Chapter 7

Vin and Ezra stared at the computer screen. Vin was a little surprised to find that Ezra's hacking skills were so refined. He was no JD, but the agent was leaps and bounds above any of the rest of the team. "I do believe that we have uncovered the incident of which Detective Gleason spoke."

Vin reached back to massage the base of his skull, trying to loosen muscles not used to hanging over a computer screen for so long. "Yeah, looks like it. If this poor guy was railroaded like almost happened to me, you gotta feel for him. Reckon he'd talk to us?"

Ezra sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. "I do not know my friend. The ill-fated event was almost eight years ago. Time could have either lessened the burden of such a betrayal or fueled the anger."

They sat for a moment, staring at the official investigation into drug running by Officer Greg Whitehorse. The coincidence of his mixed White/Native American heritage did not escape them. An anonymous tip about drug-selling activities had resulted in a search warrant for the officer's residence and vehicles. While no drugs had been found in the house, a large bag had been found in his truck parked outside.

Officer Whitehorse claimed that he had been set up. The fact that no fingerprints were found on the bag and the truck itself seemed to have been wiped clean lent a certain amount of credence to his claim. Friends and family had vouched for the fact that he never locked the truck when he was home, leaving it available for anyone to access.

In the end, no charges were filed, but his reputation was ruined. He resigned and moved to Florida. Vin couldn't blame the guy for getting as far away from his supposed friends and fellow officers who hadn't supported him during the investigation as possible. Vin was painfully aware of what that felt like and he knew Ezra was too. Reading it happen to someone else was like a gutshot to them both.

Probably the most interesting thing was that his partner at the time was relatively new Officer Marco Valdez. Marco came to Whitehorse fresh out of the academy and they had ridden together for almost a year when the trouble started. The report hinted that drug busts had been going wrong, confiscated drugs had gone missing, and certain drug runners seemed to be almost untouchable for several weeks before the tip came in. The tip had been an answer to an escalating problem that was garnering more and more attention.

Vin stretched his arms up over his head. "I need coffee."

Ezra shot to his feet, nearly knocking over his chair. "No, no, let me. You are supposed to stay off your feet."

Vin smirked, turning sideways in the chair to watch the other agent. "You just don't want me to make the coffee."

Ezra straightened the toppled chair. "I refuse to let your lack of barista skills ruin a perfectly good blend. I will procure coffee and snacks while you elevate that knee. I dare say it will be a toss-up as to whether Mr. Larabee or Mr. Jackson endeavors to shoot me because your knee is the size of a melon."

Vin sighed, looking down at his throbbing knee, thankful that Chris had insisted he change into sweats. He'd hate to think of how the joint would feel trapped in the confines of his jeans. "Yeah, you're probably right. One'll probably shoot you while the other goes for me." Ezra handed him the crutches and he used them to get to his feet.

After settling him on the couch with a pillow under his knee and the laptop in his lap, Ezra limped to the kitchen to make coffee. Vin continued to read the reports and interviews, wanting to know as much as possible before they tried contacting Whitehorse. He had to wonder if Marco had issues with American Indians, mixed heritage, or just anyone in his way. He was pretty sure the man hadn't damaged his statues by accident. It was beginning to look like the guy was dirty and just slick enough to get away with it. Unfortunately, he seemed to destroy the lives of those around him in the process.

Ezra returned fifteen minutes later with two large mugs of coffee and a plate of fancy little eclairs. Vin grinned. "Man, Ezra, I should'a been coming to visit you all this time instead of Chris."

"No, Mr. Tanner, I am lacking some things that only Mr. Larabee can provide," said Ezra, taking the chair opposite the end table with the snacks.

Vin stared at him a moment. "The Larabee glare or the bossy attitude?"

Ezra's eyes widened and then he chuckled. "I admit I had not thought of those possibilities. It seems prudent to add them to the list. No, I was referring to the horses and the wide-open space with the spectacular view. I know how much you value being able to get away from the press of people we are daily surrounded with."

