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Seattle (Tuesday, Dec. 4, 2012) — Mac slept until 10 a.m., something he couldn’t remember doing in a very long while. Kristy and Lindy were putting the house back together, chatting as if they had known each other forever when he came down the stairs. He nodded at them, then went into the kitchen to fix some eggs.
“Good morning,” Kristy said, coming into the kitchen.
Mac saw her pause when she saw him at the stove, but he ignored it. What, she thinks I can’t cook? “Morning,” he said. tipping two eggs over easy onto his plate. “Troy up yet?”
“Haven’t seen him.”
Mac took a bite, chewed, and swallowed. “How are you holding up?”
Kristy nodded. “I’m okay,” she said. “Your aunt and I’ve been talking. She helped me make arrangements for Danny’s body.” Her voice trembled a bit at the end.
“Good,” Mac said. “When do you plan to fly out?”
“They’ll ship the body out Thursday. I thought I’d make reservations for the same day.”
Mac nodded. “Make reservations for both us, will you?”
“You’re going with me?” Kristy asked, looking pleased.
“Make three reservations,” Troy said from the stairway. He looked at Mac’s plate. “There any more?”
“Eggs in the refrigerator,” Mac said. “You decide you’re still in this?”
Kristy opened the refrigerator, got out eggs. She wiped out the skillet Mac had used and started breakfast for Troy. Troy sat down at the table.
“I started this,” Troy said. “I’m going to help finish it.”
Mac nodded. “Thought you would.”
Mac emptied his backpack on the dining room table. Under Kristy’s startled eyes, he set aside the two 9mm’s, what little ammunition he had left, the box cutter. Picking up a reporter’s notebook — a narrow notebook, 3” by 8”, that said reporter’s notebook right on it — Mac began making a list. There was much to do. To start with, he needed to get his 4-Runner home from Shorty’s and into the shop, while Janet’s pickup needed to be returned. Mac toyed with having it cleaned and repainted, grinned and put it on the list. The house needed to be restored to its usual order. Mac had found it hard to go to sleep, because he wanted to get up and clean his suite of rooms. Eventually he had. Order had been restored.
He needed to go to the bank.
Arrangements for Danny’s burial could be delegated to Kristy.
“Mac, phone.” Lindy called from the living room where she was re-shelving her beloved books.
Mac picked up the phone. “Hello.”
“Mac, it’s Janet. Have you read the morning’s paper? Quite a bit of excitement at Parker’s residence. Protesters. No Parker, however,” she said.
“Really?” Mac wrote down pick up the newspapers on his list.
“Really. Some people claimed they heard shots, but that couldn’t be confirmed. You okay?”
“I am. Danny’s... dead. So is C.J.”
“The man you met at the pier?”
“Yeah.”
Janet sighed. “I’m sorry,” she offered. “I know you cared about them both.”
When he didn’t respond, Janet continued, “I’ve been asked by the publisher to tell you to report for work, your regular shift. Tomorrow, 6 a.m.”
“Oh yeah?” Mac looked at his watch, not much more than 12 hours since the attorney had left with the signed papers.
“Yes, and I’m informed that the Parker story has been investigated and found to be... non-existent.”
Mac grunted.
“And I’m wondering how the publisher knew all of this before I did.”
Mac smiled. Trust it to Janet to see the interesting point. “I don’t know. Probably because he heard it from someone besides me.”
“So is the story dead?”
“Between you and me? I haven’t decided. To the rest of the world? As dead as Danny.”
“I see. Anything else I should know?”
“I’ll be returning your truck later today,” Mac offered. “And I’m going to need some time off. Starting Thursday.”
“How come?”
Mac hesitated, then answered slowly, “I have to go to a funeral. In Shreveport, Louisiana.”
Errands took up most of the day. The bank. Swapping vehicles around and getting them repaired. Mac drove Janet’s pickup through the car wash before returning it. Cleaning the house. Making arrangements for the funeral in Louisiana. Talking to Danny’s boss. That had been a difficult conversation for Kristy. Mac ended up finishing it.
“She telling me right? Danny Brown’s dead?”
Mac rolled his eyes. No, she’s making it up, you dumb shit, he thought. “Yes. He intervened in an assault on a woman, didn’t see the man’s gun. Saved her, though.”
“Sounds like Danny,” said the boss, Sonny Barber. “That boy never backed away from a fight.”
“No, he didn’t,” Mac agreed. “Did I hear Kristy say there’d be men from the platform who would want to attend?”
“Oh, yeah. Danny was well liked. Funeral going to be in Shreveport?”
“Sunday 2 p.m.”
“We’ll be there. Those of us who aren’t on duty.”
Mac suggested casually, “Kristy, Danny’s sister? has expressed a wish to see the platform where Danny worked. She never has, you know. Meet some of the guys she’s heard about. Think it would be possible to arrange a memorial service out on the platform?”
“Maybe,” Sonny Barber said slowly. “I don’t see why not. We’ve had spouses tour before. Not much different, hey? Who’d come out with her?”
