Big Medicine (A John Tall Wolf Novel Book 5)

by Joseph Flynn

  “Tall Wolf came to see me, right here at my office.”

  “What did he want?”

  “You. He wants to know where you are.”

  “What did you tell him?”

  “The truth, that I don’t know. I never asked where you went and I don’t want to know.”

  “Good girl.”

  The tone of that feeble compliment struck Nelda as patronizing.

  Or whatever the feminine equivalent of that word was.

  “Is there a reason you don’t want me to know where you are, Auntie?”

  “Of course there’s a reason, and you were wise not to ask about that either.”

  Hurt now, Nelda said, “I’m sorry I called. I won’t do it again.”

  “Wait. Did Tall Wolf say why he wants to know where I am?”

  “He didn’t say, but when I wouldn’t give him any satisfaction, he asked what if you were in trouble.”

  That made Marlene jerk her head back, as if avoiding a punch.

  “And if I were, he’d ride to the rescue?”

  “I didn’t ask, and he didn’t say. If he comes back, should I just ignore him and not bother you again?”

  Marlene thought about that. “No, if Tall Wolf pesters you again, let me know. I truly appreciate your help and concern, Nelda.”

  The warmth and tenderness of that compliment eased Nelda’s hurt.

  “Anything for you, Auntie.”

  LAPD Commercial Crimes Division, Los Angeles, California

  Lieutenant Emily Proctor had thought that leaving the LAPD should have been a simple matter. Maybe nothing more than dropping off a brief letter of resignation. “See ya later. No, really, I’m outta here. Adios. Yours truly, Emily Proctor, former lieutenant.”

  No such luck.

  When she arrived at her office in the Commercial Crimes Division on First Street, she found three uninvited guests present: an officer from the Personnel Division named Hannah Larsen and Detectives Eloy Zapata and Wallace MacDuff of the Burglary Special Section. Everybody stood up as she entered her small workspace.

  Emily said, “If I’d known I was going to have company, I’d have brought a plate of cookies.”

  MacDuff said, “We’d have eaten them, too.”

  Zapata asked, “Why the hell are you leaving?”

  “Well, the divorce is final, and between you and MacDuff, I couldn’t decide who I loved more. So, it’s better if I move on alone.”

  Officer Larsen laughed and said, “You only think the divorce is final, Lieutenant. You’ve got a lot of papers to sign before you get out alive.”

  She plopped a thick sheaf on Emily’s desk and said, “You don’t have any complaints, departmental or civilian, pending against you, so there’s nothing to clear up there. You’re not eligible for pension payments yet, but you have to acknowledge that your recorded time in service to the department is accurate so it will be credited to you in the event you apply for reinstatement. You have to complete a health statement for consideration of any possible future worker’s compensation claim.”

  Officer Larsen went on for another minute or two, but cops were all too aware of the paperwork that came with the job and were stoic about dealing with it. When they weren’t griping, that was. Larsen concluded with, “I’ll also need your department-issued Glock and your shield.”

  Zapata and MacDuff winced when they heard that. They were lifers. They’d either die on the job or be dragged out kicking and screaming. The word resign wasn’t a part of their vocabularies.

  Emily handed over her Glock and the symbol of her police powers.

  Officer Larsen zipped them both in a plastic bag and said, “Last thing is doing an inventory of your locker, Lieutenant.”

  Zapata got to his feet, “I’ll be your witness, Loo.”

  Emily said, “Sure.” She asked MacDuff, “You coming, too?”

  “I’ll hold down the fort right here.”

  “Okay.”

  Emily, Zapata and Larsen went to the locker room Emily used. She opened her locker and Larsen noted the items as Emily called them out: “UCLA Hoodie and sweatpants, Nike running shoes and socks, Donna Karan Cashmere Mist Deodorant.”

  Officer Larsen grinned. “Gotta get me some of that.”

  Emily announced the few remaining items and then said, “That’s it.”

