by Sandra Brown
“Another tactic to try and break you.”
“Well you failed, Special Agent Kinnard. You’ve got nothing to show for all your testing and clever tricks. You got nothing helpful from me.”
“You’d be surprised what I found helpful.”
“My brother is still at large.”
“Which is why you’re still in custody.”
Chapter 27
A taut silence followed that fiery exchange, which Joe and Hick had tacitly agreed to let play out without interruption. Adrian Dover softly asked Jordie if she would like to take a breather. “Maybe some water?”
She declined with a brusque no.
“I’d like some,” Kinnard said. “I’m supposed to be getting fluids.”
Joe got up and walked over to a small table stocked with bottles of water. “You should be readmitted to a hospital,” he said as he uncapped one and passed it to Kinnard. “Under an assumed name, naturally.”
“Maybe later.”
When he finished drinking, Hick asked him where he’d had his burner phone hidden. “It wasn’t on you. The barn was searched. Wasn’t in the car.”
“I left it in the woods where I stopped to switch car tags. Sealed in a ziplock and stuffed in a hole in a tree trunk. I told Morrow where he could find it. He retrieved it and brought it when he came to the hospital.”
Joe thought, This son of a gun doesn’t miss a trick. He wanted to throttle him, but he couldn’t help but admire his craftiness. Of course, his life depended on outsmarting people. On deception.
Hick asked, “What about the barn?”
Shaw smiled wanly. “Belonged to my grandfather. He called it the garage. He had a couple of old Chryslers he restored and kept there. Before he died, he sold the cars, but the building came to me. I hadn’t been there in years and was surprised to find it still standing.”
“You grew up around here?”
“No. I only visited my grandparents from time to time.”
He didn’t volunteer where he hailed from, and Joe didn’t bother asking. Neither did Hick. He probably would have told them that it was classified.
“The bow-and-arrow set was mine,” Kinnard said, addressing Jordie. “It came with a canvas target stuffed with straw. I don’t know what became of that. I never knew my grandfather owned a boat. Maybe he didn’t. I don’t know what that busted outboard was doing in there.”
She didn’t respond except to stare at him coldly.
Joe went back to something Kinnard had said earlier. “You want Panella.”
“That scam he had going with Josh was little more than a hobby. He’s into much more that than. After Katrina, he swooped in like a vulture and cashed in on the corruption and chaos. Racketeering, money laundering. No aversion to blood. My unit wanted him long before you guys got on to him.
“He’s old-school. Tit for tat. Sicilian shit. For instance, on Panella’s order Mickey Bolden slit a guy’s belly open and threw him off a fishing boat into the Gulf.”
As an aside to Jordie, he said, “That was no empty threat. It happened. Another agent witnessed it. Nothing he could do to stop it without blowing his cover.” Coming back to Joe, he continued. “To get inside his operation, I made my initial contact with Bolden and told him that I was available for speciality work like that.”
“Like gutting people,” Jordie said.
Kinnard looked across at her. “Too messy. I’m tidier and more efficient than that.”
“Like blowing Mickey Bolden’s head to smithereens.”
“Would you rather have had him blow yours to smithereens? Or me to take the time to say, ‘Freeze, FBI, you’re under arrest’?” When she declined to say anything, he added, “I kill only the bad guys, Jordie. To keep them from killing other people.”
“But you still lie and deceive.”
“I do, yeah. Most times. Not always.”
The atmosphere between the two crackled. Joe couldn’t help but wonder the nature of some of the lies that Kinnard had told her while she was his captive. He tabled that interesting thought for the time being and concentrated on what Kinnard was saying.
“Bolden didn’t immediately take me up on my offer. I couldn’t look too eager or he would’ve smelled a rat. When that DEA agent got crosswise with the two key men, I had to take them out. I got myself arrested on purpose. It looked better, and jail is often safer than the streets. By the time What’s-his-name Dupaw released me, Panella had vamoosed to parts unknown and Josh was in protective custody pending testimony.
