Free Criminal Enterprise by Owen Laukkanen

rusted hulks in the parking lot. Then Tricia turned to him again. “You ever think of expanding?”
    Tomlin frowned. “What do you mean?”
    Her eyes were wide and excited. “You could do a lot better with a couple more people,” she said. “If you had enough guns, I mean.”
    Expansion. She was talking about a crew. A professional gang, the kind the FBI couldn’t catch. He realized he’d been waiting for this kind of chance. “I have enough guns,” he told her.
    She cocked her eye at him. “Big guns?”
    “Big enough.”
    “So okay.” She twisted in her seat to face him. “What if we made a little expansion?”
    Tomlin frowned. “We?”
    “You and me,” she said. “If you’re into it, I know a guy.”
    Tomlin sat back in his seat and said nothing. They’d make more money, enough to take care of Becca and the girls for a while. Enough to buy time to get his little business on its feet. Hell, he already had the firepower.
    He pretended to think about it. The way Tricia was looking at him, though, he knew he couldn’t say no.

21
    W INDERMERE STOOD IN Agent Harris’s office with Bob Doughty beside her, Doughty glaring at her like she’d just killed his dog. Harris leveled his gaze at her. “Agent Windermere,” he said. “Agent Doughty came to me with a complaint about your behavior. What’s the story?”
    Windermere held the SAC’s gaze. “Sir, all respect to Agent Doughty, but I have a lead on our Eat Street bank robbery. I’d like to check it out before it goes cold.”
    Harris studied her face. He was a few years older than Doughty but looked younger. Trim and well dressed, handsome in an aging college athlete kind of way. He was a fair boss, Windermere figured. She got along with him most of the time.
    Now, though, he was looking at her like the principal looks at a problem student. “Agent Doughty is senior agent in this investigation,” he said.
    Windermere nodded. “Yes, sir.”
    “And he asked you to report to CID this morning for briefing. You drove to Saint Paul instead.”
    Windermere could feel Doughty’s immense self-regard like a heat lamp. “I was halfway to Saint Paul already. As I communicated to Agent Doughty on the phone, I had a viable lead that I felt warranted investigation.”
    “So you disregarded his instructions.”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “You’ve been here two years now, Agent Windermere, but you still act like an outsider.”
    I could be at Carter Tomlin’s house now,
Windermere thought. She swallowed her frustration. “Yes, sir.”
    “You keep to yourself. You haven’t made any friends. You charge into investigations without regard for protocol or your other team members. You solved one high-profile case, and that’s great, but this is a team game, Agent Windermere. You’re still flying solo.”
    God damn it.
“Yes, sir.”
    Harris stared at her for a long time. “What did you find?” he said finally.
    Windermere blinked. “Pardon?”
    “In Saint Paul, Agent Windermere. What did you find?”
    Windermere glanced at Doughty. “I’m pretty sure our Eat Street ringleader has pulled solo jobs in the past,” she told Harris. “I have a bunch of bank jobs around Minneapolis that match his MO.”
    “An earlier MO,” said Doughty. “There’s nothing in any of those cases about a team storming a bank with assault rifles and shotguns.”
    “No.” Windermere nodded. “This is the first. I think he’s getting braver—”
    “Or he’s a whole different person and your robberies aren’t related.”
    Windermere gritted her teeth and focused on Harris. “Sir, I have enough information to make a link between the Eat Street robbery and these earlier scores, including a heist in a Bank of America branch in Midway last November. My suspect wrote his demand note on a receipt from the Saint Paul E-Z Park, and I’ve traced that receipt back to a man named Carter Tomlin.”
    Harris glanced at Doughty. Doughty took the cue. “I have credible information of my