Cheating Justice (The Justice Team) (14 page)

“He was legit. I checked him out good and proper. Name’s Will Atkinson. He’s the Assistant Special Agent in Charge of the local ATF office and brother to George Atkinson, the U.S. Attorney here in New Mexico.”

Caroline pulled a small notebook and pen from her briefcase and wrote down the name.

Marty watched. “I wrote letters starting the next day. This is America, and I’m a tax-payin’ citizen. No one’s going to threaten me.” He tapped his index finger on the desk. “I wrote to my local district attorney, the state congressmen and to the goddamn governor. Told ʼem a thing or two about small business and the kind of voting clout me, my friends, and my customers have in this state. I laid everything out and suggested they look into the situation. All I got was the standard political bullshit letters back.
Thank you for contacting us. Your letter is important. Please vote for me. Blah, blah, blah
. Not one of them mentioned ATF, the U.S. Attorney, or the possibility of gun running.”

Mitch liked this guy. “Any more threats?”

“Nope, but those two guys who were constantly buying the guns stopped coming in. They stopped visiting Shonny too. Not long after, I was having a beer with some shop owners south of here at a gun show. Same deal. They were sure a few of their repeat customers were selling guns to a drug cartel. I told ʼem my story, and told them to contact the feds or the governor or somebody. They didn’t want to make waves.”

He put his head in his hands and rubbed his bald head. “Then that kid got killed not far from here. It was all over the papers about him being FBI. I’ve been wondering ever since if he was killed with one of my guns. I’ve been following that blog of yours. Now I find out it’s true.” His eyes were haunted when he looked up at Mitch and Brice. “I did everything I could to make sure them bastards weren’t giving my guns to the gangs, but what else could I do?”

Caroline leaned forward and laid a hand on the man’s forearm. “Do you have copies of the letters you sent?”

“Every last one of them.”

“Could I see them?”

Caroline, Miss Type A, was crossing her T’s and dotting her I’s. She wanted to confirm Marty was telling them the truth and not just trying to cover his ass. For once, Mitch appreciated her anal retentiveness. No matter how believable Marty was, you couldn’t be too careful.

Marty opened a desk drawer and removed a file folder stuffed with letters. “Got ʼem all right here.”

Caroline shuffled through the contents, making a note here and there on her notepad. Names, dates, who replied and who didn’t.

“What are you going to do about this mess?” Marty asked.

Brice released a deep sigh. “We’re going to bring those guilty of killing Agent Nusco to justice and expose everyone involved in this cover-up.”

“Good.” Marty nodded his head. “But there’s one more thing,” he said, his eyes bouncing between Mitch and Brice.

Mitch had that feeling again…the one that told him they’d stumbled onto something big. “What?”

“He’s back. That first buyer I followed to the Humvee? Came in yesterday and bought another gun.”

Before Mitch could jump out of his skin, Caroline gripped his wrist, hoping to hell he would keep his mouth shut and let her handle Marty. If she knew him at all, which she most certainly did, he was about to ask Marty for the address of that straw buyer. An idea Caroline could get behind, but also one that would break any number of privacy laws and get Marty in trouble.

What they needed here was careful, thought-out, and concise strategizing. Something Mitch, in all his blazing glory that turned Caroline on in every possible way, simply didn’t know how to do. He was more the race in, kick some ass, and get the info kind of guy. Sometimes that came in handy. Not now though.

She’d have to do it for them.

“Marty,” Caroline said, “I want us to be very careful about this conversation so we don’t break any privacy laws. That being said, I’d like to find a way for us to get the address you have for the gentleman who purchased the weapon yesterday. Is there a way we can do that?”

From the corner of her eye, she spotted Mitch shaking his head. The eye roll would be next so she didn’t bother to face him. She’d seen that eye roll hundreds—thousands—of times and had learned infinite patience because of it.

Marty leaned closer, craning his neck as if that extra few inches would allow him to hear better. “You want his address?”

