Judged

by E. H. Reinhard

  “I was thinking about that last night,” I said. “Why leave the confession letter? To me, that would seem like he wasn’t planning on being around to confess, himself.”

  “Maybe he wasn’t,” Couch said.

  I shrugged. “Maybe not.”

  Someone knocked on Couch’s office door.

  “Come in,” Couch said.

  The door swung open. A woman, appearing in her later twenties and dressed in a gray pantsuit, stood in the doorway. “Agent Couch, there’s an Isaac Sellers here.”

  “Sure, why don’t you send him back here to my office.”

  “Okay.”

  “Give me one second, guys. I’m going to grab another chair. I figure my office is a little nicer than a bright white interview room.”

  “A bit,” I said.

  Couch walked from his office and returned with a rolling office chair a few seconds later. Within another minute or two, the woman who’d let us know Sellers was there led a slightly overweight man toward us. The guy was dressed in a flannel shirt and faded blue jeans. He looked about sixty with snow-white hair and a thick white mustache. The woman walked him to Couch’s doorway and excused herself.

  “Isaac Sellers?” Couch asked.

  The man stood in the doorway of the office.

  Couch motioned to the office chair he’d brought in. “Have a seat,” Couch said. “I’m Agent Couch.” He reached across his desk to shake the man’s hand. “These are Agents Rawlings and Harper.”

  Sellers took a seat beside me.

  I shook his hand. “Rawlings.”

  Beth reached across me and shook his hand and introduced herself.

  “Retired, huh?” Couch asked.

  “For a few years now, yeah,” Sellers said.

  “Enjoying it?” he asked.

  “Not as exciting as police work, but I’ve found some things to keep me busy. Surprisingly, the wife enjoys having me around. So you guys wanted to talk about Carrie?”

  “We do,” I said. “You know that her brother, who we recently apprehended, was the vigilante down here, correct?”

  “I can’t say that I’m entirely shocked by that. He was always kind of a bit off, from what Carrie used to say.”

  “Did you know him?” Beth asked.

  “Aside from stories from Carrie, no. I never actually met the guy personally. You’d think in years of working with her every day that there would have been a time that she brought him around, but she never did. Hell, I didn’t even know his last name until I was told. Not that I would have been able to help even if I knew the Timothy Wendell on the television was actually Carrie’s brother.”

  “Okay, well, I guess we just wanted some insight into Carrie herself. Maybe we can tie a bit about what her brother did back to her—just kind of clear a few things up that we’re still a little questionable on.”

  “Sure, whatever I can do to help.”

  “She was your partner from when to when?” I asked.

  “2008 to ’11. I retired before she got buried down in records. We still talked pretty regularly for another year after that. Then the duration between the talks kind of grew a bit and then a bit more.”

  “When was the last time you spoke to her?” Beth asked.

  He thought for a moment. “I’d say maybe a month or so before her accident.”

  “The topic of the conversation?” Beth asked. “If you remember.”

  “She was just talking about work, really. I guess some family had hired her to look into a doctor.”

  My interest was piqued. “Any other details on that you remember?”

  “She’d mentioned an inheritance and possible wrongful death. I’m sorry, I guess I didn’t really get too far into it with her. She just kind of said what she was working on, and that was that.”

  I gave Beth a glance over my shoulder. I had a good idea who the doctor in question was. We continued.

  “About her getting assigned to the records department, how did that happen?” I asked.

  “Meh, that was kind of a sticky situation. It was a combination of things. Her conduct record wasn’t the best. I guess you could say she wasn’t scared to give a suspect a love tap or two. She got caught up with that a couple of times and had to go through the whole anger-management bullshit. I’m not sure if it was that entirely, or the higher-ups finding out that she was having a relationship with a CI, that did her in. But whatever it was, she found herself pissed off and stuck down there.”

  “Any idea how she got all the police files?” Beth asked.

  “Police files?” Sellers asked.

