Hank Beckman felt like a dying man who had planned his own funeral. Much as a man sent to hospice for his last few months could anticipate the fallout of his eventual demise, he had known that the death of Travis Larson—and his firsthand surveillance of Larson’s final days—would bring certain unavoidable consequences.
To manage those consequences, Hank needed to maneuver around three unalterable truths. The first of those truths? He would share his knowledge with the New York Police Department. That decision was beyond choice. He was not the kind of man who would place his own stature before the investigation of a murder—even if the vic was a scumbag like Larson, and even if the disclosure cost him his pension.
The second truth was that the world of law enforcement was a sprawling and inefficient bureaucracy when one needed it to be streamlined, and yet remarkably insular and incestuous when one might prefer the impersonal. Once he came forward to the NYPD, word of his extracurricular surveillance activities would migrate back to the bureau like a freshly hatched salmon to sea.
The third truth was that Hank was a man who took lumps when they were due. No weaseling, no matter the costs.
Add up one, two, and three, and Hank’s decision was preordained. He waited patiently for his SAC to finish up his face time with the field office’s Citizens’ Academy. Like most special agents in charge, Tom Overton enjoyed the mythology of the bureau. John Dillinger. Baby Face Nelson. Ma Barker. Taking on the Gambino crime family and Sonny Barger’s Hell’s Angels under RICO. Newly expanded powers under the Patriot Act. In some circles, a bureau man was thought to be a stuffed suit with a stick up his ass, but the novice writers, true-crime junkies, and curious retirees who filled out the Citizens’ Academy arrived at the field office with eager questions and appreciative eyes and ears. Overton returned to his office with a skip in his step and a smile on his face.
Until he spotted Hank waiting for him.
Hank got directly to the point. He knew he was supposed to leave Larson alone. It had been two months since he’d been reprimanded for his communication with the man who had “taken up” with his sister, as Overton worded it at the time. Two months since he’d been told he was lucky Larson hadn’t sued both him and the bureau for false accusations and harassment. Two months since Overton himself persuaded Larson not to file charges after Hank had thrown the first punch.
“I didn’t keep my word, sir. I’ll hand you my resignation today if that’s what you want, but what matters is that I step up to the NYPD with what I have.”
“Not this again, Beckman. The guy’s a low-level con man, I grant you that. But it’s only because of your sister that you want the bureau—”
“It’s nothing like that this time, Tom.” Beckman’s use of Overton’s first name might have been a first between the two men. “Larson’s dead. And I was watching him not long before he got popped.”
Overton stared at him for a full thirty seconds before speaking. “Should I even ask whether you had something to do with this? Do we need to get you representation?”
If Hank had more sense, he probably would get himself a lawyer. Instead, he assured Overton he had nothing more to hide but would need to take the rest of the day as personal time so he could pay a visit to the detectives handling Larson’s murder investigation.
Police precincts have a rhythm and a grit and a smell that mark them as a unique culture, so different from the sterile bureau field offices that could be mistaken for any office park in the country. Hank had worked enough joint task force operations to read the energy of an NYPD precinct. The second he stepped inside the homicide squad, he knew a case was hot. Detectives out of their desks. Moving a little more quickly than usual. Sheets of paper changing hands. And when the civilian aide at the front desk pointed him to an interrogation room down the hall, he knew the bustling was related to the Travis Larson case.
The detectives handling the case had covered every inch of a rolling whiteboard with scrawled notations in four different colors of ink. The small table in the center of the room was layered with documents and photographs. Piles of paper were beginning to accumulate on the floor.
An attractive blonde passed him in the narrow hallway. He was embarrassed when she caught his gaze moving to the detective shield hanging from a chain inside her tailored shirt. He was relieved when she threw him an amused smile instead of a faceful of the coffee she held in one hand.
“Let me guess: Feds?”
“Bureau.”
“For Shannon and Danes?”
“That’s what I’m told.”
“Oh, yeah. They’re gonna love that.”
Hank suspected the detectives actually would love what he had to say. He understood the whole local-versus-feds tension. Truth be told, he wasn’t certain he was always on the right side of it. Cops worked more cases in less time and with fewer resources. When the feds showed up, it was usually to cherry-pick the high-profile slam-dunks. But this time, a federal enforcement officer was walking into their yard with his tail between his legs. They’d love it, all right.
All it took was an introduction for the toothpick chewer to shepherd him out of view of the war room. “Let’s have a word next door. You’ll be more comfortable.”
The man introduced himself as Willie Danes. Hank didn’t bother holding anything back.
“I doubt the details matter, but I have what you might call a grudge against Travis Larson. I’ve been keeping an eye on him here and there ever since, and thought I should let you know in case anything I saw might be helpful to your investigation.”
