The Innocent (28 page)

LOREN'S FLIGHT WENT to Reno via Houston.

She had bought the ticket with her own money. She was taking a huge chance- the kind of chance that might indeed force her to leave her job and move out to someplace like New Mexico or Arizona- but the facts were there. Steinberg needed to play it more by the book. She understood that, agreed with it on some level.

But in the end she knew that this was the only way to go.

Yates, a powerful fed, was up to something.

Her suspicions first took flight when Yates abruptly turned nasty after leaving Len Friedman's house. He had suddenly pretended to be an irrational ass- not an unusual thing for a big-time federal agent, she knew- but it just didn't ring true. It seemed forced to her. Yates feigned control, but she sensed a panic there. You could almost smell it on him.

Yates clearly did not want her to see or talk to Olivia Hunter.

Why?

And when she thought about it, what had brought on that hissy fit in the first place? She remembered something that had happened in Friedman's basement- something that had seemed small and unimportant at the time. Yates had gone out of his way to steer the conversation away from what Rangor and Lemay used to do that Friedman had referred to as "worse" than telling on their clientele. At the time she'd just been annoyed by Yates's interruption. But then you add in the way he threw her off the case and you had…

Well, okay, you still had nothing.

After visiting Mother Katherine, Loren had called Yates's cell phone. She had not gotten an answer. She had tried Olivia Hunter's residence. No answer there either. And then a report came over the radio, about a murder in Irvington, in a tavern not far from where the Hunters lived. There was not much yet, but there was some talk about a huge man running down the street chasing a woman.

A huge man. Cal Dollinger, whom Yates said he was bringing with him to question Olivia Hunter, was a huge man.

Again, on its own it meant very little.

But add it to what she knew.

She'd called Steinberg then and asked, "Do you know where Yates is?"

"No."

"I do," she said. "I checked with my airport source." Newark Airport was, after all, in Essex County. The office had several contacts there. "He and that Goliath are on a plane heading to the Reno-Tahoe airport."

"And I care because?"

"I'd like to follow them," she said.

"Come again?"

"Yates is up to something."

She told Steinberg what she knew. She could almost see him frowning.

"So let me get this straight," her boss said. "You think that Yates is somehow involved in all this? Adam Yates, a decorated FBI agent. Wait, no, scratch that: a dedicated Special Agent in Charge, the top fed in Nevada. You base this on- A- his mood. B, that a big person might have been seen somewhere near but not even at a murder scene in Irvington. And C, that he's flying back to his home state. That about cover it?"

"You should have heard him playing good cop-bad cop, boss."

"Uh huh."

"He wanted me off the case and away from Olivia Hunter. I'm telling you: Yates is bad, boss. I know it."

"And you know what I'm going to say, right?"

Loren did. "Gather evidence."

"You got it."

"Do me one favor, boss."

"What?"

"Check on Yates's story about Rangor and Lemay turning state's witness."

"What about it?"

"See if it's true."

"What, you think he made that up?"

"Just check it."

He hesitated. "I doubt it'll do any good. I'm a county guy. That's RICO. They don't like to talk."

"Ask Joan Thurston then."

"She'll think I'm nuts."

"Doesn't she already?"

"Yeah, well, that's a point," he said. He cleared his throat. "One more thing."

"Yes, boss."

"You thinking of doing something stupid?"

"Who, me?"

"As your boss, you know I won't authorize anything. But if you're off the clock and I'm none the wiser…"

"Say no more."

She hung up. Loren knew that the answers were in Reno. Charles Talley worked at the Eager Beaver in Reno. Kimmy Dale did too. Now Yates and Dollinger were on their way there. So Loren made sure that she was off the clock. Then she booked a flight and rushed to the airport. Before she boarded, she made one more phone call. Len Friedman was still in his basement office.

"Hey," Friedman said. "Is this about getting me Candi Cane's autopsy?"

"It's yours, if you answer a few more questions. You said something about 'what goes on in Vegas stays in Vegas.' "

"Yes."

"When I asked if you meant that Clyde Rangor and Emma Lemay were telling on patrons, you said, 'Worse.' "

There was silence.

"What did you mean, Mr. Friedman?"

"It's just something I heard," he said.

"What?"

"That Rangor had a scheme going."

"You mean like a blackmail scheme?"

"Yeah, something like that."

He went quiet.

"How like that?" she asked.

"He made tapes."

"Of?"

"Of what you think."

"His clients having sex with women?"

Again there was a brief silence.

"Mr. Friedman?"

"Yes," he said. "But…"

"But what?"

