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“Honestly, I have not. But I’ve been away from the case since my retirement, so I can’t tell you when the investigation uncovered her involvement.”
It was helpful to know that the case against Imani was a relatively new development, but not a huge score. Jack needed to use the rest of his five minutes wisely. He went to the most perplexing piece of the puzzle.
“Goodbye girl,” said Jack.
“Yeah. The message on the body. What about it?”
“I understand it was you who released that information to the public.”
“I did.”
“Do you think Imani put it there?”
The detective sipped his scotch. “No comment.”
“Do you think Shaky Nichols put it there?”
Another sip. “No comment.”
Jack was starting to sense that he’d wasted ten bucks on the detective’s drink.
“According to the autopsy report, the body was in the water at least thirty-six hours before the killer—or whoever—made an anonymous call to the media and told them where to find the body. We talked a little about this before, but what’s your current thinking on the reason for the thirty-six-hour delay?”
“No comment.”
“Sounds like the fact that my dad was a cop before he became a politician only gets me so much love.”
“Courtesy, I’d call it. Not love.”
A gray-haired man dressed in plaid golf knickers approached from the bar, a drink in each hand. “Cruz! Let’s go! We’re starting another game.”
Cruz rose and shook Jack’s hand. “Say hi to your dad, Jack. But don’t come calling on me again.”
Jack watched as the retired detective regrouped with his friends and stepped into the elevator. Getting anything of value from a retired homicide detective had been a long shot, so Jack couldn’t be too disappointed in himself. He got a diet soda in a go-cup, took the elevator to the ground floor, and was in the parking lot, walking to his car, when his cellphone rang. It was Imani.
The three-day expiration deadline on the FBI’s offer to Imani was fast approaching. Jack and Imani had talked about it several times, considering all angles. If it became public that she performed a private concert for an oligarch, it could affect her trial. The judge might decide to revoke bail and it ran the risk of prejudicing the potential jury pool. Beyond that, if something went wrong and the oligarch found out shewas wearing a wire, she’d be on her own without an FBI agent present to protect her.
“It’s decision time,” Jack said into the phone.
“I think I’ve made up my mind. There’s just one thing.”
It was always one more thing. “Talk to me,” he said.
“If I’m going to tell Kava’s people that I’ll do the concert only if I have a face-to-face meeting with Vladimir Kava, I can’t have a B.S. reason for a condition like that. It has to be solid.”
“The FBI says the explanation they created for you is solid.”
“Do you think it rings true?”
Jack got into his car and closed the door. “It is true that pop stars are extra cautious about doing these events ever since J.Lo’s concert in Turkmenistan turned into a public relations nightmare.”
“Definitely. But insisting on a private meeting with Grandpa Oligarch in order to get his personal assurance that he’ll give a million dollars to charity—that just seems lame. There’s no way he’ll go for it.”
“The pretext is that if the public finds out about the event, you have plausible deniability. You can say you did it for charity, not for an oligarch.”
“But that doesn’t mean I need a one-on-one sit-down meeting with him. He could just donate the money without the meeting.”
“I understand your point. But do you have a better idea?”
