And West Is West (20 page)

CHAPTER 38

Florida

Descending into Miami the change in altitude causes Daugherty's heart to race, to ineffectually flutter. The agent closes his eyes and visualizes a lake, the gentle lapping of waves against a floating dock from which he has cast a fishing line. He visualizes a striped perch underwater as it eyes a baited hook. This exercise usually slows Daugherty's pulse, allows his mitral valve to close sufficiently to pump blood and feed his limbs with oxygen.

“Boss, you're looking pale,” Pyle tells him. Pyle has been keeping an eye on his partner since he passed out on their fugitive's hotel bed three days ago.

“Fear of flying.”

“Right,”
Pyle says.

In the meantime Daugherty tells himself that a desk job would kill him faster than the heart attack he's headed for as he chases Jessica Aldridge around the country. That he's kept his official health record clean is due to his choice of doctor—a sympathetic smoker who runs him through his EKG until it has flicked out a satisfactory length of graph paper. With luck, though, he'll be able to maintain this charade of health for three more years and attain the two decades allotted to a field agent before forced retirement. In Daugherty's fantasies, he receives a gold service award key from the director and keels over.

But for now Daugherty's heart is pumping happily again. So much so that he almost leaps up to grab the heavy case in the overhead bin. Giddy is how Daugherty gets whenever he manages to return his pulse to a viable rate—giddy with a sense of defeated mortality.

“I can carry that,” Pyle says.

“Do I look like your grandmother?” Daugherty says. Besides, Daugherty is the one who insisted on bringing the
box
—the polygraph kit.

He and Pyle don't speak again to each other until they're examining their rental in the Hertz lot. It's an Impala, anonymous except for the color. Candy apple red. They're out of black, white, and silver.

“It's a goddamn fire truck,” Pyle says.

“In Miami red is as invisible as gray,” Daugherty tells him. “Anyway, we're not tailing anyone. Just paying a visit.”

“Want me to take it?” Pyle asks, moving toward the driver's door.

But Daugherty keeps the keys. “I've been to where we're going.”

This is Daugherty's biggest advantage over young agents like Pyle—he has covered more territory. Unfortunately his memories don't snap back like they once did. He almost misses the exit ramp for the Palmetto Expressway. “Gonna pull a little Mario Andretti here,” he warns Pyle before gunning the engine and cutting the wheel.

The Impala swerves between a pair of cement trucks and dives onto the Palmetto. Peripherally, Daugherty senses Pyle's eyes burning holes through his face. “Smooth,” Pyle says, sarcastic. “And who the hell is Mario Andretti?”

For the next forty minutes, Daugherty concentrates on not making any wrong turns. And he doesn't. But the effort of keeping his senior moments at bay turns the trip into less than the laid-back jaunt he'd planned. Despite the frigid air-conditioning, he's sweating through his shirt and jacket, his underwear and pants. Meanwhile, Pyle, partly reclined in the passenger's seat, looks as relaxed as a sunning panther.

“You've done seventeen years as a field agent, right?” Pyle asks.

“Three more until they boot me,” Daugherty replies because that is the drift of his thoughts. But Pyle is going somewhere else.

“So how many times has the head office left you out to dry like this?”

“You're talking about the need-to-know status of field agents?”

“I'm talking about DC not giving us the father-daughter connection until yesterday. You and your ex-partner might have nailed Aldridge ten months ago with that intel.”

“Knowledge is power. People in Washington don't share power,” Daugherty says.

“Makes us look bad. I mean this is not intra-agency cooperation with the CIA or DHS we're talking about. For our own people to hold back information from us, that blows.”

Pyle's federal expectations seem drawn from old G-man movies in which the Bureau functions like a single-purpose machine for apprehending criminals. In actuality, an agent's primary job is the same as any bureaucrat's—to protect his or her turf. Daugherty takes the opportunity to instruct Pyle. “Field agents like us are errand boys. You either get used to being a tool or you get a desk in Washington and pull strings.”

