The Strategist (29 page)

CHAPTER 49

G
raham had pulled out his cell phone to call Brandt the moment he got into his car, but after five minutes of driving he still could not bring himself to dial.

Sullivan had really screwed him over this time. There was no way to anticipate that she would go so far as to follow him, but he still wanted to kick himself for allowing her to tail him for over ten miles without having the first clue that she was there. The truth was, he’d had his head so far up his ass during this entire investigation that Sullivan could have driven next to him with her siren blaring and he wouldn’t have even bothered to change lanes. He was now completely out of his depth, and because he had been too stubborn to admit that to himself, he was thoroughly outsmarted by a rookie charity case of a detective whose sole contribution to the department up to this point was filling the female quota. What was worse, she told him that she was going to report him to Internal Affairs if he didn’t leave Camille Grisham’s house, and he essentially let her get away with it. She threatened him and he cowered. And because he did, the inevitable shit-storm brought on by his confronting Davies would only be the beginning.

The irony was that very man he was deathly afraid to call was also the only man who could save him. Brandt could make Chloe Sullivan go away forever with one phone call; the same as he had done to Julia Leeds; the same as he could do to Graham if he wasn’t careful. The risk to himself was very real, but it was one he knew he had to take.

He had hesitated long enough. If he had any hope of salvaging this situation, the call had to be made. He may have screwed up in this particular instance, but he had scratched Brandt’s back plenty enough to warrant a favor. Once he realized how much it would be in his own self-interest to do so, the commander would certainly grant Graham’s request. The hard part was going to be asking.

He pulled into the parking lot of an elementary school that looked depressingly abandoned, and searched his phone for the contact O. BRANDT. Once he found it, he took the deepest breath of his life and hit ‘talk’. The commander picked up after four long rings.

“This is Oliver,” he said in a voice that was barely audible over the den of noise in the background.

“Graham. Can you talk, sir?”

“Hold on,” he said. After a few seconds, the background noise subsided. “We’re five minutes away from giving a press conference on Clemmons, so you’ll have to make it quick.”

Graham cleared his throat. “It’s about your guy.”

“What do you mean my guy?”

“You know exactly who I’m talking about. Officer Davies.”

“What about him?” Brandt asked with a deep sigh.

“Why did I just run into him in front of Camille Grisham’s house?”

Graham heard the commander’s throat catch. “I have no idea why he was outside of Camille Grisham’s house.”

“Of course you do. You sent him there, and because you didn’t want me to know that, you allowed that prick to slam the door in my face.”

“Jesus, are you still crying over that? Look, I’m sorry it happened, okay? I already talked to him about it. What else do you want me to say?”

“You can start by answering my original question.”

“The only reason why you would know that Davies was at Camille Grisham’s house was because you were there yourself. So why don’t you tell me what you were doing.”  

Graham fixed his stare on a row of swings on the school’s playground. One of them swung freely even though there was no breeze to speak of. “Following him.”

Brandt’s chuckle was peppered with nervousness. “That figures. You know what your problem has always been? You have no idea when to quit.”

“Maybe I could learn if you would just answer my question, commander.”

“I already answered your question when I told you
it was none of your business.”

“But it is my business, and it always has been. The problem now is that I’m not the only one who feels that way.”

“What do you mean?”

“Chloe was here too.”

“Unbelievable. As if confronting Officer Davies wasn’t stupid enough to begin with, you decided to complicate matters by bringing your partner along?”

“I didn’t bring her anywhere. She followed me.” He then told Brandt every cringe-worthy detail of the confrontation that ensued. Graham felt shame as he recounted the story. As he predicted
, the commander was not happy.

“You threatened her and Officer Davies? Are you kidding me?”

Graham was silent as he continued watching the swings. When the one that was moving abruptly stopped, his heart skipped a beat.

“You have got to be the biggest goddamned idiot I’ve ever met,” Brandt proclaimed, further rubbing salt in Graham’s ever deepening wound.

His cheeks suddenly felt hot and he could feel his pulse quicken. If anyone else had called him a goddamned idiot, they’d be spitting the dirt out of their mouth with bloody saliva. But this was Oliver Brandt, which meant he could say anything he damn well please, no matter how emasculating, and Graham had to take it.

“I can’t control her.”

“Well you certainly need to learn how to. What exactly does she know?”

“About Clemmons? Nothing. She’s been skeptical about him for the entire course of the investigation, but I planted enough doubt to keep her at bay. I’m fairly certain she’s on board with Camille Grisham’s story though.”

“And what does she know about your issues with Davies?”

“I don’t know. But it would be wise to assume that Chloe knows more than we think she does. And considering the fact that she threw the Internal Affairs card at me, you also need to assume that she will tell anybody who is willing to listen.”

“Jesus Christ. How did you handle her?”

