She put him at ease by joining in. “The newly appointed head of the FBI wanted to hear all about me. I should be flattered,” she said.
“I tell you, Jess, betrayal, even on a small scale, it doesn't sit well in my stomach. I can't do this job if I have to betray confidences and friends.”
Jessica realized only now the depth of Eriq's friendship, for the betrayal seemed more painful for Santiva than his physical injury from which he had fully recovered.
'TBI's a hard place to maintain perspective,” he finished.
She hugged him in response and told him to get some rest. “Besides, I've known, Eriq. It isn't as if you aren't completely transparent, getting in my way like you do on case after damned case.”
“You knew what was going on all along? From the beginning?”
“I did—since the Phantom case that took us all over the American West, I've known, although I suspect it's been as long as when you and I teamed up on the Night Crawler case in Florida.” But in fact, she lied. She hadn't known for certain until now. She had been far too fixated and obsessed with saving DeCampe from certain death to play the petty politics game, but a white lie now would assuage his feelings.
“How is J. T. this morning?” he asked.
“He's out of the coma and doing well. His doctors are pleased with his progress.”
“Well, I'd best go. Lot of garbage to take out today. Meeting again with new management.”
“Sounds like gut-wrenching fun.”
“Just wanted you to know to watch your back, Jess, especially with that old South Dakota case you were pursuing before all the shit hit the fan with Judge DeCampe.”
She nodded and watched Eriq walk away. She wondered if she'd be working with him again, or if the ongoing shuffle would change the dynamics at their Quantico headquarters. She also wondered how the strange case of Claude Lightfoot figured into the mix; she sensed that her limited interest in the case had sparked some questions in the highest circles of the bureau. Was there some potential embarrassment to the FBI if the Lightfoot case were reopened and the truth crawled out from beneath the boulder that someone or some- ones had placed over it? Perhaps... perhaps it wasn't worth pursuing, or it ought to be left to someone else, someone in a better position to drag out the ugly truth. Perhaps it was altogether someone else's problem. So why was it so snakelike and threatening? Why did it threaten like a cobra trying to find escape from the confined space of her brain? More importantly, was it worth the loss she faced? Was it worth losing everything she had built up over the years: her reputation, her career, her relationships, her every comfort zone?
Jessica had had some inkling before now that the higher ups were curious as to why she had involved herself in the South Dakota case. They would want to know the answers to the standard questions: Why are we footing the bills here? Why are we keeping field operatives in South Dakota busy? Was this a pet project of hers? What were the details? The names and numbers of the situation. And why had she asked field operatives in South Dakota to question a whole population in connection with the death of a young Native American named Claude Lightfoot. It had been a case shunted aside in the '80s, but when a local man came forward to tell the story in toto, and he then mysteriously died before anything was recorded. Previous to his death, two others suspected of being involved in the murder of Lightfoot had died under questionable circumstances. Jessica did not know who might be behind the “sudden death syndrome” of the men she believed to have killed Lightfoot so many years ago, but she feared, unless operatives in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, pursued the case, that no one would ever know the full extent of the story there.
She took a deep breath, turning to go back inside to be with J. T. when she saw a man at the end of the corridor staring. He looked as if he'd been watching with intensity. The stranger then averted his eyes and lifted a newspaper, a sure sign she was under surveillance. Eriq had not been wrong to feel paranoid, after all.
She heard her father's voice in her ear remind her, “When you have a good reason to be paranoid, it's a healthy response. “
She stepped into J. T.'s room.
MEANWHILE, back in Houston, Texas, Lucas Stonecoat did not appreciate the fact that the Houston Police Department's Internal Affairs cops were looking at him for the killings taking place in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, a place where he had friends and maintained a getaway residence. IAD could not abide the smell of so close a coincidence. Of course, they could not prove it, but Lucas had known cases to be built against an innocent man that had stuck, sending people to prison on flimsy evidence.
