by Joel Goldman
“Wendy is pretty serious about Colby. If I’m right about him, she could get caught in the middle. Troy will feel bad if that happens, but he won’t let it get in his way.”
“And you will?”
I straightened, put my hands on the table, looking at her hard. “I already lost one child. I won’t lose another.”
Kate nodded. “What if you’re not the right one to save her? What if your dislike of Colby, your resentment at being forced out, and your anxiety about whatever is wrong with you makes you the wrong one? What if the best thing for Wendy is someone with a clear head?”
She had touched all the bases, just as Troy had. I gave her the same answer as I had about Kevin.
“I’m her father. It’s that simple.”
She reached across the table, taking my hand, her skin warm, melding with mine. “What can I do?”
“You’ve done a lot already. You drove out here and listened to me while letting a perfectly good waf?e turn cold. You warned me not to do what we both know I’m going to do anyway. And you told me who to see about my problem. I can’t think of anything else unless you want to pick up the check.”
She took a twenty-dollar bill from her purse and put it on the table.
“My pleasure. You’ve got enough on your plate. Your marriage is over and, even if that’s a good thing for us, you’ve got to deal with that before you can move on. You’re still blaming yourself for your son’s death and you’re scared for your daughter. Plus, you’ve got to find out what’s making you shake.”
“That’s supposed to make me feel better?”
“At least you know what’s in front of you and, like G.I. Joe says, knowing is half the battle. Here’s the real kicker. You won’t have ballistics and forensics, DNA, wiretaps, and all the other bricks and mortar you’ve always surrounded yourself with. You’re in my world now. You want to get through this, you’ll have to work the people.”
Chapter Fourteen
I woke with mild, morning shakes. They rose from my belly into my throat as I rolled out of bed, an internal wake-up call. I’d gotten used to it, like they were as much a part of me as my arms, legs, and heart, their absence more notable than their presence.
I took Kate’s advice and called the movement disorder clinic at the Kansas University Hospital. It was a large teaching hospital located at Thirty-ninth and Rainbow, just inside the Kansas side of the state line with Missouri. I’d been in the ER and up on the ?oors to talk with victims and suspects, but I hadn’t been a patient there or in any other hospital since I tried to catch a hockey puck with my chin when I was in high school. The receptionist transferred my call to the person handling new patient intakes, who questioned me for fifteen minutes before asking which doctor I wanted to see.
“The one who can make this go away,” I told her in a halting voice. I’d found that talking about my symptoms made them worse. It was a lesson in modesty my mother would have appreciated.
“We cannot promise that you will get better.” Her disclaimer had the ?at, rote familiarity of being read from a script.
“Okay, then give me the one who won’t make it any worse.”
“We cannot promise that you will not get worse.”
I almost told her to give me the doctor with a sense of humor since she obviously didn’t have one, but didn’t want her to tell me that they couldn’t promise to laugh at my jokes.
“Okay. How about the doctor who can see me the soonest?”
“Dr. Fitzpatrick has an opening November twenty-fifth.”
“That’s not for two months.”
“It is our next available appointment. I can put you down for that date and add you to a waiting list in case we get a cancellation.”
“Do you get many cancellations?”
“No. Should I confirm your appointment and put you on our list?”
“No place I’d rather be.”
The prospect of waiting two months to see a doctor was a joke that didn’t make me laugh. It was one more thing I couldn’t control. The only thing I could control was how I dealt with it. I took a quick inventory.
Apart from the shakes, I felt fine. My appetite was good enough that I hadn’t lost the extra five pounds around my waist. When I jogged in the morning, my knees didn’t hurt any worse than they had when I turned fifty a few months ago. My dark hair was turning sandy but wasn’t falling out. And, I wasn’t having dizzy spells like other people I’d heard of who turned out to have brain tumors. I shook. That was it. How bad could it be? Not bad, I decided. I kept repeating that, waiting for it to sink in.
I thought about the case and what Kate had said, that I had to work the people. That had always been part of my job even if I didn’t trust my ability to read beneath the surface to decipher people’s inner demons. I relied on the facts, the evidence, to cross-check against what I guessed about human nature. That approach had served me well. I’d never repeated the mistake I’d made with Kevin. If I were going to live in Kate’s world without my tools, I’d need to learn how to use hers. I called to ask if I could borrow them.
“Teach me to read micro expressions,” I told her.
“Good morning. I had a lovely time last night and I appreciate that you thanked me for me buying dinner, although I expected more than a good-night kiss in the parking lot for my investment.”
It had been an awkward moment when I walked Kate to her car. She leaned into me, hands behind my neck pulling me toward her, and kissed me, her mouth open and urgent. Joy and I had been married twenty-eight years and had dated two years before that. I hadn’t kissed another woman like that since I was a teenager. Even though my marriage was over and I’d fantasized about being with Kate, she caught me by surprise. My re?exive fidelity to my future former wife made me clumsier than when I groped Sue Ellen Thorpe in a darkened hallway during a junior high school dance. I mumbled something about being tired and went home alone.
“Give me another chance. I start slow but I finish strong.”