  Larsen nodded, acknowledging that the locker was empty.

  Zapata provided his initials and shield number as the witness to that fact.

  The reason for taking such pains was that departmental pranksters and enemies had been known to leave either gag items or incriminating materials such as illegal drugs in the vacated lockers of departing personnel.

  Doing anything like that now with Emily Proctor’s locker would be thwarted by the official record. That and the miscreant knowing he’d be facing the wrath of Detectives Zapata and MacDuff. Emily felt good about that.

  Then she realized that MacDuff had stayed behind to make sure nobody had left any unwelcome item in her office either. Another comforting precaution. A desk drawer could be just as useful as a locker to sabotage someone’s reputation.

  Larsen had no reason to suspect anyone might go to such lengths to hurt Emily, but the two detectives had a hunch about the reason for their boss’s unexpected departure and took every precaution that came to mind.

  That extended to walking her down to her car.

  “I’m fine, guys,” she told them as they completed the short trip.

  Zapata said, “We know you are. You are carrying your personal weapon, right?”

  Emily shook her head. “Didn’t think I’d have to shoot my way out.”

  “A woman in your situation shouldn’t take chances, Loo,” MacDuff told her.

  Emily stopped dead in her tracks, glared at both detectives.

  “Who ratted me out?”

  She had told only two women coppers about her problem: the captain for whom she’d worked and a fellow lieutenant. Both of them had sworn to keep her concerns secret. Unless she needed them to act on her behalf should things come to grief or otherwise end up in court.

  “Nobody did,” Zapata said. “We just figured it out, being detectives and all.”

  McDuff added, “Eloy asked you what happened earlier just to get confirmation we’re right.”

  “So what do you think is going on?” she asked.

  “You’re leaving because Captain Adair is making unwanted moves on you,” Zapata said.

  Emily couldn’t keep her face from turning red.

  Giving the detectives all the corroboration they needed.

  “How bad is it, Loo?” Zapata asked.

  Dodging the question, she said, “You can call me Emily now.”

  Both detectives shook their heads.

  “Okay,” she said, “he asked me to marry him. I said no. He keeps calling me or he did until I changed my phone number and didn’t have the new one listed.”

  “Info like that can be hacked,” Zapata said.

  “I used my grandmother’s maiden name to get the new number.”

  MacDuff sighed. “So you think it’s serious, too.”

  “Enough to quit your job,” Zapata added.

  “I got a new one,” Emily said gamely.

  “Another police department?” Zapata asked.

  Emily shook her head.

  “Doing gumshoe work for your father,” MacDuff said.

  They both knew Leland Proctor’s profession.

  “No, I’m working at James J. McGill’s new L.A. office.”

  The face of both detectives tightened. They’d encountered McGill on their home turf not that long ago, and hadn’t liked how he’d big-footed his way into an investigation that they felt should have been exclusively their own. The man’s damn Secret Service witch had threatened to shoot them dead if McGill had come to any harm that might be construed as their doing.

  They’d never gone so far as to consider assassinating the president’s husband.

  Hadn�
�t even whispered the possibility to each other.

  Without saying a word, though, they both knew that accidents did happen.

  Until they’d been told what the price would be for such a mishap.

  “Is he gonna come to town again?” Zapata asked.

  “He might visit, I guess, but headquarters is in Washington, DC. The woman running the L.A. office is a former Canadian Mountie.”

  She saw that her former subordinates weren’t comforted by the thought of two women doing potentially hazardous work. Chauvinistic of them, but in a touchingly retro way.

  “We’ll be fine,” she told them. “Rebecca told me a war story that’d make you laugh and realize how tough she is. I’ll ask her if it’s all right to share it with you guys.”

  “You still didn’t really tell us how bad it is with Captain Adair,” Zapata said.

  Emily sighed. “When I told him no about getting married, I also told him I wouldn’t go out with him anymore. He kept calling anyway, all hours of the night. Waking me up at three or four in the morning sometimes. That was when I changed my number.”

