She let out a long sigh as she stared back at the road. One hand rested in her lap, while the other was firmly wrapped around the steering wheel. She was wearing her usual power suit: a bright blue skirt and matching jacket with a light-colored blouse underneath. Her high-heel shoes exactly matched the color of her suit. Her fingernails were trim but manicured. Her hair was its usual helmet of salt-and-pepper gray. Most days, Amanda seemed to have more energy than all the men on her team. Now, she looked tired, and Will could see the worry lines around her eyes were more pronounced.
She said, “Tell me about Spivey.”
Will tried to click his brain back over to his old case against Captain Evelyn Mitchell’s team. Boyd Spivey was the former lead detective on the narcotics squad who was currently biding his time on death row. Will had talked to the man only once before Spivey’s lawyers advised him to keep his mouth shut. “I don’t find it hard to believe he beat someone to death with his fists. He was a big guy, taller than me, carried about fifty more pounds, all of it muscle.”
“Gym rat?”
“I’d guess steroids gave him a boost.”
“How did that work for him?”
“They made him uncontrollably angry,” Will recalled. “He’s not as smart as he thinks, but I wasn’t able to get him to confess, so maybe I’m not either.”
“You still sent him to prison.”
“He sent himself to prison. His house in the city was paid for. His house at the lake was paid for. All three of his kids were in private school. His wife worked ten hours a week and drove a top-of-the-line Mercedes. His mistress drove a BMW. He kept his brand new Porsche 911 parked in her driveway.”
“Men and their cars,” she mumbled. “He doesn’t sound very smart to me.”
“He didn’t think anyone would ask questions.”
“Generally, they don’t.”
“Spivey was good at keeping his mouth shut.”
“As I recall, all of them were.”
She was right. In a corruption case, the usual strategy was to find the weakest member and persuade him or her to turn on his or her fellow conspirators in exchange for a lighter sentence. The six detectives belonging to Evelyn Mitchell’s narcotics squad had proven immune to this strategy. None of them would turn on the other, and all of them routinely insisted that Captain Mitchell had nothing to do with their alleged crimes. They went out of their way to protect their boss. It was both admirable and incredibly frustrating.
Will said, “Spivey worked on Evelyn’s squad for twelve years—longer than any of them.”
“She trusted him.”
“Yes,” Will agreed. “Two peas in a pod.”
Amanda cut him a sharp look. “Careful.”
Will felt his jaw tighten so hard that the bone ached. He didn’t see how ignoring the most important part of this case was going to get them anywhere. Amanda knew as well as Will that her friend was guilty as hell. Evelyn hadn’t lived large, but like Spivey, she’d been stupid in her own way.
Faith’s father had been an insurance broker, solidly middle class with the usual kinds of debts that people had: car payments, mortgage, credit cards. Yet, during Will’s investigation, he’d found an out-of-state bank account in Bill Mitchell’s name. At the time, the man had been dead for six years. Though the account balance always hovered around ten thousand dollars, the activity showed monthly deposits since his death that totaled up to almost sixty thousand dollars. It was clearly a shell account, the kind of thing prosecutors called a smoking gun. With Bill dead, Evelyn was the only signatory. Money was taken out and deposited with her ATM card at an Atlanta branch of the bank. Her dead husband wasn’t the one who was keeping the activities spread apart and the deposits shy of the limit that would throw up a red flag at Homeland Security.
As far as Will knew, Evelyn Mitchell had never been asked about the account. He’d figured it would come out during her trial, but her trial had never happened. There had been a press conference announcing her retirement, and that was the end of the story.
Until now.
Amanda flipped down the visor to block the sun. Clipped to the underside were a couple of yellow claim tickets that looked like they were from a dry cleaner. The sun wasn’t doing her any favors. She didn’t look tired anymore. She looked haggard.
She said, “Something’s bothering you.”
He resisted uttering the biggest “duh” ever vocalized in the history of the world.
“Not that,” she said, as if she could read his mind. “Faith didn’t call you for help because she knew that she was going to do the wrong thing.”
