No Way Back: A Novel (23 page)

“I’m just gonna walk around a little and see what gives. You just stay in the car.”

He pulled himself out, grimacing at the pain that still stabbed at his shoulder. Besides the yellow tape, a crime lock barred the front door. “This shouldn’t take too long.”

“I’d say, ‘Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,’ ” Robin called after him, “but I know there’s not much chance of that.”

“Not much chance at all.” Esterhaus laughed, ducking under the tape line leading to the bricked, half-circle driveway. He winced. He still had to wear the sling, at least for another week. Then came weeks and weeks of physio. All trying to get mobility back for a guy who for the past two years could no longer put peas into his mouth with a fork. What the hell was it all for anyway?

He went down to the house and tried the front door. He knew it was a waste of time. He stared in through a frosted-glass window. The crime boys had already done their work. Been through the kitchen on their hands and knees. He had no clue what he would possibly find. Still, it was worth a look. Wendy needed anything that could drive a hole in their story.

He waved to his daughter, who was watching him while on her cell phone. Then he headed around the back. Wendy’s lot was a wooded, three-quarter acre bordering a golf club. Through the gaps in the tall oaks and pines, he could see a fairway. There was a pool in the back that was covered up, and a hot tub a few steps away. Nice. He tried the French doors off the patio outside the living room. They wouldn’t budge. Maybe he wouldn’t be able to get in after all.

Continuing around, he followed the property’s slope down to the side of the house. Under what appeared to be the kitchen was a rear basement door. Eight glass panels, not too thick. Esterhaus had no idea if the place was alarmed.

Only one way to find out.

He bent his good arm and gave a short, hard thrust into the window, smashing through one of the panels. The glass cracked and fell back into the basement.

Nothing sounded.

So good so far.
Reassured, he cleared the glass edges still remaining in the door, then reached his hand through and unlocked it from the inside. The door opened, leading to a darkened basement. He stepped in and closed the door behind him. There was a large TV on the wall, a bunch of sofas and chairs. A primo Brunswick pool table. He had always wanted one of those. He found the stairs, which led upstairs to a mudroom off the kitchen.

Bingo.

Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do
,
right, doll?
Esterhaus looked around. The kitchen had been redone. A polished marble island, a fancy farmhouse sink, antiqued wooden cabinets. There were beams above the island with a hanging iron rack with lots of copper pots.

A ton of evidence tape all around.

One taped area marked the outline where Dave’s body had been found. There were numbered flags that indicated shell casings, bloodstains, some marking the wooden stool above the body. He examined it closely, admiring the work the way a craftsman might admire a well-built table. Whoever had manufactured the scene had done a nice job. They’d even created their own spatter.

Anyone would have bought into it. Why the hell not?

A cooking pot was still on the floor, and a glass was still turned on its side. Wendy’s friend had already confirmed that Wendy and Dave had had a spat the night before. The gun that came from the hotel room where the government agent was shot. Everything seemed to back up what they were saying: that Dave was killed here. That maybe Wendy had told him what had happened in New York and he wasn’t so sympathetic. Then she panicked, shot him, and was about to flee when the lights went on behind her . . .

Esterhaus knew this would be hard to overturn on the basis of the evidence, but he continued to look around. It was so elaborately laid out. He went back down the stairs and left by the same door he’d come in through. He wiped down the doorknob with his sleeve.

Then he squeezed through a wooden fence on the side of the house and came back around the front.

The thought started to worm even in him: What if Wendy hadn’t been telling him the whole truth? What if she was up in that hotel room and panicked? And what if she did tell Dave, and he reacted. The way any husband might react. What if he threatened to tell the police and she shot him?

But he reminded himself that that hole in his shoulder was the best evidence he had that she was telling the truth.

He went back up the drive, then stopped before he got to the car, rerunning in his mind how Wendy had said it all took place. They’d been backing out of the garage. Lights flashed on from behind them. Esterhaus saw the outline of tire rubber still visible on the blacktop, where Wendy had said she floored it past the first agent. There were shots. Which didn’t prove anything in itself—she was trying to escape! She drove onto the front island. He went over and saw tire marks still in the soil. Dave’s door had opened. Wendy sped past the agent, and Dave was shot as they drove by.

