by David Grace
Open-mouthed, Eustace stared at the gun, now in Kane’s hand then down to the little man squirming on the carpet.
“You want to search him in case he’s got a second gun?” Kane snapped.
While Eustace roughly patted Jeffers down Kane pulled Marilyn’s hands behind her back. His cuffs made a clack-clack sound that caught Eustace’s attention and he quickly looked up.
“Marilyn Jeffers, you are under arrest for bribery, unlawful disclosure of confidential government information and obstruction of justice. You have the right to remain silent . . . .”
Eustace watched Kane recite the Miranda warning and, for a moment, was irritated that he had lost the chance to slap the cuffs on the wife, but, he consoled himself, he still had the husband. Eustace hauled Charles Jeffers to his feet and cuffed him so tightly that Jeffers skin went white from lack of circulation. Eustace began reciting his own version of the Miranda warning: “You have the right to remain silent, asshole, and anything you say may be used to put your sorry butt in jail. You have the right to hire a scumbag lawyer . . . .”
“He’s ready to go,” Eustace told Kane a moment later. “Is she clean?”
“That was the only weapon.” Kane pointed at the little revolver lying on the carpet. “Why don’t you see if you can find a Ziplock bag that we can put it in?”
Eustace knew that Kane was pissed but angry was Kane’s default state so Grant didn’t know if Kane was mad at him, at Jeffers or at the world in general. He trotted into the kitchen to look for a plastic bag. A few moments later they had the Jeffers and the gun ready for transport. Kane motioned for Eustace to follow him to the far side of the room.
“Thanks, partner,” Eustace whispered, shifting his gaze between Kane and the handcuffed prisoners huddled near the front door. “I owe you one.”
“You owe me one!” Kane exploded. “That’s all you have to say? You owe me one?”
“Uhhh, thank you?”
A dozen thoughts chased each other through Kane’s head. The fucking moron had scared the wife half to death just for the fun of it, then he’d baited the husband in his own house, AND he’d done it all to people he didn’t know, people whose emotions he obviously couldn’t read and whom he hadn’t bothered to search for weapons. He’d put both of their lives in danger and if things had gone a little differently Kane would have been forced to kill a man. And what did Useless have to say for himself? I fucking owe you one?
Kane closed his eyes and held his breath for three seconds but anger-control tricks can only take a man so far.
“You never threaten a man’s wife or kids in his own house you moron and if you’re going to do such a stupid, boneheaded thing, you certainly don’t do it to a man you don’t know and whom you haven’t searched! That’s Police Work 101!”
For a moment Eustace looked confused as if confronted by an elevator whose buttons were printed in Arabic then he smiled and gave Kane a friendly slap on the shoulder.
“Hey, you got it, buddy. You see, that’s why we’re such a great team. I’m the guy who goes balls-to-the-wall and you’re the brain who straightens me out when I go over the line. So, what do you say? Let’s get these mopes into a nice, cozy cell.”
Eustace gave Kane another happy grin and headed back to the prisoners.
Son of a bitch! Greg thought, but couldn’t think of a single thing to say that would do him any good whatsoever.
CHAPTER NINE
Since they had to interview Marilyn Jeffers before booking her and they didn’t want to make two trips to the detention center Kane and Eustace brought both prisoners back to the office. They left Charlie Jeffers shackled in one of the interview rooms. At least in one respect the turmoil at the Jeffers house had worked to their advantage. Marilyn was so unnerved by it that by the time she was handcuffed to the steel table in Room Three they couldn’t have shut her up if they had wanted to.
“Please don’t take this out on Charlie,” she babbled, tears running down her cheeks. “I’ll tell you everything if you’ll let him go.”
“You think your husband can pull a gun on federal officers and then just waltz out of here, no harm, no foul?” Eustace growled. “He’s gonna spend more time in the joint than you will. I’ll see to that.”
With any other agent Kane would have assumed that Grant was only playing “good-cop, bad-cop” but Greg knew that Eustace meant every word.
