Nickel City Storm Warning (Gideon Rimes Book 3) by Gary Ross (i can read books TXT) 📕

remedy for income inequality, and the fusion of hip-hop and country music.

In each meeting room, Drea and Sam arrived early and sat in a rear corner—with Pete or me between them and the entrance—and left at the start of the Q and A. In a ball cap and oversized untucked short-sleeved shirt that covered his newly acquired body armor, Ramos was discrete surveillance and invisible backup. Carrying the conference tote bag, he sat in the last row during each session. If he saw something we missed, he was to alert us through the earbuds by clearing his throat loudly. Under the conference program in the tote were his Taser and the baton I’d provided. At a signal from Pete or me, he would spring to his feet and engage whomever or whatever we perceived as a danger to Drea in a manner that neutralized the threat.

But the first day passed with no incidents on site. Off-site was another matter.

When Rafael Piñero called my cell at two, I was sitting on my pullout bed, reading the first paragraph of LJ’s preliminary report on Morgan Krieger. The last thing I saw as I answered the call was that nine years ago, when Krieger began his podcast, investigators thought he was two people, a septuagenarian named Wendell Q. McTiernan, of Kansas City, Missouri, and his then fortysomething son Nelson. Both had belonged to the Klan but neither had done more than exercise his first amendment rights.

“Your tip was good, G, and so was the other stuff you gave us but your girl Lucy was on the ball. We got twenty-plus cops at your gig so we couldn’t spare anybody for a decoy team after we got the Bishops out. But Lucy’s got cameras all over the house networked with their cell phones. We kept the phones after we stashed the family and got a desk sergeant to monitor the house. About ten o’clock a couple of guys broke in the back door. We ran silent and got there while they were upstairs. Easiest bust ever.”

“Great news, Raf.” I put the report aside. “They give up anything?”

“Only their driver’s licenses—Maryland for Owen Robbins and Arkansas for Andrew Carey. I know you don’t want to tell me how you got their names—I figure a backchannel that might get somebody in trouble if we check into it.”

“Close enough.”

“Doesn’t matter. We got them dead to rights for breaking and entering. It could be bumped up to the feds since they had firearms, explosives, and even a Wasp knife.”

“A Wasp? No shit!”

“No keys or cards to suggest where they’re staying but we got two revolvers with serials filed off, a cube of homemade plastique, and a remote phone detonator. Looks like their plan was to shoot the family, turn on the gas and wait for it to fill up the house, then fuck up the crime scene with a phone call from their car.”

“Jesus! Anything on the car?”

“Stolen, with stolen plates.”

“They lawyer up yet?”

“Not yet. We might be able to scare them in to talking if we drop death penalty hints. Maybe they’ll give up the radio guy who put them up to it.” He chuckled. “We’ve been doing other things while they marinate in separate boxes. They should be ready for the grill any time now. You still got a copy of that consultant letter in your wallet?”

“Yep.” Nearly two years earlier, the mayor had hired me to conduct an independent investigation. The corporation counsel letter had been general enough to be useful on other occasions, giving cover to both me and the city as long as I did not obstruct justice or sue the department.

“Then get one of the Donatellos and come over to headquarters…to observe and consult.”

An hour later, after sharing with Rafael and Travis the latest information we had, Matt and I were sipping coffee in semi-darkness on the observation side of an interrogation room mirror. The man chained to a table ring on the other side wore a dirty T-shirt and jeans. Andrew Carey was wiry and about thirty. He had a buzz cut, brown stubble on his cheeks, and a permanent scowl. The snake coiled on his corded left forearm was blue-green and hooded, with an impossibly long red tongue between exaggerated fangs.

“The snake bothers me,” I said softly, setting down my coffee cup. “Doesn’t look like a copperhead.”

“You know snakes?” Matt asked.

“Not enough to pick a copperhead out of a snake pit lineup, but that looks more like a cobra to me.”

He laughed. “Me too but these guys don’t get to be these guys because they’re geniuses.” He flipped the switch on the speaker beside the glass as Rafael and Travis entered the room. “Let’s see what they get out of him.”

A step behind him, the detectives flanked Carey. He turned to look from one to the other and curled his upper lip in a sneer. “I see another police department’s gone to shit.”

Travis held a pen above a notepad. Rafael removed the toothpick he was chewing. Having been interrogated by him, and having watched him question others, I was not surprised to see him lean toward Carey’s ear to speak. “You know we own you, right?” He waited a beat or two. “Don’t matter you’re free, white, and thirty-one. Your ass is ours.”

Carey looked straight ahead, at the mirror, and blinked. He raised both his middle fingers at us. Then he blew a kiss. But I saw his Adam’s apple rise and fall. However much he tried to mask it, his fear was there.

“That’s for the white guys back there,” he said. “The ones that own you.”

“Said the guy in chains.” Chuckling, Rafael stepped back.

“A felon with a stolen car, firearms, and explosives,” Travis said, far enough behind Carey that he had to crane his neck to see her. “You break into the home of a Black woman targeted for death by a white power podcaster. You were there to kill her whole family. Her children. Sounds like domestic terrorism