Denouement (7 page)

“There,” Hank said. He pointed past the television area to what looked like a hotel front desk tucked in at the back of the room.

We walked over. A young woman with short blond hair greeted us. She looked nervous.

“Are you looking for the other officers?” she asked.

“Yes. Unit 2199, I believe,” I said.

“Go right around the corner here and take the first set of elevators up to the twenty-first floor. The condo will be down the hall to your left.”

“Appreciate it,” I said.

Hank and I rounded the corner and found the bank of elevators. I thumbed the button to take us up.

“This is some place, huh,” Hank said.

I rubbed my fingers together, gesturing that living there must be expensive. The elevator doors opened and took us inside. Hank hit the button for the twenty-first floor.

“So Faust has two agents murdered inside of a few hours. What do you think we’re dealing with here?” Hank asked.

“I think someone, possibly Azarov, found out they were feds and killed them.”

Hank didn’t respond.

Soft jazz music played in our ears for another thirty seconds until the elevator bucked and the doors opened. We stepped out. I looked left and spotted Officer Rickson standing outside a door down the hall. Hank and I walked over.

He gave us a nod. “Lieutenant, Sergeant.”

“Hey, Rickson,” I said.

“It’s just the FBI agent inside. Well, him and the body of another agent, I guess. The other officers are talking with staff and residents.”

“Thanks,” I said.

Hank and I entered into a short hallway. Dark wooden floors ran down the hall and spread into an open concept room. The kitchen ran down the right-hand side. In the center was an island with a granite top. A dead man was taped to the barstool next to it. His right eye had been pulled from his head. I spotted it at the ground beside the stool. The man’s head rested on his chest, and an odd bulge protruded from the side of his neck. We walked farther in. To our left in the big room was a television on the wall, a couch, and a lounge chair. All the furniture was leather and modern in design. Faust sat on the couch, staring at us but talking on the phone. Behind him was a wall of windows looking out over downtown. To our right, past the kitchen and around the corner, was a hall that I assumed led to the bedroom or bedrooms.

Hank and I walked to Faust.

He clicked off from his phone call. “I have people coming,” he said.

“This is the guy we just talked to in the car?” I asked.

“Yeah,” Faust leaned back on the couch. “He gave me the five oh five.”

“Which is?” Hank asked.

“SOS. Whoever did this was here while we were talking to him, Kane.”

I walked over to the deceased agent. He had short brown hair, and his face was thin and recently shaved. Blood covered the side of his face that his eye had been liberated from—the blood continued down his blue button-up shirt. His tan slacks were torn a bit in the right knee and smudged. The bruising on the other side of his face indicated he’d been beaten. Above his puffed-up left eye were a pair of two-inch gashes that hung open a solid quarter of an inch each. I looked at the protrusion at the side of his neck that had caught my eye when we entered. It might have been his spine. I took a step back and looked at the way his head was hanging. It was off center and too low to his chest.

Faust and Hank came to my side.

“So this was your buyer for the contact’s name?” I asked.

Hank looked at me, confused.

“Yeah,” Faust said.

“So both agents who met with Andrei Azarov are dead. Pretty easy to deduce that their covers were blown,” I said.

Faust said nothing.

“What do you think he was being questioned about?” I asked.

“Questioned?” Faust asked.

“The eye. That doesn’t strike me as something that would be done unless someone was trying to extract information.”

“I don’t know,” Faust said.

Pax walked into the condo and up to us. “Hey, Lieutenant, Sergeant Rawlings,” he said.

“Pax,” Hank said.

I gave Pax a nod.

Pax wore a pair of jeans and some kind of heavy-metal-band T-shirt under a lab coat. He scratched at his peach-fuzz-covered chin and set his kit down on the granite island. “This is, um, interesting,” Pax said and nodded to the deceased agent.

“He was FBI,” I said. “Hold on a second before you get started, Pax.”

I looked at Faust. “Pax here is one of our forensics guys. What are we doing? Are you guys taking this, or are we?” I asked.

Faust rubbed his eyes. “I have to put my guys on it, Kane.”

“I understand,” I said.

I motioned for Pax to head out. Hank and I headed for the door.

