Final judgment

SIXTY-FOUR

Mason turned his head from them and drove past as if he hadn’t noticed a thing, resisting the temptation to speed away as that would surely draw their attention. He glanced in his rearview mirror, wondering if they had recognized him or memorized his license tag.

He held his course, turning out of the lot, crossing into a residential neighborhood, and losing himself in the winding streets. No backup cars appeared behind him or cut him off, his cautious meandering giving him cover and time to think.

When he’d first met Kelly, she had recently left the FBI after becoming involved with another agent who’d turned out to be on the take. Her lover had been killed and she’d been suspected of being corrupt as well. Though she was eventually cleared, the suspicion and her lover’s death were enough to make her quit. Now she was back with the FBI, involved with another agent, both of them with too much to explain. She reminded him of a woman who kept marrying alcoholics and complained that all the good ones were taken, not realizing that she was the one who was making the same mistake again.

He remembered her differently, as beautiful, brave, and unfairly accused. It was who he wanted to see and, at the time, who he had wanted to love. She’d walked away from him then; Mason had believed that she had too many wounds to heal to make a permanent place for him in her life. Now he realized he just wasn’t her type. He checked his bitterness with the knowledge that she might think otherwise if she knew about Judge Carter. If he was going to step on the toes of people with clay feet, he’d have to start with himself.

The side street he’d chosen led him into a subdivision. He didn’t think Kelly or Brewer was following him and he doubted they had backup for that purpose. Whatever they were up to, they had to be doing it on their own. Still, he didn’t want to take any chances. His cell phone rang as he made another unnecessary turn.

It was Kelly Holt. “Where are you?”

“Just leaving my office.”

“For a guy with two dinner dates, you’re getting a late start.”

“Lucky for me, one of them cancelled.”

“Cancel the other one. We need to talk.”

“Call Mickey and make an appointment. I’ve got a busy day tomorrow. Maybe end of the week.”

“Stubborn and stupid could get you hurt,” she said.

“Then you should be right there with me.”

“It was you!”

“Yeah,” he said softly, dropping any pretense. “And it was you too.”

“It’s not the way it looks.”

“Like the song says, who should I believe? You or my lying eyes?”

“It’s complicated,” she said.

“I’ve hung too many things on that hook and I don’t have room for anything else.”

“Don’t do this.”

“Too late. We already did,” he said and hung up.

His cell rang a moment later, this time Rachel Firestone’s name was displayed on the screen. He’d turned her loose on Dennis Brewer the night before but doubted that she’d found out more in the last twenty-four hours than he had found out in the last twenty minutes.

“Where are you?” she asked.

“That seems to be everyone’s favorite question. What happened to hello?”

“What’s the matter? Are you lost? Who else is looking for you?”

“You’re the only one that matters. I was lost until you found me. Any luck with Dennis Brewer?”

“You know what happens when a reporter starts asking if anyone knows whether an FBI agent might be dirty? Phones start ringing and none of them are mine. The publisher doesn’t like hearing from the U.S. attorney.”

Mason had met the publisher, David Phelan, a passionate man who was rumored to have ink in his veins instead of blood. “Roosevelt Holmes called David Phelan?”

“And demanded that the paper kill my story and that I turn over my notes and sources or get ready to tell the grand jury why I won’t.”

“What did Phelan tell him?”

“He told Roosevelt to go fuck himself. Then he told me that I better be right or I could go fuck myself too. Am I right?”

“It’s looking that way. There are still a lot of loose ends.”

“That’s why I was calling you. One of them may have just gotten nailed down.”

“Which one?”

“The reporter whose desk is next to mine covers the cops. All he does is listen to the police scanner waiting for something to happen. A little while ago, he picked up a report of a dead body and went to the scene. He called in and told the editor to save him some room for tomorrow’s Metro section. I overheard the editor’s end of the conversation. The editor asked if the victim had been identified, and then he repeated the name out loud. That’s when I called you.”

“Who was it?”

“Mark Hill.”

He caught his breath. Blues had been right. “Where was the body found?”

“Troost Lake. Meet me there?”

He exhaled slowly. “Yeah,” he answered, thinking of Samantha Greer’s birthday celebration while not looking forward to calling Abby.

“Remember,” she said, “it’s on Paseo, not Troost.”

“I know, and it’s not really a lake either.”