Part 3 (1/2)
”Can I help you lady.” The desk sergeant was a short African American woman, who must have weighed close on 250 pounds on a good day. She was sitting high on her stool behind the booking desk, peering over her gla.s.ses with a strange disgruntled intensity.
Karyn pulled her Department of Justice badge and said, ” Friendly visit Ma'am. The chief in?”
The desk sergeant raised a wry eyebrow, ”The chief is always in, less there's some G.o.dd.a.m.n television cameras needing his opinion. You don't happen to have any television cameras with you do you?”
”No Ma'am, not currently no.” The wry eyebrow rose northwards once again. ”That I can see, Ms. So, here's what you do, you go all along the corridor here and take the lift to the fourth floor-less stairs is your thing?” The sergeant paused, stared disapprovingly over the tops of her gla.s.ses before continuing. ” In which case, you can take either flight, left or right, out front of the lobby, don't much matter which you choose, they all go the same place,” again a pause, followed this time by a smile, ” I take it the chief he knows you are coming?”
”Thought I would surprise him. It's more fun that way,” said Karyn.
This time both eyebrows rose northwards, ”The chief ain't the kind of man who likes surprises, I can attest to that right now honey,” said the desk sergeant.
Karyn smiled, ”I was kind of hoping he wouldn't be,” she said. ”Lifts at the end of the corridor?”
”Uhuhhhhh,” intoned the desk sergeant. ”But I got to warn you, he's got some big swinging cheese from the FBI in there with him right now and their ain't no telling how long that meeting is going to take.” She was leaning out over the edge of the booking desk now talking to Karyn's back.
Karyn raised a hand, gave a casual wave of thanks, thinking, Good, two birds with one G.o.dd.a.m.n stone.
09.
Upstairs in Honolulu Police Department, the offices were a marginal improvement on those downstairs. Here, the nicotine browns gave way to a more functional open-plan office arrangement in neo- Stalinist gray. Not a single aloha garland or Tiki torch accessory anywhere. This was something of a disappointment. The disappointment continued as Karyn double-timed across the office floor to the headman's hangout. The whole place was drabber than a Chicago coroner's office, on a go-slow Tuesday. In fact the office was so dreary and impersonal, it could have been in just about any Federal building anywhere in the United States. Not even a potted plant or a personal photo anywhere.
This didn't bode well.
As she pa.s.sed through the open plan offices, Karyn sensed curious eyes following her progress-squad room detectives going about their business day to the click-clack rhythm of the computer keyboard. She flipped a nod and the briefest of smiles where necessary-it was their turf after all. Almost at her destination now, she caught sight of a thin, haunted face looking her way. The face struck a chord, so familiar and yet-she made a double-take glance, to filter further details, but the face had already turned away-almost too quickly, as though it had something to hide. Karyn looked harder now-and saw long boney fingers scratching at the back of a straggly mane of raven colored hair. Where had she seen that face before?
Recognition avoidance was a trademark of the serial wrongdoer, thought Karyn. She filtered back the split second glance, running it repeatedly through her mind, hoping her memory would provide answers. The face was male, early thirties, peering at her over thick-framed gla.s.ses. Perhaps she had been recognized? You could run into all kinds of ghosts in this business, some malevolent, others less so. But if she had been spotted, her cover was as good as blown, and that could not be allowed, not at this stage.
Karyn flipped the face through her mind, again and again but came up blank. Maybe it was nothing, maybe not.
She rapped on the gla.s.s to the chief's office, but he had already seen her coming. He rose out of his chair like a grey ghost, a wiry slight man, of advancing years, the chief was wearing a neatly pressed uniform and large hat that gave him the air of an aging commissionaire at the sort of hotel where that kind of look still mattered. As he came around his desk to greet her, his steady walnut eyes regarded her unflinchingly.
”This is quite an honor Ms. Kane, it is nice to know that our government thinks so highly of us out here in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, that they would send a representatives from their most esteemed departments-we are honored indeed.”
A chair in front of the chief's neatly ordered desk spun a half turn and tilted back ever so slightly. The chair contained a squat muscular looking guy sporting a pudding-cut head-shave that bugled him out as ex-military.
The guy had an edge. Karyn could see that from the get go, as the homunculus little p.r.i.c.k just leaned back in his chair and stared at her. She stared back at him, melted him out. He looked like the kind of knucklehead who could bench 220 for breakfast and wasn't afraid to tell everyone-like it was some kind of achievement or something. Not only that, he was wearing an eye popping Hawaiian s.h.i.+rt covered in parrots and psychedelic foliage.