“Dad, c’mon!” he heard Robin call from the car. “I gotta pick up Eddie.”

“In a minute . . .” He walked to the top of the drive and saw where Wendy’s car had bounced off the island and back onto the street. She said she stopped, looking on in horror as Dave fell out of the car.
I stared at my husband lying in the street.
Then a shot slammed into her car and she hit the gas.

Esterhaus went out onto the street. Bending, he looked over the area where he was sure the car had stopped. That’s when he noticed something.

Specks.

Specks of a dark, congealed substance that had hardened into the pavement.

He kneeled. The whole thing had happened at night. Even someone looking for it afterward, in order to cover it up, would likely never have spotted it in the dark.

He reached inside his pants pocket and pulled out his key chain, which had a Swiss Army knife on it. Opening the knife, he scraped at the specks, which were hard, dried, more black than crimson.

“Son of a bitch,” he muttered to himself.

How the hell had it gotten all the way out here, on the street, and not in the kitchen, unless it happened just as Wendy said?

From the car Robin came over, leaning over him. “Find something, Dad?”

“Could be . . .” Esterhaus got back up to his feet. “Run and get me the camera,” he told his daughter. “It’s in the backseat.”

He
had
found something.

He was sure he was staring at David Gould’s blood.

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

H
arold wasn’t sure why he was doing it. He didn’t know what he hoped to find out, or what he would do, if something turned up. He was a real estate lawyer, not an investigator. He specialized in REITs, not crime solving.

But waiting outside Sabrina Stein’s office at the DOJ, watching the flow of staffers going in and out, he did know that he’d never ever be able to look at his wife’s photo again without averting his eyes, never be able to hug his kids without the suspicion that their mother’s death could possibly have been solved and he hadn’t followed it up.

Much of what Wendy Gould was saying did have the ring of truth to it. And was backed up by the facts. And if there was one thing that did burn in his heart, drove him, almost as much as the vow he made to protect Jamie and Taylor and that he couldn’t put away, it was that he wanted to see the people who had committed this horrible act brought to justice.

Wherever it led.

“Mr. Bachman.” The twenty-something staffer stepped out from behind her desk. “The secretary can see you now.”

She opened the office door as a young shirtsleeved staffer stepped out, carrying a large stack of files and giving Harold a polite but harried nod. Harold could recognize the crazed look of someone a year or two out of law school anywhere.

Sabrina Stein’s office was spacious, official-looking. An American flag, photographs on the wall of the president and the attorney general. She stood up from behind her large desk, piled high with multicolored folders. “Mr. Bachman.”

Sabrina Stein was in her forties, attractive, with short, dark hair and vibrant brown eyes—eyes that were both intelligent and welcoming, yet at the same time bright with ambition. She hadn’t hesitated when Harold contacted her to testify on Lauritzia’s behalf. She had put her own life on the line both as an agent and then as head of EPIC, the DEA’s El Paso Intelligence Center fighting narco-terrorism. She’d been shot; she’d been bludgeoned with a bat in a sting in Juárez that went horribly wrong. She still walked with a slight limp. She’d spent a good part of her career inhabiting the murky area between police work and covert action. For twenty years she’d been trying to put killers like Eduardo Cano out of business or take them down.

“It’s good to see you again,” she said, coming around with a mug of coffee. She was dressed in a stylish short jacket and pants, a blue crepe blouse, a pretty pin on her lapel. She was from Arkansas and spoke with a slight drawl. “It goes without saying, how shocked and saddened I was to hear about your wife.”

“Thank you.” Harold smiled appreciatively. “I received your note.”

“I know she was an extremely determined woman. With a huge heart. I can promise you that everyone in this building is doing whatever they can to see the person behind what happened brought to justice. Please, take a seat over here.”