“Good to know. Maybe we can even harness your shaking for a higher and better use somewhere besides the IHOP parking lot. Now what were you saying about micro expressions?”
I’d appreciated her directness the first time we’d had lunch, when she told me that it didn’t matter what we wanted, we couldn’t have it, not then. Things were different now and her frank sexual banter was another reminder that it was time for me to move on. I didn’t know if she’d been like this when she was married. I didn’t know anything about the relationships she may have had since she was divorced five years ago. I only knew that I wanted her and that, by some unlikely alignment of the planets, she wanted me.
I tried to remember whether I had ever felt that way about Joy, believed that I must have, but couldn’t summon the memories. We’d driven our love for each other into the ground, leaving it cold and hard.
“I want to go to the college of facial knowledge.”
“Classes start this weekend. They run Friday night to Monday morning.”
“How about an advance session? I’m having dinner tonight with Wendy and Colby Hudson. If he ?ares his nostrils, I need to know whether he’s lying or just has allergies.”
“You want to learn how to read micro expressions by tonight? What are you, drunk? This isn’t some parlor trick you can learn to do in one easy lesson. Could you teach me how to kick in a door, plant a wiretap, or work undercover before lunch?”
“Not a chance.”
“Exactly. So stop being stupid. I’m offering you a weekend of personal instruction and you’re about to blow it, big-time.”
“Personal instruction?”
“Very personal.”
“So today is not a good day for a quickie course?” I asked, finally getting into the ?ow.
“Today, no, but hold onto that option. I do have another idea, which happens to be a good one. I’ll join you for dinner and interpret afterward.”
I was never good at waiting, letting a case come to me, depending on a
drug dealer, embezzler, or terrorist to do me a favor by screwing up. I got in my car, a two-year-old Chevy Impala, and drove back to Marcellus’s neighborhood. There was a chance that my squad would be canvassing the neighborhood again and following up on leads. I didn’t want to put any of them in a tough spot, forcing them to report to Troy that I had been nosing around. I decided to tour the surrounding blocks first for any sign of my people. If the streets were empty, I’d take a shot at the neighbors.
A KCK patrol car and an unmarked Crown Victoria were parked in front of a house three blocks to the west of where Keyshon, his father, mother, and the Winston brothers had been killed. Two uniformed cops were milling around in the front yard. I slowed down when I saw Marty Grisnik standing on the sidewalk talking to a heavyset black man nearly as tall as he was. Grisnik glanced at me and then barked something to one of his officers, who ?agged me down, motioning me to the curb.
Grisnik walked slowly to my car. He bent down, his broad frame cutting off the sun and the cool morning breeze coming through my open window.
“You lost?” he asked me.
“If I was, I’m found.”
Grisnik examined the length of my car, running his hand across the paint. “Not much of a ride for an FBI agent.”
“It’s paid for.”
“Good thing, too. Last time I saw you, I wouldn’t have given much for your chances of getting a car loan. You doing all right?”
“No complaints that count.”
“I hear they put you on the shelf.”
“Just temporary.”
“That why no one over there can remember your name when I called looking for you? Had to talk to someone in human resources just to find out that you were on leave. After your performance the other night, it wasn’t hard to figure out what happened.”
The law-enforcement community is a small one, smaller since 9/11. We were all told to put aside the petty jealousies and resentments that fed the stereotypes local cops and feds had of each other and learn to play nice. For the most part, we had succeeded. One of the unintended consequences of those closer relationships and better communications was that it was harder than ever to keep a secret.
“Out of sight, out of mind. You didn’t have your officer ?ag me down to inquire about my health. What do you want?”
“Do me a favor, get out of the car. I’m too old to stay bent over like this. I stay down here much longer and my officers will need a crowbar to get me to stand up straight.”
Grisnik stepped back, giving me room to open the car door. Up close, he wasn’t old. He was a powerhouse, a point he made by putting me in his shadow.
“When you asked for my help with your fugitive warrant, you didn’t want to tell me what was going down,” he said. “I got that. I didn’t like it, but I got it. But you gave me your word that your case, whatever it was, wouldn’t blow up. Next thing I know, five people are dead. That’s not blown up. That’s a goddamn explosion.”
“We had no way of knowing that was going to happen.”
He started to jab his finger at me. I blocked him with my palm, firmly pushing his hand away, letting him know that he couldn’t treat me like a suspect or a rookie cop, no matter how angry he was. He took a breath, keeping his voice low, his words clipped.
“That doesn’t mean squat to me or the people who are dead. Three men, a woman, and a child were murdered in my city. I take that personally.”
“You could have shut Marcellus Pearson down any time you wanted. If you had done your job, he and the Winston brothers would be in jail. Jalise Williams and her son would be alive. I don’t have to listen to you blame me for what happened to them.”
My chin bobbed, my voice trembled, and my eyes squeezed shut as I finished my self-defense. Grisnik gave me some room, letting me settle. I waved my hand.
“Don’t worry,” I told him. “I’m not going to foam at the mouth.”
“Good. That’s what happens to a dog with rabies. Back when I was on patrol, I had to shoot a rabid dog one time to keep him off a little kid. Tore me up to shoot that dog. I’d feel almost as bad if I had to shoot you.”
