Chapter 6
Chapter Six
Tacoma, Washington
The Port of Tacoma stretched along the water like a sprawling industrial monument, cranes rising against the gray sky.
Jason eased his Charger past the guardhouse and nodded to the security officer who waved them through without question.
The tires hummed over wet pavement as they navigated the maze of access roads that wound between stacks of shipping containers.
“Last time I was out here,” Jason said, his voice quiet, “Eastman and I were setting up surveillance on Sadie Talbot’s operation.”
Allie’s hands stilled in her lap. She turned her gaze toward the water, where container ships sat motionless in the harbor.
Their hulls were dark against the steel-colored water.
The mention of Sadie’s name hit like a sucker punch—unexpected, even though she should have seen it coming.
Months had passed since Sadie’s betrayal, but the wound was still raw.
“Sorry, I know you don’t want to talk about it.” Jason glanced at her.
“I don’t.” The words came out sharper than she intended. She softened her tone. “I’m fine, Jason. Really.” She turned back toward the windshield and watched a gull lift off from a container stack, banking hard against the wind before disappearing over the water.
She wasn’t fine, and they both knew it. Sadie had been someone Allie trusted, someone she’d been close to, and wasn’t the first person she’d trusted who betrayed her.
Not by a long shot. Yet those betrayals taught her a lesson she was still trying to unlearn—that letting people in only gave them more ways to hurt you.
Jason didn’t push. That was one of the things she appreciated about her partner; he knew when silence was better than words.
They followed the perimeter road past rows of shipping containers stacked like colorful building blocks, past forklifts and trucks that rumbled over cracked pavement.
Gulls wheeled overhead with their sharp and lonely cries.
The smell of diesel fuel mixed with salt water, a combination that defined ports from Seattle to San Diego.
The Pacific Maritime Labor Alliance office sat near the edge of the water in a squat, weathered building that looked like it had been standing since the port opened more than a century ago.
Rust streaked the metal siding in orange-brown patterns, and the windows were small and grimy, filmed with years of accumulated dirt and sea spray.
A hand-painted sign above the door read Local 814 in faded blue letters.
Inside, the wood paneling emanated the thick smell of coffee and old cigarette smoke. Fluorescent lights hummed overhead and cast everything in a sickly yellow glow. The floor was worn linoleum, marked with scuffs and stains that told stories of countless shift changes and union meetings.
A man in a high-visibility vest sat sprawled on a sagging couch near the door, flipping through a magazine with grease-stained fingers.
He was young—thirty perhaps—with a patchy beard and a lean build that came from physical labor.
He barely looked up when they entered, his attention fixed on whatever he was reading.
“Help you?” he asked. His tone suggested that he didn’t particularly care one way or the other.
Allie pulled out her credentials. “FBI. We need to speak with Tony Bianchi.”
The man studied her badge for a moment, and his expression slowly shifted from boredom to something more wary. He jerked his thumb toward the back of the building. “Office down the hall. Last door on the right.”
The hallway was narrow and dimly lit, lined with framed photographs of longshoremen from different eras.
Most of them were black and white images of men loading cargo by hand, others color photos of modern container operations.
A bulletin board displayed union notices and safety reminders, the papers yellowed and curling at the edges.
They found Bianchi behind a cluttered desk with a phone pressed to his ear.
He was portly and balding, with thick forearms that rested heavily on the desk’s surface and a permanent scowl etched into his features.
His skin had the weathered look of someone who had spent years working outdoors before landing in this office.
When he saw them standing in the doorway, his frown deepened.
He raised a finger and motioned for them to take the two chairs facing his desk.
“Yeah, I get it. Just tell them we’re not backing down. That’s what I pay you for, isn’t it?” His scowl intensified as he paused and listened. “Fine. Call me when it’s done.”
He hung up and leaned back in his chair, which protested with a metallic groan. His office was cramped and chaotic, with stacks of paperwork covering every available surface. Filing cabinets lined the walls, and a coffeemaker on a corner table looked like it hadn’t been cleaned in years.
“You’re not from OSHA.” His voice carried the rough edges of someone who’d grown up shouting over machinery. His eyes moved from Allie to Jason and back again, sizing them up.
