by Andrew Gross
“You said you wanted me to find out wherever it led. To find out what happened.”
Hauck looked in her wary eyes.
“Everyone has a side to them they don’t want people to know, Ms. Sanger. But not everyone is killed for it.”
She opened the door. “Come on in,” she said, “it’s cold.”
Hauck stepped inside, wiped his shoes on the mat. A large pink orchid brightened a table in the foyer. “I asked you if your husband had a gambling problem.”
“And what if he did?” Wendy shook her head. “David didn’t hurt anyone…”
“And what if he did”—Hauck wasn’t sure if he shouldn’t just turn around and walk away—“hurt someone? What if he’d been going up to the Pequot Woods a lot more frequently than you knew? What if he had something illegal going on? With his friend, Kramer…”
“What kind of thing?” Wendy asked, growing frustrated, anxious.
“He kept that account hidden from you.”
“That money could’ve come from a lot of things,” she said with a hint of desperation.
“But it didn’t.” Hauck shrugged. “What if it wasn’t entirely legal?”
“You better have proof, Lieutenant! You want to come in here and make accusations about David—you better show me the goddamn proof, you hear. Not just a bunch of questions. Or innuendos. Not asking all these what-ifs…Proof!”
“We found an American Express card in your husband’s name he was paying on a separate account. I can show you the receipts. It seems David had been up to the Pequot Woods several times over the past year and a half. Nine times, to be exact. I went up. They showed me some things. Video they had taken of him.” Hauck shifted awkwardly. “They were suggesting they were involved in a card-cheating scam up there. His friend, Kramer, on the inside, trying to manipulate the system.”
“I don’t believe it!” Wendy’s blue eyes flashed. “I don’t believe it.”
“I saw it,” Hauck said. “They had this thing going on. It’s called a false shuffle. You can look at the deposits back in his account after he went up there.”
“I spoke with Judy Kramer,” Wendy said. “Keith was on his way home to take his son to hockey practice. David was just filling up the car. These were just two people—good people, Lieutenant—who were murdered. Find out who did it. Don’t turn this around on us.”
There was a noise upstairs, her son crying. Ethan. Haley yelling, “Mom!”
Flustered, Wendy brushed back her hair.
“I’m saying that’s exactly what I want to do, Ms. Sanger. I’m saying the people up there might have uncovered this thing and done something to them, maybe not fully knowing who he was. To right the affairs, in their view.”
“Right the affairs?” Her eyes shone bright with tears. “You’re saying David was cheating and these people had him killed? To right affairs…?”
“We both know their deaths weren’t a coincidence, Ms. Sanger. What I am saying is that if I go forward on this, things are bound to come out. The kind of things I’m telling you now. I can’t stop that…”
“Did it occur to you that maybe he was investigating something? That maybe he and Keith were cooperating? And maybe that’s why these people had him killed?”
“There’s no open case file on this at his office. And we have his bank account, which is hard to explain.”
“No.” Anger flashed on Wendy Sanger’s face. “It’s not hard to explain. What’s hard to explain is you coming in here like this. David represented people’s interests his whole life. He went after securities firms and drug companies. He exposed fraud, he didn’t create it. He could’ve gone to any big law firm in the city but he chose to work for the government. He did this all because it was what he thought was right. That’s who my husband was, Lieutenant. Not some cheat who stole money from a casino. You’ve got the wrong guy.” She shook her head. “There’s something else.”
“The people who did this are already trying to pressure me off the case.” Hauck lowered his voice. “The man who pulled the trigger on your husband is dead. He was murdered last week in the Dominican Republic. The person in charge of the gang he was a part of had an attempted murder case against him dropped—by the FBI. These things aren’t happening because of some casino gambling scam. You want to know why your husband was killed, I want to help you, Ms. Sanger. I just don’t know if I can stop what may come out…”
From the top of the stairs, Haley’s voice rang out. “Mom, what’s going on? Who’s here? Is everything okay?”
