Material Witness (9 page)

“I understand that,” she said.
“Detective Jake Santos can guard me there.”

The room came to life with whispers
that spread around the closed room and echoed off the stark white walls. Jake
was sure he'd heard a few snickers in there as well.

“I'm afraid that's not possible, Ms.
Alvarez.” Charley finally took her place at the front of the room with Cassie.
“The agents I’ve assigned to the safe house are fully trained to act as your
bodyguards.”

“None of them are agents I’ve met or
trust. I won’t be able to relax unless I feel I’m safe, and that means I need
someone I can trust completely.”

“That’s out of the question,” Jake
said. Cassie looked at him, her jaw set, and he knew he was in for a fight.

Agent Radcowski spoke up. “Agent
Bellows will be driving you to Virginia. Agent Tate and I will follow in a day
or two. There will be details to sort out but I can assure you, you will have
your privacy there. You won’t even know an agent is there.”

“It’s Jake Santos or I’m not going,”
Cassie said resolutely.

 Charley parked herself in front of
Jake and said in a low voice that oozed anger, “You and I need to have a
serious discussion.”

* * *

Richie Trumbella's autopsy report lay
closed in a manila folder on Captain Russo's desk. Coffee rings marked the
blotter underneath and were accompanied by happy- and sad-face doodles. An
ashtray filled with stale cigarette butts, emitting the scent of spent tobacco,
lay next to a jar of butterscotch candy. Jake sat on the corner of the desk,
staring at the Captain's artwork. He waited for Charley to close the door
behind her before looking up.

“What have you done to my witness!”
Charley charged. “I agreed to let Ms. Alvarez speak to the agents on this case
as a formality because I understand how difficult this must be for her. It's
also given me the opportunity to judge my witness from a distance and get a
little insight into her state of mind before she's transferred to the safe
house in Virginia. We don’t need any more publicity focused on our witness. The
press is already all over it. She needs to leave here quietly. The last thing I
need is for her to have a hissy fit because she wants you to babysit her.”

Jake stood up. “The last thing I want
is to babysit anyone. I’m just as interested in finding Fagnelio and getting
him behind bars are you are.”

“You can't very well do both, now can
you.” Charley sighed and crossed her arms across her chest. “I don't even want
to know how you did it, but somehow between last night and this morning you
managed to turn our star witness—our
only
witness—into a lovesick
admirer of yours.”

Jake cursed low. “You've got it
wrong.”

She laughed wryly and began pacing in
front of him. “I've got eyes, Santos.”

“Cassie has a mind of her own.”

“You mean to tell me you didn't have
anything to do with this little escapade?”

“I don't work under the same
deceptive umbrella you've held up to move yourself ahead, Charley.”

She stopped pacing and glared at him.
“You're never going to let that go, are you?”

“Tyler has to live with it. Why not
you?”

She pointed her finger towards the
closed door. “Do you have any idea how hard it was to gain the respect of every
agent out in that room? How long we've all been working on this case? I'm not
going to let you waltz in and—”

“I've been working three months on
this,” he boomed over her.

“I hate to interrupt,” Captain Russo
interjected, leaning back in his chair. “If we’re going to make sure that
everyone in the building can hear, why not just go up on the roof and have at
it. Otherwise, I suggest you keep it down.”

They settled into a strained silence
before both Charley and Jake dropped into the chairs opposite Captain Russo’s
desk. After a few controlled breaths, Charley turned to Jake.

“I've worked a long time to put that
incident behind me, Santos. Despite what you think, I never meant to hurt
either you or Tyler. A decision had to be made at the last minute and I made
it.”

“And you hung us out to die in the
process.”

“I was doing my job. So were you.”

 With that, Jake stood and planted
his fists deep in his pockets in an effort to control his fury. It amazed him
how after five years he still felt an overwhelming anger from her deception.
“You lied to Tyler just to get a damned promotion. You lied to us and it almost
killed Tyler. He was a good cop.”

“I know that!”

Charley closed her eyes and was quiet
for a moment. Jake didn't want to think what he'd seen in her eyes was sadness
and regret. He didn't want to think about Charley having feelings at all. All
he could think of was seeing his partner lying in a pool of blood and Jake not
being able to do a damn thing. Not being able to radio for help because he'd
been sprayed with bullets himself. He'd been lucky the Kevlar vest he'd been
wearing spared his flesh the bullets. But with two broken ribs and a punctured
lung he was unable to get enough breath to do anything to help his partner. If
it hadn't been for Kevin…

“I know Ty was a good cop,” Charley
finally said, her voice low and thready. “I wish it hadn't been so, but Tyler
made his own decision to leave the force. Despite what you think, I had nothing
to do with that.”

She cleared her throat and blinked
away the last trace of emotion he'd seen misting her eyes a few short moments
ago. The glacial stare she seemed to reserve just for him was back.