“Special Agents Bishop and King,” Allie said, keeping her voice professional, neutral. “We need to ask you a few questions.”
“About what?” His annoyance was obvious. “Can’t you see I’m busy?”
“Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas Sterling,” Jason replied. “Name ring a bell?”
“You’ve got to be kidding me. I had nothing to do with it.”
“Do with what?” Allie asked, leaning forward in her chair.
“Yeah, right,” Bianchi scoffed. “Like I don’t know why you’re here. Guy’s murder’s been all over the news. Can’t turn on the TV without hearing about it.” His tone shifted from annoyance to something harder. “You think I killed him?”
“We’re talking to everyone who had a conflict with Sterling,” Jason said evenly. “Your name came up.”
“Of course it did.” Bianchi huffed. His chair scraped against the floor with a screech that made Allie’s teeth hurt.
He wasn’t tall—maybe five-eight—but carried himself with blunt authority, clearly earned from two decades of managing roughneck longshoremen.
“You know how long it took me to get this office? This chair? Twenty-three years of working my way up from the docks, earning these men’s trust. I started loading containers when I was nineteen years old.
Nineteen. I’ve fought for workers’ rights my whole career, and I don’t have time for people like Sterling stirring up trouble where there isn’t any. ”
“And yet Sterling’s investigation wasn’t without warrant,” Allie said.
On their way there, she had reviewed the partial file MacKenzie had given her.
The allegations of union corruption weren’t baseless—there were documented irregularities in contract negotiations, questions about kickbacks from shipping companies, and financial discrepancies that demanded investigation.
“There were legitimate concerns about financial improprieties within the union.”
“Legitimate?” Bianchi barked a humorless laugh.
“Sterling didn’t care about legitimate. He wanted headlines.
He wanted to make a name for himself by going after working men who’ve done nothing but fight for fair wages and safe working conditions.
You think these corporations give a damn about the guys breaking their backs on those docks?
They’d work them to death if we didn’t stand in the way. ”
His face had flushed red, and veins stood out on his temples. Allie recognized the anger—it was genuine, rooted in years of battling a system that often favored profits over people. But she also knew that genuine anger often fueled violence.
Bianchi seemed to realize he’d said too much. He crossed his arms and set his jaw. “I’ve got nothing more to say to you.”
“Where were you from Friday night into early Saturday morning?” Jason asked.
Bianchi’s scowl returned in full force. “Are you seriously pressing me as a suspect?”
“Just answer the question, Mr. Bianchi,” Allie said.
For a long moment, he stared at them, his jaw working like he was chewing over whether to cooperate or throw them out of his office. The silence stretched, broken only by the distant sound of machinery from the docks.
Finally, “I was at a wake. Redstone Bar, over on Pacific Avenue. One of our guys passed last week from a heart attack. Fifty-two years old, healthy as a horse one day, dead the next. We sent him off properly.”
“What time did you leave?” Allie asked.
“After two. Maybe closer to two-thirty.” His voice had softened slightly, the memory of the wake tempering his anger. “There were over fifty people there who’ll verify that. Tony was well-liked. A good man. Better than Sterling ever was, I’ll tell you that.”
Jason tilted his head slightly. “A wake at a bar?”
Allie answered before Bianchi could. “It’s an old Catholic tradition. Still common in some blue-collar circles.”
Bianchi nodded. She watched some of the tension ease from his shoulders.
“Tony would’ve wanted it that way. None of that funeral home nonsense with organ music and fake flowers.
Just drinks and stories and people who actually gave a damn about him.
We laughed, we cried, we told every embarrassing story we could remember. That’s how you honor someone.”
There was something almost vulnerable in his expression now, a glimpse beneath the hardened exterior. Allie filed it away; people were rarely just one thing, rarely just angry or just grieving. They were complicated, contradictory.
“We’ll need a list of names,” Allie said. “People who can confirm your alibi.”
Bianchi’s glare darkened again, the vulnerability disappearing behind his scowl. “I already told you—”
“We still need the list,” Jason broke in.
He muttered something under his breath that sounded like a curse, then pulled a notepad from his desk drawer and started scribbling names.