  Couch took his glasses from his eyes, cleaned them with his tie, and put them back on. “Our guys are still waiting to meet with someone over at the records department she was working in and to have a talk with them,” he said. “They don’t seem real eager to meet with us, for some reason, but basically, Carrie Baker had boxes and boxes of police files at her home. We think that Wendell was going through them to select his victims.”

  “Hmm, you’re thinking that she took them from there?” Sellers asked.

  “About the only thing we can come up with on that,” Couch said.

  “Her job was basically converting paper to digital, so maybe. I guess I wouldn’t say it would be out of the question for her to take the files she’d completed as opposed to destroying them or whatever she was supposed to do,” he said. “That kind of falls in line with her personality of doing whatever the hell she could to capture whoever she was after. I could see her taking old files to look into on her own. She dabbled in some gray areas, if you know what I mean.”

  “Not always by the book, is what you’re saying,” I said.

  “More like by any means necessary.”

  “What do you know about the whole starting the private-eye business?” Beth asked.

  “She mentioned it a handful of times. Basically said she wanted to be back out investigating and the PD was never going to put her back on the streets again. She said that her brother was going to help her—a family business of bringing those who deserved it to justice, or so she’d said.”

  “Looks like her brother decided to take that on himself. Including judge, jury and executioner,” Couch said.

  “Unfortunately, it looks like it,” Sellers said. He furrowed his brows and scrunched his mouth to one side. “You guys know how Carrie’s father died, right?”

  I looked at Couch, who looked at Beth. None of us knew.

  “I guess we heard that he wasn’t in the picture. That’s about it, really,” I said.

  “Carrie’s brother killed him, or at least that’s what she told me after a handful of beers one night.”

  “What?” I asked.

  “Yeah, she said that it was when they were kids. Apparently Carrie’s father… uh, shit, I don’t even know how to say it.” Sellers paused for a second. “He had an eye for Carrie. We’ll just leave it at that. She said her brother killed him to protect her. Stabbed him, I guess.”

  “Were the police involved? Is there a record of this?” Beth asked.

  “I would think there has to be somewhere,” Sellers said. “That’s really all of the story that I know. She never brought it up except the one time, and I never thought it my place to question her on it or look into it further.”

  “We’ll have to look into that,” Couch said.

  The thought I’d had a few minutes earlier—that everything could have been avoided if Ridley would have stopped or if Lieutenant Peterson would have done more—faded a bit with Sellers’s story about Wendell’s childhood. While those situations might have been the spark that set the events in motion, it was looking as though Wendell had the ability to commit murder in him since he was a child.

  We interviewed Sellers for another half hour and sent him on his way. While we got a bit more information on Carrie Baker and what kind of person she was, at that point, the information really wasn’t going to add anything to the investigation or the inevitable media-circus trial tha
t was bound to come. We wrapped up at the Miramar FBI building, said our goodbyes to Couch and anyone else who warranted it, and made our way back to the hotel to pack up.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  Karen and I pulled to a stop. The pitter-patter of old bricks under the rental car’s tires stopped. I lowered the window and reached out.

  “You remember the code?” Karen asked. She pulled her dark hair back into a ponytail.

  “It’s his badge number.” I punched in the digits on the security keypad, and the wrought-iron gates opened.

  We continued up the brick driveway, and I glanced to my right as we past the big, restored workshop. Kane had said the building used to be where oranges were processed when the place had been an orange grove a hundred years prior. The doors of the building were closed.

  The oak trees and white fence running along the brick driveway spread to the sides. The big blue-and-white two-story house came into view with its white trim and covered front porch.

  “I still can’t believe he bought this place,” Karen said with a chuckle.

  “What do you mean? This place is sweet,” I said. “Giant house, all updated, lake, land, cool workshop… What the hell more could you want?”

  “No, I’m not saying that. The house and everything are great, better than great. I’m just saying my mental image of Kane is a big, single brute of a lieutenant living in a downtown condo with a fast car and a mountain lion for a cat. Now it’s Captain Kane, he has Callie at his side, he’s a father, and he’s living on a lakeside compound.”

