Nothing to Hide (A Roland March Mystery Book #3)

by Bertrand, J. Mark

  “The case. Bascombe told me I have to lay low until the Internal Affairs investigation blows over. He seems to think that if I do, they’ll eventually drop it. Think about that. If I go after the people who killed Jerry, then I’m in trouble—”

  “The man who killed Jerry is already dead.”

  “—but if I let it go, then I can move on with my career. And I get a vacation, too. A reward for looking the other way.”

  “I’m sure that’s not what Bascombe meant.”

  “The reason I’m telling you is, I want you to be prepared. I’m not planning to leave the job, but they might kick me to the curb all the same. And then we’ll buy a shiny silver Airstream and drive to Santa Fe like a couple of old-timers, because I’ll finally be ready to shake the dust of this city off my shoes.”

  She likes the sound of this and lets me know. We go inside, pulling the back door closed, and the hem of her sundress is already in her hands, and she’s not thinking anymore about the possibility of my hurting myself.

  But she should be.

  CHAPTER 12

  According to the plaque, eleven thousand gallons pour over the sixty-four-foot-high Water Wall every minute, crashing down in sheets onto the angled steps below. To approach, you pass under a gabled archway “reminiscent of an ancient Roman theatre stage.” (That spelling of theater makes me smile.) The landmark fountain went up around the same time as Philip Johnson’s Transco Tower, which looms nearby, and ever since it’s served as a backdrop for countless tourist snaps and wedding portraits. I remember Mack Ordway once saying that the ideal Houston suicide would consist of a dive off the Tower culminating in a face-plant before the Water Wall. In addition to a death wish, you’d need a set of wings to cover that distance. But gazing up with the massive fountain at my back, it almost seems possible.

  I pace along the edge of the water, letting flecks of cool water dissolve on my face. It feels good in the morning heat. Apart from a couple of office workers in shirtsleeves and loosened ties eating breakfast burritos under the gables, I’m alone for the moment. I gaze upward at the slice of sky framed by the top of the circular wall, the voluminous edge of a smoke-white cloud backed by the clearest of blues.

  “You’re here early.”

  I turn at the sound of Bea Kuykendahl’s voice, barely audible above the roar of the water. She wears jeans and a cotton blazer to cover her gun. A gust of wind agitates the short blond spikes of hair into a temporary ridgeline.

  “I’ve got nowhere else to be,” I say. “I’m on an involuntary vacation.”

  “I see you’re still strapped.” She nods at my own jacket.

  “I’m still a cop, after all.”

  She has to get close for us to hear each other without shouting. It would be too strange, standing face-to-face, so we end up side by side, gazing into the water with our backs to the outside world. I have a feeling I know why she chose this as a meeting place. It would be hard to get good sound if you were trying to listen in. Maybe she thinks I’m wired. Maybe she thinks one or both of us might have been followed here.

  Or maybe I’m letting my imagination run free.

  “When you told me NCIC spit out a match on Brandon,” she says, “I didn’t believe you at first. I had to double-check it for myself.”

  “I find that hard to believe.”

  “Believe what you want. The only reason I brought you into this is because I expected . . .” Her voice trails off. “My information was different.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean? I thought the whole point was that you saw we were looking for a match with your undercover agent. We got it, so you had to intervene. If you could rig the results so that the cover story was confirmed—”

  “You really think I have that kind of power? A special agent at the Houston Field Office?”

  “Maybe,” I say.

  After doing a little checking, I’ve come to have a new appreciation of Bea Kuykendahl. Her age and appearance are deceptive. According to my sources, she’s something of a prodigy, wielding more influence in the world of Gulf Coast criminal intelligence than I would ever have imagined. Her latest assignment included carte blanche when it came to picking her own personnel and putting them into action.

  “I’m flattered, but really, that’s not even funny. What I’m saying is, I had information that the computer would come back with Brandon’s real identity.”

