The Night Shift, page 20
“We don’t have enough for a warrant into his phone or computer, but we have every agent’s best investigative tool.”
Atticus waits for her to reveal the secret.
Keller holds up her phone: “Google.”
Hal appears at the door of Atticus’s office. “The original Starsky and Hutch,” he says. “No wait, that’s sexist: Cagney and Lacey.”
“Not sexist,” Keller says, “just extraordinarily out of date.”
Hal shrugs. “I got a name,” he says.
They look at him, unclear what he’s talking about.
“For the little brother, Chris Whitaker,” Hal says. “He goes by Chris Ford. Get this: he works as a Union County public defender.”
Keller thinks about this. Given where Chris Whitaker came from, that’s impressive. Rusty Whitaker’s spawn seemed destined for the penitentiary.
“It gets even more interesting,” Hal continues. “I called over to the PD’s office. The head PD is an old friend. Turns out Chris Ford is in the hospital. He was attacked last night.”
*
By late afternoon, Keller’s at the hospital. Chris Ford is awake and seems slightly agitated.
“That was brave, what you did to save that girl,” Keller says.
“So I’ve heard.”
Chris is banged up. He has scrapes on his face, his hair’s a mess, and he looks out of it. For the first time she sees the resemblance, the angular features like his brother’s. There’s even some of his father in his eyes.
“I’m sorry about your mom,” Keller says.
“I assume the FBI doesn’t send agents to extend thoughts and prayers, so what can I do for you, Special Agent Keller?”
“Please, call me Sarah,” she says. “I have some questions if you’re up for it?”
Chris nods for her to continue.
“I know it’s been a long time, but I want to talk about the last time you saw your mom.”
He looks away, stares at the muted television mounted on the wall, and nods again.
“Tell me about the last time you saw her.”
“Air Bud.”
“Pardon?”
“We watched the movie Air Bud. It’s about a dog who can play basketball.” Chris continues looking at the television.
“When was that?”
“I was ten, so 1997.”
“Is there a reason you remember it so clearly?”
“Yeah, because I went to school the next day and never saw her again,” he says, a little edge in his tone.
Fair enough. It was a stupid question.
“Actually,” Chris says, his voice softer, “I remember because I had a big math test the next day and was I worried about it. She told me that relaxing, doing something fun, before a test would help way more than cramming.”
“Good advice.”
“It got me through law school.”
“That’s the last time you saw her?”
He nods. “The next day, I rushed home to show her the A I got on the test, and she was gone.”
“Where did you think she went?”
“He told me she’d run off with someone. It wasn’t hard to believe if you’ve met my biological father.”
Keller nods. “I arrested him.”
Chris nods like he knows this already.
“How about your brother? When’s the last time you saw him?”
“Ah, the real reason for your visit.”
Keller makes no reply.
Chris starts to say something but seems to change his mind. “The last time I saw Vince was the day they released him for insufficient probable cause.”
“And what do you remember?”
“It was late. I’d already gone to bed. But I heard voices in the living room, so I got up, hoping it was him. He’d been arrested and I didn’t understand what was going on.”
“And what happened?”
“I remember coming out of my room, but he had some customers there. He sold pot. He was small-time, dime bags, mostly to high school kids. Anyway, he was stern with me, told me to go to bed.”
“Was he always like that with you?”
“No, almost never. You may not believe it, but he’s a gentle guy.”
Keller tries to keep her expression neutral, like she might believe him, might not.
“But that night,” Chris continues, “my dad was there, so the customers were probably friends of his. And one of the customers, an older guy, was acting weird, twitchy. I’m guessing Vince didn’t want me exposed to that crowd. So I went to bed.”
“That’s the last time you saw him?”
“When I got up in the morning he was gone.”
“Have you had any contact with your brother since then?”
“None.”
She gives him a skeptical look.
“Trust me, I’d love to talk to him.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because I’m a lawyer and I can help him now.”
Keller offers a compassionate smile. This young man has been through a lot.
Chris adds, “They let him go for insufficient evidence. Even now, the only evidence they have is an anonymous tip and a knife conveniently found in his locker after his release. My brother may have been a lot of things, but he wasn’t stupid. He never would’ve left a murder weapon in his own locker.”
They also have Vince’s fingerprint placing him at the scene, but Keller doesn’t say that. And Chris is right, the case against his brother has some holes. One of Keller’s instructors at Quantico always said that MOM is the key to any criminal investigation—motive, opportunity, and means. Atticus has questioned the “opportunity” since there’s evidence that Vince Whitaker was home at ten when the video store closed and that his father had the car that night. For Keller, though, it’s the “motive” that’s troubling her. Why kill all of the employees?
“You have any idea where he is?” she asks.
Chris hesitates. “I don’t know where he is currently.”
Keller notes the careful wording, holds his gaze. “But you have an idea?”
Chris searches her face, as if trying to read what she knows.
“I’m not feeling so well. The concussion and all.”
“Chris…”
“I think I need to rest, Agent Keller.”