“Kane, wait up,” Faust said.

I stopped at the door and walked back to him.

“We’re both going to be after the same guy, aren’t we?” he asked.

I nodded. “Brumfeld was shot in the head and heart. Azarov has killed two people before in identical fashion. Plus, we have this.” I pointed to the dead agent. “Do you know, physically, what is involved in breaking someone’s neck like that? Whoever did that—”

“I know,” Faust said, interrupting.

“Okay, well, I’m not backing off of going after Azarov,” I said. “And I know you won’t back off of finding whoever killed your men.”

“We’ll make it work. We need to know if it’s him, without question, before we do anything. Why don’t you get your forensics guy back in here.”

I nodded.

We wrapped up at the condo just after four o’clock and headed back to the station. Rick had confirmed Ray’s prints on the revolver that killed Brumfeld. I called Faust to share the information with him immediately and to give him the number of the prepaid phone I was using. He said he’d give me a ring if he got anything. We were still waiting for the fingerprint analysis from Dupold’s condo. Pax had lifted prints from the various spots in the residence and was running them downstairs in the lab, the last I’d heard.

Faust had his guys make copies and bring over all the phone records they had—a full two-foot-by-two-foot box. We had records for eight different people going back a couple months. I was thankful that the FBI had already been through a good portion of them and we had names and addresses next to each number. A cover sheet paper clipped to the front of each person’s stack showed the most frequently called numbers and what the FBI’s level of interest was on the individual. Hank and I had split the pile and started the daunting task of weeding through each phone number, along with who it belonged to, one by one.

The first associate in my stack was a Yakov Mishutin. I pulled his sheet. He was a thirty-two year old convict from Miami. Apparently, he had a person-of-interest rating of six. What six meant, I didn’t know. Apparently, he liked to call a local escort service, a number for the time and weather, and his mother.

I was half an inch into my pile on him, looking for any Tampa numbers, when my desk phone rang. I scooped it up.

“Lieutenant Kane,” I answered.

“Hey, it’s Pax.”

“Did you get a match on any prints?” I asked.

“Yup. I have Azarov’s prints on Dupold’s cell phone.” Pax was merely confirming what I’d already known.

“Okay. Did you call someone over at the FBI to let them know?”

“It’s my next call. Faust gave me the information on who to contact there. I’m supposed to send them copies of whatever I find. I’m about to do that now.”

“Thanks, Pax.”

“No problem, Lieutenant.”

I hung up and rocked back in my chair.

Hank tapped on my door and walked in. “Have you seen Bostok?” he asked.

“No.” I glanced over my shoulder at his office. The lights were on, but it was empty. “I’m sure he’s floating around somewhere. What’s up?”

“Nothing important. I just need the morning off next Wednesday to see the dentist.”

“I’m sure it will be fine,” I said.

“What time are you staying until?” he asked.

I glanced over at the clock, which was pushing six o’clock. “I don’t know. Saturday, maybe,” I said.

“Are you camping out here?”

“Yeah, I don’t know if Azarov is planning on coming after me or not, but I’m not giving him the opportunity either way. This time around, I’m going to be the one coming out of the shadows at him.”

Hank pointed at the stack of papers. “See anything of interest in your numbers?”

I shrugged. “Not really.”

Hank took a seat across from me. “Yeah, me either. I got through two of the guys. Nothing there, that I could tell.”

“You got through two? Hell, I’m not even done with my first.”

“One of the guys was only like five pages. Anyway, I’m going to have to bug out soon. Karen is going to be late tonight, and I need to feed Porkchop. I can pop back in for a few hours after that and try to finish up.”

“Don’t worry about it, Hank. You don’t need to come back.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, go home and relax. Deal with the puppy. Bring me what’s left of your phone records, and I’ll get it taken care of.”

“Are you sure?” he asked again.

“Yeah, its fine.”

“Okay.”

Hank disappeared from my office and returned a moment later with his portion of the records. “These guys I looked into.” He waved the papers he held in his left hand. “These guys I haven’t.” He held up the papers in his right hand. “Where do you want them?”

“Stick the ones you’ve already gone over in that box there.” I nodded toward the box.

