Free Criminal Enterprise by Owen Laukkanen Page A

own,” he said. “My contacts through Minneapolis PD tell me these guys are Eat Street local.”
    Harris nodded. “You have names?”
    “Working on it.”
    Harris looked at Windermere again. “Carter Tomlin. Who is he?”
    I could be finding that out right now,
Windermere thought. “I was going to check him out before Doughty called me in. The guy lives in Saint Paul, has a Summit Avenue address.”
    Doughty laughed. “Summit Avenue. So he’s got a million-dollar home and he’s out robbing banks.”
    “Could be a credit card issue,” Windermere told Harris. “Or our suspect got his hands on the receipt somehow. I thought I should talk to Tomlin, see if he could tell us anything.”
    “Agent Hill already worked the Midway case,” said Doughty. “She didn’t find much. These guys are lowlifes from the south. We knock on enough doors and we’ll find them.”
    “You keep knocking on doors,” said Windermere. “See where it gets you. I have six previous robberies to dig through. And I have Tomlin.”
    “You have a tattered receipt, Carla. It’s not exactly the smoking gun.”
    “Enough.”
Harris waited until Windermere and Doughty turned to face him. “You guys are partners,” he said, his features drawn tight. “I expect a certain degree of professionalism.”
    Doughty nodded. “Yes, sir.”
    Windermere said nothing.
    “Agent Doughty, you’re running this case,” Harris continued. “If you’re sold on the southern angle, you keep working it. Ride those city cops and keep knocking on doors. Agent Windermere, I expect you to work with Agent Doughty, not against him.”
    Windermere stared at him. “And Carter Tomlin?”
    “Tomlin’s your baby,” said Harris. “If you think you’ve got something, you follow it up on your own. But you make damn sure you respect Agent Doughty’s seniority. If he asks you for help, his request takes priority. Understood?”
    Windermere could see the end in sight. “Yes, sir,” she said.
    Harris nodded. “Dismissed.”

22
    O NE DAY AFTER meeting with Ernie Saint Louis in the federal pen in Waseca, Kirk Stevens packed up his Cherokee, kissed his wife good-bye, and drove the three hundred miles north to International Falls on the Canadian border. He checked himself into an empty motel alongside Route 53, and then drove to the town courthouse, where he found a young sheriff’s deputy waiting.
    The deputy’s name was Waters, and he shivered as he climbed out of his vehicle, a county Chevy Suburban with two snowmobiles strapped to the trailer behind. He pulled his coat tight around him and looked sideways at Stevens. “Would be a lot easier if you wanted to wait for the thaw.”
    Stevens surveyed the parking lot. It was cold, barely ten degrees, and the wind seemed to cut right through his heavy goose-down parka. The town was bleak, grim, and gray, and Stevens knew the woods would be worse. In a couple months, though, the weather would warm and the snow would melt away, making the Thunderbird a hell of a lot easier to find.
    Still, Stevens thought, there would be black flies.
    In his head, he pictured Sylvia Danzer’s photograph. The wry smile. He knew he didn’t want to wait a couple of months to see if Saint Louis’s sugar-high lead panned out. He cinched his coat tighter and looked at Waters. “We do this quick enough, we get back before the Timberwolves tip off.”
    Waters looked at him for a beat. Then he shrugged and turned back to the Suburban. “Your call.”
    —
    W ATERS DROVE WEST out of town on Route 71, running parallel to the Rainy River and the Canadian border. Stevens rode shotgun and stared down at the crude map Saint Louis had drawn, then out into the desolate bush. He looked over at Waters. “You get many people trying to hop the border, this part of the world?”
    Waters glanced at him and shrugged. “Who knows?” he said. “Not like we can stop them when the river freezes over.”
    Stevens nodded. “Sure.”
    “Don’t know where