Dust Up: A Thriller (8 page)

One of them moved his hand to his gun, and they both looked to Warren. That alone was scary. Then Warren nodded and waved them out into the hallway.

I leaned forward and lowered my voice. “She said they were whistle-blowers.”

“What do you mean?”

“She said she and Ron had discovered some kind of criminal activity, high up at Energene. They were going to blow the whistle.”

“What kind of criminal acts?”

I sat back. “She didn’t say.”

He smirked. “She didn’t say, huh?”

“The gunmen showed up before she could tell me.”

“So why’d they come to you?”

I thought about it a second. “She said they were scared out of their minds and didn’t think they could trust the usual channels. They knew I had some history with this stuff, hoped they could trust me.”

He laughed. “They must’ve been out of their minds, all right. Sounds like bullshit, you know that, right?”

I shrugged. I couldn’t argue with that.

“She tell you anything else?”

I’d given him enough to look at Bourden and Energene. I didn’t want to get him any closer until I had a better idea of what was going on.

I shook my head. “No.”

*   *   *

On my way back to the Roundhouse, I called Nola at work.

“Busy?”

“A little.” I could hear people talking in the background. “What’s up?”

“Just had a visit from Miriam Hartwell.”

“What?! Hold on.” The background noise fell away as she moved somewhere quieter. “Are you serious? Did she confess?”

I laughed wearily. “Not exactly.”

I told her the highlights of what Miriam had told me, about Ron’s suspicions that people were getting sick from Energene’s soy.

“So she thinks someone from Energene shot Ron?”

“That’s what she thinks. Have you ever heard of anything like that? People having allergic reactions to genetically modified stuff like that?”

“Sure. That was one of the big early concerns about GMOs. Some people worry that if you’re allergic to spinach, you could unknowingly eat broccoli spliced with spinach genes and have a reaction. Some people even think there’s a link between genetically engineered foods and increases in food allergies overall.”

“Really?”

“One of the first GMO crops, StarLink corn, was only approved for animal consumption because there were concerns it might be allergenic. When it got accidently mixed into the human food supply, some people did have reactions. There were huge recalls and lawsuits, and eventually, they pulled it all from the market. It’s controversial, though. I don’t know if any of it has ever been proven, but there’s definitely science to suggest it’s possible.”

“Huh.” Ron’s theory was at least plausible.

“Okay, I have to get back to work. So did they charge her? Does she have a lawyer?”

I laughed.

“What?”

“No, they didn’t.” I didn’t want to tell her about the shooting. “She took off again.”

21

Lieutenant Suarez looked up when I walked into his office, but he didn’t say anything, instead just motioning for me to sit in one of the two chairs facing his desk. He was staring at his computer screen and tapping at the keyboard, but I got the distinct impression that he was doing it randomly. He left me sitting there squirming for two minutes.

His phone buzzed, and he picked it up. “Yes?… All right, send them up.” He let out a sigh as he put the phone down, waiting a few more moments before looking at me.

“Carrick,” he said, as if my name was rich with many meanings, and none of them were good. “Warren got me up to speed. So this is you walking away from it?”

“I did walk away from it. I was literally walking away from it when it drove up next to me and asked me to get in the car. What was I going to do, say no?”

“Well, this might be news to you, but as a police officer, when you see a wanted felon, you should arrest that felon.”

“I would have,” I said, not sure how boldly I was lying. “But I wanted to hear what she had to say first. Frankly, I wasn’t expecting to be ambushed by gunmen. And neither was she.”

“Yeah, that’s another thing. You’re ambushed by gunmen as you say, and you don’t return fire? I’m not saying that’s a bad move, but very un-Carrick-like.”

“We were across the street from a school, and I didn’t want to risk endangering the students.”

He nodded, hearing me but not accepting it. “Well, you wanted to be involved in the case, you’re involved in the case.”

He looked over my shoulder and said, “Gentlemen, come on in.”

I turned around to see Tom Royce, Bourden’s security chief. Next to him was another man whose thin, angular face looked vaguely familiar.

“I believe you know Tom Royce, from Energene,” Suarez said without looking at anybody. “This is his assistant, Morris Divock.”