A one-lane ramp funnels them off the turnpike. They pass below a sign with a cruciform indicator that points to Key West straight ahead and to Biscayne Park and the Everglades to the left and right, respectively. They're going to none of those places. At the first traffic light instinct tugs Daugherty's steering hand right and a mile later, after they've left behind the palmy medians of Seminole City and are passing fields recently stripped of some summer crop, Daugherty gets his next directional clue—an old fireworks stand. He's a detective tracing his own past, though just barely, and he hesitates making the turn.

“Forget the way?” Pyle asks and before Daugherty can say “nah,” Pyle is studying a map on his phone. “We're good,” Pyle says, sounding disappointed.

Soon his memory is vindicated. A roadside field cordoned by rings of fencing appears. Inside the innermost fence, which is frothed with barbwire, white-and-gray barracks shimmer in the heat. Daugherty pulls in by the compound's only decorative flourish—a section of wall outlined in aqua blue that announces
DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS
.

WARDEN ELI WAGNER,
a man with a prickly military haircut and bearing, is either not happy to see them or wears a naturally pinched expression. Matching the institution he runs, Wagner's coloration is white and gray—white hair, gray eyes, gray suit—except for his complexion, which is unhealthily tan. Surgical tape hides the end of the warden's nose—evidence perhaps of freshly removed skin cancer.

“Agent Daugherty, a call would have saved you a trip,” Wagner tells him with an almost-erased Virginia drawl. “The prisoner is currently in solitary.”

“Solitary? For what?” Daugherty asks, because clearly national security will trump some local rules violation. Wagner will have to allow a visit.

The warden, studying the agent, modulates his frown into a mild sneer, as if he has established Daugherty's place in the pecking order and concluded that it is not as high as Daugherty imagines. They are sitting with Wagner's immaculate desk between them. The warden unlocks a drawer and removes some sheets of paper that he slides over the polished surface.

Putting on his glasses, Daugherty silently reads. “Dear Jessica . . .” blah blah blah. And then the letter gets interesting, especially the second page. “To Whom It May Concern. To YOU Who Are Hunting My Daughter . . .”

“Your bosses never showed you that?” Wagner says, not displeased by Daugherty's ignorance. “I passed along a copy ten days ago.”

Now he understands why Washington reactivated the search for Jessica, with Don Aldridge's threat to widen the al-Yarisi drone scandal.

“I don't so much care what that letter means to the outside world,” Warden Wagner tells him. “But Aldridge has violated prison rule number one. You don't disrespect authority. A prisoner needs to remember who's on top.”

“Amen to that,” says Pyle, his first words since they sat down in the warden's office.

“That's right,” Wagner says, nodding at Pyle. “I won't be returning the man to the general population for a couple more days,” he says to Daugherty, “not till he's had his full two weeks in isolation. Come back then and I'll give him to you for an hour.”

Wagner stands. Annoyingly to Daugherty, because he is not yet done here, Pyle too stands. Then he steps away to peruse a wall littered with the memorabilia career bureaucrats like to display—diplomas, photographs, framed newspaper clippings. Stubbornly Daugherty remains seated.

The antagonism in the room is palpable, and natural—the standard conflict between national and state bureaucracies. Wagner wants to make sure that Daugherty knows who's boss here. As this is not a federal prison Daugherty has no authority to order an interview with Aldridge. Daugherty could make a call to Washington, but that would reflect badly on his own competence. Instead he smiles. “I'd hate to waste three days of taxpayer money waiting,” he says to Wagner.

“That's why you make a phone call in advance,” Wagner says. “Saves everybody time.”

“If I could have made the call I would have. My partner and I have been on the chase. First from California to Texas to New Orleans, then back to California and down here to Florida. As the prisoner's letter shows”—Daugherty is folding up the pages Wagner had given him; he intends to put it in his pocket—“we're dealing with issues of national security.”

“Not exactly.” Wagner says. “I spoke to Aldridge's lawyer and he gave nothing to the press. That letter there is just an inmate rattling his cage.
And
it's prison property.” The warden comes around his desk, which makes Daugherty reflexively stand.

Daugherty gives back the letter. “Let's go,” he tells Pyle, who is diddling with his government-issue BlackBerry like some bored teenager. Pyle looks up and grins, not at Daugherty but at Wagner.