“Grant, let’s talk outside for minute,” Kane said. Irritated, Eustace looked away from Marilyn then shrugged his consent.
“You want me to work on hubby while you handle her?” Eustace whispered once they were outside. “Just let me scare the hell out of her a little longer and she’ll pop like a–”
“Grant,” Kane interrupted before Eustace could complete some disgusting analogy, “I don’t want to spend all day on this. Why don’t you get started on the paperwork while I finish up with her.”
“You’re freezing me out of the kill? Hell, watching them cop to it is the best part of the job, next to slapping the cuffs on ‘em.”
“You’ve scared her enough. If you work on her any longer she’ll be too terrified to sign her own name.” Eustace cocked his big head to one side. Kane thought he could almost hear gears grinding. “You do the paperwork, Grant. I’ll get her statement. We’ll share the collar and with any luck we’ll be able to close the file by quitting time.”
“Hmmm,” Grant murmured.
“I’ll tell you what,” Kane said. “You do the paperwork and I’ll take them over to lockup.”
Eustace thought about that for a moment then broke into a smile. “Sure, I guess I’ve softened her up enough for you. If I went back in there she’d probably wet herself and nobody wants that.” Happy again, Grant patted Kane on the shoulder and sauntered back to the bull pen. Kane stared after him as if watching a wild animal casually disappear into the trees then returned to the interview room. Seeing that Eustace was not with him Marilyn Jeffers looked at Kane with both fear and hope.
“Here’s how it’s going to be,” Kane said, his expression flat and cold. “You’re going to tell me everything you did, all the details, how much money you got and what you did with it, every penny.” Greg put a digital recorder on the center of the steel table. “I’ll tell the U.S. Attorney that you cooperated and sentencing will be up to the judge.”
“What about–”
“And in return, your husband will be charged with one count of misdemeanor assault on a federal officer. We’ll call it a scuffle in the heat of the moment and we won’t mention his little popgun. Given the circumstances and his clean record he’ll probably only get a fine and probation. I need your answer right now.”
Marilyn stared at the recorder then looked at Kane. “How do I know you’ll keep your word?”
“How do you know I won’t? Look, I’ve got you dead bang on the money you took from the Tip Top Coal Company and I’ve got your husband dead bang on the attempted murder of a federal officer. If you both want to go to court on those charges be my guest. This is the only deal you’re going to get. You’ve got ten seconds.”
Marilyn Jeffers looked at Kane as if through sheer concentration she could read his mind. She might as well have been staring at a stone wall. After a few moments she sighed and slumped in her chair. Kane pressed the “record” button.
“This is Homeland Security Agent Gregory Kane with detainee Marilyn Jeffers. The time is . . . .” Kane glanced at the clock. Twenty minutes later he stood and turned off the machine.
“What happens now?” Marilyn asked, spent.
“I’m going to take you and your husband over to the detention center to be processed. They’ll give you your phone calls. Tomorrow morning the judge will set bail and then your lawyer and the U.S. Attorney can arrange a plea.”
“What about Charlie? Are you going to do what you promised or are you going to screw us over like the government usually does?”
“It’s the government that screws people over? Really? Let’s se
e, the government went to a lot of trouble to protect coal miners from being blown up or buried in some cave-in half a mile down and you took money from the coal companies to undo all that. But what the hell do you care if some miners in West Virginia choke to death with a cup of coal dust packed into their mouths? Hey, you’ve got that Range Rover to pay for and those babies use a lot of gasoline. What do you care if some asshole executive making half a million a year uses the personnel files you stole to blackmail some poor schmuck of a mine inspector into ignoring the fact that the exhaust fans in his tunnels don’t work right anymore? You’ve got mortgage payments to make on that four-bedroom house of yours out in the suburbs. So what if a bunch of miners get blown up when a spark touches off a pocket of methane. Screw them, right?
