Criminal Enterprise (14 page)

W
INDERMERE WATCHED
Stevens appear out of nowhere. Felt her heart start to pound, felt strangely guilty. As though he’d snuck up and caught her doing something she shouldn’t.

Which, in truth, he had. She’d tailed Tomlin all afternoon, totally illegal, followed him as he drove his youngest daughter to dance class, then followed him here to the basketball game.

An everyday kind of guy. Totally boring.

She knew Tomlin was guilty. Knew his auto-body receipt was a fake. But knowing didn’t mean anything. She had hoped he’d do something foolish while she watched him, slip up, give her a glimpse of his second life. Instead, she’d spent hours on his ass and he hadn’t done so much as run a red light. And tomorrow she’d go back to the office and make nice with Doughty, try and work out a strategy before Harris fired her, if he wasn’t planning to fire her already.

Stevens peered in the window. Gestured to the door. Windermere nodded. Leaned over and opened it for him, letting in a sudden rush of cold air. He smiled at her through the open doorway. “Carla,” he said. “You here for the game?”

He looked the same as he always had. Unassuming and plain, that same twinkle in his eye. Windermere caught herself staring, looked away. “Guess I missed the game, Stevens,” she said. “You want to sit down?”

Stevens slid into the passenger seat. Closed the door and rubbed his hands together in front of the heater. “You on a job or something?”

“Yeah,” she said. “Or something.”

Stevens smiled at her. “Am I blowing your cover?”

“Not really.”

He waited a moment. “You want to talk about it?”

Windermere shook her head. “I’m living it, Stevens. I could use a break.” She forced a smile. “What the heck are you doing here, anyway? You have an old-timers’ game or something?”

He laughed. “My daughter, Andrea. I’m helping out with her basketball team.”

“What, you coach? Those poor kids. Did you win?”

He shook his head. “My first game. It showed.”

“So it’s your fault.”

“Mostly. My partner wasn’t exactly on the ball, either.”

She looked at him sideways. “Blaming your partner. You haven’t changed.”

Stevens laughed. “Not a bit.” He paused. “I was thinking about you the other day.”

“You’re still moony. I get it.”

“Bull. It’s just your picture’s in the paper damn near once a week. Then a friend mentioned your name and it got me thinking. I almost called you, in fact.”

“A friend, huh?”

“My daughter’s basketball coach. My new partner.” Stevens sat forward and pointed out the window. “Actually, that’s him right there.”

Windermere followed his gaze and felt her heart speed up again. Carter Tomlin, walking out the gym doors, his shy, coltish daughter beside him. “Tomlin,” she said. “Tomlin mentioned my name.”

Stevens frowned. “That’s right. Carter Tomlin. You know him?”

Windermere stared out the window at Tomlin in the distance. Watched as he walked his daughter to that big Jaguar of his. Watched him climb in the Jaguar and drive out of the lot.
Tomlin,
she thought.
Carter Tomlin. Kirk Stevens.

This can’t be a coincidence.

S
TEVENS STUDIED
Windermere, frowning. One mention of Carter Tomlin and she’d gone stiff as a hunting dog on a scent. Gone was the warmth he’d coaxed out of her earlier; the FBI agent was back in cop mode again. “What the hell is it, Carla?” he said.

Windermere turned and fixed him with that piercing stare of hers. “What did Tomlin say, Stevens? What were his exact words?”

Stevens shifted in his seat. “He asked if we’d stayed in contact,” he said. “Said he thought you were cute. No big deal.”

Windermere kept her eyes on him. “You’ve been friends for a while?”

“Just a week or so, maybe. He asked me to help coach.”

“And you agreed.”

“Work’s slow,” he said, shrugging. “I could use a hobby. Spend time with my daughter, that kind of thing. I don’t get the problem here, Carla.”

“You went over to his house and he asked about me.”