Will looked out the window.
“You would’ve made her wait for backup.”
He hated the relief her words brought.
“She’s always been headstrong.”
He felt the need to say, “She didn’t do the wrong thing.”
“That’s my boy.”
Will watched the trees along the highway blend into a sea of green. “Do you think there’s going to be a ransom?”
“I hope so.” They both knew that a ransom pointed to a living hostage, or at least the opportunity to demand proof of life.
He said, “This feels personal.”
“How so?”
He shook his head. “The way the house was torn up. There’s mad, and then there’s furious.”
“I don’t imagine the old girl sat by quietly while they performed their search.”
“Probably not.” Evelyn Mitchell was no Amanda Wagner, but Will could easily see her taunting the men who were tearing up her house. You didn’t get to be one of the first female captains on the Atlanta police force by being sweet. “They were obviously looking for money.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Clams—the last word Ricardo said to Faith before he died. You said it’s slang for money. Ergo, they were looking for money.”
“In the silverware drawer?”
Another good point. Cash was nice, but it was cumbersome. A pile worth kidnapping an ex-Atlanta police captain for would fill several silverware drawers.
He said, “The arrow was pointing into the backyard.”
“What arrow?”
Will suppressed a groan. She wasn’t usually this obvious. “The arrow drawn in Evelyn’s blood underneath the chair she was duct-taped to. I know you saw it. You hissed at me like an air compressor.”
“You really should work on your metaphors.” She was silent for a beat, probably considering the most circuitous route to take him to nowhere. “You think Evelyn has buried treasure in her backyard?”
He had to admit this was unlikely, especially considering the Mitchell backyard was on full display to the rest of the neighbors, most of whom were retired and seemed to have ample time to spy. Besides, Will couldn’t picture Faith’s mother out with a shovel and a flashlight in the middle of the night. Then again, it wasn’t like she could put it in the bank.
“Safe deposit box,” Will tried. “Maybe they were looking for a key.”
“Evelyn would have to go to the bank and sign in to get access. They’d compare her signature, ask for her ID. Our kidnapper had to know her picture would be on every television station the minute he took her.”
Will silently conceded the point. Besides, the same rule applied. A large amount of cash took up space. Diamonds and gold were more for Hollywood movies. In real life, stolen jewels fetched pennies on the dollar.
She asked, “What about the crime scene? Do you think Charlie got it right?”
Will went on the defense. “Mittal did most of the talking.”
“Okay, you’ve covered Charlie’s ass. Now answer my question.”
“The Los Texicanos in the trunk of the Malibu, Evelyn’s gentleman friend. He throws it all out.”
She nodded. “He wasn’t stabbed. He died from a shot to the head, plus, he’s B-positive. That still leaves us with our B-negative out there with a nasty wound.”
“That’s not what I’m talkin
g about.” Will resisted the urge to add, “and you know it.” Amanda wasn’t just tying his hands behind his back. She was blindfolding him and sending him toward the edge of a cliff. Her refusal to talk about or even acknowledge Evelyn Mitchell’s sordid past wasn’t going to help Faith and it sure as hell wasn’t going to get her mother back in one piece. Evelyn had worked in narcotics. She was obviously in contact, almost daily, with a higher-up in Los Texicanos, the gang that ran the drug trade in and out of Atlanta. They should be back in the city talking to the gang units and putting together the last few weeks of Evelyn’s life, not making a fool’s errand to visit a guy who had nothing to lose and a history of stubborn silence.
“Come on, Dr. Trent,” Amanda chided. “Don’t make me pull teeth.”
Will let his ego get in the way for a few more seconds before saying, “Evelyn’s gentleman friend. His wallet was missing. He didn’t have any ID or money on him. The only thing in his pockets was the key to Evelyn’s Malibu. She must’ve given it to him.”
“Keep going.”
