Edgers’s attorney had requested both Wilson and Mendez be present and ready to “work things through.” Which meant Edgers had something to give them. If it concerned Rodeo, Wilson could see where he and Mendez might have a difference of opinion. Mendez wanted premeditation and murder; he wanted recovery of the body. Wilson had his eye on the ball, and the ball was Rodeo.
The tab at Billy’s came to four hundred eighty-nine dollars plus tip. Mendez had grimaced at the bill, but Wilson’s jaw had dropped. You would never get away that cheaply in Los Angeles. They’d had their fill of beer and ribs, beans and deep-fried banana peppers, corn bread, Texas toast, blackberry cobbler and vanilla ice cream. Wilson fumbled through his wallet for the company credit card—the ATF American Express Platinum—and noticed that Mendez was standing by the wreckage of their meal, staring out the window. He seemed to be waiting.
“Did you want to order anything else to eat?” Wilson asked. He’d signed the credit card slip, including a tip that brought tears of happiness to the restaurant staff.
Mendez gave him a small half smile.
Right, Wilson thought. Why waste a whole smile when a half of one would do.
Mendez looked antsy. If the beer had an effect on him, he hid it well. “Edgers and his attorney will be in before noon. Are you interested in thinking through some strategy, or would you rather do that tomorrow?”
“I’m still on West Coast time. I’m wide awake. Let’s go get a clean table and sort things through.”
Mendez looked over Wilson’s shoulder at the kitchen.
“They won’t be going home for another hour or two. They’ve locked the front doors but they said we could pick out a clean table and stay as long as we want.”
Mendez followed Wilson up a level to the long pinewood booths. The beer was working in their favor; both of them more relaxed than usual.
“I answered all of your questions today,” Mendez said.
Wilson leaned back against the cushion. He knew where this was heading.
“I feel like I’m somewhat out of the loop on your end of the case, and I wondered if you’d like to fill me in. I think as it stands that you and I are going to go into that negotiation tomorrow with two different agendas.”
“I had that same thought. Give me a quick rundown on what you do know. I can make sure everything you have is accurate and fill in the blanks.”
A waiter appeared, left a pitcher of beer and two clean glasses and told them it was on the house.
“I know Edgers was involved with Cheryl Dunkirk—professionally and personally. I know Edgers is not legally married to the woman he says is his wife. I know he killed Cheryl Dunkirk and tied her bloody sweater to a rock and threw it into a pond on his property. The last two aren’t confirmed.”
Wilson felt his stomach go tight. “Who’s been holding out on who?”
“The last two came in today, still being checked. I also know Cheryl’s disappearance is somehow crossing one of your ongoing investigations, and that whatever it is, it’s big.”
Wilson poured beer into both glasses, shoving one toward Mendez. “Is that why Edgers is coming in? He knows about the sweater?”
“Your guess is as good as mine.”
“Has there been a leak?”
“Let’s just say the evidence came from a leak.”
Wilson sat back in his booth, shredded one of the paper towels Billy’s provided for cleanup. “Okay, Mendez. This is what I’ve got. There have been five federal agents assassinated in the last five years—three were FBI, two were our guys. All of them were present at Waco during the firestorm.”
Mendez reached for his glass. Took a long swallow. “Go on.”
“The killer keeps the same MO. Stuns them with some kind of high-powered Taser, binds their hands and feet with baling wire, strangles them with baling wire.”
“Torture?”
“Doesn’t look like it. On the other hand, the method of execution is pretty up close and personal.”
“So you’re not thinking this is a hire job.”
“We don’t think so. Right on the heels of every death is an Internet radio broadcast with the name of the victim, location of the body, details of the kill. Information that could only come from someone who either did the job, or was in communication with the one who did. We tracked the data streams, and have come up with a different survivalist group each time. What these groups have in common is they’re loosely organized, ineffective, small-timers. It’s never the same group twice.”
“So the killer is using them to draw fire.”
