A Garden of Vipers (23 page)

Harry and I went to the office in the morning and caught up on every bit of paperwork the case had generated. We had the feeling that something was due to break. We wanted to be caught up if the shit got delivered to the fan.

The Crandell character had come to light and we were using it to leverage Barlow. A four-year-old murder appeared to have been done by Taneesha Franklin's killer. I suspected Dr. Bernard Rudolnick had treated—or at least observed—the perpetrator. The man who killed Rudolnick had been poisoned after being interviewed by our primary victim, Taneesha. It was a rat's-nest of tangles, but we were picking it apart a twig at a time. Something was going to bust loose on one of the angles.

At ten forty-five we headed to Harry's house, where we'd arranged to meet Margolin. The day had turned too hot for sitting outside, so we paced in the living room, Harry north to south while I went east to west. After a few crossings we got the rhythm right. At eleven-thirty we heard a car door slam and Harry went to the window.

“He's here.”

Margolin strode into the living room with a black leather bag over his shoulder. He was a small, fit guy in a blue seersucker suit and white shirt, no tie. His eyes were dark and electric, his steel-gray hair buzzed short. He moved like a Jack Russell terrier, fast and choppy. The guy looked closer to fifty than sixty; investigative journalism must have agreed with him.

We did introductions. Margolin took the couch, Harry and I pulled our chairs close.

“What you got?” I asked.

Margolin reached into the bag, dug out a folder, set it on his lap.

“First off, don't get the idea I jump like this for anyone. Cops especially. I'm doing this because DeeDee told me to. I do mean
told,
like an order. I owed her one for a tip she passed on last year. This is me paying back.”

“Understood,” I said.

Margolin snapped open the folder, put on reading glasses.

“Pettigrew, Benjamin Thomas. Started with the Montgomery force four years back. Patrolman second grade, the rank owing to three years' experience as a county cop. Made detective one year later. Nicknamed ‘Bulldog' because of his investigative tenacity. A perp once found out Pettigrew was on his case, came in and surrendered. Actually, I think that's happened twice.”

“Pettigrew's not a guy to give up,” Harry said. “And known for it.”

Margolin looked over his glasses. “If you're looking for a downside to Pettigrew, I never found one. This boy's all silver and no tarnish.”

“Actually, we're more interested in how he was selected,” Harry said.

Margolin shuffled through his papers, reviewed one for a few seconds.

“Pettigrew got lucky, actually.”

“Lucky how?”

“The city got a special grant to add cops that year. I mean, like the week before. Over a half million bucks in money drops in from a KEI grant—”

Like touching me with a live wire. I jerked forward, waving my hands in the
time-out
motion. “Wait a minute, Ted. KEI?”

“Kincannon Enterprises, International.” Margolin's reporter sense kicked on. “I say something interesting, guys?”

Harry said, “Keep going, Ted.”

“KEI tossed big money on the table, special one-time grant—use it or lose it. It was a little out of KEI's range to provide funds for direct hiring, but welcomed by the city, of course.”

Harry said, “Would folks at KEI have any sway over who was chosen?”

“If the Kincannons had a candidate for a cop position, the candidate would get heavy consideration. No, he'd flat-out get hired.”

Harry said, “What if the Kincannons wanted a guy out of their hair? They'd do the same, right? Have him plucked away by Montgomery?”

Margolin started to reply, but his eyes turned cautious. He looked between Harry and me.

“I'm late for an appointment. That's all I know about Pettigrew. I do know the Kincannons are rumored to have inroads into law enforcement.” Defiance in his voice, and veiled anger.

Harry held up his hands. “Wait a minute. You think we got you here under false pretenses? Maybe dope out your view of the Kincannons?”

Margolin picked up his bag, slung it over his shoulder, stood. “Nice talking to you fellows.”

Harry reached out and snatched the bag from Margolin's shoulders.

“Hey!” Margolin snapped.

Harry slid the bag over a cannonball shoulder. Margolin looked between his bag, Harry's shoulder, and Harry's face.

“Have a seat, Ted,” Harry said. “Please,” he added.

The reporter sat warily.

“You need a quick history lesson,” Harry said. “Buck Kincannon helped me create an inner-city baseball team. A year later, when the team's mentors wouldn't play dirty political ball with family interests, Kincannon deep-sixed the dreams of about fifty kids I cared about. I'd personally like to rip Kincannon's face off and shit in it.”

Margolin studied on that for a moment, then looked my way.

“I have my own story,” I said. “It isn't his face I want.”

Harry said, “Someone we know described the Kincannons as using one hand to give while the other takes. Everything's quid pro quo. Fit anything you know, Ted?”

“The old Kincannon quid pro quo…I got one: the Montgomery Chamber Orchestra. The Kincannons were trying to schmooze their way into Montgomery society, wanted to impress the social register types. They approached the symphony and donated money to create a chamber orchestra. Three months later, music.”

“And?” I said.

