Page 26 of To Die For

“Not right now. If I do find out, it might even help the BureauandDOJ, since they’re apparently losing witnesses on the RICO case at an unsustainable clip.”

“Ifyou find out the truth.Andsurvive.”

“Right. But I’m pretty good at both.”

“Tread lightly with the locals and drag things out as much as possible.”

The two men spoke for another few minutes and then Devine clicked off, walked into his hotel, and rode the elevator to his room. He sat on the bed, glanced at his other jacket hanging on a peg, and saw a dead man’s blood still there. He put it in a plastic bag pulled from his closet, called housekeeping, and handed it off to them to clean the stain away, if they could. Too bad they couldn’t do the same to his memory of how it had come to be that way.

On the call he had also asked Campbell to dig up all he could on Dwayne and Alice Odom, and Perry Rollins. He didn’t expect to get anything right away so he figured he had time to do a little investigating on his own. But first, he had another call to make.

“Hello, Detective Braddock. How goes it?”

“It’ll either go well or not depending on what you’re about to tell me. And I expected your call thismorning. The East Coast feds should have been awake for a while now keeping the world safe for democracy.”

“Sorry, I got tied up. You have time to meet? I don’t like doing this over the phone.”

“You think I’m recording this conversation?”

“Perish the thought.”

“There’s a coffee place I know.”

“In Seattle, really?” quipped Devine.

“One hour.” He gave Devine the address and ended the call.

Devine summoned an Uber, which he took to the Sand Bar. He got out and noted the yellow police tape strung across the front doors. A cop was on duty to guard the perimeter.

Devine walked up and held out his badge and creds. “I was here last night with Detective Braddock working on this case. Is he still around?”

Devine hoped not because he wanted to go over everything again, without the detective making inconvenient inquiries of him while he was doing some private sleuthing.

The young cop stared in silent reverence at the glittering DHS badge and accompanying federal credentials.

“No, he left about an hour ago. DHS, huh? Good place to work?” he asked. “I’ve been thinking about maybe… you know. Making the jump.”

“Serving your country is always a good thing in my book.”

The cop let him pass and Devine stopped to put on blue booties and nitrile gloves from twin boxes that had been set up on a table by the entrance.

He did the badge/cred waltz with another uniformed woman just inside the door, who took down his name and information for the logbook.

She said, “I remember you from yesterday. The fed?”

“The fed,” conceded Devine. “But a nice fed.”

She snorted. “That’s a good one.”

There was still plenty of activity going on with evidence techs scurrying here and there and a few bored-looking uniforms standing around sipping coffees and waiting to punch out.

The remains of Perry Rollins had been removed, but his blood still rested on the parquet dance floor, an ugly stain on a faded surface scratched by innumerable sets of drunken heels. Fairly soon, no one would remember how he died or anything else about the man.

I didn’t exactly like the guy, but pretty sure he deserved better than that.

Devine spied the same tech he had seen the previous night, the young woman who had been in the men’s room doing her forensic work.

He walked over and said, “I’m with DHS. I was here last night with Detective Braddock.”

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