“Travis Larson, huh?”
“My understanding is you’re one of the lead detectives. The body you caught at that gallery on Washington Street?”
“Sure. Travis Larson.”
“I take it you didn’t have an ID yet?”
“I didn’t—”
“Look, man. I’m not sweating you. The guy was good at running a scam. He dated my sister for five months under a fake name, and she wasn’t a stupid woman. Was he using a false identity?”
Danes’s gaze moved to the hallway as if he was considering running the conversation past a partner, but something in Hank’s face must have told him that for once a federal agent had come here with no agenda. “We had zero ID. No wallet. Cell phone came back to a throwaway. Even his prints were a dead end. You’re telling me this guy’s never been popped?”
“I hooked him up for an attempted fraud on my sister. Unfortunately, that decision happened to occur immediately after he said some choice words about her, and then I punched him in the side of the head.”
“Jesus. Remind me not to fuck over your sister.”
“Ellen’s dead. She ran her car into the side of a triple-trailer on what was supposed to be her wedding day.”
“Then I’d say Larson was lucky you only punched him in the head.”
“That’s not how his lawyer saw it. Or the bureau. He threatened to press charges. Started the paperwork for a civil suit. He got an apology, and all record of the arrest was purged, including his booking photo and prints. That’s why you didn’t get a match.”
“You’ve got an address on him?”
Hank handed him his business card from his lapel pocket, Larson’s address already printed on the backside. He also handed him six typewritten pages of notes summarizing his recent surveillance. It wasn’t until he watched Danes flip through the pages that he fully realized the drive-bys were really over now. No more staring at the ceiling at night, wondering whether Larson was courting another well-to-do woman. Whether he was enjoying his life. Whether he ever paused to remember Ellen.
Hank was grateful for his death.
“You saw him in the gray BMW, huh?”
“Stolen from QuickCar last month. It’s all there.”
“That, we knew. Found it three blocks south of the gallery, unlocked, keys in the ignition. Someone wanted it stolen.”
“Last I saw it, Larson had parked directly across the street from the gallery. And he locked it.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I had to use a slim jim to break into it.”
Danes chuckled, then started from the top, asking first about Hank’s general knowledge of Travis Larson, then building a timeline based on his recent surveillance.
“You said you saw the redhead at Larson’s home?”
“That’s right. She either took the train or lives nearby, because she arrived on foot.”
“Hold on a second.” When Danes returned, he handed Hank a cup of coffee. Hank drank it even though it was bitter. Danes slipped two photographs onto the table. “Is that the lady?”
It wasn’t the way they’d handle an ID at the bureau. Always better to use a six-pack. Multiple choices to make sure the witness isn’t just rubber-stamping. One at a time was preferable to all at once. Hank took a moment to consider the images. The first was the kind of blurry that came with resizing low-resolution digital images. It looked like Larson kissing the woman he’d seen at the Newark apartment complex. Same orangey blond hair. Even the same piercing blue coat. The second photograph was a clearer shot of the woman’s face. He recognized the photograph as one he had seen online of the gallery manager. Frank Humphrey’s daughter. What was her name? Alice.
“Yeah, that’s her.”
“Did you ever see Larson with anyone else? Maybe a younger girl? High school age?”
Hank shook his head.
“How about religious involvement? Any church groups or the like?”
“If Travis Larson was going to church, it would be to steal from the collection plate. Why do you ask?”
“Just some angles we’re working. I think we’ve got what we need from you for now. Thanks for coming forward. I hope you’re not in too deep a hole with the bureau.”
“You sure that’s it? Because, trust me, I probably know more about Travis Larson than his own mother, if he even has one. He’s the kind of guy who’s forging checks while peddling fake concert tickets and smurfing Sudafed for meth dealers, all while he’s looking for a woman to pay his bills. I wouldn’t be surprised if a hundred people out there wanted him dead.”
Still, Danes did not voice the obvious follow-up.
Hank felt uneasy as he followed Danes down the hallway, past the interrogation room lined with evidence pertaining to Larson’s murder. Hank had come here expecting a different kind of conversation. By his own statements, he had placed himself on the street outside that gallery immediately before Larson’s death. By his own statements, he had a motive to kill the man. By his own statements, he had stalked him for the last week. He had served himself up as a suspect on a silver platter, and Danes hadn’t taken even a single nibble.
Danes struck him as a good man. He was probably a well-intentioned cop. But Hank had seen this before. Those detectives had not even identified their victim until he did it for them, and yet they had already made up their minds about who killed him. They didn’t want to know anything different at this point. They’d slot the rest of the evidence where they could to fit the story they had already written.
He threw his half-full cup of coffee in the garbage on the way out.