Triumph

by Janet Dailey

  “That takes away a classic motive for murder,” Kelly said.

  “Which leads me to think that he wasn’t expecting to die. Someone got to him when his guard was down.”

  Kelly gave him a troubled look. “I feel like that’s what’s happening to me.”

  “I wish we knew more. At this point we just don’t.”

  “Forget it. I can’t think about it too much.”

  Deke agreed to that silently, looking back at the laptop.

  “Back to Bach,” he said. “Seems like more than one bank manager was well paid to avoid due diligence when it came to identifying the holders of certain accounts and verifying where the deposits came from.”

  “Repeat that in plain English, please.”

  “Put dirty street cash in with legitimate money. Mix well and launder thoroughly by churning through different accounts. No one knows where it came from when it’s all clean.”

  Kelly nodded. “Also a good visual. Thanks. Can I pass that along to the graphic designer at WBRX?”

  “Be my guest.”

  Kelly leaned her elbows on the table, bracing herself for the question she didn’t want to ask. “While I’m on the subject of Gunther, whatever happened to the autopsy results?”

  “The cause and time of death are established. He was dying when he went off that balcony, but he was still breathing. The high level of the tranquilizer in his system wasn’t enough to suppress vital functions and it didn’t kill him.”

  “Any new theories on who did it?”

  Deke pulled up a different document on the laptop screen.

  “We still have one more person to interview in his building. Frances Berry may have been the last person to see Gunther alive.”

  “She didn’t kill him.”

  “It does seem unlikely. Here’s her driver’s license info. She’s sixty-seven and she gave her weight as one hundred and five.”

  “That sounds about right,” Kelly said. “So why—”

  “She’s away. Indefinitely, according to the building staff. She had her mail held, stopped all regular deliveries like newspapers, and gave her kitty to her housekeeper.”

  The image of the elderly woman who’d been rebuffed by Natalie Conrad came back vividly to Kelly. “Something’s wrong with that picture.”

  “That’s what we think.”

  “Oh boy,” she sighed. “Everything is happening at once.”

  Deke shut down the laptop and closed it. “Hux might have an update on the evidence analysis for Bach’s apartment. I’m going to call him from my car, not here.”

  “Can I listen in?” she asked eagerly.

  “So long as he okays it. I can put the call on speaker.”

  They got up and Deke left several bills to cover the tab, adding a generous tip. The waitress spotted it from three booths away and smiled.

  “You made her day,” Kelly said.

  “They work hard.” He pushed the glass door open for her as they exited to the parking lot.

  He helped her up into the armored vehicle. No one gave them a second glance. It did look like an SUV. Deke called Hux, who picked up after several rings.

  “What do you want, Bannon?”

  “Just checking in. Kelly’s with me. She can hear you.”

  “Hello, Kelly.”

  “Hi.”

  “Listen, Hux, is there anything new? How about latent prints from Bach’s place?”

  “The process is not instantaneous,” the other man grumbled. “Did I ever tell you that when I was a rookie, I had to walk ten miles through snow to get to a database?”

  “No.”

  “Only it wasn’t a database. It was a lousy filing cabinet. Are you listening?”

  “Yes, we are.”

  “I’m talking about a lousy filing cabinet stuffed with index cards. We matched maybe one print out of a thousand if we were lucky.”

  Deke rolled his eyes for Kelly’s benefit. “I take it you haven’t matched anything yet,” he said to Hux.

  “No. I’ll let you know if and when we do. Hey, you going to the dinner for the sector chief?”

  Deke hesitated, looking over at Kelly. She seized her opportunity.

  “Can I come?” she asked Hux.

  “I’ll see if I can wangle an invite. That okay with you, Dekey boy?”

  As if he could say no at this point. “Sure.”

  Deke smiled at Kelly when Hux conveyed the date and time. “Got that?”

  She was entering it in her smartphone. Hux said good-bye and hung up.

  “Where is it?” she asked.

