“I need to have some idea of what I can expect to hear from this woman,” she said. “And I’ve picked you to give me that idea, because you picked me to dump this shit storm on.”
I gave her the rough summary. While I talked, she listened and kept her mouth shut, which impressed me. Rare is the attorney who can handle listening and keeping her mouth shut.
“What a mess,” she said when I was done. “Mrs. Weston has this tape with her?”
“Yeah,” I said, “but it may be too late to get any convictions with it.”
“Why is that?”
“If Dainius Belov found out who killed his son, they might have been dealt with in less formal proceedings.”
She looked at me carefully. “Is there any reason to believe he has found out who killed his son?”
I shrugged. “It’s the mob, Ms. Winters. They turn on each other easily.”
“Uh-huh.” She tapped her foot on the floor and stared at me. “You know what I wish when I look at you?”
“That you were twenty years younger and single?”
A slight smile crossed her face, and she sighed and shook her head. “I wish that I could believe you’re going to tell me even half of what you really know. Now, let’s ask Mrs. Weston to join us. I’ll leave your partner waiting in the wings for now. There are some others who are also anxious to speak with you and Mrs. Weston.”
“You want me to go?”
“No, I’ve changed my mind. You’ll stay for now, because I’m far from finished with you. I’m afraid you have no idea what you’re in for, Mr. Perry,” she said, opening the door to get Julie.
“No?” I said.
“I’m one of the last tough, old-fashioned broads,” she said.
“I see.”
She turned on her heel. “Or maybe I should say, a hard-core bitch.”
I had to laugh. “It’s going to be a long afternoon, isn’t it?”
“With this mess?” she said. “You’re dreaming if you think we’re going to wrap it up in an afternoon.”
Swanders arrived, along with another prosecutor and one of the higher-ups from the FBI. He was a small, quiet man who didn’t say much, but his face darkened considerably when I told him what I suspected of Agent Thaddeus Cody. Swanders avoided eye contact with me for most of the meeting. I couldn’t tell if he was mad at me or embarrassed that he’d been so clueless about so much. Probably those two emotions went hand in hand.
When they were done with Julie and me, Winters opened the door to call in Joe. I felt bad for him; it had to have been a long, tedious wait. Once Joe was inside, Winters stepped back into the lobby and asked Julie where Betsy was.
“She’s with her grandfather,” Julie said. “Someplace safe.”
“Mrs. Weston, I simply cannot have that. I cannot have either of you in an undisclosed location, and I’m afraid I must provide you with police security for the time being. I’m going to have to request that you stay in a hotel here in the city where we can see you have adequate protection.”
“That’s fine,” Julie said, as if she had absolutely no problem trusting her safety to the police. I tried not to stare at her.
“Now, if you’ll tell me where your daughter is, I’ll have an officer dispatched to pick her up and bring her here.”
Julie frowned. “With all due respect, ma’am, I don’t like that idea. The upcoming days are going to be very hard on my daughter, and I don’t need them to begin with a police officer taking her away from her grandfather. If you want us to stay at a hotel, let Lincoln drive me back to get my daughter and bring her in myself.”
Winters didn’t like it, but she didn’t fight it. “I want her brought to the Marriott by the airport as soon as possible,” she told me. “We’ll have officers waiting there, and they’ll have a room ready for you. When you’re settled in, we’ll talk again.”
“Should we wait on Joe?” I asked.
Winters rolled her eyes. “I know he’s your partner, Perry, but I think you can handle playing taxi without him. Go get the girl and bring them both to the Marriott. I’ll keep your partner safe.”
“If it’s just going to be the two of you in there, at the very least, let me leave him an extra gun.”
“Go get the girl, Mr. Perry.” She stepped back into the conference room and closed the door.
I drove Julie back to the cottage. On the way, she asked for more details about our meeting with Belov. I told her only that he’d promised to see that she and Betsy weren’t harmed. I did not discuss the methods Belov would likely use to ensure their safety.
