Dust Up: A Thriller (37 page)

By the time we left the airport, it was almost dark again. I’d been awake for a long, long time, but it felt right that it was nighttime again, like the daylight had been some kind of illusion.

I drove with Suarez back to the station. My work was done, even if it didn’t feel like it. I was exhausted. I was dying to get home and be with Nola—and Suarez was dying to get that case file back—but I also wanted to see Royce and Divock booked. Suarez bitched—“Come on, Carrick, you’ve seen that shit a million times. You think it’s going to be different somehow this time?”—but I insisted.

Suarez looked at his watch, then he put a finger in my face. “Okay. You see them booked, then we get the case file, or I will fucking arrest you.”

I don’t know why it seemed so important. Maybe I was hoping it would make the whole thing feel more satisfying.

It didn’t. It was the same boring procedure as every time I had done it myself. The same crappy room, the sickly fluorescent light. It was even worse because I was sitting there with Lieutenant Suarez.

My phone buzzed, and I looked at it. Mikel. Definitely not the time to be talking to him.

I was surprised to see Lieutenant Myerson processing Royce and Divock, instead of Warren. Maybe they didn’t trust him not to screw it up.

Myerson looked surprised to see me too. He looked at Suarez, and they exchanged a shrug.

I don’t know if Royce and Divock were surprised to see me there. They seemed sullen and detached, already gone to whatever neutral mental place would allow them to endure.

Myerson finished processing Royce and Divock, and he led them away. Suarez immediately looked at his watch and stood up. “Okay, come on, Carrick, let’s go.”

“In a minute,” I said.

“No,” he said. “Now. It’s been a long fucking day. You’ve been jerking me around for hours. I’m driving you to your house, and you’re going to give me that case file—now. Or I’m locking you up.” He took a deep breath. “Jesus, don’t you want to go home?”

I did want to go home. But I looked at him, studied him. He looked at his watch again. He wasn’t just antsy. He was worried. “Come on, goddammit. Let’s get the fuck out of here.”

And then I knew something was up.

I sat there, unmoving, and he reached down to grab my arm. I don’t know if he would have actually laid a hand on me, because just then, the door to the hallway opened, and Mike Warren walked in with a prisoner in handcuffs.

Miriam Hartwell.

93

“Doyle!” she cried out when she saw me. Her face looked as crushed and terrified as it had back in Everglades City, when Axe-Man showed up to kill her.

Warren saw me, and he looked at Suarez. “What the fuck? You said you’d have the file by now.”

“Just get on with it,” Suarez snapped. Then he turned to me. “And you, come on. No more bullshit. We’re going to get that case file, or you’re getting locked up too.”

“What the hell is going on?” I demanded.

“They arrested me again,” Miriam called over her shoulder as Warren steered her away from me. “After they let me go, they rearrested me for flight from prosecution and resisting arrest.”

I turned to Suarez. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. She’s innocent!”

“Not of that, she ain’t,” Warren said with a smile. “Sorry, Carrick. You might have been right about Royce and Divock, but I’m right about this.”

“You’ll never make it stick. No judge in the city will uphold this.”

Warren looked at me, one eyebrow twitching, one corner of his mouth curled up. He knew he wasn’t going to get a conviction. He just wanted her in a jail for a few days or a few weeks while she waited for her dismissal. He just wanted her to suffer, wanted me to suffer. Because we’d made him look bad.

“Come on,” Suarez said, resting his hand on my arm, almost like he was consoling me, almost like he was admitting how fucked up this was. “We need to go get the case file.”

I jerked my arm away from him. “Bullshit. You can’t be serious.”

“You know what? Fuck you,” he said. “Yes, I’m serious. This is Warren’s case, Warren’s bust, Warren’s decision. It’s not up to you or me. It’s not your case file, and it’s not your decision what Warren does with it or what every other cop on the force does when you’re not around. It’s not about you, Carrick. So I mean it—we’re going to get the case file right now, or you’re under arrest for obstruction of justice. And if there’s anything missing from that file, I swear to God, I will personally drop-kick you off the force.”

I wanted to hit him. I wanted to punch him right in the face. I think he would have been fine with that. It would have saved him a lot of trouble.

