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Fairfax County, Virginia
Monday, August 18
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SERGEANT JAIME BENEDICTO lumbered out of his squad car, patted his breast pockets for sunglasses, and hitched up his pants. Working the stiffness out of his joints, he hugged the shoulder of the road while rush-hour traffic roared past. Bad knees or not, by the time he reached the automobile pulled over by the side of the road, his sunglasses were set in place and his stride was strapping and confident. The driver rolled down her window. He asked for her registration and license.
Cordelia already had them in hand and passed them through the window. “What did I do wrong, Sheriff?” she said sweetly but with a hint of sarcasm.
“Sergeant.” He nudged his head back down the road apiece. “Ran a stoplight.”
“I’m sure I didn’t. But even if I did, aren’t you slightly out of your jurisdiction?” It was the end of the day. She was exhausted. She wanted to go home, stand under a cold shower, put up her feet, dine on reheated pizza, and catch up on the latest crime shows. “In fact, aren’t you on the wrong side of the state line?”
His eyes narrowed. “And didn’t you recently trespass on a crime scene?”
She was flustered. She was flabbergasted. She was on the defensive. It was one thing for her to know he was the man who arrested Jack Coyote. It was something altogether different for him to know who she was and what she was up to. “Excuse me.”
A semitrailer roared past, upsetting his shirt though not his bad mood. His moment of pique had passed. “My mistake. Let me rephrase that ... made an appoint with a real estate agent.” Despite the crisp shirt, the pressed slacks, and the short-cropped haircut, the detective was packaged in a shelf-worn box.
“Ah. I see. She called you.”
When Farrow dropped her off at the office, Cordelia checked her email, picked up her messages, packed up her laptop, and left early for the day. She glanced to the rear. “Did you follow me from my office?”
“You were at the funeral, weren’t you? Thought I recognized you.” He studied her ID with keen interest, his brow furrowed and his craggy face bemused. “Cordelia Burke. Financial analyst with the Monetary Compliance Network, otherwise known as MonCom. Apparently your fiancé is Mr. Paul Farrow, likewise employed by the same agency.”
She craned her neck. “I hadn’t realized all that information was on my driver’s license. But for the record, Mr. Farrow is most definitely not my fiancé.”
The sergeant was a handsome man in an unconventional way. The word rugged came to mind. Another word came to mind. Dangerous. She wouldn’t want to get on the wrong side of Sergeant Jaime Benedicto.
“What’s this all about, Sergeant?”
Though it was difficult to discern much past his stoic expression, she detected yet another bemused look on his face.
“Your agency is investigating a person of our mutual acquaintance.”
“Are we?”
“For financial crimes.” When she said nothing, he went on. “You’re chasing down the fifty million dollars.”
“I take the Fifth.”
“It would seem we’re on the same side.” He squinted at the passing traffic.
“Maybe so,” she said, “but now may not be the best time to break out with a verse of Kumbaya.”
“Just to clear up any confusion, the real estate agent and our office exchange considerations. She alerts us whenever a buyer expresses interest in seeing the property. In return, one of my deputies accompanies her at a discreet distance for safety concerns. As a woman, I’m sure you would understand. But I have to confess. Your name came up earlier.”
“Oh?”
“Not long ago, you approached an accountant in Kansas City whose name now escapes me. He wound up dead by the end of the day.”
“You’re not accusing me of―”
“—Killing him?” The sergeant was an imposing fellow. It came naturally to him. The way he breathed evenly through slightly flared nostrils and hid his eyes behind reflective sunglasses made him resemble a bandit instead of a law enforcement officer. “Far from it.”
As if reading her mind, he removed the sunglasses and pinched the inner corners of his eyes. The whites were bloodshot with fatigue. He was a man who worked long hours. Cordelia sensed in him a gentle surrendering. He must have recognized her as a worthy adversary. Or a pushover. When he replaced the sunglasses, his facial muscles were more relaxed, his jowls not nearly as constricted, the plains of his face not quite so tense, and his jaw no longer grinding. He returned her license to her. After his initial irritation, no further signs of crossness or even of curiosity escaped the chiseled jaw or serrated cheekbones, even though the phlegmatic stare never once left his face.
He asked her a pointed question. “What exactly is your interest in Coyote?”
“Same as yours. I intend to bring him to justice.”
“For murder?”
“A different kind of justice,” she said. “My agency’s kind of justice.”
