No Good Deeds Part 23

"Got a cell for him?"

"Yeah. And maybe he'll answer if he doesn't see the 396 prefix." All city numbers, including those from police headquarters, began with those three numbers.

"Good luck," Tess said. "I owe you one."

"You've lost count if you think all you owe me is one."

"Final question: If you were the kind of homicide detective who ever pretended to be out in the field to avoid a difficult a.s.signment-we all know you'd never do that, just being theoretical here-but if you were that kind of detective and you weren't working and you didn't want to be found, where would you be?"

Tull began laughing.

"What's so funny?"

"Truth be told, I'd go to your father's bar, because no one's ever going to find anyone in that little bend of Franklintown Road. But if I were Jay Rainier-and I thank G.o.d every day that I'm not-I'd be on Fort Avenue. He came up through Southern District patrol, has a soft spot for Locust Point."

"Tull, there's a bar in almost every block of Fort."

"Yeah, but it's only, what, two, three miles long? And it's a nice day for a pub crawl. Cool, but sunny."

Tess called Crow's new number but got no answer. She left careful instructions about how to access the Hotmail account, then made a quick costume change before heading to South Baltimore, trading her suede jacket for a nylon windbreaker of a startling bright blue, lined with synthetic plush of the same color. It had belonged to her father and still had his name, Patrick, embroidered on the front.

But it was the back, proclaiming Tess a member of the Colts Corral, No. 34, that should make the Fort Avenue bartenders warm to her.

Crow and Lloyd were loading supplies at the 84 Lumber off Route 26 when the cell rang, and Crow couldn't get his hands free to answer it without dropping a two-by-four on Lloyd's toe. It was wonderful just to hear it ring, to know Tess was trying to get in touch with him. He checked the message on the drive back, listened to her breathless instructions to get to a computer and review the photos she had sent.

But the South Coastal Library, so helpful in all other respects, thwarted him. Its computer network was loaded with virus protections that refused to allow him to download the images Tess had forwarded. One of the librarians could probably help him bypa.s.s the program, but Crow didn't want to risk drawing that much attention to himself. Maybe Ed had a computer.

"We take technology too much for granted," he said to Lloyd as they drove back to Fenwick.

"What you mean?"

"We a.s.sume everyone has a cell phone, computers, Internet access-or that cell phones will always work or we'll be able to find a wireless hot spot when we need it. Can you imagine the chaos if terrorists or hackers brought down all the landlines and cell access and wireless connections for even an hour? If you couldn't call anyone, use an ATM, send an e-mail?"

"I'd be okay," Lloyd said.

Crow started to explain that Lloyd was missing the larger point of what he was trying to describe, the global nature of technological dependence. But Lloyd had spoken a simple truth. Lloyd would be okay, probably better than most. On the day that the s.h.i.t really came down-when buildings fell again or if a similar nightmare scenario played out-Crow wouldn't mind having Lloyd Jupiter at his side.

Fort Avenue dead-ended into Fort McHenry, the star-shaped fort where a pivotal battle in the War of 1812 had inspired Francis Scott Key to write "The Star-Spangled Banner." In honor of that deed, the fort had commissioned a statue of Orpheus-or, as locals called him, that naked guy with the harp. Tess parked in the public lot and began heading west along a street where there was a bar, on average, every two blocks.

She had not been in the Locust Point section of Baltimore for two years, and the area had changed considerably, like most of the city's waterfront. She could see the sh.e.l.ls of expensive town houses-at this width and price, they would never allow themselves to be called rowhouses-rising by the harbor, and there was a fancy-schmancy bakery, the kind of place where a cupcake cost almost as much as a Lady Baltimore in the old-fashioned stalls in Cross Street Market. But most of the old bars were hanging on, with only a few chichi interlopers. Given that her father was once an inspector for the liquor board, Tess couldn't help speculating why so many licenses had been granted in the area. It had to be tied to political patronage; the question was whether it implied a surplus of clout or a complete lack thereof. She also wondered how many of the places made illegal payouts on the video poker games where, even at midday, stonefaced zombies sat pressing b.u.t.tons forlornly.

The bartenders at such places were expert at protecting their regulars, especially from women inquiring after them. But with reasonable deployments of charm and cash, she managed to ascertain whether Jay Rainier was known in these parts. "Captain Larry's?" the bartender at Truman's volunteered, but the skipper there sent her to Hogan's Alley, which recommended the End Zone, a cruel joke, as that bar had been replaced by a yuppie joint, the Idle Hour. She had worked her way almost two miles down Fort Avenue when she found the man himself in Dorothy's, a pale lager and a large cheeseburger in front of him.