“Yes. But gun sales are not public record in New Mexico.”

“Fuck the privacy laws.”

Fuck the privacy laws?
This from a gun shop owner? Leave it to her to find Mitch’s long lost brother.

“Hot damn,” Mitch said.

Marty glanced at him, then went back to Caroline. “I’ll give you whatever you need. Let them take away my license. For six months I’ve rattled every goddamned cage I can and now an FBI agent is dead from a gun I sold. Living with that’ll give me a heart attack. I need to make this right.”

Part of her wanted to argue, to stress to this man that they had options. Like a warrant. But warrants took time and if this was truly a cover-up involving a U.S Attorney and New Mexico ATF, a warrant would be impossible to obtain. Those involved would make sure of it and she could finally light the fuse attached to her career and blow it to pieces.

Hell with it. Caroline finally looked at Mitch.
Damn you, Mitch Monroe.

“We have to do this,” he said.

They didn’t
have
to. They could take ten minutes and talk privately. Try to find another option that wouldn’t risk Marty’s license.

“Forget the options, Caroline. You know there aren’t any good ones. Not in our timeframe.”

A clock on the desk chimed the top of the hour. They’d left the hotel over an hour ago. Plenty of time for Donaldson to confirm she wasn’t where she was supposed to be.

Go time
. She turned back to Marty. “Get us the address and we’ll do what we can to keep you out of it. Sound fair?”

“Fuck fair.”

“I love this guy,” Mitch said.

Marty shifted in his seat and put on bifocals to look at his computer. He tapped a few keys, glancing between the keyboard and the screen while Caroline’s nerves suffered a seizure. Each pulse point throbbed and she ran her hands along the underside of her wrists, gently squeezing.

It’s the right thing.
She sure hoped so. It had to be. Getting this address might be the first step in finding the answers they needed. Professional suicide? She’d already committed that anyway. Personal triumph? Righting a wrong? Definitely. Either way, they’d have answers.

The printer beside the computer hummed. Marty snatched the paper it spit out and spun back to them. “Here you go.”

Caroline and Mitch both reached for it, but he smacked her hand away. “I’ve got it. If the shit hits the fan, we say I had it first and I gave it to you.”

Please. No one would believe that. Not after their history. She snorted. “You think that’d fly?”

“If your prints aren’t on this sheet of paper, it can only help keep you in the clear.”

Point there. She dropped her hand. “Thank you, Marty. We’ll check this out and let you know.”

She dug into her purse, grabbed one of her cards, and wrote down her cell number.
Wait.
Mitch destroyed her phone. Terrific. No phone. She’d have to pick up a burn phone. She passed the card and pen to Brice. “Write your cell number down so Marty can reach us if our straw buyer comes back.”

As Brice wrote the number down, Mitch bounced on the balls of his feet, his endless energy crackling and reaching out to her, surrounding her. This was such a mistake. Intellectually, she knew it. Emotionally, she denied it. Because when Mitch got on a roll, when he saw his target and homed in on it, she wanted to meet the woman who could resist the pull of him.

Magic. That’s what he was like when working a case. Excitement and lust and power all rolled into one package. And, despite agreeing with his mission, but not necessarily his approach, Caroline gave in to the magic.

He shoved the paper into his front pocket and shook Marty’s hand. Then he clapped his hands together. “Let’s roll, kids.”

Chapter Eleven

The house that matched the address was a two-story shack that looked as if it started out as a one-story shack. “Do a drive-by,” Mitch told Brice.

“We need a plan,” Caroline said.

She sat nestled between Mitch and Brice on the bench seat, and in her typical ‘Caroline way’ kept inching closer to Mitch to avoid body contact with Brice. All so Ms. Uptight didn’t let her Type-A-self invade the space of a guy she barely knew. Mitch couldn’t say he minded all the closeness, but his thoughts kept wandering. And God knew his body went right along with them.