“You can't wash stripes off a skunk. The Kincannons can't bear giving without getting. Every time the family had a bash for their political ass-kissers up in Montgomery—and they have a lot of 'em, bashes and asskissers both—the MCO was expected to perform gratis. After a year of freebies, the musicians rebelled. The funds quietly dried up over the next year.”

Margolin shifted his gaze between Harry and me. “That's a funny story and no one was hurt. I've heard other stories, never verified, that weren't funny, you get my drift. I've always wanted to put a tight lens on the Kincannons. Maybe it's time.”

Harry slipped the bag from his shoulder, handed it back to the reporter.

“Watch your back,” Harry said.

Margolin winked, said, “One of the things I do best.” He skittered out the door, all sauce and energy.

I turned to Harry. “Pettigrew is checking into the killing of Ms. Holtkamp. He's got a rep as a guy who finds things out. Suddenly the KEI dumps a shitload of the big green jizzle into the kitty in Montgomery, says hire some cops. And by the way, there's this guy in Mobile County…”

Harry nodded. “Pettigrew is called to the big city. Barlow slides into place and becomes a wrecking ball.”

“Crandell arrives on the scene and works some kind of magic,” I added. “Problem solved.”

“Four dead bodies, a funky Wookiee, and a high-level fixer. What the hell have we stepped into?”

Harry's cell went off in his pocket. He fumbled it free, looked at the screen for the incoming number, didn't seem to recognize it. He put the phone to his face, brightened.

“Hi, Arn, what's up?”

Harry paused. Leaned forward. “What? When?”

He listened with his hand on his forehead. Grunted a few times. Hung up. Turned to me.

“Cade Barlow was found in his garage this morning. He shut the door, cut the gas line to his water heater in the garage. Then he sat on his shiny Harley and rode into the sunset. Or wherever.”

I slammed my fist on my thigh. “He leave a suicide note?”

“Nothing but a body on a bike, the asshole.”

I thought for a few moments.

“He was already dead, Harry.”

“What do you mean?”

“Arn Norlin said Barlow was a decent cop until four years back. That's when he got odd. Arn described it as Barlow seeming like he'd lost someone he loved. Maybe he traded his integrity for thirty pieces of silver. Or chrome, in this case.”

“Barlow lost himself when he sold his honor? That's what you're saying?”

I shrugged. “It fits.”

Harry leaned back in his chair with his mouth open and tapped a yellow pencil against his cheek. It made a hollow sound.

“Wonder who bought it?” he said. “Barlow's honor.”

Rather than second-hand Clair's take on the Kincannons, I wanted Harry to hear it from her own lips. I had a growing sense that our complicated journey was about to take us into the realm of the Furies.

She didn't sit behind her desk, but in a wingback chair in the corner of her office. Harry and I sat close. Clair wore a cream pantsuit tailored to the millimeter, a bright silk blouse, lavender. She crossed her long legs and leaned forward, aiming the big blue headlights at Harry and me.

“Here's the condensed story, Harry: Money is power. The only restraint on power is personal morality. That's not innate, it's learned. Trouble is, the Kincannons never had that on their lesson plan. If they had a coat of arms, it would say Me First. If you had to characterize the family as a single entity, it would be a devious child.”

Harry said, “Why do people bend at the waist when they hear the name?”

“The Kincannons spend vast sums to appear like benevolent royalty, to be adored by the public. It doesn't hurt that the boys look like movie stars.”

Harry said, “Carson told me about the one hand giving, the other taking. It sounds like if they had a third hand, it'd carry a knife.”

“Don't gamble that it doesn't, Harry. Do you actually think they, or one of them, have something to do with your case?”

“There's no hard evidence,” Harry said. “But the circumstantial pile is growing.”

“There's nothing to go after them with?”

Harry rubbed his temples and shook his head.

“We've discovered some things from a reporter, but we need personal insights. Not how may lawyers or PR people they have, not how many millions they keep in the Caymans. Something about them as people. History. Personalities. We need to know if they have any ghosts in the machinery we can leverage.”

Clair stood, brow creased in thought. She walked to her window and tapped her nail against its surface as she gazed into the day, her graceful form backlit by filtered sunlight. I felt my breath catch and turned away.

“Ory Aubusson,” she said, turning.

“Roy Orbison?” Harry said.

“Ory Aubusson,” Clair corrected, going to her desk. She picked up her BlackBerry, tapped the keys. “Ory was Buck Kincannon Senior's best friend years back. Ory's got money, but nothing like the Kincannons. Ory married a woman who made him slow down. Buck Senior married one who pushed him into hyperdrive.”

“How do you know Aubusson?” I asked.

“He was part of a crowd I hung with when dating Zane. Ory's a piece of work, in his seventies now, bawdy, cantankerous. Smarter than he looks, one thing to keep in mind.”

“You think he'll talk to us?”

Clair picked up her phone, a slim finger poised over the keypad. “If I ask him to see you, he will. If he decides to kick you off his property two minutes later, he'll do that, too.”