  “Who says it didn’t? Everything about this guy checks out.”

  Everything but the main thing, namely, the link between Brandon Ford and the headless corpse left in the shadow of Allen Parkway. But I say nothing about that. I’m here to get information, not dole it out.

  “You’re making a fundamental mistake,” she says, cutting off my objection with a flick of the hand. “Listen to me. You’re assuming that if somebody’s undercover, then the story will be flimsy and won’t check out. If it was thrown together at the last moment, then maybe. But exactly how far back did you really go?”

  “I talked to the man’s ex-wife. I saw his kids.”

  “And she’s known him for how long? A few years?”

  “His mother does the baby-sitting.” I take the photo from the garage out of my pocket: Brandon and his two friends, with his mother in the background. “She’s known him since he was born.”

  As she studies the image, the corner of her lip curls down. “Oh, I know her. And there’s more to the situation than you realize.”

  “Let me lay something out for you, Bea. This started off as a murder investigation, and now a Houston police detective, my partner, is dead. From where I’m standing, I’d say there’s more to this situation than you seem to realize. You’re withholding information, pure and simple. Now either start at the beginning and tell me everything you know, or I’m gonna walk.”

  “You’ll walk? You’re the one who called me.”

  I shrug. “I’m not gonna stand here and be lied to again.”

  She’s mad, that much is obvious, even though she tries to keep it bottled up. Maybe she thinks I’m not showing her enough respect. Whatever illusion she had of controlling the situation is starting to crumble.

  “This is off the record,” I say, giving another little push.

  “Here’s what I can tell you. I inherited Brandon. I inherited the whole operation. Another agency put it in place, and for some reason had a change of priorities. This thing goes back years. But I was only put in charge of it four months ago.”

  “When exactly?”

  She does the math in her head. “Early February. Going on five months, I guess.”

  In other words, not long after Andrew Nesbitt’s death.

  “And the other agency that was responsible for putting the operation in place?”

  “I can’t tell you that. Seriously. I have my suspicions, but there’s a certain . . . imprecision to the way things like this happen.”

  “But we’re talking about the CIA, right?”

  “Maybe,” she says. “Or somebody working with them.”

  “Earlier, you said you had information that the computer would blow Ford’s cover. Where did that come from?”

  “A phone call,” she says. “A tip.”

  “From?”

  She stares into the water, not wanting to give it up.

  “Bea, who tipped you off? You realize whoever it was set you up, right? We wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for that call.”

  “You said Brandon’s mother baby-sits his kids. Did you actually talk to her?”

  That was on Lorenz’s list, but we never got that far. I shake my head.

  “Well, you might have a hard time finding her now. That’s who called me. Hilda. And she was Brandon’s handler, not his mother. What a piece of work.” She shakes her head. “I haven’t been able to reach her since that call.”

  “This operation,” I say. “What’s it all about?”

  She takes a half step toward me, touching her right arm against my left. She talks so softly I have to bend cl
oser to hear. “This cannot go any further than you and me. I’m telling you this in good faith.”

  The story she tells concerns a war between the powerful Gulf Cartel and the renegade enforcers called Los Zetas, now a cartel in their own right. Los Zetas was originally from the Mexican special forces, recruited by the Gulf Cartel’s then-leader, Cárdenas Guillen, to take out the competition. After defying the FBI and DEA, Guillen is now doing time in a U.S. prison without possibility of parole. A Federal judge in Houston sentenced him not long after Bea was handed her undercover operation. “Suddenly I had an inside man in Matamoros, home base of the Gulf Cartel.”

  The volume of good intel coming up from Matamoros was staggering. The first report to come across her desk read like a soap opera digest of cartel gossip. Some of this she routed to contacts at the DEA, some she delivered through channels to the Mexican government. Everything came through the woman posing as Brandon Ford’s mother. She gave Bea the initial rundown on the organization and introduced her to Brandon, who would make the 350-mile trip to Matamoros every couple of weeks to collect information.