Vin nodded while chewing the end of an éclair. He moaned at the way the cool, sweet creamy filling squished around his mouth. Ezra looked a little disturbed, so he groaned louder and then regretted it as he almost choked while laughing.

"That is most uncouth. You have cream along the corner of your mouth," Ezra said, frowning as he pointed while handing Vin a napkin.

"Thanks," Vin said after swallowing. He wiped his face and grinned unrepentantly at the fancy agent. "Those are amazing."

"I am aware," Ezra deadpanned, looking at the pastries as if he had changed his mind about eating them.

"Sorry, Ez, I'll behave," Vin said, reminding himself of the favor Ezra was doing him by letting him stay there.

"Not a problem, Mr. Tanner," Ezra said as he carefully selected an éclair. He looked up to meet Vin's eyes before breaking out in a huge grin and shoving the whole thing in his mouth. Vin's mouth hung open a second before he burst out laughing, wiping his eyes as he thought about the fact that no one would believe him if he told about this. By the time they had settled down, he was more relaxed than he'd been in weeks.

"Thanks, Ez, I needed that."

Ezra wiped the cream from his face. "Since you now feel indebted to me, could you please address me by my given name. Mother named me Ezra, not Ez."

Vin looked at Ezra for several seconds with as blank a look as he could muster. Then he decided he'd had enough fun and they needed to get back to work. "So, Ezra, I was readin' some of them interviews and I discovered somethin' interestin'. A couple of them fellers mentioned that Whitehorse talked to them a few weeks after all the stuff started happenin' with drug busts and evidence, asked them some things about ole Marco. Two mentioned they thought he suspected Marco of bein' involved. After findin' the drugs in his truck, they just thought he's tryin' to point suspicions away from himself."

A small smile crept across Ezra's face. "But perhaps Marco heard about his partner's inquiries and decided to pin the events on him."

Vin sipped his coffee and then gave a nod. "That's what I'm thinkin'. A few weeks after they ran Whitehorse off, Marco traded in his job with the Denver PD for the local DEA office."

Ezra's eyebrows went up. "DEA? Isn't that fortuitous? Allow me to see if I can get more information about his tenure with DEA while you track down a phone number for the previous Officer Whitehorse."

Vin grinned and nodded. "Right after another one of them eclairs," he said as grabbed one and licked a blob of cream off the end. "Heaven on earth."

oOo

Chris arrived at Ezra's apartment at 6:30 to find Nathan and Josiah already there. Nathan was checking out the two injured agents while Josiah caught him up on the Marco saga. Chris set two large pizza boxes on the kitchen counter before joining the other men. "I've got supper covered," he said.

Ezra's eyes slowly narrowed as he took in the boxes. "Pizza? Really Mr. Larabee?"

Chris shrugged. "I needed something fast and easy so we could talk. I did spring for Luciano's though."

Ezra's scowl relaxed as one corner of his mouth turned up. "Bravo Mr. Larabee. There may be hope for you yet."

Nathan stood as Chris got plates out. "They're both looking good, Chris. Vin's knee is still swollen, but less than it was. No nausea or dizziness this afternoon, so that's good. Ezra's ready for desk duty, but not much else."

Chris nodded, adding pizza to the plates. "I'd rather he stayed here with Vin since Marco seems to be gunning for him. Plus, they can continue to research what Marco is up to." He picked up two plates and carried them to the coffee table with Nathan right behind him.

"Mr. Larabee, I typically dine at the table, since that what it's there for," said Ezra, frowning at the parade of food coming into his immaculate living room.

"We ate eclairs in here earlier," said Vin. "And we'll be careful."

Ezra continued to look at the plates of pizza anxiously. "Those were small and easily cleaned up and you needed to elevate your knee. Pizza sauce can be quite difficult to get out of fine upholstery such as this."

Chris hesitated, remembering how much it cost to get Ezra's suits cleaned and wondering how much worse it would be to get the furniture done. "Uh, maybe he's right. Let's move to the table."

