My Heart’s Home by Kris Michaels

Chapter 3

Three months later:

Dale Cockrill entered the small office and dropped another folder on Cam's desk before he sat down. Cam leaned back and eyed the folder. Starting at the bottom of the ladder as an investigator for the Hope City District Attorney's office was about as glamorous as scraping chewed gum off the bottom of the stadium seats for the Hope City Marauders.He reached over and pulled the file closer but didn't open it. He had one last report to finish before he could turn to this new case.

"You know, you're making all the other recruits look like slackers."

He flicked a glance in Dale's direction. "How so?"

"How many of your cases have you closed since you were hired?" Dale signed into his computer as he talked.

"All of them." Cam cracked his neck and felt his hair rub on the back of his collar. He needed to make time to get a haircut. Twenty-four years of haircuts above the ears, tapered on the sides and off the collar, was a damn hard habit to break. The facial hair? Not the same problem. He was sporting a way out of regs mustache and goatee. It was his little rebellion, and he liked it.

"Dude, the next highest close rate is Murphey, and he's at sixty-three percent." Dale opened his desk drawer and pulled out a candy bar. "Want one?"

Cam shook his head. Dale had the metabolism of a thirteen-year-old. On the other hand, Cam’s forty-four-year-old body required a stop at the gym or a run when he went home.

"You're going to make us mid-level investigators all edgy if you don't slow down, my man." Dale chuckled. "Langston was going to make a pool on when you get promoted, but everyone knows you'll be the first one, so you screwed that up."

Cam barked out a laugh. "Damn. Sorry to mess up your office pool which, by the way, is against policy."

"It's only illegal if you get caught." Dale waggled his eyebrows at Cam. "Besides, the DA gets into the Super Bowl pool every year.”

Cam shook his head. "Still doesn't make it right."

"Okay, Mister-By-The-Numbers, quit being a spoilsport." Dale leaned back in his chair. "Did you memorize that policy book or something? Most people don't even read it."

He had read it so many times he could almost recite the words. "Yeah, I did read it. Tends to help keep a person's butt out of the fire if you know what I mean."

Dale twisted and looked at his own ass. "Nah, see, no flames. It's all good."

Cam tossed a crumpled-up piece of paper at his friend and settled back into his report. Every new investigator was paired with an experienced person to show them the ropes and answer newb questions. Dale had shown him what he needed to know to access systems, get supplies, and manage paperwork, and that's when he'd put his head down and learned everything he needed to know, and he’d learned it fast. He was on probation for the first six months, and he'd be damned if anyone would have reason to keep his permanent position from him. He typed the last bullet point into his report and reviewed it before he digitally signed it and hit send.

"I'm out of here. See you tomorrow." Dale closed down his computer and tapped the folder beside Cam. "Hope that isn't another interview follow-up." Dale snorted as he stood. "I'm so glad those days are over for me."

Cam chuckled. "We all have to do our time in the trenches." He didn't mind the run-downs. Interviewee A said X, and Interviewee B countered the fact. Follow details and leads to the end. This wasn’t rocket science or even a complex investigation that required immediacy or him to beat the bushes as a city detective would. These cases were easy tasks to complete, but it took getting out of the office and talking to people—much to Dale's chagrin. The man would stay at his desk all day every day if he had his preference. Cam preferred the field. It was where he felt alive.

"I guess. I'm working with Claypool tomorrow; we're going to be out of the office. If you need me, you have my number."

Cam nodded. "Enjoy the evening and say hi to Melissa for me." Dale had invited him over the first week he'd been hired. The guy had a great wife and two kids that adored him.

"Will do. Oh, hey, we have a big Thanksgiving thing. We do it every year and invite all the singles. Melissa is in heaven cooking for like a month beforehand. So, make sure you put it on your calendar, or she's going to be upset at me."

"Thanks, I'll do that. Get out of here and go see your family."

"Have a good night, Cam." Dale pulled his suit jacket off the back of his chair and left the office.

Cam glanced at the clock. He still had fifteen minutes before it was time to punch out for the day. He opened the interoffice envelope and retrieved the folder. Dropping the envelope in the tray that the mail office would pick up and reuse, he opened the dark brown folder. Cam read the words and then reread them. A quick glance at the clock sent him scurrying to grab his jacket. Race-walking down the almost empty hallway, he took the stairs and launched into a full-out sprint up the three flights he needed to climb.

He opened the door and made his way to the executive conference room. There were three men he didn't recognize sitting at the table. He nodded and sat down at an empty seat. Two minutes later, the Senior Investigator and two other men entered the room.

"Gentlemen, I'm Senior Investigator Zacharia Laghari, Hope City DA's office. This is Agent Thomas Kettle, FBI, and Captain Ryker Terrell, Hope City JDET. You've been called to this office because we have a problem, and you're going to help us fix it."

Cam glanced at the other men. One he pegged as an FBI agent; the other men were tough-looking, wearing jeans and t-shirts. All three were men he'd want as a backup.

"Some of you may know that Hope City is prosecuting Julien Faber." Cam's eyes snapped toward the other men standing with Laghari. Oh hell. That case had been in the nightly news for weeks. The anchor on Channel Two was doing a series of reports on a massive Ponzi scheme that had unraveled, leaving the man exposed. Faber, as of six months ago, was untouchable, or so he thought. One whistleblower in his corporation, no one knew who, had crashed the billionaire's world around his ears. The war room of lawyers that swallowed the man when he moved from car to courtroom was impressive.

Cam glanced at the other men who shifted uncomfortably in their seats and wondered why in the hell he was in the room.

"Our star witness, Delvin Mitchell, is Faber's off-the-books accountant and right-hand man. We were able to flip Mitchell, and he'd agreed to testify against Faber. Unfortunately, his wife and mother-in-law disappeared last week, and Mitchell ghosted. We have one link to Mitchell. A telephone message that our forensics team was able to snatch before the phone went black."

