CHAPTER 14
Julia sat alone in an interview room at the Detroit Police Department and gave an angry wave at the glass, knowing the FBI agent who posed as her father’s ex–business partner was likely on the other side of the two-way mirror, watching her. Julia felt like a fuming hornet trapped under a glass dome. She had refused to let the agent, Kenny, talk to her inside her house, since her boys were there, but she had finally agreed to talk to the agent without the presence of an attorney if they found a neutral ground. So the Detroit PD was the compromise.
The interview room door opened and Navarro came in, looking equally pissed off, with a bottle of water for Julia. Still standing, he leaned toward her and said quietly, “Figure out how you want to play this. I know you don’t want to talk to the agent, but you need to decide whether you want to tell him about your dad as leverage.”
“Leverage for what?” Julia asked.
“To get information about Ben, if he has it. If they’re looking this hard into your dad that they’re willing to go undercover to find him, they may have information about your brother.”
“This is bullshit. If the FBI wanted to talk to me about my father, they should’ve played it straight.”
The interview room door opened and Agent Kenny strode inside, giving Julia a hard-set grin. He’d cleaned up since she had seen him at Sushi Z. Agent Kenny was wearing a dark suit and his hair was buzzed short, instead of his slicked-back, curled-at-the-shoulder look he had previously worn.
“No heavy cologne or gold chain this time. You disappoint me,” Julia said. She reached into her purse and pulled out a tape recorder.
“Whatever we discuss here, I’m recording it. I may turn it into an article, depending on what line of bull you tell me. I’ve already put a call into the paper,” Julia bluffed. “Let me know when you’re ready and I’ll press play.”
Kenny reached for the tape recorder, but Julia pulled it out of his reach.
“Are you going to leave out the part where you lied about your father?” Kenny said.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. You misrepresented yourself, pulled a knife on me, and then stalked my house while my kids were inside sleeping. Not to mention the fact that a rogue shot went off, which could have easily gone into one of their bedrooms and killed them.”
“I wasn’t there to hurt your kids. And the gun went off because your buddy there tackled me from behind.”
“You’re lucky Navarro got to you before I did,” Julia said. “I don’t like being bait.”
“Your alias was in Duke Gooden’s file,” Navarro said. “How did that get in there?”
“It was a plant,” Kenny said. “We got intelligence that Duke Gooden was alive and back in Detroit. We needed a way to get to him.”
“Your intelligence is lousy then. If you knew anything, you wouldn’t have bothered trying to find a back door through me, because I haven’t talked to my father since he walked out on me when I was seven.”
“Is that right?” Kenny asked.
“Everything you told me when we were at the restaurant about my father’s alibi and the fire, were those all lies?”
“No, those were true from what we’ve been able to piece together about your father. I tried to get information from your sister, Sarah, as well, but she was as equally tight-lipped as you.”
“If you’d been honest about who you were, Sarah wouldn’t have talked to you regardless, but why me?”
“Family allegiance. If I came to you as a federal agent looking to find your dad, you’d protect him. If I came to you as a former business associate, you’d be more inclined to talk.”
“You clearly need to do your homework better. I had no close ties to my father and wouldn’t have looked him up even if he were still alive.”
“I don’t think you’re telling me the truth, Ms. Gooden. We believe a certain Jonathan Jameson, who was one of Max Mueller’s former guys, was recently murdered. Do you know anything about this?”
Agent Kenny slid what looked like a surveillance shot across the table toward Julia and she made herself play cool as she easily recognized the man her father shot in Sparrow, but there was no way she’d tip her hand. Julia didn’t trust Duke, but she also didn’t trust the FBI agent either.
“I’ve never seen him before. And I’d definitely remember a face like that.”
“Yeah, that’s a face a blind mother wouldn’t even love,” Navarro said. “Why are you bothering to question Julia? You should’ve brought Max’s son in, instead.”
“We don’t have enough on him yet,” Kenny said. “This is where you can help us.”
“You set Julia up. You could’ve gotten her killed.”
“If she got killed, it wouldn’t have been on our end. I just needed Julia to find me, like I was told by one of you guys that she would, and I’m assuming you were the leak,” Kenny said. He looked between Navarro and Julia and gave a knowing, snide smile. “Posing as a former colleague of her dad’s, we figured we’d have a better chance.”
The interview room door swung open and Chief Linderman came inside, still wearing his dark suit from the morning. Somehow it didn’t have a wrinkle on it.