Instead, I turned to Miriam and said, “Don’t worry. This is bullshit. I’ll get you out, okay?”

She nodded bravely, trying to keep it together.

Then I turned to Suarez and said, “Okay, let’s go.”

Suarez was fuming as we drove, his hands squeezing the steering wheel. Maybe I was giving him too much credit, but I think he was as angry at the situation he’d been forced into as he was at me for the usual reasons.

I texted Mikel, “Miriam rearrested. Flight from prosecution. Can you send Schultzman?”

“r u kidding?”

“I wish.”

I could see Suarez’s eyes drifting over, trying to see what I was texting.

A few seconds later, Mikel texted back. “He’s on his way. Have you thought about my offer?”

I didn’t reply.

*   *   *

Nola didn’t look up when I first walked in. I was surprised, but I was happy to have a moment to take in the sight. She was sitting on the sofa with her feet on the coffee table and her computer on her lap. She looked great. There was a fire crackling in the fireplace across from her—a little early in the season, but it was cold and wet out there. The room was filled with a golden glow that seemed to be emanating from her as much as from anywhere else.

Then I noticed her expression, staring intently at her computer, her face showing a strange combination of emotions.

“Mikel did it,” she said, distracted, still not looking up. “He sent it all out there—Ron’s files, the recording, all of it.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Stoma and Energene are declining comment, but at this moment, shit is hitting the fan.” She angled the computer so I could see the screen as I sat down next to her. “Interpol is seeking Bourden and Pearce for questioning. Opposition leaders in half a dozen governments are calling for internal investigations. Trade groups in Southeast Asia and Central Africa are calling for new votes on authorizations of Soyagene and Early Rise. Even Stoma-Grow.”

I scrolled down the page. It was big. In addition to all the legal and political repercussions, it looked like shares of Stoma and Energene had both taken a substantial hit.

She looked up at me, smiling wide. “You kind of did it,” she said, coming in for a hug, her face buried against my neck. “And now you’re home.”

I squeezed her, too, but she pulled back and looked up at me, sensing something was wrong.

“What’s the matter?” she said. “This is good news, right? Are you okay? Is Miriam okay?”

I let out a short, bitter laugh. “I’m here for the case file,” I told her. “Suarez is waiting for it outside. They need it ASAP because they rearrested Miriam. They’re booking her for flight from prosecution.”

Her smile remained for a moment, like she assumed it was a joke. “They can’t do that.” But I guess she could see from my expression that they could. “What are you going to do?”

I didn’t know. Massive crimes against humanity were going on right under their noses—epic injustices, evil douchebags sickening thousands in order to make billions, wholesale murder—and Suarez, Warren, Myerson, they didn’t even want to know. All they cared about were the rules, the turf, saving face, and looking good while doing a half-assed job.

Arresting an innocent woman for fleeing a half-assed prosecution for a crime she hadn’t committed was exactly the kind of petty bullshit bust they excelled at.

“I don’t know if I can do this anymore,” I said. “Being a cop, I mean. The bullshit’s getting pretty deep.”

We hadn’t talked about Mikel’s offer, but we both knew it was there.

“He called,” she said. “Mikel. He said he’d been trying to reach you.”

I nodded.

She reached up and touched my face. “You know I’m behind you whatever you do.”

I nodded. “Thanks.”

The case file was on the coffee table. She watched me as I opened it and started leafing through the pages, hoping something would come to mind.

Outside, Suarez started honking his horn.

Nola put her hand on my knee. “What are you going to do?”

I didn’t have a whole lot of choice. I had to hand it over. Suarez had said he’d arrest me if I didn’t, and I believed him. He’d make it stick, too.

He was leaning on his horn.

Looking down, I realized I’d made two piles. The larger pile, the bulk of the pages, were the documents central to Mike Warren’s misguided murder investigation: forensics reports, ballistics, photos, witness statements. The smaller pile was just three pages.

My report about meeting with Miriam at the Liberty Motel, Warren’s notes about how it proved she was fleeing prosecution. That was the only proof they had that she had fled knowing she was wanted for murder.

