Kitabı oku: «Smokies Special Agent», sayfa 2
Chapter Three
Hunching in his jacket against the bitter wind, Duncan paused behind the unfamiliar SUV in the gravel lot by the office trailer. The vehicle’s plain exterior and dark color would typically help it blend in and avoid being noticed. Not here. Surrounded by white vehicles with green stripes down their sides and the brown National Park Service arrowhead shield on their doors, the SUV stuck out like a white-tailed deer in a herd of elk.
The license plate was federal government issue, but not the kind used by the NPS. All Duncan knew for sure was that whatever alphabet agency was here, they hadn’t simply dropped by on their way someplace else. Nestled deep inside the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, this satellite office was miles from the nearest town, Gatlinburg. The steep, winding access road was a challenge during the summer, nearly impossible during the winter without a four-wheel drive. Which meant their visitor was here on purpose. Something big must be going on, and Duncan aimed to find out what that was.
He jogged up the salted concrete steps at the end of the long trailer to the only door, a solid steel monstrosity designed to keep out the occasional curious black bear. The deep scratches in the prison-gray paint proved just how solid, and necessary, that precaution was. Even the huge metal storage shed at the end of the lot was reinforced with heavy steel bars. Working in the wilderness was dangerous in more ways than one. He pulled open the door and stepped inside.
Seventies-era dark wood paneling sucked up most of the light, in spite of wide windows set high up on the longest opposing walls. Four desks were tucked end to end beneath those windows, leaving a center aisle of worn rust-colored shag carpet. His boss, Yeong Lee, faced him from behind another, larger desk at the end of the aisle. Across from him, occupying the two metal folding chairs reserved for visitors, were a large black man in a charcoal-gray suit and a petite Caucasian woman with long blond hair cascading down her back.
As Duncan hung his jacket and gloves on hooks beside the door, he exchanged greetings with the only other people inside, Rangers Nick Grady and Oliver McAlister. Skinny freckle-faced Grady was a green-around-the-gills new recruit, while white-haired McAlister, with his gravelly smoker’s voice and stout frame, was a permanent fixture in the park. Dubbed Pup and Pops, the two were sitting together to the right of the door at McAlister’s desk. As usual, Pops was mentoring Grady about something on the computer screen.
Duncan paused beside McAlister. “Thanks for helping me out this morning. Did the prisoner give you any trouble?”
He shook his head. “No trouble at all and no thanks needed. If you hadn’t been here at 0-dark-thirty and taken the call for us, we’d have been the ones assigned to head up there, anyway. What’s the story on the hiker? Did he make it?”
“He got lucky. The bullet passed through the fleshy part of his side. Lost a lot of blood and they’ve got him on IV antibiotics to stave off infection. But he’s expected to make a full recovery.” He motioned toward the couple across from Lee. “Which agency decided to pay us a visit? Any idea why they’re here?”
McAlister exchanged a surprised look with Grady, his bushy eyebrows climbing like albino caterpillars to his hairline. “You don’t recognize the woman from this morning?”
Duncan frowned and studied her as best he could from across the room. The long blond hair did remind him of the shooter’s hair. But since McAlister had taken her into custody, that wasn’t possible. Was it? She lifted her left hand, motioning in the air as she spoke to Lee. She also gave Duncan his first clear view of a royal blue shirtsleeve and the cream-colored jacket folded over the arm of her chair. He sucked in a sharp breath, his hands fisting at his sides. It was her. The combination of blond hair, blue shirt and off-white jacket couldn’t be a coincidence.
If he’d been a second slower this morning, he’d either be sporting some seriously bruised ribs thanks to his Kevlar vest, or he’d have had his head blown off, depending on the aim of the woman sitting in that chair.
“Why isn’t she locked up?” Without waiting for McAlister’s reply, he strode up the aisle to Lee’s desk and turned to face the woman once again. Except, this time, she wasn’t pointing a gun at him.
The white sling cradling her right arm forestalled the angry words he’d been about to say. Instead, suspicion heavy in his tone, he demanded, “What happened to you?” She wouldn’t be the first suspect to fake an injury to delay being booked into jail.
Her dark brows rose. “You did.”
“Is that supposed to be funny? Because I find it incredibly offensive.”
She held her left hand in front of her in a placating gesture. “I’m just stating facts. When you slammed me to the ground, you dislocated my shoulder.” She shrugged, then winced and clasped her left hand over her right shoulder as if she was in pain.