Keller considers pushing him, but decides against it. He saved a young girl last night and just learned his mother was murdered. Some of her colleagues at the Bureau would’ve pushed, would’ve scolded her for allowing compassion to interfere with an interrogation. But Keller doesn’t see things that way. She’s learned that the best way to get someone to open up, and for her to sleep at night, is to follow her instincts. If a reluctant witness or suspect trusts her now, they’re more likely to confide in her later.
“If you do learn his whereabouts, I trust you’ll let me know.” She hands him a business card.
Chris doesn’t respond. He puts his head back like he’s not feeling well.
Before she leaves the hospital room, she says, “I’m sorry for your loss, Chris. I am.”
On her way to the car, her phone rings. The caller ID says UCPO, so she thinks it’s Atticus with an update on his research into Joe Arpeggio.
“Agent Keller, it’s Joe.”
Speak of the devil.
“Hi, Joe.” She tries to sound friendly, nonchalant, but she wonders whether Katie McKenzie’s mother has called him.
“I just got word that Rusty Whitaker wants a deal. Says he’s got information we’ll be interested in. Hal thought you should be there.” A proffer. A night in the clink can do wonders.
“That was fast.”
“They want us there now. Can you make it?”
“On my way.”
CHAPTER 59
CHRIS
Chris needs to get out of there.
Beyond the visits from his boss and the FBI, the medical staff won’t leave him alone. They’re constantly coming in and poking and prodding him, giving him periodic neuro tests to make sure he doesn’t have a brain bleed or his mental state isn’t deteriorating. Chris presses the doctor on whether he really needs to stay the night, and after some browbeating the guy begrudgingly says he can give Chris an AMA discharge. He makes clear, probably for legal reasons, that AMA stands for Against Medical Advice.
After signing the forms, Chris finds his clothes in a plastic bag in the closet, then rips off the backless blue gown, and gets dressed.
He’s still hazy. Maybe this isn’t the best idea in the world, but he feels some inner force, some instinct, maybe, pushing him to flee.
It’s ironic because his dreary apartment isn’t much better than the hospital. Clare is already in the process of ghosting him, so he can’t go to her place. Henry told him to stay away from the office. And soon, the media will be swarming his parents’ house, seeking a peek at Vince Whitaker’s kid brother, who’s been assigned to defend another accused mass killer. On top of that, he has no money since his wallet isn’t in his effects. The guy who clocked him on the head probably has it.
You know what he needs? He needs a drink. A stiff drink. He beats back a depressing thought: Like father, like son.
He considers going to Corky’s. That’s too visible. No, there’s only one option. Somewhere no self-respecting reporter or law-enforcement agent would venture. Somewhere they’ll let him run a tab.
On his way out, he bumps into Julia, who’s holding a vase of flowers she must’ve picked up in the hospital gift shop.
“They’ve released you?” she asks, giving him the once-over, concern on her face.
“Yeah.”
Julia narrows her eyes, skeptical. “Chris, are you sure you should—”
“Can you give me a ride?”
Julia purses her lips, deciding what to do. She nods.
Soon, she’s parked in front of a dreary establishment on the outskirts of the county known as Clyde’s Bar, neither of them having spoken during the drive.
Julia examines the dismal exterior, trash bags piled at the curb out front. “You sure it’s safe to go in there? I hear that place is bad news.”
“I’ll be fine.”
“You shouldn’t be drinking. You have a concussion and, no offense, but you look like shit.”
Chris makes no response.
“Let me take you home, you can relax, watch some TV, recover.”
“I appreciate you coming to the hospital, Julia,” he says, “and for the ride.” He considers asking her if he can borrow twenty bucks, but thinks better of it. He opens the car door.
“Chris, seriously, let me take you home.”
He hobbles out of the car and goes inside the bar.
It’s early evening and Clyde’s is nearly empty. The place picks up around midnight. An old man crouches over his beer at the over-glossed bar, looking like he’s in the mess hall of a prison guarding his meal. At a booth in the back, an older woman wearing heavy makeup and torn fishnet stockings taps on her phone. A hard-looking man in a leather jacket sits at a table on the other side of the place staring out at nothing. It’s a place for people who don’t want to talk about their problems. Don’t want to socialize. Don’t want a cocktail. They want to sit and drink bottom-shelf booze and mind their own damned business.
Chris tended bar at Clyde’s during his summers home from college. Clint happened to have gone to high school with Clyde, who at that moment is behind the bar, looking a thousand years old. He pours a drink into Chris’s glass.
“Been a long time, college boy.”
Chris smiles.
“Why you slummin’?” Clyde doesn’t ask about the scrapes on his face or the hospital bracelet. He sees worse on a nightly basis.
“Slummin’? You should see my office. Or worse, my apartment.”
Clyde lets out a laugh that sounds like the inside of a pack of Winston’s. Chris thinks back to his bartender training when he was twenty. Clyde saying, “These fools barely have a pot to piss in and the only time they tip is if you laugh at their jokes.”
“How’s the old man?” Clyde asks, meaning Clint.
“He’s hangin’ in there.”
“Toughest dude I ever met. I ever tell you about when we was in high school and some fool called me a—let’s just say, it wasn’t politically correct.”