As I put the rest of the file back into the folder, Suarez started banging on the door—
bang, bang, bang
. Nola jumped, and so did I. The last time someone banged on our door like that it was Ron Hartwell just before he was killed. That was how this whole thing had started. I thought about the investigation, about how it had been mishandled. It was negligent. Criminal. Maybe even intentional.

Nola squeezed my leg. “Doyle, what’s going on?”

I held up the pages I had kept out of the folder. “This is my statement after the incident at the Liberty Motel. This is what Mike Warren needs to prosecute Miriam Hartwell. I was the only one to speak to her before she took off.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Suarez said that if I didn’t give him the file I’d be arrested for obstructing justice.” I stood up. “He also said if anything was missing from it, he’d have me kicked off the force.”

“What are you thinking?”

I dropped those three pages into the fire and watched as the flames enveloped them. “I’m thinking, let him.”

A
CKNOWLEDGMENTS

This book started, as most of mine do, with a handful of ideas that I found fascinating and compelling. Some were expanded upon and became essential to the finished book, and some did not, but they were all assuredly part of the process, and in that sense, they are in there. I would like to thank Mary Ellen McNish and Idrissa Dicko at The Hunger Project for their invaluable assistance and support and their fascinating insights during the early stages of this book.

Many people were essential to my research into the broader issues at the heart of this book. Bill Freese at the Center for Food Safety and Patty Lovera at Food & Water Watch have been great resources and incredibly generous with their time and expertise. Eric Holt-Jiminez at Food First and Steve Brescia at Groundswell International were invaluable in putting issues surrounding food, agriculture, and land into broader contexts and deepening my understanding of them in ways that go far beyond what is contained in this book.

I took great pains to make sure the science in this book is real and the slight extrapolations are entirely plausible. For that, I thank world-renowned allergist Hugh A. Sampson, M.D., for his incredible expertise and his generosity in sharing it. Thanks to my friend and fellow author Chris Holm for many things: tirelessly sharing his great knowledge of molecular biology and immunology; helping me write lab scenes both accurate and compelling; for “getting it” like a writer—appreciating what I was trying to accomplish, and helping me get there; and for enlisting the help of his colleagues, Jesse S. Buch and Regis Krah. (Thanks, Jesse and Regis!)

As for the technical research, pilots Rick Longlott and Rick Dupont were both hugely helpful with the details of the planes involved, especially the Helio Couriers. I spent considerable time staring openmouthed at film of those crazy little planes taking off and landing, under the guise of “research.” Thanks to Neal Griffin for his help with the details of law enforcement. Thanks to my sister Maeve McGoran and my brother-in-law Greg Allen for their help with the Florida scenes. And thanks to Dennis Tafoya for helping me work through countless plot points and details.

When I realized a large portion of this book was going to be set in Haiti, I was both excited and daunted. Early in my research into the ideas behind this book, people began telling me, “You really need to talk to Chavannes Jean Baptiste.” Chavannes is the founder of the Papaye Peasant Movement, an organization that for forty years has been supporting land reform and helping Haitians build healthy and fulfilling lives through sustainable small-scale agriculture. I am immensely grateful to Wendy Flick and all the great people at the Unitarian Universalist College of Social Justice, not just for organizing the trip to Haiti, but for making it possible for me to sit down and talk with Chavannes. And I’d like to thank Chavannes Jean Baptiste himself, and all the people at MPP, for their hospitality during our stay, for their knowledge and insights, and for all the great work they are doing for Haiti. Very special thanks to Mayheeda Edwards, translator extraordinaire while we were there, and priceless resource afterward. Thanks also to Marie-Renee Malvoisin, for her help in making sure the Kreyol passages were correct.

One of the great perks of being a writer is getting to hang out with other writers, and I am grateful to the wonderful communities of writers who have made me feel so welcome, to publications like
Crimespree, Spinetingler, Crime Factory,
and
Criminal Element;
conferences like Bouchercon, Thrillerfest, NoirCon, and all the others; and groups like the Mystery Writers of America, the International Thriller Writers, the Writers Coffeehouse, and, most of all, The Liars Club. And especially for my great friend and mentor Jonathan Maberry, for all his support and for all he has done to foster community among the writers of the world.