“What’s going on here, Chief?” Navarro asked.
“We’re assisting our partners in the FBI to locate a fugitive.”
“You knew about this?” Julia asked Linderman.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t have been more forthcoming with you, Julia, especially since it involves one of your family members, but I had no choice. The order came down from above me and my hands were tied. I also know how important it is for you to find out what happened to your brother. I’ve been keeping a personal eye on you to be sure you were safe.”
“That’s why you showed up at Liam Mueller’s gallery,” Julia said.
“You’re wrong. Julia hasn’t been safe,” Navarro said. “The agent over here pulled a knife on her when he was undercover and was skulking around her house tonight with a gun. I was there and thought he was an intruder. I tackled him, and when I did, his gun discharged. The shot just missed hitting the house, and Julia’s kids were inside.”
“You did what?” Linderman said to Kenny.
“It was part of the investigation,” Kenny said. “Your detective here screwed up.”
“I try and extend the courtesy of helping out our federal law enforcement officers, but when a citizen’s safety is compromised, that’s where I draw the line,” Linderman said. “We’re not the B team. I help you, you don’t mess with one of my own.”
“She’s a reporter, not a cop,” Kenny said.
“Julia has worked with me and my department for years, and she’s viewed as a trusted and respected journalist around here. And I consider her a personal friend. You come to my precinct and debase one of my detectives and a newspaper reporter in excellent standing with this department, any help I’ve been willing to extend against my better judgment is over. I don’t care what kind of personal flack I get in return. My department is currently knee-deep in a PR shit storm involving a possible serial killer whose latest victim just happens to be the nephew of a prominent Hispanic city councilman. Did I mention the killer is offing people with a bow and arrow? So if you want to talk, you better make it quick, because I’m extremely close to changing my mind.”
“Let’s all lower the hostility level, and we can work together for everyone’s best interest,” Kenny said. “All right, now that the proper introductions have been made, I’ll tell you what I can. I work for the FBI’s art crime division. We haven’t been around that long, but in the last twelve years, we’ve recovered about one hundred fifty million dollars’ worth of stolen art.”
“Art crime?” Navarro asked. “You need a gun for that?”
“Art and cultural property crime are huge,” Kenny said. “It’s the third highest-grossing criminal trade in the past forty years. Weapons and drugs are the only other crimes that are bigger. Toughest job I’ve ever had with the Bureau. Art sales are usually unregulated. No transaction records. And there’s no law that mandates art sales have to be publically recorded. We’ve had some big busts, too. We recovered Rembrandt’s self-portrait in a joint Copenhagen sting, and a Francisco de Goya painting that was stolen while it was making the move from the Toledo Museum of Art to the Guggenheim in New York.”
“You had that tattoo of the painting The Scream when I saw you at the sushi restaurant,” Julia said.
“Bingo. You do this kind of job for long enough, you get to appreciate the talent of the master artists. We have lots of old cases we’re still working, including artwork that was stolen after World War II. And then there’s the five hundred million dollars’ worth of paintings that were lifted from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston back in the early nineties. In that one, a security guard buzzed in two guys pretending to be cops. The ass wipes stole a bunch of paintings, including a Rembrandt and a Vermeer dating back to the 1600s.”
“How does Duke figure into this?” Julia asked.
“Max Mueller’s family, they were originally from Germany,” Kenny said. “His father is believed to have stolen at least thirty paintings that belonged to Jews heading off to concentration camps during the 1940s. When Max’s dad, Otto, came to this country, he took all the stolen artwork with him. And he sold his collection off before he got caught. Being exposed to all that art growing up is how Max got his first taste.”
“Max inherited his father’s penchant for being a criminal,” Julia said.
“You’re catching on. Your father was working for Max as a courier thirty years back. Duke picked up something for Mueller in St. Louis, and two days later, what was believed to be Duke’s remains, and your mother’s, too, were found in a burned-out car in the city of Hamtramck.”
“Did the Wayne County sheriff ID the bodies?” Navarro asked.
“Marjorie’s, yes. We couldn’t match dental records for Duke because the teeth were pulled out.”
“Torture?” Navarro asked.
“Possibly, but I’m not convinced the other body in the car was Duke. There was a possible sighting of Duke in Central America two weeks ago. We believe he either stole a painting we’re trying to recover or knows where it is,” Kenny said.
“What kind of painting is it that has the FBI so interested?” Navarro asked.
