I was standing in the kitchen and slid onto one of the stools. “Why me?”
I heard her breathing, deciding what to say. “Troy said that since we don’t know what’s wrong with you or how stable you are right now, we can’t evaluate the risk of keeping you in the loop. I’m sorry, Jack.”
I was scared I had a brain tumor or a fatal disease. Troy just thought I was crazy. I wasn’t sure which was worse. I didn’t know what to say, so I didn’t say anything.
“You still there, Jack?” Ammara asked.
“Yeah, I’m here. Listen, we never had this conversation, okay?”
“Sure. Take care of yourself.”
Troy had pushed me to do the right thing, to take myself out, to get help. If I’d been shot or run over or just had a bad cold, he would have told me the same thing. If I had refused, he would have passed it off as admirable stubbornness and devotion to the job. Instead, when he found me shaking uncontrollably under the tree in Marcellus’s backyard, he saw a security risk, someone no longer to be trusted.
Troy couldn’t let go of the possibility that someone on our squad or close to it had leaked the existence of the surveillance camera to whoever was responsible for the murders. If he were right, he wouldn’t trust anyone, least of all me.
I spun Troy’s scenario until it snagged on something I had felt but not been able to pin down since I first saw the cash lying on the ground. I’d caught a glimpse of someone running away from the scene, vaguely familiar but not clear enough to identify in the dark.
Colby Hudson fit the profile, as did thousands of other men in Kansas City. Except Colby had shown up in the morning looking like he’d run a marathon in the storm after having an unauthorized, unsupervised, unrecorded meeting with Javy Ordonez at the same time five people were executed, possibly on Javy’s instructions.
I went over the timing in my mind, suddenly realizing that I had been wrong when I told Colby that he was Javy’s alibi, a statement Colby hadn’t denied. Colby had said that Javy learned about the murders a couple of hours after they happened while the two of them were at an after-hours club. I was in Marcellus’s backyard less than an hour after the shootings. Colby could have been the person I had seen running away and still made it to his meeting with Javy. He could even have been the person who told Javy that Marcellus was dead. If so, there was only one way he could have known that.
I worried that my suspicions were feeding off my feelings about Colby’s relationship with Wendy and Troy’s leak paranoia. I didn’t like it, but that didn’t mean I was wrong. If I was right, Wendy could be caught in the middle. I called her, treading softly.
“Buy you dinner?”
“Dad, are you okay? Colby said you weren’t feeling well.”
In spite of everything that had happened, Wendy was still my girl and I was still her dad. I felt it every time we talked.
“I thought you guys didn’t talk about me.”
“Says who?”
“Says Colby. What else did he tell you?”
“Just that you were shaking a lot. What’s going on?”
“Probably nothing. I’m taking some time off until I get it checked out. How about dinner? I’m buying.”
“Sorry, Dad. I can’t make it. Colby is thinking about buying a new house. He wants me to go look at it tonight.”
“A new house? Really. Where?”
“In Lions Gate. He says he can get a good deal on it.”
“He better. There’s nothing in there for less than three-quarters of a million. Where’s he getting that kind of money?”
“He’s made some good investments and he’s getting a good deal on it.”
I hoped that he’d bought stock in Google when it was cheap. I didn’t care how good a deal he was getting or where he found the money as long as the deal was clean.
“Well, good for him. Listen, I’m taking a few days off. How about lunch tomorrow?”
“Dad, I haven’t eaten lunch since I started this job last spring, you know that. Are you sure you’re okay?”
No commodity traders or their assistants ate lunch while the market was open. After a week on the job, Wendy told me she liked the chaotic atmosphere of fortunes being made and lost in a split second, saying it was like walking a tightrope with your eyes closed, “sort of like living with you and Mom.” She specialized in dark humor that made her hurt as much as it made her laugh. She was living proof of the old saw that what didn’t kill you made you stronger.
“I’m sure I’m okay. Sorry, honey. We hardly get to see one another. I’ve got the time for a change and thought I’d give it a try.”
“I could do an early breakfast.”
“Great. How about seven-thirty at Classic Cup on the Plaza?”
“Perfect.”
“Have you talked to your mother lately?”
“Are you kidding? At least three times today and it’s still light out.”
“Did you tell her anything?”
“About what?”
“About what Colby said. You know, about me shaking.”
“She asked about you so I told her. I didn’t think it was a secret.”
“I didn’t say it was a secret, sweetheart.”
Wendy let out an exasperated sigh. “You two are amazing. You’re going to screw up being divorced as much as you screwed up being married. You’re perfect for each other.”
“Yeah. A match made in heaven. Listen, instead of breakfast, maybe you, Colby, and I can have dinner tomorrow night.”
“Are you sure?”
“Absolutely.”
“I’ll check with him. I’d like that.”
I had never asked Wendy to bring Colby anywhere, including to dinner. She couldn’t keep the happiness out of her voice. I was glad that she didn’t ask me why I had made the invitation. She wouldn’t have liked the reasons.
Chapter Thirteen
With Troy’s gag order, I was reduced to relying on the media to keep up with my case. I knew that press coverage was often sketchy and slanted, whipsawed by selective leaks and pressure to goose ratings with sensational stories, but it was all I had for the moment. My DVR allowed simultaneous recording of two stations. I set it to tape the news broadcasts on two of the local network affiliates that had built their audiences with ceaseless coverage of grisly crime.
The murders were a big enough story to warrant team coverage. The station I’d been watching was still working its way through its roster. One reporter had just finished interviewing Marcellus’s mother when I hung up the phone, the woman dissolving in tears when asked how she felt after discovering that her son was one of the victims. I wondered who she’d be crying for when we searched her house, as we certainly would before the sun set. She had cooked both his dinner and his crack and would end up serving time that should have been his.
The camera cut to another reporter standing in front of three people, turning to them for comment, the name of each appearing on the screen as they answered the reporter’s questions. LaDonna Simpson, the white-haired, elderly neighbor who lived next door clicked her tongue in regret about the decline of a neighborhood she’d lived in for over fifty years. Tarla Hicks, the girlfriend of the jailed neighbor on the other side of the house, posed for the camera like she was auditioning for the pole position at a strip joint, describing the Winston brothers as good dudes she’d partied with in the past and would miss.
Latrell Kelly, who lived in the house directly behind the victims, was the last one to be interviewed. He had round shoulders, a pudgy middle, and a soft voice. Ammara’s description of him had been dead-on. Mass murderers came in all shapes and sizes. Meek and mild didn’t rule anyone out. I turned up the volume when the reporter asked Latrell what upset him most about what had happened, keeping the microphone close to his mouth to make him heard.
“That little boy,” Latrell said. “Nobody takes care of a little boy, you see what happens.”
It wasn’t a confession. It was a reminder, his words pricking the dull ache I carried for my dead son. The reporter threw it back to the anchors, who nodded somberly and promised to stick with the story, telling viewers to stay tuned for Triple Action Weather with ESP Doppler and the latest from the RV show. I turned off the TV as the phone rang. Kate’s name popped up on the caller ID.