Hank complied. I grabbed the ones he hadn’t gotten to and put them on the stack I needed to complete.

“Thanks,” I said.

“Are you sure you don’t want to come out and crash at my place tonight? Better than sleeping on the old couch in here,” Hank said.

“Ooh, while the thought of Porkchop barfing on me while I sleep or pissing in my shoes is tempting, I think I’ll stick with my trusty couch here.”

Hank smiled. “All right, Kane. The offer stands if you feel like showing up later.”

“Thanks, Hank.”

He stood and left my office.

I dug back into the phone numbers and finished with Yakov Mishutin within ten minutes. I filed his records in the “completed” box on my desk. Then I moved on to Mark Popov and pulled his sheet. He was also a convict, and his sheet showed multiple prison stretches for fraud, assault, and drugs. In his midforties, Popov lived in Lakeland, a city halfway between Tampa and Orlando.

“That’s a little closer,” I said.

I read over the notes on the cover sheet. The FBI’s interest level on him was a twenty-six. I held up my hands in question, realizing I’d need to get a hold of Faust to make heads or tails out of their internal ranking system of interest. I looked over Popov’s most frequently called numbers. One belonged to Yakov Mishutin while the other two were takeout restaurants in Lakeland—no help. I started in on the called numbers one by one.

Ten minutes into the list, I was interrupted by knuckles tapping at my office door. Bostok walked in. “Hey, I’m heading out. Do you need anything?”

I raised my eyes. “I think I’m good. Hank was looking for you. I guess he needs next Wednesday morning off to go to the dentist.”

“Yeah, that should be fine.”

“That’s what I told him.”

“Are those your phone records from the feds?” Bostok asked.

“Yeah, I’m just going to keep plugging away on them until I make some headway.”

“Are you staying here tonight?”

“I think so,” I said.

“Do what you have to do, but at least make an attempt to sleep.”

“I will.”

“You know that meeting you and Rawlings walked in on this morning?”

I rocked my head back. “Yeah, again, sorry.”

“No need for apologies. I got the major seat. That meeting was them offering it to me. I was just upstairs finalizing everything until a couple of minutes ago. It’s a done deal. I get the office on the first.”

I slid back my chair, stood, and walked over. I shook Bostok’s hand. “Congrats, Major.”

He smiled. “I could be congratulating you soon. How are you coming with what I gave you for the captain’s test?”

“Honestly, Cap, I haven’t gotten into it. It’s kind of been a whirlwind since I got word on Azarov. And now with dead FBI agents and trying to find Ray—”

The captain held out his hand, stopping me. “You just let me know. We’ll figure it out.”

“Okay,” I said.

Bostok rapped his knuckles on my door. “We’ll catch up in the morning.”

“Sounds good.”

Bostok turned to leave.

“Hey, Cap. One more thing.”

He stopped in the hall and turned back. “Yeah?”

“What happened with Iler?” I asked

“The DA is still in the process of working out something with his attorney on the charges, but right now Iler is in lockup. It’s not looking good for him.”

“Good,” I said.

Bostok nodded, turned, and left. I headed back to my desk and sat.

I let out a long breath. “Okay, Mark Popov. Who have you been calling?”

I dug back into the numbers but found nothing of interest after an hour of checking. Frustration was setting in. My eyes grew tired of staring at numbers and reading some FBI agent’s chicken-scratch handwriting next to each. When I looked at the clock, it showed a few minutes after eight. I reached for my desk phone and dialed Callie. She answered within a couple rings.

“Hey, babe,” she said.

“Hey, Cal. How is everything?”

“We’re just sitting here, under guard, locked in a hotel suite.”

I shook my head. “I’m sorry.”

“It could be worse, I guess. How is everything there? Any news?” she asked.

“None good,” I said.

“What happened?”

I told her about the agents. I told her that Ray was behind their deaths, and that there would be no meeting where the outcome would be him in custody. She went quiet.

“I’m sorry, Cal. Just know that I’m doing whatever I can to find him. Faust, I’m sure, has countless men on it as well. We’ll get him and get you guys out of there.”

“I know, Carl,” she said. “I just want you to be safe.”

“I will. I’ll call you guys in the morning.”

“Okay, I love you,” she said.