THE EIGHT-PERSON DEA team blew in with the intensity of a Cat Four hurricane.
It was led by Special Agent Kate Kemper. She introduced herself to Decker and the others with a handshake like a grip of iron and a face set in granite. She was in her midforties, average height, but wiry, with dirty blonde hair and the determined features of a person who had faced many obstacles in life and had overcome them all.
“I need to see the bodies,” she said firmly.
Green nodded. “They’re in the morgue. Are they yours?”
“Let me see the bodies and then we’ll talk. To the extent I can.”
Green frowned at this, but nodded. “Let’s go for a ride.”
The DEA team followed Green, Lassiter, Decker, and Jamison over to the morgue.
Inside, the drawers were opened and the metal beds rolled out.
The sheets were lifted and Kemper stared down at the first man, and then the second.
Decker watched her closely while she did this.
“Thank you,” she said to the ME. “We will be taking possession of the remains.” She turned to Green. “And we will be taking over this investigation.”
Green said, “You can work it and I can’t stop you. But you can’t stop us from working on it.”
Kemper took out her phone. “I sure as hell can. With one call.”
Green looked ready to protest when Jamison intervened.
“Look, this is going to be a long, complicated investigation with many moving parts. It seems to me that the better path is to marshal all of the assets that we have to tackle this sucker.” She looked at Kemper. “The DEA can ride point. But the FBI is already engaged and we want to see this through. Baronville has been the scene of six murders now, and to cut the local cops out of investigating the crimes seems like it could turn into a field day for the media. That’s not going to help anyone except a network’s TV ratings. And that would distract us from finding out who killed these people.”
Everyone looked at Kemper to see her reaction to this.
At first it looked like she might be put off by Jamison’s words. But then she nodded. “Ground rules: All investigations flow through me. Leads, clues, interview notes, results. DEA is the central clearinghouse.”
Decker said, “I believe that all six of the murders are connected. If they are, that means your two guys had to be involved in all of that in some way.”
“I don’t see how that could be possible,” retorted Kemper.
“I think I might,” said Decker.
“How?” she shot back.
“First, I need to know how long they had been undercover.”
“Who the hell told you they were undercover?” Kemper snapped.
“No one told me.”
Jamison said, “Then, Decker, how did you know?”
He looked around at the array of DEA agents. “The FBI makes inquiries about possibly two dead agents. All sister agencies give the FBI a negative response except for yours,” he said, indicating Kemper. “Not only did you not respond, the inquiry went right up to the top at DEA and a special team is dispatched almost immediately.”
“But the undercover part?” asked Kemper. “They could just be agents.”
“Two agents in the normal course of business go missing, you’d know right away. But two undercover cops won’t be checking in regularly. They go missing, you wouldn’t necessarily know unless they missed a checkin with their agency point of contact.”
“And how do you know so much about undercover operations?” asked Kemper suspiciously.
“Believe it or not, back when I was a cop in Ohio, I worked undercover. My naturally scruffy appearance seemed to fit right in. And I’m a big guy. Most people bought the fact that I was an enforcer looking for work. And I wouldn’t check in for days because the bad guys keep a close watch over you. It’s not like you can run off and text the cops every five minutes. You go undercover, you live the role. You’re freewheeling. You have to build your cred. You have to breathe with the scum. So what were they doing?”
“No one in this room is cleared to know that other than me and my team,” said Kemper sharply.
“Makes it pretty difficult to work together, then,” noted Decker.
“I said I was the clearinghouse, not that we would be working the investigation together.”
Decker looked at Green. “Okay, I guess we just investigate the other four murders, which are not officially part of DEA’s pissing contest, but are squarely within your jurisdiction. Then if we find out there’s overlap, we can call in the FBI to come and run point. We solve the whole case and DEA looks like the chumps they are.”
“You are way out of line, mister!” barked Kemper.
Decker eyeballed her. “No, what’s out of line is we’ve wasted so much time over absolutely nothing but bullshit because your agency’s ego is apparently more important to you than finding out who murdered two of your guys. If this is how you run your investigation, knock yourself out. But it’s not how I run mine. So, speaking on behalf of the FBI at least, screw this, and we’ll see you around.”
He walked out of the room.
Kemper watched him go and then eyed Jamison. “It that your position too?”
“He’s my partner, so, yeah, it is. And you know what else? He happens to be right.”
She walked out. A moment later Green followed, along with Lassiter.
Chapter 20
DECKER LAY IN his bed at the Mitchells’ house rubbing his glued-together scalp.
It was late, and he was tired and his head was throbbing.
He hadn’t been entirely honest with Jamison. It was true he had taken many hits as a football player. And he’d suffered a number of concussions over the course of his football career. But this injury felt different. It felt deeper. More invasive.
The X-ray had shown that whatever had hit him had not penetrated his skull. There was no crack, no fracture, yet he still felt weird, and not just because his brain had bounced off the inside of his skull, which was basically the definition of a concussion. He just wasn’t sure why he felt so different.
Sleep would not come, so at around three in the morning, he showered, dressed, and went downstairs.
On the kitchen counter, he saw a slip of paper. He picked it up. It was the sheet of numbers that Zoe had shown him to see if he could remember them.
On a whim, he decided to put the matter to a test. He set the paper down.
He dialed the page up in his head and went down the columns. Everything was going fine until he got near the end. Then something in his head skipped, like a DVD with a scratch on its surface.
I can’t see the last two numbers.
In a semi-daze, he walked out the back door and sat down in a wicker chair on the rear deck. It was fortunate that where he was sitting was partially covered by an overhang, because a fine rain was falling. Although it wouldn’t really have mattered to Decker. He had certainly sat out in the rain before. And even slept in the rain when he’d been temporarily homeless back in Ohio.
He rubbed his temples. His perfect recall had been with him so long that he often took it for granted. There were elements of it that he also hated, like not being able to let time erode the horrific memories of his family’s having been murdered. But still, he had come to count on his remarkable gift to help him solve crimes. And if it was now becoming fallible?
He closed his eyes and brought the page of numbers back up. This time he could see the last two numbers, but not three in the middle. They were fuzzed over, like someone had smudged the ink in which they’d been written.
Well, that’s great.
He stared across at the house that had been the genesis of the current investigation. If he hadn’t been standing out here having a beer and looking around, he and Jamison would never have been involved in any of this.
Who murdered you?
Decker wanted to know the answer to that question more than any other.
“Are you okay, Mr. Amos?”