Lucas wasn't in the business of making life easy for IAD, and so he presented them with multiple alibis for his whereabouts on the successive nights that four men were found killed—execution style—in their homes. One had supposedly been an FBI informant wannabe, who planned to rat out the other three.
Four deaths in two weeks proved an enormous statistic in a city of moderate size and permanent residents. The first death was that of a man who had begun opening talks with local FBI agents. Some of the same men in Sioux Falls, knowing of Lucas Stonecoat's reputation as a tough, uncompromising Texas Cherokee firebrand, believed along with HPD's Internal Affairs that Lucas might well be somehow connected to the series of deaths there. They suspected it was some sort of Native American vengeance-is-mine thing. So, naturally, Lucas fit the ready bill.
“This is all I need,” Lucas complained to Meredyth, where they sat in Tebo's Bar and Grill, having a drink. “I can't believe that IAD is seriously looking at me for what's going on in Sioux Falls.”
“They're looking closely at every step you take,” she told him. “But then, haven't they always? Ever since you became a Houston cop.”
“Since I didn't play ball with Dallas over their stripping me of my benefits, you mean. If I can sue Dallas for what they owe me, they figure I can sue Houston. That I'm one mother fucking litigious red man, right?”
She laughed at this, and he grudgingly joined her, but after a sip of his Budweiser, he grew serious again. “Why is it that everybody is so freaking interested in investigating my activities? What's the goddamn fascination? Sometimes, just sometimes I wish I were this... this outlaw that everyone paints me.”
“Really, now?”
“Then maybe I could have half the fun everyone thinks I'm having.”
“Fun as in killing those men in South Dakota?”
He stared hard into her eyes. “You're not among the fools who have me running around on some blood feud, are you?”
“You know they're talking to the FBI about you?”
“Are you serious?”
“Absolutely.”
“And just how have you come by this information, Mere?” He watched her closely for her reply and how she would say it, and what she would do with her eyes, her hands—clenched or opened—and how she would look when she said it—eyes averted or straight on. She grabbed hold of his hands with a grip that hurt, and she stared deeply into his eyes—both good signs.
“They came to me... with a lot of questions.”
“Who? Who exactly came to you?”
“Houston field operatives from the local FBI.”
“Sons of bitches at IAD are collaborating with them?”
“Most likely, yes.”
“But you're not sure?”
“Lucas, they think I might know something that could hurt you.”
He laughed. “You've always known something that could hurt me.”
“But you told me the blackouts had ceased.”
“They have ceased. You can hurt me far worse than telling my enemies my weaknesses. You can hurt me by becoming my enemy. How long ago did this meeting take place, Mere?”
“I didn't know what to think. They laid out their case against you, and it sounded—sounds—fairly strong.”
“You're kidding. This has to be like the worst joke you ever tried to pull on me, right?”
“I tell you, they really believe you had
something to do with those killings, and that if you did not pull the trigger, then you had a hand in... in arranging things.”
“And you believe them?”
“I... I don't know what to believe. I've seen you en-raged. Don't forget, I've seen you on more than one occasion kill a man, and you do it, Lucas, with... with a kind of raw... delight. It... that... that side of you... scares me. You scare me.”
“Best fucking excuse I've ever had leveled at me by a woman to walk away from me, sweetheart. So... why are you still sitting here? Go... go...”
She hesitated. He snatched his hand from hers.
“For all I know, you're wearing a wire on me right now.”
“That's not fair, Lucas.”
“Fair, you want to talk about what's fair now?” The conversation had risen to such a crescendo that everyone in the place now eavesdropped, including the owner-bartender Tebo, his cigarette ashes going unattended.
“The local FBI didn't frighten me, Lucas. I flatly turned them down when they begged me to get something on you.”
“Then I should be thanking you? Taking you upstairs to my bed again?”
“Damn you, Lucas! I got a call from our mutual friend, Dr. Desinor in Quantico, and she got it from Dr. Jessica Coran that FBI headquarters is looking at you. This goes far beyond Houston.”
