Ryne Pearson - Capitol Punishment

Art’s source of nourishment was somewhat less exciting: a banana and a rice cake.

“You want some?” Frankie offered, her mouth full.

“No, I know how much fat is in that. Besides, Anne is making me something later.”

Frankie checked the time. Eight o’clock. “It doesn’t get much later for dinner, partner.”

“I know,” Art said, noticing the time himself. “But Lou said to wait.”

Lou Hidalgo, quite unexpectedly, had walked off the elevator just when the majority of folks were heading home for the day and told Art and Frankie to hang around until he talked to them. Then off to Jerry Donovan’s office one floor up he went. That was an hour ago, and in that span of time both agents had speculated to themselves as to why Hidalgo, after the tragedy that had befallen him just a little over a day earlier, would show up at the office. No one would have blinked if the A-SAC had just disappeared for a few days to deal with the loss of his son, but there he was, that look of determination so familiar, masking any pain he was feeling.

“What do you think it is?” Frankie wondered aloud.

“We’ll know soon enough, I figure,” Art said.

Frankie smiled and raised an eyebrow at her partner. “Are you going to be making A-SAC decisions soon?”

Art gave his partner a disapproving look.

“What?”

“You know what.” And so did he. The “what” was a job offer. More than that, really. The job was assistant special agent in charge of the Chicago field office, and the offer had come personally from the special agent in charge of that same office, Bob Lomax.

“Well…”

“Are you trying to get rid of me?”

Frankie looked to her cluttered desktop and scratched above her nose. “As a friend I just want you to consider it objectively.”

“I am,” Art assured her. “Now, back to now. King — what do we know?”

Frankie put the half-eaten burger back in its Styrofoam container and flipped through her notes. “Nick King. Mystery man. No driver’s license with that name matches the face according to DMV.”

“Did they do a visual match to rule it out?”

“For Nick King, Nicholas King, Nicky King, ad infinitum,” Frankie answered. “As for out-of-state…” She shrugged. That would take more time, and be labor-intensive. Three days at the earliest for that information, she knew.

“Well, there wasn’t any car in the garage,” Art said.

“No license, no car. Maybe he flew,” Frankie jokingly suggested.

“Or he was dependent on someone,” Art proposed.

“Allen?”

“God, I’d hate to have to depend on him for anything.” Art knew Allen better than most, having been on his case literally and figuratively for over a year. The thirty-year-old thug was a scumbag if ever there was one. Not only did he terrorize those weaker and different in skin tone from him, he had also left a trail of children from his home state of Georgia to California. Those innocent victims of his complete irresponsibility were left to be raised by young girls that Allen had charmed into the sack for a few months, weeks, or just for one night. Yes, Freddy Allen was Mr. Dependable in Art’s book. “Okay, what else?”

“Twelve-twelve Riverside is a rental property owned by a bunch of old ladies in a real estate trust,” Frankie continued. She was acting as the source in the familiar routine. Hashing the evidence, laying out what was known to be discussed, theorized on, challenged, and, if necessary, discarded. Her partner was playing the wall, against which the information was to be thrown to see if it would stick.

“When did King rent it?”

“Over a year ago.” Frankie scanned for other information relating to the residence. “The property manager from the real estate trust said King always paid his rent on time, with a cashier’s check. That was drawn from a bank in Palmdale.”

“An account?”

Frankie shook her head. “King paid cash for the check. He was not an account holder.”

“There or anywhere else,” Art said, his brow furrowing as he thought. “No bank account that we can find. No identification. No social security number. Would you rent to someone like that?”

“Nope.”

“Then why did they?”

“The property manager said she wasn’t with the trust when King moved in,” Frankie answered.

“That’s one thing we need to find out,” Art said.

“Inconsistency number nine million to check on,” Frankie commented with mild humor attached. “Also, no employer that we know of.”

“But he had money,” Art observed.

“Someone supporting him?”

“The more appropriate word might be bankrolling,” Art said.

Frankie moved further through her notes. “Okay, Nick King the person.” For two hours Frankie had talked to the only neighbor of King’s, probing, peeling away whatever might conceal some bit of information. “A nice man. Kept to himself.”

“So he could be a serial killer,” Art said, frowning.

“The neighbor only talked to him a few times. She said he spoke with a heavy accent.”

Art perked up at that. He had been talking to the sheriffs commander on-scene while Frankie was interviewing the neighbor at a nearby motel, and he hadn’t caught that bit of information when scanning his partner’s notes earlier. “What kind of accent?”

“German, Polish, Russian,” Frankie recounted dubiously. “You name the country, she thought he sounded like he was from there.”

“Guttural European?”

“That narrows it down to a continent,” Frankie confirmed.

“King, huh?” Art wondered. “That doesn’t sound awful European.”

“He could have Americanized his real name,” Frankie said. “Maybe he immigrated and wanted to fit in. A lot of folks coming in have done that.”

“Could be,” Art half-agreed. “But everything so far points to this King fellow maintaining a fairly cryptic existence.”

“You think the name is an alias?” Frankie asked.

“It would fit.”

“But why?” Frankie saw Art waiting for her to propose the reasons. “What little we know points to King isolating himself. Financially, residence, identification. Protection?”

“How so?”

“Well, either King was trying to protect himself, probably from incrimination, or he was trying to protect someone else,” Frankie proposed.

Art followed her line of thinking and joined in. “Add Allen to it.”

“Freddy.” Frankie thought for a moment. “If he was going to do King in, then that would point to someone wanting to be insulated from what he was doing.”

“Use King, then get rid of him,” Art said.

“The twelve grand in cash, the remote house,” Frankie recounted. “Bankrolling does fit into this quite well now. So someone who Freddy Allen is associated with gets King to make some nerve gas—”

“Nerve agent,” Art corrected.

“Nerve agent — for whatever reason, Allen goes to get it with the intention of removing King from the picture after the pickup, but King gets wise and decides if he’s going to die, then someone else is, too.”

Art nodded slowly. It felt right. There was no other way to describe the gut instinct a veteran street agent got when the pieces slid together seamlessly. He had no absolute proof yet that the scenario his partner had just laid out was anything but a theory, but he’d lay money on it being damn close to reality.

“So,” Frankie said. “King and Allen. Who was King and how did he get involved in this, and who was Allen working with?”

“We have the center of the puzzle,” Art said. “Now we have to find the edges.”

Frankie flipped the pages of her notepad closed and tossed it on her desk. She looked to the clock, then to the empty coffeepot on the small credenza to her side. “I’m gonna need some caffeine if this drags on too much longer.”