He looked around, then pointed the mirrored lenses of his sunglasses toward the western sun. “Talking through a window is all very well and good, but I’m wondering. Are you hungry?”
Cordelia followed the good sergeant to a Mexican restaurant where the proprietor and the chef were identical. Alva was her name. She was the size of a monument, and served up a mean Tex-Mex menu and an even meaner salsa. Benedicto flirted with the buxom woman, at least ten years his senior, but a lady who must have been a scorcher in her day. She advised Cordelia to ignore anything the sergeant said since he lied like a thief and exaggerated like a storyteller, especially if it had to do with work. “He comes from a long line of banditos. Has he told you? Wait until he’s had a few. Then ask.” The wink was for the detective, who arched his back and puffed out his chest. Alva sidled away, chuckling.
Benedicto pocketed the sunglasses. Cordelia was surprised to find affable brown eyes beneath. “Tell me. Why has your agency become so interested in Coyote?”
“They weren’t to begin with.” When he looked at her quizzically, she elaborated. “I convinced them.”
He considered her with laughing eyes, eyes that could also be as menacing as sledge hammers. “It’s personal with you.”
“Same as you.”
“You haven’t met the man.”
“Would it matter if I did?”
“He’s not what you would expect.”
“In a good way? Or bad?”
His expression hardened. He glanced down at the water glass before him, reached for it, swallowed several gulps. He didn’t want to answer her. Maybe because he was still trying to nail down the truth. Or because he didn’t know what to think, despite the antipathy he felt for his escaped felon. Up close, the sergeant was much bigger from initial impressions. He ate well, that much was obvious, but it wasn’t only his bulk. It was the way he held himself, the way he crowded her personal space, and the way he looked down on her as if he could eat her for breakfast and ask for a second helping afterwards. Finally, he said, “He’s smart.”
“That much I know.”
He acknowledged her with a slight nod. “He could talk your head off.”
“Sounds like a dangerous man.” She smiled pleasantly before saying, “Did you get a chance to talk with Mrs. Sessions? And if so, whether she told you anything important?”
He angled his head curiously. His face had changed from neutral to attentive. “Like who had it in for her husband?”
Cordelia took his response as a No and a No. “Then why attend the funeral?”
“Why do you think?”
“To observe the chief suspects.”
Once again, he tilted his head, this time his eyes twinkling. “Coyote is the only suspect on my roster.”
“Do you believe Lindsey-Marie Moffatt was murdered? Seeing that she and John Sessions spoke minutes before he jumped.”
A look of respect attacked his eyes. “Who told you that?”
“You did. Just now. I heard they were lovers. Do you think it’s true?”
“Does it matter?”
“If they shared information on more than a professional level, it sure as hell does. She would have known more than she should have. I think Sessions was a man with an uneasy conscience. I think the article in the Washington Gazette scared him. I think he was about to talk to the Feds. I think someone was desperate enough to cover their tracks, even if it meant another suspicious death. I think Sessions was pushed off that roof. I also think Moffat’s overdose wasn’t accidental or suicidal. And I don’t think your chief suspect could have managed that all by his lonesome.”
“That’s quite a statement.”
“What do you know about the Virginia couple the press doesn’t know about?”
He looked down at the place setting and unfurled his napkin, a way for him to avoid looking at her.
She pressed him. “Was it murder-suicide? Or an execution?”
“Virginia isn’t my jurisdiction.”
“But you suspect the murders are connected to Coyote.”
“Where Coyote is concerned, isn’t everything connected?” He sat back, folding his hands over his belly.
“That’s why you struck a deal with the real estate agent. Because murderers often return to the scene of the crime.”
“This one won’t. He’s too smart for that.”
“Who’s kidding who?” She nearly laughed. “Do you think he did it? Do you think he killed the woman?”
“I’m not judge or jury.”
“Sure you are. You can’t help it. None of us can.”
She lifted her water glass and drank, using the action as a shield against his probing eyes. Except there was no defense against a man with X-ray vision. Nearness sometimes makes a man more or less handsome, more or less imposing, more or less threatening. In his case, he was more handsome and more imposing but less threatening. Carefully she set down the water glass and nudged it aside.
“All right,” she said. “If you won’t start, I will. Something terrible happened there. The woman didn’t stand a chance, I think we can both agree on that. Except―”
Benedicto bit. “Except?”
“Except, perhaps, for the second man.”
“Jesus ...”
