The Double Eagle (11 page)

PROSPECT, KENTUCKY
23 July—1:33
P.M.

L
iberty Street in the optimistically named Louisville suburb of Prospect had been given a particularly vicious dose of anonymity by the local planners. Cookie-cutter clapboard houses, caged off from their neighbors by galvanized wire fence, lined a wide road that spooled drearily into the distance. Cedar trees struggled awkwardly from the ragged sidewalk at municipally specified intervals, gaps visible every so often where they had finally given up their struggle to eke out an existence from the thin soil. Trash cans were chained to gateposts; cars sagged mournfully on concrete driveways.

In the distance a large water tower, supported by four improbably spindly steel legs, reared into the sky like a huge insect. It had once been painted red, although the paint had long since blistered and peeled, rust now chewing into every joint and rivet. A single name,
ECKLEBERG
, painted in three-feet-high white letters, circled the tank, an early advertising gimmick whose purpose had long since been forgotten. Down the road, a few kids were practicing skateboard tricks.

Jennifer stood outside the house and waited, fanning her face with her FBI badge as the sun’s rays ricocheted off the ground. To understand why Short had been killed, she had to try and understand him; who he was, where he lived. According to Short’s file, he’d joined the Mint Police after five years with the NYPD. He’d been an exemplary officer, winning the medal of honor when responding to a reported breakin at an Upper West Side pharmacy. His partner had been shot and while trying to save him, Short had returned fire, killing one suspect and wounding another. He’d been set for big things, maybe even captain one day, some had said. But apparently this incident and the unpredictable hours required of New York’s finest had finally taken their toll on Mrs. Short, who had demanded that he either find a new job, or a new wife.

Her brother was already in the Mint Police and had arranged the interviews. With his record, Short had sailed through the selection process, although it had been noted that he had been heard to complain to some of his colleagues that he was being made to swap his gun for a nightstick. He’d been given a choice of postings and had chosen Fort Knox so they’d be near his wife’s family. That was pretty much it.

She could see from the outside that the Shorts had done their best with the little they had. The symmetrical window frames had been painted light blue, to match the mailbox at the end of the driveway, the wood bubbling now with age in a few places. The porch had been recently swept, while round the side she could make out a toy-strewn backyard.

The front yard was neat and low maintenance. No trash. The curbstone had been painted with the house number, yellow against the gray concrete—1026. The garage stood to the left, a separate building with a pitched roofline and white wooden walls to match the main house. She remembered with a half smile that she had played in a very similar yard of a very similar house with her sister, Rachel, when she was a kid. There was love here amid the ugliness.

A white patrol car with a blue stripe emblazoned down its side pulled up onto the curb and a short uniformed man with wiry ginger hair got out and nodded at her.

“Agent Browne?” he asked uncertainly, leaning over the roof, one leg still in the foot well of the car. Jennifer didn’t answer, instead just flipping her ID open and waving it at him impatiently.

“You’re late.”

“Yes, ma’am. My apologies.” He walked up to her, his hand extended, a concerned look on his freckled face. “I was way over on the other side of town when they told me that—”

“That’s okay, Officer…?” Jennifer looked down to his name badge as she was shaking his hand. “…Seeley. You’re here now.”

“Bill Seeley. Louisville Metro Police Department,” he said earnestly, his large blue eyes widening, thin lips flattening across uneven teeth, ears like a car that’s had both its doors left open.

Jennifer smiled, his fresh-faced eagerness making her feel suddenly old. She knew the type. Diligent, conscientious, and kind but unlikely ever to set the world on fire. For this part of the world, ideal. She looked up at the house behind her.

“So this is it?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“How long had Short lived here?”

“These past five years. Nice kids and wife. Real friendly with me and the other boys. He was an ex-cop himself, you see. Used to speak about it all the time. I reckon he missed the big city.”

“Tell me again what happened.” Jennifer’s eyes were drawn to the garage and she had to force herself to snatch them away and concentrate on Seeley’s voice.

“The eldest, Tony Jr., found him in the garage. TJ’s a smart kid. On the football team, too. He dialed nine-one-one and when the call came through I drove straight over.”

“What about Mrs. Short?”

“Debbie? At work. Tony worked shifts and they took it in turns with the kids in the summer.”

“Any other witnesses see anything?”