Chris and Josiah moved the food to the table and got drinks while Nathan gave Ezra a hand up and helped Vin with his crutches. Five minutes later, they were all seated around the fancy dining room table scarfing down pizza. Once they were past the "starved" stage and had slowed down, Chris looked at Vin and Ezra. "Okay, did you guys find anything out today?"

The two men glanced at each other, breaking out into huge grins. "I believe we have uncovered the proverbial motherload," said Ezra. He continued to explain how an anonymous tip had led to an investigation on Marco's former partner, ending with one ruined reputation. After relating Whitehorse's remarks to other agents, he turned the floor over to Vin.

"I managed to track Whitehorse down and got him to talk to us just a bit before ya'll got here," said Vin. "Whitehorse said just a few months after Marco started ridin' with him, all the information on a drug runner named Ace either dried up or proved to be wrong. They'd get a tip about a drug exchange and arrive to find either no one there or no drugs. Whitehorse started asking questions about a possible leak and the next thing you know, Marco starts gettin' tips about other drug runners that turn out to yield arrests."

"So, it never enters anyone's mind that brother Marco might be dirty because he's stacking up drug arrests," said Josiah with an ah ha expression.

"Right. Whitehorse said that's when he started to suspect Marco. The timing of everything combined with the guy's arrogant smirk and condescending tone was like a huge red flag to the guy. Once he started diggin' around and askin' questions, Marco began making cryptic, almost threatening remarks," said Vin.

"For example, he once told Mr. Whitehorse that people who stuck their nose in affairs that were not their own often got that nose whacked off," said Ezra with a distasteful frown. "His words, not mine."

Chris chuckled. "Yeah, I kind of figured. Can't imagine you ever purposely describing something as being whacked off."

"Why, thank you, Mr. Larabee," Ezra drawled before dabbing the corner of his mouth with a napkin.

"Anyway," Vin continued, "the next thing he knows, he's out mowin' the yard on his day off when Gleason and two cars of officers show up to serve a search warrant on his house and cars lookin' for drugs. They don't find anythin' in the house, which he attributes to the fact that someone had been home most of that week and they had this big German Shepherd Dog. But they find a big bag of meth in his truck out in the driveway."

"Did the dog not let them know someone was out there?" asked Chris, frowning in doubt.

Vin snorted and exchanged a look with an amused Ezra. "Accordin' to Whitehorse, the dog alerts on everythin'. He wakes them up two or three times every night wantin' to go out and bark at somethin'. If someone farts two counties over, he's barkin' at it."

Ezra winced at the remark, but nodded. "He and his wife had discussed previous to this that if the dog ever barked because miscreants were up to no good on their premises, they would probably never know it because the creature barks at anything that moves. His only use as a guard dog is if his loud barking scares someone into fleeing."

"Which is probably why the drugs weren't hidden very well," said Vin. "They were basically in the passenger floorboard half under the seat. It almost looked like someone had panicked and thrown them down. Whoever it was took time to wipe all prints from the bag and the passenger door."

"Wait," said Chris. "There were no fingerprints on the bag or the truck?"

"Not on the passenger side of the truck. Whitehorse's were on the driver side but the other side was clean."

"That detail along with the officer's clean record up to that date and the fact that several witnesses confirmed that he did not lock his truck when it was in his driveway provided enough doubt that they did not charge the man," said Ezra.

"He was encouraged to resign by the brass and his fellow officers apparently didn't support him as we would've, so he quit shortly after that," said Vin. "One of the dispatchers that wasn't all that impressed with ole Marco told him that Marco had been spreadin' rumors of him possibly being dirty for weeks, apparently layin' the groundwork for getting' rid of him if it came to that. So he resigned."

Chris shook his head, the similarities painting a picture he could not ignore. While Vin had brothers to defend him, Whitehorse apparently had not been so blessed. "What happened to him?"

"In the grand scheme of things, Marco actually did him a favor. It makes me wish I could accost the vile interloper and point that out," said Ezra with a snide grin.