“My stepfather was a CO at James River. Lee Benkowsky,” Pyle says, relevant to nothing Daugherty can conceive. Not only that, Pyle is lengthening his vowels slightly in a convincing accent.

Wagner stops and studies Pyle.

“Your award,” Pyle explains.

On the wall by which Pyle has stationed himself Daugherty sees a commendation plaque bold with Wagner's name.

“Lee's your old man?” Wagner says. “So how is he these days?”

“I'm told cancer took him five years ago,” Pyle says.

“Sorry to hear it.”

“No one's loss. He was a drunk SOB.”

Wagner makes a grunt as if humored. “True enough.”

“I called him my stepfather, but he never married my mother. We moved back to Richmond after living with him about six months. Six months in hell.” Pyle comes forward and sticks out his hand. “Nice meeting you, Warden.”

Wagner takes Pyle's grip but doesn't reply. He lets a grin lift his mouth.

Daugherty's the first to exit Wagner's inner office to the foyer. There a secretary, a fortyish woman behind a gunmetal desk, is busy typing.

“Ann,” Wagner says. “Let's get Donald Aldridge over to the visitation center. Then instruct these gentleman on how to get there.”

Slack jawed, Daugherty turns. The warden has a hand on Pyle's shoulder just like he's the son of an old friend.

“Right away, Warden,” says Ann.

“You'll have privacy in the VC today,” Wagner tells Pyle. “No public hours.” He turns back to Ann as if chasing an afterthought. “Remind me who that woman detective was that called down from New York.”

Ann takes a second to recall the answer. “Sarah Chen. Manhattan Seventh Precinct.”

“She might know something the Bureau can use.” The warden aims a squint at Daugherty as if he and Detective Chen are equally annoying types. “This Chen is the one who put Aldridge in solitary. Got him upset over his daughter.”

“Pardon?” Daugherty says.

“No, not Jessica Aldridge,” Wagner replies. “Some other daughter in trouble. Her drowning in a bathtub must have set off his paternal instincts. After hearing the news, Aldridge wrote his letter.” Wagner shakes the copy of the damning letter at Daugherty but doesn't hand it over.

“NICE WORK,” DAUGHERTY
tells Pyle after marching through a maze of windowless corridors toward Aldridge. His partner's success with the warden irks, but there's no gain in getting pissy. Besides, now Daugherty's curious about Pyle's stepfather. “Fill me in on this Lee Bunkhouse.”

“Benkowsky,” Pyle corrects. “He was an eyewitness to the prison riot Wagner put down at James River.”

“Your stepfather worked with Wagner? That's one damn lucky coincidence.”

“No, chief. Benkowsky is mentioned in the article hanging next to Wagner's heroism plaque. I found his obituary online and got all the facts I needed for my stepfather story.”

“You made that up? Then how do you know this Benkowsky was such a son of a bitch? They don't put that in obits.”

“Not many prison guards lean toward sainthood.”

“And I suppose you also guessed he was an alcoholic?”

“Benkowsky died of cancer waiting for a liver transplant. I bet on cirrhosis as the cause.”

Pyle has an answer for everything. “What counts,” Daugherty says, “is that Wagner bought it.”

Pyle guffaws. “The warden didn't believe a word I said.”

Daugherty's stride slows. He is a literal two steps behind Pyle and a figurative ten. “If Wagner knew you were lying, why didn't he call you out?” Daugherty asks, not loudly. But Pyle, well ahead now, has already turned a corner.

Whatever mind game went on between Pyle and Wagner, all Daugherty grasps of it is that he will never play at that level. Pyle's acuity, once he puts in his field service minimums, will lift him to positions in the Bureau Daugherty has only fantasized about attaining. Rarely does Daugherty so clearly see his limits—the fact that
he
is the mark, the straightforward kind of guy who in a poker game will not only lose his shirt but have it dry-cleaned before handing it over. It's a good thing for his career that most criminals are idiots.

At a door with a mesh window, Pyle awaits him. “Ready, boss?”

Daugherty appreciates Pyle's acknowledgment that his seniority still counts, even if just for meaningless courtesies like waiting. It's clear, though, that Pyle should be in charge. Because Daugherty's supposed to be, he puts away his scuffed ego and goes to work.