16
Hunter took his time explaining his investigation from start to finish, giving a lot more detail than he had to Cahill and Logan back at the police headquarters building. He spoke in depth about the information that the DEA had shared with him and the intercepted communications.
‘If Tim Stark was here he might be able to tell us if this Mexican had been in touch with Raines,’ Webb said when Hunter was finished.
‘Maybe he heard something and that’s when he put it all together,’ Cahill said. ‘And was going to get in touch with you, Detective Hunter.’
Webb nodded, looking thoughtful.
‘It’s plausible,’ he said. ‘But there’s absolutely nothing concrete to back it up, is there?’
‘No,’ Hunter said. ‘You’re right.’
‘But you’re going to do something about it, right?’ Cahill asked, feeling a little exasperated.
‘Of course,’ Webb answered. ‘We’re going to treat it as a line of inquiry. Try to find out if there really is a link.’
‘But it’s obvious.’
‘No,’ Hunter said. ‘I know it kind of sounds like it might be, but it’s not. Look at what we have. The only thing actually linking the two investigations is your e-mail. It might have been a reference to me, or it might have been something else altogether.’
‘And because Tim Stark is dead we can’t know for sure,’ Webb added. ‘So we have to treat it like any possible lead. Run it down properly.’
Cahill knew they were right, but still fought against it. He wanted Stark’s death to mean something. To lead somewhere.
‘So what now?’ he said.
Logan’s eyes were starting to close when a phone in the office rang. It pulled him from his near sleep, the ring tone slightly different from the other phones he had heard go off since he had been there.
Martinez got up from his desk and went to a phone on the wall next to the door out to the reception area. He spoke into it for a moment and listened for what seemed like a long time, though it was probably no more than a minute or so.
He hung the phone up without speaking again and went back to his desk. He spoke quietly to his partner, Ruiz, and they both put their suit jackets on and left the office in a hurry. Logan followed them out and saw that they headed up the corridor to where the meeting was.
Webb stood as if to signal that the meeting was over.
‘Let’s speak again in the morning,’ he said to Hunter. ‘Work out where we go from here.’
Hunter nodded.
‘And who does what,’ he said. ‘I mean, we can’t just hand our investigation over to you guys. You know that, right?’
‘Of course.’
There was a knock at the door. Agent Martinez opened it and walked in, followed by Ruiz.
‘What is it?’ Grange asked.
‘There’s a man downstairs says he needs to speak to the agent in charge.’
Everyone looked at Webb. He was impassive.
‘Well,’ Webb said. ‘Is that all the information he gave you? Because I’ll tell you right now, it’s not much to go on.’
The more he saw of Webb, the more Cahill liked the man.
‘Uh, sorry,’ Ruiz said. ‘He says his name is Matt Horn and he has information about Seth Raines and Tim Stark.’