“Oh,” she said, “wasn’t it supposed to get out?”
His eyes narrowed. “Who’ve you been talking to?”
“That would be telling. But getting back to Coyote. If he and the other man were partners, there wouldn’t have been a fight.”
“A fight?” he asked innocently.
“And it wouldn’t have been between Mrs. Brodey and the intruder since he would have been much stronger than her. No, it could only have been between two men with equal stakes in the outcome. But let me ask you this. Do you think Coyote was capable of murdering Milly Whitney in a maniacal, drug-induced fugue?”
“I do,” he said without hesitance.
“You’re sure about this?”
“Only a guilty man runs.”
“Or an innocent man who’s been railroaded.”
He didn’t react.
“I heard his IQ is so high it can’t be measured.”
“A pity the IQ didn’t come with a conscience.”
After their tequilas arrived, they toasted the end of the day. His eyes looked into her soul before he said, “If we’re going to make a deal with the devil, you and I, and it looks as though we’re heading in that direction, I’d like to pick your brain, Ms. Burke. I’d like to know whatever you can tell me. In return, I will tell you whatever I can.”
“Sounds fair. But to be perfectly honest, Sergeant, I really don’t care if Coyote is guilty or innocent. I don’t have a cock in that game. But I will say this. If I find him first, I’ll hand him over to you.”
“Your agency may not like that.”
“That’ll be my problem.” She was being brash. She was being overconfident. And she was probably breaking protocol along with a host of rules and regulations. “Is it a deal?”
He paused to consider. “And if I find him first?” His bass voice was low and mellow but laced with a hint of mirth.
“You can’t go overseas. True?”
He hesitated before conceding to the truth with a measured nod.
“I’ve also done my homework. You used MonCom once before. On the Esposito case.”
“Raoul Esposito.”
“He’s serving twenty-to-life at the River North Correctional Institution, courtesy of Sergeant Detective Jaime Benedicto, who never lets his man take a hike. Except maybe,” she said, “for one.”
The tiniest quirk at the corners of his mouth gave away his amusement, and something else besides. Defensiveness. Insult. A cheek muscle twitched before he finally said, “I don’t have a vindictive mindset, but I have to admit, your Jack Coyote has pinched a nerve.”
“He’s not my Jack Coyote.” She detected something else. “It’s more than personal with you. It’s a goddamn vendetta. He made you look lousy. And you’re going to make him pay for the insult.”
He chuckled without humor. “Damn straight. He suckered me with his charm. Hell, he could talk a dog catcher out of putting down a rabid Rottweiler.”
“No love lost between you two.”
“Jack shit.”
She leaned forward. “If I bring him in ... and it’s a big ‘if’ ... he’s all yours. And welcome to him.”
He nodded subtly with his eyes wide open. Cordelia was the one to blink.
When Alva brought out the house specialty, hotter than a Washington day in August, she left them to it. Business was slow this early in the evening. The detective was equally slow in getting around to what he wanted to say. When he did, he took the center path. “Knowing what you know now about Coyote, what’s your verdict? Guilty as charged? Or innocent as the day is long?”
Her knife and fork addressed a burrito big enough to feed four. The detective demonstrated the proper way, grabbing his own like a sandwich and hefting it to his mouth. Cordelia set down the utensils. “I’ve thought about it, Detective. I’ve thought about it plenty. I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt.”
He shook his head in the negative, snorting.
“You think I’m a bleeding heart.”
“Didn’t say that. But you are, aren’t you? A sucker for a handsome face.”
“And like all men, you don’t like any competition.”
He laughed heartily.
She decided there was a spark of humanity left inside the detective after all, but only a spark. She had known plenty like him. Her family was populated with Jaime Benedictos, Chicago cops every one. Vice, homicide, narcotics, they’d done it all, put up with untold crap, and had the scars and attitudes to prove it.
“If Coyote didn’t do it, then who the hell did?” She was making messy work of the burrito. When he didn’t answer, she paused mid-bite. He knew something.
“There’s a latent,” he admitted almost as a whisper.
“Is there?” With a dubious if not cautious voice, she said, “That never came out.”
“For a reason.”
“Which is?”
“You’ll see when you review the files.”
Her pulse quickened. “When?”
“Tomorrow. Come to the stationhouse. Afternoon is best.”
“What will I find?”
“A name.”
She waited patiently.
“Katerine Cécile Arnaud Madoc. French. Wanted by Interpol for forgery.”