“Desinor? Dr. Coran?”
“They called Coran to corroborate some portions of your alibi.”
“I gotta make a call.” Stonecoat immediately went to the phone and called Quantico, Virginia's FBI headquarters for Jessica. He was surprised when he got her. He had fully expected to be leaving a message; instead, she came on the line.
“So good to hear from you, Lieutenant,” she said.
“I called to congratulate you on the fine job your team did in locating and saving Judge DeCampe. I had meant to do so earlier, but it's been busy as hell around here.”
“Why, thank you, Lieutenant. I appreciate the sentiments and the invaluable help you and Dr. Sanger provided.”
He then cleared his throat and said, “Contrary to anything—anything whatever—that you hear about my being a rogue cop on a vendetta, killing randomly and at will, you can't accept such nonsense on face value, Dr. Coran.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The series of deaths in Sioux Falls. Your field operatives there have me down for the killings, some sort of vengeance thing on behalf of Lightfoot. I didn't know the man, and he's not of my tribe, and even if he were, I would not be taking the law into my own hands—not for someone I didn't personally know. Also, my own Internal Affairs Division is coming after me. But that's nothing new.”
“You know who is behind the killings?”
He hesitated, saying, “I just want you to know, Dr. Coran, that it isn't me and that I have no knowledge of these executions.” He hung up.
When Lucas stepped to the bar, calling for another round for Meredyth and himself, Tebo grunted and cast his eyes at Lucas's table. Meredyth's exit through the door had left it slightly ajar, something Tebo kept claiming he was going to fix. Lucas cursed the situation, on the one hand knowing who was behind the four killings but feeling the killings justifiable homicide in retaliation for what young Claude Lightfoot had suffered. It felt like a fitting end to yet another Cold Room file.
Zachary Roundpoint, a local Native American mob boss and a sometimes acquaintance of Lucas's, wished to make up for all the white injustices over the decades. It would have to be a life's work, so much had been perpetrated against the red man. While Lucas didn't condone Round- point's actions, he did understand them.
Lucas took a six-pack of Bud with him to his room upstairs. He did so via the back stairs. Once ensconced in his room, he lit up a peyote-stuffed, hand-rolled cigarette. He wanted two things: a good black-and-white western so he could watch “his people” through the pathetic eyes of Hollywood, and to get totally wasted in order to put everything and everyone out of his mind. Even so, he wished that Meredyth would knock at his door this moment. But she did not.
“Be damned if I'd chase her out a door,” he told the empty room.
On his fourth beer since leaving the bar, Lucas again thought of his antithesis, Zachary Roundpoint. Lucas had good reason to feel angry at Zachary, a man never to be trusted, a man he could never call a friend, but a man to whom he owed much. Zachary had come through for him when he had needed a friend the most, when Lucas's dying grandfather had need of Roundpoint's power and influence.
Zachary had been a Texas Cherokee gun for hire before he had his boss assassinated. The boss had acted as a father to Roundpoint out of a deep-seated guilt for having murdered Roundpoint's mother. When Lucas first began to investigate the case, he had no idea that Roundpoint would take measures into his own hands and then grant Lucas a lucrative reward along with a job offer for his trouble. That had been then, and now this.
In the case involving Roundpoint's murdered mother, Zachary had taken over his boss's throne after summarily executing the man. Now Roundpoint controlled a small army of men, running the largest Native American cartel in the country right here in Houston. His organization had long tentacles, perhaps long enough to reach Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
Lucas guessed that the FBI knew of his past connection to Roundpoint. Because of his connection to Zachary Roundpoint, he had become an FBI suspect. Zachary certainly had the manpower and the Cherokee chutzpah to carry out a series of hits anywhere in America. Lucas had no proof, but he could well imagine Zach Round- point being involved and possibly ordering the executions.
Lucas's gut reaction was that Zachary had once again taken the law into his own hands to avenge a perceived wrong to all Native Americans, and in doing so, he had again placed Lucas Stonecoat in a perilous and vulnerable position.
