The Night Shift, page 9
“Confront her about what?” Ella asks.
“She was talking shit about me. Her and her friends. And I wanted them to stop.”
Before Ella has a chance to respond, Charles appears and says their rooms are ready.
Jesse leaps at the chance to escape. They follow Charles up the spiral staircase.
Jesse says, “We’ll talk more in the morning.”
Ella wants to protest. Wants to know more. But Jesse disappears into the guest room and shuts the heavy wooden door.
Back in the familiar comfort of her childhood bedroom, Ella falls into the bed. She’s exhausted, but not sure she can sleep. She has a knot in her gut. Anxiety prickling under her skin at the unanswered questions: What happened at that ice cream store? What else might Jesse be hiding? And, critically, what is Ella supposed to do with this new information? As the hours pass and darkness gives way to a purple hue, she wonders what further chaos the day will bring.
CHAPTER 23
KELLER
The phone pings at the breakfast table. Keller fights the urge to check the text as she downs the porridge and fruit Bob has made her. He has a thing about using phones at the table and she tries to respect that.
“Do you have your thermos?” he asks, retrieving a blender pitcher filled with green sludge from the refrigerator.
She grimaces. “I’m sorry, I left it at the office.” More likely it’s still rolling around on the floor of her car, where she left it yesterday.
“Nice try,” he says, pulling another thermos from the cupboard. “I bought two.”
Keller’s phone pings for the fourth time.
“Go ahead, check it,” he tells her.
She scans the device. A series of texts from Stan:
Turn on TV
Today show
Or any morning show
Call me
Keller goes to the living room and turns on the set. She assumes it’s another segment on the ice cream store murders or even the Blockbuster case. But the Today show anchor is smiling, upbeat. On the screen: “We’ve been showing you this all morning, but the internet has been ablaze with a video they’re calling ‘Agent Badass.’ Yesterday in New Jersey, local police were storming a house to detain a suspect when a federal agent learned that the suspect wasn’t there. Instead, his autistic son was inside, and the police didn’t know it. Fearing for the boy’s safety, the agent … well, watch this.”
The screen skips to cell-phone footage of Keller—looking extremely pregnant—holding her badge in the air, crossing the street, and barging through the shattered front door.
Bob has joined her in the living room. “Is that you?” He looks at her. “You said you went inside for the kid, but you didn’t mention it was mid-siege. What were you—”
“I didn’t want you to worry.”
“Worry? You mean worry about you intervening on a bunch of amped-up cops with assault weapons?” He’s angry, a rarity for Bob.
“It wasn’t like that.”
On the screen, Keller emerges from the dwelling, guiding a young man who looks terrified and confused, then leads him to his father. It turned out that Randy Butler had an airtight alibi and was cleared of any involvement in the Dairy Creamery slayings.
Keller’s phone starts pinging again. News is spreading.
“Shit. This is bad,” she says. The Bureau isn’t an organization that appreciates attention—unless it’s cultivated through the Public Affairs office.
The anger drains from Bob’s face. “It’ll be fine,” he says, knowing what she’s thinking.
As he hugs her, she experiences a wave of emotions: fear for her job, embarrassment at being a national spectacle, shame that Bob thinks she acted recklessly with their unborn twins.
“Look at me,” he says.
She does.
“It’s gonna be okay.” Bob gives a half smile. “And, I mean, let’s face it, you are a badass.”
*
On the drive to the Union County Prosecutor’s Office, she calls Stan. It goes straight to voice mail. She worries that’s because her boss is on the phone dealing with his bosses at HQ in D.C. about the viral video.
Her phone chimes and she answers immediately.
It isn’t Stan.
“This is James Nicoletti with the Secret Service,” the man says in a deep baritone. “I got a message that you’re looking for intel on Russell Whitaker.”
Keller had asked the field office to run a search on Vince Whitaker’s father in federal databases. But Secret Service? How could they be involved with a lowlife like Rusty Whitaker?
“Yes, thanks for reaching out, Agent Nicoletti.”
