neighborhood canvass and preliminary forensics by then. Have someone pull all the surveillance video from the camera on the utility pole and the one inside the house. I want names put to faces.”
Troy looked at me, his face blank, unimpressed. “Jack, you’ve got to see a doctor. Now. Today.”
“I will. As soon as we find whoever killed the people inside that house. Am I clear, Agent Clark?”
Troy backed up a step. “Clear.”
The regional FBI office was located at Fourteenth and Summit on the west side of downtown Kansas City, Missouri. It was the first new regional office built after 9/11, and the lockdown security measures were re?ected in its remote location on the far side of the downtown interstate loop, the high wrought-iron fence encircling the rectangular two-story building, and the armed guard at the entrance to the parking lot.
The offices were laid out like an ordinary civilian corporation except for the crime lab, the body shop, the armory, and the room where agents practiced with a simulator how not to kill innocent bystanders during gunfights with the bad guys. The interrogation rooms were another upgrade over the civilian model. The emphasis was on efficiency and duty-gray carpet, off-white walls, any color of furniture as long as it was blond or black, pictures of presidents and FBI directors on the walls, and one wall reserved to honor the memory of fallen agents with their photographs.
Field agents and law-enforcement personnel on loan from other agencies worked in bull pens filled with modular cubicles. A life-sized cardboard cutout of John Wayne in full cowboy regalia complete with six-guns and chaps kept a lookout at the end of one corridor. The corner offices were reserved for upper brass, the one with the best view overlooking the con?uence of the Missouri and Kansas rivers belonging to Ben Yates, Special Agent in Charge of the Kansas City office.
Yates had been in Kansas City for six months, none of them happy. Like all other agents, he rotated through different offices. The lucky ones, including me, were able to choose our final posting, someplace we’d like to live after we retired. Yates was from New Jersey, had worked in Los Angeles, New York, and overseas. He made no secret of the fact that Kansas City was not on the glamour itinerary he’d mapped out, that he’d serve his time here, move on, and never look back.
Yates was married to the manual and fond of telling us to lean forward, a fitness freak who kept a log of his body fat. I didn’t know how much body fat I had, only that it was more than I had the day before. Yates was ten years younger than me, taller, and didn’t need glasses like I did to study crime scene photographs.
He rode us about our statistics-cases opened, cases closed, conviction rates. I didn’t care about the numbers. I cared about the victims. My only worry was getting it right for them. One case meant nothing to another unless a person, not a statistic, linked them.
When Yates rattled on about bringing closure to the families of murder victims, I wanted to puke. I knew better. Long prison terms, life without parole, even the death penalty, whether the courts or the criminals carried it out like Frank Tyler had, wouldn’t heal the holes in our hearts. Some wounds never closed. But killers could be caught. That was what I did. One case at a time.
I had called Yates on my way back to headquarters. His voice was sharp, his questions quick and pointed; he wasn’t groggy from sleeping, as I would have been. I left out the part about my shaking. Now that I’d had my debut before God and everybody, I’d have to tell Yates before he heard about it from someone else, but I wanted to do it in person, hopefully without special effects.
Troy woke me just before six. We set up shop in a large conference room. One wall was lined with dry-erase boards, another housed?at-screen monitors linked to network, cable, and satellite feeds when they weren’t being used for in-house presentations or video conferences. Modular tables were laid out around the perimeter in a rectangular donut.
We were working with limited information since the preliminary forensics reports weren’t back. Troy posted the names of the victims on one of the dry-erase boards, adding names of their known associates, competitors, and enemies to the rapidly expanding universe of people to be tracked down, interviewed, and ruled in or out as suspects. I thought again about Troy’s speculation that Jalise Williams may have been the real target. We’d have to dig into the lives of all the victims to be certain of anything.
Ammara Iverson sketched a rough schematic of the neighborhood on another board, noting the houses they’d been to in the search for witnesses and the ones that warranted a second visit. Lani Haywood and Jim Day were studying the surveillance videotape, isolating freeze frames of people for whom we would need names and alibis.
I took a moment from studying the crime scene photographs to watch them work. They did their jobs with unhurried efficiency, making certain they didn’t miss anything. I waited until I made eye contact with each of them, offering a half smile and tilt of my head to reassure them I was okay and in charge.
I played with my pen beneath the table, hands shaking, testing my condition by repeatedly putting the cap on and then taking it off. I thought that if I could master the pen, I could get through the day. So far, the pen was winning.
“Ammara, what did you get from the neighbors?” I asked.
She finished her drawing, gathered her notes, and gave me a straight-ahead look. She was lean and muscular, a tribute to her days playing college volleyball, tall enough to rise above the net, strong enough to spike the ball right through the opposition. She wore her hair tightly cut, almost buzzed, against her brown skin, her jeans and T-shirt hanging on her lean frame with a casual elegance.
“Big surprise. No one saw or heard anything. They might even be telling the truth. It was raining pretty hard. Lots of thunder and lightning. Plus it was the middle of the night. No reason to be looking out their windows.”
“Did you talk to the people who lived on either side and behind Marcellus?”
She turned to the drawing of Marcellus’s block and the one immediately behind his to the west.
“LaDonna Simpson lives by herself on the south side. She’ll be eighty-one tomorrow. Goes to bed at eight o’clock. Slept through everything, which makes sense since she’s mostly deaf. Only reason she answered the door was that she’d gotten up to go to the bathroom when we came knocking. Wayne Miller has the house on the north side. He wasn’t home.”
“Where was he?”
“In jail. Bad checks. His girlfriend is staying there. Her name is Tarla Hicks. She was out partying. Came home after the shooting was over. Girl was so high I don’t know how she found her way home.”
“What about the house that backs up to Marcellus? The lights were on when I was in the backyard.”
“Belongs to Latrell Kelly. Works at the railroad terminal in Argentine. Said everyone in the neighborhood knew what Marcellus was about. Said he stayed out of Marcellus’s business and never had any trouble with him. Said the storm woke him but he didn’t get out of bed until he heard the sirens. Guy’s no help.”
“Did you check him out?”
“Yeah. Port Authority confirms his employment. Supervisor says he’s quiet, does his job, shows up on time. No problems. No arrests, no convictions. A couple of traffic tickets. That’s it.”
“Dig deeper on him. I don’t want to wake up one day and see his neighbors on television saying how he always seemed so quiet before he started killing everybody in sight. And expand the canvass to cover a block in every direction from Marcellus’s house. Put together profiles of the residents. We may not find an eyewitness, but we might find someone who has heard something since the shootings that could help us. And see what you can find out about Jalise Williams. Was she cheating on Marcellus? Did someone wish she was?”
“I’m on it,” Ammara said.
“Okay, people,” I said. “What do we got?”
“Five dead and nothing else,” Troy answered.
“Nothing else is right. It’s daylight and we’re falling behind. Keep digging.”
Chapter Ten
Colby Hudson appeared in the doorway of the conference room at seven o’clock, his beleaguered appearance stopping everyone. He looked like he’d spent the night in the rain, his long hair matted and tangled, shirt clinging to his body, the bottom of his jeans streaked with mud. He was thirty-three but his pale complexion, red-rimmed eyes, and worn appearance made him look five years older, the price of working undercover.