The phone rang, and Lucas grabbed it up, thinking it was Meredyth, hoping so.
“It's Jessica Coran,” said the whiskey voice that had become so familiar to Lucas since the DeCampe case. “Hold a moment for me, will you?”
“Sure... sure.”
She came back on. “I couldn't talk to you on the other line. It wasn't a secure line.”
“And this one is?”
“Yes, detective, it is.”
“How do I know that?”
She hesitated. “I guess you'll just have to take my word as good.”
He remained silent. She heard his breathing come over like thought.
“Listen, detective, what you and your friend Zachary Roundpoint arranged for in Sioux Falls...”
“I don't know what you're talking about.” His thoughts conflicted with his words. Does everybody in creation know about my connection to Roundpoint? And if so, does anyone in creation know the nature of that relationship? Fuck!
“I just wanted you to know that any chance of creating a case died with McArthur. He was going to testify. Next thing we hear is that the other three were murdered.”
“I still have no connection with what you're talking about.”
“Sure... I understand. If I Were you, I'd wonder who my friends were, too. Fact is, you have no idea how similar our situations are with respect to people looking over our shoulders.”
“I've gotten a double dose since all this crap in Sioux Falls has come down on my head. I've got nothing whatever to do with it.”
“I believe you, but I'd distance myself from Zachary Roundpoint. If they ever get anything to stick to him... well...”
“I know we did great police work on the DeCampe case together, and for that I think I can trust you, Dr. Coran.”
“You can... you can.”
“I am not associated with Roundpoint in any way, shape, or form.”
“Your close relative, a man named Hawk, Billy Hawk, works for Roundpoint.”
“So I've been told.”
“Billy Hawk is suspected of being the trigger man in at least one if not all of the Sioux Falls executions, Lucas.”
“Christ... the...” Billy Hawk was
Lucas's mawkish cousin who would do anything for money and anything to please Zachary Roundpoint.
Jessica Coran hung up, and Lucas listened to the dial tone. It felt like the voice of a nightmare gnome screwing with his brain. The drink and peyote designed to erase his physical pain—pain like a badge he wore from a near-death experience while on the job—were now conspiring to create hallucination. He pictured his cousin in the room, gun in hand, executing an enemy felt to be a threat to Zachary Roundpoint. Lucas focused on the victim of Roundpoint's and Billy Hawk's combined wrath, the man on his knees with hands tied and ankles tied, bent into the deacon's position of prayer. Someone who deserved a bullet to the brain for having literally ripped a young boy apart, using pickup trucks and rope. But the man in the pathetic position now looked up, and his face revealed itself, and it was Lucas's own face staring back at him.
JESSICA Coran hung up and leaned back into her chair in her office at Quantico, Virginia, giving some thought to Lucas's predicament, and what a now-healthy Dr. Kim Desinor had told her about the Texas Cherokee detective. Kim had had a full recovery only after DeCampe had been found alive and saved from Isaiah Purdy and Jimmy Lee's death grasp. While her “psychic disease” had halted on Jessica's lie, it had not improved until the reality of DeCampe's nightmare had come to an end.
Kim had taken a long, deserved leave, but before leaving for St. Sebastian Island, she had confided in Jessica that she had given some dream time over to the Claude Lightfoot case. Even while suffering with the psychic wounds that had threatened to kill her, even as she was in a coma, she said, “I saw someone like Lucas do the killings, but in my heart I knew it was not Lucas Stonecoat. He is not responsible for the vengeance murders being wreaked on Lightfoot's killers.”
Jessica now wanted Stonecoat to know that he could count on her, or call on her at any time for any reason in the future. He had proven a valuable ally now in two cases he had been associated with. She feared, however, that he now thought she had him on tape, and with the current level of paranoia normal in a person in his position, he most likely only heard what he wanted to hear.
Unnatural Instinct (Instinct thriller series) Page 28