  MacDuff shook his head and said, “Guys like that —”

  “Hey, Em! Emily!” a voice called out.

  “Oh, shit,” she muttered.

  Captain Terry Adair, dressed in a Tom Ford suit and glossy loafers with tassels, was jogging their way. He grinned at Emily and cast a calculating glance at Zapata and MacDuff.

  Under her breath, Emily told the detectives, “Don’t go anywhere, guys.”

  A tough request to honor, when the captain stopped opposite Emily and said, “Give us a minute, will you, detectives?”

  Emily said, “I was about to leave, Terry. I’ve resigned from the department.”

  He looked stunned. “What, just now? Oh, Jeez, Em, you didn’t have to do that. Listen, the paperwork can’t have gone through yet and—”

  He stopped when he saw Zapata and MacDuff hadn’t budged.

  He said, “Guys, I’ve got this. Go back to work.”

  Neither of the detectives moved. Zapata said, “Ms. Proctor asked us to see her safely off, Captain. Now that she doesn’t have a badge or a gun, you know, it’s easy to feel uneasy.”

  Adair gave the detectives his full attention. With their size, he wasn’t going to intimidate them physically. He was, however, a superior officer, and a rising star in the department, and they’d damn well better … He needed to find just the right way to word his threat.

  Make it something they’d never forget but it wouldn’t come back to bite him.

  He was so intent on staring down Zapata and MacDuff — the bastards looking ready to take anything he might throw at them — he didn’t hear Emily get in her car. He did hear the motor start and then she was on her way. For a heartbeat, it looked like he might run after her. Within seconds, though, he knew that would only make him look foolish.

  He clenched his fists and ground his teeth.

  Watched until she was out of sight.

  Then he turned, intending to rip those two arrogant bastard detectives.

  Only they were gone now, too. Back to work, no doubt. Just as he’d told them to do.

  Frustrated, Adair kicked the closest car, a Porsche Boxster, thereby making four mistakes. The dent in the fender left a footprint that would perfectly match his shoe; a parking attendant saw him kick the car; a security camera recorded him doing the damage, and the car belonged to a superior officer.

  A woman, to boot.

  The cascade of negative consequences that ensued would make Adair furious.

  With Zapata and MacDuff.

  And Emily most of all.

  Director Tall Wolf’s Office — Washington, DC

  Johanna Green Eyes, a civil servant who knew that when the clock struck five her workday was done, was just about to leave when Director Tall Wolf returned to his office.

  “The President called,” she said.

  John grimaced as if a sudden headache had struck.

  “Just kidding,” Johanna told him with a grin.

  John lowered his sunglasses to the tip of his nose. “There are simpler ways to resign from your job, Ms. Green Eyes.”

  “I love my job,” she said. “You’re the best boss I’ve ever had — and you’ve been around me long enough to know when I say that I’m not just sucking up.”

  John pushed his sunglasses up.

  Johanna said, “I just think it would be cool to have a tall, good-looking dude who always wears sunglasses in the President’s Cabinet, instead of just another stodgy billionaire. The thought also occurred to me that I might make more money being a bigger big-shot’s secretary.”

  “How do you even know I’m being considered for a cabinet post? I didn’t tell you.”

  “Us Indians, we’re sneaky. Know all sorts of things.”

  John played a hunch. “My great-grandfather told you.”

  “That, too. We’re respectful of old people.”

  “Good to know.”

  “I’ve got Mr. White River’s parole conditions. You want me to read them to you?”

  Johanna held up a sheet of paper. John took it from her.

  He said, “Being a good boss, I don’t want to keep you a minute past quitting time.”

  Johanna took her purse out of a desk drawer and stood. “Thanks. I wasn’t kidding, though. It would be cool to see you up there in the White House at a Cabinet meeting. Not just another stuffed shirt. Maybe you could let your hair grow long. Make a statement.”