“Not bad for a local guy.” Wilson looked up quickly and saw that Mendez hadn’t taken offense. Stupid joke. Too much beer. “Your office do much with geographical forensics?”
“We’ve got some people training at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. Nothing formal, nothing up and running yet. The sniper investigation your people did in the D.C. area put the spotlight on it, so we may get some funding on down the road.”
Wilson balled up a paper towel from the roll at the end of the table. “We work with a marine intel group out at Pendleton, and they spent a lot of time on this. Kept coming up with the same results—the killer had no discernible geographical base. We interpreted that to mean that the killer was not a single person, but some kind of networking conspiracy with these groups. And then more data came in and we started to get another picture—a geographical route. We pounded the computers for anything that runs that particular track and came up with the U.S. Pro-Am Markus Bourbon Rodeo.”
“Stun gun. Baling wire. Large animals—bulls.”
“The Rodeo Assassin. We still haven’t got anything solid on the Waco connection. But we had an agent working undercover at the Markus Bourbon Pro-Am, and she was certain she’d identified Rodeo’s girlfriend, a rodeo clown named Janis Winters, who functions as a sort of liaison between the survivalist groups and Rodeo himself. That was the last we heard from our agent before we found her body.”
“Same way as the others?”
“Down to the last detail. Except for no Internet radio stream.” Wilson rubbed his eyes. “In the meantime, we get an intern here in Kentucky who disappears, and one of the last things she did before she went missing was have a conversation with her ex-boyfriend, who used to be an ATF intern himself. She tells him that a sheriff by the name of Cory Edgers, who’d been mentoring her since she’d gotten the intern job, and who had actually gotten her into a bit of trouble with her boss, had told her that he was working undercover on a big case that involved the murder of federal agents. She told the ex, Robbie, that she thought Edgers was bragging to impress her, but that a lot of what he said sounded pretty real. She also said he knew who the next victim was going to be, and that he would bring “the big guys” in when he’d made his case. He was going to make a big splash, and get himself hired on with the ATF. He told her the name of the victim.
“She’s conflicted, not sure what to do, wondering if it’s all a come-on and a lot of crap. She’s on the job a couple of weeks later when she hears about a federal agent down in Alabama, dead, same name as Edgers told her. She freaks, goes to see Robbie the ex, who tells her to go straight to the S.A. in charge and tell him everything. But she’s adamant that this Edgers is into something that’s over his head, he’s a good cop, she’s not going to get labeled a snitch before she even gets out of college. And for all she knows the operation is legit and the S.A. knows all about it.”
Mendez looked down at his fingernails. “Did she tell the ex what she was going to do?”
“No. But he said it would be like her to give Edgers a chance to go to the S.A. himself.”
Mendez looked across the table at Wilson.
“What?” Wilson asked.
“I interviewed Robert Little myself. He didn’t bring any of this up.”
Wilson took a breath. “I know that. He thought he was doing the right thing.”
“Little is a law enforcement grad student. He’s familiar wi
th the concept of obstruction of justice. This bit of information was crucial to the investigation. I could have gone to the grand jury and had Edgers indicted on that alone.”
“I know. That’s why we kept it from you.” Wilson studied Mendez, saw no change in complexion, no sign of anger, no telltale pulse beating in the temple or the side of the neck. Unemotional, matter-of-fact. Formidable. “If you’d gone to the grand jury we’d have shut you down.”
“You’d have tried.”
“I give you that. But I’m bringing you in now. That’s the whole reason I’m here, to manage the Kentucky end of this, and work directly with you. It takes a little time to get the groundwork laid and the task force moving. Everything’s in place. One of our agents lost her life tracking this guy, and she was close. It wouldn’t make sense to shrug that off and say ‘oh, well.’”
“Point taken.”
Wilson took a deep breath. “As soon as we got the word from Monica Clive, our agent, we matched up times and locations of deaths, with times and locations of Rodeo performances, and cross-referenced with rodeo personnel. There are always some guys that don’t go on the payroll, and get paid under the table.