“Not right away,” Stevens said. “We talked about basketball for an hour. He brought up the Pender case. Mentioned you in passing.”

Windermere exhaled. Her stare softened. “This case I’m working,” she said finally. “The shoot-out in Phillips—”

“I thought you solved that.”

“So does my partner. He thinks we killed the ringleader, Jackson. Thing is, Stevens, I make Tomlin.”

Stevens started. “No way.”

“Listen,” she said. “A bank job in Midway, last fall, guy slips a bank teller a note on the back of a parking receipt. Tomlin’s parking receipt.”

“A coincidence. This guy’s an accountant. His house—”

“I’ve been to his house, Stevens. It’s very big. He’s got a beautiful family and an expensive car. Doesn’t look anything like a bank robber. But I showed him the note, just to see what he’d say.”

“And?”

“And he panicked. Fed me some bullshit line about his car getting robbed, tried to play off as cool. But he wasn’t cool. Stevens. He was scared.”

Stevens tried to picture a guy like Carter Tomlin robbing a bank. “I don’t see it,” he said. “This is my daughter’s basketball coach, Carla.”

“Yeah? Well, I’m telling you, Stevens, he’s guilty.”

“An FBI agent comes into his house, starts talking bank robberies, of course he gets nervous. Who can blame him?” Stevens smiled. “
I
get nervous when you start asking me questions.”

Windermere didn’t smile back. “I saw something, Stevens. I’m not crazy.”

“Of course you’re not crazy. But come on, Carla.”

She glared at him, withering. Then she reached down and turned her key in the ignition. The car rumbled to life. “All right, fine.”

“Carla—”

“I get it, Stevens.” Her voice came out hard. “I have work to do.”

Stevens made to say something else. Stopped when he caught the look on her face. Slowly, he reached for the door handle and climbed out to the cold. No sooner had he stepped out to the pavement than Windermere pulled away, the engine growling and the brake lights glaring as the car disappeared into the night.

Stevens stood alone in the empty lot, staring after Windermere and that big Chevelle.
Carter Tomlin,
he thought.
The guy’s a little out of the ordinary, yeah. But a bank robber?
Maybe he’d cheated on his taxes or something. The guy was an accountant, after all.

Stevens walked back through the snowy lot to his Jeep. Drove away from the high school, looking for Windermere at red lights and stop signs, but she was gone again, maybe for good.

He drove home, preoccupied. Thought about Windermere and Carter Tomlin. Thought about Windermere, period. He’d been happy to see her. Too happy, maybe. And now that she was gone, he could almost feel her absence. He felt like he’d betrayed her somehow.

Stevens pulled into his driveway. Turned off the Jeep’s engine and reached for the door handle. Then he realized he’d blanked on Andrea’s McDonald’s.

“Shit,” he said, starting the Jeep again. “Damn it, Carla.”

T
OMLIN CALLED RYDIN
on Monday. “I’ll take the damn job,” he said. “I can’t pass it up.”

Rydin laughed. “Jesus, pal. Don’t sound so enthused.”

“I’m saying yes, aren’t I?”

“All right. When can you start?”

Tomlin leaned back in his chair. “A week, maybe two. I need some time to close up around here.”

“Two weeks from Monday,” Rydin said. “I’ll send over the paperwork.”

Tomlin hung up the phone and looked up to find Tricia standing in the doorway. She leaned against the frame, watching him. “Who was that?”

“A friend of mine,” Tomlin said. “A job offer. I’m closing the office.”

Tricia didn’t react. “When?”

“Friday next. We’re going to close out our contracts and turn out the lights.” He studied her face. “Sorry for the short notice.”

She shrugged. Said nothing.

“I’ll pay you a nice severance. And I’m happy to write you a reference letter.”

“What about the bank jobs?” she said.

He looked at her. “The bank jobs are over,” he said finally. “The FBI thinks someone else did it. We keep quiet, and we’ll get away clean.”

