Kane had planned on spending the next morning searching for Albert Brownstein but Immerson would have none of it.
“How was the seminar, Eustace?” Immerson asked when Kane and his partner entered his office.
“Thrilling, sir,” Eustace said, straight faced.
Immerson gave him a sour look and turned to Kane.
“Good news. The U.S. Attorney sent down the warrant for Marilyn Jeffers.” Immerson handed Kane a stack of stapled pages folded in thirds. “Bring her in and see if she’s willing to cooperate then take her down to detention.”
Kane glanced at the arrest warrant and calculated that the odds of getting Eustace to serve it alone while he tracked down Brownstein’s car were about the same as those of a starving fat man not grabbing the last jelly donut in the box.
“I’ll drive,” Kane said, tossing the papers at his partner.
* * *
Marilyn Jeffers and her husband lived in a four-bedroom mini-McMansion just outside of Laurel, Maryland. It was one of the first things she had purchased when the payoff money had started rolling in.
“A lot nicer than that dump she and her hubby had before she became a criminal mastermind,” Eustace smirked as Kane pulled in behind a black Range Rover at the top of the Jeffers’ driveway. “I guess crime does pay, for a while,” Eustace said, laughing as he fingered the arrest warrant.
Kane led the way up the walk but when they neared the door Eustace pushed ahead. “Let me do it. I love this part.” Eustace pulled the glass storm-door out of the way.
“Federal Agents!” BAM! BAM! BAM! “Open up! Federal Agents!” Eustace gave Kane a kid-on-Christmas-morning smile and turned back to the door. BAM! BAM! BAM! “Open up!” Eustace paused, listening, then looked uneasily around. “You checked right? She’s home, right?”
“She called in sick Monday morning and she hasn’t shown up at her desk since.”
“You don’t think she’s skipped do you?”
Kane just looked from his partner to the seventy-thousand dollar Range Rover in the driveway and then back again.
“Well, fuck this nonsense.” Eustace shoved the edge of the storm door into Kane’s hand and took a step back. He had just begun to raise his foot when they heard the clacking of a deadbolt followed by the sound of a security chain being released. A slice of pale face peered through the four inch gap between the door and the jam. “What is this–” Marilyn Jeffers began but Eustace didn’t let her get any farther.
“We have a warrant!” Eustace shouted and shouldered the door out of the way. Her mouth gaping open, Jeffers stumbled backward and landed hard on her ass. Her look of astonished fear energized Eustace and he jogged past her into the living room leaving Kane to deal with the terrified woman. By the time Greg had her on her feet Jeffers’ face was filled with tears. Firmly gripping her arm Kane led her into the living room just as Eustace returned from the kitchen.
A veteran of hundreds, maybe thousands, of arrests Kane, unlike his partner, knew how this was supposed to be done. Before Eustace could screw things up any farther he quickly patted Jeffers down and then asked, “Is there anyone else in the house?” Jeffers stared at him blankly, so disoriented that she couldn’t reliably have told him how much you got by adding two plus two. “Ms. Jeffers, I need you to focus,” Kane told her in a surprisingly gentle tone. At this point shouting would have only made things worse. “Is there anyone else in the house?”
After half a second Marilyn nervously looked over her shoulder toward the stairway.
“My husband’s upstairs, working. He works from home,” she babbled, her words coming out all in a rush. “He’s a corporate travel facilitator. He–”
“Call him. Tell him to come downstairs.”
It took Jeffers a moment to process Kane’s order then she turned toward the stairway and shouted in a voice on the edge of tears, “Charlie! Charlie! I need you to come down here!” Eustace started fingering the butt of his weapon and Kane feared that at any second his partner was going to race up the stairs like Teddy Roosevelt charging up San Juan Hill.
“Grant,” Kane said then repeated his partner’s name a second time. Eustace shifted his attention and Kane gave his head a little shake. Eustace stared for a moment and that was long enough for them to hear footsteps from the upstairs hallway. Eustace gave Kane a smile and a nod. A moment later a man somewhere between his late thirties and early fifties appeared at the top of the steps. He froze when he saw two strange men surrounding his wife. Eustace held up his ID.
“Federal Agents! Please come down here, sir.” On paper the words might seem polite but it was anything but a friendly request.
