she said in a soft, unintrusive voice.
Scot looked up curiously from his desk. “His wife?”
“No. She says she’s with the FBI.”
“The FBI?
Here?
” He froze for a moment, then jumped forward in his chair, tossing the muffin wrapper in the trash, stuffing the dirty teacup in a drawer, straightening the papers atop his desk.
His assistant rolled her eyes, as if she’d seen her 306
James Grippando
image-conscious boss in his neatnik mode before. “I’ll send her in.”
“Yes, do,” he said, frantically running a hand through his hair. “And bring Dewberry round as well.”
Detective Dewberry arrived first, and the two men greeted Victoria with gracious smiles. She was wearing a gray business suit that looked a little warm for the islands, but it seemed befitting of the FBI. Eduardo Ortega, a handsome young Latin agent from the Miami Field Office, was standing at her side. After quick introductions she declined the tea and sat on the sofa beneath the window, with Ortega still at her side. Dewberry took the Old English oak chair facing the desk.
“I must say,” said Scot from behind his desk. “I’m a bit surprised to see someone from the FBI.”
“Well, you
did
request our assistance.”
“We did?” he said, glancing at his partner.
“Uh, yes,” said Dewberry. “In a manner of speaking.
You can imagine our excitement, miss, upon discovering two distinct sets of fingerprints for Mr. Venters at the bank. Unfortunately, the data bank at Interpol turned up nothing a-tall. Since he was a Yank, we were hoping the FBI data bank might provide a match.” He glanced at Scot, as if he were speaking more for his benefit than Victoria’s.
She smiled thinly, instantly aware of who was
really
in charge here. “Well,” she said, “you gentlemen have yourselves a match.”
“Splendid!” Scot was smiling widely, but the grin soon faded. “But…why did you and Mr. Ortega have to come all the way to Antigua to tell us?”
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“Because there’s a rub,” she said. “I’m authorized to deliver the results to you on one condition only.”
“Which is…?” he said cautiously.
“You give us custody of Michael Posten.”
Scot shifted uneasily. “How did you even know we had him?”
“That’s really none of your concern, is it?”
“Why do you want him?” Dewberry interjected.
“We believe he may have assisted in structuring wire transfers to offshore banks in violation of U.S. currency laws.”
Scot leaned back in his chair, thinking. “Truth be told, the only reason we were holding Mr. Posten was in the hope that he’d tell us who Mr. Venters is. If the FBI will tell us whose fingerprints we have, I suppose we no longer need him.”
Dewberry gave him a subtle nod, as if approving his analysis.
“Then I can have him?” said Victoria.
“Certainly,” the lieutenant said with a shrug. “Just show us your bounty.”
Victoria shot him a curious look.
“The fingerprints,” he explained, nervous with embarrassment.
Victoria confirmed their agreement with a firm nod, then opened her briefcase and removed a file. “As you say, the fingerprints do belong to an American citizen. A convicted felon, in fact.” She rose from her seat and laid the open file on the detective’s desk.
The Antiguans eagerly leaned forward, inspecting it with interest.
“His name is Curt Rollins.”
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The door to isolation cell number two opened with a clank and a thud. At the first crack of light, Mike jumped up in the darkness from his place in the corner.
The howling resumed.
Watts was shirtless and barefooted, wearing only dark prison pants that fit loosely like pajamas. His ragged beard and a matted coat of thick body hair made it impossible to guess his age, somewhere between twenty-five and forty-five. He had a habit of using feces like a styling gel, rubbing it through his long hair, making it stand on end—straight up, like a man who’d stuck his finger in a light socket. Mike figured that was the reason they called him “Watts.” His arms and shoulders were broad and muscular, but his belly protruded grossly over his belt line. A thick pink scar ran nearly the entire length of his right arm, presumably from a knife fight. Mike noticed two tattoos. The one on his arm read, NO LIFE LIKE LOW
LIFE. The other was centered on his forehead—a third eye.
As the door opened, Watts jumped forward, then snapped back like a dog at the end of its leash. His waist and ankles were chained to the wall, allowing him only a few feet of movement.
