Justice Lost (Darren Street #3)(53)

“We’ll just have to get into it,” Kurtz said. “Like I said, Wilcox told me he was no longer running a case with you, but that’s obviously changed. He’s gone from a potentially missing agent to a thief and a traitor to the bureau. We’ll deal with him, and we’ll check into this lawyer you’re talking about.”

“I can’t believe Wilcox took that money,” the sheriff said. “He took all the money I’d given him for these past three years and all the money that was supposed to be my share when Clancy was running things. I wouldn’t spend it, so I wound up just burying it. When I came to you guys, I dug all of it up and gave it too Wilcox, too.”

“How much did he take, total, assuming he really did this?”

“Oh, he did it all right, and he let four people die in the process. He had upward of six million.”

“Shit,” Kurtz said. “He could be anywhere with that kind of money.”

“But you’ll find him.”

“I don’t know what will happen. We’ll most likely go after him with everything we have, but the bureau doesn’t like to be embarrassed. We’ll do it quietly. We don’t like the public thinking one of our agents could be capable of something like this.”

“What about whoever is taking money in Nashville? That’d be your responsibility.”

“That’s a little above my pay grade,” Kurtz said. “I’ll have to get back to you on that.”

The sheriff slumped his shoulders and shook his head. “Man, Wilcox sure had me fooled. I’d like to snap his neck like a twig. What do you reckon he did with all that evidence I gave him?”

“Best guess? It’s all up in smoke. I’ll bet he burned every bit of it out there in back of that safe house.”

“I guess these murders are on me now,” the sheriff said. “I have to figure out a way to arrest my uncle and the man that was with him without getting myself killed.”

The sheriff decided not to tell Kurtz he was the driver of the boat, but the thought of arresting Roby terrified him. And Harley wouldn’t come in easy, either. The Shakers and the Penns were cut of the same cloth, and it was rough.

“I wish we could help you,” Kurtz said, “but it’s out of our jurisdiction.”

The sheriff knew that was bullshit. Gambling was against federal law, too, as was transporting men and dogs and chickens across state lines for fights and for the purpose of gambling. But when the feds didn’t feel like fooling with something, they always just said, “Sorry, out of our jurisdiction.”

“You’ll at least handle your end?” the sheriff said. “You’ll tell your superiors at the FBI what Wilcox did and start tracking him down? And you’ll start looking into Nashville?”

“I will,” Kurtz said. “And I’m sorry for what Wilcox did. It isn’t my fault, but it also isn’t typical of the FBI. I think you know that.”

“I’m gonna go now,” the sheriff said. “Thanks for the coffee.”

He got up and walked out of the house. The cup of coffee remained on the counter where Kurtz had set it down. It was still steaming. Corker hadn’t touched it.





CHAPTER 30

I didn’t sleep that night. The images of the masked man walking up to Gwyn Morris and shooting her at point-blank range in the back of the head kept running through my head, over and over and over. The images of Morris being shot would follow in a seemingly endless, bloody loop. I was reminded, once again, of how fragile life is and how quickly it can be taken. I felt bad for Morris’s children and wondered whether they even knew. Who would tell them? What would they say to them?

I got out of bed at 5:00 a.m. and went for a run. My legs were heavy because of the lack of rest, and I struggled the entire way. I got back to my apartment at six, fully expecting the sheriff to be waiting for me, but there was nobody there and nobody came. As the morning went on, I kept a close eye on the news reports that were updated fairly regularly on the News Sentinel’s website. As it turned out, there had been four other murders in Knoxville that night. Two of them appeared to be gang related, but two others were not. Jim Harrison, Morris’s bagman, was found dead in his car near an old warehouse just south of Knoxville. He’d been shot twice in the head. The other was Leslie Saban, Morris’s girlfriend. She was shot in her apartment sometime during the night. The paper didn’t say anything about the murders being related, and Sheriff Corker and his investigators weren’t saying anything. I knew better, though. Sheriff Corker was definitely tying off loose ends. If Morris was going to be out of office, then Corker was making sure nobody would be going to the FBI or the TBI. Dead men—and women—tell no tales.

I called Claire at noon.

“Four of them in one night,” I said. “These people are a lot nastier than I thought. Did you know about the girlfriend?”

“Of course I knew about the girlfriend.”

“Why didn’t you use her?”

“Because the information we had on her wasn’t exactly something you put on a billboard or whisper in a newspaper reporter’s ear unless you’re willing to share definitive proof, and we weren’t willing to share. We had some excellent photos and some very clear video-and audiotape, but they were gathered by people we don’t want anyone to know about. It didn’t matter, though. We were going to beat him by a landslide, anyway.”