Charles Jeffers was wearing a long-sleeved, burgundy polo shirt over black slacks. His hair was cut short above a face as tight and flat as a plastic mask. His shoulders back, arms loose, Jeffers descended the stairs with his eyes glued on Eustace whose left hand possessively gripped Marilyn Jeffers’ arm.
Watching Charlie Jeffers Kane felt a tingle run up his spine. Eustace’s smarmy smile told Kane that his partner wasn’t taking the husband as any kind of a threat. Kane had seen that kind of blindness get men killed.
“Let go of my wife,” Jeffers ordered in a cold, flat tone as he neared the bottom of the steps.
“You don’t give me orders, pal,” Eustace replied, his smile turning mean.
Oh, Jesus! Kane thought and raced forward just as Jeffers’ hand darted beneath his shirt. Kane grabbed Jeffers’ wrist and pushed up while simultaneously punching him in the balls. Jeffers tiny, five-shot revolver made a noise like a balloon popping then he groaned and tried to curl around his throbbing groin. Kane’s right hand grabbed the gun by the cylinder and tore it loose then he released Jeffers’ wrist and allowed him to slump to the floor.
Open-mouthed, Eustace stared at the gun, now in Kane’s hand then down to the little man squirming on the carpet.
“You want to search him in case he’s got a second gun?” Kane snapped.
While Eustace roughly patted Jeffers down Kane pulled Marilyn’s hands behind her back. His cuffs made a clack-clack sound that caught Eustace’s attention and he quickly looked up.
“Marilyn Jeffers, you are under arrest for bribery, unlawful disclosure of confidential government information and obstruction of justice. You have the right to remain silent . . . .”
Eustace watched Kane recite the Miranda warning and, for a moment, was irritated that he had lost the chance to slap the cuffs on the wife, but, he consoled himself, he still had the husband. Eustace hauled Charles Jeffers to his feet and cuffed him so tightly that Jeffers skin went white from lack of circulation. Eustace began reciting his own version of the Miranda warning: “You have the right to remain silent, asshole, and anything you say may be used to put your sorry butt in jail. You have the right to hire a scumbag lawyer . . . .”
“He’s ready to go,” Eustace told Kane a moment later. “Is she clean?”
“That was the only weapon.” Kane pointed at the little revolver lying on the carpet. “Why don’t you see if you can find a Ziplock bag that we can put it in?”
Eustace knew that Kane was pissed but angry was Kane’s default state so Grant didn’t know if Kane was mad at him, at Jeffers or at the world in general. He trotted into the kitchen to look for a plastic bag. A few moments later they had the Jeffers and the gun ready for transport. Kane motioned for Eustace to follow him to the far side of the room.
“Thanks, partner,” Eustace whispered, shifting his gaze between Kane and the handcuffed prisoners huddled near the front door. “I owe you one.”
“You owe me one!” Kane exploded. “That’s all you have to say? You owe me one?”
“Uhhh, thank you?”
A dozen thoughts chased each other through Kane’s head. The fucking moron had scared the wife half to death just for the fun of it, then he’d baited the husband in his own house, AND he’d done it all to people he didn’t know, people whose emotions he obviously couldn’t read and whom he hadn’t bothered to search for weapons. He’d put both of their lives in danger and if things had gone a little differently Kane would have been forced to kill a man. And what did Useless have to say for himself? I fucking owe you one?
Kane closed his eyes and held his breath for three seconds but anger-control tricks can only take a man so far.
“You never threaten a man’s wife or kids in his own house you moron and if you’re going to do such a stupid, boneheaded thing, you certainly don’t do it to a man you don’t know and whom you haven’t searched! That’s Police Work 101!”
For a moment Eustace looked confused as if confronted by an elevator whose buttons were printed in Arabic then he smiled and gave Kane a friendly slap on the shoulder.
“Hey, you got it, buddy. You see, that’s why we’re such a great team. I’m the guy who goes balls-to-the-wall and you’re the brain who straightens me out when I go over the line. So, what do you say? Let’s get these mopes into a nice, cozy cell.”
Eustace gave Kane another happy grin and headed back to the prisoners.
Son of a bitch! Greg thought, but couldn’t think of a single thing to say that would do him any good whatsoever.