Working undercover didn’t mean that Colby lived with the drug dealers we investigated. Every contact he had was supposed to be monitored by a backup team. Every operation was tightly regulated. There was no freelancing. Most of the time, that worked. Agents could play the role and leave it behind when they went home at night. A few forgot the difference, forgot who they were.
I may have felt differently about their relationship if Colby was working undercover on something other than drugs. Wendy had started smoking dope when she was a freshman in high school, graduating to cocaine and pills by her senior year before we put her in a program. She got clean, relapsed, and was arrested twice for possession. The second program stuck and she’d stayed sober ever since. Dating Colby put her too close to her old life.
I’d made the mistake of telling Wendy of my concerns. She told me she was cured. I told her there was no cure. She said that I needed to let go. Then she told Colby what I had said and the temperature between Colby and me turned cold and stayed that way.
“That a new outfit?” Lani Haywood asked him.
Lani was a fifteen-year veteran, just tall enough to qualify for the Bureau but more than tough enough to stay. She had matured from sleek and fast to middleweight and steadfast, her senses of fashion and humor still intact.
“Business casual,” Colby answered.
He dropped his lanky frame in a chair opposite me, swiveling it around and straddling it, arms draped over the back, fingers nervously tapping the upholstery. He had the same no-sleep aura the rest of us did, only he was that way all the time. The rest of us only got the dead man’s glow when five people were murdered in the middle of the night.
“You look like you haven’t been home in a while,” I said, calmly laying the pen and cap side by side on the table. I put my hands in my lap, hoping they’d stay there. He had his own place but spent as many nights as he could at Wendy’s. I didn’t like it, not because I was a prude, but because it would be too easy for the people he dealt with to track him back to Wendy. I had raised that issue with Wendy as well, getting the phone slammed in my ear for my efforts. He turned away for an instant, making a crooked smile, not taking the bait.
“Last night was a good night not to go home. Just ask Marcellus Pearson,” he said.
“I didn’t get the chance. Your buddy, Javy Ordonez, know what went down?”
“He got word a couple of hours after it happened.”
“How’d he take it?”
“Not well. I was with him in the back room of this club on Central. One of his guys comes in, whispers in his ear. Javy tried hard to stay cool but he damn near pinched a loaf in his shorts.”
“Any chance he set it up?”
“If he did, he put on a helluva show. Said good night and hit the street. Told his people to stay loose but not to go home. You ask me, he was afraid that whoever did Marcellus would come looking for him next.”
“Were you wired?”
He looked away for an instant. “No.”
“You went in alone without a backup team to monitor you?”
“Wasn’t time. Javy called. Said he needed to talk about the buy I’ve been setting up with him. Said it had to be now.”
There were a lot of things wrong with what Colby had done, none of which I wanted to deal with at the moment.
“Makes you his alibi for the murders.”
Colby leaned forward. “I’m telling you, Jack, he was so scared he needed a diaper, not an alibi.”
“That was almost four hours ago. Where’ve you been since then?”
“Talking to people. You know the kid that was shot on the corner in Quindaro the other day?”
“Name of Tony Phillips. Worked for Marcellus,” Troy Clark said.
“Right,” Colby said. “Javy had the kid popped. Gave the job to one of his new boys, Luis Alvarez.”
“Why would Javy take the chance of starting a war with Marcellus?” I asked.
“Are you kidding me?” Colby asked. “Those two guys are like North and South Korea. They been staring at each so long, every now and then one of them has to make sure he’s still got the balls he thinks he has.”
“Marcellus sent the Winston brothers to hit back for the Phillips kid. We’ve got that on the surveillance tape from the camera in the ceiling fan,” I said.
“Rondell and DeMarcus caught up to Luis,” Colby said. “Beat the shit out of him, left him for dead. Only he didn’t die. He’s in the ICU at Providence. If he lives, we may be able to make a deal with him, put a case together against Javy for capital murder. With Marcellus and Javy both out of the picture, we might have to find another line of work.”