“I walked away. What was I supposed to do?”

“And you left her at Camille Grisham’s house?”

Graham didn’t have a response. 

“I’ll take your silence as confirmation of your stupidity,” Brandt continued. “And because of that stupidity, we now have an unnecessarily complicated situation on our hands. Your partner is probably with Grisham as we speak, telling her God-knows-what. Meanwhile you’re probably parked on the side of the road somewhere, crying to me about how sorry you are that you panicked. How am I supposed to take that, Walter?”

“I don’t know, sir. Maybe you can start by helping me come up with a solution.”

“For your screw up?”

Graham could feel something inside of him begin to break and he suddenly didn’t care about Internal Affairs or the seven-year-old evidence tampering case against him that magically went away last week. He only cared about making Brandt sweat the same way he was. “You have my ass in a sling over this IA rap, but don’t forget, commander, I have your ass too, should it ever come down to that.”

Brandt chuckled again, but this time there was no nervousness behind it. “I really don’t think you want to go there, detective.”

“You’re right, I don’t. But this isn’t going to be a case of the deckhand going down with the Titanic. If I don’t get a lifeboat, everybody in the goddamn ship, the captain included, is going down with me. The only question is who Mr. Richmond would retaliate against first – you or me?”

Brandt was silent for a long time. “I’ll give you one thing, you can come up with the world’s most colorful threats. Unfortunately, I’m not the least bit moved by them. So I’ll come up with a colorful threat of my own. Handle Detective Sullivan, or her ratting you out to Internal Affairs will be the least of your worries. And unlike you, I actually have the ability to back up what I say.” He paused. “And don’t ever let Elliott Richmond’s name come out of your mouth again. Do I make myself clear?”

Brandt had made himself perfectly clear, but Graham wouldn’t allow himself to admit it. He lowered the phone, closed his eyes, and indulged in the thought of showing up at the Clemmons press conference, walking up to Brandt as he stood behind Chief Connolly like that lap dog that he was, and shooting him point blank in between the eyes. The thought made him smile in a way that actually frightened him.

It was with this smile on his face that Graham first felt the searing pain explode in his neck and tear down the left side of his body. Simultaneous to that was the feeling of liquid warmth filling his throat and chest. He didn’t actually gag until he saw the large splatter of bright red blood covering the front of his pastel dress shirt. His wife had picked out that awful shirt for him this morning, the same as she picked out his awful shirts every morning. She did it more out of habit than concern; she had stopped caring about him and his appearance a long time ago. He knew that she would be happy to not have to do it anymore.

As the rest of the world began to fade around him, the only sound he heard was Brandt’s voice. He tried to lift the phone up to his ear, but his arm felt heavy. As the phone fell helplessly into his lap, he saw a shape appear in his blurred peripheral vision. It could have been a man. Graham hoped with the last thought he could summon that it was an angel. He knew he had done nothing in his life to warrant such a blessing, but he held on to the thought as tightly as he could.

If it’s an angel, I’ll see light
.

Graham did see light. A flash from his periphery. It was orange and it was brief.

Then there was nothing.

CHAPTER 50

S
olomon unscrewed the suppressor from his Heckler and Koch and carefully holstered the gun in the small of his back. Then he reached inside the car and took the cell phone out of Detective Graham’s dead hand. The voice on the other end was speaking as if someone was still there to listen. When Solomon brought the phone up to his ear, he was nearly deafened by the yelling.

“I know you’re there Walter! I can hear you breathing! I’m only asking you one more time! Do I make myself clear?”

Solomon recognized the pseudo-tough voice of Oliver Brandt immediately. He almost couldn’t believe that he was hearing it. But with the way everything else had gone during the course of this job, it also made total sense.

“You make yourself perfectly clear, commander.”

“Walter?” Brandt asked, raising his voice to an almost comical level of intensity.

“Detective Graham is currently unavailable to finish this conversation,” Solomon answered sharply. “I’m taking over in his absence.” 

“What are you talking about?”

“The detective is dead.”

Brandt was silent.

“Are you there commander?”

“Davies? Is that you?” This time Brandt’s voice barely registered above a whisper.

“For the purposes of this conversation, Joseph Solomon will do just fine.”

A shallow breath was the only response Commander Brandt could offer.

“Seeing as I had to kill your friend in a very public place, I’m going to make this really quick,” Solomon continued. “The plan that I was sent here to carry out is officially out the window.”

“Why?”

“Detective Graham followed me to Camille Grisham’s house, apparently to confront me about what happened outside of your office. Unbeknownst to both of us, he brought Chloe Sullivan with him. The two of them get into it in the middle of the street and manage to pull me in before I can drive away. The whole time Graham is looking at me like he wants to break my skull open.” 

“I already know all of this.”