He wasn’t buying her act. And he sure as certain wasn’t letting her version of events go unchallenged. “I think what you meant to say was that I tackled you to keep from being shot, after you’d just shot an unarmed man and then turned your pistol on me.”
A red flush crept up her neck. “I thought the hiker had a gun. And you attacked me. I was protecting myself.”
“The only one attacking anyone up there was you.” He tapped the lump on his temple where she’d punched him, which he knew already had a visible bruise.
Her jaw tightened, but she didn’t respond.
He waved toward the back right corner of the trailer. “Why isn’t she locked up in the holding cell? Or on her way to jail courtesy of Gatlinburg PD? She could have killed Kurt Vale.”
“Could have?” Her eyes widened. “Then...he’s alive?”
The hopeful tone of her voice sounded false to him. “The time for concern would have been before you pulled the trigger and shot an innocent man. But if you’re asking whether you managed to kill him, the answer is no. I just left him at the hospital after the doctor stitched him up.”
“I’m glad he’s okay.”
Ignoring her, he turned to his boss. “What’s going on here?”
Lee addressed the man silently observing them from the other side of the desk. “FBI Supervisory Special Agent Leon Johnson, meet Special Agent Duncan McKenzie, criminal investigator with the National Park Service.”
Johnson held his hand out without bothering to pry his generous frame out of the ridiculously small folding chair beneath him.
Duncan leaned across the desk and shook the agent’s hand, but his attention once again turned to the woman. Four hours ago she’d shot a hiker. Now she was parked beside an FBI agent. Why? Since he regularly studied the FBI’s ten most-wanted-fugitives list, he knew she wasn’t on it. But she must have done something pretty dang bad to warrant the FBI showing up, especially this soon after the shooting. So why wasn’t she handcuffed? Or in the cell while the agent spoke to his boss?
“I’m a little lost.” Duncan glanced back and forth between Lee and Johnson. “Since our shooting suspect is sitting beside an FBI agent, I assume there’s something else going on that involves her, besides what happened this morning. Can someone catch me up here?”
“What’s going on,” Johnson said, “is that your shooting suspect is one of our agents. She was off duty, supposed to be on vacation, not running around shooting people.”
Duncan stared at him in shock. The woman from this morning’s shooting was a Fed? A fellow law-enforcement officer? He hadn’t gotten to speak to her after the shooting. He didn’t even know her name. He’d been too busy trying to keep Kurt Vale from bleeding out. As soon as McAlister and Grady had arrived to take her into custody, he hadn’t given her another thought. Instead, he’d helped the medics get Vale down the mountain to the waiting ambulance.
“You’re FBI?” He couldn’t quite wrap his head around that.
She stood and held out her left hand, since her right one was in the sling. “Special Agent Remi Jordan.”
He eyed her hand like he would a poisonous snake.
She took the hint and sat back down.
Johnson laboriously rose to his feet and tugged his suit jacket into place. “Special Agent Jordan has waived her right to an attorney and has declined my offer to stay here with her. She has assured me that she’s prepared to fully cooperate with your investigation. Isn’t that right?”
She gave him a curt nod, but didn’t meet his gaze.
“I’ve already taken her badge,” Johnson said. “And your crime scene unit logged her gun as evidence. She’s now on administrative leave, pending the results of your investigation. If either of you gentlemen need anything further from my office, let me know.” He tapped a white business card sitting on the desk. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to get back to Knoxville.” He grabbed his coat from a peg behind Lee’s desk and then shrugged into it as he headed toward the door.
Duncan watched the man leave, distaste burning like acid in his throat. For the first time since the shooting earlier today, he felt a tug of sympathy for the woman sitting on the other side of the desk. No matter what she’d told Johnson, the man was her boss. It was his duty to look out for her. He should have insisted that she get a lawyer, or brought one with him. Lee sure would have. He’d fight like a rabid bobcat to defend every member of his team. Justice would be served, of course. But he’d do everything he could to ensure that his officers’ rights were protected.
Lee pushed back his chair and stood. “Special Agent Jordan, with you getting that shoulder patched up and your boss asking us to wait until he got here to talk, we haven’t had much of a chance to discuss the details of the shooting. Special Agent McKenzie will take your statement. In the meantime, my stomach is eating a hole through my spine. I’ll head down the mountain and get us all some lunch. Any dietary restrictions or preferences I should know about?”