“Call me Nico,” the agent says. “What can I do you for?”
Keller hates expressions like that. They permeate the lingo of law-enforcement agents of a certain age.
“The Bureau’s helping the locals with a mass killing at the Dairy Creamery in Linden,” she begins.
“I heard about that. Tragic.”
“We’re running down whether the murders may be connected to a fugitive on our Top Ten: Vincent Whitaker, the key suspect in similar murders fifteen years ago. Russell Whitaker is his father.”
“Quite the family,” Nico says.
“We interviewed the father and he’s uncooperative, so if you have something we could use as leverage to get him to talk, the Bureau would appreciate it. I’ll admit, though, I didn’t expect to hear from the Secret Service. Did he threaten the president or something?” Keller imagines Rusty tapping out a venomous political post on social media, or, more likely, making a drunken call to the White House switchboard.
“Hardly.” Nico chuckles. “It’s about cigarettes.”
“I’m sorry?”
“We’ve been investigating a ring of cigarette counterfeiters.”
“You all cover that?”
“We do, indeed. And before you say it’s a waste of time, these cigarette smugglers make more than drug dealers. In case you haven’t noticed, cigs are taxed at more than three bucks per pack in New Jersey. Illegal factories outside the U.S. actually manufacture and sell counterfeit brand-name cigarettes. You take a truck full of fake cartons and charge half price, you’re still making more per kilo than selling heroin. And that money sometimes funds terrorist groups.”
Keller didn’t know that. The ingenuity of criminals never ceases to amaze. It also dumbfounds her—why don’t the smart ones take their talents and go legit?
“What’s Rusty Whitaker’s connection?”
“You get a giant shipping container at the Port of Newark filled with a load of counterfeit product, you need somewhere to store it.”
It hits her. “He’s renting out space at the storage business.”
“Bingo.”
Keller recalls the semitruck at the facility yesterday. The nervous desk clerk.
“I don’t want to step on anything you’re doing,” she says, “but I’d love some leverage on this guy. He may know how to find his son.” Keller doubts that Rusty knows the whereabouts of Vince Whitaker, but her instincts tell her he’s hiding something about the case.
“You’re in luck.”
Keller waits.
“A new shipment just landed at the port this morning. We’re taking it down soon.”
“How soon?”
“You got plans tonight?”
She smiles. “Sounds like I do now.”
CHAPTER 24
CHRIS
Chris knows he has an unhealthy obsession. Sitting in the interview room of the Union County jail, he pulls up the anonymous travel vlogger’s site on his phone. During these long morning breaks between clients, he often falls down the rabbit hole and watches video after video of Mr. Nirvana’s adventures.
He imagines what it would feel like to be so free. Free of his student loan debt. Of a job he’s come to hate. Of a relationship that’s destined for failure. Though, maybe it’s already failed. Clare normally springs out of bed, but not this morning. He’d sensed she was waiting for him to leave so she wouldn’t have to talk to him. He’d taken a shower, put on his fancy new suit, and is now the sharpest-dressed man in the morning cattle call of indigent defendants.
Chris has spent many hours trying to get a glimpse of Mr. Nirvana’s face. And he’s far from the only internet sleuth on this case. But the vlogger has evaded being outed thus far. Comments and forums speculate that he scrubs the videos before posting, editing out reflective surfaces or anything else that might identify him. Some theorize that Mr. Nirvana stays anonymous because he’s on the run from something. Others say he’s doing it simply to add to his mystique.
In the past, Chris considered traveling abroad to track him down. Put an end to this wild fantasy, once and for all. Prove that Mr. Nirvana is—or is not—his brother. But he couldn’t afford it. Not even close. Now, though, the vlogger’s in the U.S. And he’s been taking more chances of late, posting live feeds, challenging his fans to find him. Why would Vince hazard that? Maybe the excitement from the risk. Or more likely it’s just a tactic to get more subscribers, more ad revenue from the posts.