“What if Javy was putting on a show for you?” I asked. “What if this all started with Luis Alvarez shooting Tony Phillips? Javy ?exes his pecs so Marcellus retaliates. Javy decides to win the war the quick and dirty way.”
Colby shook his head. “Javy’s not a good enough actor to turn white, which he did when he heard what went down. If he set it up, he’d have been cool. With Marcellus and the Winston brothers gone, there’d be no one left to challenge him. No one with the balls or the backing. He’d have been pouring shots of cold Grey Goose for everyone.”
“Where does that leave us?” I asked.
“Looking for someone Javy Ordonez was afraid of— someone with the balls and the backing,” Colby said.
“Could be Bodie Grant,” Jim Day said. “We don’t have much on him. Just Rondell and Marcellus talking about him on the surveillance tapes. The guy is supposedly doing business with Javy Ordonez. We haven’t had a chance to run any of that down yet.”
“What about Bodie Grant?” I asked Colby. “Javy say anything about him.”
Colby shook his head. “Not much. Just enough to figure out they’re probably working together. Javy wants what Bodie is selling and Bodie wants Javy’s market. The two of them probably figure to give Marcellus a run for Quindaro.”
“If you ask me,” Troy said, “we should be looking for someone who knew about the camera in the ceiling fan. The killer doesn’t turn off the power to the house, we get the whole thing on tape. I don’t believe in that much luck, good or bad.”
“That’s a small club,” Colby said.
“Not so small,” I said. “Not when you count all the people besides the five of us who could have known even if they shouldn’t have known.”
“I’m not saying there was a leak,” Troy said, “or, that if there was, it was one of us. No way do I believe that. It’s not a perfect theory, but it does explain the lights going out. You can’t ignore the possibility.”
“That’s just one piece of what happened,” I said. “Colby says that Javy Ordonez was pushing Marcellus, maybe with help from Bodie Grant. The tapes corroborate that. We don’t know what Marcellus was doing with his money. We got a killer that thought part of this thing through, but not everything, and who may not have been after Marcellus at all. Jalise Williams could have been the target and the others just collateral damage. Either way, the killer left behind enough of a mess that says he’s either a sloppy pro or a lucky amateur.”
“Bottom line?” Colby said.
“It’s an hour later and we still don’t know shit,” I said.
“Is that what you are going to put in your report?” Ben Yates asked.
He was wearing a dark navy suit, fresh white shirt, and pale blue tie. Same outfit every politician in Washington wore. He was standing just inside the conference room door, listening quietly.
A quick tremor shot through my upper body like a burst of static electricity, followed by two more in rapid succession, each lasting a few seconds and impossible to miss. Colby’s eyes went wide, mouthing a question he held back. I shot a glance at Troy, catching him making eye contact with Yates, who answered with a barely perceptible nod.
Yates cleared his throat. “Jack, I’d like to have a word with you.”
I picked up the crime scene photos and waved them at the whiteboards. “We’re pretty busy right now. I’ll stop by as soon as we get a fix on the preliminary forensics and I’ve got my people back out in the field.”
“Now would be better.”
Troy was halfway to the door, Jim Day, Lani Haywood, and Ammara Iverson in close formation behind him. Colby hadn’t moved.
“Looks like I didn’t get the memo,” he said.
I dropped the photos on the table, not believing that Troy had gone to Yates behind my back. I understood why, or at least why he would say he did it, that it was for my own good, the good of the squad, and that it was in the best interests of the case—the rationales of every loyal mutineer.
“Makes two of us.”
“You okay?” he asked.
“Never better. By the way, I haven’t said anything to Wendy about the shaking.”
Colby stood. “Don’t worry, Jack. Your name doesn’t come up much, anyway.”
Ben stayed where he was, across the room, eyeing me like a suspect, waiting for me to confess. I didn’t want it to happen, not like this, not now. I tried deep breathing, tried gripping the table with one hand, the front of my chair with the other. I even tried pinching the inside of my thigh. Nothing worked. I was tumbling inside, about to blow. Powerless, I gave in, closed my eyes, and let it happen, bending forward in my chair, my chest tight against my thighs, grunting and cursing. The one surprise was how relieved I was, how it almost felt good.