  “Well, he still has the cat.” I stopped and clicked the car into park, where a white Dodge four-door blocked the roundabout at the front of the home.

  “Is that another new car?” she asked.

  “Looks like it,” I said.

  Karen and I stepped out from our rental. I walked toward the car, which I assumed was Kane’s, parked in front of us and gave it a look. The back read SRT on the right side. I rounded the passenger side. Big bronze-colored wheels filled the wheel wells, and giant red brake calipers sat behind the rims. The car had a cat logo on the front fender. I looked through the windows at the black-and-red interior. The backseat held a child seat, which made me smile.

  “You like it?” I heard.

  I glanced to my right. Kane was standing on the porch wearing a black T-shirt and cargo shorts. Clutched against his wide chest, wrapped in his huge arm, was his baby boy, John.

  “Charger,” I said. “Not quite looking like our police issued, though.”

  “You’d be correct,” Kane said. “Hellcat. Seven hundred and seven horses.”

  “And you need all those for…?”

  “Burnouts, donuts, and going fast,” he said. “I picked it up a few weeks ago. I finally got paid from the insurance company on the Caddy. It only took who knows how many months before they decided to pay. I don’t think they were all that happy about coughing up the money either. Apparently, damage from bullets isn’t covered in the standard policy. We figured it out, though.”

  “Shouldn’t Mr. Family Man be driving a minivan?” I asked.

  “They don’t make one fast enough,” he said.

  Karen and I walked up the front steps toward him. I gave him a shake of the hand and a swat on the back. Karen gave him a hug and poked at little John’s cheeks.

  “Give me,” Karen said.

  Kane passed his son to Karen.

  “Come on inside,” Kane said. “We’ll walk through. Callie is out back.”

  Kane grabbed the knob for the front door and paused. “Watch for Butch,” he said. “He’s been a little escape artist lately.”

  “What’s he do when he gets out?” Karen asked.

  “Brings us mice from wherever the hell he finds them. He put a dead bird on Callie’s feet the other day. She wasn’t all that impressed.”

  He pulled open the front door and jammed his foot in the gap of the doorway, where his Bengal cat, Butch, was doing his best to get past and outside. The cat bit on the toe of Kane’s shoe.

  “Get.” He shooed Butch back into the house.

  We stepped inside. Butch bounded to the living-room couch and rolled into a ball on one of the pillows.

  “How’s Butch with John?” Karen asked.

  “Perfect. He’s perfect with Callie, too. I’m starting to think it’s just me he’s a little shit to.” Kane headed toward the kitchen on our left. “Beer?”

  “Sure, what the hell,” I said.

  Kane walked through the kitchen to the refrigerator and pulled two beers from inside.

  He held one out toward me.

  “Karen, need something?” he asked.

  “I’m fine for now,” she said.

  I took the beer and cracked the cap, and we continued through the house, down the hall, and through the doors leading out to the backyard. Across the football-field-sized patch of grass, I could see the pier, observation deck, and Kane’s bass boat in the covered boathouse. The lake was calm and as smooth as glass.

  “Getting any use out of the boat?” I asked.

  “Yup. Nights and weekends. I actually went out for a bit before work the other day.”

  “How’s the fishing on the lake been?”

  “Pretty good. Good enough for it to be entertaining. I still haven’t caught a monster out there. Do you want to go out? Maybe tomorrow morning or something?”

  I shrugged. “Sure.”

  Kane walked across the old pavers and past the small fountain along the back of the house, toward the big white gazebo. Callie was sitting inside.

  She waved toward us. “Hey guys!”

  I tossed her a wave back, as did Karen.

  We walked into the gazebo, and Callie greeted us with hugs. Her dark hair hung a bit past her thin, tattooed shoulders. Karen commented that Callie’s outfit, which consisted of a black tank top and a pair of tan shorts was cute. We took seats around the table inside. Karen passed John to Callie, and she set him on her lap.

