by Josh Lanyon
“I emailed your office twice,” Jason replied. “And I phoned on Friday and spoke to your assistant chief, to let her know we’d be interviewing Bozwin residents.”
“My assistant chief is not the one in charge.”
“I couldn’t get an answer from you.”
“Then that was your answer!”
Jason was trying to keep his tone reasonable, but it wasn’t easy after the morning he’d had, and he’d already gone through one round of questioning from the deputy sheriffs, who at least had a right to be on-scene.
“Sir, you don’t have that option. Letting you know we were speaking to people in your community was merely a courtesy. This is a federal case. We have jurisdiction.”
“Leave ’em the hell alone, Amos,” Thompson suddenly chimed in. “Feds or not, these assholes saved my life. Not to mention the lives of several of my guests.”
“The hell I will,” Sandford snarled. He jabbed his finger at J.J. “This asshole killed someone in my backyard.”
Abruptly, Jason lost his temper. “Backyard? This isn’t even your county!”
“I decide what’s in my county.”
Huh?
That was a new one.
J.J., who had been uncharacteristically quiet through the butt-chewing, protested, “He was firing an automatic weapon at a house full of civilians!”
Sandford had opened his maw for another mauling, but that had been the moment the cavalry, or at least what looked like the entire staff of the FBI’s Bozwin Resident Authority, had started taking up every available parking space not currently occupied by the sheriffs. There was something kind of solemn, even ominous, in all those official, unmarked vehicles silently filling the yard.
“Goddamn,” Sandford muttered. “Why don’t they send the black helicopters too?”
It did seem like a lot of agents for a tiny RA like Bozwin, but the reassembling of Sam’s task force meant agents from Missoula and Helena had been in the office when the call came through, resulting in a pretty impressive show of force.
The Bureau preferred to handle agent-involved shootings in-house. That was what this was about.
Jason watched as a black SUV pulled up in front of the ranch house and Special Agent in Charge Elinor Phillips and her sole passenger got out.
Phillips was tall and athletic, with the kind of freckles that looked like a fashion statement rather than genetics. She wore a black pantsuit, and her champagne-colored hair was pulled up in a bun that bore zero resemblance to the version sported by schoolmarms and spinster cat ladies.
“Chief Sandford!” She sketched a wave to Sandford that might have been something else had sixty-plus people not been watching her. Despite the professional smile, Phillips didn’t sound any more thrilled to see the police chief than he was to see her.
Jason glanced at the SUV’s passenger. His heart jumped at the unexpected sight of Sam.
BAU Chief Sam Kennedy made an imposing figure in his favorite black suit, razor-sharp white shirt, and a black-cherry-colored tie. The summer breeze cheekily ruffled his pale hair, but behind the formidable dark glasses, Sam’s face was steely.
His aftershave, an aggressive blend of musk and sandalwood, reached their enclave a couple of steps ahead of Sam—or Phillips.
“Problem?” He looked from Jason to Russell to Sandford.
Jason shrugged, nodded at Sandford. “Apparently there is, though I’m not sure why. It’s not like we had a lot of options.”
“What’s going on, Amos?” Phillips questioned.
Sandford launched into a list of grievances. Support for Jason and J.J. came once again from Bert Thompson.
“My step-daughter’s halfwit ex-boyfriend and his drooling moron cousin decided to shoot up the place. I guess Brody didn’t believe my wife when she told him Patty wasn’t here. Thank God she’s with friends in Great Falls.”
Sam gave Jason’s shoulder a hard, reassuring squeeze. “You okay?” His blue gaze was searching—and assessing.
Jason nodded. He had stopped shaking, his heartbeat was normal again, but he still felt a little queasy, a little shaky. He would never admit it, but it was the truth. Reaction, plain and simple, and Sam probably knew it, because he gave Jason’s shoulder another of those bruising grips.
