Page 75 of S.O.S. Mizzay

Missy assumed they were now on this case because Oliphant was dead, and Beranger was in flight somewhere over the Atlantic.

Fucking Beranger.

From what Oliphant had said before he croaked, her nemesis was innocent.

Andy found herself disappointed. That guy? A grade A prick.

Now, the best she could hope for was that he’d catch a nice, foodborne pathogen while on layover in South Sudan, and have the shits for the twenty-hour-plus trip home.

Still, she would love to see his face as she revealed Oliphant’s last disparaging comments about him. She assumed, however, that he’d be briefed on the man’s parting words by Cavateral the minute he was back in the office.

“Oliphant, huh?” one of the new DOJ agents tutted as he stood back watching the firefighters do their thing. “My mind is blown. The guy was pretty old school and a loner, but I never had him pegged as a traitor.”

They watched as the car was delicately unwrapped from around the body by the local fire department, using the jaws of life.

Once Oliphant’s remains were free of the wreck, the DOJ agents would claim him. Baskins had arranged for a federal-hearse transport which should be arriving shortly, to take the body straight back to their Boston offices for an autopsy.

Huh.Would a slow growing brain tumor account for why the man had turned-coat fourteen years earlier?

Nope.

It had been greed, pure and simple.

Fleischerman, and the two special agents from the DOJ were currently going through the trunk of Oliphant’s car, with Billboard and Wiley examining the entire scene, seeing what they could find.

It looked like—other than some regulation firearms and ammo—nothing unusual or suspect was being uncovered.

Missy turned to Baskins who was standing, hands in pockets, silently taking it all in. “Does this mean we should start digging into Oliphant’s personal correspondence to see if we might be able to uncover who he’s been working with?”

“I’m one step ahead of you,” Baskins declared. “The minute you called me, I started the ball rolling. I talked to Vessers down in the dungeon. She’d let me know that she’s bored, as is Agent Tertia, so I’ve given them both computers and authorization codes to see what they can find.”

“That won’t make any spies suspicious; that you’ve got our prime suspect rooting around in the system?”

Baskins lips twitched upward. “Nope. If anybody asks or appears to get too curious, they’re playingArt of murder: FBI Confidential.”

Missy blinked.

“You’re a video game nerd?”

Who knew?

She thought about it for a minute, then laughed out loud, letting off some much-needed steam before getting down to business again.

“Don’t judge,” Baskins grumped amicably.

Missy changed the subject. “I take it you’ve talked directly to Deputy Cavateral since this happened. How’s he taking it?” She waved a hand at the limp body now being carefully extracted from the wreckage. Missy knew that Cavateral had worked with Oliphant for years.

“He’s being pragmatic. He’d already steeled himself that our man was either going to be Oliphant or Beranger, so he wasn’t exactly blindsided.”

Missy grumbled. “Yeah. YouknowI wish it had been Beranger, right?”

Baskins chuckled. “Oh, really? I had no idea,” he returned with deep sarcasm before regarding her seriously. “But…how do you know he’s not involved?”

Right.She’d been holding on to some intel so she could fill him in, in person, and now was the perfect time, with Fleischerman busy.

Missy quickly gave Baskins the rundown of the brief conversation she’d held with Oliphant before he’d succumbed, and after the smallest bit of back and forth, the Director concurred with Missy. The dying man hadn’t just been pulling Missy’s chain when he’d cleared Beranger. Which meant the last-man-standing at the DOJ was clean.

“Well, at least we’ve narrowed the field,” Baskins replied once they’d come to their conclusions. “One is dead, and one is off the list.” He canted his head toward the car where his agent was still walking around. “That leaves Fleischerman, as well as Englewood and Georgio from our office still in our crosshairs. Which sucks. I was hoping Oliphant would confirm that it was all DOJ before he bit the dust.”

---