“They’ve got someone with them and Tanner said we need to get there ASAP.”
“Then let’s go.”
They headed to the front stairs, Garrett texting Tanner, On our way.
“Things go okay with Mia’s dad?” Mike asked as they moved down the steps, both their eyes scanning the area at the bottom to see Kath back at her desk and Justin McClintock gone.
“No. But it went,” Garrett answered.
Mike didn’t reply. Then again, there wasn’t much more for Garrett to say.
On the sidewalk, as they hoofed their way down the block toward Tanner’s office, they had a brief discussion about the fact that they’d be swinging by Mimi’s to get a coffee on their way back.
This being after Mike and Tanner hopefully successfully stopped Garrett from going apeshit on Ryker.
They hit the door next to Mimi’s that had a brass plaque next to it that read Tanner Layne Investigations. The door led right to a set of stairs. The stairs led to a landing and one door, that door belonging to Tanner’s offices.
They pushed through, moved through the reception area, walked into Tanner’s personal office situated at the front of the building, and both of them stopped dead.
Even though he felt the pulse of alertness beat off Mike, Garrett reckoned it was only him whose vision went blurry with rage.
This was because Ryker’s long, beefy frame was lounging negligently in a chair in front of Tanner’s desk and he was eating a Hilligoss powdered sugar, chocolate-buttercream-filled donut. The donut wasn’t his first, seeing as his lips were lined with sugar and that sugar liberally dusted the front of his black tank as well as the lapels of his leather jacket.
He looked like he just got back from vacation and they were all there to check out his pictures, not like Garrett had been looking for his ass for days and in the meantime a woman who was linked, however loosely, to his shit got dead.
But this wasn’t it.
Along with Ryker and Tanner, who was sitting behind his desk, there were two people Garrett had never seen before in the room. A man and a woman. They were both in suits. Both trim and fit. And both, without a doubt, Feds.
The woman was at the window farthest from Tanner’s desk, looking out. The male Fed was in the middle of the office, standing close to the final occupant in the room, which was the last part of what pissed Garrett off.
Jaden Cutler.
“What the fuck?” Garrett whispered.
“Stay cool, brother,” Tanner warned, but when Garrett tore his eyes off Cutler to look to his friend, he saw Tanner’s eyes were filled with humor he was barely able to hold back. “And just to say, you’re gonna wanna lose it even more than you do right now after you hear what you’re gonna hear. It’s just that you’ll eventually find it amusing. Trust me.”
Garrett ignored Tanner and looked to Ryker.
“Been lookin’ for you,” he said.
“Know that, bro,” Ryker replied casually through donut dough and buttercream.
Garrett turned his attention to Cutler. “Been lookin’ for you too.”
Cutler did not look like he’d been on vacation. As Garrett pushed through his anger, he saw Cutler looked wrecked.
But he said nothing.
The male Fed entered the conversation. “Lieutenant Merrick…Haines, I’m Special Agent Jeff Harleman.” He tipped his head to the woman. “That’s Special Agent Tiffany Faria. What we’re about to explain is need-to-know. Since you’re investigating the murder of Wendy Derian, you need to know. However, it would be a significant blow to our investigation and strain relations between our organizations if you speak to anyone about what we’re about to tell you. That said, our hope is that you won’t have to keep this confidential for long.”
“We got relations between our organizations?” Mike asked a pertinent question.
“Not exactly,” Agent Tiffany Faria put in. “Though, we do have relations with IMDB and they’re in communication with your captain. So, although the Brownsburg Police Department isn’t a partner in this investigation, those who need to know are aware of what needs to be known.”
Garrett kept a lock on his irritation at the ridiculousness of how the Feds were communicating.
Instead, he focused on irritation he was practiced at controlling, thinking about their captain.
The man had become more politician than policeman. The fact that the Feds were operating even minutely on their patch and he hadn’t shared it with his officers was not a surprise.
It was fucking annoying.
But it wasn’t a surprise.
This was because if he shared it with his team, he couldn’t claim total responsibility for whatever bust went down, even if the only thing he did was pick up the phone and listen to the Feds tell him to steer his officers clear of any part of the investigation they were pursuing.
Yes.
Fucking annoying.
“Seein’ as clearly something that has to do with something you’re doin’ got Wendy Derian dead on BPD’s patch, how about you make us aware of what needs to be known,” Garrett clipped.
He was speaking to the agents.
But it wasn’t lost on him that anytime Wendy’s homicide was mentioned, Cutler, who was seriously unhappy, looked unhappier.
Both Faria and Harleman nodded, but it was Harleman who spoke.
“We currently have a large RICO investigation going against Carlos ‘Carlito’ Gutierrez.”
Fuck.
Carlito worked a wide area and only a small part of it was Hendricks County, a lesser part of that the ’burg. The Feds would follow all leads but focus on the largest part of his operation, which was in Indy.