Jack Davis Mystery - 01 - Shakedown (31 page)

“Who’s she?” Troy asked.

“Kate Scranton.”

“The jury consultant?”

“Yeah.”

“What the hell is she doing here? For that matter, what the hell are you doing here?”

“It’s a long story and you aren’t going to like any of it.”

“Well, you aren’t going anywhere until I hear all of it.”

I gave him a quick and dirty explanation of the Facial Action Coding System, told him about Latrell’s phone call to Ammara and why it seemed like a good idea at the time to bring Kate and the dog with me to talk to Latrell. When I finished, he stared at me with openmouthed aggravation.

“Is there any chance at all you will stay out of this without getting killed or arrested?”

“Once I know that Wendy is safe, I’ll take a long vacation. You have anything new on her or Colby?”

Troy shook his head. “They aren’t using their credit cards. They haven’t made any withdrawals from their bank accounts. They haven’t made or received calls on their cell phones. Either they don’t want to be found or they’re in real trouble. I’m sorry, Jack, but I don’t know any other way to say it.”

We both looked out the door to the street. It was a parking lot of police cars and ambulances. I glanced at Troy, not needing to ask the question out loud.

“From the far side of the BMW,” he said. “Sniper ri?e.”

“You take the shot?”

He looked at Latrell’s body, his shoulders sagging. “Yeah. It was me.”

“How did you end up there in the nick of time?”

Troy looked at Latrell again. “Wasn’t exactly in the nick of time. Latrell had two bullets. He fired one round and the other one jammed. If I’d known that, I’d be reading him his Miranda rights instead of waiting for someone to perform his last rites.”

“No way you could have known. If you hadn’t shot him, I probably would have,” I said.

“Doesn’t help much.”

“And doesn’t tell me what you were doing outside Latrell’s house.”

“We found a photograph in Javy Ordonez’s car. It was of a young boy, probably fifteen, and a woman. Both of them black. Photograph was taken outside a house. You can see the address numbers in the background. We ran the numbers to find every house in Kansas City, Kansas, that matched and then we checked the ownership records. The numbers matched Latrell’s address. He’s older now and dead, but he’s the boy in the picture.”

“The photograph doesn’t sound like enough evidence to go tactical.”

“It’s not enough but we got a few decent prints off the gun that was used in the drug house murders and that was used to kill Javy Ordonez. Latrell didn’t have a record, so we didn’t have his prints in the system, but we caught a break with his employer. Homeland Security requires that all employees at rail yard terminals be fingerprinted. The fingerprints on the murder weapon belong to Latrell. That was enough to go tactical.”

“I didn’t see you when we got here.”

“We staged out of Marcellus’s house. Figured no one was using it. Came through the backyard. Left some of the troops in back and I came around to the front. Saw you and your friend knocking at the door, so I took up position behind the BMW.”

“That was good work.”

“Always is when we get it right, except this one doesn’t feel all the way right. There’s too much missing,” Troy said.

“Like a link between Latrell and Javy Ordonez?”

“Yeah. We haven’t found one other than the photograph. Maybe the woman in the picture is the link. I wonder where she is?” Troy said.

“My guess is that she was Latrell’s mother and you’ll probably find her the same place you find Oleta. Still doesn’t explain why Latrell’s picture was in Javy’s car.”

An agent interrupted. “We found something downstairs.”

“What?”

“Two graves. One of them fresh, the other one pretty old.”

“Oleta and Latrell’s mother,” I said.

“I’ll be down there in a minute,” Troy said to the agent, dismissing him. He turned back to me. “Latrell is dead and we haven’t identified the woman in the photograph. Maybe she’s buried in the basement and maybe she is the link. Maybe she had a thing with Javy that went bad and Latrell is getting even.”

“You say Latrell looks like he’s around fifteen years old in the photograph?”

“About. Why?”

“Ammara interviewed him when she did the initial neighborhood canvass. She says he was thirty-two. That makes the photograph seventeen years old. Javy Ordonez was what, twenty-five, tops? That makes him eight years old when the photograph was taken. No way Javy’s murder has anything to do with the woman in the photograph.”