Wendy looked up. “Yes, honey, everything’s fine…Lieutenant Hauck is just here. He’s giving me an update.” She cleared her throat and ran a hand through her hair. “You have a daughter too, don’t you, Lieutenant?”
Hauck nodded. “Thirteen.”
“I bet she adores you. Daddys and their little girls…”
“When she’s not trying to play me under the table.” Hauck smiled.
“So then you know how it is…So what is it you want me to tell my daughter, Lieutenant? David’s already been taken away from her once. Now you want to do it all over again. Not without proof.” She shook her head. “Not even then.”
A knot dug in deep into Hauck’s chest. He pulled the door back open. “I’ll leave you guys alone.”
“You want my okay, Lieutenant? Well, I can’t give it to you. You’re saying these people killed my husband…? I hope they fucking rot in hell. Do what the hell you have to do. But you better be right. You goddamn better be right in whatever you find. Because I choose to believe in David. And if you hurt my daughter all over again, if you drag my husband’s memory through the mud and it turns out you’re wrong, then goddamn you, Lieutenant, I’ll never forgive you for that.”
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
Hauck took the long route back to Stamford on the Post Road. It wasn’t part of the plan to upset Wendy Sanger. He was thinking about what she had said. I’ll never forgive you, Lieutenant… And what Fitz had warned him about. Not to mention Raines, the photos, and the sense that he was holding something back.
He made the right on Elm, past Annie’s café. It reminded him he ought to get something to eat. The Stop & Shop on Cove was still open.
That’s when he first noticed the glare of the headlights pulling up behind him.
A dark SUV. Looked like a Range Rover maybe. Bright halogen lights. He didn’t know what it was that first made him suspicious. Instinct maybe.
It pulled in behind him and slowed, remaining a few car lengths behind.
He admonished himself. A little jumpy, aren’t you there, Ty…
Hauck pulled into the Stop & Shop and ended up with a roasted chicken and a prepared Greek salad. At the register, he chatted a little with Melanie, the checkout girl. Her boy had been a point guard at Stamford West high and now he was over in Iraq. Usually he stopped in at nine, just before closing. Tonight he was early. Melanie laughed. “Half a day today, Lieutenant…?”
Back in the car, he headed toward the sound. He stopped at the light. A Toyota pulled up next to him and made a turn. Two teenage girls. The driver was on her cell phone.
Hauck glanced in his rearview and noticed the same Range Rover pull away from the curb, falling in behind.
Okay, Ty, time to start paying attention…
As the light changed, he made a right onto Cove, keeping his eye on the mirror. A couple of other cars passed by; then Hauck was sure he saw the Range Rover make the same right, about fifty yards behind.
His blood tensed.
Something reared up in his mind, accompanied by a chill. About how Fitz had warned him about who he was dealing with. You be careful, Ty… That was when his heart began to accelerate. He was pushing his way into something no one wanted him to pursue. Three had already died. All were part of a cover-up. That badge won’t protect you, Ty…
He glanced one more time in the mirror. The SUV seemed to slow. Connecticut plates. If he held a moment he could get a read. Call it in. He was almost n
ear his street.
Take it slowly, Ty…
Finally, he turned onto Euclid. His house was just a hundred yards down on the right. He didn’t see the lights of anyone following. He made the turn at his driveway and waited a moment with the motor on, his gaze fixed back down the street.
Then he saw the bright halogen lights. The Range Rover slowly turned down his street.
His heart started to go crazy.
He reached forward and opened his glove compartment. With an eye on the mirror, he took his Sig out of the holster. He flipped the safety off.
Hauck begged his heart to quiet down.
The street was dark. It was after eight. Everyone was probably in their family room, doing homework, listening to their iPods, watching TV. He waited a few moments, considering what to do. He caught a glimpse of the SUV as it drove by.
But it didn’t keep going.
It came to a stop further up the block.
Who the hell was in it? Someone sent by Raines or Vega? Or the FBI?