  “The sunglasses aren’t enough?”

  “Yeah, you’re probably right. We’ll save the full-native look for when you run for office.”

  Johanna beamed at John.

  “God help us all,” he said. “Go home.”

  She left and he went into his office, dropped the sheet of paper on his desk and sat down. He took off his sunglasses and tucked them into an inside pocket of his suit coat. Unlike many public spaces, his office didn’t have fluorescent lighting. He had rose-tinted LED bulbs and an adjustable rheostat to dial up a level of illumination suitable for reading without being so bright as to cause discomfort. Under the Americans with Disabilities Act, he’d been eligible for special lighting conditions since he went to work for the federal government.

  In his early days, that meant he could wear his shades indoors.

  Now, he was provided with comfortable radiance.

  Moving up the job ladder wasn’t all a bad thing … he just wanted to continue doing the work he found satisfying.

  He picked up the sheet of paper Johanna had given him.

  As he had already suspected, great-grandfather, technically, hadn’t been paroled. The federal prison system had done away with paroles 30 years ago. Instead, it granted “good time,” a credit counted toward early release as a benefit of “exemplary behavior.”

  Alan White River, his record explained, had not only followed the rules of confinement to the letter, it was acknowledged that he’d counseled other inmates at his own initiative, providing them with “a new and productive view of how to lead better lives, both within the institution and quite possibly in society at large upon their release.”

  Overall, he’d provided “a calming influence on the other inmates, making the jobs of the institution’s correctional staff easier.”

  Normally, someone who’d committed a crime that had resulted in the hospitalization of innocent people would have had to serve no fewer than five years of incarceration before being considered for release. Given the inmate’s greatly advanced age — estimated by the prison medical staff only as 99+ years — a singular exception was made in his case.

  Two years of confinement had been considered sufficient …

  Provided that: 1) He obeyed all laws; 2) Reported his place of residence; 3) Limited his travel to the contiguous 48 states of the Union; 4) Agreed to random searches of his residence or; 5) Lived with a duly sworn municipal, county, state or federal law enforcement officer; 6) Refrained from alcohol and non
-prescription drug use; 7) Avoided contact with co-defendants or anyone else with a criminal record.

  John considered each of the conditions to be entirely reasonable.

  And he absolutely loved number five.

  He was a federal law enforcement officer, but he wouldn’t be if he joined the President’s cabinet. Alan White River then would have to assume the burden of regularly reporting to either a Bureau of Prisons official or the clerk of the court that had ordered his release. Not a terrible burden to impose on a younger man.

  But for someone 99+ … well, who knew if the obligation might not slip his mind?

  It would be awful to get sent back to prison for being forgetful.

  John certainly couldn’t let his great-grandfather face that possibility.

  He was sure the President would understand.

  John Tall Wolf’s Apartment — Washington, DC

  “You’re forgetting one thing,” Byron DeWitt told John.

  The former FBI deputy director had called his friend at home.

  He’d mentioned with pride in his voice that he’d tapped out John’s phone number himself, taking no more time to do so than using an old rotary phone would have required.

  John had congratulated DeWitt on the feat and mentioned the reason he’d have to decline the President’s offer of becoming Secretary of the Interior. That was when DeWitt had told him he’d committed a sin of omission.

  “What did I forget?” John asked uneasily.

  “The many and wondrous powers of the woman occupying the Oval Office.”

  John was about to say, “Such as,” when he figured things out for himself.

  “You mean,” he said, “she could just grant clemency to great-grandfather and whisk away all those pesky bureaucratic requirements.”

  “Right.”

  “Probably wouldn’t amount to any big deal politically, would it?” John asked.

  “Pardon a man like Alan White River? Her approval rating would likely go up.”

  John sighed. He was still stuck for a way to bow out gracefully.

  DeWitt had further challenging news for him.

  “I spoke with Abra Benjamin.” The new FBI deputy director.

  “Did she agree to help?”