by Diana Palmer
Kilraven grinned. “Should I stand on you, just for appearances?” He indicated his big booted feet. “I’m game.”
“I’d like to see you stand on me,” Jon shot back.
“Come on, come on, talk.”
Jon sighed. “I don’t have much, but I’ll share.” He punched the intercom. “Ms. Perry, could you bring me the Fowler file, please.”
There was a pause. A light, airy, sarcastic feminine voice answered. “Hard copy is kept in your filing cabinet, Mr. Blackhawk,” she said sweetly. “Lost our password again, have we?”
Jon’s face tautened. “What I am losing, rapidly, is my patience. For your information, Garon took out the files to show Agent Simmons. They’re in your filing cabinet.”
There was a dead silence. A filing cabinet was opened and then closed, and impatient high-heels came marching into Jon’s office with a pleasant face, blue eyes and jet-black hair, cut short.
She put a file on the desk. “We do have electronic copies of this, password-protected, if your password ever presents itself again,” she said sweetly.
Jon glared at her. “You were an hour late for work two mornings this week, Ms. Perry,” he said, his tone as bland as her own. “So far, I haven’t reported it to Garon.”
She stiffened. Her blue eyes had blue shadows under them. She didn’t shoot back an excuse.
“Perhaps it would help your present attitude if you knew that Ms. Smith has an extensive rap sheet, of which my mother is unaware. With your, shall we say, proclivities for sneaking in the back door of protected files, I should think you could dig out the rest of the information all by yourself. If,” he added with dripping sarcasm, “you can manage to keep your present job long enough to look for it.”
She reddened. Her blue eyes shot ice daggers at him, but her voice was even when she spoke. “I’ll be at my desk if you need anything further, Mr. Blackhawk.” She left, without even looking at Kilraven. Her back was as stiff as her expression.
Jon got up and closed the door behind her with a little jerk. His own eyes, liquid black, were smoldering. “Ever since my mother sent Jill Smith in here to vamp me, it’s been like this.”
“You did have Ms. Smith arrested for harassment,” Kilraven pointed out with barely suppressed amusement. “And taken out in handcuffs, if I recall?”
Jon shrugged. “A man isn’t safe alone in his own office these days.”
“You’re safe from that particular woman, I’ll bet,” Kilraven replied, nodding toward the direction Joceline Perry had taken.
“Most men are.”
“Care to say why?”
Jon went back to the desk and picked up the file folder. “She has a little boy, about three years old. His father was killed overseas in the military. She can freeze a man from half a block away.”
“Not necessary in your case, bro, you’re already frozen.”
Jon glared at him. “Don’t call me that disgusting nickname, if you please.”
“Excuse me, your grace.”
Jon glared even more.
Kilraven sobered. “All right, I’ll try to act with more decorum. Is Mom still speaking to you?”
“Only to tell me how poor Ms. Smith is suffering from my rejection. I’ve tried to tell her that her newest candidate for my affections is one step short of a call girl, but she won’t listen. Ms. Smith’s mother is her best friend, so naturally the daughter is pure as the driven snow.”
“She might not be, but you certainly are.” His brother grinned.
Jon’s black eyes narrowed. “And you certainly would be, if you hadn’t been conned into marrying Monica.”
Kilraven’s amused expression fell. “I guess so. I never planned to get married in the first place, but she knew her way around men. Funny, I never even wondered why, until we were already married and she was pregnant with Melly. She had boyfriends that actually showed up at the house from time to time to see her.”
“Which didn’t go over well.”
“I was young and jealous. She was experienced, but I wasn’t.” He gave his brother a quiet appraisal. “You could still charm unicorns. Don’t you think you’re old enough to consider getting married?”
“No woman could live with me. I’m married to my job. And when I’m not at work, I’m married to the ranch.”
“I miss it from time to time,” Kilraven mused. “I guess I’ll forget how to ride a horse eventually.”
“That’s a joke. You’ve got more trophies than I have.”
