Joel Goldman - The Dead Man

"She said she was a biologist, that she was going to Africa to do research for a year."

"With luck, she'll lose her passport."

I sat on the bed, another tremor rippling through me. My ex-wife, Joy, and I bought a house in the suburbs when the FBI transferred me to Kansas City. We sold it when we got divorced, the proceeds paying our debts and our lawyers and putting a small stake in both our pockets. Either of us could have left, picked a place without the raw memories of our failed marriage and dead children, but Kansas City was a good place to heal. The pace was easy, the people friendly. The city was comfortable and comforting, like a soft sweatshirt on a cool day.

The house I'd rented was part of that fabric. The fireplace, the overstuffed furniture, and the trees that towered over the front and back, home to enough birds and squirrels for Ruby to chase until she was exhausted, were all part of the balm.

"I'll buy it. The house, I mean. Plus the furniture, everything."

She laughed. "If you could afford that, you wouldn't be renting."

Ruby found us, first jumping on Lucy who was standing in the middle of the room, then leaping onto the bed, sticking her nose in my face.

"That doesn't sound like no. It sounds like how much."

She put her hands on her hips. "All it sounds like is that I'm not going to kick you out tonight."

"Suppose I come up with enough money to make you an offer to sell?"

"I have a rule, Jack. I only deal with what's in front of me."

"Fair enough."

My cell phone rang. I flipped it open and recognized the voice.

"Jack, it's Ammara Iverson."

Ammara had been one of my agents when I ran the Violent Crimes Squad in the FBI's Kansas City office. Most of my Bureau friendships had faded once the shared work that held them together ended. Ammara was different. Though we hadn't seen each other very often, the bond was still there.

"Hey, it's great to hear your voice. What's up?"

"You doing anything?"

"Just trying to decide whether to buy a house or get evicted from it. Why?"

"I've got a dead man wants to talk to you."

The dead man was what my squad called the scene of a homicide, the scene telling us what the victim couldn't. Ammara knew that I trusted the dead man more than anyone or anything but that didn't explain why she was calling me.

"Tell the dead man I'm retired."

"You might wish you weren't when you talk to this one. You better get over here." She hung up after giving me the address and directions.

The FBI had rules for everything including the handling of crime scenes. Preserving the integrity of the physical evidence was critical to solving a crime and getting a conviction. Access to the scene was tightly controlled. Ex-FBI agents didn't qualify. Whatever her reasons, Ammara wanted me inside the yellow tape.

Lucy watched me throughout my brief conversation, making no pretense of not listening.

"Who's the dead man?"

"Inside joke. I've got to go meet a friend of mine."

"What are you retired from?"

"The FBI."

"Your friend with the FBI?"

"For someone who's throwing me out of my house, you ask a lot of questions."

"Best way I know to learn."

"Find another teacher."

I stood for an instant before muscle contractions jackknifed my head to my knees. I reached for something to hold onto, finding Lucy's arm, her steady grip stabilizing me.

"I'll drive," she said. "You're in no shape."

Some lessons are forced on me. One of them is accepting help when I didn't have a choice. I was in worse condition than the snow-packed streets. If Ammara needed me, my first concern was getting there, not who drove. The contractions released me.

"Okay, let's go."

Kansas City covers a lot of territory from the airport north of the Missouri River, to the NASCAR track across the state line in western Wyandotte County, Kansas, to the Truman Sports Complex in eastern Jackson County, Missouri. There are better than forty municipalities spread over five counties and two states, enough for everyone to claim a fiefdom yet many will tell a stranger that they live in Kansas City rather than Raytown, Prairie Village, Independence, or Overland Park.

The southern reaches aren't identified with an iconic landmark. On the Kansas side, they are defined by large, new, and expensive rooftops sheltering more per capita disposable income than many of the country's zip codes, extending beyond the eye's reach much as prairie grasses must have in another time. The rooftops on the Missouri side are smaller, older, and modest, covering the working middle class. The address Ammara gave me was for one of these.

Despite its reach, you could drive from one edge of the metropolitan area to the other in forty-five minutes, sixty in traffic. Snow changed that. The storm had singled out midtown where six inches had fallen. As we crept south, the accumulation was less, the streets more navigable. The slow drive gave my body time to stuff the clown back into the jack-in-the-box. My breathing eased, my muscles relaxed, my head cleared. I was back in control.

Lucy limited her questions to the directions Ammara had given me. I watched her as she drove, turning into a skid when ice grabbed the tires, grinning as we spun. I wondered how she had earned her swagger. She carried herself like someone who came from my world, someone who was trained for the perpetual scrum between the good guys and the bad guys, someone who knew the dead man.

Uniformed cops had established a perimeter, closing off traffic at both ends of the block. They let us through after checking with Ammara. Lucy pulled into a driveway across the street and opened her door.

"Stay in the car," I told her. She held onto the door handle, one foot on the pavement, sizing me up again, her eyes hard, her mouth firm, the look letting me know that she'd damn well go if she wanted. "Listen, I appreciate that you drove. But you have to wait here. This isn't your show."

She eased back and smiled. "You're right. Sorry."

"Habit?"

"Yeah."

"Thought so."

The house sat back from the curb on a slight rise, the front door shrouded by a low-pitched roof jutting over a deep set front porch, most of which was screened in, an irregular wall of bushes and stunted trees, leafless in winter, dividing the far property line from the neighbor to the west. Stout pillars of inlaid Missouri limestone supported both front corners. Two dormers poked out of the roof, signaling an attic long ago converted to bedrooms.

A walkway led from the driveway across the middle of the lawn, three steps completing the journey to the narrow front door. The storm had petered out by the time it reached this part of the city, dusting old snow with a sprinkling of new. Patches of dark ice hid on the walk, waiting patiently for hurried, careless feet.

Ammara was waiting for me on the front porch, standing next to another uniformed cop in charge of the crime scene sign-in sheet taped onto the front door. Her black leather jacket was open, her FBI shield hanging on a chain around her neck, a green turtleneck sweater highlighting her ebony skin. She had the height, reach, and power to have been an All American volleyball player in college, traits she'd used to her advantage during ten years with the Bureau, the last three in Kansas City.

I hadn't seen her since Wendy's funeral. She hugged me long and hard that day, skipping the platitudes that time healed all wounds and that heaven was a better place and that Wendy was finally at peace because we both knew they were total bullshit. That day was personal. Today was business and we both knew the difference.

"Thanks for coming, Jack."

"You made it sound irresistible. What do you got?"

"Walter Enoch. Fifty-four years old. Worked for the post office as a mail carrier."