“Me and another old Marine buddy of Danny’s, probably,” Mac said, keeping his voice casual. “We’re kind of acting in place of her brother right now. There was just the two of them, you know.”
Sonny Barber digested that. “I’ll clear it with the bosses. Damn straight, if the lady wants to see where her brother worked, she should. Died a hero, didn’t he?”
“Why did you tell him that story,” Kristy demanded, when he got off the phone. “First of all, that’s not how Danny died, and second, I’ve never expressed any interest in seeing an oil platform!”
Mac laughed at her. “Well, express it now,” he said. “This may be the only way of getting on that platform. And I’m pretty sure that’s where Danny hid Troy’s package.”
“Oh.” Kristy thought about that. “And the other?”
Mac looked away. “Wanted Danny’s buddies to know he was a hero,” he said softly. “Even if they can’t know the details.”
Kristy hugged him and went to help Lindy with dinner. Mac watched her in bemusement. He could get used to her hugs and touches, he thought. Then he reached for the phone to make some more calls.
Wednesday morning, Mac was at work promptly at 6 a.m. He nodded at Janet, then tidied up the desk he shared with Conte with his usual grumbles and started making his phone calls: police and fire departments in Seattle and the surrounding communities.
“Got a missing woman in Ballard,” he called over to Janet, about 8 a.m.
“Any details?”
“Some. Might be good, there’s supposed to be a friend of the missing woman who fears foul play and says the woman’s boyfriend was violent.”
“Check it out,” Janet said, jotting the story on the runsheet. “See if you can find that friend. And get a picture. How old is the missing woman?”
“Twenty-six.”
Mac made some more calls, typed up his story and filed it in Janet’s queue to be edited. “Think I’ll go out to Ballard,” he said. “Look around. I’ll try to get that picture, too.”
Janet looked at the clock; it was noon. “Leave it be; I’ll have someone else follow up. Get some lunch and finish up anything you’ve got going. When are you going to be back from the funeral?”
Mac shook his head. “Don’t know really. Can I have a week?”
Janet nodded. “Don’t forget to tell Rodriguez where you are — don’t want you violating bail.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Mac ate at Wan Luc’s as he always did. The waiter complimented him again on his use of chopsticks. It felt good to be back in the routines of his life, even if just for a day. Back at the office, he went through his notes for the last couple of weeks. He followed up on some items, filed updates on a couple of them.
“Do I do the follow-up on Donnelly?” Mac asked.
Janet laughed. “No, I gave that story to Conte.”
“Right,” Mac said with some disappointment. He called Rodriguez anyway.
“Yeah,” Rodriguez said when Mac identified himself. “What do you want now?”
“How’s Donnelly?”
Rodriguez’s voice lightened. “The doctors are optimistic for the first time,” he said. “He’s regaining consciousness. Not coherent, yet, but the Doc is hopeful.”
“Good,” Mac said, wondering whether Donnelly would be a help or a hindrance in his own case. Who did Donnelly think tried to kill him? “Listen, I’ve got to go to Louisiana, take Danny’s body back for burial. You got a problem with that?”
“No.” Rodriguez hesitated, then asked, “How long you planning to be gone?”
“A week.”
“File the travel information with the court clerk. Don’t want your boss losing her bail money.”
“The Examiner, you mean?”
Rodriguez was silent for a moment. “Your editor posted the bail herself, Mac. I thought you knew.”
Mac hung up the phone, walked over to Janet’s desk. Leaned on it. “You didn’t tell me you posted my bail bond personally,” he said quietly. “You didn’t need to do that.”
“You weren’t supposed to know.”
“Rodriguez mentioned it.”
“Ah.” Janet took off her glasses, cleaned them, put them back on again. Then she sighed. “This is a good newspaper, Mac. It generally does the right thing. It’s aggressive about covering the things it should cover. Eventually the publisher and the editors would have done the right thing. Eventually. But I was going be God damned if one of my reporters sat in jail waiting for them to get their heads out of their asses.”
Mac grinned at her. “Don’t pull any punches, there, Janet. Tell us what you really think.” he said.
“Don’t you have any work to do?” she said, waving him off.
He turned to walk away, took a few steps. Turned back. “Thank you,” he said simply.
She smiled. “You’re welcome.”
He called the court clerk, gave Kristy’s address and phone number as the place where he could be reached in Louisiana.
He paged through his notes, looking for the stars that meant follow up on this. One note was a bit more cryptic that most. DEA case? El Paso? Check federal court records.
Forgot about that, he thought. Probably won’t tell me anything new, but then again, you never knew. He leaned back in his chair, looked at the clock. One, two hours later there? He had time. Mac shrugged, looked up the telephone records on the Web. He punched in the long-distance code and the number of the county court clerk in El Paso.
“Records, please,” he said.
A female voice answered with a Texas drawl. “How can I help you?”
“I’m looking for the verdicts on some drug dealers who were arrested about 10 years ago,” Mac said, giving her the dates. “DEA bust out in the foothills. Howard Parker was the arresting DEA officer.”