“Did you get a chance to talk to John without Betsy around?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“And does he know you’re planning to leave?”
“Yes.”
I glanced away from the highway and looked at her. “And when are you planning to leave, Julie?”
“Tomorrow.”
I put my eyes back on the road. “I see.”
We were silent then until we returned to the cottage. I parked behind Kinkaid’s car, and as I shut the truck off he stepped onto the deck and waved. I turned to Julie.
“He’s going to want to talk to you,” I said. “And I’m going to give him space to do it. Make it quick, though, because we need to get you and Betsy back into the city before Winters sends out a search party.”
“All right.”
“Lincoln, good to see you, man,” Kinkaid said when we walked into the cottage. He gave me a hearty handshake, but his eyes were locked on Julie. “I was pissed with you and Pritchard at first, because you guys were cutting me out of the loop, but now that I understand what’s been going on, I don’t give a damn about any of that.”
“Hello, Aaron,” Julie said. Betsy jumped off the couch and ran to give her mother a hug. She made a wide circle around Kinkaid.
“Hi, Julie. I’m sure glad to see you,” Kinkaid said, sounding like an awkward teenager on a first date. His freckled face was flushed.
I cleared my throat and looked at John Weston, who was sitting on the couch. “John, can I see you outside for a minute?”
He followed me out. I didn’t want to leave Julie alone with Kinkaid, but I was even less interested in hanging around to listen to him gush about his feelings for her, which would surely begin soon enough. I told John about our interview with Winters and her request that Julie and Betsy stay at a hotel under police watch.
“That’s probably a good choice,” he said, averting his eyes. He didn’t say anything about Julie’s planned departure, and I didn’t, either.
“Well, son, I’m old and I’m tired,” he said. “If you’re going to take them back into the city, I’m going to go home. Have Julie call me from the hotel, would you? I’ll see them again tomorrow.”
I told him I would, and he shook my hand and limped off to his Buick. I didn’t want to go back in the house and deal with Kinkaid and Julie yet, so I climbed in my truck and began sorting aimlessly through the things I’d taken from the Contour and dumped into the back of the cab.
A manila folder was lying on the floor where I’d tossed it. Hartwick’s personnel file. I still hadn’t looked at it. I picked it up and flipped through the pages. There was no real need to research his background now, but I had it, and I was trying to kill time. I got to the page of references from his employee application and stopped, my eyes locked on the third name.
“I knew there was a reason not to trust you, asshole,” I said aloud. The third name on Randy Hartwick’s list of references was Aaron Kinkaid. Even more interesting was Kinkaid’s job title at the time of the nearly decade-old application: chief of security, Richard Douglass and Associates. Kinkaid had worked for Jeremiah Hubbard’s attorney.
I walked up on the deck and looked inside. Kinkaid was standing in the kitchen, talking to Julie, while Betsy sat at the table. I stood there for a while, watching them, wondering about what he knew and how long he’d known it. It was time for—as Randy Hartwick had suggested with his last
breath—a little answer-sharing. I didn’t realize until I reached for the door that my hands were clenched into fists.
“Hey, Aaron,” I said as I stepped inside, “I hate to interrupt, but I’ve got a few things I need to explain to you. You mind?”
“Hell, no, man. You’re the boss.” He followed me into one of the little bedrooms. When we were alone, his face opened in a wide smile and he slapped me on the shoulder.
“Good to see you again, Perry. Pritchard and I were a little concerned about you while you were down south.”
I smiled back at him and hit him once in the jaw with a stiff left jab. It backed him up and jarred him, but he got his hands up to protect his face. I kicked him in the groin, then caught him behind the ear with a hard right as he dropped. He landed on all fours, then went down on the floor and curled up, gasping for breath. I pulled Hartwick’s personnel file from my jacket and threw it on the floor beside his face.