"But"- his voice grew soft-"I'm not sure you'd call them women."

She frowned. "They were men?"

"No, not like that," Friedman said. "Look, I don't even know if it's true. People make stuff up all the time."

"And you think that's the case here?"

"I don't know, that's all I'm saying."

"But you heard rumors?"

"Yes."

"So what are these rumors?" Loren asked. "What did Rangor have on those tapes?"

MATT GOT OFF the plane and hurried out of the airport. Nobody stopped him. He felt a rush. He'd done it. He'd made it to Reno with hours to spare.

He grabbed a taxi. "488 Center Lane Drive."

They drove in silence. When they pulled up to the address, Matt stared out the window at the Eager Beaver. He paid the driver, got out, and headed inside.

Fitting, he thought to himself.

While he had not expected 488 Center Lane Drive to be a strip joint, he was not all that surprised either. Olivia was missing something in all of this. He understood that. He even understood why. She wanted to find her child. It had blinded her a bit. She couldn't see what was so obvious to him: This was about more than an adoption or even a scam to extort money.

It all came back to the pictures on his camera phone.

If you're the family with a sick daughter, you are not interested in making a husband jealous. If you're a lowlife crook after a big payday, you don't care about breaking up a marriage.

But this had to be about more than that. Matt wasn't sure what exactly, but he knew that it was something bad- something that made whoever was behind this want to drag them back to a place like this.

He headed inside and found a table in the corner. He looked around, hoping to see Olivia. He didn't. Three girls slowly undulated onstage. He tried to imagine his beautiful wife, the one who made everyone lucky enough to encounter her feel somehow blessed, up there like that. Oddly enough it wasn't that hard to picture. Rather than confusing him, something about Olivia's shocking confessions made it all click. It was why she had such a zest for things most found too ordinary, why she so badly wanted a family, a home, the life in the suburbs. She yearned for what we consider both our normalcy and our dream. He understood that better now. It made more sense to him.

That life. The life they were trying to make together. She was right: It was worth fighting for.

A waitress came by and Matt asked for coffee. He needed the caffeine fix. She brought it over. It was surprisingly good. He sipped it and watched the girls and tried to put some of the facts together. Nothing was really coming to him.

He stood and asked if there was a pay phone. The bouncer, a fat man with a pockmarked face, pointed with his thumb. Matt had a prepaid phone card. He always carried it- another holdover from what he'd learned in the pen, he guessed. The truth was, you could trace a phone card. You could find out where it came from and even who bought it. Eventually. Best example was when prosecutors traced a call made with a phone card in the Oklahoma bombing case. But it took time. It could be used to prosecute, but Matt wasn't worried about that anymore.

His cell phone was off. If you keep it on, there are ways to figure out where you are. Cell-phone tracking, even without making a call, is a reality. He pressed in the digits for the 800 number, then his code, then Midlife's private line at the office.

"Ike Kier."

"It's me."

"Don't say anything you don't want someone else to hear."

"Then you do the talking, Ike."

"Olivia is okay."

"Did they hold her?"

"No. She's, uh, gone."

That was good to hear. "And?"

"Hold on." He passed the phone.

"Hey, Matt."

It was Cingle.

"I talked to that investigator friend of yours. I hope you don't mind, but they had my ass over a barrel."

"That's okay."

"Nothing I said will hurt you anyway."

"Don't worry about it," he said.

Matt was looking off in the direction of the club's entrance. Cingle was telling him something else, something about Darrow and Talley, but there was a sudden rush in his ears.

Matt almost dropped the phone when he saw who'd just walked into the Eager Beaver.

It was Loren Muse.

Loren Muse flashed her badge at the fat guy at the door.

"I'm looking for one of your dancers. Her name is Kimmy Dale."

The fat man just stared at her.

"Did you hear me?"

"Yeah."

"So?"

"So your ID says New Jersey."

"I'm still a law enforcement officer."

The fat man shook his head. "You're out of your jurisdiction."

"What are you, a lawyer?"

The fat man pointed at her. "Good one. Bye, bye now."

"I said I'm looking for Kimmy Dale."

"And I said you have no jurisdiction here."

"You want me to bring someone more local?"

He shrugged. "If that gets you off, honey, do whatever."

"I can make trouble."

"This." The fat man smiled and pointed at his own face. "This is me scared."

Loren's cell phone rang. She took a step to the right. The music blared. She put the phone to her right ear and stuck a finger in her left. Her eyes squinted, as if that'd make the connection better.

"Hello?"

"I want to make a deal with you."

