Shattered Glass (41 page)

“I’ll be here at ten,” Riley nodded.

“Great!” Cai grinned and tossed a wave before vanishing down the hall.

“He’s a sweet kid,” Riley said once the door to the back

bedroom shut. The emphasis on ‘kid’ was a relief.

“Sometimes easy to forget he’s a kid.” I poured a cup of coffee and hesitated in the kitchen, eyeing the makeshift tarp over my coffee table. The laptop was still there from Tuesday.

“If you say so.” He held out his hand, his smile creasing the corners of his eyes. The lines spoke more to the frequency of his laughter than his age. “Agent Riley Cordova.” I shook the outstretched hand. “Austin Glass.” It stung to have to drop the detective prefix. Had I already decided not to return to duty? No. “I’d love to shoot the shit, but I have some neglected work to look into.” After holding the coffee cup up in a gesture of thanks, I retrieved the laptop from under the tarp and sat on the sofa, feet propped up on the coffee table.

Cordova sat next to me, ankle crossed over his knee and an electronic reader in his lap. I spoke without looking at him. “The FBI afraid of the big bad homo molesting their straight agents?” The words were light but my fingers tapped my password with unnecessary force.

“It would be unprofessional and inappropriate to call you defensive and a reactionary, Detective Glass.” “So you’ll just imply it?” A rueful grin wiped the hostility from my face. I could get to like Riley Cordova.

“I’m implying,” he paused considering his words, “that you’re taking the defensive against perceived offense, not an actual one.”

“No coincidence you’re gay and assigned to this case?” I asked with an accusing tone, waiting for the laptop to boot up.

“No coincidence,” he agreed. “Mrs. Strakosha made some demands about the men on her personal security detail.”

Oh.

I was an idiot. Not that I was going to apologize. The sting of rejection from my colleagues was still sharp. The memory of dildos and lube rattling to the front of my desk drawer was a vivid reminder of where they stood. “Well, welcome to homo-land.” He laughed and went back to reading. “Welcome yourself, Detective.”

I chuckled, opened my web browser and forgot about agent Cordova. After navigating to the search engine, I typed in ‘barn lager’.

My first impression of the search results was that ‘barn lager’

was not proper Swedish, or Danish or any other language. The first entries were a mishmash of sites with one word or the other. Nothing sensible combined both words except a china pattern from Pottery Barn. My search led nowhere.

I navigated to an online translator service. The Danish translation of “child store” made sense. In Swedish and Norwegian it meant “child bearing”. None of it got me any closer to an answer. Maybe I was wrong about the whole thing.

A small laugh escaped as I breathed out.

“Good news?” Agent Cordova asked.

“Very. I’m the king of wild accusations it seems.” I tapped the plastic trying to think of where to search from there. Maybe there was a beer place locally. I typed ‘barn lager Denver’, hit enter, and began to read down the page.

The ninth entry demolished my smile.

I almost missed it as I scrolled through the same results from the last search. The second-to-last link was in Swedish, and I was offered a button to translate the text. I clicked it.

Barnlager.com—We carry baby clothes, children’s clothes and toys made in Sweden—16th Street and Wynkoop, Denver 16th and Wynkoop. Smack dab in the middle of the 16th Street Mall. I opened up the site’s front page and skimmed over the pictures of toddlers in play clothes before delving deeper in.

It took ten minutes, but I found what I was looking for on a list of importers. Asa’s Playground was midway down the page.

It didn’t take much of a leap to figure the name of Marta’s shop.

Half-Wit’s End

“Fuck.” I dragged a hand through my hair and went on a hunt for the spreadsheet files from Luis and the restaurant. Was Asa’s Playground among the companies listed? Wouldn’t I have noticed that before? But that day I’d been distracted. Darryl and his wandering fucking hand.

“Bad news so soon? Things change on a dime around here.” “You’re telling me,” I muttered. “Two weeks ago I was straight.” And at the height of my career. I put the spreadsheets side by side and began comparing the data.