“The girlfriend, Janis Winters, is a hit on every one. After Agent Clive was killed, we freaked, we figured Winters would disappear and Rodeo would go underground. We kept a very loose, very discreet surveillance. Winters stayed put. We went over the videos Monica took. Edgers shows up in the very last one.”
“Edgers does? What is he doing? Is he in contact with Janis Winters?”
“Nothing we can see. But that’s not definitive.”
Mendez scratched his chin. “So is he really trying to work the case, or is he in with the killer?”
“That’s the question.”
“Why kill Cheryl Dunkirk?” Mendez asked.
“Either he’s working with the killer, and she knew too much about it. Or he’s working the case, and he screwed up and let an agent get killed without warning us, and he didn’t want to lose his career and opportunity to be a Fed. Or he was having an affair with her and it was a crime of passion.”
“Or he didn’t do it.”
“That’s possible, too.”
Mendez’s cell phone rang. “Excuse me,” he said, answering. “Yes. Yeah. Good.”
Wilson was tired and his mind drifted to Sel. Meeting her had been one of those weird, self-made miracles. Wilson had sweated through months of physical therapy till he could walk, albeit with a limp, and he was getting back in shape, but his swing and shag dancing days were over. It depressed him, looking at the surfboard that was as familiar to him as his own face. It was too good a board to be out of the water, and too sweet to sell to someone who would not treat it right. So Wilson started spending days off walking the beaches, looking to give the board to the first good-looking female surfer he could find.
Wilson found her at Zuma Beach. He knew she was the one as soon as he saw her go out. He’d climbed the steep pathway that led to the rock overhang, his leg throbbing and stiff. He’d stood on the edge of the rocks, breathing heavily, sweat runnels sliding down the side of his flushed face, and watched her through the binoculars hanging on a string around his neck.
It was chilly enough that there were very few diehards on the beach. The girl wore a thigh-length skin suit. Her hair hung in dark wet spirals, and she rode that board with a grace and balance that somehow made her free. She had good form, and an East Coast style, and simply seeing the way she stood, the way she held her arms, brought it all back to Wilson, the joy of being out.
“Okay,” Mendez said. “I’ll talk to you later.”
“Hey, don’t hang up yet, Joel. If that’s your girlfriend, maybe she’d like to come down for some food.”
“That was the sheriff’s department in Anderson County. They’ll get the paperwork together for us to drag the pond on Edgers’s property.”
“Oh. Well, you can still call your girlfriend.”
Mendez hesitated. “I’m sure she already ate.”
When Edgers arrived at the Lexington Police Department with his attorney at precisely ten o’clock the next morning, Wilson and Mendez were freshly shaved, showered, and had consumed their first two cups of coffee. The four men met in a small conference room; gray carpet, cream-colored walls, a muted and silent chamber. This was no overheated worn-out room with green walls, ugly tile, and a two-way mirror, a confining claustrophobic square where cops and perps and attorneys yanked their ties loose and screamed at each other. In this room cops and perps and attorneys only wished they could yank their ties loose and scream at each other.
Cory Edgers had arrived in uniform, and he gave Wilson a long slow stare. Wilson returned a lazy look, hiding behind the California dude image, noticing that the man was the kind of spit-and-polish law enforcement his boss back in L.A. drooled over. Wilson glanced over to Mendez. If the man had an opinion, it did not show on his face.
Mendez had already briefed him on Edgers’s attorney. Lexington-based, though he’d been raised in Bowling Green, Vernon Carminsk ran a one-man firm specializing in the representation of white-collar criminals. Many of his clients were innocent; just as many weren’t. Carminsk was short, stocky, with dark blond hair and a pretty good suit. He shook hands with Mendez.
“Joel.”
“Vernon. This is Agent Wilson McCoy of the Los Angeles office of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. Here as requested.”