Chris waits, refreshing his phone. New videos usually pop up in the morning or late at night. Sure enough, a new vlog appears. Chris feels a wave of excitement as he reads the title: “Five-Star Hotel in NYC.”
The anonymous traveler is in New York City, a short drive from here.
Mr. Nirvana has finagled a free room at a five-star hotel in the city for a single night. In the new video, the camera tours the room: five stars but still tiny. That’s New York for you. The traveler takes the elevator and continues filming until hotel security shuts him down. The camera turns black for a beat, then filming resumes, now surreptitiously. He’s on the platinum-member floor of the hotel, eating a buffet breakfast. In the background, a large-screen television plays the news. Chris freezes the frame and zooms in. Nothing on the TV gives a clue to the date. The traveler could be toying with viewers. There’s no real way to know when and how long he’s been in the U.S. Chris resumes the clip. The camera focuses on an average-looking plate of bacon and eggs that the traveler treats like something extraordinary. The camera scans the room again … There. Chris pauses the video. A man is reading the paper. It’s spread wide, perhaps the guest’s effort to stay off-camera. Chris zooms in. He can’t make out the date but the headline is visible: DIVIDED JUSTICES SPAR OVER RIGHT TO GAY MARRIAGE. He jumps to the New York Times website and there it is—the same-sex marriage headline. The front page, above the fold, in this morning’s paper. The traveler is really here.
This might be Chris’s chance to find Mr. Nirvana. But to what end? He’s the clichéd dog chasing the car, not clear what he’ll do if he catches it. On the screen, the traveler wheels his bag out of the dining area and outside to a Manhattan sidewalk heavy with foot traffic. The traveler had the room for only one night. Hopefully, he’ll post more on his quest for free accommodations. He usually does that.
And when he does, Chris will find him.
A calendar reminder pops up on his phone. His next client will be brought down in five minutes. Another day of drug cases. He takes the file from the top of the stack on the table and opens it. His client, Brenda is her name, has a thick jacket, though she’s only twenty years old. The booking photos from her prior arrests take his breath away. The early shots show a pretty teenager. But with each photo, the toll of the methamphetamines becomes more apparent. If he stacked the mug shots together and flipped them at the corners like you did with little stick-figure cartoons you made in middle school, it would show the evolution of a monster. The eyes sinking. The hair receding. The skin scabbing. The teeth disappearing.
He’s so tired of the drug war, which is really just a war on broken people, many who’ve suffered childhood trauma. Locking them up does nothing. Plenty of people in the system want to help. But his clients are like an army from a zombie movie. Help one, and a hundred more appear.
An officer escorts Brenda into the room and pulls out the chair. She plops into it. She’s thin, and looks even worse than in the photos. She smiles at Chris. A row of blackened nubs.
He goes through his script. He has it memorized by now: he’s her lawyer, he can never reveal what she tells him, she can trust him. He explains the charges and likely sentence if she pleads out versus if she loses at trial. He asks her questions about her background that might inspire the softer prosecutors to cut her a break.
Despite her scary appearance, Brenda is sweet. When she speaks, if you don’t look at her, you can almost imagine life before the streets. High school football games. Prom. College.
“Ow, that looks like it hurt,” Brenda says in her high-pitched voice, her eyes fixed on Chris’s palm as he pages through her file.
Chris places his hand flat on the table, concealing the half circle of three parallel grooves seared into his skin.
“Yeah, when I was a kid, I was screwing around and tripped and grabbed the stovetop trying to break the fall.”
He’s explained the scar so many times over the years, he almost doesn’t think of Rusty clutching his wrist, his face wrinkled with fury, spittle flying from his mouth, pressing Chris’s hand to the burner. But, really, Chris should’ve known better than to drink the last Coke in the fridge.
Brenda gives Chris a skeptical look. You don’t live on the streets selling yourself for drugs without knowing bullshit when you hear it. Without learning that scars like that don’t happen by accident. Without understanding the dark side of people—people who take pleasure in inflicting pain. But maybe Brenda isn’t skeptical, maybe the expression is one of pity.
