Cold Quarry (22 page)

“I’m not so sure about that,” Briggs said.

Nolestar ignored her. “Don’t you think it’s time you separated yourself from this whole business, Frank? Head on back to Charlottesville to your normal work. You know as well as I do this is big-league stuff.”

“You expect me to just walk out on my friend?”

“That’s exactly what we expect, Mr. Pavlicek. In fact, we require it, unless you want to end up in a cell next to him,” Briggs said.

“But Jake didn’t do this,” I said. “Can’t you see that? He’s a former homicide detective. If he were even remotely involved with such a killing, you think he’d be so stupid as to leave the murder weapon lying around like that for someone to find it? It’s too staged. Somebody’s trying to set him up for this.”

Nolestar seemed to consider the possibility, but Briggs dismissed it.

“We’ll be the judge of that,” she said. “I think we have just a wee bit more information than you. And we’re far better equipped to handle this sort of thing, at this point, than you are.”

“What about the rest of the killings? The reporter is another witness right here, besides myself, who’ll tell you it wasn’t Jake who was spraying bullets at us just now.”

“Maybe not. But how do you know for certain he didn’t set those bombs yesterday? Don’t try to pretend he doesn’t have the skills to have done it. And how do you know he didn’t come in here sometime earlier today and kill the veterinarian? This whole shoot-out at the OK Corral you just had could’ve been some kind of crude attempt at a cover-up. Other than the dog, no one was hit by any of the bullets, were they?”

She was right. The M.E. might establish a different time of death on the vet, but we’d have to wait to know for sure.

“I’m sorry this is happening to a friend of yours,” she said. “But we’re at war, mister.”

That did it. I held out my hands. “Hey, don’t let me get in the army’s way. But this war is about justice and defending the innocent, isn’t it? Don’t sit here and try to tell me it’s right to be arresting an innocent man. …”

I stopped, realizing I was making a fool of myself. I don’t know why I suddenly decided to start sparring with this robotic clone of a federal agent. It was like arguing with somebody’s lawyer or press release. I couldn’t really talk to her now, any more than I’d been able to talk to certain members of the review board at the hearing on the shooting Toronto and I had been involved in all those years ago in New Rochelle. You could rant and rave all you wanted about what was really going on between the lines and behind the scenes, but unless you were really willing to do the legwork to find out some of those nettlesome details you weren’t about to come any closer to the truth.

For years, Toronto had operated in a sort of shadowy nether world of security and intelligence “consulting” and “operations” for various unnamed clients and entities, much of which, I imagined, was never recorded in anybody’s official budget or records. As far as I could tell, his services were always high in demand, and since his material needs were few, he seemed beyond compromise.

It didn’t take a huge leap of logic, however, to imagine someone with clandestine and sinister motives putting Toronto’s talents to use for their own purposes. They would have to be good. Very good, in order to pull the wool over Toronto’s eyes about their intentions. Or they would’ve had to somehow tap into Toronto’s loyalty or something that was important to him.

And that left only one option: the contact he’d said was on the inside of their sting operation and had given him all the details about the Rangers’ plans. Problem was, that wasn’t something I could talk to these two about.

Not yet, anyway.

Nolestar rubbed the growing stubble on his youngish face. “Your choice now, Pavlicek. Either agree to our request to stay out of this business from now on, or join your friend outside in handcuffs in the van.”

“I’m not so sure I feel comfortable giving this man any kind of choice,” Briggs said.

The other agent in the room, who’d been standing against the far wall like a mannequin during our conversation, seemed to twitch involuntarily, as if anticipating the opportunity to throw me in with their other catch.

“You haven’t got any real evidence to hold him, do you?” Nolestar asked. I didn’t know why he was suddenly sticking up for me, but I was thankful for it.

Briggs said nothing.

“I’m telling you right now Jake Toronto is no terrorist,” I said. “Sure, he may have been involved with the wrong people from time to time, but you both know as well as I do, that’s sometimes the nature of getting things done. If all of you only dealt with upstanding citizens, you wouldn’t have a clue what was going on in some of these groups, would you? So who’s to say Jake Toronto hasn’t been trying to accomplish the same sort of thing? I go back more than twenty years with this guy.”

