Rogue Justice (26 page)

And now the jig was up.

Chandler took a deep breath, slapped his hands on his thighs, and stood up. Now facing Savannah, he explained that, yes, they were using Stella Flynn as bait, that another Black Stallion operative had snuck into her room at the nursing home in Utah and captured a camera-phone photo. A short time later, he said, Tradd snagged the image from a secure web site during his layover in Juneau. The blackmail scheme followed from there. When he'd finished speaking, the room went silent. No one wanted to antagonize the woman further, including Chandler. Only once before had he seen her this livid... and once was enough.

Savannah stood frozen in place, glaring at Chandler with accusing eyes. Then she spun around, thundered out of the room, and slammed the door so hard a stack of first-edition books toppled off the top shelf from one of the bookcases. The volumes crashed noisily to the floor, seeming to make a statement of their own.

Chandler calmly gathered up the irreplaceable works, put them back in their proper place, and then strolled over to the window. He stood motionless staring outside, hands stuffed in his pockets, thinking about his next move. Part of his motivation in not telling Savannah the full story was to limit her exposure, keep her out of the dicey blackmail business altogether. It had been tough enough convincing her to go along with the charity angle. After initially agreeing to the plan, she'd changed her mind, took him to the mat on it. He now turned back, scanning the anxious faces of Atwater, Freeman, and Tradd.

"So what now, Mitchell?" Atwater asked tentatively.

For several moments Chandler said nothing. Then it hit him,
another
valuable lesson he'd learned in Vietnam: the most effective way to take down Charlie was to back-door him, come up with something completely unexpected. "Look," he said. "We all agree the cops are going to figure out the Kincaid woman was treating Samson, right? Even SIU won't be able to cover those tracks. So our job, gentlemen, is to essentially canonize the good doctor, show the world that, thanks to her fine care, our beloved whale made a full and complete recovery."

Atwater, Freeman, and Tradd nodded their agreement.

Chandler then sharpened his gaze on Freeman. "Here's what I want you to do, Colby. Once the whales are switched out, you invite a few of our media friends to stop by, people who don't drink the activists' Kool-Aid. Wine and dine them at Tulio's, then bring them over to the park, have them check out progress on the stadium. After that drop by the sea-pen so they can visit our star performer, tell them he's fit as a fucking fiddle. They'll never know the difference."

The blood seemed to drain from Freeman's face, but he nodded his consent.

"Now let's make this happen, people," Chandler said defiantly. "The clock is ticking."

Chapter 28

1 April, 12:30 AM PDT

Port Townsend, Washington

When Zora finished telling Mickey everything she knew and didn't know about the events that had transpired over the past few days, the funeral director ushered them out a side door to his waiting car. The DA still had a long night ahead of him—the ME hadn't yet arrived—and he suggested the maneuver as a way for them to dodge the media stampede. Rosekrans had promised to call the Seattle detective immediately following the autopsy, fill him in on what was going on, and arrange for Zora to meet him for lunch. If all went according to plan, that was less than twelve hours from now. The thought sent an icy chill through her body.

No one spoke during the short trip back to the Courthouse, giving Zora time to ponder her next moves. The DA, of course, had no idea where they were headed next, something she assumed he would prefer
not
to know. Less than ten minutes later, she was hunkered down in the cab of Mickey's black F-150 pickup truck. He was racing toward his sister's house on the north side of town, clocking three times the posted speed limit. A heavy drizzle beat steadily against the windshield, the wipers throwing intermittent shadows across their faces. Zora killed the music—
Gypsy Biker
from the Boss's
Magic
album—and glanced over at Mickey. "Your brain's in spin cycle, I can tell. Care to share?"

"The DA," he said. "I can't figure out why he gave you the cop's number. From everything I've heard about Rosekrans, he plays things close to the vest, a belt-and-suspenders kind of guy."

"All I know is, whoever made that call really pissed him off."

Mickey nodded, his eyes fixed on the road ahead.

After a long silence, Zora said, "I know
you
know what you're doing here, Mickey, which is a damn good thing because it's way out of my
league."

"Yeah, I guess you could say that."

"I don't remember the details, though. Military?"

"No, but close." Mickey replied. "I played some ball at Stanford, went fairly high in the draft even though I was small by NFL standards. You just don't see many six-one, two hundred pound linebackers playing at that level. None in fact. Anyway, I made the Jets practice squad but blew out my knee before the season even started. Just like that, my football career was over. Really bummed me out, so after mending from surgery I decided to chuck it all and see the world. I was broke, though, and signed on with this big international shipping company out of Denmark to make ends meet. A year or so into the job, terrorists bombed the USS
Cole
in
Yemen. Security was ratcheted up on all vessels moving in and out of the region, so me and eleven other guys got tapped to be part of an internal strike force. 'The Dirty Dozen' they called us. Not very original, but it stuck. We ended up taking an intensive six-week course run by a couple of former Mossad agents, husband-and-wife team, real bad-asses those two, especially the woman."

"I like her already. So, how long did you stay on the job?"

"Eighteen months, give or take. Got out in the spring of 2002. As a kid I always enjoyed problem solving, puzzles, working with my hands, so I decided to give the home building business a shot. Besides, what else do you do with a degree in philosophy?" Mickey slid forward in his seat, pointed out the window. "That's Kat's place up ahead there on the right, the red two-story on the corner."

Zora nodded. "Looks like we've got some company."