  “What’s up, guys?” Callie asked. “How are you?”

  “Good,” Karen said. “I’ve been a bit annoyed because Hank got shot and didn’t tell me.”

  “Got shot?” Kane pulled his head back. “Where? When?”

  I took a drink from my beer and set it on the table in front of me. “I think the term shot only applies if the bullet goes into or through you. A graze across the arm doesn’t qualify as getting shot.”

  “Someone pointed a gun at you, pulled the trigger, and the bullet hit you. Sounds like getting shot,” Karen said. “This happened two days ago.”

  I rolled my eyes and lifted my sleeve, exposing the sixteen stitches in a nice little line across my upper arm. “How bad does that look? It’s a scratch.”

  Kane leaned in for a better look. “Yeah, I don’t know if I’d call that getting shot, either,” he said. “Probably won’t even leave a mark. It’s definitely not as cool as this.” He pulled the collar of his T-shirt to one side, exposing his scarred collar bone, from where a bullet had shattered it.

  Callie rolled her eyes.

  Kane took his hand from the neckline of his shirt. “Anyway, how was the case? The television coverage said the guy was in custody.”

  “I linked him up personally,” I said. “It was, I don’t know, another investigation. Not as bad as some, worse than some others.”

  “I don’t know how you can deal with that stuff,” Callie said. “Police work is one thing. Dealing with the worst of the worst is another.”

  I shrugged. “They pay well.”

  Callie smiled. “Are you going to have to come back when he goes to trial?” she asked.

  “Maybe. I guess I’ll find out if they need me when the time comes.” I looked toward Kane. “I got to work with Lieutenant Harrington a bit down there.”

  “Oh yeah?” Kane asked. “How was he?”

  “Fine. He seemed like a good cop. He was right there with me when we took Wendell into custody.”

  “Ah.” Kane kicked
his feet up onto a planter at the edge of the gazebo. “To be out pounding the pavement again.”

  “You can stop thinking about that right now,” Callie said.

  Kane continued. “Yeah, I miss the action, but I have to say I’m pretty happy with where I’m at.” He reached out, stuck his hand on Callie’s leg, and then wiped some spittle from John’s chin. He gave Callie a smile and looked back over at me. “Speaking of people from the past, did you run into Top Secret Agent Faust up in your neck of the woods yet?”

  The question caught me a bit off guard. “Faust? Why would Faust be up there?”

  “Just what I heard.” Kane took a sip from his beer. “Jones was working on something and found a guy that was connected with what he was looking into. The guy Jones found had a federal warrant. Jones tells me, and I call Faust over at the bureau—well, at least try to call Faust. So I call his desk and get a message that he’s out of town. I figure maybe he’s on vacation or something, so I talk to someone else, not wanting to interrupt whatever he’s doing. No big deal. A week or two later, I call for him again. The number at his desk now goes to another agent entirely. So I dial his cell phone and leave him a message. I never got a call back. I tried him again a few days later, and his cell number is disconnected. I didn’t really know what to make of it but just kind of dismissed it. Anyway, I get a blocked-ID call a day or two later from Faust, saying that he transferred to DC.”

  “Hmm, yeah, can’t say that I’ve seen him,” I said.

  “Well, that’s not really the weird part.”

  “What’s the weird part?”

  Kane ran a hand over his scarred, bald head. “The last agent I spoke with at the local office down here said he’d never heard of an Agent Faust.”

  “What?” I asked.

  “Kind of the same reaction I had. I asked the guy how long he’d been there, and he tells me fourteen years.”

  I shook my head and scratched at my chin. “CIA spook or something?”

  “Who the hell knows?” Kane said. “Always something a little weird with that guy. Seems it only gets weirder the more you get to know him.” He took three big gulps of his beer, finishing it off. Kane shook the empty bottle and stood. “Another beer?” he asked.