“If Javy was eight and Latrell was fifteen when the picture was taken,” Troy said, “there’s not much chance they became mortal enemies at that age.”

“Maybe whoever killed Javy put the photograph in his car so we would find it and track it back to Latrell.”

“Which is a neat way of framing Latrell for Javy’s murder,” Troy said.

“But it only works if Javy’s killer knows that Latrell has the gun used in the drug house murders and if the killer uses it to off Javy. The gun ties the two crimes together.”

Troy sighed. “Every circle takes you back to the same place. This circle keeps taking me back to Colby Hudson. He ducked out on his polygraph and his undercover work put him next to Javy Ordonez. And now he’s gone invisible.”

“Did you talk to the warden at Leavenworth about whether someone put a hit out on Thomas Rice?”

“Yeah. He’s heard the same rumors as Grisnik, but they can’t prove anything. Until they do, it stays a suicide.”

“And until I find Wendy, I’m not backing off.”

Troy swept his hand across the first ?oor of Latrell’s house. “You see all this, Jack?”

Crime scene people were everywhere. A paramedic was checking Kate’s vital signs. Another was confirming that Latrell was dead. Agents were searching the house. Troy motioned me to the open front door. KCK cops had formed a perimeter, keeping the neighbors and the news crews out of the way.

“There are fifty law-enforcement people all over this,” he continued. “There’s more where they came from. Every last one of them, including me, will do everything we can to find Wendy and make certain she’s safe. I’m begging you. Go home. Let us do our jobs.”

“It’s my job, too. More than my job.”

“You almost got yourself and your friend killed. Next time you may not be so lucky. You’re not shaking now, but what happens if you fall apart when somebody’s life is on the line? Maybe it’ll be yours or mine or even Wendy’s. Then what?”

I had held it together since Kate knocked on Latrell’s door, but I could feel the breakdown coming like animals can sense an earthquake before it hits. Two paramedics lifted Kate onto a stretcher and wheeled her out. Her eyes were closed. I couldn’t tell if she was sleeping, sedated, or unconscious.

“Like I said, it’s more than my job.”

It hit me when I’d driven Kate’s car two blocks from Latrell’s house. Pressure built behind my eyes, making me blink. I could see, but I was in a fog like my brain was wrapped in a layer of cotton. I didn’t remember turning the radio on, but a DJ was rattling on about something. I heard his voice but couldn’t follow what he was saying. I pulled to the curb, shaking from the inside out.

I knew the routine by now. I didn’t fight it by grabbing the steering wheel. I didn’t tense my body as if I was waiting to be struck. Instead, I went limp, letting the tremors have me, opening my eyes when they were gone.

Ruby lay on the front seat, her head up, watching me with her dark eyes. I rubbed her head and she licked my hand.

“What am I going to do with you?” I asked her.

She didn’t answer and I didn’t blame her. One of the paramedics had told me that they were taking Kate to the KU Hospital. I didn’t know how long they would keep her, only that I wouldn’t leave until I knew she really was all right. Pete & Mac’s didn’t pick up. Besides, I had a feeling I wasn’t going to be home much until this was over. That left me with only one other option. Joy answered on the fifth ring.

“Did I wake you?”

“No. It’s only ten o’clock. I just got out of the shower.” She was breathless, her voice pitched with anxiety. “Did they find Wendy?”

“Not yet.”

“Are they trying?”

I hesitated. I didn’t want to tell her that no news wasn’t good news but it wasn’t fair to keep what I knew from her.

“They’re trying hard. Troy’s checked their credit cards, bank accounts, and cell phones. There’s been no activity.”

“What does that mean?”

“If they had eloped or just taken a last-minute vacation or were just going about their daily lives, there would be electronic and paper trails. Since there aren’t any, we have to consider the possibility that something has happened to them or that they have a good reason to be hiding.”

“Don’t tell me that, Jack. What do we do?”

“Keep looking. Keep trying. That’s why I’m calling. I know it’s late, but I need you to do me a favor.”

“A favor?”

“I need you to pick up Ruby, maybe keep her for a few days.”

“Why? Are you going out of town?”

