Joel Goldman - Shakedown

I woke up in the late afternoon to an undercurrent of tremors-sensations, I called them-shakes in the making. I showered, nicked my chin shaving and shaking at the same time, and then left Kate a message that I needed to talk to her.

I?ipped on the early news in time to see a report on the murders. Adrian Williams was the spokeswoman for our office, a polished fashion plate who knew how to feed the media beast. She recited what little was known, made the usual comments about an ongoing investigation, and appealed to the public for patience and help.

By now, I knew the preliminary forensics report would be finished. The number of shots fired, the estimated distance between shooter and victims, the number and quality of fingerprints-all that and more would have been laid out for my squad. A more detailed rundown on the neighborhood canvass, together with the list of known associates, would have yielded a chart of people to interview, priorities?agged with a red check alongside their names.

I tried watching the rest of the news but couldn’t concentrate on the latest fistfight between dueling county commissioners or the postseason prospects for the Royals and the early odds on the Chiefs breaking their Super Bowl drought. I didn’t care about the coming changes in the weather or the latest triumph of the station’s Problem Solvers.

I cared about Keyshon Williams, imagining the paramedics unraveling the boy’s fingers from his mother’s hair and picturing the coroner laying his arms alongside his body in preparation for removing, weighing, and measuring his vital organs. I already knew the cause of Keyshon’s death, but the person who had caused it was still upright and breathing. I couldn’t live with that.

I called Ammara Iverson, remembering the tears in her eyes when Troy Clark led me out of Marcellus’s backyard. I hoped her soft spot hadn’t hardened.

“Hey, Ammara. I just saw Adrian on the news.”

“Girl looked good too, I bet.”

“Like a million damn dollars of taxpayer money.”

Her laugh came from deep in her throat, full and honest. I liked the sound.

“How are you doing, Jack? Feeling any better?”

“Yeah. I got some sleep. I’ll find a doctor tomorrow and get this thing figured out.”

“That’s great.”

“Listen, what did CSI come up with?”

She lowered her voice. “I’m sorry, Jack. I can’t help you with that.”

“Can’t help me? What does that mean? I’m taking some time off. I didn’t go over to the other side.”

“It’s not my decision. Troy and Ben Yates sat us down, told us how it would be. Said any leaks and somebody’s going to get their ass kicked.”

“I’m not a reporter, you know.”

“Troy made a special point that we weren’t supposed to talk to you about the investigation.”

I was standing in the kitchen and slid onto one of the stools. “Why me?”

I heard her breathing, deciding what to say. “Troy said that since we don’t know what’s wrong with you or how stable you are right now, we can’t evaluate the risk of keeping you in the loop. I’m sorry, Jack.”

I was scared I had a brain tumor or a fatal disease. Troy just thought I was crazy. I wasn’t sure which was worse. I didn’t know what to say, so I didn’t say anything.

“You still there, Jack?” Ammara asked.

“Yeah, I’m here. Listen, we never had this conversation, okay?”

“Sure. Take care of yourself.”

Troy had pushed me to do the right thing, to take myself out, to get help. If I’d been shot or run over or just had a bad cold, he would have told me the same thing. If I had refused, he would have passed it off as admirable stubbornness and devotion to the job. Instead, when he found me shaking uncontrollably under the tree in Marcellus’s backyard, he saw a security risk, someone no longer to be trusted.

Troy couldn’t let go of the possibility that someone on our squad or close to it had leaked the existence of the surveillance camera to whoever was responsible for the murders. If he were right, he wouldn’t trust anyone, least of all me.

I spun Troy’s scenario until it snagged on something I had felt but not been able to pin down since I first saw the cash lying on the ground. I’d caught a glimpse of someone running away from the scene, vaguely familiar but not clear enough to identify in the dark.

Colby Hudson fit the profile, as did thousands of other men in Kansas City. Except Colby had shown up in the morning looking like he’d run a marathon in the storm after having an unauthorized, unsupervised, unrecorded meeting with Javy Ordonez at the same time five people were executed, possibly on Javy’s instructions.

I went over the timing in my mind, suddenly realizing that I had been wrong when I told Colby that he was Javy’s alibi, a statement Colby hadn’t denied. Colby had said that Javy learned about the murders a couple of hours after they happened while the two of them were at an after-hours club. I was in Marcellus’s backyard less than an hour after the shootings. Colby could have been the person I had seen running away and still made it to his meeting with Javy. He could even have been the person who told Javy that Marcellus was dead. If so, there was only one way he could have known that.

I worried that my suspicions were feeding off my feelings about Colby’s relationship with Wendy and Troy’s leak paranoia. I didn’t like it, but that didn’t mean I was wrong. If I was right, Wendy could be caught in the middle. I called her, treading softly.

“Buy you dinner?”

“Dad, are you okay? Colby said you weren’t feeling well.”

In spite of everything that had happened, Wendy was still my girl and I was still her dad. I felt it every time we talked.

“I thought you guys didn’t talk about me.”

“Says who?”

“Says Colby. What else did he tell you?”

“Just that you were shaking a lot. What’s going on?”

“Probably nothing. I’m taking some time off until I get it checked out. How about dinner? I’m buying.”

“Sorry, Dad. I can’t make it. Colby is thinking about buying a new house. He wants me to go look at it tonight.”

“A new house? Really. Where?”

“In Lions Gate. He says he can get a good deal on it.”

“He better. There’s nothing in there for less than three-quarters of a million. Where’s he getting that kind of money?”

“He’s made some good investments and he’s getting a good deal on it.”

I hoped that he’d bought stock in Google when it was cheap. I didn’t care how good a deal he was getting or where he found the money as long as the deal was clean.

“Well, good for him. Listen, I’m taking a few days off. How about lunch tomorrow?”

“Dad, I haven’t eaten lunch since I started this job last spring, you know that. Are you sure you’re okay?”

No commodity traders or their assistants ate lunch while the market was open. After a week on the job, Wendy told me she liked the chaotic atmosphere of fortunes being made and lost in a split second, saying it was like walking a tightrope with your eyes closed, “sort of like living with you and Mom.” She specialized in dark humor that made her hurt as much as it made her laugh. She was living proof of the old saw that what didn’t kill you made you stronger.

“I’m sure I’m okay. Sorry, honey. We hardly get to see one another. I’ve got the time for a change and thought I’d give it a try.”

“I could do an early breakfast.”

“Great. How about seven-thirty at Classic Cup on the Plaza?”

“Perfect.”

“Have you talked to your mother lately?”

“Are you kidding? At least three times today and it’s still light out.”

“Did you tell her anything?”