Cordelia set down the burrito and considered him. He was a queer man as cops went. He had a thick skin. He also had scruples. Left over, perhaps, from a happy childhood, a loving mother, and a close-knit family. Or acquired after getting the crap kicked out of him. The foundation was unimportant. What was important to Jaime Benedicto was going after the bad guys and putting them away, to the exclusion of everything else, even if it meant ignoring contradictory evidence, the kind buried in thick file folders. Yet he still had a conscience that set him apart and allowed him to see other possibilities, even if it was like sandpaper rubbing an open wound.
“Do you have a family, Detective Benedicto?”
“The sun rises and sets.”
“Do you despise high living, moral depravity, and twisted values?”
“Goes without saying.”
“What if the contents of your files exonerate Coyote?”
“I don’t believe they will.”
“Then why give me access?”
“Call it a professional courtesy.”
He was giving her a gift. An amazing gift. “Read something in one of our disreputable tabloids, and found it interesting. You might, too. A few days before Coyote purportedly killed Ms. Whitney, he used a credit card to pay for a one-night stand with a prostitute in a sordid motel where cockroaches wouldn’t stay and where, in an alcoholic rage, he raped her and left her for dead before passing out in his car a mere two miles down the road.”
“Washingtonian Sun, wasn’t it?” He sat back, wiping his mouth with a napkin.
“I think the story was concocted. You do, too. Because you checked it out. Didn’t you?”
He smirked. Shook his head with irritation. And gave in without a fight. “You’re being straight with me. I’ll return the favor. Sally Jones? The call girl? Doesn’t exist. At least, not on any police blotter in Maryland or surrounding counties. The name of the police officer? Roger Montpelier? Bogus. And there’s no Severn Keys Motel off the 301.”
“Then the story was planted. But for what purpose?”
“I don’t have to tell you.”
“Who do you think was behind it?”
“Wouldn’t know. But I know why.” Casually he unwrapped a plastic toothpick and stuck it into his mouth. “As an insurance policy. To make him look dirty. What’s your theory?”
“Three letters. HID.”
He nodded, sniffing in a ponderous breath. “Seems I’ve met my match. And she comes in a tidy package of moral superiority.”
The drama behind his dark eyes was evident. Her arguments had taken him off his stride. He had to weigh his rock-solid belief in Coyote’s guilt against a case of plausible innocence, and found it difficult to reconcile the two.
Not a woman to be swayed by flattery or intimidation, Cordelia pressed her point. “Still. What’s the point? If he can’t be judged by the preponderance of evidence, then it must not be solid enough.” She was fishing for the truth. And fishing for the integrity of a man she was beginning to like.
“And meanwhile,” he said with a sigh, “after the Whitney woman lay dying if not already dead, and while overdosing on a cocktail of drugs in the aftermath of a sadomasochist sex binge, Coyote hacks four brokerages and transfers a personal fortune into several offshore accounts.”
“Yet fails to make his escape due to a near-fatal overdose.” She shook her head at the contradiction. “I’m analytical. When I add two and two, I expect the answer to be four. When it’s five, I get a tiny bit suspicious.”
“Your conclusion?”
“The only reason Coyote is alive is because his employer suspects he has incriminating evidence against them.”
“His employer being the Homeland Intelligence Division.”
“Correction,” she said. “His employer being the United States government. I presume you read the papers.”
“The exposé in the Washington Gazette.”
“Do you think the reporter is onto something?”
“Time will tell.” He checked his watch. “You’ll have to excuse me. I have an appointment. Late as it is. But please stay. Alva has a special coffee. Ask for the Columbian roast. She’ll know what you mean.” He smiled. It was a warm smile but guarded.
She held up a finger and grabbed one of her business cards, holding it forth.
He looked it over, raising his eyebrows, seemingly impressed. “Is that what they call investigators at your agency? Senior Data Research Specialists?”
Officially, I’m a financial analyst, but the term rubs money launderers the wrong way.”
“Ah. I see.” Again the smile.
After settling the bill, he left, the storefront bell tinkling and the door whisking shut at his back.
The dining room was relatively empty, only a few other diners speaking in hushed tones and eating ravenously. Her appetite returned. She was hungrier than she realized. It must have been the rush of adrenalin. She finished her meal at a leisurely pace until the sun began its slow descent and Alva came around to light candles in a packed dining room. Benedicto was right about the coffee. It was exceptional.