“She was making lunch for two people. There were four slices of bread in the toaster. Faith was late. Evelyn didn’t know what time she’d be home, but she would assume Faith would call when she was on her way. There were groceries in the trunk of the Malibu. The receipt says Evelyn used her debit card at the Kroger at 12:02. The gentleman was bringing in the groceries while she fixed lunch.”
Amanda smiled. “I often forget how smart you are, but then something like this happens and it makes me realize why I hired you.”
Will ignored the backhanded compliment. “So, Evelyn’s making lunch. She starts to wonder where her gentleman friend is. She goes outside and finds his body in the trunk. She grabs Emma and hides her in the shed. If she’d grabbed Emma after cutting her hand, like Dr. Mittal said, there would’ve been blood somewhere on the car seat. Evelyn’s strong, but she’s not Hercules. The car seat, even without a baby in it, is pretty heavy. She couldn’t dead lift one of those things off the counter with one hand—at least not safely. She’d have to cup the bottom with her free hand. Emma’s little, but she’s got some heft to her.”
Amanda supplied, “Evelyn spent time in the shed. She moved the blankets around. There’s no blood on them. She dialed the combination lock on the safe. There’s no blood on the dial. The floor is clean. She was bleeding after she locked the door.”
“I’m not an expert on kitchen injuries, but you don’t generally cut your ring finger when you’re slicing something. It’s usually the thumb or the index finger.”
“Another good point.” Amanda checked the rearview mirror and changed lanes. “Okay, what did she do next?”
“Like you said. Evelyn hides the baby, then gets her gun out of the safe, goes back into the house and shoots Kwon, who’s waiting to ambush her from the laundry room. Then, she’s overpowered by a second man, probably our mystery blood type B-negative. Evelyn’s gun gets knocked out of her hand during the struggle. She stabs B-negative, but there’s a third guy, Mr. Hawaiian Shirt. He gets Evelyn’s gun off the floor and stops the struggle. He asks her where the thing is that they’re looking for. She tells them to go to hell. She’s duct-taped to the chair while they search the house.”
“That sounds plausible.”
It sounded confusing. There were so many bad guys that Will was having a hard time keeping track of them. Two Asians, one Hispanic, possibly two—maybe a third man, race unknown—a house being searched for God only knew what and a missing sixty-three-year-old ex-cop who had her share of secrets.
Then there was the even larger question that Will knew better than to ask: why hadn’t Evelyn called for help? By Will’s count, she’d had at least two opportunities to make a call or run for help: when she first heard the noise, and after she shot Hironobu Kwon in the laundry room. And yet, she had stayed.
“What are you thinking?”
Will knew better than to give an honest answer. “I’m wondering how they got her out of the house without anyone seeing.”
Amanda reminded him, “You’re assuming Roz Levy is being forthcoming.”
“Do you think she’s involved in this?”
“I think she’s a wily old bitch who wouldn’t piss on you if your hair was on fire.”
Will supposed the venom in her tone came from experience.
Amanda said, “This wasn’t spur-of-the-moment. Some planning went into it. They didn’t all walk there. There was a car somewhere, maybe a van. There’s a dogleg alley jutting into Little John Trail. They would’ve gone out the back, exiting into Evelyn’s backyard. You follow the fence line between the neighbors and you’re there in two minutes.”
“How many men do you think were there?”
“We’ve got three dead on scene. There’s the injured B-negative and at least one able-bodied man. There’s no way Evelyn would’ve gone to a second location without a fight. She would’ve risked being shot first. There had to be someone there who was strong enough to tie her up or subdue her.”
Will didn’t add that they could’ve just as easily injured or killed her and removed the body. “We’ll know for sure when we get the fingerprints. They all must’ve touched something.”
Abruptly, Amanda changed the subject. “Have you and Faith ever talked about your case against her mother?”
“Not really. I’ve never told her about the bank account, because there’s no reason. She assumes I was wrong. A lot of people do. My case was never made in court. Evelyn retired with full benefits. It’s not a hard conclusion to jump to.”
She nodded as if she was giving her approval. “The man in the trunk, the one you call Evelyn’s gentleman friend. Let’s talk about him.”