“Then you also know why I had to kill him.”

“You didn’t have to kill him,” Brandt cried, his once resonant voice beginning to crack. “There were a million other ways you could have handled the situation. Do you understand that he was a member of this department for over thirty years? You think Julia Leeds brought heat on us? Imagine what this is going to do. How could you be so unbelievably reckless?”

“He’s dead, commander. The how’s don’t really matter at this point. What does matter is that I had the perfect beat on Camille until your gopher boy’s stunt ruined it. By now I’m sure she’s been visited by Sullivan and they’re probably both on their way to headquarters where someone not corrupted by Richmond’s money is going to have another crack at that disk.”

Solomon heard something that sounded like a moan escape Brandt’s mouth when he tried to speak. “What exactly are you saying?”

“I’m saying there’s nothing I can do for you now. I’m saying that any real chance you had of getting that disk back is gone.”

“Bullshit. There has to be some way you can still get to her.”

“I’ve already done more than what was agreed to before I started his job, Brandt. I just killed a cop for Christ’s sake. As if that weren’t enough, you’re now asking me to hunt down another cop who is protecting the former FBI agent you also want dead? When you look at the scenario in its totality, I’m sure you can understand why it gives me pause, especially considering I’ve only gotten a fraction of the money owed to me.”

“Don’t talk to me about money. Just get that disk.”

“There’s no way that’s going to happen, not with the heat that’s already coming down on Richmond. It’s just a matter of time before that heat trickles down to you. As far as I’m concerned, the job is finished. Give me what I’m owed and that will be the end of it.”

“Damn it, that’s not the end of it. I hired you to retrieve that disk. The disk is not retrieved, so as far as I’m concerned, the job is not finished.”

“It’s only unfinished if you don’t give me my money.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“I know things about you and this department; things you desperately want to keep from the rest of the world. And I have absolutely no fear of exposing you, Connolly, Elliott Richmond, and every single one of the so-called police officers that you’ve recruited to your unit.
There is also the small matter of you being behind the wheel of Julia’s Range Rover the night of her murder. Given how sloppy you seem to be with everything else in your life, I’m sure you managed to leave something behind that the crime scene techs could find should they be persuaded to look. ”

Brandt laughed. “It would be a lot easier to commit suicide.”

Solomon hesitated before responding. “You’re probably right. How about I catch your son Jackson’s soccer match tonight instead? Of course you’ll miss all the fun, just like you miss every other important event in his life, because you’re too busy whoring yourself to Elliott Richmond. But I’m sure your wife will understand. If you want, I can give her a message of condolence from you.”

“You can threaten me all you want to, but don’t you dare threaten my family.”

“I don’t give a damn about your family, as long as you pay me.”

“What am I supposed to do about Camille Grisham?” Brandt asked after an extended silence.

“I don’t care anymore.”

“As long as you’re a member of this department, you should care.” Brandt was interrupted by chatter in the background. “Yes. I know. I’ll be right there,” he said in a muted voice. Then he spoke back into the phone. “I can’t talk about this now. The press conference is about to start.”

“My money,” Solomon said again.

“We’ll talk about it another time. I have to go.”

Solomon smiled to keep himself from exploding. “How about I just see you after the press conference, Oliver? We’ll settle it then. If the meeting doesn’t go well, I won’t even charge for the extra labor of killing you.”

The other end of the phone was silent and Solomon assumed that Brandt had hung up. But he was certain the message had been delivered.

He took out a handkerchief and wiped down the phone, lest he leave behind a stray whisker from his ever-thickening five o’clock shadow. He tossed the phone next to Graham’s dead body, took off his latex gloves and jogged across the parking lot to his cruiser. 

His next stop would be DPD headquarters. As frightening as Solomon’s threat may have sounded, Brandt probably didn’t expect him to make good on it. But Solomon had every intention of making good on it. No matter how much he may have wanted to finish the Leeds job, the situation was too far gone, and Solomon getting his hands on the disk wasn’t going to change that. If anything, going through with the plan would only make matters worse. He had never killed a cop before, and even though the uniform he wore was little more than an elaborate costume, it still felt like something of a betrayal. Now, if he wanted to get that disk, he would most likely have to kill three. That wasn’t a chance he was willing to take for any amount of money. It would be far easier to make Brandt disappear, keep the fee that he had already collected, and call it even.

Of course, Solomon hoped it wouldn’t come to that. Money or no money, all he wanted was for the entire ordeal to be over with. It had already been way more than he had bargained for, and if he wasn’t careful it had the potential to get worse.

As he got into his cruiser, he looked in the rearview mirror and spotted a familiar black Crown Victoria driving down the street adjacent to the school.

When the car suddenly stopped in the middle of the street, Solomon took out his binoculars to get a closer look.

It was then that he realized things were about to get much worse.