Zero Sum Game

Chapter 14

We arrived at Leena Kingsley’s house fifty-two minutes after we’d left Tresting’s office. The drive had been mostly silent—Tresting was lost in his own thoughts, and for my own part, I figured our détente was too touchy and fragile, and going into a possibly-hostile situation wasn’t the time to mess with it.

Tresting cruised by the first time without slowing. A cop car sat on the street outside, but only one, and its lights weren’t flashing. The small house was still—no sign that anything was amiss, and no neighbors gawking. It didn’t look like there had been a shootout here.

Of course, that didn’t mean anything. This was a nice residential neighborhood, with well-groomed yards and picket fences and rosebushes, and Pithica liked subtle.

Tresting circled the block and then pulled over a few houses prior to Dr. Kingsley’s. He reached into the duffel he’d brought the shotgun in, pulled out a scope, and held it up to one eye. “Can’t see much,” he said after a moment. “But there’s movement. Think she and the cops are talking.”

“Do you think they’d come after her with police there?”

“Seems stupid.”

“We wait, then?”

“Think so.”

We sat in the truck, tense and silent.

About twenty minutes later the door opened, and two uniformed LAPD officers came out onto the porch. Leena Kingsley saw them out, speaking politely. They gave her a last nod and good-bye and headed back to their patrol car. But instead of staying on the street and watching the house as I’d expected, the black-and-white pulled away from the curb.

“They’re leaving?” I cried. “I called in a death threat!”

Tresting shrugged. “Police are busy.”

As the patrol car cruised past us, without meaning to I twitched my face away from their line of sight.

“Stop flinching,” said Tresting. “That’s a good way to get noticed.”

“I wasn’t flinching,” I protested.

Tresting shook his head in disgust. I opened my mouth, feeling absurdly defensive, but he was already getting out of the truck. I told myself I could clean his clock in a fight any day, and in fact already had, and checked on the weapons tucked into my belt under my coat before following him out onto the sidewalk.

We’d only taken a few steps when a man in a suit stepped out of a black sedan and started briskly up Kingsley’s walkway. We both stopped for a split-second and then simultaneously began walking faster.

“Door-to-door salesman?” I muttered.

“Don’t think it’s a coincidence he waited till the cops left,” Tresting muttered back.

The suit reached the porch and pressed the doorbell. As Dr. Kingsley pulled the door open, he reached into his suit jacket, and I already had a gun out and aimed before we saw he was only flashing a badge and ID at her. Leena Kingsley spotted us over his shoulder at the same time.

“What’s going on?” she asked, her eyes going back and forth between Tresting’s face and my gun.

The suit turned, a lanky white guy with a scraggly beard, and saw the barrel of my newly acquired Smith & Wesson in his face. He stumbled back a step, immediately raising his hands in the air. “Miss, please put down the weapon.”

I’d thought he was familiar when he first turned, but now I definitely recognized him: Mr. Nasally-Voiced, one of the fine examples of humanity who’d been sacking Courtney’s place. Oh, hell.

Tresting grabbed the leather badge holder out of the guy’s hand and scrutinized it. “FBI?”

The man nodded. “Agent Finch. Now, please put down the weapon.”

FBI? That didn’t track at all, not with what I’d seen him doing earlier. “No,” I said. “Let’s go inside.”

Tresting either agreed with me or wanted to present a united front. He gestured Finch ahead of him, and Leena Kingsley apprehensively stepped back to let us in.

I glanced back at the street as I went inside, but nobody was stirring. With luck, our little cowboy stunt had gone unnoticed. I kicked the door shut behind us; Tresting was already closing the blinds in the living room.

“Sit down,” I ordered our new friend.

He did so, sinking onto an upholstered chair, arms still raised. “What do you want?” he asked calmly.

“To know who the hell you are, first of all,” I said. I could feel Tresting’s eyes on me, questioning. “Ten to one the badge is a fake,” I told him. “Now, who are you?”

“I’m SSA Gabriel Finch,” the man repeated. “I’m here to speak with Dr. Kingsley—”

“Check him,” I directed Tresting.

He came forward and patted down the man quickly and efficiently, finding a mobile phone in his pocket and a Glock in a shoulder holster. Glocks. Why did everyone like Glocks?

“Please,” broke in Leena Kingsley, “What’s going on?”

Tresting stepped over to her. “I was targeted,” he said in a low aside. “Worried about you and Ned now. He at school still?”

“Ye—yes.” Kingsley inched closer to Tresting, her posture tense as she regarded my tableau with Finch. “You think he isn’t who he says?”

“Possible,” said Tresting neutrally, looking at me.

“I assure you, I am with the Federal Bureau of Investigation,” Finch repeated, much more tranquil than I wanted him to be. “Now if you’ll put down the weapon, I’m sure we can sort this out.”

“Courtney Polk,” I cut in. “Skinny kid, frizzy hair. What do you know about her?”