“If he was bringing in groceries, that implies they had a personal relationship.”
“That’s certainly possible.”
Will thought about the guy. He’d been shot in the back of the head. His wallet and ID were not the only things missing from his person. He didn’t have a cell phone. He didn’t have the thick gold watch he’d been wearing in the picture Mrs. Levy had taken. His clothes were nondescript—Nikes with Dr. Scholl’s orthopedic inserts, J. Crew jeans, and a Banana Republic shirt that had cost a lot of money considering he hadn’t bothered to iron it. There was a smattering of gray in the black goatee on his chin. The stubble on his shiny head indicated he was hiding male pattern baldness rather than making a bold statement in style. Except for the Los Texicanos star on his forearm, he could’ve been a stockbroker having a midlife crisis.
Amanda said, “I’ve checked with Narcotics. There’ve been some grumblings about the Asians making a play for the powder cocaine trade. It’s been up for grabs since the BMF went down.”
The Black Mafia Family. They had controlled coke sales from Atlanta to LA, with Detroit in between. “That’s a lot of money. The Family was pulling down hundreds of millions of dollars a year.”
“Los Texicanos was calling the shots. They’ve always been suppliers, not distributors. It’s a smart way to play it. That’s why they’ve survived all these years. Despite what Charlie thinks about race, they don’t care if the dealer is black or brown or purple, so long as the money’s green.”
Will had never worked a major drug case. “I don’t know much about the organization.”
“Los Texicanos started back in the mid-sixties at the Atlanta Pen. The population demographic back then was almost the exact reverse of what it is now—seventy percent white, thirty black. Crack cocaine changed that overnight. It worked faster than forced busing. There were still only a handful of Mexicans in the joint, and they ganged up to keep from getting their throats cut. You know how it goes.”
Will nodded. Just about every gang in America had started as a group of minorities, be they Irish, Jewish, Italian, or other, banding together for survival. It generally took a couple of years before they started doing worse than was done to them. “What’s the structure?”
“Pretty loose. No one’s going to chart like MS-
13.” She was referring to what was often called the most dangerous gang in the world. Their organizational structure rivaled the military’s, and their loyalty was so fierce that they’d never been successfully infiltrated.
Amanda explained, “In the early years, Los Texicanos was on the front page of the paper every single day, sometimes in both editions. Shootouts in the street, heroin, pot, numbers, prostitution, robbery. Their calling card was branding children. They didn’t just go after the person who crossed them. They’d go after a daughter, son, niece, nephew. They’d cut open their faces, once across the forehead, then a vertical line down the nose to the chin.”
Without thinking, Will put his hand to the scar along his jaw.
“There was one point during the Atlanta Child Murders investigation when Los Texicanos was at the top of our list. This was early on, the fall of ’79. I was the glorified assistant of the senior liaison for Fulton, Cobb, and Clayton. Evelyn was on the Atlanta task force, mostly fetching coffee until it was time to talk to the parents, then it all fell to her. The general consensus was that the Texicanos were trying to send a broader message to the clientele. It seems ludicrous now, but at the time, we were hoping it was them.” She switched on the blinker and changed lanes. “You were around four then, so you won’t remember, but it was a very tense time. The entire metro area was terrified.”
“Sounds like it,” he said, surprised she knew his age.
“It wasn’t long after the Child Murders that one of the top Texicanos was taken down during an internal struggle. They’re tight-knit. We never found out what happened or who took over, but we know the new guy was much more business-oriented. No more violence for the sake of violence. He prioritized the business, taking out the riskier component. His motto was to keep the coke flowing and the blood off the streets. Once they went underground, we were glad to ignore them.”
“Who’s in charge now?”
“Ignatio Ortiz is the only name we have. He’s the face of the gang. There are two others, but they keep an incredibly low profile and you’ll never find all three of them together in the same place. Before you ask, Ortiz is in Phillips State Prison serving his third year of seven without parole for attempted manslaughter.”
The Will Trent Series 5-Book Bundle Page 175