“Oh, yes.” Briggs snickered. “We know all about that. You two shot to death an unarmed African-American teenager years ago in New York, isn’t that correct? It just could be that the seeds of that anger were—”

“You’re kidding, right? What, you just get that off one of your daily intelligence faxes? I suppose you’ve never had to make a decision like that. You probably would’ve already labeled that kid a terrorist and had him in custody as a threat to national security. We did not have that luxury. We did what had to be done. And in case you haven’t read the complete record, that was over fifteen years ago and we were both exonerated. Completely.”

Exonerated, at least, in the courts. My heart and my sleep at night were another matter, but I wasn’t about to give her any quarter on this one, not when it came to my partner. I’d been the senior detective on the scene that night. If there were any seeds of subversion growing in Toronto since then, I and I alone would be responsible.

Except that there weren’t. She couldn’t have been more wrong.

“Most of us can’t work outside the system, Mr. Pavlicek,” she said. “We have to work from inside, utilizing all the resources at our disposal, as imperfect as they may be.”

“Spare me, will you? I know all about the system. Just look what it did for Toronto and me. You don’t see me sitting here and complaining. You’re the one who brought it up, in fact.”

She said nothing.

“Okay, let’s say I agree to what you want. When do I get to talk to Jake?”

“You don’t,” Briggs said. “Not until this operation is over.”

Again I thought of the lawyer in Charlottesville, but I realized even he wouldn’t do much good. At this point, she had all the cards in her favor. And if it helped her stop a bunch of white supremacists from dropping nerve gas on a bunch of people, or whatever they were planning to do, who was I to say she wasn’t right?

In the end, just so I could walk out of there, I ranted and raved a little more for show before agreeing to their demand. Thankfully, they didn’t make me put anything in writing.

I’d agreed to a lot worse in my time, compromises good and bad. Some, maybe half, were the source of a lot of pain and frustration in my life, decisions I’d regretted at the time and some of which I was regretting still.

I tried to think about the other half as I walked back outside toward my truck, past the van with the blacked-out windows where they were holding my best friend.

24

“I’m coming back out there, Dad.”

I could visualize my daughter’s pout through the phone and her blowing an errant strand of hair from in front of her face. After giving her a few more details about the night before, I was just coming fully awake, torn between memory and reality. I’d called and left word on her personal voice mail from the truck on my way back to the Carew place in the wee hours of the morning. When I got back to the house, I’d plugged in the cell phone for charging overnight, but had left it on. Sleep had been slow in coming, and even when it finally did come, had lasted only a couple of hours.

Out the window though I could see that it had snowed a little while I’d slept. An inch or so of the white stuff coated the lawn, the driveway, and the branches of the trees.

“Look, Nicky. I still need you back in the office.”

“While Jake is in jail? No, you don’t, Dad. You just want me to be back here where you think I’ll be safe or something. Besides, it’s Sunday. Nobody’s in their office today and my classes don’t start up again for another week.”

“What do you have for me on those backgrounds I asked you to check?”

“I’ve been working on them. The cops you gave me all check out.”

“Yeah, well, I have another one to add to the list, but go on.”

“Tony Warnock looks like your run-of-the-mill attorney, as far as I can tell. I did find something from about twenty years ago when he was just out of law school. He represented a member of the Ku Klux Klan regarding a cross burning. But he’s done nothing that looks that controversial since that I can find.”

“How about Higgins?”

“Well, you already know about him and the Stone-wallers, right? I also found a property tax lien that had been placed on his property.”

“Conscientious objector?”

“Not sure. Looks more like it might be simple financial problems to me.”

“Figures.” No way a guy like that came up with a few million to finance a bunch of chemical weapons without Warnock. The question was, where was the money’s ultimate source, and who did that give the leverage to?