Vin nodded. "He moved his family to Florida. Turns out his brother-in-law has a security company there and had been after him for years to be part of it. He's now the co-owner and head trainer of Coastal Security Company and makin' a butt-ton of money. Said his blood pressure is down and the money is way up. He's happy as a dead pig in the sunshine."

Chris chuckled at the comparison and at Ezra's reaction to it. How those two managed to be such good friends would always baffle him. "Well it's nice that things worked out for him, but I'll still be happy to see Marco go down for putting him and us through hell. What else did you get?"

"Shortly after his success in ridding himself of Officer Whitehorse, he managed to move to the DEA. His success in interrupting the drug flow of everyone but Ace apparently attracted the attention of the agency," said Ezra.

Vin finished his last slice of pizza and mangled a napkin while wiping sauce from his hands. He wadded the offending paper up and dropped it on his plate. "Oddly enough his trend of cleanin' out drug runners that weren't this Ace guy continued. His reviews went from practically building a temple in his honor at the beginning to vague questions of his reliability after about three years. We found a buried report from one guy he worked with a few times toward the end that didn't actually accuse him of anythin', but questioned why Marco was so successful with everyone except Ace."

"Were you able to find this agent to get his opinion of what was going on?" asked Nathan.

Once again, the two younger agents shared a look. Ezra sighed. "The agent in question was killed during a raid against Ace shortly after the report was filed. An anonymous tip of a big buy involving Ace turned out to be an ambush. Agent McMasters was killed along with three other agents. Marco was late to the bust due to a well-timed flat tire and so was uninjured. None of the perpetrators were captured, although there was evidence that one or two were injured. The two agents that survived were both severely injured."

"I did track one of them down," said Vin. "Brad Carmack is retired on a disability check. He was shot three times and one of them resulted in nerve damage to his right arm. He was real defensive at first, but once I heard enough to realize he wasn't a fan, I told him we were lookin' at some irregularities in his work. He opened up a little and admitted that several of them were suspicious of Marco at the time of the raid. They was startin' to put two and two together and it wasn't addin' up to four."

Ezra nodded. "He also told a similar story of Marco taking credit for the work of others. During one raid, a civilian was injured. Marco was much closer and in a safer position to extract the victim, so the agent told Marco he would provide cover while he retrieved the injured man. Marco refused to leave cover, so the agent had to go after the man himself. Fortunately, their back-up arrived from the opposite side of the criminal element, drawing their fire long enough for him to get the man to safety. When he turned in his report, he was instructed to rewrite it or face an investigation. Marco had turned in his report earlier and he had exchanged their actions, making Agent Collins look like a fool. Fortunately, he had true friends who believed his version of events."

Nathan's mouth hung open in an expression of horror. "Did he really have to write up a report saying Marco rescued the guy while he hid out to save himself?"

Chris could see the muscles in Vin's jaw working as they clamped down in anger. "He said the brass was impressed with how fruitful Marco's contact tips were proving to be. His boss told him to rewrite the report where it did not contradict Marco's or risk losing his job. He rewrote the report keeping things as vague as possible. He didn't credit Marco with saving the civilian, but he didn't take credit for it either. He just indicated the man was pulled behind cover when reinforcements distracted the shooters. The brass accepted it."

"They were probably worried he'd go public with his version of events and the fact that they had threatened him to get him to agree with Marco instead of investigating the matter. No matter who is telling the truth, it would have been bad PR for the DEA," said Josiah.

"Mr. Carmack stated that the only reason he remained in their employment was because the field agents he worked with were good, reliable agents. Everyone but Mr. Valdez that is," said Ezra.

"So, whatever happened to Ace?" asked Chris.

"Adrik Volkov," said Ezra.

Chris nodded. "I remember when he moved his gang into that side of Denver and got rid of all the competition. I'm guessing Ace was competition."

"Yes," said Ezra. "Shortly after the failed raid slash ambush, Ace was killed by the Volkov family and our Mr. Valdez went to work for the FBI."

"What are we talking about here?" asked Nathan. "Are we saying Marco was working for Ace, letting him know about impending raids so he could not get caught?"

