Every Last Fear(30)

DeMartini shook his head. “Your email said something about foul play?”

“I’ll let Agent Keller brief you.”

Keller tried to steady her breath from the brisk walk. She gave the report in clipped cop-speak, mimicking Stan. Just the facts, ma’am.

“Initial reports are that cause of death was a gas leak. But the locals have been uncooperative. We don’t have the bodies yet, but there are photos suggesting the scene was staged.”

DeMartini stopped, narrowed his eyes, waiting for her to elaborate.

Keller told him about the visit from the Adlers, described the photo of the mother’s paperback upside down, the marks on the girl’s wrists, the father’s bloody remains. The unusually clean crime scene. But most important, the drop of blood.

“Why don’t we have our own forensics—or the bodies, for that matter?” DeMartini said, his question plainly rhetorical, but his tone indicating that he didn’t like the Federal Bureau of Investigation getting bested by filmmakers, of all people.

“The locals. They wouldn’t talk to our Legats and won’t release the remains without a family member claiming them in person. We sent the surviving son there today.”

“Couldn’t our people at State cut through the bullshit?”

“I’m not sure how hard they’ve tried,” Keller said.

Stan gave her a look: perhaps she shouldn’t have said it.

“Fuck that,” DeMartini said. He fished out his phone, clicking on it with his big thumbs. “Get me Brian Cook at State,” he said into the device. “I know. Tell him it’s important.” He waited a long moment. “B.C., how the fuck are ya?” The deputy director started walking again, and Keller and Stan trailed after him. “Look, I’m sending over two agents who need your help with something. Any chance you can fit them in? Yeah, within the hour.”

He listened for a moment, barked a laugh at something, then said, “I owe you one. Let’s hit some balls at Chevy soon. I’ll have Nadine get you on my calendar.” DeMartini pocketed the phone. He stopped again, this time in front of the director’s office suite. “Fisher said something about the father having a connection to an ongoing case?”

“The father worked at Marconi LLP. He was fired a couple weeks before the family left for Mexico,” Stan said.

DeMartini shook his head like he hadn’t the foggiest.

“Marconi’s been a target for two years. Money laundering and the usual. The firm’s the Sinaloa Cartel’s bank.”

“You rousted them yet?”

Keller was about to speak—to note that approaching Marconi would jeopardize two years’ work—but Stan beat her to it.

“Tomorrow morning, first thing.”

“Keep me posted. The administration”—DeMartini said the word with an exasperated sigh—“is very interested in this case. I do not want to get my updates from the Post.”

“Understood,” Stan said.

“Cook at State should be able to get you what you need in Mexico. Go to the C Street lobby. And send me a report after you shake the tree at Marconi.”

Stan and Keller nodded, and DeMartini turned and pushed through the mahogany door of the director’s suite without saying goodbye.

Keller looked at Stan. “Two hundred miles for six minutes.”

“You wanted a long meeting?” Stan replied.

They took the elevator to the ground floor.

“I was surprised about Marconi,” Keller said. “I mean, we haven’t done any prep and it could mess up a lot of work. If they think we’re onto them, they’ll start destroying documents. And it could all be for nothing. We don’t have one shred of evidence that the Pine deaths are related to Marconi or the cartel.”

Stan looked at Keller and in that droll way of his said, “You wouldn’t want to disappoint the president’s daughter, would you?”





CHAPTER 18


MATT PINE

Matt approached the front desk of the small station house. The place had all the charm of Danny’s prison in upstate New York—a dilapidated single-story structure with low ceilings and mangy carpeting.

“Hello,” Matt said to the woman at the counter.

She flicked him a glance. She was middle-aged and wore glasses pinched to her nose.

“I’m here to see Se?or Gutierrez,” Matt said, looking at the paper Agent Keller had given him with the investigator’s name.

The woman responded rapidly in Spanish. Matt didn’t catch a word of it, but she seemed to be scolding him.

“I’m Matt Pine,” he said loudly and slowly, as if that would help. He showed the receptionist his passport, but she just gave him a bewildered expression.

From his duffel, he pulled out the newspaper Keller had given him. He laid it flat on the counter. He pointed to the photo. “My family,” he said.

The woman looked at the newspaper and lifted her eyes, peering over her glasses. She started back with the fast-talking Spanish. If it all wasn’t so morbid, it would be almost comical. A scene from Lost in Translation.

Matt said the only phrase he remembered from high school Spanish. “No hablo espa?ol.”

The woman stopped. Let out an exasperated breath. She pondered Matt at length, and finally pointed to the detective’s name on the sheet of paper. Then she gestured out the door.