Free Death Deserved (A Detective Jackson Mystery) by L.J. Sellers Page B

needed caffeine.
    Evans was already in the room, seated next to the whiteboard. Four tall cups of coffee sat in front of her on the table. She picked up one and handed it to him. “Here’s yours.” That meant black with two shots of espresso.
    “Thanks. You’re a lifesaver.” She’d stopped buying him coffee for a while when she’d been dating an Internal Affairs detective. Then she had broken up with Ben and joined the SWAT unit around the same time. If she had a new boyfriend, she wasn’t talking about him.
    Schak came in, spotted the coffee, and moaned in pleasure. “Gee, Evans, now I’m sorry I left your phone number on the bathroom wall.”
    She laughed. “I’m not. You know I love dating cops.” She turned back to Jackson. “Did you have any luck tracking down our mysterious undercover agent?”
    He’d been looking at a rental house instead. And that was okay. “No. But I do have two suspects in custody to question.”
    Quince sauntered in, and Jackson realized he hadn’t seen him at the farmhouse crime scene. But they’d just missed each other, since they’d had a lot of territory to cover. “Let’s get started,” Jackson said. “We have two interrogations waiting, and with any luck, we’ll have a third soon. A confession from one of them would be excellent.”
    “I agree.” Victor Slonecker, the district attorney, walked into the room. Dressed in his classic pin-striped suit, he looked lean and hungry, with prominent cheekbones and dark eyes. Jackson always notified him of their first post-crime meeting, but the DA usually waited to participate until they had a solid suspect. This time, they had two. Or three, if you counted Shanna McCoy’s boyfriend, who was still at large.
    Had he ordered enough food for everyone? Too late to worry about it. “Evans, will you take the board and go first? I think our guest would like to hear about the second victim.” He never knew how to refer to the DA. His team all called each other by last names, but it didn’t seem right for the prosecutor.
    “I’m there.” Evans stood and listed two names at the top of the wide whiteboard: Josh Stalling, Kayla Benson. After Benson’s name, she wrote Alias / Undercover agent?
    “Explain again why you think she’s a fed.” The other detectives hadn’t been updated at all, and his conversation with her had been brief.
    “I went to her apartment, which was practically empty. Except for a laptop and a handgun under the mattress, both of which later disappeared. Also, her ID and background are superficial.” Evans gave a grim half smile. “Rather than answer my questions, the victim left the hospital, still in critical condition, in a van driven by an older man. I think he was her extraction team.”
    “No shit?” Schak was typically hard to surprise.
    Jackson had worked with an undercover FBI agent once to catch an eco-terrorist, but he had never actually met her. They were elusive, secretive operators.
    “I called the local FBI field office,” Evans added. “Agent River said Kayla Benson isn’t working with them, but that she would call the main bureau and get back to me.”
    “I still can’t believe the DEA would plant a UC operator here without notifying us!” Slonecker looked and sounded annoyed.
    Jackson had heard rumors that the DA was planning to run for state attorney general. So Slonecker was sensitive to anything that could backfire politically.
    “The DEA makes more sense anyway.” Evans made a note on the board, then turned back to the group. “They must think Stalling is selling more than pot. Did you guys find any illegal narcotics in the house?”
    Jackson looked at Schak and Quince, who’d done most of the search.
    Schak shook his head. “Lots of stolen property, but no drugs.”
    “Until we hear from the DEA about who might have wanted their agent—and her target—dead, we’ll focus on the suspects we have.” Jackson glanced at Evans. “Let’s make a list, starting with