“Don’t play the poor innocent being abused by the big, bad government to me lady!” Kane’s face had turned mean and Jeffers scrunched back in her seat. Bitterly, he shook his head and turned to leave, then paused. “And unlike you, my word means something. For what it’s worth I understand what your husband did. It was wrong but at least I understand it. A man protects his family,” and his partner, Kane thought but the words did not reach his lips. Marilyn stared at Kane as if he had been speaking gibberish. He left her cuffed to the steel table and tracked down Grant Eustace in the coffee room.
“She give it up?” Eustace asked between sips of something the color of melted caramel.
Kane held up the recorder. “Everything.”
“Even the money?”
“What’s left is in a safety deposit box over at Alliance West Bank in Silver Spring.”
“My man!” Eustace tried to high-five Kane but only ended up sloshing coffee on his shoes. “Son of a bitch!” he cursed jumping back and spilling more coffee in the process.
“You finish up here,” Kane said, glancing at the mess on the floor, “and I’ll run them both over to detention. Print out the report and leave it on my desk. I’ll go over it and sign it when I get back.”
“Son of a bitch,” Eustace muttered, checking his cuffs for coffee stains.
CHAPTER TEN
Getting Marilyn Jeffers locked up was no problem since the U.S. Attorney had already filed the arrest warrant but her husband was another matter. For him Kane had to go through the booking process which meant generating a completely new set of documents. By the time both Jeffers were safely in their cells and he’d gotten something to eat and returned to the squad room it was half past four and Useless had found a reason to be someplace else. Just as well, Kane thought since he had to go through the paperwork his partner had created and remove any references to the gun.
It’s not like I’m filing a false report, he told himself. I’m just leaving out a couple of details. Pretty damn big details he admitted but at least everything in the amended report would be technically true. Eustace would blow a gasket when he found out but Kane could live with that. Thank God Useless had long since given Kane his password and screen name. Knowing how lazy he was Kane began to wonder if Grant would even check the file at all. After a moment’s thought Greg figured that it was fifty-fifty that Eustace would never know what he had done.
Greg had just returned to his own terminal when Danny Rosewood materialized next to his desk.
“Hi, Agent,” Danny said.
“Hi, Danny,” Kane answered, barely glancing up. Five seconds later Kane felt Danny’s eyes still on him. “Something you need?”
“Uhhh, no,” Danny said continuing to stare. A moment later Rosewood glanced meaningfully toward the door then back at Kane.
What’s that, Lassie? Greg thought. Has something happened? Do you want me to follow you? Danny gave Kane another stare then headed for the door, glancing at Greg over his shoulder halfway to the exit.
Oh, shit! Kane thought. Timmy’s fallen down the well.
Greg caught up with Rosewood in a parking lot leaking the stink of wet tobacco and motor oil, its surface littered with cigarette butts from the nicotine addicts who gathered there to get their fix.
“What’s up, Danny?”
Rosewood looked around then stepped in close. “I got the surveillance tapes from around Mr. Brownstein’s building, like you asked me.” Danny paused and glanced uneasily toward the doors.
“OK, good. And . . . ?”
“Well, I went through them. At first I didn’t notice anything but I looked for people who were there more than once and who didn’t seem to have any business in the neighborhood. That’s when I saw him. At first I didn’t notice him but then I realized that he was changing his appearance. One time he was wearing a parka with the hood up. Another time he had on a wool coat and a baseball cap. It was the same guy in four different outfits. I figured that was suspicious.”
“You figured right but why couldn’t you tell me this upstairs?”
“You remember. . . .” Danny began then shut up and nervously led Kane around the corner when a man in a black overcoat paused just beyond the glass doors and lit up a smoke. “You remember that special job you gave me?” Danny asked in a whisper when he was sure that they were alone.
Kane’s skin began to tingle and he bent in closer. A year ago he had asked Danny to help him in his search for his vanished nephew. It wasn’t Kane’s case. In fact, he had been told by two different law enforcement agencies to stay out of it, as if that was ever going to happen. But he needed help with the tech stuff. He needed someone to run credit card checks, to get copies of bank records and phone LUDs, all of which was exactly what Danny did more or less all day long. And the kid had been more than willing to do the work even though it could mean his job, or worse, if he got caught.
