Unseen (7 page)

Amanda breathed out a heavy sigh. “I think we can call Will a man, since he’s the only thing that stopped your detective from hammering a suspect to death. A second suspect, that is.”

Branson snapped, “You think so?”

Amanda made a calculated guess. “I gather that despite my orders to keep your people out of my crime scene, you ran fingerprints?”

Branson straightened her shoulders, as if bracing herself for a fight. She’d probably sent a team to Lena’s house the minute Amanda gave the order to lock it down. Will could only imagine the major’s rage when his GBI file popped up on her computer. He couldn’t blame the woman. Nobody liked realizing they’d been fooled.

“All right.” Amanda turned to Will. “Our turn to share. Run down your evening for the major, please.”

Will hadn’t been expecting to contribute, but he said, “Last night, I was approached by a contact I’ve been working as part of an undercover operation. He told me he needed a lookout on a house robbery. No violence involved, the occupants weren’t home. Obviously a lie on both counts. It looked like a good way to get inside the group, so I said yes.”

“You just happened to be in Macon?” Branson smirked when no one answered. “This contact got a name?”

Amanda supplied, “Anthony Dell.”

Branson didn’t acknowledge the answer. She prompted Will, “So, Dell said he had a job. What next?”

“We went to the job. Dell dropped me at the end of the street and told me to call on his cell if anyone approached. He drove down and parked in front of a house with a steep driveway. A light gray van was already parked on the street. Two males got out—I
assume Zachary and Lawrence. They entered the house. Dell stayed outside by the van. I didn’t see that they were armed, but I was about fifty yards away.”

“That’s half a football field,” Branson noted. “Did you get the plates on the van?”

“It was midnight.”

“Full moon.”

“No streetlights. All I could see from where I was standing were shadows.”

Branson kept studying him, like she was trying to suss out a lie. Finally, she said, “The Kia that Dell was driving was still on scene when our units rolled up.”

Will felt his stomach drop. He had forgotten all about Tony’s car.

Branson continued, “We woke Dell up at his house this morning. He seemed real shocked that his car was missing from his driveway. Wanted to file a stolen vehicle report ASAP. We checked him for gunshot residue, ran his sheet, which was packed with low-level bullshit—but I’m sure you know that.”

“You let him go?” Amanda asked.

“What am I gonna hold him on? You gotta witness puts him at the scene?”

Will saw Amanda’s nostrils flare.

Branson continued, “I noticed Dell’s car’s got a sticker on the windshield—Macon General employee parking. Now, that rang a bell for me, because we did an investigation last month on some pills missing from the hospital pharmacy. Never did get any solid leads, but I know the GBI gets a copy of all reports pertaining to the theft of controlled substances. I made a trip to the hospital this morning to check out Dell’s co-workers.” She asked Will, “How do you like your job at the hospital?”

Amanda managed to sound both irritated and bored. “Yes, Major, excellent work. Bully for you. Where is Dell’s Kia now?”

“It’s in our garage. You told us to seal the house, not the street.” She seemed to take great pleasure in telling Amanda, “I’ll make certain to share any relevant information with your department.”

“How kind. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” Branson turned her attention back to Will. “Two males went inside the house, you and Dell stayed in the street. What next?”

Will had to think a second before he could pick back up where he left off. “I heard the shotgun go off. I ran toward the house.”

“Half a football field away,” she noted. “And then?”

“Dell tried to stop me from going in. We struggled for a while. I don’t know how long, but he’s stronger than he looks, and he was obviously freaked out. Several more shots went off while we were fighting.”

Branson gave him the once-over. “You don’t look like you’ve been in a fight.”

“He was trying to stop me from going inside, not knock me out.”

“Nice guy.”

Will shrugged, but in the criminal world, Dell had been doing him a solid. He’d been trying to get Will to leave instead of running into a firestorm.

Will continued, “By the time I made it into the house, both men were neutralized. Lena Adams recognized me, or at least it seemed like she did. I got her to drop the hammer, then I went back outside. Dell was gone. The police were close by. I could hear the sirens. I went behind the house, jumped the fence into the woods, and walked away.”