Chris rubs his shoulder involuntarily. Whenever his thoughts drift to Rusty, no matter how hard he tries to fend them off, his hand always goes to the indentation on the ball of his shoulder. He can still feel the cigar like a cattle brand and smell the burning flesh. That time it hadn’t been for some trivial offense, like drinking the last soda. He’d been nine years old and was defending Mom, who lay bloody on the kitchen floor. Chris had been terrified. Vince normally was the brave one. But his big brother was out. Chris stepped between Rusty and Mom. And he paid for it. In his view, it had been one of his finest moments. Still the most courageous thing he’s ever done.
Where has that brave kid gone? Has Rusty stolen that from him too? He needs to find that bold side of himself: quit playing it safe. Leave this job. Start over. Do something to help kids like him, who’ve grown up victims by sheer chance. He supposes that, in a way, he’s doing that for Brenda. But for her, it isn’t a parent tearing her apart bit by bit. It’s a bag of white crystals.
He examines Brenda. She’s so damn thin.
“You hungry?”
“A Cherry Coke and chips would be nice.” She smiles, and he fights the urge to look away.
Chris has a rule never to buy vending-machine snacks for his clients. He’d made that mistake early in his career at the PD’s office and word had gotten around inside the jail. The characters in lockup started requesting him as their public defender simply for the food.
But Brenda is getting to him. He thinks of that first photo in her file. If only someone could’ve gotten through to that girl. It’s just so goddamned sad.
He stands, knocks on the door. The officer lets him out. He ventures to the vending machines and buys the drink and some Doritos.
Back in the room, they talk more about her options. He recommends a plea. They have her dead to rights on possession. He doesn’t tell her, but he’s going to call in a favor a prosecutor owes him to get her a good deal.
Brenda listens intently as she eats the Doritos, her fingers smeared in orange. She sips the Cherry Coke like it’s vintage cognac.
Ultimately, she agrees to let Chris broker a plea. Something with no jail time. Treatment.
He feels good about that. It’s worth calling in the favor. Maybe this time it will be different for her. Maybe she’ll escape. Get back with her family. Fix her teeth, get some meat on those bones. Live a nice life. Have kids. A family of her own.
“I think we can make this work, Brenda.” He smiles. “But before I approach the prosecutor, I want to make sure this is your decision, that you understand all the options. I’ll be by your side no matter what you decide. My job is to tell you the risks of each option, my views on the best choice, but it’s your decision.”
“I understand.”
“Great.” Chris scoops up the paperwork and puts it back in the folder. “Any other questions?”
“Just one,” Brenda says.
Chris nods for her to continue.
“If I suck your dick, will you get me another Cherry Coke?”
CHAPTER 25
KELLER
Keller pulls her Volvo into the lot of Workers Insurance Company headquarters next to Atticus’s tiny car. Atticus lifts his small frame out of the vintage MG. Vintage is being kind, since the vehicle’s a wreck. Blistering paint, a soft-top repaired with duct tape, a dented fender.
He gives her his trademark beaming smile. Despite his doe-eyed, aw-shucks demeanor, Atticus is sharp. Analytical. He’s a data person like her. And he has something you can’t teach most young law-enforcement professionals—he doesn’t need to hear himself talk. He listens, observes. He doesn’t have anything to prove. And he’s not one to tell you how things really are. He soaks things in. When he speaks, it tends to matter. Hal’s right, he’ll be a good detective once he gets some seasoning. Maybe that’s why Hal assigned him to Keller. No, Hal probably thinks she needs a little seasoning herself.
“They know we’re coming?” Keller asks.
“Yep. Got us an appointment with the department head.”
“You tell them who we’re here to see?”
He shakes his head. Not confidently, like he’s unsure it was the right call. “The notes in the file said this guy acted unusually during the investigation, was uncooperative, but it didn’t give a reason why, so I thought he might refuse to see us. Better to ask forgiveness than permission and all that.” He smiles again.
Keller nods.
Before they head in, Atticus gives Keller a look.