Royce gave me a withering stare that said he didn’t like this any more than I did. “The good people at Energene have suspicions that Ron and Miriam Hartwell may have been engaged in corporate espionage. They and their friends at the Justice Department have asked for our help determining if that’s the case and, if possible, recovering anything that was stolen. As they are cooperating with our investigation, we have been asked to cooperate with theirs.”

I gave a polite nod.

Then Suarez said, “That cooperation will take the form of you, Detective Carrick.”

My head whipped around.

Suarez was smiling at me. It wasn’t a nice smile. “We’re fortunate that we have someone so familiar with the case and yet completely nonessential to it. For the next couple of days, I want you to share with these gentlemen all aspects of our official investigation. You can start by taking them back to the Liberty Motel and walking them through what happened.”

“Lieutenant—”

He cut me off, cocking an eye at me. “They don’t know the city well, so you’ll be their official guide. And since I know you haven’t had a chance to write up reports on your conversations with Ron Hartwell’s mom, his brother, and his building super, you will accompany Mr. Royce and Mr. Divock on follow-up interviews. And then you can write all of it up for the case file. Is that understood?”

“But—”

He held up a hand. “I know how badly you want to help this investigation, Detective Carrick, so I know you will appreciate how important it is that those officially tasked with solving the case can concentrate on the job at hand.”

22

I felt better about not telling Warren everything Miriam had said about Energene now that we were sharing everything with Royce and Divock. I wondered how much they knew about what was going on in Haiti. Or about who had killed Ron Hartwell.

“Suarez said you guys weren’t from around here,” I said from the backseat in a fake cheerful tone. I don’t like being in a car that I’m not driving. And I really don’t like sitting in the backseat, especially not behind Royce’s bright red ears and neck. It helped that every time I asked a question, he got redder. “Where are you from?”

Neither of them moved, but I got the feeling a look had been exchanged.

Royce let out a sigh. “Chicago.”

“How long have you been in Philly?”

“Couple weeks.”

“They move you around a lot?”

“As much as they need to.”

“Must be nice. Traveling around the world all the time.”

Divock looked at me in the rearview. Royce didn’t respond at all, except for a deepening redness in his neck and ears.

“So what do you think Ron Hartwell might have stolen?” I asked.

Divock kept his eyes on the road. Royce turned to look at me, then turned back without a word.

I shrugged. “Be easier to help you if I know what you think he took.”

“It’s a shame you weren’t helping us earlier. It would have been a lot easier if you’d arrested Miriam Hartwell when you had the chance.” He took a deep breath and let it out. “We don’t know what he took. Information.” He turned in his seat to look at me again. “Did she say anything to you about it? Did she tell you anything at all?”

“No.” I looked back at him blankly. “She said she didn’t kill her husband and she didn’t know who did. Or why. Before I could press her on it, the gunmen showed up.”

His eyes lingered on me, his sneer letting me know he didn’t like me, didn’t believe me.

“What kind of stuff was Hartwell working on, anyway?” I asked.

“It’s secret.”

“Oh, you can tell me. I’m a cop.”

“It’s technical,” he said. “You wouldn’t understand.”

“Miriam said he was working on some new genetically modified soybean.” Seemed pretty straightforward to me.

Royce didn’t say anything.

“She said they were in Haiti a few weeks back. You guys ever been there?”

“Once or twice,” Royce said without turning around.

“Really? What was going on there?”

He turned his head just enough to see me, but he didn’t answer. I understood, too—I was starting to get on my own nerves. We drove the rest of the way in silence.

23

The dog was back at the fence in the lot next to the Liberty Motel. He didn’t look at me as we got out of the car, and at first, I took it personally. Then I realized he was probably put off by the assholes I was with. I wanted to explain to him that I had no choice, but he turned and walked away again.

The kid from the front desk was sitting on the front steps, a set of earbuds connecting him to the smartphone that had so narrowly escaped being shot. He plucked one of the buds as we walked up.

“You the police?” he asked as we walked up.

“I am,” I said. “These two are just … participating in the investigation.”

He nodded. “They said I had to wait until you guys were done before I could take down the tape and reopen the motel.”