"Don't you worry about mad cow disease?" Tess asked, taking the stool next to him.

"Hmmmph," Rainier said, his mouth full.

"Me neither. I'll have what the gentleman's having, medium rare, Swiss cheese if you've got it."

"And a Coors Light, too?" the waitress asked.

Tess didn't believe in the light version of anything. She studied the handles on the draft taps. "Yuengling."

"You want fries with that?" The waitress's tone suggested she had a vested interest in Tess's weight.

"I want fries with everything."

"Hey, Monaghan," Rainer said after a hard swallow. He seemed wary but not unfriendly. "Is this a chance encounter?"

"Not exactly."

"f.u.c.k me." There was no edge to his words, however. He studied the silent television above them, tuned to ESPN. "Second real day of the baseball season and probably the last one that the Mets will be in first place."

Tess nodded in pretend empathy. She had been brought up to hate the Mets more than any other team in major-league baseball. The very mention of 1969-the year that Baltimore teams had lost to New York ones in the World Series, the Super Bowl, and the NBA championships-could ruin her father's day.

"I hear you caught a case-"

"Of the clap? You doing STD investigation now for Public Health? That would be a step up for you, prestigewise." Rainier's tone remained listless, as if he really couldn't summon the energy to taunt Tess.

"Le'andro Watkins. Teenager, killed last week."

"Yeah, that's a winner, ain't it?"

"You've developed any leads?"

"None at all. Usual drill. No one saw anything. No one knows anything. He was a low-level solider in a small-time drug gang."

"Worked for Bennie Tepperson-Bennie Tep. Am I right?"

"Yeah," he said, now more alert. "You got something for me, Monaghan? Because this one's a total loser."

"I might. Eventually. Was there anything to suggest that it wasn't what it appeared to be, a straight-up retribution shooting?"

"Naw. Although I will say the East Side has been quiet lately, and Bennie's far from a player. He's an old-timer who's stayed in the game by not taking a lot of risks. h.e.l.l, he'll barely defend what territory he does have, and he's getting a rep for putting out really weak packages. He's never been a significant player, except in his own head."

"You hear that from DEA?"

"Naw, our own guys are more up on it. The feds got no use for the drug stuff now, unless it's big federal-death-penalty stuff with lots of gang violence, like those M-13s down in southern Maryland."

"Still, the DEA was interested, right? Came around, asked a few questions?"

Rainier gave her an odd look. "Nope. No DEA involvement at all. What makes you think that?"

"You sure? I know you're the primary, but could they have spoken to someone else?"

"Anything is possible, but I sure as h.e.l.l didn't talk to anyone. It's not exactly one of our high-priority cases. And if a DEA agent came sniffing around, there would have been talk, you can be sure of that."

It was what Tess had expected to hear, even feared. If Mike Collins hadn't talked to the primary on the case, then how could he know that Le'andro Watkins was the dead kid that had scared Lloyd into running? Chances were he was the man who had killed him.

"You know a DEA agent name of Mike Collins?" she asked Rainier.

"Know of him. He's the poor b.a.s.t.a.r.d who shot that geezer who tried to interrupt his drug buy. Honest mistake, and they hung him out to dry."

"But you've never spoken to him, haven't had any contact with him in the last week?"

"Nope. Never met the man."

Tess's lunch arrived, and she decided to abandon herself, however briefly, to the reliable pleasure of grilled meat, melted cheese, and deep-fried potatoes. "So what sent you into hiding today?"

"I'm working," Rainier said, in on the joke for once. "Hey, it's bad enough I'm saddled with this piece-of-s.h.i.t Watkins case. I don't see why I have to be collateral damage in a red ball as well."

"Tourist?"

"Worse."

"A relative of the mayor?"

"Some federal prosecutor. Probably a random thing, a straight-up carjacking, but they're sending guys out to grab every lowlife in a five-mile radius, just in case it's related to his work. Two AUSA's in six months. It's making people a little jumpy."

The cheeseburger, which would have been a contender in any best-of-Baltimore survey, turned to ash on Tess's tongue.

"You happen to hear the name?" she asked after a hard swallow.

"Something Italian."

