Page 2 of Targeted at Christmas

As a twenty-eight-year-old member of the Tonto Apache Tribe, Hallie was proud to represent her people as a law enforcement officer, having earned a Bachelor of Science degree from Arizona State University’s School of Criminology and Criminal Justice. She was just as pleased to represent herself as a smart, single and able-bodied woman who was more than up to the task of performing her duties, trying as they could be at times.

After arriving at the garage and parking, she exited the vehicle, with a department-issued 9-mm Glock 17 Gen 5 semiautomatic pistol tucked inside a concealed carry holster. Hallie approached the crime scene on a slender five-three frame, where police officer Chad Hassler, thirtysomething and tall with a brown crew cut, stood guard over the corpse as if his life depended on it.

“Hey,” Hallie said, her long black braided hair tickling the back of her neck.

“Hey.” Chad, whom she was acquainted with, furrowed his brow above blue eyes. “Looks like the victim was ambushed.”

She turned her small brown eyes to the deceased male, who Hallie guessed was in his midforties, on the heavy side, and about six feet tall. Wearing an olive button-down striped shirt, brown linen pants and black loafers, he was lying on his side in a pool of blood. It appeared as though he had been shot in the back of the head twice, the bullets slicing their way through the slicked-back, short salt-and-pepper hair. She noted the spent shell casings on the garage floor. Clearly, whoever did this was pretty cavalier or unconcerned about leaving behind critical evidence toward potentially identifying them.

“Do we have an ID for the victim?” she asked.

Chad shook his head. “Not yet. Looks like whoever killed him took his wallet. Cell phone is missing, too, assuming he had one with him. Could be a robbery gone horribly wrong. At least for the dead man.”

Hallie glanced around the garage and saw a few parked cars. All were within a short distance of the body. “My guess is that this was a carjacking—or if not, the victim never made it back to his vehicle, if it’s still in here. Either way you look at it, the killer or killers apparently weren’t interested in leaving alive someone who could identify them. Or for whatever other reason someone might have wanted the man dead—”

“We’ll see what security cameras can tell us,” Chad said, thoughtful with a frown. “Who entered, exited the garage, the time and whatnot.”

Hallie nodded. “Yeah, and see if there are any witnesses who might have seen something or someone in action.”

As she called in the Crime Scene Response Unit to collect evidence and awaited the Maricopa County medical examiner to arrive to take possession of the body, at the moment Hallie had to consider the unnamed murder victim to be a John Doe.

Chapter One

Federal Bureau of Investigation Special Agent Cooper Reid sat in a well-worn ergonomic leather chair at his L-shaped walnut desk in the Bureau’s Phoenix, Arizona, field office on North Seventh Street. He sighed while his deep gray-blue eyes reviewed information on his laptop pertaining to a public corruption investigation in the city. Specifically, he was targeting a forty-seven-year-old senior building inspector named Horace Eckhart for suspected bribery. This followed a tip on the FBI tip line to that effect in seeking the public’s help in the Bureau’s crackdown of public corruption and those who crossed the line.

Eckhart appeared to be the linchpin in a classic pay-for-play scheme. As an employee of the Phoenix Planning and Development Department, the building inspector was being investigated for allegedly taking substantial bribes from developers, architects and contractors in Phoenix over a period of time, in exchange for everything from fast-tracking permits to prioritizing the issuance of temporary certificates of occupancy to tax credits to overlooking safety violations, and other preferential treatment to those involved in self-serving pursuits.

With the cooperation of a confidential informant, Cooper had reason to believe that Eckhart’s pattern of corruption on development projects throughout the city made him a likely target for architects, developers, engineers and related individuals in property development who were looking to cut corners or otherwise receive special or profitable benefits in furthering their objectives. Well, he would soon need to answer for these alleged criminal offenses, as an arrest of the divorced building inspector, whom Cooper learned was up to his ears in financial straits and growing increasingly desperate, was all but imminent.

The same sentiments were true for anyone else who was complicit, and a strong case could be made against for public corruption in betraying the public trust. Or similarly, putting their own interests before those who put faith in them to do the right thing, occupationally speaking—only to be left disappointed, deceived or victimized.

