“I know that. What I don’t get is why the FBI doesn’t want my help catching whoever killed those people.”
“Troy Clark told you he didn’t want your help?”
” ‘Course he didn’t tell me that. Said the exact opposite. Told me how he’d be leaning on me all the way. Then when I offered to send one of my detectives over to work with him, he said he’d get back to me. Hasn’t happened.”
I defended Troy—another act of re?exive loyalty. “You know how these cases are. No one goes home, no one sleeps or eats. Give him some time. He’ll get back to you.”
Grisnik snorted, shook his head. “Then I hear that they showed you the curb, said you were unstable. Now I find you roaming around a few blocks from where the murders took place and I ask myself what you are doing over here since I’m guessing you don’t have friends or relatives in the neighborhood.”
Grisnik wanted the same thing I did—information. I knew my reasons. His were obvious. This was his turf and he didn’t like being shut out.
“Not a one.”
“Makes me wonder whether everyone at the FBI is an idiot or an asshole,” he said. “Which do you think it is?”
“One doesn’t rule the other out,” I told him.
That made him laugh. He wiped the sweat off his face. “There’s someone I’d like you to meet.”
I followed him to the man he’d been talking with when I drove up.
“Jack Davis, say hello to Rodney Jensen.” Rodney and I shook hands. “Mr. Davis is with the FBI. Tell him what you told me.”
Rodney turned his jowly face to me, hiked up his pants, resting his thumbs inside his suspenders. “My sister gone missing.”
I looked at Grisnik, who nodded at me. “What’s your sister’s name?” I asked.
“Oleta Phillips.”
Chapter Fifteen
“Tell Agent Davis when it was you last saw your sister.”
Rodney Jensen pulled at both of his chins. “Day before yesterday. We was all standin’ outside where Marcellus and them stay at. Oleta, she went to see Marcellus on account of her boy, Tony, gettin’ hisself killed. Boy worked for Marcellus, and Marcellus, he done the right thing. Give Oleta three thousand dollars—funeral benefits, he called it.”
“Tell Agent Davis what kind of bills Marcellus gave your sister,” Grisnik said.
“All twenties. I seen ‘em.”
“You seen the money since?”
“No, sir. I ain’t seen the money and I ain’t seen my sister.”
“What makes you think she’s missing instead of just off on her own?” Grisnik asked.
“She don’t got no off on her own. She stays with me. She ain’t been home in two nights.”
“Do you have a picture of your sister?”
“Might have one in the house.”
“See if you can find it and then you go with the officers. They’ll take you downtown so one of our detectives can get the rest of your information,” Grisnik told him. “Let’s go for a ride,” he said to me. “I’ll drive.”
The Crown Vic was clean, but lived in, the upholstery faded and coffee-stained, the faint smell of cigarettes hanging in the air. The two-way radio hummed with calls to be answered. Grisnik ignored them, easing the car from the curb, letting it glide down the street barely above idle.
“Troy Clark came from here,” he said when he turned east at the first cross street.
“That’s right. You, too?”
He gave me a sideways grin. “No. I grew up in Strawberry Hill. Not too many Croatians lived in Quindaro. They had their neighborhood and we had ours, us and the Poles and the Lithuanians, even a few Dutch. It was real nice until they cut it in half with I-70. Some called it the Canyon after that but we still call it Strawberry Hill. It’s finally coming back, like a lot of the rest of the city.”
“Except for Quindaro.”
“Doesn’t help when people like Troy Clark turn their backs.”
“If you mean he shouldn’t freeze you out of the investigation because you both grew up here, you can forget it. That’s not the way Troy thinks.”
“How does he think?”
“He thinks about the case, how to pull it together. All he wants is to do it right and get it right.”
“Even if he shits all over you?”
I thought about Grisnik’s question, though I knew the answer. “Yeah, even if he shits all over me.”
Grisnik turned north. We were skirting around Marcellus’s block. The streets were quiet.
“I know why you pulled that scam with the fugitive warrant,” Grisnik said.
I didn’t answer. If he knew, he’d tell me. I’d learn more by letting him.