“Is that when you decorated the house?” My head rose and then turned to the agent. He was smiling but pretending to read. “It would be unprofessional and inappropriate to say ‘fuck you’,” I deadpanned.

“Not to mention sexually harassing.” Since he didn’t look up, my stare went unnoticed.

“Everyone’s a fucking wit lately.” I turned my attention back to the files.

Nothing on Asa’s Playground mentioned. Was I reaching? I scrolled down the list again, slower this time.

“You’re missing some numbers there,” Cordova said, peering over at my screen.

“What?”

“Scroll up a few lines. Stop.” He pointed at my screen.

I hadn’t been checking the spreadsheet line numbers, just the names. I worked backward, up the list stopping at line one thirty-nine. The next number up was one twenty-seven. “Shit.” Were those missing when I first saw the file? I gave myself a mental pat on the back for printing out the original files. Setting the laptop aside, I lifted the tarp and began searching for the papers. They weren’t there.

Maybe Cai had moved them? Or Rosa. I scoured the living room for them. Checked my office. Nothing.

Maybe Dave had taken them home to review.

And not told you about it yesterday when you mentioned them?

Oh, Yay. Peter Pissed at Someone Else For a Change I grabbed my coffee cup and went to think in the kitchen. What was I going to do? What could I do? What should I do? Confront him? Give him time to hide the evidence?
This is Dave, you’re talking about
.

What did I
know
, anyway? Nothing for certain. Barn lager wasn’t even a common saying in Swedish. Otherwise there would have been references of the phrase all over the web.

Marta would not use incorrect Swedish for her company. Would she?

Anyone could have moved the papers.

So what if Dave knew Alvarado. I knew him, too. And I wasn’t involved with his laundering.

And yesterday
? He had just been nervous. Dave had been nervous about standing next to the homo who slept with a witness and whose career was only missing the final knock of the gavel before it ended.

Normally I wouldn’t question my instincts. I was good at what I did: piecing information together and seeing the error in an equation.

You’re just wrong this time.

The address was downtown—the 16th street mall, just where Peter and Darryl remembered.

Barnlager.com.

The missing pages. Dave had them in his hands.
You left him here alone.

Dave has your laptop password from the fantasy football league.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck!

No fucking way was I turning him in. It was a selfish thought, but I couldn’t get past the fact that Dave was my last ally. My only remaining friend. The one person I could call family.

I was pacing a stripe into the kitchen floor when Darryl walked in.

“Oh, God. Please tell me you two aren’t still fighting,” he moaned. His eyes were half-masted and crusty with sleep. That didn’t stop his mocking voice. “I love you. No you don’t. I don’t

love you. Yes you do. Wah wah wah. Some of us wanted to sleep!”

I wasn’t rising to the bait. Instead, I changed the subject.

“You slept with Rosafa in tighty-whities and a tank top?” “I think her virtue is safe with me.” He lifted his pink blindfold off his neck and used it as a headband. “Thank fuck there’s coffee. Who’s the stud on the sofa? I vaguely recall him as I stumbled to bed last night.”

“FBI. Rosa’s personal guard,” I said distractedly. Why hadn’t I picked up the phone already?

If Dave admitted to laundering? Trafficking? Murder? What then?

“What are you worked up about?” I followed Darryl’s sneer to my fingers drumming on the countertop.

“Nothing.”

“Why does Rosa have a security detail?” Darryl asked. I watched as he poured the last of the brown liquid into his cup.

My own mug sat half-empty and mourning. “I thought she wasn’t in witness protection anymore.” It was a valid question, but other things were on my mind.

“How the fuck should I know? Ask her.” “All right, dickwad. I will.”

The doorbell rang. Agent Cordova stood and peeked in through the archway to the kitchen. “That’s probably my partner Agent McCleary. Would you mind if I answered your door?” “Go for it.” I wasn’t paying attention. I didn’t care who came and went in the house.

Darryl runway-walked back to the bedroom without spilling a drop of his coffee, all while somehow managing to ogle

Cordova’s butt. Waterboarding wouldn’t have made me admit I was watching Darryl’s ass as he left.

It wasn’t even that great of an ass.