They were both expert horsemen. In their youth, they participated in rodeo and stood undefeated at bulldogging in southern Oklahoma until they retired from the ring.
“But all this is beside the point,” Jon said. He handed the file to Kilraven. “You’ll have to read it here and you can’t have photocopies.”
“Fair enough.” He started reading. Jon took a phone call. By then, Kilraven had enough information to form an uncomfortable hypothesis.
“Senator Fowler’s protégé, Senator Will Sanders, has a brother, Hank, one of the more dangerous career criminals and a man who has his hands in every illegal operation in the city,” Kilraven murmured as he read. “Two attempted murder charges, both dropped for lack of evidence to convict, and at least one accusation of rape.”
“For which he drew a suspended sentence when the lady recanted.” Jon’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “In fact, his brother, Senator Sanders himself, has a statutory rape charge that was dropped for lack of evidence. He has a taste for virgins, and since a good many women are experienced even by their mid-teens, he’s looking for them younger and younger.”
“Pervert,” Kilraven muttered. “The victim in this case was fourteen. Fourteen years old! He gave her an illegal substance and had her in a guest bedroom in his own house. He even filmed it for the amusement of his friends.” He frowned. “There was a dead teenage girl seven years ago, remember? It was just before Melly…” He cleared his throat. “The girl was found in a similar condition to our murder victim in Jacobsville. I’ve always felt there was a connection, but we were never able to put our finger on one.”
“Just coincidence, probably,” Jon agreed. “They do happen.”
Kilraven tossed the file back onto Jon’s desk with utter disdain. “He filmed himself assaulting a fourteen-year-old. And they couldn’t prove it? There was film!”
“It’s not called film anymore, it’s digital imaging, but I get your meaning. No, they couldn’t prove it. The camcorder was erased in the police property room, by persons unknown, conveniently before arraignment. We can’t accuse anybody, but Senator Sanders has a longtime employee who did hard time for a violent crime. He’s violently protective of both brothers, and he has a cousin who works for SAPD.”
“How convenient. Can we put some pressure on the cop?” Kilraven asked.
Jon gave him a wry look. “We’ve got enough problems. We’re having him watched by internal affairs. That will have to do. Now, to get back to the case involving the living fourteen-year-old, the assistant D.A. in the case was hopping up and down and using language that almost got him arrested in his own office when they told him. That was just after the girl’s parents called and said they were refusing to let her testify.”
“They didn’t want the creep prosecuted?” Kilraven exclaimed.
Jon’s expression was eloquent. “The week after that, the girl’s father was driving a new Jaguar, one of the high ticket sports models, and he paid off all his gambling debts at once.”
Kilraven was quiet. “Those cars run to six figures. The file says the father worked as a midlevel accountant.”
“Exactly.”
“If Melly had been fourteen, and someone had done that to her, I’d have moved heaven and earth to put the man away for life. If I didn’t break his neck first.”
“Same here. Money does talk, in some cases.”
“In a lot of them.” Kilraven was thinking. “The senator’s wife started divorce proceedings a few years ago, and then s
topped them and started drinking. Her husband still has lovers and she can’t seem to get away from him. They have a beach house in Nassau where she spends a lot of time.”
“And the senator’s family has a ranch one property over from our own near Lawton,” Jon replied, naming the Oklahoma town where both boys were born.
“Maybe the wife knows something about her brother-in-law that she’d be willing to share,” Kilraven thought out loud.
“Don’t go harassing the senator or his wife,” Jon said firmly. “We’ve finally got something that might give us a clue to our own cold case. Garon Grier has someone working undercover on this, as well. If you put somebody’s back up, we could lose all the ground we’ve gained. Not to mention that we could be facing some real heat from higher up.”
“I’m on leave of absence,” Kilraven pointed out.
“Yes, but you still have a boss who won’t like your involvement in a case that isn’t connected to your present employment.”
“I have a great boss. He’d understand.”
“Sure he would, but he’d still fire you.”
“I’ve been fired before.”