Her expression turned wary as she obviously debated whether or not to trust him. From the way her own boss had just acted, Duncan couldn’t blame her.
“That’s very nice of you,” she told Lee. “Thank you. And no, no restrictions. Whatever you get is fine and much appreciated.”
“All right. I’ll be back in an hour, give or take.” He grabbed his gloves and heavy jacket hanging on the wall behind his chair and motioned toward Pup and Pops. “Grady, you’re my pack mule this trip,” he called out. “You can chauffer me into town while I check my email on my phone.”
From the grin on the kid’s eager face, he must have thought he’d won the lottery. He jumped up so fast that he almost overturned his chair.
Pops shook his head, but a smile played around his lips as he turned to his computer monitor. Grady started peppering Lee with questions about procedures and reports before Lee could even close the door behind them. The pained expression on his face when he glanced back had Duncan wondering if his boss already regretted his decision to take his newest employee with him into town.
Duncan motioned toward the back wall. His anger had given way to grudging curiosity now that he knew his suspect was in law enforcement. With a federal agent involved, he could understand why Lee had chosen not to turn her over to the local police. Instead, the NPS would handle it as an interagency courtesy—at least for now. It was up to Duncan to get the answers to the questions that had been rolling around in his head from the moment he’d taken a hiker’s call early this morning.
“Special Agent Jordan, if you’ll take a seat in the other room, I need to grab my laptop to take notes.”
She stood and waved toward the reinforced-glass and steel door on the far right. “In there?”
He followed her gesture. “Ah, no. That’s the holding cell. In spite of what I may have said earlier about locking you up, in the eight years that I’ve worked here, we’ve never once used that room for its intended purpose. It’s stuffed with boxes of office supplies and old case files.” He motioned toward the door on the far left. “I meant the conference room. I’m sure you were shown where the restroom was earlier.” He motioned toward the middle door. “If you need—”
“No, thank you.” She moved stiffly past him and marched into the conference room like a prisoner heading to death row.
Chapter Four
When Special Agent Remi Jordan passed Duncan, he was struck by how petite she was. The top of her head barely reached his chin. In blue jeans and a simple blue blouse, without a jacket to provide bulk, she probably didn’t tip a hundred pounds on a scale. Her right arm being trussed up in a sling only emphasized her vulnerability. Seeing her this way, with this morning’s drama stripped away, and no gun, Duncan realized she appeared utterly defenseless. And he had the inexplicable urge to offer his protection, to reassure her that everything was going to be all right.
That would be foolish and wrong on so many levels, especially because it would probably be a lie.
As a trained officer, she should have used deadly force as a last resort. Instead, she’d used it as her first response. She’d shot an unarmed man while off duty, on vacation, according to her boss, with no provocation that Duncan had seen. She could be looking at charges of attempted murder, attempted manslaughter or, the very least, assault. If by some miracle she avoided charges and didn’t go to prison, she’d likely still lose her job with the FBI. And she’d almost certainly face financial ruin in the civil courts. With another law-enforcement officer as a witness, Vale could ride that gravy train all the way to the bank.
Duncan stood in the doorway, watching her consider the four padded wooden chairs, the square vinyl-topped table that was more appropriate for playing cards than for a conference or an interview. But like everything else in this trailer, the table and chairs met the main requirement—they were small enough to fit the tiny space.
She apparently decided not to bother with a chair. Instead, she moved to the lone window at the other end of the room. Facing away from him, she stared through the glass at the snow, which was falling again.
“Special Agent Jordan?”
She glanced over her shoulder. “Remi, please. Calling me Special Agent every time you ask me a question is going to get really old, really fast, for both of us.”
“Remi. Unusual name. Is that short for something?”
“Remilyn, after my grandmother. But my mom’s the only person who ever called me that.”
“Called? Then she’s—”
“She passed away when I was seventeen. Breast cancer.”
The slight wobble in her voice told him that she’d loved her mother, and that her death—he was guessing eight or nine years ago—still hurt.
He counted his blessings that both his parents were still alive and doing well. He couldn’t imagine not being able to drop by their cabin, share a beer with his father or ask his mother’s advice.
“My condolences,” he said, and meant it.
She gave him a crisp nod. “Thank you.”
He waved toward the sling. “While I wouldn’t have changed the actions I took this morning, I do regret that you got hurt. What did the doctor say about your shoulder?”
She hesitated, the wary expression she’d given Lee firmly back in place. “The EMT rotated it into the socket. It’s fine.”
