The Triangle Conspiracy

Arizona.”

“You’ll send the gun for ballistics tests,” Hendler said, struggling to keep it together. First Senator McDermott, now this. Not Faith’s brother, he thought. Please, let this be a mistake.

“Yep,” Cain said. “I’ve taken the liberty of doing some checking, first on your friend Faith, and then on Sean, who is her brother, as it turns out. You knew that, didn’t you?”

“I knew her brother was named Sean,” Hendler said carefully.

“Uh-huh. They grew up in Evanston, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. Father, Joseph Kelly, captain of detectives, Evanston PD. Mother, Maire Kelly, homemaker. Sean is eighteen months older. He graduated from Illinois with a degree in criminal justice, applied for Federal Law Enforcement Academy in Georgia, got accepted, graduated middle of his class. Joined Customs, assigned to Tucson seven years ago. Several citations for outstanding investigative work. But he’s currently on administrative leave pending dismissal, due to excessive consumption of alcohol, leading to reckless endangerment of the lives of officers and civilians. I’ve ordered his federal personnel records, including fingerprints and DNA sample.”

Hendler nodded. He knew it had to be done, but that didn’t make it any easier.

“Faith Kelly graduated from Illinois with both bachelor’s and master’s degrees in criminal justice, top of her class. Second in her own class at the Academy, joined the Marshals Service. But let’s back up a second. Even though she’s obviously very bright, she graduated high school a year later than she should have. School records for ages thirteen to fourteen are missing. It’s as if she was just gone for that year. You know anything about that?”

Hendler shook his head in genuine surprise. He’d never heard Faith mention such a thing, not even once.

“Hmm,” Cain said. “Well, anyway, she made up for lost time. The Marshals assigned her to Oklahoma City and she was on a fast track here. Then two years ago, she disappears from the Marshals Service’s payroll but is still listed as being employed by the Justice Department.” He looked at Hendler. “I guess we know now what all that means, don’t we? That must be when she joined DOJ’s little Department Twenty.”

“Thirty. What’s your point?”

“My point, Scott, is that none of this looks very good for your ‘special projects’ girlfriend and her brother. I’m fairly willing to bet that’s Daryn McDermott’s blood in there. And what do you say are the odds that gun fired the shot that killed her? We’ve got Faith Kelly working for some secret little department that kind of twists around the whole concept of witness protection to where it looks more like terrorist protection-”

“Now wait just a damn minute, Rob-”

“And we’ve got her alcoholic brother with the victim’s blood in his truck.”

“You don’t know that’s Daryn McDermott’s blood.”

“Not yet I don’t. But I will pretty soon. What kind of little game are we playing here, Scott? I know you’re honest and a good cop, for a fed, but all bets are off about your girlfriend and her brother.”

Hendler waited a moment. “How do you want me to respond to all that? Do I know who killed Daryn? No, I don’t, but I want to find out. Did Faith kill her? No, she didn’t. Did her brother?” He raised both arms, then dropped them to his sides. “I don’t know. God, I hope not.”

“Do you know where he is?”

“No.”

“Does she?”

“No.”

“You’re sure about that?”

“Yes, I am. She told me that he took her car and disappeared, and she hasn’t heard from him since the night Daryn was murdered.”

“What did he do, take her car to use as a getaway after using this one to kill Daryn?”

“Now you’re speculating,” Hendler said. “There’s no evidence of that.”

“You’re right,” Cain admitted. “But speculation often leads to the trail that takes you to evidence, doesn’t it?”

“Look, Rob, I see where all this is pointing. I’m not blind to that, whether you want to believe it or not. And I told Faith so yesterday. Her brother has a problem with booze, and he spent time with Daryn.” He sighed. “That’s what I know right now.”

He remembered driving Sean to the safe house in Edmond. He’d tried to talk to him, but Sean was obviously distraught, hands shaking. He’d muttered a few words about Daryn, but had otherwise said little.

Was Sean obsessed with Daryn? Hendler wondered. Faith hadn’t told him anything about the connection between Daryn and her brother. He knew-and now the world knew-that Daryn had gone to Faith for protection, and Faith had found no evidence to warrant her staying under Thirty’s protection. But he still didn’t know how Sean Kelly fit into all of it.

“Tell me something,” Cain said. His tone had softened, as had his posture. “Scott, I can tell how you feel about her. You don’t have to say anything. I’m big on body language, and it was clear to me that first time I met her, back at Barry’s. I also know you a little bit, and I’ve seen what a stand-up guy you are. I know this isn’t easy for you, thinking that maybe the brother of the woman you love could be a killer.”

