Cloister held up his arm, the heavy white cast already dinged and battered.“Still broken,” he said.“It’ll heal.”
“Always be that little weakness, though,” Kincaid said.He pulled up a chair and sat down on the other side of the table.“Go on then, Javi.Lay out whatever cards you think you have.I’m all ears.”
Javi pointed at the file.“That’s the full forensic breakdown of everything we found in Brian Fowler’s house.”
“I’ve seen it,” Kincaid interrupted.“Not a well man.He was convinced all those new people moving in were part of some conspiracy against him, wasn’t he?”
Javi nodded.“Particularly Miles,” he said.“Because Miles didn’t exist.Not really.Saul had put a shell identity up to protect him, but the cracks in that started to show when he died.Nothing that would have been a problem except Brian was paranoid, and a shell identity wasexactlywhat he expected to find.It confirmed all his delusions about his persecution by the strawmen and the banks.Especially when he saw Miles having a secret meeting with a member of the FBI.”
Kincaid pursed his lips.He leaned back and crossed his legs, ankle braced on his knee.
“And for Eric—”
“He prefers Miles.”
“He can prefer what he likes,” Kincaid said.“He’s going back into witness protection, so he’ll take the name he gets.As I was saying, for Eric, all his fears about the Horvats finding him were also being confirmed.Which is why he called Joel.A perfect storm.Very sad.An excellent cover story that preserves SSA Lee’s memory and reputation.”
“Except it’s not a cover story, because the Horvats hadn’t a clue, did they?”Javi asked.“Not until you called them.”
Kincaid’s smiles always reached his eyes.The faker the smile, the deeper the crinkles.Javi wondered if he practiced them in his shitty motel mirror.
“That is a dangerous thing to say.”
“Most people would call me a liar.”
“I’m not a mean-spirited man,” Kincaid said, gently tilting his head to the side.“You could just be wrong.”
Javi licked his lips and leaned forward, his elbows braced against the edge of the desk.“I don’t like you much.”
“People keep saying that,” Kincaid murmured, pursing his mouth around the idea.
“But you’re good at what you do.”Javi ignored the interruption as he pushed on.“And you had a huge head start on the Horvats.You knew the timeline, the basic area, you knew Saul…even if not as well as you thought.Like you said, you underestimated how sentimental he was or you’d have found Eric sooner.But the Horvats had none of that to work with.They’d no reason to even be looking in Plenty to find Miles.There’s no way they tracked him down before you did.”
Kincaid clicked his tongue and leaned forward.“They had a lot more money.”
“You had plenty,” Javi said.“The Horvats only found out where Eric was when someone leaked the information.”
“Yes, someone in the Plenty Sheriff’s Department,” Kincaid said.“It wouldn’t be for the first time.”
Javi shook his head.“No.I talked to Gene, the office manager at the local ESPN affiliate.He said the tip-off wasn’t a local, and he’d recorded the call.Only part of it, but…you got Benson to do your dirty work?”
Kincaid put his hand to his chest.“Javi, no one…no one…could be more shocked than me at both Benson and the lack of journalistic integrity in this town.”
Javi smiled thinly at him.“Do you know Dolores Hartley set up a veterinary and retirement fund for the sheriff’s department’s K-9s after we saved her grandson?And that she owns a controlling share in that affiliate?”
The corners of Kincaid’s mouth sucked in sourly.He sat back.
“And do you know Deputy Sebastiano?”Javi asked.“He used to be an undercover cop in New York.I was able to get him to tap a few old contacts, chase up some gossip.”
“That sounds off-the-books.”
“Extremely,” Javi said.“It’s nothing we could take to court anyhow, but they confirmed that Vesna Horvat got a direct call just before the media circus dropped.No one knows what it was, but apparently it kicked the wasp’s nest.”
Silence.Kincaid flicked at his nails absently.
“It looks like you know everything,” he said quietly.Then he squinted his eyes as he craned his neck forward.“But, like you said, you can’t prove it.”
“I don’t need to,” Javi said.He pushed the chair back and stood up.“Mud sticks, Kincaid.We both know that.”
