“Felicia…”
Darren’s wife looked at him with eyes that asked why?, and to her son with the same… The pictures!
“Mom…”
Felicia ran to the spot where her son was doubled over and pushed him away, her hands frantically searching the pile of broken glass and mangled photos for… “Tanya.”
Darren watched his wife pull the picture of their little girl to her chest as she rocked back and forth on her knees. “My baby. Tanya, my baby.”
Moises slid backward away from his mother, blood trickling from his lip and leaving a trail of red splotches on the hardwood floor.
“Honey,” Darren said softly as he knelt down next to his wife. He placed a hand on her shoulder, which she recoiled from instantly.
“How dare you two do this!” Felicia practically spat out the words. “How dare you!”
Moises continued sliding away, the venom in his mother’s stare hastening his withdrawal toward the door.
“Sweetheart, please, I’m sorry,” Darren begged.
“This family is half dead already, and you two are trying to kill the rest.” She looked to her son, his eyes fearful yet unflinching. He rose up from the floor and opened the front door without looking, disappearing into the night with only the sound of running feet across the porch as an explanation.
Darren, his eyes now brimming, felt weak and small as his wife’s stare focused entirely on him. “I’m so sorry. Please…”
“I’ve lost just about everything, Darren,” Felicia said with a sorrow so profound it seemed almost too much for one person to bear. It almost had been. “I don’t want to lose you and Moises. That just can’t happen. It can’t.”
Darren pulled his wife gently into his arms, the picture of their little girl between them. “I won’t let it, sweetheart,” he promised, knowing that would be easier said than done. But it had to be said, for Felicia’s sake. “I won’t let it.”
Mile four. A month before this was the point when that steely fist would start socking him in the gut, but Art Jefferson now felt that reminder of his distance ability around mile six.
But he was able to run, to make it this far, which was a miracle to some considering his physical and emotional state just two years earlier. His daily eight-mile jogs had strengthened him in both respects. Muscles were leaner and more powerful. The heart was as good as it had ever been. And his mind, free to wander during the hour-long workout, was crisp, recharged by the solitude and the accomplishment of simply being alive.
He moved through the nearly deserted residential streets near his town house, the occasional face peering at him from behind the large bay windows common to homes in the upscale neighborhood. A black man running at night? Here? Art didn’t let the ignorance bother him as much as it had the first time he’d been stopped by a police car after a “concerned” citizen had reported “suspicious activity.” The cops were apologetic. They were only responding to a call, after all, and they had quite forcefully informed that concerned citizen that the man running past her half-million-dollar home was an FBI agent. End of the problem with her. But there would be others. There would always be others.
Still, he cherished his runs, which he sometimes took early in the morning. The present situation, though, dictated longer days, and he and Frankie had worked out a semi split schedule so that one of them would be on duty during most of every day. She took late mornings mostly, which gave her the time to see her little girl and drop her at kindergarten before hitting the office at ten. Her mother would then pick Cassie up and sit with her until Frankie got home between midnight and one. Art usually took the six A.M. to eight P.M. part of the day, leaving time for his runs in the evening, and some for Anne.
But, being honest with himself, it was the running he was thinking of at the moment. Not Anne. Not the investigation. Just running. He was even thinking of entering a charity ten-mile run in a couple of months. The competition interested him somewhat, but it was the thought of finishing a ten-mile run that was his motivation. Crossing that line as everyone watched, whether he was in first place or last.
Mile seven. Still feeling strong. Not winded yet. The sound of the Eagles’ “Peaceful Easy Feeling” soothing him through the headphones. A little more than five thousand feet to — Shit!
Art did the runner’s equivalent of slamming on the brakes as the familiar Chevy pulled around from his left and cut him off using felony stop procedures.
“Dammit, Frankie!” Art cursed his partner as she stepped from the driver’s side of the car. “You scared the shit out of me!”
“There was no answer at your place, so I figured you’d be doing some roadwork,” Frankie explained. “This couldn’t wait.”
Art bent over to catch his breath, robbed by the instant excitement and not the exertion. “What is it?”
“Jacobs got something on the gun Allen had.”
Art stood straight now. “What?”
“The test bullets he fired and sampled came from one of the three guns used in the Saint Anthony’s shooting.”
“What?” Art wondered, the word spoken slowly.
“It was one of the guns,” Frankie said. “Jacobs says he’s one hundred percent positive on the match.”
“Allen? Working with the AVO in that shooting?”
“That was my first reaction,” Frankie said. “If that’s true then the prosecutors were missing some big pieces of that case.”
“So was Thom,” Art added. Danbrook hadn’t reported any connection between the AVO and the Aryan Brotherhood.
“Maybe Barrish and his group were more careful than we thought,” Frankie suggested.
“The Brotherhood and Barrish?” Art asked, looking skyward as he caught his breath. “Hart never even hinted that Allen knew Barrish.” Chester Hart, an Aryan Brotherhood member serving time in Folsom State Prison, had been feeding the Bureau information on Freddy Allen in hopes of favorable consideration on outstanding charges. Little had been of use, and none of what he’d offered had even hinted at this development.
“Maybe it wasn’t an AB thing,” Frankie said. Behind her partner the porch lights of several houses were going on.
Freelancing. It was a possibility, but he would not have attached this new development to that theory in a million years. “Allen offering himself up to Barrish?”
“Or maybe he was recruited,” Frankie offered alternately.
“If Allen was in on Saint Anthony’s then that means he was hooked up with Barrish somehow,” Art observed. Both he and Frankie knew that, despite what the court said, John Barrish was as responsible for the Saint Anthony’s massacre as the never-identified triggermen. With the gun Allen had on him now, though, at least one identification, for what it was worth, seemed possible. As did one other thing. “Barrish could be mixed up in this.”
“But he was in detention until just a few days ago,” Frankie reminded her partner.
“That hasn’t stopped bigger creeps from doing bad things,” Art said. He leaned on the Chevy’s roof as the impromptu session of hashing the possibilities played out in the middle of the street. “But this won’t be easy to dig into.”
“Why not?”
“Barrish is fresh from having federal charges dropped against him,” Art explained. “All we have with this is a possible link between Allen and a crime that John Barrish was technically found innocent of.”
“In a pig’s eye,” Frankie said.
“Look, partner, you and I both know the man is guilty.” Danbrook’s recounting of the conversations with Barrish was enough to convince Art of that. If only his damn gun hadn’t jammed, Art thought, Thom might be alive and John Barrish would definitely be behind bars for good. “But without some legal connection to Saint Anthony’s this Allen link is phantom incrimination.”