“It wouldn’t require much. Just put the story out there, make a little bit of an effort. If that’s enough to get her insider off the hook, maybe it’s worth doing.”
“You’re serious, sir?”
He grips the wheel thoughtfully. “I think I am. That girl, I like her spunk. She’s putting it on the line and I don’t feel like disrespectin’ that, not if we don’t have to.”
“I’d rather know whose murder I’m really investigating.”
“You’re a detective, March. Go find out.”
The file feels heavy in my hand. Bending the rules doesn’t bother me, and in a good cause I don’t mind a little trouble, but I can’t think when I’ve ever been in a situation like this. It doesn’t feel right.
“What do I tell Lorenz?” I ask. “What do I tell the captain?”
He sighs. “Listen here. I wasn’t gonna say nothing, but since keeping secrets is the order of the day. The captain’s turning in his papers.”
“What?”
“You remember last year, during the runoff elections? He got sucked into the politics and started making alliances. Well, Drew Hedges is a good man, but he’s no kind of politician. What he did is, he alienated a lot of people. Burned himself good. And the result is, his job is up for grabs. There’s a shakeup coming, and he’s out. That’s all there is to it.”
“Hedges is out? But he’s a cop’s cop.”
“Between you and me, he’s ready. He told me after Ordway’s retirement party that he felt like a dinosaur, and if he was never moving up, then what was keeping him from moving out?”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“That’s the job. It got to him.”
“So what does this mean?” I can hardly keep up, hardly process it all. “Who’s moving into his office-you?”
He gives a mirthless laugh. “That what you think? No, man, it’s not gonna be me. Maybe when Lee Brown was still mayor. . but no. I don’t have no idea. All I can tell you is, you need to ready yourself. And don’t dump any of this on the captain now. He doesn’t need the headache.”
The sun beats down on us the whole drive back. I can feel myself getting hotter and hotter. Maybe the air-conditioning’s giving out. Maybe the ozone up above is spread particularly thin. Or maybe I’m out of my depth for once, not sure what I’m about to get myself into. A man’s life is at stake, Bea said, and for me that’s new territory. Avenging the dead is my job. With this new mission I don’t know where to begin.
And now the ground underneath me isn’t solid anymore. Hedges gave me a second chance when everybody else-Bascombe included-wanted to kick me to the curb. One thing I never imagined was that I’d outlast Drew Hedges in Homicide.
CHAPTER 5
The file from Bea Kuykendahl’s office rests in my battered leather briefcase along with my old Filofax, a couple of digital audio recorders, a camera, some cuffs, a spare mag, and a mess of loose pens and paper clips and plug-in chargers. When I reach my desk, I transfer the file to a locked drawer for safekeeping, then hang my sport coat-an unlined, lightweight hand-me-down from my wife’s father-on the back of my ergonomic chair.
Lorenz pops over the cubicle wall, a satisfied grin on his face.
“What?” I ask.
“Take a guess.”
“Come on, Jerry.”
He produces a stack of paper from behind his back. “While you’ve been off doing whatever it is you do, I’ve got a name for JD. The match came back a half hour ago, and I’ve been doing some research. Guy’s name is Brandon Ford. Age thirty-four, six-foot-one, and there’s a Houston address. And guess what he does for a living. No? He’s a gun dealer.”
I take the printouts from his hand, flipping through the pages. Agent Kuykendahl is sure making this easy. But what kind of strings do you have to pull to seed the criminal database with false information? I wouldn’t have credited her with having this kind of pull. And if she does, what was the point of bringing me into the picture? Handing the stack of pages back, I sink into my chair.
“Don’t get too comfortable,” he says. “We need to get moving on this. I found a number for the victim’s ex-wife, so we can start with the death notification.”
“Right.”
But there won’t be an ex-wife, of course. Brandon Ford only exists on paper. That’s why Bea Kuykendahl needed to clue me in. She realized that with a little digging, we’d discover soon enough that we were investigating a lie.
“You ready to roll?” he asks.
“I just got here.”
“What’s the deal? You don’t seem too jazzed about the big break. Yesterday we had nothing and now-”
“Okay, okay. Just give me a second and I’ll catch up.”
While he grabs his gear, I head to Bascombe’s office to let him know what’s going on. The computer match doesn’t sit right with me. The more I contemplate the matter, the less I believe a special agent in the Houston field office can snap her fingers and make something like that happen. Whatever’s going on, I know Bea wasn’t straight with us this morning.
The lieutenant’s office is empty. I ask around, and one of the new detectives points in the direction of the captain’s door. The blinds are shut, so I approach with caution, tapping lightly on the doorframe. No answer.
Just leave it.
I turn to go. Heading out, I see Hedges coming from the break room with a steaming mug of coffee in hand. He gazes at his feet like he’s afraid of tripping or possibly lost in thought. Based on the news Bascombe shared, I’m sure he is. As I pass, I’m almost afraid to interrupt.
“Sir?” I ask.
He pauses, steadying his mug with his free hand.
“I’m looking for the lieutenant. He’s not with you?”
Stupid question. He glances side to side and cracks a halfhearted smile. “I don’t see him. Do you?”
“Never mind.”
“Is everything all right?” he asks.
I should be asking him the same question. “Fine, sir.”
I get a few steps away, then he stops me. “Hey, March, you sure you’re okay? You’re walking kind of funny.”
“It’s nothing,” I say. “I must have twisted something the other night when I took that spill.”
“Get it looked at,” he says, turning away.
All during the runoff election last year, he’d been an absentee boss, present in body but absent in spirit. Things got better, but never back to normal. Now there’s a hollowness to him I don’t like to see. Maybe it’s just knowing that he’s not long for the job.
“I’ll do that, sir,” I say. “Thank you.”
His eyebrows raise a twitch at the thanks, but he doesn’t say more. He heads back to his shuttered office as I run to catch up with Lorenz.
The sign pushed into the grass in front of Brandon Ford’s house says FOR SALE, so the first thing Lorenz does is snatch a flyer from the plastic dispenser. The address has taken us all the way out to Katy, to a neighborhood offering LUXURY LIVING STARTING IN THE 300s, so new it could have been thrown up overnight. The brick-fronted houses squat massively on their lots, their wide concrete drives free of cracks and unspotted by grease. Instead of the typical suburban grid, they hunch beside gently curving streets arranged concentrically around a man-made lake. I see ducks swimming out there, and a spout of water that shoots up thirty feet.
“Price is a little high,” Lorenz says, handing me the flyer. “But at least there’s a pool.”
To my surprise, the flyer gives the construction date as four years ago. In all that time, the surrounding properties have managed to stay pristine. Only half the houses along the road yield signs of habitation-a freshly waxed Tahoe, some abandoned toys, a yard card in the shape of a soccer ball giving the jersey number of the child within. One or two in addition to Ford’s have Realtor signs, and even some that don’t sport the empty drives and naked aluminum windows of homes completed but never occupied.
We walk to the front door, peering inside through the unobstructed side window. Past the carpeted stairway, there’s a high-ceilinged great room with a gas fireplace and rustic-looking twisted iron chandelier and French doors that open onto the back patio. There’s no furniture inside, no decoration on the towering walls.