“Nothing,” said Finch, with a poker face I would have killed for.

I smiled slowly. “Oh, see? You just lied to me. That’s a bad idea.”

“I’m not lying,” said Finch guilelessly. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Miss Polk killed this woman’s husband,” Tresting said, tilting his head at Leena. “You got any information at all about her, this ain’t the time to withhold it.”

“That’s true,” I said. “You don’t have to worry about me making holes in you; Dr. Kingsley’ll put your head through a wall.”

“I, uh…” said Kingsley miserably, and trailed off.

That pinged me as all wrong, considering the firebrand she had been that morning. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Tresting staring at her in confusion. Oddly, so was Finch, with the first sign of apprehension he had shown the whole time.

“Please finish, Dr. Kingsley,” said the would-be FBI agent, his nasally voice suddenly sounding strained.

Her face tensed as if she didn’t like being in the spotlight. “I was going to call you,” she said to Tresting.

He reached out and touched her elbow, steadying her. “About what?”

She started twisting her wedding ring back and forth on her finger. “I…I want to call off the investigation.”

What the…? Dr. Kingsley wouldn’t have given up this investigation voluntarily—

“What’s going on?” asked Tresting gently.

“Nothing,” said Kingsley, shaking him off. “It’s just—I’ve done so much thinking today. I can’t do this anymore.” She drew herself up and turned back to Finch and me. “Whoever you’re with, Agent Finch, if this is about Reginald, it’s done. I’m taking my son and moving back to Washington.”

Agent Finch went white as a sheet.

“Somebody better start explaining fast,” I declared into the silence. When nobody spoke, I waved my gun a little. “Hey. Kingsley. This morning you bit our heads off about this being the most important thing in the world to you. What gives?”

“It was—it is—it still is,” she faltered. “But I think that needs to change. I need…for my son’s sake. For my sake. I can’t keep doing this to us.” She took a deep breath. “This has gone on long enough. We need to rebuild our lives, to move on. I have to try.”

I didn’t buy that for a hot second.

“Dr. Kingsley,” said Finch, very tensely, “May I ask if you’ve had any visitors today?”

Her brow furrowed. “Um…two police officers; they said they’d had another threat. I’ve had a lot of threats since this started,” she explained to nobody. “It’s one of the reasons…”

Tresting crossed his arms. “Doc, the first time you got a death threat you called and asked me what kind of shotgun to buy, and then told me to bug your phone and said you hoped they’d keep calling so they’d give something away.”

“You see? This is why I have to stop this,” she pleaded. “It’s madness. It’s been like an addiction. I can’t—”

“Please,” interrupted Finch. “Did you have any other visitors today?”

“Well, you, I suppose.” She looked at Tresting as if asking for help, but his eyes were pinched, and he said nothing. She waved her hands weakly. “That’s it. No one else.”

“Dr. Kingsley,” said Finch. “This is very important. Can you recount your entire day for me?”

Getting no help from Tresting, Kingsley looked at me. I gave her a slight shrug. It was unnerving that Finch seemed to have taken over completely while still being at gunpoint, but I very much wanted to see where this was going. “My whole day?” she finally repeated.

“You saw these characters this morning, yes?” said Finch, nodding at Tresting and me. “You can start after that.”

She glanced around at the rest of us again, as if wondering when the world had gone mad. “Well, I came home, and then I suppose I took a nap. Then someone was knocking—those police officers—and I spoke to them for a while, and then just as they left, you arrived.”

“Thought you said you did a lot of thinking on all this today,” said Tresting.

Her expression twitched, confusion rumpling her features. “Yes. No. That is, yes, but not—it’s been between everything else.”

“Do you remember lying down to take your nap?” asked Finch.

“Well, yes,” said Kingsley. “I suppose I do…?”

She blinked and looked away from us, her words trailing into silence.

“You keep using the word ‘suppose,’” said Finch after a beat. “Are you not certain, Dr. Kingsley?”

A red flush began creeping up her neck. “I don’t have to answer these questions.”

“Please, Doc,” said Tresting. “Bear with us. Something hinky—”

She straightened her spine, recovering some of her prior imperious fire. “I told you I’m done. I’m sorry, Mr. Tresting, but this mad crusade is over. Leave my house, please. All of you.”

I didn’t know about Tresting, but I wasn’t leaving until I had some answers. And I thought I knew who could give them to me.

I stepped closer to Finch, tilting my Smith & Wesson so the front sight lined up with his forehead, right between the eyes. “You know what’s happening here, don’t you.”

Finch took a breath. “Please take that weapon out of my face.”

I hesitated, then lowered the gun. It wasn’t like I needed it anyway. “Now, what the hell is going on?”

He wet his lips. “Someone got to Dr. Kingsley. That’s all I’m at liberty to say.”

Hell if I was going to let him stop at that. “Someone who?”

“Pithica,” said Tresting.