“The plan is,” Mitch said, “to knock on the door and see who answers.
If
anyone answers. No cars in the driveway.”

At the corner, Brice braked at the stop sign and checked the cross traffic. He hooked a left and Mitch stared out the side window, already thinking ahead to knocking on the front door of that beat-up two-story.

Still avoiding a squirming Caroline, Mitch caught sight of a neon “Bar” sign damn near begging for his attention. He could use a shot of bourbon right now. One that would fry his throat and make him forget about his dead friends. Sunlight flashed off of something and Mitch shifted his gaze to the green street sign with reflective white letters.
Buena
.

The shock ripped into him. Adrenalin, an enormous hit of it, plowed into his limbs. He jerked sideways, bumping Caroline.

“Hey!”

But he couldn’t take his eyes off that street sign. “Son of a bitch. Stop this truck.”

Brice pulled to the side of the road. “What now?”

“Buena. That’s the street. Brice, pull up those pictures Ethan sent us. Quick.”

“Mitch,” Caroline huffed, “what is your problem? You damn near broke my hip.”

Annoyed with Brice’s slow pace, Mitch grabbed the phone and starting swiping through photos. No. No. Not it. Nope.

There.

Son of a bitch
.

“That’s it. Holy fuck.” He hopped out of the truck while scrolling back to the photos of Tommy’s body. Had to be. Had to.

Caroline followed him, stalking behind, trying to keep pace.
Right here
.

He stopped. Studied the picture for a second, looking for…
there
. A street sign visible from the parking lot. He looked around and squinted against the sun, judging the distance between the bar in the backdrop and Tommy’s body.

Son of a
bitch.
“This is it. He died right here.”

Caroline ripped the phone from his hands. “What are you saying?”

“Buena. I saw the street sign in the photos earlier.” He pointed to the green and white sign at the end of the block.

Her mouth dropped open. “Ethan said Tommy went to his girlfriend’s house and then had a couple of things to do. And then he’s gunned down a block from a straw buyer’s house? That cannot be a coincidence.”

“Well, shit,” Brice said from behind Caroline. “We need to knock on that door and see if our guy lives there.”

According to Marty’s report, the straw buyer’s name was Jesse Lando. Brice had googled the guy and found nothing. Not even a Facebook page.

“And if no one’s home?” Mitch asked.

Caroline narrowed her eyes at him. “We are not breaking and entering.”

Fuck that. “Of course not. You can sit in the truck and wait for someone to come home.”

“And what will you do?”

“Best you don’t know. Let’s go back.”

They did, parking on the side of the street and killing the engine. Mitch looked at Caroline. “Are we going with your lame bible salesman act or do you have another idea?”

“Bible salesman?” Brice said.

“Don’t listen to him, Brice.” Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes bright with the chase. “He’s trying to annoy me by yanking my chain. As he so often does.”

And what a nice chain it was. Mitch chucked her under the chin. “Stay here. I’ll go to the door and see what happens.”

Mitch got out, hearing Caroline protest under her breath. He ignored her. Never mind her and the adrenalin rush, he had to focus. Had to calm down, get his thoughts in order and concentrate.

No telling who he might be dealing with on the other side of that door. Could be the man who’d gunned down his best friend. At the very least, it was a straw buyer who might’ve sold the gun to a major black market gun runner. Either way, Mitch’s fist was going to find the guy’s face.

Behind him, he heard a door slam. He turned to tell Caroline to get back in the truck, but found Brice walking up to him. Brice held up his hands in an act of surrender. “She’s worried you’re going to kill this guy. Told me to back you up.”

Smart woman. Mitch surveyed the house. No activity inside from what he could see and hear. The neighborhood was rundown, nobody out in the heat of the day. Maybe the owner of the house was at work.

Or maybe he was inside watching Mitch and Brice approach his house and wondering who the fuck they were.

A front window was open and a lace curtain blew in the light breeze. A planter by the front door held succulents and a glass ball. Homey touches for a straw buyer.