Page 13 of The Right to Remain

“Ha ha. You know I can’t tell you.”

Andie was an undercover agent. She was already in undercover mode.

“When are you coming back?”

She folded a cotton sweater and put it in the bag. “You know I can’t tell you that either. But don’t complain. When I come back, I’ll be a hot blonde you barely recognize, and lucky you gets to have wild sex with another woman.”

“I’m pretty happy with my hot brunette wife.”

“You’re sweet.” She gave him a quick kiss, then continued packing.

Jack completely understood that an FBI agent couldn’t talk about an undercover assignment. That was half the reason they’d lived the first nine years of marriage under “the Rule”: Andie didn’t talk to Jack about her active investigations, and Jack didn’t talk to Andie about his active cases. Jack’s fear was that he might say something to land his clientin jail; Andie’s fear was that she might slip and reveal an FBI secret to one of Miami’s top criminal defense lawyers. They’d dropped the Rule on the advice of their marriage counselor. “It’s not healthy for two career-oriented people to muzzle themselves in that way,” their counselor had advised, adding rather ominously, “I honestly don’t know how you two have managed to stay together this long.” Sometimes, however, it seemed that only Jack had dropped the Rule. But a deal was a deal, and he would keep up his end of it.

“I’m taking a new criminal case.”

“Oh? What’s this one about?”

“A grand jury is looking into the suicide of Owen Pollard.”

She froze. “He was FBI, retired.”

“Yes. I hope you don’t have a problem with that.”

“I didn’t know Pollard personally. He was the liaison for Violent Gang Safe Streets Task Force and the Transnational Anti-Gang Task Forces, which means he was hardly ever in Miami. There are almost two hundred local law enforcement agencies on those task forces, so he was constantly traveling.”

“Well, I’m glad he wasn’t a friend of yours.”

“Frankly, I don’t think he had any friends left in the bureau.”

“What makes you say that?”

“The task forces he coordinated confiscated thousands of firearms from gangs all over the country. Most of those guns had no lawful owner, so they ended up destroyed. From what I heard, Pollard steered the gun destruction business to one company, and then he retired early from the bureau and became part owner of the same company. If that wasn’t bad enough, his business partner was a left-wing lunatic who spits in the eye of law enforcement every chance he gets. Not to be callous, but most agents in the Miami field office weren’t shocked to hear Pollard killed himself.”

“If he killed himself,” said Jack.

“Is there evidence his death wasn’t suicide?”

“The 911 call is odd,” said Jack, and he told her about it.

“Hmm,” said Andie, and she zipped up her suitcase. “Where was the body found?”

“In the kitchen, according to the media reports I’ve seen.”

“So, Pollard calls 911, says he’s been shot, and then goes into the kitchen and shoots himself with a shotgun.”

“Weird, right?”

“Maybe he was trying to make it look like his wife did it.”

“What?”

“You know, kind of like the movieGone Girl. One spouse hates the other so much that they create this elaborate plan to make it look like the husband—or in this case the wife—killed them. Except that Mr. Pollard’s version of the setup only works once.”

She seemed serious but then smiled, and Jack realized she was joking. Cop humor. Jack didn’t always get it.

“Good one,” said Jack.

“Sorry. I shouldn’t joke like that. But the way Pollard monetized his position on those task forces was scummy, even if it wasn’t illegal.”