Hendler looked at him and nodded. He didn’t trust himself to speak.

“You know I have three kids, right? My son is ten, my older daughter eight, and my baby girl is three.”

“I didn’t know the exact ages, but I knew you had three.”

“They’re the best part of my life, Scott. I would do anything for them.”

“If you’re saying that Faith or I-”

Cain held up a hand. “No, just listen. What you don’t know is that my older daughter isn’t really my daughter. She’s my niece.”

Hendler cocked his head.

“My wife’s brother was a batterer. He used to beat his wife almost every day, and after Leah was born, he beat her too. She was a baby, less than two years old, and he was hitting her with his fists, day after day. One day he shoved his wife down a flight of stairs. She hit her head.”

“Did it kill her?”

“No, but I wish it had.”

“What?”

“She’s been in a coma for eight years. She’s in a nursing home in Stillwater. Beth’s brother went to prison for attempted murder. We sued for custody of Leah, and the judge granted it. A year later, we went a step further and legally adopted her. She’s my daughter now. But it doesn’t change the fact that her biological father-my own wife’s brother-did what he did. There’s not a day goes by that I don’t wonder how my wife, the best and gentlest and most compassionate person who ever walked on this earth, could be the sister of that monster.”

Hendler nodded. “You didn’t have to tell me that.”

“No, I didn’t.”

Cain walked away and Hendler heard him talking in low tones with the uniformed officers on the other side of the Jeep.

Hendler waited a moment, looking at the evidence bags: the gun, the registration and insurance papers, the Arizona license plates.

Did you do it, Sean?

And if you did, why?

For God’s sake, why?

He thought of Faith. He called her again, got her voice mail again. “Hey, it’s me. Call me when you can,” he said. “I’m thinking about you. I need to hear that you’re okay. Call me, or come by if you’re able to. I’m going to work at home for the rest of the day, trying to organize my thoughts on some new evidence that just came in.” He waited a moment. “I need to talk to you about this.”

He shook hands with Cain again before making his way back to his own car. “Good work on all this. I mean, good police work. Everyone should appreciate the local-federal cooperation.”

Cain saw that he was straining to lighten the mood. The detective held his hand in his grip a moment longer than necessary. “You want to talk, off the record, let me know. I mean that.”

Hendler looked at him for a long moment. “I know you do.” He started walking toward the Toyota, but stopped and turned back to Cain. “Thanks for the perspective, Rob.”

Cain nodded. Hendler pulled out of the parking lot. Cain watched him the whole way.

As Hendler turned onto Shields, another car pulled from a side street and dropped into traffic one car length behind him.

31

FAITH’S LAST ACT AS HERSELF-AT LEAST FOR A while-was to return the Focus to the rental agency at Will Rogers World Airport. Then she walked around the corner to a different rental counter and, as Kimberly Diamond, signed out a Chevy Suburban.

Since I’m a new person, I’ll rent something that Faith Kelly would never get, she thought as she got into the huge Suburban and drove out of the airport.

And now what?

Yorkton had told her-three times, no less-to go to ground. In order words, stay out of sight. It had been a few hours since Senator McDermott had pronounced his public indictment of Faith and Department Thirty. By now, she suspected the media would have found her house. Her home phone was unlisted, but they had their ways-property tax records, that sort of thing. They would be camped out on her quiet street in The Village. They would be talking to her neighbors. Unlike “Katherine Hall,” Faith didn’t hang around with her neighbors. They were mostly families with kids, or retired people. She was the only single person on the block. They would tell the reporters about Faith Kelly being polite but standoffish, keeping to herself most of the time, but making sure her lawn was mowed and her house maintained.

The obvious answer was to go to a hotel and simply stay there and do nothing. Let Yorkton go into damage control mode. Forget about all that had happened.

She remembered Daryn-He’ll kill me, you know-and she remembered Sean, the last time she’d seen him, sprawled drunk on her couch after she’d dropped Daryn off at “Kat’s” apartment.

Sober up, she’d told him. We need to talk.

Then Daryn was dead and Sean was gone.

How could she forget? She might be using documents that identified her as Kimberly Diamond, but her life and her memory and her mistakes all belonged to Faith Kelly. It was a strange twist on the whole idea of Department Thirty. She’d worked with people to assume new identities, had counseled them on leaving their old lives behind.

And now here she was, in the same position her cases had been.

But it’s temporary, she told herself. Yorkton will work this out.

Or so she hoped.