She said nothing for a beat. Then she nodded. “Next Friday, then.”

Tomlin watched her walk out of the office. He waited to hear her start typing again, but she wasn’t moving out there.
Christ,
he thought.
You can’t please everyone.
He turned to his computer and began to review the outstanding accounts. There weren’t many. A quick bookkeeping job with the diner down the street, a couple of personal clients to deal with. He could be wrapped up by Wednesday if he tried.

Tricia appeared in the doorway. Looked him straight in the eye. “I have a job for us.” She held up her hand. “Wait. It’s not a bank, boss. It’s bigger money, less risk. No police. We clear a hundred grand, easy. Maybe more.”

“Big money, no risk.” Tomlin forced a laugh. “Sounds too good to be true.”

“It’s for real.” She took a couple steps into the room. “It’s a private score. I’m telling you, no risk at all. No way the cops make a connection.”

“A hundred grand. We just walk in and take it.”

“We bring guns. We surprise them. A hundred grand, boss, I promise.”

Tomlin looked at her. She was wearing a white blouse, and the light from the lobby silhouetted her body beneath the thin material. She was staring at him, waiting for an answer, any hint of boredom gone from her eyes, and he felt a sick thrill run through him and knew he couldn’t walk away yet. “I’m listening,” he told her. “Keep talking. If it’s good like you say, I’ll think about it.”

Tricia walked into the room and perched on the edge of the desk. “It’s good.” She gave him that ingénue smile. “It’s the best fucking score of your life.”

W
INDERMERE SAT
ALONE
in her spotless kitchen, staring out through the living room at the city lights beyond. She felt lonely tonight, even more so than normal, and she knew it was Kirk Stevens’s fault.

She’d hoped the BCA agent would see something in her Tomlin theory. She’d worked with the guy long enough that she figured she knew a thing or two about how he thought. Instead, he’d shot her down, too.

Easy,
she thought.
Your suspect coaches his daughter’s basketball team. He’s a successful accountant. And he’s Stevens’s goddamn friend.
Anyone would be skeptical.

Windermere opened a beer and walked through the kitchen to the living room’s big picture window. Stared down and out at the city, the cars on the streets and the twinkling skyscraper lights beyond. If she stepped back a ways, she could see her own reflection, and as she stared at it, she realized she didn’t like what she saw.

She looked damn exhausted. Pretty much a disaster. Her hair hung bedraggled. Not that she really cared, but she was starting to look old. Goddamned Carter Tomlin would rob her of her youth.

Carter Tomlin. Stevens said he’d made contact a week or so back. Around the same time Windermere had come to his door, maybe a few days after. And his first meeting with Stevens, he’d mentioned her name. Why?

Easiest answer: he’d cozied up to Stevens to keep an eye on her. And why would Tomlin want to track her if he wasn’t guilty of something?

Except that wasn’t right. Maybe the guy was just freaked. He’d done something else wrong, a hit-and-run accident. He looked like the kind of guy who’d lose sleep over a speeding ticket. Now the FBI was on his ass, talking about bank robberies. Why wouldn’t he be scared?

What about the break-in story? The auto-body receipt? She’d dropped by the place, a little shack with a gasoline smell and a rusty old Mercury in the mechanic’s bay. A funny place to take a brand-new Jaguar, she’d thought, but the guy behind the desk punched something into his computer, came out with the service record. Swore he’d done the job. The whole thing stunk pretty bad, but really, there wasn’t much she could do.

A guilty man would have asked for his lawyer when the FBI showed up at his door. He would have seen the cops coming. Tomlin didn’t ask for his lawyer. Instead, he reached out to Kirk Stevens. It was a weird move, but was it guilty-weird? Not necessarily.

Windermere turned away from the window and walked back into the kitchen. Drained her beer bottle and set it down on the counter. Maybe Tomlin was the red herring, after all. The bank robberies had stopped after the shoot-out with Jackson. Either his partners were real and in hiding or they didn’t exist and the real robbers were gone.