“Chief of security for Richard Douglass and Associates, eh? That’s real nice, Kinkaid. You told us you never met Jeremiah Hubbard. I find that a little harder to believe now.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he wheezed. He was sliding his left hand under his shirt. I kicked him in the stomach, then reached inside his shirt and removed the snubnose .32 he had in a shoulder holster. Apparently he’d left the Colt Python home for something a little more discreet today. I threw the gun across the room, pulled him into a sitting position, and slapped him hard in the face. I didn’t want to make enough noise to alarm Julie and Betsy, but I was going to get some answers from Kinkaid.
“Tell me the truth, you son of a bitch,” I said, jamming my thumb into a pressure point near his collarbone and making him writhe in pain. “You told the Russians I was in South Carolina, didn’t you?”
“No,” he said, trying to shake his head while twisting out of my grasp.
“Aaron,” I said, “the game is over. Tell me the truth.”
“All right,” he said, sagging back against the wall. “All right.”
CHAPTER 25
WHEN WAYNE Weston and Aaron Kinkaid went into business together, Hubbard came to them through a referral from Richard Douglass. The job description was simple and open-ended—perform the most thorough background investigations possible, whenever and on whomever Hubbard requested. He offered big money, and they took it. There was never a case for the rich man’s wife, Kinkaid explained; that was just bullshit offered to Joe to establish an initial connection between Weston and Hubbard.
There had also never been a legitimate problem between the two partners over Julie Weston. “There was nothing between Julie and me,” Kinkaid said. “I got drunk and hit on her once, but we both laughed that off.”
So the pair had worked for Hubbard for a while, but it quickly became evident that Weston was better at the type of assignments Hubbard had to offer, and soon he was working almost exclusively for the multimillionaire. Kinkaid and Weston talked things over and decided a separation was the logical solution. Hubbard agreed to fund Kinkaid’s security company in Sandusky as a silent partner. He left the city, and Wayne Weston stuck around, doing some legitimate cases but basically working as a professional blackmailer. He was good at it, and Hubbard was making him rich.
Then came the past winter and Hubbard’s vision of a building project in the Flats. Weston went to work collecting background information on Beckley and the owner of The River Wild. It was then that he ran into the Russians.
“Wayne found out the owner was in bed with the mob, and he wanted to back off,” Kinkaid said. “But Hubbard thought it was a great opportunity, you know? He wanted to be able to threaten this guy with criminal charges if they could get any sort of real evidence. So Wayne broke into the bar and set up a wireless camera to get an idea of what was going on in the place.”
Most people wouldn’t be foolish enough to try to threaten men connected to Belov, but Hubbard had been so big for so long that he could no longer even comprehend the idea of being afraid of someone, even someone like Belov. So when Weston got the tape, his rich, arrogant boss decided to use it, Kinkaid said. He sent the tape to the strip club owner, but he didn’t tell Wayne Weston. The next day, Krashakov came looking for Hubbard. Apparently, he had intercepted the tape before Dainius Belov received it.
“He made them a deal—he’d keep his mouth shut if the Russians would sell the property to him,” Kinkaid said.
“And they took that?” When he nodded I was stunned. “The Russians made a deal with him? Why the hell didn’t they kill him?”
He shrugged. “I guess because they wanted to use him. They saw the potential there; I mean, Hubbard’s about the richest guy in town. Why would they want to kill him when they could use him in the future?”
Good point. “So where did you come in?”
“I called Hubbard to warn him about you guys when Pritchard came out to interview me. A day later, he calls me back and says you two showed up in his office asking questions. He explained everything that had gone down with Wayne and the Russians, and he offered me big money if I could get involved with you and keep him informed. I told him I wasn’t going anywhere near it unless I could talk to the Russians and be sure they weren’t going to consider me a threat. I met with Krashakov and explained how it would be beneficial for all of us if I hung around. He never liked having me involved, but he wanted to find Julie and that tape, so he went with it.” He looked at me as if he were about to let me in on a secret. “Krashakov’s one scary son ofa bitch.”
I wanted to hit him again, but I didn’t. “Who set up Belov’s son?”
