“Who killed these people?”

“ Don’t know.”

“Do you care?”

“No.”

Deets made a “ha,” then pushed from the corner.

“You would have popped them yourself, Pike. If you’d found those dudes alive, you would have fed them to the dogs just like the sonofabitch who left them there.”

Pike shifted his gaze to Deets.

“Not the lady.”

Terrio leaned back in his chair, studying Pike as he tapped the table.

“These three idiots—Williams, Johnson, and Renfro—they weren’t in this alone. Someone was pointing them in the right direction. You and I on the same page with that?”

“Yes.”

“Your sources tell you who they were working for?”

Pike studied Terrio for a moment, then glanced at the camera. Something about Terrio’s inflection suggested he already knew, and wanted to find out if Pike knew as well.

“Williams was working for a Serbian OC gangster named Michael Darko. Darko or someone working for Darko probably killed Williams and his crew.”

Terrio and Deets stared at him, and for a few seconds the interview room was quiet. Then a large, balding deputy chief opened the door. Darko was the magic word.

“Jack, let’s clear the room, please.”

Terrio and Deets left without a word. The chief followed them, and the woman Pike had seen in the backseat of Terrio’s car on the day they told him about Frank entered and closed the door. Blue blazer over a white shirt. Dark gray slacks. An angry slash for a mouth.

She studied Pike as if he were a lab specimen, then glanced up at the camera, hanging patiently from the ceiling. She went to the camera, unplugged it, then turned back to Pike.

She held up a federal badge.

“Kelly Walsh. I’m with the ATF. Do you remember me?”

Pike nodded.

“Good. Now that we’ve met, you’re going to do exactly what I say.”

As if she had no doubt it was so.

Part Three - It’s Personal

Part Three

It’s Personal

Chapter 22

22

KELLY WALSH STOOD twelve inches from the table, close enough so he was forced to look up, but not so close as to touch the table. Pike recognized this as a controlling technique. By assuming a superior position she hoped to create a sense of authority. Like unplugging the camera. She was demonstrating she had the power to do as she wished, even at Parker Center.

Pike thought it was all a bit obvious.

Then she said, “Was Frank Meyer smuggling guns?”

This was the first time one of them asked a question that surprised him.

“No.”

“You sure?”

“Yes.”

“Sure sure? Or you just want to believe he wasn’t?”