“You figure someone in my department was taking money from Marcellus. Could have been me. Could have been those two officers. Could have been the whole goddamn department. But you didn’t care who it was so long as word got back to Marcellus. That way he’d be ready for you when you showed up with that phony warrant. That’s why you wanted our cops to back you up. The more cops knew about the warrant, the more likely someone would tell Marcellus.”
We were doing the dance, giving a little to get a little, hoping to get a lot more. There was no reason not to play.
“I put a camera in the ceiling fan in the front room.”
“So you got the killer on tape?”
“Lights went out just before the shooting started.”
“That’s real handy. Makes you wonder if the killer knew about the camera.”
“That it does.”
“Anyone outside of your squad know about the camera?” Grisnik asked.
“Hard to say.”
“Looks like you and me might have the same problem.”
“And I didn’t think we had anything in common.”
He parked the car at the next corner.
“There it is,” he said. “That’s the corner where Oleta Phillips’s son got shot last week. Marcellus and Javy Ordonez have been fighting over that corner a long time.”
“We’re pretty certain Javy is responsible; he had one of his guys, Luis Alvarez, do it.”
“How certain?” Grisnik asked.
“Certain enough that I can’t tell you how certain without compromising my people. Marcellus sent the Winston brothers to balance the books. Alvarez is in the ICU at Providence. If he makes it, you can fight with the Justice Department over who gets him first.”
“Why are you telling me this when Troy Clark won’t give me the time of day?”
“I’m not Troy. The cash I found under the tree in Marcellus’s backyard—you think that’s the money Marcellus gave Oleta?”
“Seems likely,” Grisnik said. “Especially now that Oleta has disappeared.”
“Where does that leave you?”
“Leaves me with a missing mother and her murdered son. I think both of those cases are related to Marcellus and his people getting killed. If Javy ordered the hit, the murders could be the next round in a gang war. Maybe Oleta saw something she shouldn’t have seen. She could have run off or maybe we’ll find her body dumped out in the woods. Make my job a lot easier if the FBI would share some information with me, but they won’t because they don’t trust us.”
Grisnik put the car in drive, continuing his lazy tour. I thought about what he’d said, weighing my options.
“What do you want from me?”
“Help. If you suspect somebody in my department of being on Marcellus’s payroll, I want their names.”
I shook my head. “We weren’t investigating your department. We didn’t have any names.”
“You’ve got surveillance tapes. Let me see them. I may recognize someone.”
“Even if I wanted to, you forget that I’m on the disabled list.”
“You must have at least one friend left at the Bureau.”
“Like you said, they’ve forgotten my name.”
Grisnik squared around. “You’ve been there too long not to have someone who will talk to you.”
I thought of Ammara Iverson. She had said no the first time. That didn’t mean she wouldn’t change her mind.
“There may be one person.”
“Give it a try. And, remember, I may be able to help you.”
“How could you help me?”
“I don’t know why you’re touring our many fine attractions this morning, but I don’t think you’re looking to buy a new house. So I’d say you’re working the case on your own. As a general rule, that’s a bad idea. One of my detectives did that, I’d fire his ass.”
“But I’m not one of your detectives.”
“Which is a good thing for me. This gate can swing both ways, Jack. If I’m right about the death of Tony Phillips and the disappearance of his mother, I’m likely to learn things that will be helpful to you. Find out what you can, share it with me, and I’ll give you what I come up with.”
I looked away. I had defended Troy out of loyalty to him and the Bureau. That was more than the by-product of my training. It was the way I saw the world. I had never cheated on Joy even when our marriage existed in name only. I had taken a vow. She had released me from it when she left and filed for divorce. Troy was my colleague, the Bureau was my life. I wasn’t ready to turn my back on them, even if they could only see me over their shoulders. I turned toward Grisnik.
“I told you about Luis Alvarez. That’s the best I can do.”
Grisnik pulled to the curb again, this time in the middle of the block down the street from Marcellus’s house.