“All I know is Krashakov wanted to make a power play, and Belov’s son was the first obstacle in his path. There’s been some tension between those two for a while, I think.” He wiped at the blood on his chin. “I’m in a bad spot, too, Perry. Wayne thought the Russians were going to kill him, and now I’m playing the same role. You think I want to be part of this? Shit, no.”
“So why are you part of it, Kinkaid?”
He snorted. “You think I got a choice? Hubbard owns my business. Hubbard owns me. You don’t just walk away from a guy like that.”
I moved away from him, pacing the little room. He watched me warily.
“Does Hubbard own Cody, too?” I asked.
He looked at the floor. “I don’t know.”
I reached down for him, and he threw an awkward punch that I avoided easily as I got my hands under his arms and lifted him. I slammed him back against the wall, twice, hard enough to make the door rattle in its frame. Julie and Betsy had to hear it, but I was too mad to care.
“Yes,” he said, “yes, dammit, he’s paying Cody. Now get the hell off me, Perry. I’m telling you the truth.”
I dropped him and stepped back. “So what’s Cody’s game, exactly?”
“He’s almost legitimate. He was working on the FBI task force that’s trying to take down Belov, and he knew Weston was involved with them from the wiretaps. Hubbard paid him to keep his name out of it. He wasn’t supposed to derail the investigation, he was just supposed to steer it away from Hubbard.”
“Which means he was derailing the investigation,” I said. “So let me get this straight—Krashakov was making a power play by eliminating Belov’s son. But who was selling Hubbard the club?”
“Krashakov. He was the muscle in charge of it, even if he wasn’t the owner on paper.”
“Dainius didn’t know about the River Wild deal?”
“No. That was Krashakov’s move. He had the authority to sell the club as long as Belov got a cut.”
“You sent the Russians down to South Carolina after me, didn’t you?” I said.
He pushed himself back against the wall as if he were trying to burrow into it for protection, but this time he was smart enough not to lie. “Yes.”
I thought about Rakic and the fat, pale man, about that shotgun swinging toward me, and gritted my teeth. “What about Hartwick?”
“He wasn’
t a weapons smuggler.”
“No kidding. I mean what about his murder, Kinkaid. Did you set that up, too?”
“No.”
“Kinkaid, it’s over now. Understand that, you cowardly son of a bitch?” I drove my foot into the wall just beside his head, and he jumped as if I’d struck him. “Now tell me what happened with Hartwick.”
“I only lied a little about Hartwick,” he said. “I wasn’t lying when I said he was the most dangerous person I’d ever known. He was a loose cannon up here, Perry. Hubbard couldn’t afford to have him here, and neither could Krashakov. As soon as I heard Hartwick was in town, I knew he was here for blood. That’s how it worked with Randy. He wasn’t here to investigate, he was here to kill.”
“Bullshit,” I said. “He was trying to figure out a way to buy some safety for Julie and her daughter, just like Joe and I have been. If he’d wanted to kill Krashakov, he’d have done it and gone back to South Carolina.”
“I don’t know.”
“I’m sure you don’t, Kinkaid. So Hartwick showed up in town, and you told Krashakov where he could be found, didn’t you?”
He was looking at the floor, where drops of his blood were gathering in a small pool. “They were in the cemetery with me. When I left you and Pritchard and went out to smoke a cigarette, I called them, and they parked near your office and waited. They took the shot from the hill in the cemetery and left. I killed a few minutes and then went over the fence when I heard you shouting for me.”
“Who made the shot?”
“Krashakov. He’s had sniper training.”
“Why’d he only take Hartwick out?” I asked. “Why leave Joe and me alive?”
“I told them about the progress you were making, and I said if they gave me a few days to work with you, I might be able to find the Westons and the tape. Hartwick was too dangerous to . . .” His voice trailed off, but I knew how that sentence was going to end. Too dangerous to leave alive.
Tonight I Said Goodbye Page 27