“I’m touched. So why didn’t you bust Marcellus?”
“I work Robbery and Homicide, not drugs. Our drug squad did bust him, more than once. Sometimes the house was clean, like he knew we were coming. Other times, we had problems with the arrests. Prosecutor wouldn’t take the case or the judge would throw out the evidence.”
“That’s why we went after him and why I couldn’t bring you into the loop.”
“I know that. What I don’t get is why the FBI doesn’t want my help catching whoever killed those people.”
“Troy Clark told you he didn’t want your help?”
” ‘Course he didn’t tell me that. Said the exact opposite. Told me how he’d be leaning on me all the way. Then when I offered to send one of my detectives over to work with him, he said he’d get back to me. Hasn’t happened.”
I defended Troy—another act of re?exive loyalty. “You know how these cases are. No one goes home, no one sleeps or eats. Give him some time. He’ll get back to you.”
Grisnik snorted, shook his head. “Then I hear that they showed you the curb, said you were unstable. Now I find you roaming around a few blocks from where the murders took place and I ask myself what you are doing over here since I’m guessing you don’t have friends or relatives in the neighborhood.”
Grisnik wanted the same thing I did—information. I knew my reasons. His were obvious. This was his turf and he didn’t like being shut out.
“Not a one.”
“Makes me wonder whether everyone at the FBI is an idiot or an asshole,” he said. “Which do you think it is?”
“One doesn’t rule the other out,” I told him.
That made him laugh. He wiped the sweat off his face. “There’s someone I’d like you to meet.”
I followed him to the man he’d been talking with when I drove up.
“Jack Davis, say hello to Rodney Jensen.” Rodney and I shook hands. “Mr. Davis is with the FBI. Tell him what you told me.”
Rodney turned his jowly face to me, hiked up his pants, resting his thumbs inside his suspenders. “My sister gone missing.”
I looked at Grisnik, who nodded at me. “What’s your sister’s name?” I asked.
“Oleta Phillips.”
Chapter Fifteen
“Tell Agent Davis when it was you last saw your sister.”
Rodney Jensen pulled at both of his chins. “Day before yesterday. We was all standin’ outside where Marcellus and them stay at. Oleta, she went to see Marcellus on account of her boy, Tony, gettin’ hisself killed. Boy worked for Marcellus, and Marcellus, he done the right thing. Give Oleta three thousand dollars—funeral benefits, he called it.”
“Tell Agent Davis what kind of bills Marcellus gave your sister,” Grisnik said.
“All twenties. I seen ‘em.”
“You seen the money since?”
“No, sir. I ain’t seen the money and I ain’t seen my sister.”
“What makes you think she’s missing instead of just off on her own?” Grisnik asked.
“She don’t got no off on her own. She stays with me. She ain’t been home in two nights.”
“Do you have a picture of your sister?”
“Might have one in the house.”
“See if you can find it and then you go with the officers. They’ll take you downtown so one of our detectives can get the rest of your information,” Grisnik told him. “Let’s go for a ride,” he said to me. “I’ll drive.”
The Crown Vic was clean, but lived in, the upholstery faded and coffee-stained, the faint smell of cigarettes hanging in the air. The two-way radio hummed with calls to be answered. Grisnik ignored them, easing the car from the curb, letting it glide down the street barely above idle.
“Troy Clark came from here,” he said when he turned east at the first cross street.
“That’s right. You, too?”
He gave me a sideways grin. “No. I grew up in Strawberry Hill. Not too many Croatians lived in Quindaro. They had their neighborhood and we had ours, us and the Poles and the Lithuanians, even a few Dutch. It was real nice until they cut it in half with I-70. Some called it the Canyon after that but we still call it Strawberry Hill. It’s finally coming back, like a lot of the rest of the city.”
“Except for Quindaro.”
“Doesn’t help when people like Troy Clark turn their backs.”
“If you mean he shouldn’t freeze you out of the investigation because you both grew up here, you can forget it. That’s not the way Troy thinks.”
“How does he think?”
“He thinks about the case, how to pull it together. All he wants is to do it right and get it right.”
“Even if he shits all over you?”
I thought about Grisnik’s question, though I knew the answer. “Yeah, even if he shits all over me.”
Grisnik turned north. We were skirting around Marcellus’s block. The streets were quiet.
“I know why you pulled that scam with the fugitive warrant,” Grisnik said.
I didn’t answer. If he knew, he’d tell me. I’d learn more by letting him.
“You figure someone in my department was taking money from Marcellus. Could have been me. Could have been those two officers. Could have been the whole goddamn department. But you didn’t care who it was so long as word got back to Marcellus. That way he’d be ready for you when you showed up with that phony warrant. That’s why you wanted our cops to back you up. The more cops knew about the warrant, the more likely someone would tell Marcellus.”
We were doing the dance, giving a little to get a little, hoping to get a lot more. There was no reason not to play.
“I put a camera in the ceiling fan in the front room.”
“So you got the killer on tape?”
“Lights went out just before the shooting started.”
“That’s real handy. Makes you wonder if the killer knew about the camera.”