“Appreciate your time,” Carminsk said. He glanced at Edgers and pointed to a chair. Carminsk emitted the faintest hint of cologne; a light but masculine scent. He opened a briefcase, took out two files, handed one to Mendez, the other to Wilson.
“Just a moment of background, if you’ll bear with me.”
In Wilson’s opinion, Edgers had made a wise choice in attorneys. Carminsk had a cordial but direct professionalism that would carry over to his clients. He gave the impression of a man who was straight up, uninterested in legal tricks and posturing, and intent on getting things sorted expediently. He’d be a breath of fresh air in L.A. And a jury would follow his every lead.
“You both know my client, Deputy Sheriff Cory Edgers. You know that he has been in law enforcement for ten years, that he has a good record, and the solid reputation of a hardworking family man. You also know that for the past year he has been on temporary assignment with the Lexington ATF office.” Carminsk looked at Wilson. “Mr. Edgers was flattered by the confidence the ATF showed by hiring him to work for them on a temporary basis.” Carminsk leaned back in his chair.
“Mr. Edgers is atypical of my clients. Most of them, understandably, want one, not to go to jail; and two, not to lose their jobs. I can honestly tell you that Mr. Edgers never focused on either when we first talked.…”
Slippery word, focus, Wilson thought.
“Mr. Edgers’s main concern was in getting a very complicated situation resolved in the best way possible. Mr. Edgers is law enforcement through and through. Whatever else you may think of him, I don’t think you can disagree with that.”
Wilson tipped his chair back. He was not an early riser on the West Coast, and it was agony getting up on the East. But he’d been out of bed before the alarm went off that morning, and had been edgy and on the mark and now he was struggling to stay awake. He checked his watch. Might as well time things and try to come up with the average period a southerner talked before getting to the point.
Carminsk held up a finger. “My client has an amazing story to tell you. He has information that is critical. He very much wants to talk to you both—he and I are in agreement on that. On the other hand, I represent the man, and I want to make sure he is looked after.”
Wilson looked to Mendez, expecting him to make the usual Tell me what you know and we’ll see reassurance. Mendez said nothing. No one said anything.
Carminsk cleared his throat. “I don’t want Mr. Edgers to talk to you unless we get some guarantees about the repercussions of what he’s going say.”
“Wh
at do you want?” Mendez asked.
“Involuntary manslaughter for the death of Cheryl Dunkirk; ten years total, six served, four probated. Minimum security prison. Immunity for any further charges that might come out of this discussion and subsequent investigations. And by that I include state and federal charges.”
“Too broad,” Mendez said. “Is he willing to locate the body?”
“No. Mr. Edgers does not know where Ms. Dunkirk is. Nevertheless, he feels a certain amount of responsibility in her disappearance. You’ll understand when you hear his story.”
Mendez looked over at Wilson, and said, “Excuse us.” Wilson followed him out of the room and a ways down the hall.
Wilson leaned back against the wall. “How do you read it?”
Mendez was thinking, staring at nothing in particular. “He killed her. He wouldn’t take the manslaughter charge if he hadn’t. He won’t tell us where the body is, which means that whatever story he and Carminsk have come up with is crap, and won’t be borne out by forensics. That says to me it was a premeditated killing. And that he wants to cover his ass in case Cheryl is ever found.”
“He could get the death penalty; an intern is still a Fed. And even if it didn’t merit that, a federal sentence would mean no parole.” Wilson folded his arms. “Why does he think we’d agree to anything this stupid?”
“I think he has something for you.”
“Something that’s worth a sweetheart deal?” Wilson said.
Mendez put his hands in his pockets. “Without a body, I don’t have much. We’ll get some matches out of Cheryl’s car when the DNA results come back from the state lab, but those can be accounted for; Cheryl and Edgers spent time together. I don’t have a case; I might never have one.”
Wilson wondered how it was he’d gotten comfortable working with Mendez so quickly. As if they’d been partners for months. “What did you think of the ‘family man’ remark?”
Fortunes of the Dead Page 22