“Two minutes,” Ben said when the shaking stopped.
I was breathing like I’d just woken from a bad dream. “Thanks, but I’m not keeping track.”
“You should have told me.”
“It was personal.”
“Nothing is personal if it affects the job.”
“I’m doing my job.”
“There’s something wrong with you. You don’t know what it is and you don’t know whether it puts you, your team, or your case at risk. From what I understand happened in the field and from what I’ve just seen, all three are likely. I’m not your mother or your father. I can’t make you eat your vegetables, get enough sleep, or go to the doctor. But I’m not going to let you take chances with our people and our mission. I won’t tolerate that.”
“Troy didn’t waste any time telling you, did he?”
“Troy understands our mission. I’m not certain you do.”
I wasn’t moving but the ground beneath me was. “I’ll see a doctor, today if I can find one. In the meantime, I’ve got five dead bodies and I’ve got to get back to work.”
Yates sat in the chair Colby had used, his voice quiet but unyielding.
“This isn’t about you, Jack. You’re a good agent, one of the best we’ve got. Go find out what’s wrong. Do what you have to do. Take all the time you need. We’ll handle this case.”
I looked at him. His eyes were steady and calm. His mouth closed. There was no give. No room for debate.
“You’re right. I should have told you.”
“Would have come out the same way. You know that. I’ll need your gun and your credentials.”
“I’m on sick leave. Why are you treating me like I’m under investigation?”
“You’re not under investigation.”
“Then why do you want my credentials and my gun?”
“Don’t make this harder than it is, Jack.”
“Then make it easy. Let me do my job.”
“That’s the point, Jack. Right now you can’t do your job and we don’t know why. Until we do, I need your badge and your gun. Talk to Anita in HR on your way out. She’s got some disability forms for you to sign.”
“So that’s it. You think I’m having a breakdown, that I can’t be trusted?”
I let the time pass waiting for Yates to answer. When he didn’t, I pulled my gun from the holster on my hip, put it in his outstretched palm along with my ID and badge, and made my way to the door, turning back toward him.
“Who’s got my squad now? Troy?”
Yates didn’t hesitate. “He’ll do a good job.”
Chapter Eleven
The only doctor I’d seen in the six years I’d been in Kansas City was the one the Bureau used for our annual physical. Nice guy. Soft touch when he checked my prostate but not much personality.
No matter what they said about physician-patient privilege, I wasn’t taking a chance with someone on the FBI’s payroll. I needed a doctor who could tell me what was wrong, fix it, and get me back to work, and I didn’t want someone who might have the same fit of self-serving conscience that had put me on the shelf and Troy Clark in charge of my squad.
Joy had a doctor for each limb, organ, and hemisphere of the brain, enough to start her own hospital. None of them were able to save the part of her that died with Kevin. I didn’t have any more confidence in them than she did.
The rest of my close friends, the ones I would normally confide in, were people that worked for the Bureau. That world had always been enough for me. Now I was on the outside looking in.
That left Kate Scranton. I was always careful when I denied Joy’s accusations that I was having an affair with Kate, repeating that there was nothing going on. I couldn’t tell her that Kate had touched my heart in a way I never thought would happen again. It didn’t matter that I had never acted on my feelings and that I only suspected that Kate felt the same way. Feeling the way I did was betrayal enough.
I had reconciled myself to the way things were with Joy, accepting it as penance for having let her and Kevin down. When she left me, I realized that we had both served out our sentences.
Kate had just returned from a lengthy jury trial in which former executives of an energy company were accused of looting it and misleading investors, resulting in a bankruptcy that had wiped out thousands of jobs and retirement accounts and billions in shareholder equity. I hadn’t seen her since Joy moved out, though we’d talked on the phone while Kate was away. She knew about Joy but not about my shaking, unless she could feel it over the phone.
I met her a year ago when she was working with a lawyer defending a pharmacist who was accused of dealing in black-market painkillers. The case hinged on the credibility of the government’s informer. I sat through the whole trial not just because it was my case but because of her.