Will tucked his hands into his pockets as he leaned against the window. Technically, he hadn’t walked, but they didn’t need to know that Will had bolted through those woods like the hounds of hell were at his back.

Branson asked, “Have you had any contact with Lena Adams since you and your partner investigated her a year and a half ago?”

Will told the truth. “Neither one of us has laid eyes on Lena since the investigation ended.”

“Have you talked to her since last night?”

Will shook his head, his mind flashing on the image of Lena’s face when he’d put his finger to his lips, told her to be quiet. She’d apparently taken it to heart.

Branson said, “I find it interesting that without any coordination, Detective Adams chose to maintain your cover.”

Faith pointed out, “It makes her look good, doesn’t it? Instead of Will stopping her from braining guy number two, she stops herself.”

Branson wasn’t about to publicly pile onto one of her officers. “I’ll put a BOLO on the gray van and get it out to the news stations.”

“Late model,” Will supplied. “Probably a Ford. No windows on the back or sides. Light gray, not dark.”

Branson took her BlackBerry out of her briefcase. “And nothing on the license plate, even though you were right up on it before you went into the house.” She started thumbing the information into an email.

Amanda asked, “You didn’t search for vehicles registered to Lawrence and Zachary?”

Branson kept typing. “Of course I did. They’ve both been living in the same trailer park off I-16. Zachary rides a Harley. Lawrence drives a truck. Both were parked outside their respective shitholes. Neither one of them have a gray van registered to their names.”

“They’re from Macon?”

“Born and raised.”

“Family been notified?”

“Lawrence has an ex who seemed real happy he was gone. Zachary has a brother waiting for the needle over in Holman. Killed a gas station attendant during a robbery. Murder runs in the family.”

“It usually does.” Amanda was obviously ready to end the meeting. “Looks like we’ve got work to do.” She turned to Faith, saying, “Priority number one when you get to Macon is talking to Lena Adams, making sure she knows to keep her mouth shut about Will. You’ll need to review her recent cases. I’m sure the major won’t mind another set of eyes on the good work her people have already done. Talk to Adams’s team, get some idea of what she’s been up to. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn she’s been working off-book. See if anyone will talk.”

Branson dropped her BlackBerry into her briefcase. “You’ll have to interview her at the hospital. She won’t leave Long’s side. Said we’d have to take her away in handcuffs.”

“That can be arranged,” Faith offered. She’d worked behind the scenes on the previous Lena investigation and couldn’t quite get past their inability to make the case stick. “Adams did attempt to murder a man.”

Branson glared at her. “Are you not familiar with the Castle Doctrine, Agent Mitchell? The state guarantees a citizen’s right to protect his or her home from an intruder. To my thinking, this episode is the very reason the law was passed in the first place.”

Faith couldn’t argue with the legalities, but she’d never been one to let go of a grudge. “Be that as it may, Major Branson, the way Lena Adams lives her life, she’s gonna end up looking out from the wrong side of a cell eventually.”

“I think the only thing Lena’s looking at right now is how to get her husband to wake up. We all feel that way. Jared Long is a good cop. So is Lena for that matter, and it worries me, Agent Mitchell, that you’re going into this thing thinking otherwise.”

Faith bristled. “I’ll go where the evidence leads me.”

“Regardless,” Amanda said. “We need to pin Lena down on protecting Will’s cover. There’s still a play to be made at that hospital, and given last night’s events, this just got a hell of a lot more dangerous. Major, I expect you’ll honor our request for confidentiality.
We’ve spent too much time on this thing to have it blow up in our faces.”

“This
thing
,” Branson echoed, giving careful weight to the words.

Amanda was silent. She wasn’t buying time; she was making Branson wait. For her part, Denise Branson looked ready to roll out a sleeping bag if that’s what it took.

Finally, after what felt like a full minute, Amanda said, “Will?”

He looked her in the eye, wondering how much she expected him to reveal. She made an open gesture with her hand, as if to say he should hold nothing back. Of course, what she indicated for Branson and what she actually meant were two different things.

Will carefully bent the truth. “Several days ago, we got a tip that a high roller was making a move into Macon. Street name is Big Whitey. We ran him through the system and got a ping out of Florida, but not much else.”

Branson asked, “Which part of Florida?”

