Sartini cinched his robe a couple seconds too late and welcomed us in. “Didn’t expect to see you guys so soon. Unfortunately, I haven’t had any luck—”
“We got everything we needed on the van,” Sam said.
Sartini shut the door behind us. “Oh, all right. Well is this just a social call then? I’ll get the Maker’s.”
“I wish I could say it was,” I said.
He narrowed his eyes as he studied my wounds. “The hell happened to you, Tanner?”
“Dove through a window to escape a burning house.”
He arched an eyebrow and nodded. “I’m guessing your visit has something to do with that.” His expression changed, lengthening his face as both eyes opened wide and his bottom lip dropped. “Did you get O’Connell?”
Sam placed his hand on Sartini’s shoulder. “We did. He’s in custody in Savannah. We’ve already provided them with the information you told us. Questioning will happen in due time.”
Sartini sucked in a deep breath of air. His eyes misted over. I could almost see the weight rising off him.
“Excuse me, fellas. I think I need a minute. Why don’t you head into my study.”
Sam led the way down the hall and into the room. I tensed a little as he slid past the door opening. My mind always raced in an off-beat way. At that moment, I conceived the idea that Pennington had been working with Sartini the entire time, and was now waiting in there with Cassie.
“He’s been working the old files.” Sam pointed at the desk. Boxes were stacked on one end. Folders cluttered the rest of the surface. Other than that, it looked exactly as we’d left it.
“After you guys took off,” Sartini said, “I couldn’t sleep, so I started going through the cases we linked to O’Connell. I’d forgotten how many there were. Maybe it was necessary so I could rest easy. I swear, no other case ever left the task force so decimated.”
Sam shot me a look. “Tell us about this task force. Who all was on it? Who led it?”
Sartini eased into his Herman Miller chair and swiveled to face us. “Well, it was a tristate setup where we had guys locally, and also from Delaware and Maryland. Actually, they had two detectives from D.C. as well. Some of the best narco, robbery, and homicide detectives. SWAT guys were pulled together and created a new unit. They ran with all the latest military gear. And then the tech guys. Everything from my expertise to surveillance and fraud experts. We had a lot of cases going at any one time. Might be homicide, suspected terrorists, and even high-end white collar and political stuff.”
“This task force still in existence?” Sam asked.
“Why, you interested?” Sartini said.
“Maybe, but I’m mostly just curious.”
“It is in some form or another. Not the incarnation I was a part of. It all changed after the O’Connell thing.”
“You familiar with the name Pennington?” I said.
Sartini looked toward the window and nodded. “Yeah, I knew him. He took off around the same time we lost O’Connell.”
“Anything in particular you remember about him?”
Sartini spun his chair and faced his desk. He flipped through a few of the files.
“I don’t mean about a case,” I said. “How well did you know the guy? Recall anything about his family, friends? That kind of stuff.”
The silence in the room as he thought it over made me keenly aware of the high-pitched ringing in my ears. That was new. I worked my jaw open and closed a few times. The ringing faded.
“He was a funny guy,” Sartini said. “Personable, but distant. I can’t recall him ever speaking about his family. Never mentioned a wife, kids, parents, none of that. I guess he didn’t want any of us to get close to him. He did his job, you know, and went about his private time, uh, privately.”
I sighed and nodded, knowing the break we were looking for wouldn’t be found here.
“Who else would have records regarding the task force?” Sam asked.
“I’m not even sure now.” Sartini glanced toward the window again. He was holding something back.
“Give us a name to start with,” I said. “We’re detectives. We can figure it out from there.”
Sartini scrawled something on a piece of scrap paper, folded it, and handed it to me. I stuffed it in my pocket.
“Make sure you tell him I put you in touch with him,” he said. “Otherwise he’ll hang up on you. Shit, he probably will anyway. Be persistent.”
“What do you think about the Birds so far this season?” Sam asked, referring to our beloved Eagles.
“Not crazy about this new coach,” Sartini said. “This ain’t college football. You need more than three plays to succeed in this league.”
The banter went on for twenty minutes as we discussed all the local teams and a few conspiracy theories behind why they all were doing so badly lately. I’d hoped it would lead to more revelations about what we were really there for. But it didn’t.
Sartini escorted us out and shut the door before we hit the grass. I had one foot in the car when he flipped the outside light back on and whipped the door open.
I walked back toward the house. Sartini was out of breath, like he’d done his best Usain Bolt impersonation.
“What is it?”
“I remembered something,” he said. “West Virginia. Pennington had a hunting cabin in West Virginia.”