  “Brandon had ideas of his own,” she says. “He wanted a larger role in the operation. He was tired of being the courier.”

  So with the help of their cartel insider—Bea won’t share the man’s name, or even his code name—they set up the scenario she’d hinted at in our first interview. Brandon would use his gun-dealer cover to offer arms to the cartel. The plan was to expand his business until he had deals in place with the rival outfits, too.

  “It would have been a delicate operation,” she says. “We’d have to set up new deals before the original ones were fulfilled, then arrange the deliveries close enough together to where the initial arrests wouldn’t tip the others off.”

  There was another side to the sting, which made it appealing to Bea’s higher-ups. With a bankroll from the FBI, Brandon would purchase guns from U.S. dealers. With luck he’d be able to rope in manufacturers or importers, too.

  “How far along had all this gotten?” I ask.

  She sighs. “He had the money.”

  “And what about the arms?”

  “I don’t know,” she says with a shrug. “This first deal had already been worked out. Things were going smoothly. The last time we talked, he was heading to Matamoros for the final arrangements. I guess something went wrong.”

  There’s a tremor in her voice.

  “Bea, look at me.”

  She turns. Her smooth face twists into a knot. She puts a hand over her nose, like she’s trying to stifle a sneeze. But it’s more than that.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask.

  “Nothing,” she says, shaking her head. She chews her lip and wraps her arms tight around her body, squeezing herself still.

  “You and Brandon . . . ?”

  “Whoever did this, I want them as bad as you do.”

  “The two of you . . .”

  “I don’t want to talk about it. But, yes.”

  The idea forming in my head puts all my earlier conspiracy theories to shame. Suppose this fellow, Brandon Ford, finds himself running information back and forth across the border. He’s looking for a payday and suddenly finds himself working for Bea, who’s not as tough and streetwise as she’d like to make out. He insinuates himself into her life, and pretty soon she’s going to her superiors for the cash to fund this sting operation.

  “How much money did you actually sign out?”

  “Not much to begin with,” she says. “Two hundred and fifty grand.”

  Is that enough? I guess it depends on the situation. If Brandon Ford was ready to decamp before the opportunity came along, an extra quarter million to jump-start his new life wouldn’t have gone amiss. And if he was ready to leave behind an ex-wife and kids, then saying goodbye to a new love interest—and leaving her in the lurch—would not have presented any problem. How this connects with Andrew Nesbitt’s death and the way the dumped corpse was arranged, I’m not sure. A message to his so-called mother, maybe? Given time, I suspect I can work it all out. But Bea still seems oblivious.

  “You’re not going to like the sound of this,” I say, “but I suspect you’ve been played. He wasn’t in this to hand you a sting operation. All he wanted was the money.”

  She walks away from me, then turns. “You didn’t know him.”

  “Neither did you, Bea. I think he was using you. Once he had the money, it was only a matter of time.”

  “You. Didn’t. Know. Him.”

  She punctuates each word with a jab of the finger, speaking loud enough for the breakfasting office workers to turn and watch. I close the distance, put a hand on her arm. She shrugs free but stands her ground.

  “You can at least do me the courtesy of not questioning my professional judgment!” Her words come out in a hiss. “I thought I was doing you a favor, putting you in the picture. I could get in serious trouble even for talking with you.”

  “Bea,” I say. “Calm down. There’s something you need to know.”

  She starts to go. “I’ve heard enough from you—”

  “Wait.” I take her by the arm. Her eyes flare with outrage, and for a moment I’m afraid she’ll lash out. “Wait, Bea. You need to hear this.”

  She glances at the office workers, who start gathering their things and moving on. She looks at the sky, her whole body trembling with rage. Then she takes a deep breath and bores into me with her eyes. “What is it?”