Hauck knew what he should do next. Go inside. Call the Stamford police. Tell them a suspicious car was lurking outside his residence. They would send someone. Let them come and intercede.
But he wanted to know who it was, and he didn’t want the sight of cops to scare them away.
So Hauck crept out of the Explorer. He went up his stairs as if he was heading in, flicked on a light, spotting the brights from the Range Rover as it crawled past his house and down the block.
He shut his door and headed down the back stairway to the narrow walkway that led behind the fenced-in lots of the neighboring houses. His heart pounded. His nervous breaths were visible against the chill. It took Hauck maybe twenty seconds to wrap around the adjacent houses and come back out on the street. The Range Rover had driven past his house and pulled into a vacant spot about thirty yards away.
The driver dimmed his lights.
What worried Hauck was that Range Rovers weren’t exactly standard FBI issue these days. But it was the sort of vehicle that might belong to a gang.
The driver’s door opened and a man stepped out of the darkened car.
Only one. Which made everything easier. He was wearing a dark parka, a cap pulled over his face. Hauck couldn’t make him out.
He saw the man check something in his palm and place it into his jacket pocket.
You have no idea the kind of people you’re dealing with here, Ty…
Hauck crept his way behind a row of cars on the other side of the street.
The man crossed over. He stopped for a second on the curb. He took a glance up at Hauck’s house. He looked about six feet, solid, cast in shadow. He reached into his pocket, grabbing something.
Hauck came up behind him. He eased off the safety from his gun.
The man caught a sense of it just a second late. He spun.
Hauck wrapped a hand around his neck and jerked him backward, at the same time kicked out the guy’s legs. The guy rolled onto the pavement with a grunt. Hauck dug a knee sharply into his back.
“You wanted me, you got me, mister!” Hauck wrestled the man’s arms behind him.
The guy let out a groan.
Hauck eased off his knee and spun him around. He pressed the barrel of his Sig into the man’s face and a cell phone the guy had been carrying fell out of his hand.
“Now what do you want, asshole?”
He was staring into the face of his brother.
CHAPTER FIFTY
Jesus, Warren, what the hell are you doing here?”
Hauck rose off his brother and helped him to a sitting position. Warren was fuzzy at first. He massaged the back of his neck. He had a cut on his lip where he had hit the pavement.
“Jesus, dude, a little jumpy or what?”
“Yeah, I’m jumpy. I always get jumpy when someone tails me, skulking around my place at night. You ever think of maybe calling or just letting me know? Or what any normal person might do—ring the goddamn bell!”
“I wasn’t skulking.” Warren brushed a knuckle against his lip and winced at the trace of blood. “I just didn’t know I was stepping into a fucking Jet Li movie. Who the hell did you think I was?”
“It doesn’t matter who I thought you were. Here…” Hauck offered his hand and helped him up.
In the filmy light he noticed his brother had aged since he’d seen him last. He looked heavier. Warren had always been trim and fit, and into his forties he could still toss a football fifty yards and take his nephews in a game of one-on-one.
Hauck hadn’t seen him in over a year.
“You want to come up?”
Warren rubbed his jaw. “Yeah, well, that was the plan.”
“Then c’mon…After that, it would be pretty damn rude to say no.”
Upstairs, Hauck tossed Warren a damp cloth wrapped around a couple of ice cubes. Warren dabbed his lip and the scrape on the side of his face.
Hauck took out a couple of beers from the fridge and put one on the counter in front of Warren. “You’re not going to sue or anything, are you?”
“Keeping my options open. You may, however, owe me a new pair of cords.”
“Just feel lucky I didn’t use deadly force.”
Hauck sat on the stool next to him. Warren was three years older. He’d always been handsome. Always had an easy charm about him. The girls used to say he looked like Dennis Quaid. They hadn’t talked much over the years. Actually, it had been like that as long as Hauck could remember. Since his brother had left for BC. Everything always seemed to come easy for Warren. Sports. Girls. Hauck had to bust his ass for everything he got. In college, Warren wasn’t quite up to the level of a Division One team, so he morphed into Mr. Frat Boy. Took the LSATS. Didn’t do so well. Somehow he talked his way into UConn law school, graduated middle of his class. But after a stint at an upstate firm in Hartford, he managed to get cozy with a bunch of the movers and shakers up there and went out on his own.
