They’d taken the dead prick’s laptop but the crew’s computer guy hadn’t come up with a goddamn thing. So last night, the mercenary meant to check that office and see if Bryson had left behind anything that could incriminate their employers.
But just a couple of minutes after Carpenter got inside, barely starting his search, some asshole came in on him. Either he had a key or Carpenter had screwed up and not shut the door tight.
And not just any asshole, but Reeder, who for an old fart put up one hell of a fight, rough enough that Carpenter had cut out soon as he got the chance.
From a vantage point half a block away, the merc had watched the cops show up for a search, and then Reeder and some woman joined in. He’d kept watch a long time, even after the CSIs showed up, after which a plainclothes cop, Reeder, and the female had gone off together. He’d used binoculars and was pretty sure he didn’t see any evidence bags troop out of there into the crime lab van.
But he couldn’t be sure.
And if something, anything, had been taken out of there, he had no way to know it. A thorough search would likely be pointless now. That left only one alternative — cleanse the place. If something was still in there, make it be gone.
He would come back and do that when the joint wasn’t crawling with cops and CSIs.
At that point, he’d driven back to the Bryson residence, and shit! They were in the wind, Mommy and Baby Boy both, apparently having driven off in the dead dad’s BMW. Now the Brysons were more than loose ends: they were a likely threat. The wife and/or son must know something.
Otherwise, why run?
Now, as sunshine peeked past dreary clouds, Carpenter strolled around the far corner of the strip mall sidewalk, on Bryson’s end of the building, and circled around behind, in that not fast, not slow manner that said he belonged here.
He ambled into the alley, lighting up a cigarette, since an alley was one place in this damn restriction-happy country where a man could still catch a smoke. But catching a smoke wasn’t what he was doing: he wanted to have a reason for being back here, should somebody ask. Plan was to lean against the wall and puff away till he had the alley to himself.
But he already did.
So he went directly to the Bryson Security back door stenciled PRIVATE — NO ENTRY. He used the key and went in. Last night, he’d been lazy and sloppy, leaving that front door unlocked. This time he threw the deadbolt.
The door opened directly onto Bryson’s inner office. Carpenter briefly reconsidered searching the place, but then stuck to the plan. He removed the batteries from the smoke alarms in both inner and outer offices — the latter required caution and care, as the big window, tinted though it was, remained a hazard — then he disabled the sprinkler system.
He hadn’t bothered acquiring an accelerant, because he’d seen one in the office last night, when he started his search by looking in the file cabinet. Bryson must have been a lush because the guy kept a bottle of bourbon in the bottom drawer.
That would do fine.
And with all the flammable stuff in here anyway, sprinkler system and smoke alarms down, it’d be tinderbox time.
Back in Bryson’s inner office, he filled the wastebasket with paper, which he then doused with bourbon. He went to the desk and opened drawers and sprinkled bourbon on everything. Same for the desktop. He noticed something a little out of place — an insulated coffee mug with the Metro DC police badge logo. Probably left behind by that cop on guard last night.
In the outer office, keeping down low — that big window again — he filled that wastebasket, too. He splashed that with bourbon, as well as a stack of magazines on a little end table by the waiting-area chairs.
Returning to Bryson’s inner office, he splashed what was left of the bourbon onto a wall. Then he pulled out his Air America lighter and went around lighting little fires, wastebasket, desktop, top drawer. He was heading toward the door to the outer office when the uniformed cop came through.
Not fucking again!
No weapon in his hands. He was bundled up for the cold and his eyes had gone immediately to the desk, and Carpenter knew. Last night’s cop on the door — he’d left his coffee cup here, all right. Probably in his thirties, kind of heavy, cheeks rosy from the cold but maybe rosy anyway. His hand went toward his holstered weapon and Carpenter hurled the coffee cup at him, hitting him in the forehead. The cop winced and by then Carpenter had his .45 out of his parka pocket.
“Hands where I can see them,” Carpenter said.
Around them the little fires crackled and smoked and popped.
The cop held up his hands, swallowed. “What is this, anyway?”
“This is where you turn around and face that wall. Do it.”
Like a big blundering beast, the heavily winterized cop turned to the wall. Smoke was getting thick now, each little fire sending its fumes to meet other fumes. The desktop was entirely consumed by dancing orange and blue.
“I don’t care about you,” the cop said. “All I want is to get the fire department out here, protect the people in these stores. There’s a back door. Use it. Go!”
Carpenter was holding his breath, smoke thickening.
But he let some breath out as he said, “I don’t care about you, either.”
And put two holes in the back of the cop’s head.
Ten
“Everyone wants to go to heaven, but no one wants to die.”
Patti Rogers, in a gray suit with a white blouse, stood before her assembled team in a small conference room, with a sixty-inch wall monitor looming behind her.
Joe Reeder, in a camel-hair sport coat with a light-blue shirt and navy-and-black striped tie, was the closest thing to casual in a room of FBI agents in suits. Immediately to Rogers’s right, Reeder sat next to Miguel Altuve (blue suit, darker blue tie) with the rest spread around the oblong table — attractive African American Anne Nichols, dark-haired handsome Jerry Bohannon, former college hoop star Reggie Wade, skeletal Trevor Ivanek, and of course resident cue ball Lucas Hardesy, who was more up to speed than the rest, having been the one who’d called Rogers to the Karma Sabich crime scene the day before.
Arrayed on the big flat screen were all seven of Chris Bryson’s SIM card photos, as well as a glamorous head shot of Karma Sabich, pulled from the website of the club where the transvestite had worked.
“I trust you all know Joe Reeder,” she said, “or at least know of him.”
Nods and murmured hellos from the team, a nod and murmured hello from the new face at the table.
Rogers made a slow scan of the faces looking up at her. “Did any of you ever meet Chris Bryson? Or even just hear of him?”
Head shakes and a few “No” responses.
She paced a few steps. “Does anybody know how a one-man strip mall security outfit could get ahead of us in our serial investigation?”
Silence.
Which finally was broken by Reeder.
“Agent Rogers,” he said, in that flat manner he used in public, “if I might respond?”
She nodded to him. “Certainly. For the record, Mr. Reeder has signed on with us as a consultant.”
“Pro bono,” he said with a slight smile. “I know Agent Rogers has provided you with the basics. But let me reiterate: Chris Bryson was a friend. And I need to make a point about him. He was ex — Secret Service, so he wasn’t just some storefront PI. He was also a Medal of Honor winner. He was as good as anybody in this room. So we don’t need to beat ourselves up about him getting out ahead of us.”