“What’s your name?”

“Gerald Toyner.”

I inclined my head toward the door behind him. “Anybody still in there?”

“Psh!” He laughed. “You kidding? With these motherfuckers stomping all over? That scared more people away than the bullets did. Folks cleared out before we even asked them. Would’ve been gone quicker if they didn’t have to stop to make up fake names and contact info for Officer Po Po standing by the front door.”

“We want to take a look inside,” Royce said.

Gerald looked at me, and I nodded. He heaved himself off the steps and got out of our way, then followed behind us.

I pulled down the crime scene tape and let the three of them precede me. Royce and Divock recoiled at the smell of the hallway.

“Jesus,” said Royce, turning to glare at Gerald, as if the smell was his fault. The weed part might have been.

I pointed at the ruined sound system behind the desk. “How’d that happen?”

The kid shook his head at the tragedy of it. “I told the other cop about it. Motherfucker comes in, shoots it. No good reason, just that kind of motherfucker, I guess. Then he points the gun at me, big thing with a silencer making it look even bigger. He says, ‘Where’s the Asian girl in the wig?’ I fucking told him, man. He heads up the steps, I took off out the front door.”

“What’d he look like?” I said.

“About thirty.” He shrugged. “White-guy asshole in a suit.” He turned to Royce and Divock. “No offense.”

Royce’s neck maintained a steady tone, so I don’t think he was too offended. Oh, well.

We walked up the steps to the hallway. It seemed longer than before. At the far end, the door to Miriam’s room was open. In the light spilling through it, I could see the cuffs lying open on the carpet.

Royce looked at them and then at me, disapprovingly, as we stepped over them and into the room.

It looked the same as before except the table was bare, Miriam Hartwell’s shopping bags now locked in an evidence locker.

Royce and Divock looked around the room, then at each other, then at me.

“Okay, so what happened in here?” Royce asked, folding his arms.

I sat in the wooden chair next to the table and waved them toward the bed. “Have a seat,” I said, waiting as they slowly settled their butts onto the filthy bed.

I left out more than I kept in. I said she was scared and that she said she was innocent. When I added in that she thought someone was following her, Divock glanced at Royce. “Before she could tell me anything else, company showed up.”

“And how did that go down?”

I told them the basics.

“So how did you fuck up with the cuffs?” Divock asked. I think it was the first time he’d spoken. “Forget to click them or something?”

I had no idea how he got out of the cuffs. I was about to tell him there were a variety of ways he could have got out of them, with or without a key. Instead, I said, “Click them? I didn’t know you had to click them. What I do is swing them gently almost shut and make him promise to hold his wrists together.”

I could hear Gerald snickering down the hallway.

“Don’t be an asshole,” Royce snapped, although I couldn’t be sure if it was directed at me or at Divock. “Obviously you fucked something up. Otherwise he wouldn’t have gotten away, right?”

I looked at my watch, thinking I should go before I made the transition from smartass to dumbass and said something I’d regret. “We done here?”

24

Royce and Divock were ready to quit at five o’clock. I was ready, too, but I wasn’t done yet. I hadn’t learned anything much from them—certainly nothing to make me discount Miriam’s suspicions about Energene. I confirmed they were assholes, but I’d known that already.

The plan was to pick Nola’s brain a little more about Energene over a quick dinner, then do a little more background work on the case.

But as I pulled up outside the house, I sensed something wrong. The windows were open, and as I walked up the front steps, I heard laughter. Tipsy laughter.

I opened the door and saw Nola sitting on the sofa with Laura Tennison, an almost empty bottle of wine in front of them. That’s when I remembered the horrible truth.

We had a houseguest.

My heart sank, but Nola seemed relaxed, like she was having fun.

I said hi and sat across from them. Nola asked me about my day, and I told her a little more about Miriam Hartwell and the Liberty Motel. I played up the part about the dog, added the part about going back there with Royce and Divock, and left out the part about the shooting. I could feel my stress sucking some of the levity out of the room, so I was relieved when Laura launched into a story about something vaguely similar that had happened to Danny. I knew the story, and she left out the funny, relevant, and important parts, but the two of them laughed uproariously at what was left.