  “Don’t worry about that,” Deke said. “I’m doing the driving.”

  “Right.”

  “Don’t tell anyone,” he said.

  “I know the drill,” she assured him.

  On the specified evening, Deke came up to get her at the hotel apartment, a dry-cleaning bag slung over his shoulder. He was wearing the battered leather jacket and jeans that looked clean.

  “Yes, I have to change,” he said when she looked at him from the other side of the open door. “You look nice.”

  “Thanks. Come on in.” She was wearing a dark brown, belted dress with a huge faux tortoiseshell buckle. The color showed off her blond hair, which was smoothly combed over one shoulder. She’d decided on a rich caramel shade of cream shadow that brought out the green of her eyes.

  Boldly, he pressed a kiss to her cheek, then headed for the bathroom as if he lived there.

  Kelly smiled to herself. She wouldn’t mind helping him change out of his usual dark T-shirt into something ironed and crisp. She could even help him button it up. Nice and slow.

  There was the faint sound of plastic and rustling tissue paper as he removed a fresh shirt from its dry-cleaner hanger.

  Not yet, Kelly told herself.

  Deke opened the door of the armored SUV for her and helped her up onto the running board, which was conveniently wide.

  “I didn’t know they built these things for women wearing high heels,” she said.

  “We had it customized. Just for you.”

  “Ha ha.”

  He closed the door with a chauffeur’s flourish after Kelly got in, swinging her legs into the footwell. Once he was inside and the doors locked, his arm went around her shoulders. Kelly half turned into his embrace and parted her lips for a kiss she knew was coming.

  It was tender but brief. Kelly lifted her head and pressed her cheek against his, soothed by the strong hand caressing her back. “Is there a way we could do this every night?” she murmured into his ear.

  “Hmm. Wouldn’t mind.” He kissed her again and took a little longer about it. Then he stopped. “I have to bring you home right afterward, though.”

  She sighed and straightened, pulling at her dress. “Look at us. Necking like teenagers in a parking lot. Sorry. I got carried away.”

  “Hey.” He touched her chin to make her look at him. “Don’t apologize.”

  The dinner was attended by several members of Deke’s team, and there were other teams at different tables in the restaurant. Kelly knew that the financial fraud task force was big, but she hadn’t expected to see so many people tonight. There were no civilians besides herself, as far as she knew.

  She studied faces when the waiters removed the appetizer plates and bustled around the table. They looked just like regular people you would see at the mall. Tall, short, thin, plump, and everything in between, in a range of ages. There were more men than women, but at least a third of the agents were female.

  A waiter refilled her water glass and Kelly leaned away from him, brushing shoulders with Deke. Something about the moment of contact drew discreet looks, though no one made a comment. She sat up straight, thanking the waiter, who continued around the table.

  “So, Kelly, some of us have been following your reports on Bach,” said the sector chief, Doug Hightower, a thickset man in his fifties with thinning hair and bright blue eyes. “Good job.”

  “It’s a co
mplicated subject.” Kelly smiled at him.

  Hightower had made a point of talking to her just before they went in to dinner. He’d told her to contact him if she ever needed more information, then added with a chuckle that he probably wouldn’t give it to her.

  “You nailed it, though,” said another agent, whose name she didn’t know.

  The arrival of their entrées halted the conversation and the table talk soon turned to the food, which was excellent. Kelly started in on her fajita-seasoned steak and Deke did the same.

  She looked around again, only half listening as Deke and the agents talked shop with the chief. Another guest returning to her table caught Kelly’s eye and smiled.

  Kelly nodded and smiled back, wondering why the woman, who was probably past sixty, looked so familiar. With a start, she remembered where she had seen her before.

  She waited for a lull in the conversation and lifted her head to talk to Deke in a low voice. “That woman over there—who is she? I know I saw her at Gunther Bach’s memorial service.”

  Deke looked that way and grinned when he turned back to Kelly.