“Don’t want much do you, honey?” the woman said. Mac could picture her: 50, bleached, teased hair, elaborate makeup, tight clothes and a body carry a few too many pounds. A good old Texas gal.
“If you don’t ask, you don’t get,” he teased back.
“I’ll bet you get all you want,” she said with a laugh. “What do you want this for, anyway?”
“I’m a reporter,” Mac said. “Doing a background piece and found a string that led here. You know how it goes.”
“Reporters,” she snorted. “Yeah, we know reporters. Okay, honey, just hang on a bit and let me see what I can find.”
The hold music was Waylon Jennings. Mac closed his eyes. It took nearly 10 minutes before the woman came back on the line.
“Got it. Not much of a lead for a story, though,” she said doubtfully. “You sure this what you want?”
“I don’t know — what’s it say?”
She gave him the names. Six men had pleaded guilty to misdemeanor possession, intent to sell. Four of the men were illegal aliens; they’d been turned over to Immigration and supposedly deported. The other two served six months in the county jail and were released.
“I doubt it would have come here at all if the DEA hadn’t been directly involved,” the clerk said.
“When was the verdict handed down?”
“December 7, 2005,” Darlene said.
“Can you fax me the case?” Mac asked, trying to assimilate what she’d said. Misdemeanors? Six Hispanic names? No white guys, no large amounts of drugs confiscated? Well, that went hand-in-hand with it being a CIA undercover operation, he guessed. But who then were the men who took the fall? Why didn’t they just make the whole thing go away. The more he thought about it, the more surprised he was to find any case at all.
“Are you sure it’s the one you want?”
“Nope, but if it’s not, I’ll know who to ask for when I call back,” Mac said cheerfully.
“Sure, honey, what’s your name?”
Mac told her and hung up. He looked at his notes. That didn’t match his memories at all. And it was unlikely he’d forget that fucked up mission. Did it help knowing this? Well, if nothing else it did confirm that something strange had gone down on that case. But he knew that. Why a case at all? He picked up the faxes, jammed them in his backpack. One more thing to check out. Some time.
Kevin was standing in his way when he turned around. “Yo, jailbird,” he said.
Mac looked at him, his perfectly cut, blond hair, the preppy khakis, the button-down shirt. One discreet little earring. The newsroom was quiet, straining to hear and see what Mac was going to do.
“Bet he slugs him,” someone muttered behind him.
“I wanna see,” another voice replied.
Mac smiled, after all the crap he’d been through in the last few days, Precious Kevin was almost amusing. He walked up close to him. Kevin backed away. Mac stalked him, pushing him finally to the wall, where Kevin had no place to go.
“Kevin,” Mac said softly, riveting Kevin’s attention on him. Deer in the headlights, Mac thought. “Pick up the newspaper almost any day of the week and there’s my byline. I may be a lot of things, including a jailbird, as you say, but one thing I am that you’re not, is a reporter. You are nothing but a fucking file clerk with a fancy title. So stay the fuck out of my way.”
Mac held Kevin’s eyes, for a bit longer, then backed away, satisfied he’d made his point. Steve Whitman was approaching his assistant; his expression didn’t bode well for the young man wilting against the wall. Mac grinned.
Janet was standing by her desk when he walked by. “See you when I get back,” he said.
She shook her head, glancing at Kevin who was now in an earnest conversation with his boss. She hid a smile. “Call me if a story turns up. Seeing as you’re a reporter, you say.”
He nodded slowly. “I think one just might.”
In Texas, Darlene hung up the phone, faxed the judgment and sentencing reports, and put the case file in a pile to be returned to the morgue. A man came behind the counter, perched on her desk. She looked at him without favor.
“What’s happening, Darlene,” he said easily. “Saw you had to make a trip to the morgue.”
She shrugged, not looking at him. She didn’t like him. Hadn’t the day he’d started at the courthouse, wouldn’t the day he left. “Reporter called wanting information about an old case.”
The man picked up the case file, thumbed through it. “Oh? Reporter from where?”
“Seattle,” she said shortly. “You through wasting my time, mister? I do have things to do.”
“Sure, Darlene,” he said, tapping her on the cheek. It hurt. He smiled nasty-like and went back down the hall.
His eyes were cold and there wasn’t even a nasty smile on his face when he entered his office and dialed a number he knew by heart. “I thought you said he was going to be stopped,” he said to the person who answered.
“He’s stopped,” the person replied.
“That’s what you think,” the Texan said. “He just accessed the case file. You’d better tell the boss.”
“Shit,” the D.C. man said. “The boss has been having a hizzy fit as it is. We’re all taking a lot of heat. Went out to take charge himself. Says if you want it done right....
“Yeah? Well, I hear tell it isn’t going well out there either,” the Texan said.
“So I hear, some big fuck up. But I didn’t have anything to do with it, all I care about these days.”
“Well tell the boss the file’s been accessed.”
“I’ll tell him.”
“Better you than me,” the Texan said softly and hung up.