He waited, but when she didn’t elaborate, he asked, “You were taken to the hospital, right? You were seen by a doctor?”
“All a doctor would have done was tell me to schedule an appointment with a physical therapist. I had the EMT treat me in the back of the ambulance, and told him I didn’t want to go to the hospital.”
She didn’t want to go? She shouldn’t have been given a choice. She was under arrest, her well-being the responsibility of the National Park Service while in their custody. McAlister and Grady should have made her go to the hospital, with them as her armed escorts.
“What did the EMT give you for pain?” He didn’t want her to suffer. But equally important, he didn’t want a defense attorney down the road having her statement tossed out on the basis that she was heavily medicated, which affected her mental state and her ability to understand her rights.
“I haven’t had a chance to take anything,” she said. “My purse is locked in the trunk of my car at the trailhead. I don’t have any pills with me here.”
“I’ve got some ibuprofen in my desk if you want.”
She frowned as if puzzled by his offer. Had she expected him to chain her to a chair and allow her only bread and water?
“I’d appreciate that. The shoulder does ache a bit.”
“If you prefer to go to the hospital for an MRI—which I strongly recommend—and to get a prescription for the pain—”
“Over-the-counter pills will be fine.”
Visions of future defense attorneys were still dancing in his head. She really should go to the hospital. But it was her shoulder, after all. Not a head injury. And she’d been given medical treatment by the EMT. It was probably safe to take her statement.
“I’ll be right back.”
“Special Agent McKenzie?”
“If I’m calling you Remi then you have to call me Duncan.” He added a smile that he was far from feeling. But keeping things friendly would make the interview go much more smoothly. Orders from her boss to cooperate would go only so far if she had something to hide about why she was in the mountains with a gun. He’d start out playing good cop and see how things went.
She gestured toward the side of his head. “Duncan. I really am sorry about everything that happened. I hope that doesn’t hurt too much.”
It took him a second to realize she was talking about punching him. His grin was genuine this time. “You’ve got a wicked left hook.”
Her answering smile seemed reluctant, but also genuine. “I’m right-handed. You got lucky.”
He laughed. “So I did. No worries. We’ll talk everything out and then decide where to go from there. Okay?”
She blew out a shuddering breath, her face relaxing with relief. “Sounds good.”
When he reached his desk, he pulled his laptop from the bottom drawer just as his cell phone buzzed. He took it out of his pocket and checked the screen. It was Lee. A quick glance toward the open door of the conference room confirmed that Remi was still standing at the window, looking out. Duncan plopped his laptop on the desk and sat down to take the call.
“Hey, boss. Did you shove Grady into a snowbank yet to shut him up?” he teased.
“Have you started interviewing Special Agent Jordan yet?”
The terseness of Lee’s tone immediately had Duncan on alert. “About to. Why?”
“Johnson had his assistant send me an email. I forwarded it to you. It makes for some interesting reading. Skim it before you talk to her.”
“Why?”
“Humor me.” The line clicked.
Duncan sighed and flipped open the laptop. There were fifteen unread emails since just this morning. Most had to do with the case he was in the process of closing, a string of vehicle break-ins and vandalism he’d been working for the past four months. The small band of local teens behind the crimes was in jail. Now it was just a matter of paperwork and testimony once the trials were underway—assuming they even went to trial.
None of the kids had criminal records. And knowing his friend Clay Perry, the district attorney, Duncan figured he’d likely plead them out. Clay was a father of five and had a seemingly endless supply of patience and empathy for kids—whether they deserved it or not.
Their parents would pay hefty fines and the little hoodlums would soon be back on the streets. And Duncan would have to arrest them all over again a few months down the road when they started up again, or turned to other types of crimes. It was an endless cycle, one that he and Clay often debated over cold beers, sizzling steaks and friendly poker games.
Not seeing anything particularly urgent in the subject lines of the emails, he clicked on the one from his boss. The message was brief, simply telling Duncan to read the attachment.
It took half a minute for the memory-hogging document to load on his screen. When it did, he frowned. Why would Remi’s boss feel it was necessary to send this? And why would Lee want Duncan to read it prior to the interview? How could this possibly be relevant to the shooting?
He let out a long breath and dutifully clicked through several pages, quickly scanning the headings of each section. He began to wonder whether he’d missed the punch line to an inside joke. Then, five pages in, he quit scanning. He leaned closer to the monitor and read every single word. Then he went back to the beginning and read it all again.