  “That’s Frankie. I meant to introduce you to her before we came in, but I couldn’t find her in the crowd.”

  “That would be because she’s only five feet tall.”

  Deke rose, leaving his napkin on the table, and took Kelly’s elbow when she did the same. “Excuse us, people. We’re going to table-hop.”

  “Don’t take too long,” his boss said jokingly, “I can’t be held accountable for missing desserts.”

  Deke steered her across the room and filled her in. “Frankie is an agent. She was assigned to our team eighteen months ago. We needed someone next to Gunther Bach and she was perfect for the part.”

  “She’s an agent? What a hoot.” Kelly waved to the older woman. “I never would have known.”

  They reached the table and Frankie got up, standing to get a hug from Deke. “I’d like you to meet Kelly Johns,” he said, pulling out an empty chair for Kelly when Frankie sat down and finding another one for himself.

  “I know her name,” Frankie said with a touch of amused exasperation. “And we’ve met before.”

  “I can’t believe this,” Kelly said. “I may have to do a story on you some day.”

  “No thanks. I’m two seconds away from retirement and I’m looking forward to peace and quiet,” Frankie said with mock sternness.

  “Frankie’s seen it all,” Deke said. “Okay, true story: She helped nab a mob boss in Brooklyn once outside his favorite diner. He’d been tailed that far and Frankie came up to him when he left, asked him to—get this—help her cross the street to the hair salon. He couldn’t say no to a sweet old lady. We slapped cuffs on him after she was safely inside.”

  Frankie laughed. “Nothing to it. What a blast.”

  “So do you use your real name?” Kelly wanted to know. “Frances Berry, wasn’t that it?”

  “I got that last name off a jelly jar. Frances is my real first name, but I go by Frankie. It’s Frankie Goodlett. And it’s very nice to meet you again, Kelly.”

  They stayed and talked for a while until the desserts came out of the kitchen, held high on trays to scattered applause, followed by urns for coffee and tea on wheeled carts. A white-haired gentleman came over and sat down carefully between Frankie and Deke.

  “Just in case,” he said to Kelly. “I don’t want him putting the moves on my wife.” He winked at Deke.

  “Are you an agent too?” Kelly had to ask.

  “Long retired. I started with Wild Bill at the OSS, then went covert in the Cold War until the USSR broke up. So I switched careers and became a crossing guard.”

  “Kelly, about half of what Tom says is true. I’m going to leave it up to you to figure out which is which.” Frankie gave her husband a kiss on his wrinkled cheek. “Tom, this is Deke’s friend Kelly Johns.”

  “From WBRX?”

  “The one and only,” Frankie confirmed. “What kind of cake do you want, honey?”

  “Any kind that I don’t have to stand up to get.”

  Kelly was charmed. Obviously the Goodletts had been together for more years than she’d been alive. And they still had it going on.

  CHAPTER 18

  The following day, Kelly settled into the backseat of the WBRX town car, giving the driver directions to the post office. She’d had her mail held when she’d left the rental condo. It had been a while since she’d bothered to pick it up.

  The driver waited at the curb in a yellow zone while she went in to the low brick building and came out again, holding a rubber-banded bundle. Kelly tossed it into the backseat and got in.

  “Where to?”

  “The station. Thanks.”

  She sorted through the items, setting the junk mail and catalogues aside and leaving the bills unopened. There was an envelope from the building manager of her rented condo.

  Kelly opened it and took out a form letter, reading it as the town car whizzed through the Atlanta streets.

  Dear Tenant:

  We are asking all residents to move their cars into alternate accommodations, as the parking garage is long overdue for necessary maintenance and repair. The contractors will begin on the top floor and move down from there. Residents with vehicles on the top floor received e-mail notification in advance, confirmed in this letter. Cars must be moved by . . .

  Kelly read the date. Tomorrow. It was a good thing she’d picked up the mail today. She picked up her smartphone and scrolled back through dozens of e-mails, stopping on a message with no subject that she hadn’t bothered to open. There it was. The condo manager liked to send out e-mail blasts to announce trivial improvements. This was major.