His handwriting was cramped and angry, each letter pressing hard into the paper.
Allie watched him work, noting the way his shoulders hunched, the way his mouth formed a tight line.
She imagined he wrote like he did everything else—with force and barely contained aggression.
“What about the argument you had with Sterling at the courthouse?” Allie mentioned casually. “Witnesses said it got heated.”
“Of course it got heated.” The union head looked up.
He held her gaze with a silent challenge.
“He was trying to destroy everything I’ve built.
Everything these men have fought for. You’d be heated too if someone tried to tear down your life’s work based on nothing but assumptions and political grandstanding.
I wasn’t afraid of telling him how I felt. ”
He finished the list and shoved the paper across the desk.
Allie took it and scanned the names. They would have to verify every one, cross-reference the times, build a timeline that either cleared Bianchi or tightened the noose around him.
Fifty witnesses at a wake was either the most convenient alibi she ever heard or the most airtight.
“We’ll be in touch if we have more questions,” Jason said, and rose to his feet.
Bianchi didn’t respond, just turned his attention back to the papers scattered across his desk. He dismissed them as if they were nothing more than another inconvenience in a day full of them.
Outside, Allie climbed into the passenger seat and closed her eyes briefly, letting the investigation settle into place. The weight never got lighter, only more familiar.
Jason started the engine and pulled out of the parking lot, navigating carefully around a forklift that had backed across the road without warning. They drove in silence for a moment before he spoke.
“He could have hired someone.”
Allie opened her eyes. “What?”
“Bianchi. Even if his alibi checks out, he could have paid someone to do it. Longshoremen can be a rough crowd. I worked a smuggling case out of Long Beach a few years back. These guys operate in a world with its own rules. Wouldn’t be much of a stretch to think they could find someone willing to get their hands dirty for the right price. ”
Allie stared out the window as they navigated past the rows of anonymous containers. “Maybe. But if he did, he’s smart enough not to make it obvious. He’s been running this local for years. You don’t survive that long without learning how to cover your tracks.”
Her phone rang before Jason could respond. She answered, putting the call on speaker.
“Bishop.”
“Agent Bishop, it’s Jim MacKenzie. I’ve been pulling Sterling’s old cases like you asked.
” His voice carried a sharp edge. “I came across one from four years ago that stood out. Dr. Aris Bennett used to be a star neurosurgeon at Tacoma General. He was at the top of his field, published research, and had a teaching position at UW.”
Allie straightened in her seat. “Used to be?”
“Sterling led the prosecution against Bennett for overbilling Medicare. Turns out Bennett was performing unnecessary spinal surgeries to fund a gambling addiction—half a million dollars’ worth.
The case was airtight. Thomas had patient testimonies, billing records, and expert witnesses who reviewed the surgical decisions.
Bennett claimed he was providing necessary care, but the evidence showed otherwise.
He lost his medical license, his wealth, even his family.
His wife divorced him and took the kids. ”
“Sounds like he deserved it,” Allie responded. “I take it he went to prison?”
“Yep. And guess who got out three weeks ago?”
“No kidding,” Jason quipped.
“Here’s the thing—I called his parole officer. Bennett was supposed to report Friday at noon. He never showed. He’s been AWOL for over seventy-two hours.”
Allie’s pulse quickened. A disgraced surgeon with nothing to lose, fresh out of prison and off the grid the same weekend Sterling turned up dead by a precise lethal stab and a brand burned into his chest. It wasn’t proof, but it was the kind of coincidence that made her instincts sharpen, made the pattern start to take shape.
“Send me everything you have on Bennett,” she said. “Address, known associates, parole conditions, financial records if you can get them. All of it.”
“Already on it. You’ll have it in ten minutes.”
Allie ended the call and looked at Jason. This case had just shifted and revealed new dimensions that made Bianchi’s anger seem almost secondary.
“Guess we’re not done for the day.” Jason's hands were steady on the wheel as he merged onto the highway.
Allie watched the port fade in the side mirror, the cranes shrinking until they looked like skeletal fingers reaching into the sky. Somewhere out there, Aris Bennett was hiding, and they needed to find him.