He’s somber as I pay our bill, then he tells me to wait and let him leave first. I give him fifteen minutes just for good measure.
I go back to the motel, but I don’t want to sleep. I spend most of the night finding out about Captain Maroney, who was captain of the precinct at the time of Cox’s murder. He’s retired now and has moved up to Tennessee where he lives in a nice house on a lake in the Smokies.
When morning comes, I’ve only dozed a few times, but I’ve snatched myself out each time. My body aches, and my brain seems fuzzy. I finally go have breakfast and make my way to the 7/11 at five after seven. I fill up my car at the number three pump and look under the trash can.
The manila envelope is right where he said it would be.
17
DYLAN
The file Rossi left me under the trash can is full of things I’ve been wanting to see. Crime scene photos of Andy Cox’s death, pictures of Rossi’s injuries after his beating, lists of extortion victims, the money laundering flowchart, and a picture taken through glass at a café downtown. The photographer has zoomed in, making the subjects blurry. But I see Keegan and Rollins and three other cops. The photo itself isn’t evidence of anything. They could have been just shooting the breeze over lunch. But the fact that Rossi gave it to me tells me these are men who were part of Keegan’s money-making scheme thirteen years ago.
I don’t know any of them—except for the two I already knew about—and since these were taken over a decade ago, I can only guess there are more involved now. Keegan’s son is suspect, for instance. I played football with him in high school—he was a decent guy and now is a cop—but it’s hard to believe that his dad wouldn’t cut him in on the action. One of these guys might be Maroney, the captain of Rossi’s precinct then. I’ll have to look them all up and make sure I have their names.
I flip the page. The next bit of evidence is a statement given by Casey Cox, then twelve years old, telling Rossi about an anonymous phone threat against her family. The person on the line told her that she needed to shut up about her father’s death, that if she kept insisting it was a murder, she and her mother and sister might wind up “committing suicide” too. Casey interpreted it exactly as she should have.
No wonder she ran after she found Brent. Who would she have gone to with this allegation? She’d clearly trusted Rossi with that information, but if she knew he’d been beaten for his push-back, and that he’d now disappeared, she might have feared he was dead now too. She might have kept her mouth shut for the next decade to protect her mother and sister, and now her baby niece and her brother-in-law. She’d have no choice but to disappear to stay alive, and she’d also think it would keep them from going after her family. No wonder her family was so quick to tell me they believed in Andy’s suicide. It was self-preservation.
The file isn’t conclusive. It’s not enough to put them away, but it’s a start.
I can’t help wondering about Casey, if she’s scared, or tired, or lonely. She seems like a social person, so being on the run might take its toll on her. But I still have no clues as to where she is.
I tell Jim Pace I’m following some leads in the Great Lakes area and have him set up a charter flight to Michigan. I want to find the other man on my list, Gus Marlowe.
Marlowe seems to have gone off the grid, too, but the guy is ex-military, so I manage to get an address through my military database, something I hope Keegan hasn’t had access to. The man gets a military disability check every month. Surely that address will get me close to him.
When Keegan asks where I’m going, I tell him I’ve worked out where she might have gotten off a train, and they buy it.
I get into Grand Rapids near ten o’clock at night, eager to seek out the address I have for Gus Marlowe. I get a rental car and program the GPS on my phone. I follow the directions, but halfway through, the road disappears and my GPS says that it can’t continue.
So the guy lives off a dirt road south of town. Not easy to find at night. I decide to get some sleep and try again in the morning.
I check into a Drury Inn off 28th Street and turn the TV to Fox News. I turn it down low while I’m trying to fall asleep. Sometimes it helps; the background noise stops my brain from processing, and I’m able to relax.
Then I hear Casey’s name. I sit up and grab the remote, turn it up.
“So if Casey Cox is apprehended, do you think what she did to help that girl will be admissible in court? I mean, that was heroic. She risked her life . . .”
“She didn’t risk her life,” some attorney says. “She saw the girl after breaking into a house to rob it.”
“We don’t know that. The grandmother of the girl says that Casey had reason to believe the girl was there. She knowingly walked into danger to get her out, even after being arrested for breaking into that same house once. She knew she could be outed by all this, but she chose to save the girl. I’m just saying that the jury might—”
“It’ll never be admissible,” someone else interrupts. “She’ll be tried on the murder she allegedly committed. Period. No sane judge would allow the waters to be muddied by what happened in Shady Grove.”
They move on to political talk.
I’m sick that the publicity will make it much harder for her to hide. If I were her, what would I do? She has probably already dyed her hair some color that would distract people from her face. She has likely cut it shorter. I try to imagine her hair in different colors. Which one would she try?
As tough as she is, she’s also fragile. I hope she doesn’t feel hopeless. If only I could talk to her again.
I open my laptop and check the email account we’ve communicated on before. Nothing. I don’t blame her.
I turn off the TV, letting darkness envelop me. I’m so tired that this time I don’t fight sleep. I fall into a surface slumber, the kind where my nightmares have a field day. Suddenly I’m back there, in the Humvee that day, and I get that feeling where the hair on the back of my neck rises, and Tillis curses as he sees something up ahead, and before I can even look, I’m flying back, my ears bursting with the sound, the smell of flesh and fuel burning and the metallic taste of blood . . . then that silence as things seem to go into slow motion.