Their relationship wasn’t a secret, but it wasn’t common knowledge either, although maybe that had changed since breakfast. Part of the expectation, though, was that on the job they could restrain themselves to treating each other like coworkers and not romantic partners. No dramatic clinches or thank God you’re all right, darling.
Everything Sam was feeling had to be conveyed by a shoulder squeeze, and everything Jason felt had to be confined to even more briefly covering Sam’s hand with his own.
Phillips’s alert hazel gaze took note of the exchange. She said to Jason, “Then this is not related to your case?”
“This is nothing to do with our case. We just happened to be in the right place at the wrong time.”
“The right time,” de Haan objected. “These agents saved my life and the life of everyone on the ranch.”
“And you are?” Phillips asked.
As de Haan began to explain who he was, they were joined by two detectives with the Park County Sheriff’s Office. Sandford launched yet again into his complaints.
For Jason, time was of the essence, and it was painfully clear that his entire day was going to be lost to the fallout of this goddamned unfortuitous shooting. He did his best to control his frustration.
And the press hadn’t even got wind of the incident yet.
He and J.J. were questioned separately by the sheriff’s office detectives. It was pretty routine, and Jason could tell that the sheriffs—unlike Police Chief Sandford—were eager to hand this one off. Typically, law enforcement deferred agent-related shootings to the Bureau to investigate, but sometimes they chose to conduct their own investigation. Either way was fine by him. He was confident any shooting-incident inquiry was going to back up their decision to engage.
He just wanted the whole thing over so he could get on with his own investigation. The clock was ticking. Loudly. But he seemed to be the only person who could hear it.
SAC Phillips finally managed to appease Police Chief Sandford, who instructed Jason to inform him before he attempted to interview anyone in “his” town.
By that point Jason had had his fill of the overbearing asshole—which was saying something because he’d had a lot of experience with overbearing assholes.
“That is not going to happen,” Jason told him.
Which nearly resulted in setting Sandford off again.
“Just simmer down,” Sam told Sandford. He did not actually plant his hand in the center of Sandford’s uniformed chest, but it had the same effect. Sandford rocked back as though he had been yanked by an invisible chain.
Rock meet hard place.
Sandford began to splutter. “You put a goddamned hand on me—”
Sam grinned. It was not a nice, friendly grin.
Sandford turned several shades of rage.
“OH-kaaay,” Phillips interceded. She threw an exasperated look at Sam. “No one is putting a hand on anyone, boys. And Agent West will cooperate fully with the police department.” Phillips’s glance in Jason’s direction was one of dire warning.
Jason said nothing. He did not need—and was not about to—coordinate his efforts with the Bozwin Police Department. He had more pressing concerns than SAC Phillips’s public-relations efforts.
After Sandford left the scene, Jason and J.J. were directed back to Bozwin and the RA, while Phillips’s team and the sheriff’s department finished up at the crime scene.
J.J. was silent for most of the nearly hour-long drive through scenic green-gold Paradise Valley. Beneath dramatic blue skies, vast and breathtaking views of the Absaroka Beartooth Mountains stretched to the east and the jagged snowcapped Gallatin Range dominated the west.
“You okay?” Jason asked J.J., surfacin
g from his own grim preoccupation.
“Sure,” J.J. said tersely. “You?”
“Great.”
They exchanged bleak looks.
“You don’t have to worry,” Jason said. “There’s no way the SIRG won’t find in your favor.”
Typically, when an agent fired their weapon outside of a shooting range, the Bureau’s Inspections Division sent out a Shooting Incident Review Team. The SIRT would interview witnesses and use forensics to reconstruct events in order to file a report with the Shooting Incident Report Group. The SIRG, comprised of high-level FBI and Justice Department officials, would then review the findings and determine whether the shooting complied with the Bureau’s policy on using lethal force.
“I know.” J.J. was staring out the windshield. “I’m not worried.”
Sure.