“So I worked the other case in Mexico, planning to wait out Panella like he’s been waiting out Josh. I think he forecast that Josh would renege.”
“Why do you think that?”
Jordie said, “Because Mr. Kinnard has this wild hair that Josh, not Panella, has access to the stolen money.”
Everyone looked at her. Wiley asked, “Does he?”
“No.”
Wiley looked back at Kinnard, who said, “My opinion differs, but we gotta catch him to find out.” He paused and touched his side as though it pained him. “Where are you on that? Any updates?”
Joe brought him up to speed, starting by telling him about Josh’s unexpected call to him two nights before. “Here we were stomping around in the woods searching for him, my phone rings, it’s the man himself.”
He recounted that conversation, including mention of the bank account in Costa Rica, but omitting that Jordie had accompanied Panella on a trip there. He finished by telling him about the call he’d got before dawn. “Surprised me again.”
“What’d he say?”
“He wanted verification that Jordie was safe.”
Kinnard frowned. “That first call. Was he telling the truth, you think? Granted, Costa Rica would be a good stopover for somebody wanting to disappear. Gulf on one side, Pacific on the other. Rain forests and mountains to hide in. But have you confirmed that this bank account exists?”
“As of this morning, the money’s still there. Intact. Never touched.”
“No shit?”
“Our thought exactly,” Hick said, and Joe noticed that he shot a glance at Jordie.
Kinnard, lost in thought, didn’t catch it. “And Josh called you again this morning, indicating to me that his nerves are wearing thin. Whether or not he’s got the money, he still betrayed Panella. He’s rethinking his decision to abandon the protective arms of Uncle Sam.”
“If he wasn’t rethinking it before, he is now that I told him I talked to Billy Panella last night.”
Kinnard looked at him with a start. “You what?”
“He thought it was you calling.” Joe told him how the conversation had come about and related it in its entirety. “We had all the geegaws hooked up to the phone. Got nothing. Panella hung up in less than thirty seconds.”
Kinnard absently rubbed the scar on his chin. “His attempt on Jordie’s life was a bust. Josh still knows all his secrets and is inclined to make deals.” Addressing them all, he said, “Our friend Panella can’t be happy with the status quo, especially if he was left holding an empty bag. Do you realize how dangerous that makes him?”
“We do. That’s where we were when you came in,” Joe said. “Hick and I were encouraging Ms. Bennett to share with us any information she has regarding either Panella or her brother’s whereabouts.”
“Morrow told me you were questioning her.” Kinnard looked across at her, but he referred to her in third person. “That’s one reason I left the hospital in such a hurry. For a day and a half, I tried everything I could think of to get information out of her. Some of my tactics were unpleasant, even crude.” He waited a beat, then looked at Joe. “If she knew anything, I believe she would have told me.”
She hadn’t told him about her weekend getaway with Panella. Joe would bet one of the swindler’s millions on that. If Kinnard knew about that, he wouldn’t be letting her off the hook now.
Another one of those awkward silences ensued. Kinnard was staring hard at Jordie as
though compelling her to look at him. She kept her eyes downcast, looking only at her lap.
Eventually Adrian Dover stirred. “That’s it then. Is my client free to leave?”
Joe said, “Ms. Bennett is free to go now, but she remains in our custody. Hick, tell Marshal Saunders she’s ready to return to the hotel.”
Hick stepped out and called down the hallway to the marshal.
Jordie said nothing as she stood up. Evidently she planned to walk out without acknowledging any of them, especially Shaw Kinnard. But when he spoke her name, she hesitated on the threshold before turning around. And if looks could kill.
Kinnard said, “You can’t protect your brother from Panella, Jordie. He’ll send the next Mickey Bolden, then the next, until he gets him. He won’t give up until Josh’s entrails are strung along behind him in the Gulf.”
She held his stare for the length of a slow freight train, then said, “I wish I’d gone for the kill.”
She and the lawyer walked out as Hick came back in, his cell phone to his ear. He mouthed, Morrow.
