Final judgment

SEVENTEEN

Samuelson’s secretary ushered them into a large conference room. Unlike the bleak room from earlier in the week, this one had windows that looked north over the Missouri River, past the downtown airport and halfway to Iowa. A picture of the president hung on one wall.

This time there was a pot of hot coffee and half a dozen bottles of water arranged on a credenza beneath the Great Seal of the United States. The secretary promised that Samuelson would be right there and he was, appearing at her side as she finished uttering his name.

“Thank you, Evelyn,” Samuelson said, dismissing her. “Gentlemen, thanks for coming down on such short notice,” he added, beaming his best government smile at them and taking a seat near the head of the long, rectangular conference table.

Mason grabbed a bottle of water and sat in a chair across from Samuelson with his back to the windows. Fish, a wry grin creeping from the corners of his mouth, walked the length of the room as if he was measuring it, stopping to admire the view from the windows, before sitting next to Mason.

There was a sharp knock at the door. Mason looked up as Kelly Holt walked in carrying a thin manila folder. She stood next to Samuelson, her smile polite and professional. Her piercing blue eyes held him in check as she studied his reaction to seeing her for the first time in five years.

“Hello, Lou,” she said.

“Kelly,” he managed, coming to his feet and nearly knocking over his water bottle.

Her hair was a rich brown now instead of the dark blond she had when he’d first met her early on a summer morning after he had fallen asleep on a lounge chair at a resort in the Lake of the Ozarks in southwest Missouri. She was a sheriff then, having quit the FBI, driven out by accusations she’d walked on the dark side with her dead partner, who had also been her lover. She woke him to tell him that the senior partner of his law firm had been found murdered during the firm’s annual retreat.

They had nearly fallen in love, but Kelly left to heal wounds that the murder investigation had torn open. Mason had reached out to her a few times afterward until she finally stopped returning his calls. He let go, deciding that what they’d felt came more from what they’d been through than what they had meant to each other. Circumstantial lust, he called it to lessen the loss.

“Agent Holt told me she had worked with you on a case when she was away from the FBI,” Samuelson said.

“I didn’t know you had gone back to the Bureau,” Mason said to Kelly.

“A few years ago,” she said.

“And you’ve been in Kansas City all this time?”

He couldn’t suppress the surprise in his voice but hoped he didn’t sound hurt that she hadn’t called or, worse that he didn’t sound like a whining ex-boyfriend who’d been dumped. He didn’t know what he would have done if she had called. His relationship with Abby was the real deal. Circumstantial lust didn’t figure in the equation. There was no room for old flames no matter how intensely they had once burned. Even now, he hung on to Abby though he knew she was drifting away from him. Still, the instinctive response of I can’t believe you didn’t call rippled through him.

“Occasionally. Special assignments.”

The door swung open again before Mason could ask if she was taking Dennis Brewer’s place and before he could assess what her involvement might mean for Fish or for him. An older black man dressed in pinstripes, his shoulders square and his pace more like a march than a walk, joined them. Samuelson didn’t salute, but he did stand. Mason and Fish followed suit.

“Roosevelt Holmes,” the man said, introducing himself and repeating the handshaking ritual.

He didn’t mention his title-United States attorney-because he didn’t have to. Mason knew who he was. Appointed two years ago, he’d established a reputation as a tough administrator who let his frontline lawyers, the assistant U.S. attorneys, make deals and try cases. He was a policy maker, not a trial lawyer. He got personally involved in cases that required the prestige or approval of his office or of his commanding officer in Washington, D.C., the attorney general.

Holmes had been an Army JAG lawyer before entering private practice. He’d given up his position as managing partner of a large downtown firm to take the U.S. attorney’s job. He knew how to give and take orders, and none of his assistants had any doubt about who was in charge.

Holmes was there so Mason would know that Fish’s case was no longer a small-time matter entrusted to a wet-behind-the-ears assistant U.S. attorney. Samuelson was the messenger, but the message came from the top. The price of poker had gone up. Mason glanced at Fish, whose eyes danced as he shook Holmes’s hand.

“This is a very impressive conference room, Mr. U.S. Attorney,” Fish said. “The government treats you well.”

“The government treats everyone the same, Mr. Fish,” Holmes answered. “Fairly and justly.”

“I couldn’t ask for anything more than that.”

Holmes sat at the head of the table flanked by Samuelson and Kelly on his right and Mason and Fish on his left. He pursed his lips, folded his hands together, and turned to Samuelson, giving him a barely perceptible nod.

“Yes, sir,” Samuelson said and cleared his throat. “The Kansas City Police Department has requested the FBI’s assistance in identifying the body found in Mr. Fish’s car. Agent Holt is directing the response to that request and has been designated as our liaison to the homicide investigation.”

Kelly took her cue, opening her manila folder, drawing Mason’s eyes to her hands. No rings. Still. He remembered how confidently those hands had gripped a shotgun and how tightly they had held him. Her crisp voice brought him back.

“The body was decapitated and the hands were amputated, which eliminated identification by facial features, dental records, and fingerprints. That made it difficult to identify the victim but not impossible.”

Mason listened as much for what Kelly said as what she didn’t say. If the killer wanted to be certain that the body wasn’t identified, he wouldn’t have left it in Fish’s car. He’d have hidden it where no one would ever find it. If the feds couldn’t explain why the killer dumped the body in Fish’s lap, they didn’t know as much as they wanted him to think they knew.

Samuelson picked up where Kelly left off. “The police provided us with a DNA sample the morning the body was discovered.”

“The Bureau maintains a DNA database,” Kelly added, their presentation tightly choreographed. “We found a preliminary match. A complete analysis won’t be finished until next week, but the prelim has a ninety-five-percent confidence level.”