It was Matt Hunter.

"I'm listening."

"I surrender to you and only you. We go somewhere and wait until at least one in the morning."

"Why one in the morning?"

"Do you think I killed Darrow or Talley?"

"You're certainly wanted for questioning."

"I didn't ask you that. I asked you if you think I killed them."

She frowned. "No, Matt. I don't think you have anything to do with it. But I think your wife does. I know her real name. I know she's been hiding and running for a long time. I think that Max Darrow somehow figured out that she was still alive. I think they went after her and that somehow you got caught in the middle."

"Olivia is innocent."

"That," Loren said, "I'm not sure about."

"My deal still stands. I surrender to you. We go somewhere else and talk this out until one in the morning."

"Somewhere else? You don't even know where I am."

"Yeah," Matt said. "I know exactly where you are."

"How?"

She heard a click. Damn, he hung up. She was about to dial in for an immediate trace when she felt a tap on her shoulder. She turned and he was standing right there, as if he'd just materialized out of thin air.

"So," Matt said. "Was I smart to trust you?"

WHEN THE PLANE LANDED, Cal Dollinger took over. Yates was used to that. Most mistook Dollinger as the muscle and Yates as the brains. In truth theirs had always been closer to a more political partnership. Adam Yates was the candidate who stayed clean. Cal Dollinger was behind-the-scenes and willing to get nasty.

"Go ahead," Dollinger said. "Make the call."

Yates called Ted Stevens, the agent they had assigned to follow Olivia Hunter.

"Hey, Ted, you still on her?" Yates asked.

"I am at that."

"Where is she?"

"You're not going to believe this. Ms. Hunter got off the plane and headed straight to a strip joint called the Eager Beaver."

"She still there?"

"No, she left with a black stripper. I followed them back to some dump on the west side of town." Stevens gave him the address. Yates repeated it for Dollinger.

"So Olivia Hunter is still at the stripper's trailer," Yates asked.

"Yes."

"Anyone else with them?"

"Nope, just the two of them alone."

Yates looked at Dollinger. They had discussed how to handle this, how to get Stevens off the case and set it up for what was about to occur. "Okay, thanks, Ted, you can leave them now. Meet me at the Reno office in ten minutes."

"Someone else picking them up?" Stevens asked.

"Not necessary," Yates said.

"What's going on?"

"Olivia Hunter used to work the clubs for Comb-Over. We flipped her yesterday."

"She knows a lot?"

"She knows enough," Yates said.

"So what's she doing with the black chick?"

"Well, she promised us that she would try to convince a woman named Kimmy Dale, a black dancer who works at the Eager Beaver, to flip too. Hunter told us that Dale knows a ton. So we gave her rope, see if she was keeping her word."

"Which it looks like she is."

"Yeah."

"So we're in good shape."

Yates looked over at Dollinger. "As long as Comb-Over doesn't find out, yeah, I think we're in real good shape. I'll meet you at the office in ten minutes, Ted. We'll talk more."

Yates pressed the end button. They were in the concourse now, heading for the exit. He and Dollinger walked shoulder to shoulder, as they'd done since elementary school. They lived on the same block in Henderson, outside of Las Vegas. Their wives had been college roommates and were still inseparable. Dollinger's oldest son was best friends with Yates's daughter Anne. He drove her to school every morning.

"There has to be another way," Yates said.

"There isn't."

"We're crossing a line here, Cal."

"We've crossed lines before."

"Not like this."

"No, not like this," Cal agreed. "We have families."

"I know."

"You have to do the math. On one side, you have one person. Candace Potter, an ex-stripper, probably an old coked-out whore, who was involved with lowlifes like Clyde Rangor and Emma Lemay. That's on one side of the equation, right?"

Yates nodded, knowing how this would go.

"On the other side are two families. Two husbands, two wives, three kids of yours, two of mine. You and me, we may not be that innocent. But the rest of them are. So we end one ex-hooker's life, maybe two if I can't get her away from this Kimmy Dale- or we let seven other lives, worthy lives, get destroyed."

Yates kept his head down.

"Us or them," Dollinger said. "In this case, it's not even a close call."

"I should go with you."

"No. We need you to be at the office with Ted. You're creating our murder scenario. When Hunter's body is found, it will naturally look like a mob hit to keep an informant quiet."

They headed outside. Night had begun to settle in now.

"I'm sorry," Yates said.

"You've pulled my butt out of plenty of fires, Adam."

"There has to be another way," Yates said again. "Tell me there's another way."

"Go to the office," Dollinger said. "I'll call you when it's done."