Joe, who’d stood up as a courtesy to the ladies when they left the room, sat down again and scrutinized Shaw Kinnard. He looked worse off now than he had when he’d made his grand entrance, and he’d looked like hell then. He was pale, the lines in his face more deeply carved, cheeks sunken.
Nevertheless, from deep within their shadowed sockets, his eyes projected a cold glint that signaled danger despite the signs of his physical debilitation. Joe didn’t have that quality. Nobody would ever move out of his way simply because he focused on them.
If Kinnard had been affected by Jordie Bennett’s parting shot, he didn’t show it. To look at him, you’d think the words had bounced right off him like he was wearing armor. Of course, in order to work as deep cover as he did, detachment was essential. Everything was sacrificed to the job, even normal human emotions.
Joe thought about the comforting clutter in the den of his house, the constant commotion his kids created, the particular squeak his and Marsha’s bed made when they moved on it together, and he didn’t envy Shaw Kinnard his gravitas. It came at a price. Too high a one, in Joe’s opinion.
He motioned toward the door through which Jordie Bennett had just passed. “I don’t think she likes you.”
“Nobody does. I’m used to it.”
“She seemed to yesterday, though.”
Kinnard snapped him a look of alerted interest. Maybe his armor wasn’t so impenetrable after all.
But before he could speak, Hick abruptly ended his phone call and said, “We gotta get to Tobias.”
Joe shot to his feet. “Bennett?”
Hick shook his head. “Royce Sherman.”
“Who’s that?” Kinnard asked.
“The guy who accosted Ms. Bennett in the bar.”
Kinnard was so wobbly he had to use the table to stabilize himself as he stood up. “I’d like to talk to that jerk-off myself.”
“Not gonna happen,” Hick said. “He’s in the morgue.”
Chapter 28
Upon learning that the young man who’d played a key role in Friday night’s events had turned up dead, they wasted only a few minutes arguing over whether or not Shaw would accompany them to Tobias.
Wiley and Hickam were resistant to the idea. He was adamant. To save time, he told them whether or not he rode with them, he would get there. They gave in.
“We’ll stop somewhere along the way and buy some things to better disguise you,” Wiley said over his shoulder as they left the interrogation room.
“Good thinking,” Hickam said. “I’d hate to get struck by a bullet intended for Mr. Armed and Dangerous here.”
Although each step sent a spike of pain through his side, Shaw kept up with them until they reached Hickam’s car in the parking garage. After climbing into the backseat, he surreptitiously lifted his shirttail and peeled back the dressing to check his stitches. They were holding.
No doubt Jordie wished she’d done more damage with that propeller. If she had it to do over, she probably would plunge it into his throat. She’d said as much, and he believed her. She despised him.
His work was too high risk for him to get life insurance. Not that he had anyone to name as a beneficiary, because his job was also hazardous to personal relationships. Before now, that hadn’t bothered him. Often he used innocent people in order to put away bad people. If someone in his wake was left emotionally scarred, it was a cost of doing business. Dirty job and all that.
But when Jordie Bennett had looked at him with unqualified hatred, he’d felt more than a twinge of conscience. That was a first, and it was uncomfortable.
As they wheeled out of the garage, Wiley got a call on his cell phone. Hickam didn’t engage Shaw in conversation, which was fine with him. He laid his head back and dozed, waking only when Hickam parked outside a discount store. Wiley was still on his call, doing more listening than talking.
Hickam was back in under five minutes, bringing with him a sack, which he tossed over the car seat into Shaw’s lap. “Not a place where I typically shop. That’s the best I could do.”
He’d bought an ugly maroon hoodie and a pair of sunglasses with black plastic frames and cobalt blue lenses. Shaw said, “These are fine.”
“I thought they might be.” Hickam made a point of looking at the pearl snaps on the new chambray shirt Morrow had bought for him.
Ignoring the agent’s implied insult to his taste, he yanked the price tag off the hoodie. “So what about Royce Sherman’s demise?”