Vin nodded. "And it looks like Ace was helping provide him with info on his competition so they could take them down or at least disrupt their services."

"Quite the arrangement," said Josiah. "Keeps the competition down for Ace and makes Marco look like some kind of super agent. That not only allows Marco to get promotions and praise from his bosses, but it also keeps the heat off him when they start looking for a leak."

"At least until the people working with him in the field start to figure things out," said Chris.

"Then he finds a way to eliminate them. Guess I should be thankful he didn't have me killed," said Vin.

Chris shuddered, realizing the danger Vin could be in. "So why does he want your position so badly?"

"We are still working on that aspect. We had just begun investigating his time in the FBI when you arrived with sustenance, such as it was," said Ezra.

Josiah chuckled. "I noticed you managed to eat three slices so it must not have been too bad."

"I was hungry."

Nathan stood and began gathering up the plates. "Well, you guys need to get your head out of the computer and rest tonight. You can research some more tomorrow. Vin, you need to keep that knee elevated when you can."

"I will." Vin frowned a moment and then looked up at Chris as he gathered up glasses. "You don't think Marco'd plant more stuff in my apartment, do you? There's no one there to cover for me with me over here."

Chris froze and looked at Josiah. "I don't know, I hadn't thought of that."

Josiah scratched his head a moment. "We should swing by and check on it."

"Mr. Larabee, do you have access to a small surveillance camera? Perhaps you could place one in Mr. Tanner's apartment facing the door to record anyone who breaks in."

Chris nodded. "That's a good idea, Ezra. If they come, they'll be wanting to plant something and get out quickly. They won't be searching the place. As long as the camera isn't out in plain sight, it should be safe." He looked over at Josiah. "We can swing by the office and grab one out of surveillance van. As long as we don't get called out, JD isn't likely to notice it missing."

"Do either of you know how to set it up?" asked Ezra.

Chris scowled, glancing at Josiah who shook his head. "How hard can it be?"

"Perhaps I should accompany you," suggested Ezra.

"Up three flights of stairs?" asked Nathan.

Ezra looked down at his leg and groaned. "Perhaps not."

Chris sighed, running one hand through his hair. "Okay, we'll call from the van so you can help us pick out the simplest one to use and then again from the apartment so you can help us get it set up."

"Ya know, it'd be a whole lot easier to just read JD in on all of this stuff," said Vin. "We may not have enough evidence to take Marco to court yet, but we've got enough to convince Buck and JD that this ain't just me bein' ornery cause of Marco takin' my place on the team."

"Yeah, but we can't afford for them to change the way they treat Marco. If they go from buddy, buddy to the silent treatment or suddenly act awkward around him, he'll take off," said Chris.

The sound of Ezra's grandfather clock ticking seemed loud in the silence that followed. Chris wasn't sure what to do. It would definitely be easier to have JD set up the camera at Vin's, but he just couldn't see Buck or JD being that good of an actor.

"Ya ain't gonna know unless you try, cowboy," said Vin, staring at Chris. "I think if you explain everythin' going on and how we need to play this, they can do it. They'd have tonight to get themselves into the right frame of mind."

Chris shifted his gaze to each of the men in the room. All gave a tiny nod. Chris still didn't know if this was the best course of action, but it seemed to be what they needed to do. "All right. I'll go by Buck and JD's place and bring them up to speed, then get JD to set up a camera at Vin's place after we search it. I hope this works."

"Need any help?" asked Josiah.

Chris ran a hand through his hair again. "No, I'll take care of it."

Josiah nodded. "I'll take care of the dishes and getting the boys settled if you want to head that way."

"Hey," Vin said, looking insulted. "We're old enough to be settlin' ourselves."

Josiah raised his eyebrows. "You old enough to do your own dishes?"

Vin grinned. "Nah, you can take care of the dishes."

Chris snorted. "Good luck Josiah. You'll probably need it. I'll talk to you boys tomorrow." He checked his pocket to be sure he still had Vin's key as he walked out the door. Just before he closed the door, he heard Vin asking if anyone brought dessert.