“What do the video recordings from Brownstein’s neighborhood have to do with that?”
“You know I went through the file you gave me and it had pictures of that Ryan Munroe and the two transport officers in it. At first the man from the street outside Mr. Brownstein’s apartment building just seemed familiar somehow but when I blew up the pictures, that’s when I recognized him.”
“Wait a minute!” Kane snapped. “You’re saying that Ryan Munroe was casing Brownstein’s apartment?”
“No, not him. The other one.”
“Jason?”
“No, the other officer, Mearle Farber.”
“The man on the Brownstein video was Mearle Farber? Are you sure?”
“All I can say is that it looked like him. I ran a facial rec analysis. It came up 61%. Given the low resolution of the ATM camera that’s pretty good, so, I think it was probably your guy, and, well, I’m at least 61% sure.”
My guy? My guy is Jason Kane, Greg thought, but if Farber was alive . . . . If Farber was alive and casing a citizen who it looked like was the victim of foul play then the math was as simple as simple could be. With an almost audible click the pieces fell into place inside Kane’s head. If Farber was alive then Ryan Munroe was alive and if they were both alive then Jason Kane was dead and Mearle Farber was the person who had killed him.
* * *
As a rookie Deputy Sheriff barely out of probation Jason Kane expected to be told to drive while Mearle Farber took it easy, so Jason was surprised when Farber held onto the keys and settled in behind the wheel. Jason almost asked “Don’t you want me to drive?” but since Farber was already shoving the key into the ignition it seemed like a pretty stupid question.
Jason had put Ryan Munroe in the back seat and fastened the chain shackling his ankles to the steel ring welded to the cruiser’s floor. Munroe’s wrists were locked in a set of long cuffs which, in turn were attached to the chain binding his legs. There was enough play in the lines so that by bending forward the prisoner could scratch his nose and he could wiggle his ass a foot or so left or right on the vinyl seat but that was about it. Remembering that this man had supplied the gun that had almost taken his uncle’s life Jason had double checked Munroe’s restraints before locking the rear doors.
Sykesville sat halfway between State Highway 26 and Interstate 70 and
you could get there by either route. “Which way are we going?” Jason asked as Farber gave the driver’s seat one final adjustment and then idled the cruiser out of the lot.
“You just relax, kid, and leave the driving to me,” Farber told him, never taking his eyes off the road. A few minutes later Farber gunned it up the ramp onto the I-70 and Jason had his answer.
“How come you got this job?” Jason asked once they were on the interstate. “Don’t you normally work out of the Northeast Division?”
“How about you just shut it and watch the scenery,” Farber snapped.
Asshole, Jason thought, then twisted around and checked the prisoner through the wire screen. Eyes front, Munroe sat like a statue in the center of the rear seat. Jason turned away and decided to put his brain in neutral for the rest of the drive.
It took them about twenty minutes to reach the exit for State Highway 32. Farber drove like a robot the whole way. Thank God I’m not partnered with him, Jason thought as they turned onto the two-lane and headed north.
It had been a wet winter and patches of snow grew thick along the highway where it skirted Patapsco Valley State Park. Above them the sky had congealed into a gray foam and it was cold enough that Jason wondered if what came out of the clouds was going to be rain or snow. A few minutes later they were enclosed by walls of trees, on the right side from the state park and an even denser forest from the Wildlife Refuge District on the left. After two miles Farber tapped the brakes and began to drift them over toward the shoulder.
“Feels like we’ve got a flat,” he said slowing carefully on the damp road. Jason straightened up and strained to detect a tremor from a soft tire.
“I don’t feel anything,” he said.
“It’s the right rear,” Farber answered and pulled onto a dirt track that disappeared into the trees. Jason closed his eyes tried to heighten his senses but now they were on the dirt and the cruiser could have had two flat tires and he wouldn’t have known it. Jason glanced at the dashboard but didn’t see a red, “tire low” warning.