“Morrow was on the fly, so he gave me the facts in shorthand. I’ll tell you what I know as soon as Joe gets off the phone.”
As though on cue, Wiley, riding shotgun, clicked off. “Sorry. That was Marsha. My wife,” he said for Shaw’s benefit. “We have a toilet problem at home, and she’s threatening to apply a wrench to the plumber’s privates if he doesn’t get it fixed. Soon. What’d I miss?”
“Nothing. I waited on you,” Hickam said. “First thing, Morrow emphasized that it hasn’t yet been determined whether or not Royce Sherman’s death relates to anything that happened Friday night.”
“How’d he die?” Shaw asked.
“Gunshot to the head. Left frontal lobe. Close range.”
“Suicide?”
“No gun found near the body, no powder on his hands.”
“Homicide then,” Shaw said.
“Fair bet.”
Wiley asked if there had been signs of a struggle.
“No. He had cash and one credit card on him, so robbery doesn’t appear to have been the motive. Morrow said it looked like the killer walked up to the open window and popped him.”
“At home?”
“Driver’s seat of his pickup truck. He’d pulled off the highway onto a side road.”
“What for?” Shaw asked.
“Nobody knows.”
“To take a leak?” Wiley ventured.
“No evidence of that. Morrow doesn’t think he got out of the truck.”
Shaw asked him about a shell casing.
“None found. No other bullet, either. Looks like the shooter only fired once. With intent.”
Shaw thought on that and almost missed Hickam’s saying, “But Morrow has a possible motive. The bartender—” he paused and looked at Shaw in the rearview mirror “—he’s the one who put us onto you.”
“Doesn’t surprise me. He’s former military, right? Saw action?”
“He mentioned Iraq.”
Shaw nodded. He’d noticed the bartender’s scrutiny of him and Mickey, which had been surreptitious but sharp. Nothing made a man more observant than a war zone where the enemy didn’t wear a uniform.
Hickam said, “When the bartender heard about Royce’s murder, he immediately called Morrow. Told him Royce was in the bar last night for hours, acting like a celebrity, knocking back whiskeys like they were Kool-Aid.”
“Was his ol’ lady with him?” Wiley asked. Turning to Shaw, he added, “He
had a live-in who ragged on him.”
Hickam said, “She was there, all right, and did more than rag on him. They got into it. Put on a floor show for the crowd, the bartender said. She stormed out with two girlfriends. No sooner had she left than Royce started tangling tongues with another girl. Around midnight, he and the newbie staggered out together. All this has been corroborated by the witnesses they’ve been able to locate.”
“What does Royce’s ol’ lady have to say about it?” Wiley asked.
Hickam told them that Morrow himself had gone to pick her up at her place of employment. “She oversees the paint department in a big-box store. Morrow said she dropped to her knees and started wailing when he broke the news. Said her shock and tears looked genuine, but he brought her in anyway. She swears she didn’t see or speak to Royce after leaving the bar.”
“She lawyer up yet?”
“No, but he sent deputies to round up the two friends who drove her home last night. They were questioned separately, and their stories match hers. They took her back to the apartment she shared with Royce where they killed a couple bottles of wine toasting the good riddance of him. Around four a.m., the friends decided they were too drunk to drive home, so they crashed there at her place and got up this morning barely in time to drag themselves to work.”
“What’s Morrow’s read on her alibi?” Wiley asked.
“He tends to believe it.”
“I do.”
At Shaw’s succinct statement, Wiley turned around to look at him. Hickam was watching him in the rearview mirror. He said, “It doesn’t sound like a crime of passion. Not the way you described the scene. The shooter fired once? With intent?” He shook his head. “That’s not a pissed-off girlfriend’s kind of kill. A recently dumped ol’ lady would have emptied the pistol into him, then called the cops herself and told them where to find his sorry dead ass.”
Wiley nodded, looking glum. “Unless evidence places the recent ex at the scene, I’ve gotta say I agree.”
Shaw addressed Hickam in the mirror. “What about the newbie? The bartender said they left together.”