“I can’t tell you specifics. We originally thought Max Mueller still had it, but we raided his place ten years ago. Max was a smarmy little asshole and a weird guy. While we were raiding his warehouse, he just stood there smiling at us with this creepy, bent cane of his that looked like a snake. The raid was a bust, though. We couldn’t find the picture, or any ones of much lesser value that we believe Max owned.”
“What makes you believe Duke has whatever you’re looking for?” Julia asked.
“There was chatter about the painting when it first went missing thirty years ago, but nothing since, meaning no one was trying to sell it. But a week ago, a fake collector, one of our undercover guys, got a bite from a man named Kirk Fleming. We’re looking into whether Fleming is actually Duke or Liam Mueller. Max Mueller died recently, and the timing of the painting coming back on the underground black market is too coincidental to be ignored.”
Kenny reached into a manila envelope under his arm and slid another picture in Julia’s direction. The agent tapped his index finger against a picture of a well-dressed man who had thick, silver hair and a pair of dark glasses shielding his eyes as he got into a vehicle.
“That man is known these days as Roberto Sanchez, better known as Rickie Samuels back here in the States. Rickie used to work with Max until he set up his own business running weapons. He went south of the border to get away from the heat the Feds were lighting up under him. If the sighting is true and your father is still alive, we believe Duke may have hooked up with Rickie.”
“I don’t care about my father or a painting or if Duke is dead or alive. The only thing I care about is my brother and what happened to him.”
“Sorry, but that’s not my case. I do art crime, not kidnapping,” Kenny said.
“You forgot human trafficking,” Julia said. “You don’t help me, I won’t help you.”
“Contact the St. Clair County Sheriff’s Office. They ran your brother’s case.”
“That’s fine,” Julia said, standing up. “I can get my own information without you.”
“We’re not done yet,” Kenny said. “You think you’re in charge, and that you’re the smartest person in the room. But you’ve done a pretty shitty job of figuring out what happened to your brother. Ben Gooden’s case has been cold for what? Going thirty-plus years now? You really know how to get to the bottom of a story, Ms. Gooden. I always hated journalists.”
“Let me ask you something. When we were at the sushi place, was everything you told me about my dad true?” Julia asked.
“Unlike you, I don’t lie,” Kenny said.
“This, coming from an agent who pretended he knew my dad to get me to talk. I’ve never once misrepresented myself with you. But if I were keeping a scorecard based on our meeting in the restaurant, I’d say I got way more information from you on the case than you got from me. Have a nice evening, Agent McKenzie. I’m going home to my family,” Julia said.
Julia headed to the door with Kenny in pursuit, but Navarro blocked his way.
* * *
In the hallway, Julia pulled out her cell phone and called Helen, who answered on the first ring.
“How are Logan and Will?” Julia asked.
“Logan refuses to go back to sleep. He insisted on having Will come in his room and he has his baseball bat next to the bed. At least Will is sleeping, but I have a feeling Logan is going to be staying up all night.”
“Okay. I’m leaving the station now. Tell Logan everything is fine.”
“Since no one in this house believes that, except for maybe Will, because he’s too young to know better, I’ll pass on delivering the message.”
“I’m sorry, Helen. I truly am.”
“No need to say sorry. Before I met you, I used to watch Sons of Anarchy to get my thrills. But now I have you. If you don’t get shot, I’ll have a piece of honey cake waiting for you when you get home.”
Julia hung up with Helen and headed to Navarro’s office, where his partner, Russell, sat.
“Late night for you,” Julia said.
“Finishing up some paperwork on the Angel Perez case. We may have a lead. A guy, another Hispanic day laborer, says he saw Angel get into an older-model white van this morning at the Home Depot over in Dearborn. He didn’t get a look at the driver or a plate. But I’ve got this.”
Russell pulled up a website called SecurityVideoWatch.com. He reached in his shirt pocket for his reading glasses and slid them up the bridge of his nose. Russell inserted a username and password, and what looked like security footage outside a gas station appeared live on the screen.
“This is from a Chevron station across the street from the Home Depot. Let me see if I can figure this out,” Russell said.
“Let me help,” Julia said. She moved next to Russell and pointed at his computer screen. “Okay, it looks like the dates of the surveillance footage are on the left of the screen. When did the day laborer say he saw the van?”
“Right before the store opened, so around six AM.”
Julia grabbed the computer mouse from Russell’s confused hand and clicked on an icon on the left of the page.
“This goes by the hour, so let’s start at five AM.”