“Nope.”

“So what did you do when you got here?”

“Well, the kids were screaming and crying. One of the neighbors came by and she took them home with her. I opened the garage door and turned the engine off real quick, you know, to get the smoke out. Tony—I mean Mr. Short—had run a hose or something from the exhaust in through the window.”

“And you’re sure he was buckled in?”

“Oh, yeah. In the backseat, like I said. I got him out the car and tried to give him CPR, but he was gone. I did what I could.”

She could see that Seeley was still upset, perhaps thinking that if he’d got there sooner he maybe could have saved him. She knew that it was always harder if you knew the victim. It gave death a personal edge, as if you’d betrayed some unspoken agreement to look out for each other.

“Don’t worry, Officer,” said Jennifer as she turned to face him. “You did the right thing. Believe me, by the time you got here, he was already dead. There was nothing you could have done.”

He smiled gratefully.

“Well, then I radioed back in and they sent the coroner to collect the body. I would have gone to tell Debbie myself, but I had to deal with the fire, so one of the other guys went over. I heard she took it pretty bad.” He shook his head, his lips compressed in sympathy. Jennifer shot him a questioning look.

“The fire. What fire?”

“Oh, you know, these damn kids.” He nodded down the road where one of the children was nursing a sprained wrist where he had just fallen. “We get a lot of problems round here. There’s not a whole lot for them to do apart from hang round the malls or make trouble. There’s a field out back and someone had set fire to a bunch of trash.”

“On the same day?” Jennifer fired the question at Seeley, her eyes locking with his.

“Yeah.” He cleared his throat nervously. “One of the neighbors was worried about it spreading, what with the hot weather we’ve been having an’ all. Why? I do something wrong?”

Jennifer didn’t answer. She was already making her way past the side of the house, through the yard and the upturned pink bicycle lying in the middle of the path, and out through the back gate. She didn’t believe in coincidences.

Seeley had been generous when he had described it as a field. In reality it was a desolate scrap of wasteland, a lunar landscape of yellowing weeds and dry brown earth dotted with rusting refrigerators and burned-out cars that separated the houses from the ugly welt of the interstate in the distance.

To the left of the gate she had just come through, in the shadow of a cypress tree, a crater perhaps ten feet across and five feet deep—one of several—scarred the earth. A large pile of ashes, charred wood, and twisted metal rose from within it like a grotesque funeral pyre. Seeley came running up behind her.

“What did I say?”

Jennifer stared at him, hands on her hips.

“Don’t you think it’s strange, Officer, that on the very day that Tony Short committed suicide, someone lit a fire twenty yards from his house?” Seeley looked at her blankly.

“Folks light fires all the time.”

“Don’t you think it’s possible that before killing himself, he decided to burn something?” Jennifer stabbed her finger forcefully in the direction of the hole. Understanding flooded over Seeley’s face.

“Oh, I geddit. It’s just that the kids here, you know, they’re always foolin’ around. But, yeah, sure, why not?”

Jennifer approached the remains of the fire and looked into it carefully. Despite what she’d just said, she had to admit that Seeley was probably right. But then again, if someone had murdered Short, it was just conceivable that they had started the fire to destroy the murder weapon or some other piece of evidence. Either way, she had to be sure.

“Give me a hand.” She jumped down into the hole and stepped into the ashes, gray and white flecks rising around her ankles like flies around fruit on a summer’s day. Seeley scrambled down to help and together they moved several large pieces of wood out of the way, until Seeley breathed in sharply.

“What the hell’s that?” Out of the ashes, a large metal object had appeared, its sides blackened, rusted and twisted where it had buckled under the heat.

“I have no idea,” said Jennifer. “Here, help me move it.”

They dragged the object out of the middle of the crater, clouds of dust and ashes billowing around their heads, making them cough and their eyes stream.

It seemed to be some sort of large metal container. It had two compartments, the upper one being nothing more than a shallow tray accessible under the top lid, while the much larger, lower one was reached from a panel on the side. Both compartments were empty.

And then she noticed it.

On one side, where the silver paint had almost all peeled away, she could just about make it out; a ghostly signature that the heat had not quite been able to erase. The U.S. Treasury seal.

The sight triggered a memory of where she’d seen a similar container before. Inside Fort Knox.