already so much real evidence on him?”

  “Real evidence? If there’s any real evidence, why’s he still walking around, breathing the same air as us?”

  “Tom, if memory serves, you went to school for criminology. Surely your studies inform you that Palumbo is not the exception to the rule. Organized criminals like him — businessmen — float above the law. You get them on some bullshit charge, they beat it, and it’s like bacteria learning to resist the antibodies. He just gets stronger.”

  “Exactly.”

  Katie sighed. The waitress arrived with their coffee and pie, blocking her exit.

  “Can I get you anything else?” Her gaze traveled between them.

  Katie answered, “No, thank you.”

  When the waitress moved off again, Katie levied a long look at Tom. Her round, pretty face appeared older, he thought he saw a hint of pity in her eyes.

  “You think someone inside law enforcement has taken up the mantle, gone where the law can’t go, that kind of thing?”

  “I think that’s more likely than Palumbo making all these moves out of character. People keep saying ‘textbook organized crime’, but for my money, that’s a shot to the back of the head, it’s not hacking and spying and poison.”

  “The world is changing.”

  “And this guy we rolled up on, André Rapp, he admitted that the person he’s working for told him to make it look like a drive-by shooting on Heather Moss, but not to hurt her.”

  She blinked. She hadn’t known that. “So it’s some vigilante with a conscience?”

  He stared at his coffee, then took a sip of the hot liquid. “Please just tell me if you know anything, Katie.”

  She stared, then let out a trembling breath. She had yet to touch her own coffee, a tendril of steam rose up from it.

  “Okay.”

  He waited.

  “I heard some things. That’s all. Just talk.”

  His heart started to beat a little
faster.

  “VNB has been frustrated,” she said. “For the very reasons you’re talking about — Palumbo keeps slipping away. They’ve made all sorts of busts, interdiction teams picking up drug runners all up and down the coast, but no one flips. No one takes the plea deal. I heard that the feds had gotten involved at one point, there was talk of RICO, but then it just seemed to go away.”

  “Why?”

  She looked defiant. But then she answered. “Because the whole thing is tainted. There was speculation the feds found out about the data breach in Coburn’s unit.”

  “What? They knew? Where’s this coming out of?”

  “Machado. Her brother is in information tech. There was a big scramble; Machado’s brother was working on retooling the whole thing for vice narcotics, adding security, things like that.”

  “When did this happen?”

  “I don’t know. Not long ago. All I heard is that there’s someone out there messing with this stuff. It’s all electronic. Like I said, the world is changing. Staying the same too . . . Listen, I heard one name, and you can’t tell anyone that this came from me, Machado, her brother, nobody — do you understand? I heard that—”

  “Citizen Justice,” he said.

  Her face went slack. He heard her swallow. “You already know.”

  He lifted his phone in the air and rotated it so she could read the screen, but Katie grabbed it. She read the most recent email, then went back through the chain. “Oh my God, Tom. This is it. This is him. You’re emailing with this guy?”

  Tom leaned back and surveyed the café. “I think this guy gets whatever dirt he can find on anyone. Something he can leverage you with. Like Declan, and the child pornography. He’s got something on me, too, Katie.”

  She continued scrolling and looking, and Tom saw it register on her face. Katie sighed heavily and closed her eyes. “That’s you?” She shoved the phone back at him and started to leave. “I can’t do this, Tom.”

  “Yeah, that’s me. I lied, Katie. On my application for the FDLE. On all the paperwork, every bit of it. That picture is from my arrest when I was fourteen. I’d gotten in a fight with a guy — he was five years older than me — and I nearly killed him. When the cops came, I ran. They caught me, I resisted. They found the drugs I was carrying.” He sighed. “I was in possession of crack-cocaine.”