Julia hit the fast-forward button and paused it at the 5:45 time when Russell grabbed her hand. “That’s Angel Perez’s car. A red Honda Prelude.”
Julia froze the image on the screen and focused in on the fuzzy image of the driver.
“He’s alone,” Julia said. “Poor kid.”
Julia hit the fast-forward button again and quickly hit stop when the nose of an older-model white van appeared on the screen. “Okay, that’s it,” Julia said. “The time is five fifty-five AM.”
Russell hovered over her and put his hand on Julia’s shoulder. “I love it when things turn out to be easy. Let’s see if we can get a shot of the license plate.”
Julia hit the play button again, but the image on the screen disappeared and turned to static.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Russell said.
“Hold on. It could be just a glitch. Let’s see if it comes back up,” Julia answered.
The static played in the background until the security camera footage came back on at 6:15 AM.
“Shit,” Russell said. “The guy from the Chevron station, he told me he just upgraded to this new surveillance system and it’s supposed to be top of the line.”
“He’s got to have an original copy,” Julia said. “Keep me posted, all right?”
Russell groaned and took a long swig from his coffee cup. “I better tell the boss. Are you heading out?”
“Yes. Please tell Navarro I had to get home to check on my kids. I think he may be tied up with the chief.”
Julia grabbed her bag as she headed down the hallway toward the precinct’s entrance to the street, and she wondered what kind of strange path her father must have followed that led him from small-time hustler to a fugitive wanted by the FBI.
Julia made it as far as the interview room door just as Navarro came out.
“That Agent Kenny is a piece of work. He started pumping me on whether you’d let anything slip about your dad. Linderman wants me to talk to him about the Angel Perez case. So I’m going to be hung up here for a bit. Russell has a bite on a video we picked up from a gas station across from the Home Depot we think Angel Perez was at, so maybe we’ll be able to get the license plate on the van.”
“You might want to talk to Russell about that. Conveniently, the tape cut out just as the van came into the picture. I’m going to leave. Logan is still up and isn’t going to sleep anytime soon since Agent McKenzie’s gun unloaded.”
“Be careful. Call me if anything happens. I’ll see you back at your place.”
* * *
The muggy July Michigan night clung to Julia like a sticky veil as she walked out of the police station and made her way back to her SUV and the parking lot down the block.
Julia nodded as she passed Tom, a homeless man, she had known for years and who looked like a long-faded hippie. Tom was sitting, cross-legged, on an old blanket that was neatly lined with his belongings, a dirty camouflage-green backpack, a beyond-worn copy of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road, a half-dozen crystals, and a cardboard sign with a message written in red marker: WILL ENLIGHTEN FOR FOOD.
“How are you doing, Tom?” Julia asked, and handed him a five-dollar bill and a granola bar, which she had fished out of her purse.
“Thanks, Julia, my lady,” Tom said. “May I offer you something for your kind contribution?”
“No need, but thank you.”
Tom stroked his fingers through his long, white beard and looked back at Julia. “Most people don’t even look at me, but you always treat me like a human being. Since you’re always so nice, let me offer you a tip. Some street philosophy. It’s a nice night, but be careful of the birds.”
“We have a bird problem in Detroit?” Julia asked.
“The last few nights, you bet,” Tom said, his eyes bulged and his right hand shot up and pointed to the sky. “No one else has been able to see them but me, but I bet if anyone else can, it would be you.”
“Thanks for the warning. I’ll be sure to duck if I get bombarded by a flock of pigeons.”
“Not pigeons. Big red blackbirds that look like they’d fall right out of the sky. Never seen ones like that before. Be careful, Miss Julia. I saw a UFO last night. You look up at the sky just at the right time from this spot, you wouldn’t believe the things you can see. You should join me here sometime.”
“Thanks for the offer. Have a good night, Tom.”
Julia checked her watch and hurried through the open, one-story parking lot. Out of a new habit, when she reached her car, Julia scanned her windshield for any potential notes, but found none. She leaned against the hood of her SUV and felt like the tight control she had spent a lifetime trying to perfect in order to protect herself was becoming horribly undone.
She made her way to the driver-side door of her SUV, where a white envelope was waiting for her, taped to the window.
“This is not a goddamn scavenger hunt,” Julia said as she snatched the envelope open and found her second note from Phoenix Pontiac.
Julia,
Go to the Verve Bar on Kirby Street. You bring the cops, I’m out of there before your foot hits the curb.
Your brother Ben called me. He’s still alive.