  “There were two men. They got the drop on me in Ford’s office. For some reason, they wanted the evidence—he’d covered a wall full of clippings related to Andrew Nesbitt’s death.” Her face is blank. No reaction to the name. “They took the computer hard drive, too. One of them, the man I killed, was tall and lean. He wore a gold ring shaped like a skull. The other one did all the talking. He had a faint Texas accent, stood about six feet and had a broad, muscular chest. They wore hoods so I couldn’t see their faces. When I shot him, the one with the skull ring had pulled his hood up. The other one got away in the car. He’d taken his mask off, so as he went by I got a good look at him.”

  “And?”

  I nod at the photo still clutched in her hand.

  “What?” she says.

  “That’s who I saw.” I point to Brandon Ford. “That face.”

  “Then you saw a ghost.”

  “We’ll see.” I take the photo back. “I want you to go somewhere with me, Bea. We’ll figure out which one of us is right.”

  “Go with you? Where?”

  “The morgue,” I say. “You’d know Ford’s body, wouldn’t you? I want to see if we can make a positive identification.”

  ———

  Bridger waits outside, not looking too pleased by our sudden arrival. He senses something’s wrong between Bea and myself. I close the door gently, then walk to the cantilevered platform where the body waits, draped by a sheet.

  “I don’t want to see this,” she says.

  She stands a few feet back, her hands gripping the fabric front of her blazer, pulling it tight. The room is cold to begin with, but the open refrigerator forms a chilly draft. She’s breathing hard, loud enough that I can hear it. Her eyes stray to the depression in the sheet where a head should be.

  “What other choice is there?”

  “Are you sure about what you saw? Absolutely sure?”

  “You’re not going to believe me if you don’t see for yourself.”

  Maybe it’s cruel, what I’m putting her through. If I could be absolutely sure, then I would stop. But I only glimpsed the man with the shotgun, only got a snapshot impression of his features. This is the only way to be certain.

  “I’ll start at the feet,” I say.

  She extends one of her hands as if to stop me.

  “You have to do this, Bea. You have to face up to it.”

  She drops her hand.

  I lift the sheet in stages, folding it back on itself, revealing the feet, the shins, the thighs, the genitalia. The mutila
ted hands appear, and there’s a catch in her breathing. I reveal the torso with its autopsy incisions. At the height of the clavicle, I rest the sheet and step back.

  “Is this Brandon?” I ask.

  Bea edges forward slowly. She takes her time with the body. When she’s finished, she straightens up. The expression on her face is unreadable.

  “Bea?”

  She doesn’t look at me. She turns for the exit, her heels clicking across the hard floor.

  “It’s not him.”

  She disappears behind the swishing door.

  CHAPTER 13

  Bea is a quiet passenger, uninterested in anything I have to say. Legs crossed, arms folded, face turned toward the window so I can only see her expression in chance reflections. Blank. The muscles slack. Signifying nothing. The extent of her contribution is to point the way to Hilda Ford’s house at the opposite end of Westheimer from Brandon’s office. When we pull up in the driveway, she’s out the door before I can cut the engine, advancing up the driveway with her side arm drawn.

  “Bea!”

  She keeps advancing, halted only by the locked door. I coax her gun back into the holster and try to calm her down. But she already seems calm, preternaturally so. It’s hard to judge whether I’m getting through to her.

  We circle the house, peering in through the windows. I half expect to find the place cleared out. But no, it’s fully furnished, even a little cluttered with knickknacks. Through the kitchen door I can see the white fridge covered in layers of children’s artwork and alphabet magnets. I try the handle, but it’s locked.

  As I check the nearby windows, Bea rears back and kicks the kitchen door. She can’t put enough weight behind her foot to force the lock, but the wood gives a satisfying crack. She tries again before I can stop her.

  “Have you ever heard of a warrantless entry?” I ask. “Anything we get will be unusable without probable cause.”

  She glares at me. “We’re past warrants.”

  “No, Bea, we’re not. I’m not. The people responsible for my partner’s death, I plan to put them away. And I can’t do that if you go nuclear on the scene.”