She came out of the bathroom and through her squad bay, ignoring Jimmy Lail as he sat at an extra desk, reading a hip-hop magazine. She marched down the long corridor through the administrative area to the secretary in front of the special agent in charge’s office. The SAC of any federal investigative agency was the final word. They ruled their empire as they saw fit.
“Does the boss have a minute for me?” Camy asked the lovely young Latin secretary.
The girl, whose English was questionable, just smiled and nodded.
Camy stepped up and knocked on the frame of the open front door. “Do you have a second, sir?”
The large man with a ruddy face and graying temples looked up from part of the mountain of reports littering his desk. “Sure, come in,” he said, motioning her to a chair in front of his wide oak desk. “As long as it doesn’t have to do with that FDLE agent, Tasker. That’s a dead issue.”
She didn’t even bother to sit down.
twelve
The sun had just popped up over the Naranja neighborhood about ten minutes south of Bill Tasker’s town house in Kendall. He sat in his state-issued Monte Carlo, Derrick Sutter nodding off next to him. Three FDLE agents were at the rear of the house and three more in a car behind him. When they pulled in front of the Wells residence, all the agents would converge at once on the small house. He’d finished the search warrant about six the night before. By ten, after the FDLE legal counsel and assistant state attorney had reviewed it, the duty judge for the Dade Circuit Court had signed it. He hoped he wasn’t too late. His boss waited in his big Crown Vic, probably smoking a cigarette and thinking of everything that could go wrong. That was his job. The former NYPD detective was a good guy and let his agents run their own cases. That’s all anyone could wish for.
Tasker didn’t see the big step van Wells used for work. He noticed the old Toyota was not next to the garage, either. This was a dilemma every cop faced at some point: Do I go in or wait till he’s home?
Tasker nudged Sutter awake. “What do you think? Should we wait till there’s a car here?”
Sutter blinked hard. “Just cause there’s no car don’t mean nobody’s home.”
“House is dark and quiet.”
“All of them are. It’s only six.”
“No cars.”
“That’s true, but when will he be back? Could be waiting a long time. We’ll get burned before eight o’clock. Every redneck down here will think we’re looking for a grow house or chop shop. Shit, not one of these crackers got a job.”
Tasker smiled. Sutter sounded just like a racist carrying on about black residents of Liberty City. He picked up his Nextel and called his supervisor. He could tell he was awake by the smoke pouring out of the cracked window. “Boss, you out there?”
“I’m here.”
“We were discussing what to do. Looks like no one’s home. You wanna wait?”
“Nah, let’s hit it. If your man’s not there, we’ll grab him later. If there is anything you need for your case in there, it don’t matter if anyone’s home or not.”
“Ten-four.” Tasker set down the Nextel on his seat and looked at Sutter. “Looks like we go.”
“He sounded just like a boss at Miami PD. If you wait, it may cost overtime.”
Tasker nodded and then picked up the car radio to broadcast to the other agents. “We’re gonna go in a minute. We’ll do like we briefed, slow and easy. Don’t enter the garage. If no one’s home, we’ll get the Metro bomb techs just in case. The team at the front door is going to knock nice and polite, then see what happens. There may be kids inside.” He heard the acknowledgments from the others, then turned to Sutter and said, “Showtime.”
At the front door, Tasker, his supervisor and Sutter fanned to either side of the door. Tasker knocked hard, then shouted, “Daniel, it’s Bill Tasker. Come to the door.” Nothing.
Sutter stepped back and lifted his leg to kick when Tasker held up his hand to stop him. He tried the handle, and the unlocked door opened easily. Tasker signaled to the others to move up.
Drawing their pistols, the three cops entered the house. Two more agents came up to the front and started leapfrogging from one room to the next while Tasker’s supervisor covered them. The house was empty, neat and open.
Once the house was secure and they had the lights on, Sutter said, “It’s almost like he was expecting us and didn’t want us to damage the house getting in.”
Tasker had had the same feeling. Before he could prepare to search, his supervisor started flinging open drawers and poking around in cabinets. This happened at most search warrants the boss was on. He still did things the old New York way. His methods worked, but they were expected to follow a different set of rules nowadays in Florida. Tasker subtly tried to distract the portly supervisor, finally giving up, saying, “Boss, stop!” When the older man turned to look at him, he added, meekly, “I need you to arrange for the Metro bomb squad.”
After the supervisor had stepped outside, Tasker said, “Let’s do a quick look through the house. Grab personal phone books and things that might point to where Wells is if he’s in the wind.” He sat down at the same dining table where he’d watched Alicia Wells glide out in that sheer top. If Wells was gone for good, how did he know to leave? This was a troubling consideration for Tasker as he waited for the bomb techs to get into the garage.
Three hours later, after the search of the house and the garage was done, Tasker placed a copy of the warrant on the dining room table. He also left a short note. Something he’d never done on a search warrant before. It just said, “Daniel, you said you owed me. Prove it. Call me.” He signed it and left his cell number at the bottom of the page.
The garage had been cleaned out. Only a few of the larger power tools and some papers were left. Tasker approached one of the uniform bomb squad officers. His German shepherd sat next to him on a leather leash.
“Can you guys tell me anything?”
The muscular Metro-Dade cop said, “Bandit alerted on the workbench, the rear storage area and on the side of the garage. Looks like this guy worked with all kinds of explosives.”
“Anything worth taking?”
“Your guys grabbed two empty containers. May be some residue.”
Tasker thanked the Metro cops and headed back to his car, where his supervisor and Sutter were talking.
His boss said, “Billy, you done a good job. I don’t want you beating yourself up over this thing. Take a day or two. Make it a long weekend. Monday we’ll kick it hard and find this mope. These hicks don’t go far from where they know. He’ll turn up. I just don’t want you getting so worn-out you get in trouble.”
Tasker looked at him and said, “Again.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to.”
His supervisor stood tall and looked right at him. This was a guy who didn’t say that much, so when he did, people usually listened. “You can have a chip on your shoulder if you want, but I never figured you for that type. I’m tellin’ you there’s more to life than this shit. This is a job, not a crusade.”
Tasker nodded. “You’re right, boss. Donna asked me if I could come up and spend the night with the kids while she went away for a couple of days. That way they don’t miss school on Friday. Maybe I’ll do it.”
“Where’s she going? Some kind of teachers’ conference?”
Tasker slumped slightly. “Nope, she’s going away with her boyfriend.”
“And you’ll watch the kids?” Tasker could see this veteran of three marriages wouldn’t do something like that.