A police cruiser was parked on 33
^rd
, the street that ran alongside Katrina's house. Two officers stood outside the vehicle engaged in an animated conversation. Mickey drove on another block, turned right into a small lot at the end of the complex, parked the truck, and opened the center console. He grabbed a penlight, then pulled two pairs of latex gloves from his jacket pocket. "Here, put these on. I took them from a box at the funeral home as we were leaving. My fingerprints are no problem, but yours would raise some gnarly questions."

"Good thinking," Zora said. She took the gloves and stepped out of the truck.

* * *

Aided by the light of a bright moon, Zora and Mickey scaled a tall wooden fence that ran along San Juan Avenue. They dropped to the ground on the other side, squatting low. A murmur of wind through the fir trees wrapped them in a silent, eerie embrace. Moving stealthily, they slipped between a pocket of shrub beds and across a large cedar deck to the back door. There were strips of yellow police-line-do-not-cross tape crisscrossing the frame.

Zora hesitated. "What about a security alarm?"

"There isn't one," Mickey said. "Not a big priority around here." He pulled a key from another pocket, held it in the glow of a streetlight, adding, "Spare. Kat had one to my place, too." He then keyed the lock, pushed open the door, and motioned Zora inside.

She ducked under the tape, stepped into the foyer, and waited a moment while her eyes adjusted to the dark. "You okay?" she asked, sensing Mickey's distress.

"Jesus, this is tougher than I thought it would be."

"Maybe we should go."

"No, I'll be fine."

"You sure?"

"Yeah, it's okay." He checked the door. "No sign of forced entry. So either Kat knew her killer or he got in some other way. And I say
he
because whoever hauled her up to the top of that bluff had to be one strong son of a bitch."

"I agree," Zora said, glancing at the staircase to her right. "What's up there?"

"Kat's office and bedroom. I can't deal with that right now. Let's start down here, okay?"

They moved along a narrow hallway into the kitchen. Mickey turned on the penlight, holding it low to the floor. The kitchen and dining room were neat, orderly. He checked the front door. It was locked, no sign of forced entry there either. They then moved into the living room. It was cozy, artsy, the furnishings simple but elegant. There were two built-in bookcases on the far wall with an old fashioned looking cast-iron stove in between. A modernist painting hung above the sofa. They moved around the room in a slow circuit, careful not to disturb anything.

"What do you think?" Zora said.

"Looks clean to me. No sign of Vera either."

"Vera?"

"Kat's cat. We always laughed at the alliteration..." Mickey's voice fell off. "Anyway, V's an outdoor girl mostly, so she should be okay. I'll come back for her tomorrow."

Zora rubbed his forearm gently.

Mickey said, "I feel like Kat's going to come strolling in here any minute now wondering what the hell we're doing."

"Yeah, I know this is hard."

They were about to move on when they heard a soft "poof" sound. A flame then ignited behind the thick glass doors of the stove, illuminating the room in soft amber light.

"The thermostat controls the heat," Mickey said, pointing to a wall unit. "Opening the door must have..." He suddenly stiffened. "Holy shit, that's gotta be it."

"What?" Zora said.

Kneeling down, Mickey carefully touched the side of the stove. "Here, take a look at this." He focused the light on a sharp ridge beneath the doors. "Be careful, it's hot."

Zora leaned in close. "The burn mark on Katrina's neck," she said.

Mickey directed the beam up, down, and around the unit. "Yeah, I don't see any blood, though. No sign of a struggle either."

"But you're thinking this is where Katrina died, right?"

"That's
exactly
what I'm thinking."

Mickey offered up a theory, his voice coldly analytical now. "Kat was raped when she was like fourteen or fifteen. So if some guy broke in here and surprised her, she'd fight him with everything she had. Maybe in the process she got knocked down or fell, hit her head on the stove. Then the sick son of a bitch found her running gear, put two and two together, and tried to cover his tracks by hauling her up to Fort Worden."

Zora shuddered at the thought. "As horrible as that sounds, it seems totally plausible."

"Except for one thing," Mickey said, shaking his head. "It doesn't add up. If the motive was rape, or robbery, the place would never be this clean. Look around, it's spotless. Whoever murdered Kat was methodical. He knew exactly what he was doing."

"You're saying it was a pro?" Zora said, feeling another shock run through her body.

"Yeah, but if that's the case something else doesn't make sense."

"What's that?"

"The coroner. He could easily figure out this was no accident. A hit man would know that."

Zora nodded. "Okay, so where does that leave us?"

"I'm not sure, but there's no question Kat's murder and the threat to your mother are connected."

Zora thought about that. "Yeah, now all we have to do is prove it."

"C'mon, let's check upstairs," Mickey said. "Maybe we'll find something there."

They moved back through the kitchen and down the hall. Mickey stumbled over a pair of running shoes lying near the back door. He picked up the shoes, played the beam over the brand name: Saucony.

"What is it?" Zora said.

He handed her the penlight. "Here, you go on up. I need to make a call."

"I have no idea what I'm looking for."

"It'll only take me a minute."

Zora blinked several times then moved cautiously up the carpeted staircase to a tidy, rectangular loft area. There was a gray, two-drawer filing cabinet in one corner. A mesh eyeshade lamp, laptop computer, and desktop printer sat on the desk, several green file folders stacked neatly off to one side. A slice of moonlight cut through a skylight directly above the desk. She thumbed through a couple of folders then stepped into the bedroom.