“Detective Glass, this is Special Agent Dan McCleary. He’ll be on day shift in the house.” Rather than come to me, Dan McCleary held out his hand and kept it there until I had to exit the kitchen to shake it. Speaking of great asses, Dan McCleary clearly was one.

Let the dick contests begin.

McCleary was an unpolished, semi-attractive man in his late thirties or early forties. His hair was grey. His suit was cheap.

His cologne was cheaper, and his attitude was a hundred percent asshole.

He gave me an instant boner.

One day I was going to have to analyze why whores and assmunchers gave me wood, while nice guys like Riley left me feeling blasé.

Maybe I just wasn’t responding because I knew Cai had a crush on him.

Yeah that was it.

Before I could lie to myself some more, Darryl’s voice bellowed from the bedroom. “Over my dead perfectly-posed body!”

The guest room door banged open. Darryl strode past me in a blur of blond hair, his skinny legs disappearing upstairs.

“I take it he just found out what Rosa being in WitSec means?” I proffered, raising my eyes to the ceiling. Upstairs the pounding on my bedroom door gave way to muffled yelling.

In the search for distraction from thoughts of my best friend’s possible criminal activity, my mind began meandering after Darryl’s question:
“Why does Rosa have a security detail?” Answer: Because her life is in danger.

Question:
Why is her life in danger?
To answer that question, I had to think laterally.

Whom does the FBI guard?

Answer: Important people.

Who are the important people to the FBI?

Answer: Celebrities, statesmen, politicians and witnesses.

Rosafa Strakosha is not a politician, statesmen or celebrity.

Therefore, she is a witness.

Why does Rosa, a plain old witness, get to pick her security detail?

Answer: She’s important enough that they bow to her requests.

The subject of my thoughts emerged from the bedroom, wrapping a leopard print hijab over her head. “You have to wear that?” I asked.

“You think I wear this in summer because it is so comfortable?” She brushed a hand over her ankle length black skirt.

“I think if God wanted you to wear that, He wouldn’t have invented heatstroke.”

What kind of info would Rosa have for the FBI? Albanian syndicate crime was a growing issue, I knew that much. I also knew that there were a recent slew of arrests across the nation.

All of them were part of an Albanian organized crime family.

What had the DA said in court? Something about Rosafa having relatives tied to the Albanian mafia.

There wasn’t time for more thought on the subject. Peter came charging down the stairs, hair still damp and unbuttoned shirt billowing behind him. “The fuck you are, Rosa. The fuck you’re taking Cai.”

“He is my son,” she said calmly.

“Settle down, boy.” Agent McCleary stepped in front of Rosa, hand reaching inside his jacket. Cordova moved closer to Peter. So did I.

Cai came dashing out of the hall, clothes stuck to his body and hair dripping wet. “Um. We can go now. My anklet blinked.

That means we can go.” He pulled at Peter’s arm desperately.

His giant feet sloshed in a pair of checkered Keds. He looked like he’d pulled his clothes on
while
he showered.

“He’s not going with you. You don’t even know him. He doesn’t need more shit in his life.” “He is my son, Petya.”

Darryl’s eyes brimmed with angry tears. “He’s ours now.” “Peter,” I tried to reason. “This isn’t the time. Things can be discussed when we—”

“You see? Peter. Not Petya. Not Pyotr. I’m not Petya, he’s not Danny and that’s not Nikë. I’m Peter, that’s Darryl and he’s Cai. That’s who he is now. He’s not your Nikë. You don’t even know how to take care of him.”

“Rabbit, please,” Cai begged. “Let’s go.” “I will learn.”

“Oh, you’ll learn? You’ll learn in the few weeks before he has the stress of starting college? Did you even know he was going

to college? No? Do you recognize when he’s sick, Rosa? Not once since you arrived have you noticed he’s hypomanic. Do you even know what hypomanic means? Didn’t you ask why he’s not more upset after being raped? Didn’t it occur to you that his behavior wasn’t normal for someone about to be tried for murder? But you’re going to learn? Right.” Cai crushed his hand against his eye.