Long Shadows

Chapter 49

Decker dropped White off at the airport the following morning.

“Say hello to your family. Maybe I’ll meet them one day.”

She stabbed him with a look. “Maybe you will. If you hold up your end of our partnership.”

Next, Decker drove to the hospital where they had transferred Agent Andrews. The man was sitting up in his bed appearing forlorn and defeated.

Decker sat down next to him and looked the agent over. “You feel like talking or you need to rest?”

“I’m on a ton of painkillers, but I’m still lucid and bored. So, your visit is welcome.”

“Okay.”

“Kelly’s dead?” Andrews said.

Decker nodded.

“I guess I’m lucky to be alive,” said Andrews.

“We all are.”

“Where’s your sidekick?”

“She’s not my sidekick. She’s my partner. She went back to DC.”

Andrews looked shocked. “You’re not giving up the case?”

“No, we’re expanding it. Did you know Kanak Roe?”

“I told you I did.”

“Tell me more,” said Decker.

“What do you want to know?”

“Anything, considering I really know nothing about him.”

“He was an impressive man. Everyone respected him. More than they do his daughter,” he added, a bit petulantly, thought Decker.

“You seem to have an issue with her,” said Decker.

Andrews rubbed at his injured shoulder and said, “Maybe I do.”

“Why?”

“No particular reason,” said Andrews, not meeting his eye.

“Well, let me give you one. You tried to get a position with Gamma but were rejected. Too inflexible, maybe?”

Andrews gasped, “How in the hell did you know that?”

“I didn’t, not for sure, until right now. But there was something just off about you and Gamma and Kasimira Roe. You were a little too effusive about the firm, and you knew a lot about it. And you seem to like the finer things in life, not that there’s anything wrong with that.”

Andrews lay back and closed his eyes. “I guess I should have recused myself from the investigation, like you suggested.”

“We’re all human.”

“What else do you want to know about Kanak Roe?”

“Successful, respected. Anything more?”

“You really want the observations of an inflexible agent who can’t make the grade in the private sector?”

“I want the observations of a veteran FBI agent who was nearly killed performing his duty.”

Andrews opened his eyes. “I appreciate your saying that.”

“It’s the truth. Subtlety is not my thing.”

Andrews let out a sigh. “I’ll tell you something about Kanak Roe that I don’t think I’ve told anyone else.”

“What’s that?”

“I went deep-sea fishing with him once, oh, this was a little over four years ago.”

“Didn’t know you were into fishing.”

“I was thinking about jumping to the private sector back then. I was coming up on my full twenty-five-year pension at the Bureau, and the bucks even the young punks made at Gamma were twice what the Bureau paid. I was hoping that if I got to know Roe better it might help my chances. Unfortunately, he died before I was ready to apply. And under Kasimira’s regime I didn’t make the cut.” He glanced sideways at Decker. “You were right, they considered me ‘an inside-the-box thinker and too bureaucratic.’ She’d hire you in a heartbeat.”

“Go on.”

“We had a good day out on the boat. His buddy, Danny Garcia, came along with us. We had our beers and caught a couple of marlins and nearly landed a big-ass tuna. We were heading back and I was feeling good about things when he told me.”

“Told you what?”

“That he’d just been diagnosed with late-stage pancreatic cancer.” He looked at Decker probingly. “You don’t seem surprised.”

“Garcia told me about it.”

“Right. Anyway, he seemed to be in a contemplative mood. I guess anyone would be with death staring them in the face. He said he had about a year, eighteen months if he was lucky.”

“And what else did he say?”

“Just so you know, he never really came out and said anything definitive.” He stared at Decker. “But I think he wanted to make amends for something, Decker. Something he’d done in the past. End-of-life kind of remorse and penance, I guess. It happens.”

“Yes, it does. Anything specific?”

“No. If there had been I would have told you before now. And frankly I didn’t see how anything having to do with Kanak would be relevant to this case.”

“Remorse. Recent or far in the past?”

“I don’t know. He did mention his daughter. How proud he was of her. But there was something there, something else. I just couldn’t put my finger on it.”

“Try. Best guess.”

Andrews’s face screwed up in pain for a moment. His hand went to a control on one of the lines going into him and he hit a button. “Thank God for morphine.”

“Yeah.”

“My guess was he didn’t really know if his daughter was the right person to carry the firm into the future.”

“Why not? She seems very competent. Highly professional and intelligent. And driven.”

“Maybe too driven,” said Andrews.

“Meaning?”

“Meaning she might push the envelope too far. Way too far. Right over the cliff, in fact.”

“Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

“If you’re thinking that I’m suggesting she might have had something to do with her father’s disappearance, then yeah, maybe that’s what I’m saying.”