“You’ve been reprimanded, too. Don’t pile up too many demerits, boy scout,” Jon teased. “You’ll get yourself kicked out of any federal work.”
Kilraven sighed and stuck his big hands in his pockets. “I guess I could be a small-town cop in Jacobsville for life if I had to.”
“You’d never manage it. Cash Grier told Marquez that he’s already one step closer to nailing you in a barrel and sending you down the Rio Grande.”
“He’d have to get me in the barrel first and drive me all the way to the Rio Grande. By the time he got there, I’d have extricated myself from the barrel, appropriated his truck and had local authorities arrest him for kidnapping.”
Jon didn’t say anything. He just smiled. He knew his brother well enough to believe it.
“That said, he’s a good man to work for. He goes to the wall for his officers.”
“So does Garon Grier, here.”
Kilraven nodded. “They’re both good men.” He frowned. “Don’t they have two other brothers?”
“Yes. One of them is also in law enforcement.”
“Like the Earp brothers,” Kilraven mused.
“There were five of them. There are only four Grier brothers.” He got up. “We’re still running down leads on the murder victim,” he said. “I’ve got Ms. Perry checking parole files to see if we can find a match there. Maybe the victim was just out of prison and between jobs when he was wasted.”
“If he has a rap sheet, he’ll be easier to identify,” Kilraven agreed. “And if they cheek-swabbed him, which I imagine they did, Alice Jones can use all that high-tech stuff at the forensic lab to discover his identity.”
Jon nodded. “DNA is a blessing in cases like this where the DB is unidentifiable under conventional means.”
“Makes our job easier,” was the bland reply, “but good police work still largely consists of wearing out shoe leather. Speaking of which, I want to have a talk with Marquez. He might have gotten a look at his attackers.”
“We’ve already asked. He didn’t.”
“I want to talk to him anyway.”
“He isn’t back on the job yet. He’ll be at his mother’s house in Jacobsville.”
“Thanks,” Kilraven said drily. “I did know that, living in Jacobsville myself.”
Jon’s black eyes twinkled. “I understand that you had a visitor recently at your house. A blond one.”
“Good Lord. You heard that all the way up here?”
“You were seen by a substantial number of uniformed people.”
“Who drove by my house just to spy on me,” Kilraven said with mock disgust. “What is the world coming to when a man can’t have a cup of coffee with a guest?”
“A cup of coffee at a picnic table, outdoors, in freezing temperatures. Something wrong with the sofa in your living room?”
“If people can’t see you, they guess what’s going on and they’re usually wrong. I didn’t want Winnie subjected to gossip,” he added quietly. “She’s an innocent.”
Jon’s eyebrows went up over twinkling eyes. “And how would you have found that out?”
Kilraven glowered at him. “In the usual way.”
Jon pursed his lips. “Imagine that!”
“It’s not serious,” came the short reply. “She’s a friend. Sort of. But I asked her to the house because I wanted to know why she painted that picture that was a dead-ringer for Melly’s raven drawing.”
Jon sobered at once. He remembered his brother’s visit that night with the painting. “And?”
“She said she started to paint a landscape,” Kilraven replied with a puzzled expression. “She didn’t know why she painted a raven, or those colors on the beads. She didn’t know how I knew it was her, either. I’ve never even told her that our ranch is called ‘Raven’s Pride.’”
“We have those flashes of insight because it runs in our family,” Jon reminded him. “Our father had a cousin who was notorious for his very accurate visions of the future.”
Kilraven nodded. “I wonder where Winnie’s gift comes from. She doesn’t know. Funny,” he added, “but Gail Rogers, the detective who’s helping me with our case, has those premonitions. She gets some gossip when she pegs a suspect that nobody else connected with a case.”
The intercom buzzed. Jon answered it.
“Agent Wilkes is on his way in with Agent Salton, and you’re all due for a meeting in ASAC Grier’s office in ten minutes,” Joceline said in a voice dripping with sugar. “Would you like coffee and donuts?”