They had both shot to kill on Camden Island. The crucial difference was they had not killed. Today… Well, neither would forget today.
Jason said, “You didn’t have a choice, J.J. It was a good shoot.”
J.J. nodded.
As Jason feared, the rest of his afternoon went to dealing with the fallout from the shooting.
SAC David Warner flew in from the Salt Lake City field office with Brian Dulaney, one of his three Assistant Special Agents in Charge. An attorney from the Department of Justice arrived separately, followed by two representatives from the FBI Agents Association.
Jason and J.J. were again questioned apart and at length.
Most of it was basic, checking-off-boxes stuff. SAC David Warner asked Jason three times in three different ways why he had fired at the oncoming vehicle and not the shooter.
Jason wasn’t completely sure himself, but he didn’t admit that. “I thought the approaching truck posed the greater threat to more people—civilians—than just me and my partner.”
“It was a reasoned and informed decision?” Dulaney inquired.
“It was gut instinct,” Jason admitted. “I’m only thinking it through now.”
Bozwin Supervisory Special Agent James Salazar asked, “Why do you think your partner chose to target the shooter?”
This was what they were really after. Had J.J. had a choice, or had he opted for a lethal resolution in a non-lethal situation?
Jason answered carefully, “I think Agent Russell perceived correctly that the shooter was the immediate threat and that he—Agent Russell—had the better line of sight. Which, as I consider, is another reason I went for the truck. I knew Russell would go for the shooter.”
“Team work at its best?” SAC Phillips was neutral, but maybe a little skeptical. She had been pleasant enough when they’d met the day before, but this afternoon Jason had the distinct feeling she didn’t much like him.
Jason answered, “We’re trained to trust our partners.”
On it went. The same questions reworked and reapplied. But eventually Jason was dismissed and J.J. was brought back in for another round.
Sam, of course, was not part of these interviews. When Jason stepped out to grab a late lunch, he had a quick look for Sam and spotted him through the windows of the conference room, sitting at a long table strewn with laptops, cell phones, and fast-food containers, speaking to a group of agents clearly hanging on his every word.
And no one was hanging tighter than Special Agent Travis Petty, sitting right there at the left hand of God, a.k.a. BAU Chief Sam Kennedy.
Late afternoon, Phillips summoned Jason to her office to inform him Warner was about to make a formal statement to the press.
“Okay. Sure.” Jason was wondering uneasily whether Warner was about to surprise them with some unpleasant development. There was something odd in Phillips’s expression.
Phillips said, “According to Unit Chief Kennedy, any media attention focused on you is undesirable, so I’m giving you a heads-up. We have a friendly relationship with the local papers, and there are liable to be reporters in the building. I’d stay in your office and keep the blinds down for the next couple of hours.”
Right. In case the story was picked up by the national networks and Jeremy Kyser, everyone’s favorite psycho stalker, happened to turn on the TV and see where Jason West was spending the next few days.
It was a little embarrassing—not least because he hadn’t even thought of this potential threat—and he was a little angry too at the reminder of Jeremy Kyser out there and waiting. Even after two months of no sign of Kyser, a knot of nerves and tension instantly formed in his belly at the mere mention of his name.
He could see the curiosity in the back of Phillips’s eyes.
“Thanks,” Jason said, and retreated to the temporary office assigned to him and J.J. during their stay.
He spent the rest of the afternoon answering emails and talking with Supervisory Special Agent George Potts, his immediate boss at the LA Field Office.
“How do you think J.J. is handling the shooting?” George asked.
“I can’t tell. Probably better than I would.”
Of course, you weren’t supposed to confess that, but George would understand. In his entire career, George had never fired his weapon off the shooting range.
“There’s support here if he needs it. I’ve been talking to SAC Warner. Do you think it might be best to hand this case off to Salt Lake City’s ACT? It’s their backyard, after all.”