The call got through. Clair chirped, purred, told a couple of stories. Then slid us in the door. She hung up.

“He'll see you tomorrow in the early afternoon. I'll get you the address.”

We headed for the door. Clair got there ahead of us, pushed it shut. She leaned against the door, her eyes tense.

“If you're wrong, if you screw up, the Kincannons will tear you to pieces, hound you with lawyers, get you kicked off the force. Even if you're right, it could happen. And you don't even know if you're right.”

“We're right,” Harry said. “Still doesn't negate any of the other possibilities, though.”

Clair stepped aside. Harry started down the hall, pulling out his cell to check for messages. She turned to me, her voice low.

“Are you all right, Ryder? With your personal upheaval?”

“Keeping busy. I think it's the answer.”

“Too busy to get together and talk? That was tomorrow night, you know.”

“Sevenish, if I recall.”

She put her hand on my shoulder. Gave it a gentle squeeze. Said, “Stay safe, Carson.”

The door reopened and I followed after my partner, a bell-like ringing in my ears.

 

Harry had to go to the prosecutor's office to straighten out a time line on an upcoming trial, and I envied him a few moments thinking about something else, even if it was another murder. I dug out our mass of paper and started at the beginning, the Wookiee jumping from the Mazda and running into the truck's headlamps. The knife in the rainy gutter. The oddities with the extra water in Taneesha's car.

After a half hour I dropped my head to my hands and rubbed my eyes.

“I know that look,” said a voice at my back, Tyree Shuttles. “Frustration, pure and simple.”

“This isn't simple frustration, Tyree,” I said. “This is the new and improved frustration—a hundred percent more for no added charge.”

“Grab a bowl of gumbo at Flanagan's?” he suggested.

“Anything to get out of here.”

Like the last time we'd spoken, Shuttles had silent lapses where he'd seemed far away, making a decision, or mulling his own set of problems. After just a few spoonfuls of crawfish gumbo, he pushed his bowl away, stared into my eyes, seemed to make the choice.

“You were one of the last guys in the department to make detective, Carson. You remember how it was to be new, right?”

“It's a whole 'nother world. Something not fitting right yet?”

He looked down at his hands. “It's Pace and me. There's something not working in our chemistry. It's keeping me awake at night. Maybe I'm not up to his…expectations or something.”

“Expectations? Pace Logan?”

Shuttles rubbed his face. “Not me personally, I hope, but more like new school versus old school. I'm college, he's not. I had criminology courses, profiling, tactics, strategies, psychology, sociology, you name it, I took it.”

“Damn,” I said, impressed.

“I had a scholarship, made it easy. But Pace, well…he's just got the street experience. The hard-fought smarts, doing things in ways I don't quite get. I respect his years of experience, and want to learn from it. You know, Pace, he's a doggone good guy and, uh, he knows people and, uh…”

“He's great with children and loves his mother dearly,” I said.

“What?”

“You've got a helluva start on Logan's retirement-party speech, Tyree. But hard to miss that Logan wants to get his gold watch and get gone. He can do a little or a lot before he leaves, and a little's a lot easier.”

I admired Shuttles's protection of his partner, trying not to dis Logan. But Tyree had a future in the department while Logan had only a past, and it was time for Shuttles to start cutting his own piece of the pie.

I said, “Everything you learned, everything you've seen…does it suggest Pace Logan is a good detective, or a mediocre one? And for the record, what we say doesn't reach past here.” I knocked the edge of the table.

“For sure?”

“'Til death do us part. What's wrong?”

Shuttles leaned forward, his voice a whisper. Fear in his eyes. “I soft-pedaled what I think about Pace. He's getting paranoid. He thinks I'm trying to undercut him, just because I'm interested in contemporary techniques and equipment, the latest in forensics, that type of thing. Plus he's got that fixation with Harry. Like that night with the Franks woman.”

“Franklin, Taneesha Franklin…And what fixation?”

“When he heard Harry and you were heading to the scene, it was like we were in this big competition, he had to race over and grab the case.”

I grunted. “First case he ever grabbed, I imagine.”

“Then there's the things on the Hibney case, remember our burned woman?”

“Hard to forget. Things like what?”

“Like telling me I'm keeping stuff from him. He doesn't get out of the car to interview anyone, just pisses on me whatever I come back with. Like he's angry with me. He ever work with a black partner before?”

“I don't think it's that, Tyree. I think he's just a miserable human being.”

“For sure. Plus he's getting weird his last couple months. I hate to say it, but I'll be glad when he retires. He worries me.”

I thought it over. “I've seen old-guard types getting ready to retire before. Some can't wait, others get depressed. Maybe he's just getting the blues, taking it out on you. Just wait it out, Tyree. And thanks for letting me in the door.”

Shuttles leaned back and let his shoulders slump in the chair, like he'd just set down a wheelbarrow full of bricks.