I wake up drenched with sweat, and I’ve wet myself, as I did that day. As we all did. I’m shaking, so I clean up, then wrap myself in the bedspread, tight enough that I can’t move. It doesn’t help.
18
DYLAN
When morning comes, I find Gus Marlowe’s house. What was impossible after dark is a little easier in the daytime. He isn’t home, so I get back on my computer and locate the cell phone numbers associated with this address. When I call the first one, a woman answers. I ask her if I can speak to Gus, and she says he has a different number. I have another number, but just in case, I ask her for it. She hesitates a moment, then says she’d rather not give it out. Assuming she’s his wife, I ask her if he was a detective on the Shreveport police department. She hangs up. Before she can warn him, I dial the other number.
“Hello?”
“Gus!” I say like a long-lost friend. “How’s it going, man?”
“Fine,” he says. “Who’s this?”
I decide not to carry on with that ruse, and choose another one. “I’m Greg Houser, a private investigator working on a case having to do with Andy Cox, a cop who used to be on the Shreveport Police Department before he died. I was wondering if I could meet with you and ask you a few questions.”
He pauses for a long moment. “I’m busy. Can you ask them on the phone?”
I don’t want to lose the opportunity for a face-to-face. “Look, I know this is out of the blue, and you’ve been gone a long time from that place. But I’m looking into some of the activities of the people involved in the Andy Cox case. I noticed you retired a few months after that. It may not have had anything to do with the case at all.”
“It didn’t,” he cuts in. “I retired because I was of age.”
“But still, you must remember it.”
“What do you want?” he asks.
“I’m just trying to get some information. There’s another case I’m working on that might intersect. If you could just give me ten minutes, we could meet at a neutral location or restaurant or someplace. I’m not going to bother you after this. I just want to ask you a few things.”
There’s another long pause, then finally I hear a woman speaking in the background. I can’t hear what she’s saying. He finally comes back on. “All right, I’ll meet you at ten o’clock at the IHOP on 28th Street.”
I’m there at nine forty-five, waiting in my car, when I see a man drive up alone. He scans the parking lot, clearly looking for someone, so I assume it’s him. I get out and say, “You Gus?”
He grabs me then, twists my arm behind my back and kicks my feet apart, and throws me over the hood of my car. I almost fight back, but he’s frisking me, making sure I’m not armed. I wait, my forehead pressed against my hot hood. “I’m not carrying,” I say through my teeth. “I just want to talk to you.”
When he’s satisfied, he jerks me back up. “Who do you work for?”
“Not who you think. I just want information,” I say.
He lets me go and starts into the IHOP, and I follow him. Like Alvin, he takes a booth at the back and sits on the side where he can see the door. As I take the seat across from him, I say, “Looks like you still have some skills. What are you? Seventy? And you had me over the hood before I could even react.”
“What’s your name again?” he asks, unamused.
I almost don’t remember the name I gave him last night, but I come up with it suddenly. “Greg.” The waitress comes over and takes our orders. I tell him it’s my treat. He orders pancakes and sausage, a large coffee.
“I wasn’t involved in the Andy Cox case,” he says finally.
“I didn’t think you were. I just thought that maybe the timing of your retirement and your moving out of state could’ve had something to do with it. I have reason to believe there are some corrupt officers who worked on that case, and things don’t add up.”
He shakes his head. “Got that right. Things never did add up on the Andy Cox case. He never would’ve done what they said. No way.”
“So you knew him?”
“Yeah,” he says. “Worked with him for years. We were partners for a while back in our younger days. Andy was a positive person. Loved people, loved police work. He wasn’t one to be depressed. Never, even when he had reason to be. When his mother died, she had a long bout with cancer, really bad. She suffered a lot. He worried about her all the time, but even so, he wasn’t dragging around. He just took care of her, did what he had to do, stayed positive. He had a way with people. And he loved his girls.”
“I’ve heard that.”
His mouth twists as emotion works on him. “You know, it’s horrible the way he was found. That’s the biggest clue I had that things weren’t right. No way Andy Cox would’ve hung himself in his living room and expected his daughter to find him. That would never happen.”
“Did you say anything about it at the time?”
He looks down at his hands, takes a sip of his coffee. “By then I knew not to.”
“Were you afraid there’d be payback?”
“I feared hanging myself in my living room for my children to find.”
The waitress brings our food, but he doesn’t dig in.
“Did someone threaten you?”
“Andy Cox’s death was a threat to everybody who had anything to say about certain people in the department. An object lesson. And we got it loud and clear.”
“Was Gordon Keegan one of those people sending that message?” I ask.
He stares at me, his eyes locked with mine, and I know the answer is yes.
“I’m trying to make a case against them,” I say. “I need your help. Can you tell me who else was involved at the time, who else covered up, who else might have been responsible for Cox’s death?”
I wait quietly as he doctors his pancakes. He cuts into them and takes a bite, chews for a long moment.
