Free Warrior in the Shadows by Marcus Wynne

joined Charley in the diner before.
    "So, Kativa?" Mara said after Charley drained two cups of coffee.
    Charley poured the remains of his third cup into a foam to-go cup. "Yeah," he said. "Let's meet your friend Kativa."

1.8
    Lieutenant Simon Oberstar was a big florid Norwegian who supervised the Special Investigations Unit. He'd been Bobby Lee's rabbi throughout his career, hovering over him all the way from patrolman to detective sergeant. Obi's wife had died from cancer five years ago, leaving Oberstar with two teenagers a year apart in private schools. They were both in college now, and the tuition was stretching Oberstar to the brink, Bobby Lee knew. They were smart kids, but lots of smart kids went to St. Olaf's in Northfield and there weren't enough scholarships to go around. Two mortgages and living as frugally as a lonely widower could was how Oberstar made it work. Maxine loved the old man who'd been a fixture in their life from day one with the PD, and she fixed him the Norwegian treats he loved and she loathed, just to see him happy when he came over, which was often.
    "What you got on this Simmons thing?" Oberstar said. "What's your case file looking like? Is it thick with all kinds of leads you've run down, or skinny with all kinds of nothing?"
    "I just got the autopsy back, Obi-Wan," Bobby Lee said. "The doer knew what he was doing… and we got a good make on the knife if we find it."
    "How's that?"
    "Knife was serrated halfway down, sharp as hell. Looks like this," Bobby Lee said. He reached into his front pocket and pulled out the knife Charley had given him for his birthday. He flicked it open one-handed and handed it to Oberstar.
    "See?" he said.
    "Jesus, Joseph, and Mary," Oberstar said. He weighed the knife in his hand, took a swipe at the air. "This is legal?"
    "Oh, yeah," Bobby Lee said. He took the knife back and studied it. The chisel-pointed blade folded into a titanium handle, an elegantly designed fighting knife built for one purpose only and that was cutting up humans in a fight. He'd met the maker, Ernest Emerson, at a knife-fighting seminar sponsored by Charley's friend Rick Faye, who taught martial arts in town and was an adviser to both the FBI SWAT team and the Minneapolis Emergency Response Unit. Both Emerson and Faye were nice guys, easygoing and laid-back till you saw them in action with a knife, stick, or their bare hands. It made Bobby Lee glad they were on the side of the good guys, and taught him a whole new respect for knives. He thumbed the blade shut and slid it back into his pocket.
    "Probably a blade just like that. Somebody who knew how to use it, too. We're looking into it."
    "What about motive? Who benefits?" Oberstar said in his favorite pedantic voice. He scratched his nose and studied his fingernail as though looking for skin scrapings.
    "Hauser and Thomas are over at his office, interviewing coworkers and we got a warrant for his office files. The bank is pretty cooperative, but they're hinky about his files. He was their lead officer on a whole slew of international loans and venture capital deals… lots of stuff in Asia, Australia, South America."
    "Was he working on any big deals?"
    "Nothing out of the ordinary, according to Hauser's first pass. But we're looking into it."
    "Fucking First Bank. Those sons of bitches got me by the balls with their mortgage."
    "Me too," Bobby Lee said.
    "Old Rollie Wheeler, used to be a mortgage officer there… used to be a cop, got shot back in the seventies in that big shootout down in Bloomington with the narcos. Said he'd had enough and got out. Took one in the lung and rode that disability all the way through school and then to First Bank. When Angie was still alive, old Rollie, he took care of us. He's gone now, these fuckers no w…"
    "Yeah, I know," Bobby Lee said, cutting into the tirade. "Screw them all if they can't take a joke. We'll send the Cannibal Killer after them."
    "Let me know what happens, Bobby," Oberstar said.