Ninety-Six
I AM IN a conference room just down the hall from Helene Mayes’s office, one that is starting to feel somewhat like my office after the amount of time I’ve been spending in it lately.
It’s two days since the body of Abby Wells had been found in the rocks near Parsons Lake, shot twice in the chest, not even a footprint in the area near her, no suspects as of yet, no witnesses, no leads.
“And no doubt in our minds who’s responsible,” Helene says.
“Now we have to prove it,” I say.
“Which is why we’re here today, and why I’ve brought in reinforcements,” she says. “And badass ones at that.”
“More badass than you?” I ask.
“Depends on who you ask,” the man across from her says.
His name is Jake Courville. Big tan going for him and big flow to his gray hair, tall and wiry. He’s wearing a Jason Isbell T-shirt, leather jacket over it, Ray-Bans on top of his head. Somehow looking sleepy-eyed and dangerous all at the same time.
Helene has informed me he’s a former SWAT team commander from Richmond, just off a couple of years of doing VIP protection work, now having joined up for what the state is calling “criminal research control,” which is Helene’s way of keeping them as far off the books as possible for the time being.
“Do Jake and the others report to you or the governor?” I ask.
Helene grins. “Depends on who you ask.”
“Helene is fond of what she calls my ‘operational planning,’” he says, casually emphasizing the last two words.
“Basically,” Helene adds, “it’s Jake’s responsibility to keep everyone in this room in at least the general vicinity of the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution.”
“The one about illegal search and seizure,” I say.
“Whoa, look at the quarterback showing off,” Jake says.
Eli McCann is next to Jake on that side of the table. Black, bald, every inch and pound as big as me, forearms alone looking as if they should be registered with the police. Helene explains that Eli and Sammy Chu, a lot smaller and sitting across from Eli, are ex-DEVGRU.
“DEVGRU?” I ask.
Eli McCann says, “What the cool kids call SEAL Team Six these days.”
Helene is shaking her head with mock sadness. “The cool kids who can swim like goddamn fish.”
Eli smiles, showing off one extremely shiny gold tooth. “And me a brotha,” he says. “What are the odds?”
The next new member of the team is Michael Gola, a blond guy with a crew cut, blue eyes so pale I feel as if I can see right through them. When Helene introduces us, Gola identifies himself as a sniper without me asking.
“Army?” I ask him.
“Sure,” he says. “Go with that.”
Seated to Helene’s right is a middle-aged man in a business suit and tie, his dark hair flecked with gray, looking as if he’s here to review a mortgage application, not chase down bad guys. His name is Robert Diozzi.
“Robert is a lawyer in Nashville these days,” Helene says.
“He was working for a law firm in Memphis when I first met him, but now he’s in the entertainment business, helping hire bodyguards for some of the bigger country music stars, especially when he needs bodyguards for what he likes to call contact work. ”
“Kicking ass and not taking names,” he says, and stands now.
“You’re not hanging around?” I ask.
“I’m assuming Helene is about to lay out the contact work you all are about to be engaged in,” he says. “And the less I know about it beforehand, the better.”
She smiles thinly at the rest of us.
“Plausible deniability,” he adds. “She’ll call me when she needs an arrest warrant. Or ten.”
Then he’s out the door and gone.
“In this situation, Robert basically doesn’t want to know what he doesn’t need to know,” Helene says.
“Where’s the fun in that?” Jake Courville asks.