“I guess what I’m trying to figure out,” I say, “is whether Keegan’s current captain or the chief of police has anything to do with it.”
“I don’t know who they are,” he says. “I haven’t kept up.”
“Chief Gates is in charge now,” I say. “Captain’s named Swayze.”
“Swayze,” he says, almost spitting it out. “Probably.”
“And what about Gates?”
“I don’t know him,” he says. “He was probably hired from outside. There’s no telling, but Keegan has a way of cutting people in. I wouldn’t trust anybody.”
“So do you know anything about Keegan or Rollins or Maroney or Swayze or any of the ones who were involved that I could use in a case against them? Anything at all. How they’re spending the money they’re extorting from people, things they may have bought that I could use as evidence . . .”
“You know about the mistress,” he says, then takes another bite.
“What mistress?” I ask.
“Keegan has a hot little mistress. I was in Dallas last year visiting my boy for a Cowboys game, and I saw him there with her, right out in public. I got out of there as fast as I could. He didn’t see me. When I got home, I did a little digging to see if he was still married, and he is.”
“Yeah, he is. Did you find out the woman’s name?”
“No, I didn’t really care. Haven’t thought much about it since then.”
We end on much calmer terms than when he came in, and I feel like a dog with a bone. I can’t wait to sink my teeth into the things he’s given me. Especially the mistress.
19
CASEY
I check my look twice before I leave my motel, making certain that while I’m watching Candace Price, she won’t recognize me. My black hair is pinned up close to my head, and I cake on the eyeliner and smoky eye shadow.
I have no trouble finding her house. A lot of the houses in Dallas are big, but this one qualifies as a mansion. From what I can tell about her recent real estate sales, she doesn’t make that kind of money.
It’s just before seven a.m. when I park, sip my Starbucks and eat my muffin, and watch for her to come out. At around eight, an older man drives up and parks at the curb in front of her house. He gets out and hobbles up to her door. She lets him in and he stays for an hour or more.
While I’m waiting, I take a stroll on the sidewalk like a neighbor getting exercise, and as I pass his Pontiac Bonneville, I see a stack of mail on the dashboard. I slow enough to get the name on the address. Morris Price. He must be her father. I make a mental note of his address, then go back to my car and look him up. He’s a retired teacher who lives in a neighborhood a few miles from here. A Google Earth search shows that his house is much more modest than hers, so she must not have inherited her money, at least from that side of her family.
At around nine, she comes out with him, dressed in yoga pants and a tank top. Her platinum-blonde hair is cut like Marilyn Monroe’s. She walks her father to the Bonneville, then gets into her own car and leaves.
I follow her to a Planet Fitness and watch her go in. She has the body of a model, so I’m guessing she works out a lot. I wait in the car, reading her Facebook page on my phone and taking down notes. When she comes out an hour later, she heads back home. Another hour passes, then she comes out, showered, her hair looking like she’s been to the hairdresser. She’s wearing a maxi dress and high heels. I expect her to go to her real estate office, but instead she drives downtown to Neiman Marcus and parks in the garage.
I pull into a vacant space about twenty cars down from her. I almost lose her, but I catch up to her as she’s going into the store. I step into the air-conditioning and pretend to look at a dress. She goes to the handbags, peruses each one, takes a few pictures of them with her phone.
I pretend that I’m browsing as she goes to the women’s sect
ion and holds up a few outfits as she gazes into the mirror. She takes their pictures too.
Did she send the pictures to friends and ask their opinions? Finally she makes some decisions. She chooses an expensive handbag, pays for it, then goes back to buy all of the outfits she photographed. I guess she’s spent at least a couple thousand dollars, if not more.
She goes back to her Mercedes and I head to my car, adjusting my sunglasses, looking at my phone as I pass her so she doesn’t notice my face. I follow her to her office, then sit outside and watch for her for the next couple of hours.
She comes out finally and drives off. I follow her until she parks in front of a house that’s for sale. Another car drives up. I can’t stop, so I pass by the house as they go in.
The day creeps by slowly as I tail her, and several times I almost give up and go home. She hasn’t done anything that seems Keegan-related. As it’s getting dark, she heads to a club.
I’m not in the mood for a place like that, but I decide to follow her in and get something to eat. The place is hopping since it’s happy hour. I ask for a seat at the bar and order a Diet Coke and an appetizer. There’s a mirror behind the bar, so I watch her meeting some girlfriends at a tall table.
Their laughter is loud enough to be heard throughout the club. They order a round of drinks and some food.
I’m trying to hear what they’re saying when a man sits down next to me. “You waiting for someone?” he asks.
“Yes,” I say.
“You’ve been here a while. You haven’t been stood up, have you?”
I want to ignore him, but when I glance back in the mirror, I see Candace coming to the bar, right toward me. I turn to the man, smiling. “He’s not late. I got here early.”
“I’m Hamlin,” he says.
“Miranda.”
“You’re dry. What are you drinking?”
She’s standing right behind me now, leaning so close I can smell her perfume. The bartender asks her what she needs. “Can we get a round of shots for my table over there?” she asks in a southern lilt. “There are five of us.”