“We won’t screw it up. But we’ll need a good reason to get a warrant to search his condo. Otherwise, whatever we find will get tossed out of court.”
“Kenny kept a teenage girl in his condo for a few months,” he said. “The condo association found out about it, and there was a big ruckus. Everyone in the building knows, including the guard at the front gate.”
“Did Kenny screw her?”
“I’m sure he did.”
“Then it was statutory rape. Is the girl still there?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Then how does that help us get into his place?”
“It establishes that Kenny has a history of dealings with underage girls. You need to coerce another teenage girl to say that Kenny lured her to his condo. Get her to say that she saw kiddie porn on his iPad. Then go to a judge for your search warrant.”
“That’s a tall order. If the girl trips up, I’m screwed.”
“Would you rather get arrested for dealing coke? The feds will take everything you have. When you get out of the joint, you’ll be broke. Pick your poison.”
Vargas was twisting on the end of an invisible rope. The waitress brought her a fresh shot. She belted it back, and would have probably licked the glass if he hadn’t been looking. She wiped her mouth with her sleeve and took a deep breath.
“Give me this asshole’s address,” she said.
Chapter 44
50 Ocean
They ended up killing him.
It happened the next day. Lancaster was stuck in traffic on I-95 when he heard the news. He’d just left the FBI’s North Miami office and was heading home. He’d spent three hours explaining to a roomful of agents how he and Daniels had discovered that Mates and Holloway were the Hanover killers, and his throat was raw from the retelling. His cell phone buzzed, and he picked it up off the passenger seat and stared at the screen. He subscribed to the online version of the Sun-Sentinel and received breaking news stories over his phone. A pair of Fort Lauderdale detectives had attempted to arrest a suspect in a parking lot and had ended up shooting him dead. The story was developing with more details to follow. Neither the suspect’s nor the detectives’ names were given, but his gut told him that the deceased was Zack Kenny.
He made it home and got on his computer to see if there were any updates on the shooting. There was nothing. He considered calling one of his friends with the sheriff’s office to get more details but decided not to. If Zack Kenny was dead, he didn’t want his name associated with it, even in a casual way.
Four different TV stations served the Fort Lauderdale market. Each had a six o’clock news program devoted to that day’s events. At the stroke of six, he parked himself in front of the TV with a cold beer and surfed between them. The ABC affiliate, Local 10 News, opened with the story, so he picked them.
A deeply tanned newscaster read off a prompter. A pair of Broward detectives had attempted to execute a search warrant to a suspected sexual predator in the parking lot of an upscale apartment complex in Coral Ridge when the suspect suddenly attacked one of the detectives, who was female. The detective’s partner had drawn his weapon and shot the suspect multiple times, killing him instantly. The sheriff’s office had released the dead man’s name. It was Zackary Lawrence Kenny.
He raised his beer to the screen. The world was a safer place with Zack gone. He tried to imagine how Karissa would react to the news. She would be relieved but maybe saddened. She’d been in love with Zack, and those feelings were hard to erase. He was about to call her when he got a call from Vargas.
“I just saw the news on TV,” he said. “Did he hurt you?”
“Bastard broke my nose,” Vargas said.
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“No, you’re not.”
He sipped his beer and smiled. “How did you get the search warrant so quickly?”
“I decided that your idea of fabricating a story was a bad one,” she said, “so I went to the brokerage house where Zack worked and spoke to the head of human resources. Guys like him usually can’t keep their hands off women they work with. Sure enough, I was right. An intern had filed a complaint saying Zack had tried to molest her in the copy room. I got a copy of the complaint, then went to his apartment and spoke to the head of the homeowner’s association. She confirmed that Zack had shacked up with an underage runaway. Her statement and the complaint were enough to sway the judge to issue a warrant.”
“Sounds like you did everything by the book.”
“Damn straight. Assholes like that know their rights. Last thing we wanted was to have it thrown out of court on a technicality.”
“What happens now?”
“There’ll be two investigations. One internal, the second criminal, to make sure we didn’t break any laws. A surveillance camera on the apartment building videoed the whole thing, so we should be fine. I’m going to take time off to let my face heal.”
“What about your partner?”
“He’s been put on administrative duties. He’ll have to sit at a desk alphabetizing three-by-five cards and going through OD death certificates. You know the drill.” She paused, then said, “We kept up our end of the bargain. Now it’s your turn. I want you to tell me how you’re going to save us from getting busted. And don’t you dare screw us.”
He put the beer down, thinking hard. Daniels had confided that the FBI planned to bust the ring of drug-dealing detectives next week. The detectives would be caught receiving the coke at a restaurant and secretly videotaped in the act. This would provide a rock-solid case in court, and the ring would go down hard. All Vargas and her partner needed to do was not be present at the restaurant that day.
But sharing this information with Vargas was a problem. She might alert the other detectives in the ring, and ruin the bust. The FBI would realize the detectives had been tipped off, and that might find its way back to Daniels, and hurt her. His loyalty was to Daniels, not Vargas, so he chose his words carefully.
“Does your partner have any accrued vacation time?” he asked.
“I’m sure he does,” Vargas said.
“Tell him to take it, and leave town for a few weeks.”
“All right. What then?”
“When the two of you return, your problem will be gone.”
“You’re going to fix it?”
Her question gave him pause. Vargas didn’t suspect that the bust would be going down soon. She was in the dark, and the less he said, the better.
“Yes, I’m going to fix it,” he said.
“You still haven’t told me how this is going to work,” Vargas said.
“Enjoy your time off.”
He ended the connection feeling relieved. He’d made good on his promises to Vargas without harming his relationship with Daniels. Playing both sides of the fence was never easy, especially when people’s lives and reputations hung in the balance. Karissa was still holed up in Marathon, and he texted her, saying that it was safe to come home. Then he called Daniels to see how things were going. Daniels had been discharged from the hospital and was at her sister’s house recuperating.
“I’m doing shitty, thanks for asking,” Daniels said.
“What’s wrong?” he said.
“Fadi came by earlier. He wanted to talk to me in private, so I grabbed the walker I’m using, and we went onto the dock. He got down on his knee and gave me the biggest diamond ring you’ve ever seen. Then he asked me to marry him.”
There was a long pause, and she began to cry.
“You said no,” he said.
“Yeah, I said no. Fadi got really upset, and accused me of using him to make the Cassandra videos to capture Mates and Holloway. He took the ring back and threw it into the water. Then he said he never wanted to see me again and left.”