Chris smiles again. Another memory from his training: “Tell them a story. That’ll keep ’em drinking.”
For the next hour, Chris half-listens to tales of Clint and Clyde back in the day. He has a hard time imagining Clint as the bellicose brawler Clyde remembers. But men change over the years. Some men, anyway. Rusty Whitaker never changed. And the one bit of good news this week, no, this year, is that Rusty would finally rot in a cell like he deserves.
Clyde looks over Chris’s shoulder, his face wrinkles. “Someone’s lost,” he says.
Chris glances in the reflection in the mirror behind the bar. An attractive woman, a professional, elegant, has come into the place. He twists around to confirm, and it’s her all right: Ella Monroe.
She must’ve talked to Julia.
Spotting him, Ella charges over. She doesn’t look happy.
“Hi,” Chris says, his voice thick with ironic cheerfulness or something close to it. The alcohol combined with the head injury have made him punchy.
She glowers at him, but says nothing.
Clyde senses the tension and disappears into the background. Another thing he’d taught Chris, “If the customers are fightin’, stay the hell out of it.”
“You’re here to commend my heroism?” Chris asks.
She’s having none of it. “You’re his brother. You knew what happened to me, and you still…” She stops, her breathing is ragged.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “But what did you want me to say? ‘Hi, I’m the brother of the guy who allegedly tried to kill you’?”
“Allegedly.” She grabs onto the word.
“I’m sorry,” he repeats. “I am. I know what you think. But I don’t believe Vince—”
“The evidence says otherwise,” she interrupts.
“It does for Jesse too. But do you think she did it?”
Ella doesn’t answer.
Chris takes a gulp, then stares ahead at the lines of bottles.
Ella takes the barstool next to him. There’s a long stretch of silence.
Eventually, Chris says, “Ever since I was in middle school, I’ve wanted only one thing: Vince to come home so I could help prove … Sorry, I get it, you don’t want to hear this.”
She turns to him. She doesn’t look angry anymore. It’s something else. Sadness? Curiosity? Pity?
“Try me,” she says.
Chris signals to Clyde to fill his glass. Clyde approaches, asks Ella if she wants anything.
“I’ll have what he’s having.”
Clyde fills two glasses, and Ella takes a big drink.
“That night, what time did you close the video store?” Chris asks her.
“Ten.”
“And you were—” He stops himself from saying it. “It happened shortly after closing?”
She nods.
“That’s the point. Vince was at home. Cooking my piece-of-garbage father dinner. I remember because Vince got there just before ten—I was watching the clock, worried he wouldn’t get home before Dad. It’s impossible that he was at the video store.”
“Someone saw his car there at closing,” Ella says.
“An anonymous tip supposedly given to detectives who were under pressure to make an arrest. There’s no record of that call. And even if it was a real tip, not one made up by the cops, no one has ever come forward as the witness. No one’s been able to test the person who claimed they saw our car. And the customer who saw Katie McKenzie arguing with someone in the lot only heard a male’s voice and never got a look at who she was arguing with.”
“But he was at the store that night. I saw him earlier.”
“Yes, earlier.” Chris turns to her. “He told me he’d visited a girl. He was crazy about her. He’d walked all the way to the Blockbuster just to see her. If that was Katie McKenzie, then why would he kill her? Why would he kill all of them?”
Ella looks like she’s going to say something, then stops herself. After a moment, she says, “Then why run?”
Chris contemplates the glass of brown liquid. He has no answer. He drains the glass, taps the rim, signaling Clyde for another. The bar owner gives him a look, like, You sure that’s a good idea? Chris taps the rim again, and Clyde obliges.
Ella takes another swig of her own drink, emptying her glass without even a wince. She gestures to Clyde, who by now appears amused at the two of them for some reason. He fills her glass.
“Julia told me about your mother,” she says. “I’m sorry.”
Chris gives a clipped nod. He doesn’t want to get into it all.
Ella seems to sense this. They drink in silence again.
Then: “What did Vince say about the girl?”
“Pardon?” Chris says.
“That night. You said Vince was talking about a girl. What did he say?”
Instantly, Chris is back in his kitchen before Rusty got home, the smell of Hamburger Helper in the air. His brother euphoric.
“He said she was special. She smelled different.”
“Smelled?”
He nods. “Vince always said we’d get out. Escape from our dad. Our world would smell different too.”
Ella swallows. Her eyes are wet.
“He had a name for it.” Chris takes a pull of his drink. He’s about to say it, when Ella does it for him.
“Nirvana,” she says.
Chris is taken aback. How in the hell does she know that? And then his phone pings. An alert. The vlogger. But it isn’t a video this time. It’s another livestream. He pushes back his stool from the bar, stands up.
“What is it?” Ella asks.
“I’m going to put a fucking end to this question once and for all.”
“What question?”
“Whether my brother is back. Whether he’s a killer.” He asks Clyde to put the drinks on a tab, then starts to leave.
“Christopher.”
He turns to find Ella staring at him.
“Can I come with you?”
CHAPTER 60
KELLER
