The 24th Letter

THIRTY-SEVEN

Driving to the Miami FBI headquarters, O’Brien called Ron Hamilton’s cell phone. Hamilton answered in a whisper. “Sean, I’m in a hall outside a courtroom. Just finished testifying. Let me walk over to a corner window.”

O’Brien said, “Let’s meet.”

“Where?”

“Denny’s on Ocean Drive. Around seven.”

“Okay.”

“Bring a copy of Alexandria Cole’s case file and the package I sent you.”

“How’d it go with Rosen?”

“Not good. I’ll tell you more when I see you later.”

O’Brien picked up the thin file folder and locked the car. From the moment he got out of his rental Jeep in the garage of the federal building, he knew his every move was on camera. The feds did a good job hiding cameras. The ones they wanted you to see, they were decoy cameras, blatantly hanging in visible places like metallic pinatas.

At the reception desk, a uniformed guard told O’Brien to sign in and wait. He also had him roll his right thumb in non-visible ink and make an impression on a portable device with a glass surface. The machine looked like a small photocopier. It made an electronic swipe of O’Brien’s print.

The guard rang through to Lauren Miles. “There’s a Mr. O’Brien in the lobby. Says he has an appointment with you.”

“Be right down.”

A tiny green light flashed once on the machine and the guard mumbled, “Looks like you’re good to go.”

O’Brien half smiled and nodded. He stepped over to the tall vertical glass windows and looked at the traffic zipping by on Second Avenue. He thought about the investigation he conducted eleven years ago. He remembered where he was when he got the call. He had taken his wife, Sherri, to dinner. It was their first anniversary. Before they could order, O’Brien received the call-a homicide in a South Beach condominium-the death of an international supermodel. Sherri said she ‘understood.’ She was that way, flashing that winning smile of hers even when the result of evil raised its ugly head time and time again.

“Hello, Sean O’Brien. Welcome to the FBI.”

O’Brien turned and faced Lauren Miles. She smiled wide, reminding O’Brien of Sandra Bullock-inquisitive brown eyes, dark shoulder-length hair.

“Thanks for seeing me, Lauren.”

“So, what’s the life and death scenario?”

O’Brien opened the file folder and took out the blank piece of paper.

“What’s that?” she asked.

“Maybe the ID of the perp who just killed a priest and an informant.”

“Talk to me Sean, I see nothing on the paper.”

“This was the sheet directly beneath a written confession an informant was writing out to give to a friend of mine-a priest who’d heard the informant’s confession in an emergency room. I want your lab to see of it can raise the imprint of the handwritten confession. It’s related to the death of supermodel Alexandria Cole.”

Lauren said, “I remember a little about the case. We had agents working it.”

“There wasn’t joint task force working this murder.”

“We didn’t work the murder. We were working a drug connection with DEA before the murder.”

“What connection?”

“Let’s talk in my office.”

“I don’t have time to hike around this building. Who was your connection?”

“His name was Jonathan Russo.”

“Jonathan Russo was Alexandria Cole’s manager. I knew the DEA was watching him, but I didn’t know the FBI was involved.”

“Let’s talk.”