“No. I’m not going anywhere. It’s just that I can’t be tied down to the dog while I’m trying to find Wendy.”

“Okay,” she said, taking a breath. “You can bring her over in the morning.”

“Actually, I need you to come get her now.”

“You’re going out at ten o’clock? You must know something. Why won’t you tell me?”

“I don’t know anything, but I’m not at home and I won’t get home for a while.”

“Where are you?”

“I’m on my way to the emergency room at the KU Hospital. Can you meet me there and pick up the dog?”

“KU Hospital? What’s the matter? Are you hurt? Is it the shaking?”

“No, it’s nothing like that. I’m fine.”

“Jack Davis, tell me what in the hell is going on or I’m going to hang up this phone!”

I was trying to tell her as little as possible, not just to protect her but to avoid the additional fallout I knew was coming. I realized I couldn’t succeed at either and continuing to try would only make things worse.

“We found out who killed the people in the drug house. His name was Latrell Kelly. He lived behind the victims. Kate and I went to talk to him a little while ago. He surprised us and hit Kate in the head with a gun. She’s the one in the emergency room. He took a shot at me and mostly missed. I doubt if I’ll even need a stitch. Troy Clark shot Latrell. He died at the scene.”

I could hear her crying. The sound was muf?ed. I guessed she was covering the receiver with her hand. She gathered herself, coughing to clear her throat.

“I hate you, Jack, you know that?”

“I know.”

“But that’s not my real problem. You want to know what my real problem is? My real problem is that I don’t hate you all the time.”

Joy hung up. I started the car, found my way to Seventh Street and took it south until it turned into Rainbow Boulevard. The hospital was on the corner of Thirty-ninth and Rainbow. I turned east on Rainbow and followed the signs to the emergency room. Joy was standing next to her car when I arrived. She was wearing jeans and a hooded sweatshirt, the hood pulled tight around her face. I pulled alongside where she had parked. She opened the passenger door of Kate’s BMW, put Ruby in her car, and drove away. She never said hello.

Emergency rooms are like convenience stores. They’re open twenty-four hours a day, but you’d rather get your coffee somewhere else. That was particularly true at KU Hospital, where the coffee was bad, the waiting room was uncomfortable, and the staff was numb from dealing with the daily deluge of crime and accident victims mixed in with the ordinary folks whose string of good living had run out.

I knew that security guards were stationed at the entrance to the emergency room and that I would have to pass through a metal detector, so I locked my gun in the glove compartment of Kate’s car. An admitting nurse sat on the opposite side of a counter, keeping patients at arm’s length with a sliding-glass window. Access to the treatment area was restricted to patients, family, and medical personnel. The admitting nurse was the gatekeeper, pushing a button that unlocked the door if you knew the secret password.

I tapped on the glass. The nurse, a middle-aged woman with cropped red hair, an extra chin, and giant eggplant arms glanced up at me. Letting out a deep sigh, she reached for the window and slid it open six inches.

“I’m with a woman named Kate Scranton. She came in by ambulance a few minutes ago with a head wound.”

“You her husband?”

“No.”

“Father, brother, or doctor?”

“No.”

“Take a seat.”

“I need to see her.”

“Take a seat. You’ll have to wait until she’s released or sent up to a room.”

I read her name tag. “Look, Glenda. My name is Jack Davis. I’m an FBI agent. Ms. Scranton was injured during an investigation of one of my cases. I need to see her now.”

Glenda gave me a ?at stare that said she’d heard that noise before. She stuck out her hand, palm up. “Lemme see some ID.”

I showed her my driver’s license.

“FBI ID,” she said, rolling her eyes.

“I don’t have it with me.”

“Then take a seat.”

One of the paramedics that had taken care of Kate at the scene appeared at Glenda’s side. She was solid without being stocky, barely five-five, and her long brown hair was pulled back in a ponytail that stuck out the back of a ball cap. She waved and opened the window all the way.

“Hey, Agent Davis, you should get that stinger checked out.”

I gave her my best smile, noting her name tag. “Thanks, Valerie. Just as soon as I convince Glenda here to let me see Kate. How’s she doing?”

“They’re still checking her out, but I think she’ll be fine.”