Running a hand across his jet-black hair styled in a brush cut, Cooper sat back, mentally retracing the steps that had made him a dogged twelve-year FBI veteran at the age of thirty-five. On some level, it was probably the aunt who raised him by and large, Katherine Reid—who was at one time chief counsel of the Oregon Department of Justice’s Criminal Justice Division—that left an impression on him when it came to law enforcement and the wheels of justice.

He’d attended Portland State University in Oregon, where he had gotten his Bachelor of Arts and Master of Science degrees in criminology and criminal justice. It was also where he met his beautiful late wife, Melanie, who was working on her doctorate degree in mechanical engineering. Both single at the time, she had encouraged him after graduating to go work for the Bureau, which began with going through the paces at FBI Quantico. Afterward, he moved around to different field offices and divisions before settling into the field office in Phoenix five years ago. There, he worked for two years in the civil rights and white-collar crime divisions, with the last three years concentrating on public corruption in the city as well as the state of Arizona.

They had been in Phoenix for less than two years when Melanie died suddenly from a brain aneurysm, leaving him to go it alone with difficulty. Staying active and work demands had given him a reason to carry on, but he still longed for companionship again someday, knowing that would be the right ingredient to make him whole.

Cooper blinked back the heartfelt thoughts as he refocused on the laptop and the case that had been built against Horace Eckhart. Enough evidence existed to consider him at the very least as a person of interest, and then some, in the investigation. Putting the squeeze on the bribery suspect could result in more people being put under the microscope for public corruption locally.

Cooper took what he had to the special agent in charge, Amelia Touray. She was sitting in a faux leather chair in her office at a white wall-mounted floating desk with built-in storage that was filled.

In her midforties, Amelia was slender and had crimson hair in a pixie bob and blue eyes behind square glasses. Having recently been named to her position by the FBI director after a previous role for the Bureau as a supervisory special agent, Amelia was a no-nonsense type of person whom Cooper respected, being of a similar mindset on the professional level.

Jutting her chin after listening, she said, “There’s nothing worse, insofar as criminal wrongdoing, than those who violate their roles as government employees—at federal, state or local levels—whether they’re elected officials or not!”

Cooper nodded. “I couldn’t agree more. It seems as though Horace Eckhart falls into that category. My CI, who works as a contractor, has supplied just enough intel to open the door to gathering solid evidence of Eckhart falling prey to bribery as an answer to his mounting debts and greed.”

“Then by all means, let’s get Mr. Eckhart in here—out of his comfort zone—and see what he has to say for himself,” Amelia stated firmly, pushing her glasses up, “before moving forward with an arrest warrant and any applicable charges.”

“You’ve got it.” Cooper thought about discussing other current and potential targets in the investigation, but refrained from doing so. He was content for the moment to bring in Eckhart for interrogation and see how the dominoes fell and onto whom as it related to public corruption.

After leaving the office and conferring briefly with other special agents working their assignments, Cooper headed from the building and into the parking lot. At six three and in great shape, he climbed into his black Dodge Durango SUV and was quickly en route to the City of Phoenix Planning and Development Department’s Inspections Division on West Washington Street. He found his mind wandering to what he might do for dinner. There was leftover pizza in the fridge and some frozen foods in the freezer, but he wasn’t in much of a mood for either. Maybe I’ll just go out for a meal, he told himself, deciding to splurge a little. He would love to meet someone who, apart from chemistry and connecting on a deeper level, could cook some meals with him as they made their way around the kitchen, given that his own culinary skills were pretty limited at best to the basics.

After arriving at Eckhart’s place of employment as the first stop in tracking the man down this morning, Cooper headed for the building. He was armed with a Sig Sauer P239 Nitron Compact 9-mm pistol, tucked inside a tactical shoulder holster, but hoped there would be no need to use it for a nonviolent offender as Eckhart was suspected of being.

Cooper stepped inside the lobby and went up to the second floor, where a young female Asian receptionist, with black hair in a nape undercut and round glasses over brown eyes, stood behind a counter chatting despondently on her cell phone.

She got off in a hurry, peered at him and asked distractedly, “How can I help you?”