The chief shook Karyn's hand. His grip was wet and limp, ”This is Ted Congo from the Federal Bureau of Investigation.”
Congo remained in his seat, arms folded, his jungle gym arms pulsing with irritation. ”I didn't get no kind of message you were coming sweetheart, perhaps the big stink Department of Justice thinks it can just elbow its way onto my island and muscle my investigations?”
”Nice s.h.i.+rt,” deadpanned Karyn.
”Hey, this is style sweetheart, you better get yourself some and fast, because your fancy a.s.sed Capitol Hill power clothes ain't going to win you no friends around here, let me tell you.”
Karyn ignored him. She turned, sat on the edge of the chief's desk and regarded the two men with the cold authority of career diplomat. ”So, Tex Johnston shoots the Governor then takes a tumble out of his 48th floor apartment. Rather careless of him wouldn't you say?”
”Careless h.e.l.l. That sonofab.i.t.c.h had it all planned out you ask me,” growled Congo.
”Easy now Ted,” said the chief. ”We don't have a definitive answer on that one, not until all the tests are back.”
”What are you talking about Donald? We got a million dollars in ready cash, found at the scene of the crime no less. Now, you ask me, that is proof positive that Tex Johnston was trying to dirty up the Governor, like as not the Governor said no, him being a man of honor and all.”
Karyn said, ”This is as far as you have gotten gentlemen?”
Congo looked at the chief, then back at Karyn, his quick card-cheat eyes a.s.sessing the situation, sizing it up and computing just exactly what kind of line he was going to spin next.
The chief looked uncomfortable, an undercurrent of tension squeezing his face ever tighter. ”We have got to handle this one by the book, utilize the services of Ms. Kane here. This is an election year for Christsake, we cannot afford to have any political snafus.”
”Two days and this is all you got?” said Karyn, her voice quiet.
”We got a murder suicide is what we got, and I will be d.a.m.ned if the Federal Bureau of Investigation needs its hand holding to figure out just why a deadbeat like Tex Johnston turned his whisky addled brain to murdering one of the most respected politicians our community has ever seen.”
”There was the girl too of course,” said Karyn.
”Girl, h.e.l.l, she was a G.o.dd.a.m.n hooker, there ain't no one going to cry tears over a dead hooker, specially when she's a cozy little pal of that dirty Senator friend of yours-what was she-one of your Department of Justice insiders Agent Kane? Whoring herself out for the US Government, so she could feed you the inside dope on your senator friends dirty little business dealings?”
Was this p.r.i.c.k the guy? wondered Karyn. She looked in through his eyes and examined his soul. She didn't like what she saw. Ted Congo was a good liar, bordering on excellent, but he was a liar nonetheless. The phony outrage and the tell all pantomime all tailing together, to prove just one thing-Special Agent Ted Congo, head honcho at FBI Honolulu was hiding something. But there was more than lies to this unpleasant little man-there was something else, something arrogant and deeply unpleasant. Karyn had met a lot of Federal Agents in the course of her career at the Agency, but she had never met one quite so relentlessly egomaniacal as Congo. What was it that Senegar had said? Use only the lightest of touches whilst dealing with local law enforcement-keep blue-collar casualties to an absolute minimum. Karyn sensed a grey area. Federal Agent Congo wasn't strictly local law enforcement he was the station chief of a Federal Agency, a government man. Terminate with Extreme Prejudice. This was a Deep- Five operation, not a girl-scout fact-finding mission, if this little p.r.i.c.k wanted to play rough he was about to find out what it was like to be a casualty of his own stupidity.
Karyn closed her eyes momentarily, nightmare visions of the past flooding in. Hurting people could become an addiction-a pleasure even. There were so many ways to inflict pain. Karyn had been doing the job so long now she had invented very many of her own. Allowing a controlled burst of the horror that lurked within her, she imagined the face of Ted Congo, contorted screaming, his features distended beyond the normal limits of humanity. He was the kind of person she liked to make suffer. Jack Senegar had been right to send her out here, no doubt about that.
An epiphany hit.
Karyn opened her eyes.
”Are you suggesting that the girl was working for the Federal Government?” asked Karyn, her voice hard and even. Ted Congo and Chief Donald Mlama exchanged wary glances, ”We have no evidence to support that theory,” said the Chief uneasily.
”Yet,” added Congo, his face oozing contempt.
10.
”I am going to need a detailed synopsis of your progress so far,” said Karyn.”