“Let’s see,” she said. “Damon Farraday is just a plumber, but you know that too. Nothing unusual on his record, financial or otherwise. I did talk to his boss on the phone—told him I was from a credit reporting company verifying information. He said Farraday’s a good worker. Always shows up on time and does his work, even if he does wear an earring, the guy said.”

“Earring? I’ve never seen him wear an earring.”

“Maybe he took it out for the funeral. I think he’s kind of cute. And I hate to tell you this, Dad, but you and Jake are kind of like, thirty-years-ago sometimes. You know?”

It was way too early and I was too tired to deal with being thirty years ago.

“Okay,” she said. “Moving on to the conservation agent, Gwen Hallston—”

“She’s dead, Nicky.”

“Oh.” There was a new edginess to her voice.

“She’s the woman who was killed in the bombing on Friday.”

“Right. I don’t know why, I didn’t make the connection.”

“It’s okay. You have anything on her?”

“Nothing unusual. She had four kids. …” Her voice caught in her throat.

“You all right, Nicky?”

“Yeah. Sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it. The best way we can help her now is to find out who did this.”

“Sure. I know.”

“You come up with anything on anybody else?”

“Nope. Nothing so far.”

“How about Felipe, Toronto’s father?”

“Just that he’s retired and receives a pension—dull—but that’s about it.”

“I hate to ask, but how about Chester? Skeletons in the closet?”

“Nope. No marks or dings or anything. And his credit report’s practically perfect.”

“All right,” I said. “Good job. Keep at it.”

“What about me coming out there?”

I ignored her question. “How’s your boyfriend?” I asked.

“What?”

“How’s Mark?” Mark Burke was a solid electrical engineering major, an amiable, square-jawed young fellow with a four-point-oh GPA whom Nicole had been dating since the end of her junior year.

“He’s gone skiing up at Snowshoe with a bunch of our friends. What difference does that make?”

“Just guys, or guys and girls both?”

“Guys and girls both.”

“Why didn’t you go with them?”

“We’ve had this discussion before, Dad. You said yourself I shouldn’t be sleeping with him if we’re not married.”

“Going skiing with a bunch of friends doesn’t mean sleeping together, does it? Or is Mark starting to put pressure on you?”

“He’s
not
putting any pressure on me, Dad. How’d we get into this anyway? Besides, I promised I’d help you in the office while I’m on break and it cost almost five hundred dollars for the long weekend with lift tickets and all. I don’t have it myself and I didn’t want to have to ask you for the money. And you know Mark’s family is not rich.”

“Where’d he get the extra money then?”

“He’s working extra shifts in the computer lab this month.” She sounded exasperated. “Could we get back to my coming out there?”

“Am I paying you enough for helping me out in the office?” I asked. “I know you’re only still a student and all, but—”

“The pay is just fine, Dad!”

I said nothing.

“You need me out there,” she said.

“We’ve got other clients to take care of,” I countered.

“Most of them can be put on hold, can’t they?”

“They’re not paying us to put them on hold, honey.”

“But Da-ad! Jake’s in trouble!”

Why do kids, especially grown kids, have this way of getting under our skin with the truth sometimes?

“All right. Listen, this is not some form of entertainment.”

“I know it’s not.”

“At least three people now may have already died over this situation out here.”

“But why would they arrest Jake? No way would he have shot Chester, not in a million years.”

I hoped she was right. Then again there was the not trivial matter of his rifle being used to commit the crime.

“You understand that, and I understand that. But the police don’t. They’re just following the evidence the way any investigator would. And right now the trail happens to be leading to Jake. The real question is why does someone want the police and the Feds to think Jake did it?”

“Maybe it’s these Ranger militia people.”

“Maybe. But I’ve got an idea it may be somebody else.”

“Who?”

“Can’t get into it over the phone.”

“Then when do you want me out there?”

“I’ll tell you what,” I said. “First thing I’m going to do is have another talk with Betty again after it gets light and she’s awake. I need to know more about what Chester might or might not have been doing with the Stonewall Rangers.”

“How about the vet who was killed?” she asked.