Jon looked surprised, as he should have. Ms. Perry never volunteered to fetch snack food. “That would be nice.”
“There’s a Dunkin’ Donuts shop around the corner,” she reminded him. “If I were you, I’d hurry.”
“I’d hurry?” he repeated.
“Yes, because my job description requires me to type and file and answer phones. Not be a caterer,” she added, still sugary. She hung up.
“One day, so help me, she’ll drive me to drink and you’ll have to bail me out of some jail where I’ll be surrounded by howling mad drug users,” Jon gritted.
Kilraven patted him on the shoulder. “Now, now, don’t let your blood pressure override your good sense.”
“If I had good sense, I’d ask for reassignment to another field office, preferably in the Yukon Territory!” he said loud enough for Ms. Perry to hear him as he opened his office door.
“Oooh, polar bears live there,” she said merrily. “And they eat people, don’t they?”
“You wish, Ms. Perry,” he shot back.
“Temper, temper,” she chided.
Jon was almost vibrating, he was so angry. Kilraven smothered laughter.
“I’ll call you,” he told his brother. “And thanks for the information.”
“Just don’t go off half-cocked and get in trouble with it,” Jon said firmly.
“You know me,” Kilraven said in mock astonishment. “I never do anything rash!”
Before Jon could reply, Kilraven walked out the door.
RICK MARQUEZ STILL had his arm in a sling and he was like a man standing on a fire ant hill. “They won’t let me come back to work yet,” he complained to Kilraven. “I can shoot with one hand!”
“You haven’t had to shoot anybody in years,” Kilraven reminded him.
“Well, it’s the point of the thing. I could sit at a desk and answer phones, but oh, no, I have to be at 100 percent before they’ll certify me fit for duty!”
“You can use the free time.”
“Yeah? For what? Watering Mom’s flowers?”
Kilraven was studying the dead bushes at the front porch. “They look dead to me.”
“Not those ones. These ones.” He let Kilraven into the living room, where huge potted plants almost covered every wall.
Kilraven’s eyebrows lifted. “She grow
s bananas and coffee in the house?” he exclaimed.
“Now how do you recognize coffee plants?” Marquez asked with evident suspicion. “Most people who come in here have to ask what they are.”
“Anybody could recognize a banana plant.”
“Yes, but not a coffee plant.” Rick’s eyes narrowed. “Been around coffee plants somewhere they don’t grow in pots?”
Kilraven grinned. “Let’s just say, I’m not a stranger to them, and leave it at that.”
Rick was thinking that coffee grew in some of the most dangerous places on earth. Kilraven had the look of a man who was familiar with them.
“I know that expression,” Kilraven said blandly, “but I’ve said all I’m going to.”
“I know when I’m licked. Coffee?”
“I’d love some.” He gave Rick a wry glance. “Going to pick the beans fresh?”
Rick gave the red berries a curious look. “I do have a grinder somewhere.”
“Yes, but you have to dry coffee beans and roast them before you can use them.”
“All right, now you’re really making me curious,” Rick told him.
Kilraven didn’t say a word. He just kept walking.
They went into the kitchen where Rick made coffee and Kilraven fetched cups. They drank it at Barbara’s kitchen table, covered by a red checkered cloth with matching curtains at the windows. The room was bright and airy and pretty, like Barbara herself.
“Your mother has good taste,” Kilraven commented. “And she’s a great cook.”
Rick smiled. “Not a bad mother, either,” he chuckled. “I’d probably be sitting in a cell somewhere if she hadn’t adopted me. I was a tough kid.”
“So was I,” Kilraven recalled. “Jon and I kept our parents busy when we were boys. Once, we got drunk at a party, started a brawl and ended up in a holding cell.”
“What did your parents do?”
“My stepmother was all for bailing us out. Our father, however, was an FBI agent,” he added quietly. “He told her that rushing to our defense might make us think we could get away with anything and we might end up in more serious straits. So he left us there for several days and let us sweat it.”