"Dalesio?"

"Yeah, like the restaurant. Dalesio. You know the guy?"

31.

Live and learn, Jenkins thought. Gail Schulian wasn't going to make the same mistake that her predecessor had, calling press conferences and vowing to avenge the death of Gabe Dalesio. She was playing this as close to the vest as possible. Here it was almost four o'clock, and the name hadn't been released to the public yet. As far as the general population knew, the Canton carjacking was just some unlucky civilian.

Collins had done as he'd been told, gone to the bosses and spoken about his drink with a dead man. He said Dalesio had been working on some leads in the Youssef case, but it was all about trying to get the female PI to give up her source, nothing inherently dangerous.

Collins had reported the details back via cell phone, although even that made Jenkins nervous. Just their luck, some hobbyist with a scanner would pick up their conversation. But whatever Collins was, he was disciplined, and while an eavesdropper might wonder why he felt the need to relate all this to Jenkins, there was nothing in the content of their conversation to cause trouble. Yes, Collins had been a most satisfactory protege all around.

Until he murdered Gabe Dalesio.

Killing Youssef had been bad enough, but necessary. The whole beauty of Jenkins's scheme was that it was low-risk, a fed's version of playing stickup man. They were stealing money from a drug dealer, and a mediocre drug dealer at that, one who was unlikely to be a target but had the old-school arrogance to think he might be. It was a scheme Jenkins had dreamed up and polished while in exile in Woodlawn, waiting for retirement and contemplating suicide. The thing was, such a scheme required a collaborator. A defense attorney had seemed the likely go-between, and Jenkins couldn't stomach the thought of that. Then he had met Mike Collins, another former wonder boy covered in shame. As an East Sider with contacts on the ground, Bully could do what few other feds could: go straight to the source. Collins hashed out the deal, told Bennie Tep that he was coming up on wiretaps but that Collins could hold him harmless for a monthly fee. It was like selling real estate on the moon; the only way that Bennie Tep could prove they weren't protecting him was if he got arrested by the feds, and that was never going to happen.

How had Youssef figured it out? That bugged Jenkins to this day, because if Youssef could figure it out, someone else could as well. He was such a smarmy b.a.s.t.a.r.d, cutting himself in when he hadn't done any of the work. But okay, Jenkins was fine with giving him a cut, letting him collect a little Bennie Tep money, too. It didn't even cost him and Bully anything; Mike just told Bennie that they had to bring an AUSA in to guarantee his protection, so the monthly fee went up. No, it was okay when Youssef wanted in.

It was when he wanted out that things came to a head, and the fact that he wanted to do it because he had a kid on the way just made Jenkins more nervous. Once Youssef opted out, it would be all too easy for him to turn on them if the s.h.i.t ever came down. But Jenkins had smiled and shook the young man's hand, told him there were no hard feelings, congratulated him on his soon-to-be-born son, and let him go his own way, thinking everything was peachy.

Bennie hadn't wanted any part in killing Youssef; that would be a death-penalty crime, and he was too cautious for that. But he let Mike have one of his low-level kids set it up. Le'andro wasn't the brightest bulb on the tree, but he had faked his way through his part. He got in touch with Youssef, claimed to know something about a Pakistani who was funneling money into local drug gangs, asking questions about weapons and dirty bombs. The night before Thanksgiving was supposed to be Youssef's big score, a meeting with someone close to the Paki, arranged by Le'andro. He had headed downtown, thinking he was on his way to being a hero.

He hadn't died heroically. He had given up the ATM number readily enough, thinking it might save his life, but the punishment had just begun. Make it look personal, Jenkins had impressed on his protege. Make it look angry. Truth be told, Collins had succeeded a little too well at that part. In the end, when they were parked along the Patapsco in the state park, Jenkins had turned away, not wanting to see what Collins was capable of.

But it had gone according to plan, except for the moment that Youssef tried to get away by wading across the river. Collins had caught him on the other side, and he didn't have to make it look angry then, because he was. Funny, that unplanned contingency had worked for them, too, sending the case into Howard County, where the detectives had even less experience handling homicide than Baltimore County did.