Mike squinted as his pupils adjusted to the light. His clothes were splattered with wet brown stains. Wads of wet toilet paper dotted the walls around him. The cell reeked of strong disinfectant and human waste.
Dewberry stood in the doorway, covering his 309
THE INFORMANT
mouth to contain his laughter. “I see Mr. Watts has emptied the latrine for us again, one handful at a time.
His aim’s improving a mite, as well.”
Mike glared at him, completely nonplussed. “Get me out of here.
Now.
”
Watts growled and swung his arms like a bear, but the chains kept him safely on the other side of the cell.
“You’re a lucky chap, Posten. Tonight we were going to unchain your cellmate.”
“What made you change your mind? Amnesty International?”
“The FBI. They’ve come to arrest you.”
His mind raced. It had to be Victoria—but
arrested?
The detective grabbed his arm and led him from the cell down the hall to the showers. He waited as Mike quickly showered and put his street clothes back on.
Dewberry then led him through the gate, past the guard and down the prehistoric elevator. The door opened on the first floor, where Victoria was waiting beside a tall Latin gentleman who Mike guessed was also an FBI agent.
Mike was about to say something, but she quickly cut him off.
“Is this Posten?” she said to Dewberry.
Mike looked confused at first, but in half a second he realized she was signaling to him. The supposed arrest still had him leery, but whatever her plan was, it had to be better than another night with Watts.
“He’s all yours,” said Dewberry.
Victoria watched as the detective removed the old metal handcuffs. Once they were off, she made a big show of grabbing his arm and securing both hands 310
James Grippando
behind his back with her plastic flex-cuffs. She cinched them up extra tightly, pinching his wrists.
“Oww!” He glanced at her sharply, as if to say, “You did that on purpose.”
She smiled with her eyes, then said sternly, “Don’t try anything funny, Posten.”
She thanked Dewberry profusely, then quickly pushed her prisoner through the lobby and out the front door before anyone had the chance to change their mind. She had Mike’s right arm, Agent Ortega had the left. They were still pushing their prisoner when they hit the cracked and busy sidewalks of downtown St. Johns. Victoria steered the threesome in and out of pedestrians and around the ornate wrought-iron posts that supported the old Georgian-style balconies hanging overhead. A block away from the station, she yanked him to an abrupt halt at the BMW parked at the curb.
With a quick yank she removed the plastic handcuffs.
“Oww, dammit! Will you cut that out?”
“Just get in,” she said as she flung open the car door.
Mike ducked into the passenger seat, rubbing his wrists.
Ortega jumped in the backseat. Victoria ran around to the driver’s side, then pulled away quickly from the curb.
She was pounding the clutch like a test driver, racing in what Mike seemed to remember was the general direction of the airport.
“I want to know what’s going on.”
She darted into the passing lane, flying by a rusted old flatbed Ford. “You already know most of it. Like us, you figured out these murders at the Charter Bank 311
THE INFORMANT
were no coincidence. Since I told you we’d lost track of the money in Antigua, I had a feeling you might get curious enough to come here and see what you could find out. So we put a tail on you,” she said, glancing toward her colleague in the backseat. “Ortega’s been shadowing you. Good thing, too.”
“What’s this business about an arrest?”
She checked traffic, then rolled through a stop sign.
“We haven’t told the Antiguan authorities anything about your cooperation with the FBI. The last thing I wanted was yet another jurisdiction brought into the loop on this serial killer. I’m having trouble enough coordinating the domestic authorities. But I had to tell them something to get them to turn you over to me. So I made them think we were after you for currency violations.”
“That would be a fitting end,” said Mike. “The checkbook journalist who’s so stupid he even figures out a way to blow the benefits of Antiguan bank secrecy.” He shook his head, then sighed. “They locked me up, you know.
They wanted me to tell them who some guy named Eric Venters really is.”
“I told them. That’s why they let you go.”
“How do you know who he is?”