“Why? Because those people are your friends? Because the FBI is your mother, father, wife, and mistress who’d never treat you wrong so you can’t treat them wrong? I’m not asking you to do anything you’re not already doing.”
“What do you mean?”
“They cut you loose. Maybe because you’ve got the shakes. Maybe because you’re unstable. Or maybe because they blame you for those people getting killed. Hell, I don’t know. But I know this. You’re already acting like a free agent, working the case on your own, telling me about Luis Alvarez. What do you think the FBI is going to do if they find out what you’re doing? Give you a fucking medal and your job back? Give me a break.”
“I’ve got my reasons for being here.”
Grisnik let out a sigh. “I’m sure you do. Why don’t you tell them?” he said, pointing to a dark sedan that rounded the corner in the next block. A man and woman got out and walked up to the first house on the corner. Even at this distance, I recognized two members of my squad, Jim Day and Lani Heywood.
“Go on,” Grisnik said. “Get out of my car. Tell your friends that you’re snooping around on your day off and that you’ll let them know if you find out anything important.”
Kate’s words reverberated in my head:
work the people.
I had to work myself first. I had told myself that I wanted to avoid seeing the people on my squad because I didn’t want to put them in a difficult situation. That was only partly true. The rest of the truth gave me reason to shake. I didn’t want them to know what I was doing because I didn’t trust them.
“Maybe later. Let’s get out of here.”
Chapter Sixteen
My father was a salesman who preached that life was all about opening doors. The ones you could open yourself were the easiest, he said. All it took was guts. The hard ones were the ones someone else had to open for you because people won’t let you in if they don’t trust you. It didn’t matter what his product line was—plumbing supplies, corrugated boxes, or anything else he could buy right and sell smart—he always told me that he was selling the same thing. Trust.
That’s all I had to offer to Ammara Iverson. Troy Clark had told her not to trust me. That didn’t mean she didn’t, only that she was following orders by refusing to talk with me about the investigation. I had to give her a reason to disobey and open her door. I called her cell phone.
“Yes,” she said.
Her voice was quiet but hurried. I didn’t have to ask to know that I’d caught her at a bad time.
“It’s Jack. Call me on my cell when you can talk privately. It’s important.”
I had no place to go and nothing to do when I got there so I drove around, waiting for Ammara to call. I cruised south on Seventh Street, east on Central, winding my way across a bridge that took me back in to Kansas City, Missouri, past Kemper Arena, a modernistic white elephant relegated to tractor pulls after the Sprint Arena opened on the south edge of downtown.
I crept along Liberty Street, turning east on the Twelfth Street Bridge, which rose above old redbrick warehouses now converted to Halloween haunted houses whose faded logos advertising furniture and hardware were now obscured by three-story skulls with gaping, bloody mouths. Halloween was five weeks away, but it was never too early to be scared to death.
I continued across Twelfth Street, wandering south on Broadway into the Crossroads District where the warehouses had become art galleries and studios, lofts and restaurants that drew large crowds the first Friday of each month. Broadway carried me past Union Station and the Liberty Memorial, a towering obelisk remembering the victims and veterans of World War I, and south to the Country Club Plaza shopping district in midtown.
I left Brooks Brothers, Abercrombie & Fitch, and The Sharper Image in my rearview mirror, going farther south, where I passed the mansions on Ward Parkway. I turned west on Fifty-ninth Street, across State Line Road, and back into Kansas. More mansions ?ashed by in an enclave called Mission Hills.
In the space of thirty minutes, I’d gone from ghetto to grandeur, without destination or purpose. I didn’t know what to do with myself and I began to shake, my hands locked on the steering wheel, my chin jackknifing against my chest. I pulled into a church parking lot, stopping the car while waiting for the spasms to ease. A sign announced that I’d crossed into Prairie Village, another of the ubiquitous suburbs that ran together like colors bleeding from cheap madras. My phone rang as I caught my breath.
“Jack, it’s Ammara. What’s so important?”
She was all business, careful and brisk. There would be no dance. I wouldn’t ask any questions, so she wouldn’t have to refuse to answer. I’d give without asking for anything in return, banking the information I gave her for a future payback.