Jason swallowed his instant alarm. “No. It’s a complicated case. It would take Janelle too long to get up to speed. Time is of the essence. We don’t want the family deciding to solve their legal problems by destroying the art they still deny having.”
Sweat prickled his hairline and underarms as he waited for George’s answer.
“Okay,” George said at last, “but Warner says they’ve got the resources. And it’s not like you don’t have plenty of your own cases waiting back home.”
“I know. But this case is too important to risk something getting lost in the handoff. And de Haan did come to the LA Office.”
That was something of a miracle. De Haan had happened to read an article about Jason working with an LA County museum to make proper restitution to the heirs of a Nazi-looted van Gogh, which had hung on the museum’s walls for over fifty years.
Historically—and still all too often—museums and galleries resisted restoring stolen art or even making a serious attempt at restitution, so the news story and Jason’s role in it had stood out for de Haan.
George said reluctantly, “Well, I guess if you think your participation is vital to the successful resolution of the case…”
That made Jason sound like a complete egomaniac. But he not only had to stay part of the investigation, he had to be the one directing the investigation. He said, “I really do.”
“Okay, Jason.” George sounded more resigned than approving. “It’s what the museum wants, and you’ve done the groundwork on this. I’ll confirm our need to take point with Warner.”
Jason felt giddy with relief. “Thanks, George. I promise I won’t let this case linger one minute longer than it has to.”
And that was the truth. No one had greater interest than him in seeing this thing wrapped up quietly and quickly.
It was after five, and Jason was just hanging up from his phone call with the chief of the Major Theft Unit of the Criminal Investigative Division, Karan Kapszukiewicz, when someone rapped on the door. Sam ducked his head into the office.
“Hey.” Jason smiled welcome.
“Hey.” Sam was not smiling. “Sorry about this.” Sam kept his voice down. “I’ve got dinner with the task-force members tonight.”
Of all the goddamned times. But disappointing though this was, it was not unexpected that Sam would be tied up for most of their evenings. There were always dinners out with the resident team, especially for someone in Sam’s position. Jason kept his smile in place. “I figured.” His gaze traveled to Travis Petty hovering behind Sam in the hallway. He nodded politely to Petty, who nodded politely back.
“I’ll give yo
u a call afterward?” Sam said still more quietly.
“Yeah. I’d like that.”
A smile flickered across Sam’s gaze, though the next instant he was his usual unreadable self.
He nodded curtly and closed the door to Jason’s office.
Chapter Four
It was nearly six by the time J.J. was finally finished being interviewed and the brass and legal reps headed out to catch their planes.
Jason had delayed leaving until he could speak with J.J. No, they weren’t pals, but that’s what you did when you were partners. There was no denying that fighting for your life shoulder to shoulder with a guy created a bond.
He couldn’t read anything in J.J.’s expression beyond weariness, and he seemed to have nothing to report. “Ready to go?” he asked Jason.
“Sure. You want to grab some dinner?”
J.J. was swiftly gathering his things. “Nope. I’ve got a date.”
“Who with?”
J.J. looked at him like Jason was an idiot. “With Martinez, of course.”
Jason’s surprise must have shown because J.J. scowled. “It’s not going to help sitting around talking about it. I need to change the subject.”
“No. Sure. I get it.”
“Plus, I’ve only got another couple of days here. I’m not wasting this chance.”
“Yeah, absolutely,” Jason said. “Fine by me.”
Was J.J. serious about Martinez? He’d never figured his partner for a love-at-first-sight kind of guy, but this was definitely not his usual MO.
“And if I were you, I wouldn’t spend the night second-guessing yourself either.”
About the shooting? No. Jason wasn’t second-guessing his decisions that morning. Now that the initial shock had worn off, he was simply relieved he hadn’t frozen and that neither he nor his partner nor anyone in their charge had been shot. About other things? Yes, his conversations with George and with Karan had reinforced his guilty awareness that he was sinking deeper and deeper into ethically murky waters.