“The Antiguan police asked for the FBI’s assistance in analyzing two sets of fingerprints they lifted from the Charter Bank. One was from the safe-deposit box, left behind on the day of the murders. The other was from the application forms filled out several months ago by whoever opened the account. Our database came up with a match on both.”
Mike caught his breath. “Is it one guy, or two?”
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“Two.”
He sighed, not sure whether that was a good or bad thing. “Who are they?”
Victoria glanced over, then turned her eyes back to the road. “The only way I can tell you is if this is a two-way dialogue. I don’t want to hear any excuses about how you can’t tell me anything about them because they were one of your old sources, or some other confidential balo-ney.”
Mike blinked hard. He’d hardly slept in the last forty-eight hours, and he wasn’t sure if he was clearheaded enough to make that kind of ethical judgment. Curiosity, however, put his mouth in gear. “Just give me the names.”
“The prints on the bank application forms probably belonged to your informant, since he’s the one who opened the account. His name is Curt Rollins.”
Mike paused, searching his memory. “Sorry. Never heard of him. Maybe if you told me something about him, it would come to me.”
She glanced over, as if to make sure he wasn’t holding out. “He’s thirty-two years old, former cop. After three years on the Chicago police force, he was convicted of selling the names of the government’s confidential informants to drug dealers. Served five years of a seven-year sentence in Joliet maximum security prison—which, for a cop, is eternal damnation. Basically he was an unem-ployed lowlife living in a basement apartment in Brooklyn since his release.”
“Kind of strange, isn’t it? A guy who was actually
convicted
for selling out informants becomes my confidential source?”
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“From what we’ve been able to gather from his parole officer and prison psychologist, Rollins is basically a big-time loser who’s been at psychological war with himself over this whole idea of being an informant. On one level, he’s always hated snitches. He was in a gang as a teenager, with a string of juvenile arrests—burglary, arson, car theft. He was always getting caught, basically because he wasn’t very smart. Lucky for him he was never convicted as an adult, or he never would have been able to become a cop. Still, according to his parole officer, Rollins believes he is a victim of snitches. Even when he went before the parole board, he still showed a lot of anger over the way he seemed to get caught every time he broke the rules, while all the other crooks seemed to get away with murder. It seems that fear of getting caught is the only thing that kept him from growing up to be a criminal in the first place. Jealousy of more successful criminals, so to speak, is what made him become a cop.”
“So, he wanted to bust people not because they were breaking the law, but because it killed him to see other guys break the law
and get away with it.
”
“Exactly. In my opinion, it was that same jealousy that made him want to inform on others, despite his hatred of the people who snitched on him.”
Mike shook his head, drawing a blank. “It all makes sense, I guess. But none of it sounds at all familiar.”
“I’m not surprised. If you two had crossed paths before, I have to believe it would have come out somehow in all those phone conversations you had with him. Incidentally, you’re not likely to hear from him again, either. We searched his apartment in Brooklyn.
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Looked a little ransacked. Garbage strewn all over the kitchen floor. No sign of him. Neighbors haven’t seen him, and he missed his appointment with his parole officer. Apparently he was quite the mama’s boy, too. Her birthday was last week—no card, no call.”
“You think he’s in hiding?”
“My opinion? He’s dead. If he were alive he would have gone to Antigua and gotten the money himself, especially after all the trouble he went to to get it out of you. We probably won’t know for sure, though, until we catch up with the guy who left his fingerprints on the safe-deposit box.”
“Who’s that?”
She paused. “Again, Mike. I haven’t even given the Antigua authorities his name yet. I want to make sure this is handled exactly right—as a search for an intelligent serial killer, not just some loony who had a gunfight with two security guards in an Antiguan bank. If I tell you his name, you can’t repeat it. And you have to tell me everything you know about him. No journalistic priv-ileges.”
“I already gave you my word, dammit. Tell me his name.”
She glanced his way, as if expecting a reaction. “Frank Hannon.”
His expression went cold. He sat in silence for a moment, then simply said, “Hannon.” There was no real emotion in his voice, just a hint of recognition.
“You know him?”
He looked away, feeling a pain in his gut as he looked out the window. “I don’t think anybody really knows Hannon.”