  But Deke still hadn’t looked over—and under—her car. No way would she get into it until he did. The drive-by had left her more wary than ever.

  “Skip the station,” she called to the driver. “I need to stop somewhere else first.”

  “I got nothing else to do,” he said cheerfully.

  Kelly gave him the directions. Then she took out her smartphone and left Deke a message. If he could meet her there before she was scheduled for hair and makeup later in the afternoon, both issues would be taken care of.

  Deke called back almost immediately. “Kelly—I don’t know how that slipped my mind. Sorry.”

  “No harm done. I haven’t gone near the car or the condo since I left.”

  They agreed to meet at the garage in forty-five minutes, enough time for him to grab some gear. Kelly asked the driver to pull into temporary parking by the building’s entrance as she stayed in the car, waiting for Deke.

  Through the glass, the doorman acknowledged her with a tip of his hat, but she didn’t recognize him. There had been other changes during her absence. Large urns filled with flowers stood by the side of the doors. A uniformed employee was polishing the brass framework.

  It was a nice building, but it was never going to be home again. Kelly didn’t want to go up to the condo. She hadn’t missed it.

  She read through new e-mails while she waited for Deke to show. The driver turned on the radio and low, soulful music drifted back to her.

  There was a quick honk. Kelly looked through the rear window. The armored SUV was behind the town car. She gave the station driver instructions to wait and got out to go to Deke.

  He was leaning over the passenger seat, pushing open the door for her. “This won’t take long,” he said. “I have to get back. There’s a follow-up meeting on the cash sting with the truck.”

  “Let me know how it goes.”

  “You’ll be the first. It’s turned into a media stunt,” he said, pulling away and driving toward the ramp to the parking garage. “Sorry I can’t give you an exclusive.”

  “Not a biggie. We’ll run a story on it anyway.”

  Deke slowed and rolled down his window when a fair-haired young guy in a security guard uniform approached the SUV.

  Kelly looked in her purse. “I need
my building ID. That’s how residents get in and out of the garage without the valet service.”

  “Here comes the guard.”

  “Hi, Curt.” She found the ID and gave it to Deke, who handed it to the guard to examine.

  “Hello, Ms. Johns. Is this a new vehicle for you?”

  “No. It belongs to my friend. I’m here to—”

  A blaring horn behind them captured the guard’s attention.

  “Excuse me.” He returned the ID to Deke and moved away to talk to the impatient driver.

  “We can go up,” Kelly said. “The ramp’s on your left.”

  Deke was looking intently into the rearview mirror. “Okay.”

  He turned to get a better look at the car behind them, a luxury model in silver.

  Kelly did too. “Is there a problem?”

  “I was thinking I’d seen the driver before. You can’t now. He flipped down the sun visor.”

  Kelly faced forward. “Fancy car. He can afford to live here. He probably forgot his ID.”

  The silver car backed up in response to the guard’s energetic wave and drove over to the side.

  Deke turned the steering wheel and took the SUV up several connected ramps, coming out on the roof. There were only a few vehicles. Kelly’s car had a lot of room around it, but he parked several spaces away.

  Deke held out a hand. “Keys please.”

  “You can use the remote to unlock it and pop the hood and trunk.” She singled out the main key and handed him the whole ring.

  Deke did all three from inside the SUV. With the hood and trunk open, the car looked disabled. But there was no one around to notice that or offer help.

  “Stay here,” he said, grabbing a duffel bag filled with odd gear.

  Maybe it was overkill, Kelly thought to herself. But she was grateful that he was checking things out. She watched through the window as he went to her car, using a wand thingy to inspect it from below. Then he inspected the engine and went around to the trunk.

  Deke saved the interior of the car for last. The wand touched the Lone Star decoration hanging from her mirror, making it swing. He bent down to reach under the seats and into the foot-wells.