“Sarasota.”

“You got a picture?”

Will hesitated a moment too long. Amanda made a great show of opening one of her desk drawers, pulling out a surveillance photo. She slid it across her desk, saying, “This was taken four years ago.”

Branson leaned over, making a point of studying the grainy image.

Will could describe the picture in his sleep. Big Whitey wore a Marlins baseball cap with the brim pulled low. His jacket was bulky, hardly what you’d expect in the Florida heat. Mirrored sunglasses wrapped around the top part of his face. His beard was dark and dense, showing very little skin. His hands were in his pockets. Big Whitey knew how to pose for a closed-circuit security camera. There was no way to tell how tall or short, white or not white, the man was.

Will explained, “Florida never laid eyes on him personally. This photo was taken off CCTV at a chicken joint on Tamiami Trail.”

Branson asked, “Florida’s sure this is Big Whitey?”

“One of the fry cooks gave him up. Said he recognized him from his local pill shop.”

“Gave him up for what?”

Will pointed to the photo. “About half a minute after that image was captured, Whitey stepped back from the camera, shot a cop in the head, and escaped through the back exit, where a car was waiting.”

Branson sounded dubious. “And Sarasota didn’t go balls to the wall looking for a cop killer?”

“The fry cook didn’t know much more than his street name. They were gonna go back at him the next day, but he was shot dead outside his house later that night.”

“Sarasota let their only material witness go home?”

“They didn’t know Whitey had made him, and they couldn’t legally hold the guy without cause.”

Amanda chimed in, “And Sarasota didn’t put the pieces together on Big Whitey until the FDLE came in and did it for them.” Her tone dripped with sarcasm as she needlessly explained, “The Florida Department of Law Enforcement works much like the GBI. They coordinate cases across county lines. They’re very good at providing the whole picture, the kind of details the local force is too myopic to register.”

Again, Branson took a moment before asking, “Do you have any more details on this Big Whitey?”

Will said, “Nothing recent. FDLE thinks he was originally ganged up with the Palmetto Street Rollers. They were a Miami-based group, mostly Cuban, some Caucasian. The FBI put membership around twenty thousand running up and down the East Coast.” Branson nodded, so Will continued, “The gang broke up into sets after some turf wars. Florida believes but isn’t certain that Big Whitey took over from Sarasota down to the Keys. We’re
guessing two years ago, he moved up the coast into Savannah and Hilton Head.”

“Guessing based on what?”

“Both Savannah and Hilton Head kept hearing his name come up. Snitches, mostly, but nothing concrete. At first, the locals thought he was an urban legend, a kind of go-to bogeyman. ‘Play it straight or Big Whitey will get you.’ ‘Wasn’t me, Officer, Big Whitey did it.’ ” Will added, “Savannah’s convinced he’s real, but Carolina disbanded the Hilton Head task force six months ago. Put the money on coastal trafficking instead, figured it was a wider net.”

“What persuaded Savannah that this Big Whitey’s not some kind of urban legend?” Branson obviously couldn’t resist adding, “Other than the excellent counter-myopic services of the great GBI?”

Will ignored the sarcasm. “They started to see a pattern. The junkies and cons were suddenly more sophisticated. Crime went up but prosecutions went down. The bad guys had more money for lawyers—usually the same lawyers from the same firms. Better cars, better clothes, bigger guns. Somebody took a bunch of low-level thugs and turned them into businessmen.”

“Ergo, Big Whitey is real,” Branson summed up. “All the bad guys in town played along?”

“Unless they wanted to end up face-down in the sand.” Will didn’t tell her that in their own way, many of the cops had played along, too. The detectives who didn’t request transfers asked for early retirement. “Most of the criminals complied. They didn’t become drug dealers to lose money.”

“And now you think Big Whitey’s trying to set up the same type of organization in Macon because you got a tip,” Branson concluded. “I’m assuming Whitey specializes in pills, which Tony Dell was swiping from the hospital pharmacy?”

Will said, “That’s a chunk of his business, but heroin is his end game. Whitey moves into the suburbs, branches out into the rich
white neighborhoods. They start with pills, he moves them into heroin.”

Branson asked, “How’d you target Dell in the first place?”