Cam cocked his head. "What was the message?"

All three men snapped their heads in his direction. Laghari lifted an eyebrow. "1 02 45 12 18 and the second is 02 02 00 01 18."

Cam leaned forward and glanced at the other men around the table. "If he works for Faber, and if Faber is as shadowy as the news reports claim, Mitchell would have reason to ghost when his family went missing. Faber could have his family. Whatever was said was probably a message that only Mitchell would understand."

Terrell, the massive man in the middle if he remembered correctly, crossed his arms, but the FBI agent, Kettle, spoke. "We've been working the numbers. They aren't longitude or latitude. It could be time and date, but it gives us no location, and yes, we believe it was a coded message for Mitchell."

"And you need us to find him?" The man across from him leaned forward.

Terrell nodded. "We've had three reports from our assets on the streets that Mitchell is blending in with the homeless, and he's not sitting still. He's been spotted at all four of the major homeless locations around the city."

"Verifiable?" one of the other men at the table asked.

"To a degree. Our JDET team is showing the photo to snitches they know will keep their mouths shut. As far as we can tell, he's off the grid, and if he's infiltrated the homeless population, he's not going to surface for the court date. We have his computer and the books, but he's the only one that can decipher the information. He agreed to testify in exchange for keeping him and his family safe. He held the key to understanding the documentation to ensure that would happen." Terrell's words dissipated into silence.

Cam asked, "Shouldn't the Marshals be tracking him?" If the man was in protective custody…

"He and his family weren't in federal custody yet. There were issues with the request and paperwork." Terrell's pissed-off glare as he spoke made his resting bitch face look pleasant. Damn, Cam would hate to have that man pissed at him.

"Which is another thing we are looking into, but it has nothing to do with why we've called you men here tonight. We needed new faces, faces that people won’t recognize as cops, and we needed those faces to be the smartest we had, who have no attachments, and could disappear for several months."

"Undercover with the homeless population," Cam stated.

"Exactly. If you want out, there's the door. If you stay, you're in until we find Mitchell or the judge dismisses the charges. We have a continuance until January third, which is a gift. So, you'll be undercover starting tomorrow and maybe over the holidays. We need to find Mitchell, gentlemen. You are only one arm of a multi-prong operation but essential."

Agent Kettle's bomb didn't seem to faze the men around him. He had no other plans, and no one would miss him, so hell yeah, he'd take the assignment.

"I'm in," Cam spoke first, and the three others chimed in after him.

"Good. Go home, take care of whatever business you need to address, and then meet me at the construction site at Fifth and Dawson. Go straight to the burnt-out trailer on the edge of the building site. That will be our rally point. Eight tomorrow morning. Don't be late, and wear something warm. Layers are best—and nothing new. You're newly homeless, and some good clothes are okay. A lot of new clothes will get you rolled." Terrell glanced at the other men. No one spoke. "That's it then. Freeland, Investigator Laghari will brief you. You three, with us." The other men lifted and walked out of the conference room.

Laghari sat down and leveled his stare at Cam. "Questions?"

"Why me? There were six of us hired at the same time."

"None who have your qualifications. Have you been undercover?"

Cam nodded. "Counterintelligence. I worked surveillance in numerous cases. Beyond that, I can't say much." It was classified. He wouldn't say anything.

Laghari nodded and made a circle on the top of the oak conference room table with his finger. "Mitchell is the crux of our prosecution. Without him, Faber walks. We need the man."

"What about his family?"

"The FBI is working that issue. Their jurisdiction."

"Kidnapping?"

"Unknown, which is why we ceded jurisdiction."

Cam nodded. "So, identify and detain?"

Laghari leaned forward. "Yes. Identify and figure out who he is, keep an eye on him if you can’t make the apprehension safely. I can't help thinking there is something else going on here. The way his family vanished and how he slipped away was too smooth, too practiced. There is something we're missing. I'm trusting you to be my eyes and ears out there. Like the others, we'll apprehend and bring the guy in as soon as they find him. I've made sure you'll be assigned the Cottages. It sucks. You'll have to be homeless, adapt, and live among them as one of them. Of course, you can walk out and buy a hamburger if you're hungry. They can't, and they'll see you for what you are, an imposter."

"The Cottages?"

"Cardboard Cottages built under an overpass. It's a full-on community of homeless people. The Cottages are the closest to midtown. The others are in districts I don't think Mitchell would migrate to if he was still working for Faber."

"Why's that?"

"Faber runs his dirty businesses out of the harbor. The Ponzi scheme was the crime we could prove. But we have suspicions of countless other crimes."

Cam nodded. "I'll get a photo of Mitchell and the numbers from the phone call?"

Laghari pulled an envelope out of his pocket. "Everything is in here, including my cell phone number. You report to me after you've briefed Terrell. Call me only if you can do it safely without compromising the mission. This is Captain Terrell's last go before he retires. His replacement is already filling his position on the JDET team, so he'll be in the middle of everyone's business. That's a good thing. The man is a straight shooter and on our side."

Cam took the envelope and stood up when Laghari did. "Congratulations on your close rate, by the way. I wish we had twenty or thirty more like you in the trenches." Laghari extended his hand.

"Thanks, I'm just doing the job." Cam shook the man's hand.

"Ha, what's funny is you think that's true. As I said, I wish I had thirty more like you."

Cam blinked as the man left the conference room. He glanced at his watch; twelve minutes past five. Twelve minutes turned his world on its ear. He rolled his shoulders and headed out of the building. Tonight, he was going to have a drink of expensive Scotch and eat a plate-sized steak. It could be months before he'd be able to do that again.