She motioned to the couch in front of the large window that had an impressive view of the Capitol dome. “I’m sorry we didn’t have better luck with that court ruling down in Dallas. I’ve been through this situation a number of times. Once it gets in the hands of the courts, you can never tell what’s in the heads of those judges. The ability to protect confidential informants and their families is one of the lynchpins of the federal justice system. Take that away, we’re no better than special-ops guys without weapons. Anyway, I’m afraid I only have a handful of minutes to spend with you. I’m expected over at State . . .”

“I appreciate you carving out some time on such short notice.” Harold opened his briefcase.

“Alicia said this is about Ms. Velez? I expect you’re deciding whether to continue the case to a higher level? How is she doing?”

“Recovering. She’s obviously been through a lot. And not just the physical trauma, of course. She was also very fond of my wife.”

“Of course. Poor girl. I’m assuming you have her in a very safe place.”

Though Stein certainly seemed like a person who could be trusted with the highest levels of confidence, Harold found himself hesitating. “We have her tucked away” was all he said.

“Well, you’ve certainly gone above and beyond for her. She’s truly fortunate to have someone like you in her corner.” She took a sip of coffee and faced him, indicating that the small talk was over.

“I was hoping you could answer a few questions for me,” Harold said, taking out a yellow legal pad from his briefcase. “Should we go forward, as you say, I think there are some things I’ll need to know, specifically about Mr. Cano and his dealings. I think I underplayed his direct connection to the deaths of Ms. Velez’s siblings. So to start, can I ask your view on why the case against Cano was dropped by the DOJ?”

“I assume you’re speaking of his involvement in the murders of Agents Dean and Rita Bienvienes?” Sabrina Stein replied.

Harold nodded.

She inhaled before speaking. “I don’t truthfully know. The party line, as I’m sure you’re aware, is that problems sprang up with Oscar Velez’s testimony.”

“Problems?”

“Matters of memory.” Stein shrugged officiously. “It seems to happen in certain cases, when CIs come face-to-face in court with the persons they’re testifying against. They get second thoughts.”

“Or when their children are ruthlessly butchered,” Harold felt compelled to add.

“That too, of course.” Sabrina took a sip of coffee and offered a philosophical smile.

“But if that were the case,” Harold said, flipping a page of his notes, “the question I would ask is why Mr. Velez wouldn’t have just simply been deported? If his use to the government was negated, that would seem to have been the perfect leverage against him. Threaten to send him back to what would clearly have been certain death. To the very person who had vowed revenge against him.”

“A fair question.” Sabrina Stein exhaled. “And one I’m afraid I don’t have a very good answer for.”

“Rumors were going around . . . I’m merely echoing what’s already been written,” Harold said, “that Dean and Rita Bienvienes were less than one hundred percent Ivory Snow clean. And that the Department of Justice grew to feel that a public trial would potentially air a series of allegations that might embarrass them.”

Stein put down her coffee. “Dean and Rita Beinvienes were among the best agents I had, Mr. Bachman. What you’re alluding to is what we in the trade refer to as ‘back draft.’ One government agency sees a firestorm rising around them, so they spread the flames somewhere else. In this case, back at the DEA. The Bienvieneses were turned upside down by our own internal investigative teams. Not a thing was ever found that would give any credence to those rumors. Zero.”

“It’s also possible that Eduardo Cano had some ability to influence the government’s decision, isn’t that right?”

“Influence?”
The Justice Department official’s eyes seemed to harden at the word.

“Affect the outcome,” Harold said bluntly.

“If I follow . . . you’re suggesting he was able to buy someone off?”

“Or possibly have information that might discredit people higher up, that the government might have wanted to keep secret. Cano was trained here, and he is alleged to still have high-level friends in the government. The cartels have millions and millions to spread around, correct? This is still a world fraught with corruption, is it not?”

Stein nodded stiffly, the pleasant veneer of a moment before replaced by something guarded and professional. “Mexico is an excellent place to commit murder, Mr. Bachman, because you will almost certainly get away with it. That said, I’d still like to think that no amount of money would derail the prosecution for the assassination of two people who so selflessly put their lives at risk for the country. Not to mention the three other completely innocent individuals who tragically were caught in the crossfire.”