Michael McGarity - Serpent Gate

Suppressing a smile, he expressed his thanks and handed the receiver to Bucky.

"Are we finished?" Bucky asked as he dropped the phone in the cradle and stood up.

"I'm afraid you have a problem, Mr. Watson."

"What kind of problem?"

"With the city. It appears a citation has been issued."

"What for?"

"Building code violations."

"Which building?"

"The Victorian house where you have your art crating shop. Supposedly, you gutted the inside without a permit."

"Those jerks at the city are always trying to screw with me. I'll have my lawyer handle it."

"There's one more problem, Mr. Watson," Kerney said, reaching for his handcuffs.

"A large quantity of heroin and cocaine was found in the basement of the building."

"I don't know what the fuck you're talking about."

"Call it the luck of the draw," Kerney said as he stepped to Bucky, spun him around, and cuffed him. buckt's refusal to talk without his lawyer present came as no surprise to Kerney. After the lawyer arrived at headquarters, Kerney assigned four agents working in pairs to interrogate Watson. The teams switched every hour to keep the pressure on, while search warrants were executed. Officers were at the art crating shop, the gallery, the design studio, and Bucky's residence, looking for anything that could be added to the list of charges against Watson.

Kerney hoped to overwhelm Bucky with hard evidence and force him to cooperate. Watson's two employees, Skip Cornell and Kiko Segura, were undergoing separate interrogations and being pressured to cut a deal and testify against Bucky. The chances looked good; fingerprints from both men had been lifted from the drug parcels, and the sheer volume of the stash guaranteed a felony-one fall, unless they rolled over on Watson.

Joe Valdez, armed with a special search warrant, had seized Watson's electronic mail and computer files. He had several technical specialists running programs to break Bucky's privacy codes and locate any off-site network terminals. Valdez was digging into Watson's hard copies, looking for the money trail and the drug distribution network.

If all went well, Kerney planned to be Bucky's final interrogator of the day. He wanted to have the pleasure of cracking Bucky open.

Noontime passed before he could get away from the office. A contractor's truck was parked in Pletcher's driveway. He found the man inspecting the damaged front door, while the patrol officer assigned to watch over Pletcher's house looked on. Kerney introduced himself and showed the contractor around.

When the inspection concluded, the man consulted his clipboard notes, did some quick calculations, and stuck a pendl behind an ear. He had dark curly hair, a skinny neck, and a large Adam's apple.

"It must have been one hell of a gunfight," the man said.

"The newspaper said four people were killed. I thought shit like that only happened in the movies."

Kerney had no desire to chitchat about the shootout.

"I want everything put back in its original condition."

The contractor caught the tone in Kerney's voice and changed the subject.

"Will insurance pay for it?"

"Probably."

"Is it a full-replacement policy?"

"I don't know."

"The front door alone is going to cost plenty to reproduce. It was hand-carved from old oak. I'll have to subcontract it out."

"That's fine," Kerney said.

"When can you start?"

"In the morning."

"How long will it take?"

"A week, but I can't guarantee you'll have the new front door by then.

What's the deductible on the insurance policy?"

"I don't know."

"Isn't this your house?"

"No, I'm acting on the owner's behalf," Kerney said as he wrote out a check that dug a hole in his savings and gave it to the man.

"This should get you started. If it doesn't, let me know."

The man looked at the amount, smiled, and nodded.

"I've got some scrap plywood in my truck. I'll board everything up and be back tomorrow with my crew."

"I'll let the owner know you'll be here," Kerney said.

He shook the man's hand and left.

He hoped that arranging to have the house restored would ease some of Fletcher's pain. The way Kerney saw it, he'd been the houseguest from hell. gary dalquist's law office was in an old brick cottage across the street from the county judicial building. The front room served as a reception and waiting area. It had a tongue-and-groove oak floor, and a hand-stenciled fruit-and-floral motif that ran at the top of the walls next to the high plaster ceiling. Dalquist was leaning over a desk at the back of the room, talking to a secretary, when Kerney walked in.

He looked up and stepped across the room.

" I thought I might be hearing from you," he said.

"Nita told me you took a statement from Addie."

Kerney held out the transcript.

"I did. Here's your copy" "It's not often an arresting officer in a murder case is so helpful to the defense."

"You're not the only lawyer who's made that observation recently,"

Kerney said.

"But Wesley Marshall didn't put it quite so nicely."

Dalquist chuckled.

"I'm sure he didn't. I have a message for you. Robert is being discharged from the hospital today. He'll be staying with Nita for a while.

She wanted to make sure that you knew where he would be."

"Is he well enough to be discharged?"

Dalquist shrugged.

"He's a welfare case. Hospitals push indigent people out the door as quickly as possible."

"I hope Ms. Lassiter knows what she's doing. Robert isn't easy to manage."

"I said about the same thing to her, but she wouldn't be swayed. It may work out; Robert is back on his medications and seems fairly stable."

"He's acting okay?"

"He seems to be, according to Nita."

"When will you go to trial?" Kerney asked.

"Not soon, that's for sure," Dalquist replied.

"But when we do, I plan to mount a defense that won't leave a dry eye in the courtroom." Dalquist tapped the papers in his hand.

"Thanks for dropping Addie's statement by."

"You're welcome."

Outside, Kerney watched two deputies march shackled prisoners out the back door of the courthouse and into a waiting sheriff's van. The new officer uniforms, off-blue and gray in color, had been selected by the county sheriff in an attempt to professionalize the appearance of his deputies. To Kerney's eye, it made the cops look like valet parking attendants with sidearms.

He called Andy from his unit and said he was on his way back to the office.

"I'll meet you in the parking lot," Andy replied.

"What's up?"

"We're going to take a tour of De Leon Rancho Caballo house."

"Okay, I'll bite: How did you arrange it?"

"By using the prestige of my high office."

"Will De Leon be there to give us a tour?"

"Unfortunately, no. He left last night."

"How do you know that?"

"He informed Rancho Caballo security that he was leaving." andy had the key to De Leon house and the access code to the security gate that barred the road.

"Amazing," Kerney said in mock wonderment as Andy punched in the numbers on the keypad and the gate swung open.

"How did you get the code?"

"Rancho Caballo keeps all the access codes on file, so they can shut off systems when there's a false alarm and the owners are away."

"Park off the road so we can approach the house on foot," Kerney suggested.

"I don't need a lesson in tactics," Andy said as he coasted to a stop.

They scrambled up the hill, Kerney taking the front while Andy looped around the back. He finished his sweep just as Andy joined him on me veranda.

"Looks quiet," Kerney said.

"Same in the back," Andy said, positioning himself at the side of the front door with his.357 in his hand.