To Hauck, it always seemed like Warren lived a charmed life.
“So enough with all the yuks…” Hauck looked at him. “I know you just didn’t find yourself in the neighborhood. What brought you by?”
“Whatsamatter?” Warren objected. “Can’t a brother just check in on his younger sibling?”
“Cut the crap, Warren. You pass through Greenwich every other day and you’ve never dropped in before.”
“Okay, okay…” He lit up a cigarette. His face took on a different cast. “Ginny call you?”
Hauck shook his head. “What’s going on?”
Warren took a swig of beer, then drew a long drag on the cigarette and blew it out. “I don’t know. I think I’ve gotten a little over my head on a few things lately…”
“What kind of things? Business?”
“Maybe.” Warren shrugged, contrite. “Also at home…I partnered up on this housing deal near Waterbury. Low-income units, no money down, right in town. Need I say more? I helped secure the developer his permits with the state, so I figured, what the hell, why not buy in? I’d helped line enough pockets over the years…” Warren put the beer can against his swollen lip. “Picked a helluva time to go long in the housing market, huh?”
“C’mon, Warren,” Hauck said, “you fall out of a roller coaster, you land on your feet.” Their whole lives, Warren had never come to him for anything. He was never anything but 100 percent. “You need some cash?”
Warren chuckled. “How much you sitting on, bro?”
Hauck shrugged, feeling slightly foolish for asking. “I got a little saved up. Not your kind of money, Warren, but…”
His brother tapped him on the thigh with the closest thing to a look of affection Hauck could recall in years. “I didn’t come here for a loan, Ty. But thanks…”
“Ginny know about this?” The two of them had been through a few rough patches before.
Warren nodded guiltily. “Which is not unrelated to the problem at hand, little bro.”
Hauck regarded him suspiciously. “An
d that is…?”
Warren drained the bottom of the can of beer. “Got another?” Hauck stepped over to the fridge and slid one across the counter. Warren popped the tab and took a swig. “I took some of the funds for this deal out of Sarah and Kyle’s tuition fund.”
Hauck stared. “Nice move, champ.”
“Not so surprisingly, the wife and I haven’t exactly been on the best of cuddling terms lately.”
“Jesus, Warren, do you have a chronic aversion to sleeping through the night?”
“Coming completely clean,” he exhaled, “there’s been a few other things too. Truth is, I’ve been seeing the kids mostly weekends. The past couple of months, I haven’t been living there much.”
“What’s the definition of much, Warren?”
“Not at all. Afraid that puts a little dent in our plans for Thanksgiving.”
Hauck shook his head in disbelief. His brother had always lived on the edge. Now it seemed he’d completely gone over. “You need somewhere to stay?”
“Nice of you, bro, but…” He sucked in a breath. “I took an apartment up in town. That’s sort of where I’ve been living out of lately…”
“That’s good, Warren…” Hauck smiled philosophically and tapped his brother’s thigh. “For a moment there, I thought you were about to ask me for a kidney.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
They cracked another beer and stepped out on the deck. It was cold. Warren huddled in his fleece pullover and looked out at the sound, lights flickering miles away on the Long Island shore. He lit another cigarette. A few flurries stuck in his hair.
“This is nice, Ty. It really is…Million-dollar view.”
“Not exactly like yours.” Hauck shrugged. “But I make do.”
“Never knew precisely how, on what they pay you.” Warren grinned at him.
“This may come as a shock, guy, but some of us actually like what we do. You know, there’s a certain niche out there who enjoy sleeping soundly at night.”
“Heard about those people,” Warren said. “Gotta learn more about that. How’s Jess?”