“But we're not talking about the past
or Tyler Jacobsen here. I want to apprehend Angel Fagnelio and squeeze as much
information from him as I can about the Trumbella family. Cassie Alvarez is the
key to that, and for some strange reason she wants you to be her bodyguard. I
want to make sure my witness is cooperative and protected from Angel Fagnelio,
as well as herself.”

Jake folded his arms across his
chest. “What the hell does that mean?”

“It means I still don't know who
called that tip in to the papers. Cassie has something to gain from this, and
it could potentially compromise this case if she's hell-bent on furthering her
career with the publicity.”

“Oh, come on, Charley. You saw how
scared she is. She didn't do it.”

“Can you be that sure?”

All he had was his gut feeling.
“Yes.”

“Now whose judgment is a little
cloudy?” She turned to Russo. “He’s off this case.”

“What?”

“Wait a minute,” Russo said. “We have
a shooting to investigate. Junior Canfield or rather, Agent Novak, wasn’t the
only person killed at Rory’s last night.”

“This is my case, Charley. You can’t
just yank me off it,” Jake said.

“In case you didn’t hear right, Ms.
Alvarez has requested that you be there with her at the safe house.” Turning to
Captain Russo, she added, “Don’t worry. The FBI is prepared to share
information as necessary with your office as long as it doesn’t interfere with
our own investigation. And since Jake is a witness to what happened, even if he
didn’t see the shooter, it’s in our best interest that he remain alive.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Russo
asked.

“It means, Fagnelio called a meeting
with Jake and then sprayed the place with bullets. I don’t know why, but I aim
to find out if he was a target, and if so, why. I don’t have to remind you that
this federal investigation takes precedent over your case.”

“I’m not going,” Jake said, turning
to Russo.

Charley started to protest, but Russo
held up his hand to stop her.

“Yes, you are. If I have to drag your
ass to the car and tie you inside, you’re going.”

“What? What about Fagnelio? What
about this damned case I’ve been working on for three fucking months!”

“Kevin will take over it and work
with the FBI. Jake, there isn’t a doubt in my mind that Angel Fagnelio knew you
were undercover. That dirt-bag lied straight to your face and set you up to
die. Wait until we have him in custody. Once Fagnelio goes before a grand jury,
you won’t have anything to worry about and neither will Ms. Alvarez.
Trumbella’s organization is responsible for too many deaths already. I don’t
want to add you to the list.”

Jake started to protest.

“Enough!” Russo charged, slamming his
fist on the coffee-stained blotter on his desk. “The decision has been made.”

Charley picked up a butterscotch
candy from the nearly empty glass jar on the desk and twirled it between her
fingers. “I’ll call the office in Virginia to tell them to expect you along
with Ms. Alvarez. Pack your bags. You’re leaving within the hour.”

She took one step toward Jake.

“But I warn you. If anything goes
wrong, if you cross me just one time because of our past association, I'll drag
your ass right out of there and you can kiss your career good-bye.”

And that was Cyclone Charley, Jake
thought cynically as he watched her strut out of the office, leaving the door
ajar.

# # #

Chapter Five

The empty road stretched out endlessly
ahead of them like a string of railroad ties on a track with no train. The
four-door federal-issue sedan quietly hummed down the Blue Ridge Parkway toward
the brim of the Smoky Mountains. Their driver, a federal agent whose name
Cassie had already forgotten in the long line of names she’d heard this
morning, was concentrating on the road that was taking them far away from her
home in Providence.

They'd be safe out of the city. But
even Cassie knew that mobsters didn't recognize city or state limits, much less
view them as an obstacle.

As soon as Angel Fagnelio was caught
and brought before the grand jury, Cassie would be called back to testify. She
had to face him, just like she had all those years ago when she'd faced her
cousin's murderer in a humid Miami courtroom that stormy day.

Cassie's heavy sigh wrapped around
her as she stared out the window, watching the last remains of the sunlight dip
below the tree line. Rhododendrons lined the roadway, bare of any flowers that
might have made this journey brighter.

Why in God's name did she live in a
world of concrete and pavement when she could look out her window and see the
peaceful countryside of Virginia? In the city, she didn't have beautiful
sunsets over the mountains or rolling green hills that stretched on forever.
There was just her small apartment in the safe part of the town. There was
Angel Fagnelio, and hundreds just like him, crawling the streets, waiting to
hurt innocent people who were just going about their daily lives.

Cassie’s whole definition of safe had
changed drastically in the last twenty-four hours. She had believed she was
safe in the city. She thought she'd gotten over the black feeling of fear that
consumed her eight years ago. But it was still there, imbedded deep inside like
an angry cancer just waiting to grow.

Rolling her head back to the headrest
in the back seat, she turned toward Jake and watched his profile. He’d been
sleeping for the first leg of the journey out of Rhode Island and through
Connecticut. Now he sat tall and stiff in the seat, his long body barely
fitting into the space. His strong jaw was squared as if he were rolling
something back and forth in his mind, or trying to force it out. His dark blue
eyes were intense with thought.