Looking back, Jenkins regretted all the thinking and conniving. The overreaching, really. He knew better. The shrewder you tried to be, the greater the likelihood that something would trip you up. The E-ZPa.s.s, for example. That little discrepancy had brought Dalesio into the investigation, and they would have been better off without him in the long run. Better off without his death for sure. And he should have known not to rely on some street kid like Le'andro. Why had he handed the ATM card off to someone else, who then screwed it all up? What had he told the other kid, if anything? Maybe they could stop now, play the odds that this other kid didn't know anything that could implicate Bully, much less Jenkins. But if the kid dragged Bennie Tep into this, he'd sell them out in a minute. Well, sell Collins out. Bennie Tep didn't know Jenkins existed. No, it couldn't be risked. They had to plug this last leak.

But they had a plausible reason now. Collins was going to go to Delaware and find this kid, a.s.suming Dalesio was right about where they were. Collins was going to finish the job that his new best friend wouldn't be able to do, being shot down and all in the prime of his young life. They were going to find the source-no, the accomplice, which would explain why he was so desperate to evade them-and whose fault would it be if the kid pulled a gun on them, refused to be taken alive?

The only question was whether they should leave tonight or tomorrow morning. Tomorrow, he was thinking. Sick days all around. As the afternoon wore on, he started blowing his nose, talking a little raspier than usual, complaining about the pollen. He even sneezed a couple of times, not that a single one of his so-called colleagues said so much as gesundheit or bless you. Well, f.u.c.k you guys, too.

Tess hadn't realized how lucky she'd been, getting Tull on her first try that morning. Despite her multiple urgent voice mails and pages, even with the "911" code appended, it was almost seven before he got back to her. It was hard, competing with the murder of an a.s.sistant U.S. attorney-even when you had what might be relevant information. Tull sounded weary and stressed, the end of his day still distant.

"There's this DEA agent, Mike Collins-"

"We've talked to Mike Collins," he said. "He had a drink with Dalesio in Canton, said good-bye to him in front of the bar, and headed out. He told his boss, and his boss told him to come talk to us. And yes, we know that Gabe Dalesio was pressing you on the Youssef murder."

"Tull, Collins is the killer. There was no carjacking. This is what this guy does. He makes murders look like, well, other murders. A carjacking in this case. I think he also did Youssef and that street kid I was asking you about, Le'andro Watkins. See? He plays with the stereotypes of homicide, makes us see what we expect to see."

"Tess, I know they've been leaning on you, but this is beyond paranoid."

"But he could have done it, right? He was with him right before."

"Sure, if we're talking about the mere physics of the situation. As a problem of time and s.p.a.ce, it's possible. But why in h.e.l.l would a DEA agent kill this guy, much less the other two?"

It was an excellent question. Tess pondered the stray bits of information she had gathered-the money in Youssef's account, the death of a teenager who worked for a drug dealer, a teenager whose name that Collins knew, a teenager who was connected to Youssef's ATM card. She felt like she was working a monochromatic jigsaw puzzle. The pieces fit theoretically, but trying to piece them together could make you go blind. Or mad.

"Would you pull him in for questioning tomorrow, hold him on that pretext until I make some...um, arrangements?"

"Not without a lot more information."

"I'm sure that Collins killed Dalesio, Martin." The use of his first name, which Tull loathed, was almost a code between them, a sign that Tess was as serious as she ever got. "Maybe because Dalesio figured something out that he wasn't supposed to know."

"Is this insight coming from your elusive source?" There was an unmistakable edge to Tull's voice. He was a loyal friend, but he couldn't possibly approve of Tess's refusal to cooperate with a homicide investigation.

"Mike Collins is one of three feds who's spent a lot of time in the past ten days trying to get that information out of me. Dalesio was one of the others, and the third is an FBI agent, Barry Jenkins."

"I knew Barry Jenkins on his first pa.s.s through Baltimore. He's a good guy."

"Okay, sure." Tess had no desire to argue this point. It was Collins she feared, not Jenkins, who was probably in the dark as well. She a.s.sumed that photo of Whitman had been meant for him, or someone else familiar with Collins's life story. "But keep all this in mind, Tull. If anything happens-to me, to Crow, to our...um, friend-remember this conversation, okay? Remember that I tried to tell you."

"Don't be so melodramatic, Tess. You're talking about a DEA agent and a longtime FBI guy. They don't go around killing civilians, much less a.s.sistant U.S. attorneys. h.e.l.l, the DEA and the FBI don't even work together under normal circ.u.mstances. They got no use for each other."

"If you say so. But if I bring...my source to you, can you offer true protection? Can you guarantee anyone's safety?"