So what?
she thought
. Risk my career on Tomlin, or go back to CID and kiss Doughty’s ass enough times that Harris doesn’t fire me?
She could work the Jackson leads until his friends, or Tomlin, or whoever, stepped out of line again, and this time take them down for real.

Windermere stared at her empty beer bottle for a couple of minutes. Then she straightened, grabbed her coat off the chair, rode the elevator down to street level, and walked the three blocks to her gym. She changed in the empty locker room, ran the treadmill for an hour, and then spent forty-five solid minutes kicking the shit out of some poor punching bag. Then she quit and walked home, exhausted and sore, still nowhere near any kind of resolution.

D
RAGAN PARKED
the Camry in front of an industrial park north of Saint Paul, and Tomlin squinted through the windshield out into the darkness. “This is it?”

Tricia poked her head between the two seats. “That one on the end,” she said, pointing. “With the security camera.”

Tomlin stared across at the building, a low windowless box among boxes. There was a roll-up garage door at the front, and a smaller door beside it, overtop of which a camera was mounted.

“Underground poker,” Tricia had told him. “Ten grand minimum buy-in. Totally illegal. My ex used to play.”

Tomlin nodded. The police sometimes busted high-stakes poker games, he knew, in suburban houses or anonymous office parks. “How many players?”

“Five or six. And they re-buy all night.” She looked at him. “A hundred grand, easy. I’m not lying.”

A hundred grand. That meant forty grand each, after Dragan’s share. And no police, either. A bunch of illegal poker players weren’t going to report a robbery. If Tricia was right, this was damn easy money.

Tomlin admired the girl’s profile in the dim glow from the streetlight. She looked like Becca a little, but younger. Wilder. Tricia smiled. “What?”

He shook his head and turned around again. Watched through the windshield as the first car pulled up. Two men climbed out and unlocked the front door. “You’ve been in there before?” he asked Tricia.

She nodded. “A couple of times.”

“What’s the layout?” He could feel his nerves starting to tense, the adrenaline ramping up. “How many people? What do we expect when we go inside?”

“There’s a front room and a back room. A couple of poker tables in the front and a kitchen in the back.”

“Where’s the money?”

“At the bar, in the back of the first room. That’s where they buy in.”

“How many people?”

“Five or six at the tables.” She paused, thinking. “A guard at the door, the bartender, the dealer. Tommy—he runs the game—and the waitress. So maybe ten people.”

“Armed?”

She nodded. “The guard, definitely. Tommy, too.”

“The players?”

“No way. Tommy makes them check their guns behind the bar.”

Outside, more cars were arriving. Lexuses and blinged-out Hummers. Young men in flat-brimmed baseball caps and leather jackets. Tomlin watched them stand at the front door and look up at the security camera. After a moment or two each time, the door swung open and the men disappeared inside.

“You can get us in there?” he asked Tricia.

“The boys know me.” She winked at him. “They all want in my pants.”

Tomlin looked at her again, those big eyes, that ingénue smile.
She can get us in there,
he thought.
She can get in anywhere.
He turned to Dragan. “Keep the engine running.”

Tricia frowned. “You want to do it tonight, boss? I thought we were just scoping it out. Getting a feel for the game.”

“This is your game,” Tomlin said. “You’re not ready to take it?”

“I’m ready,” she told him. “I’m worried about you, is all. We’ve been here twenty minutes and you’re ready to run in there like a cowboy.”

He looked at her. “So you’re scared.”

“Fuck you,” she said. “You want to do this, let’s do it. If we’re smart we sit on it a week, though. That’s all I’m saying. The money’s not going anywhere.”

The money’s here,
Tomlin thought.
The money’s here, now. Why wait?
“I have a fucking assault rifle,” he said, reaching into the backseat for the guns. “What the hell do I care about smart?”