The 13-Minute Murder Read online

  As special agent in charge of the joint Key Bank/Golden Acres investigation, Mason is addressing a roomful of fellow Feds, Texas rangers, county sheriffs, and—given the tip from Narcotics and the possible drug connection—a liaison from the DEA.

  The group’s borrowed a small conference room at a local police headquarters in the nearby Texas town of Pampa. The room is actually a little too small to fit the dozen or so (mostly overweight) law enforcement officials stuffed inside of it. But it does meet one critical criterion.

  It has a functioning air conditioner.

  “I’m going to keep this quick, and let all of you get back out there,” Mason says, firm and encouraging. “But just to bring everyone up to speed…”

  Mason begins by summarizing all the progress that’s been made since yesterday’s horse-ranch heist. The past twenty-four hours have been a wild whirlwind.

  First, the serial number on the fifty-dollar bill given to the valet matches one of the marked bills taken during the Key Bank robbery.

  “Given the million-to-one odds of that being a coincidence,” Mason adds, “if any of you doubt that these two crimes are connected, may I suggest you go buy a lottery ticket.”

  Next, a red 1996 F-150 fitting witnesses’ descriptions—and with tires that matched the tracks found at the valet stand—was discovered parked northbound along State Highway 83. Units initially focused their pursuit in that direction, but also swept west and south, in case the pickup truck’s position was meant to be a misdirection—which many agreed it probably was. But the trail went cold.

  “The truck’s being ripped apart by Forensics as we speak. Nothing yet. My guess is, our perps were smart enough to wear gloves.”

  Mason then shares that the recovered bullets and casings have already been analyzed by the El Paso field-office lab.

  Unlike with the shotgun shells at the bank that bore zero unique ballistic markings, this time techs were able to extract a wealth of information. The rounds were likely fired from a CZ-805 BREN, a state-of-the-art, military-grade assault rifle. Though designed and manufactured in the Czech Republic, these weapons are used by elite police units and Special Forces teams around the world—including Mexico’s federales.

  “Mexico’s cartels, too,” Agent Marissa Sanchez of the DEA adds pointedly. “It’s becoming their gun of choice. We’re also starting to see more and more of those killing machines cross the border.”

  Murmurs of displeasure ripple around the room.

  Then Mason drops the biggest bombshell of all.

  Just hours after yesterday’s heist, an anonymous call came in that helped pinpoint where the presidential Halloween masks used during the bank robbery were purchased: a Celebration Nation party-supply store just outside Midland.

  “I sped down there to check it out personally,” Mason says. “Turns out, the owner deletes surveillance footage taken inside his store after ninety days. We made it just under the wire, with only a few days to spare.”

  Mason plays some grainy, black-and-white tape for the assembled group. It shows an older man—wearing giant sunglasses and a University of Texas baseball cap over his long, stringy white hair—paying cash for five familiar rubber masks: Lincoln, Washington, Nixon, Reagan, and Kennedy.

  “We’ve sent it to Quantico to run facial recognition,” Mason adds. “And plastered it from here to Tucson to New Orleans. Now obviously—”

  “Smells fishy to me, Agent Randolph.”

  Mason hasn’t heard that voice in over two months.

  But he recognizes it instantly.

  It’s wrinkle-faced Texas ranger John Kim, standing at the back of the room, arms folded across his potbelly. The same local official who led Mason through the bank crime scene in Plainview—and gave the agent more than a bit of attitude.

  “Nine weeks of nothin’, no leads, not a peep. Then this, all tied up with a bow, the same day as heist number two? I’m sorry, but I don’t buy it.”

  “Ah. Ranger Kim. If I remember it right, you called my hunt for the purchaser of these masks…how did you put it? ‘Haystack-and-needle territory,’ I believe.”

  “I’m just saying—why? These guys walked off with one-point-two. Think of all the work, all the planning. Not five hours later, one of them decides to squeal?”

  Mason had already anticipated that argument—and has a theory. Multiple theories, in fact.

  “Maybe the leader got greedy. Maybe a fight broke out. Dissent among the ranks. Maybe an accomplice felt he wasn’t getting a fair cut of the pot, so he picks up the phone to try to thin the herd.”

  Kim considers all that. And nods, despite himself. The agent makes a fair point.

  But then for good measure, Mason adds: “I’ll be sure to ask them. When I catch them. All of them.”

  3 minutes, 15 seconds

  Damn, it feels nice to have the top down and the wind in my hair.

  True, I’m only going about five miles an hour.

  And I’m not in a convertible; I’m steering our old green Deere tractor across the grassy fields of our ten-acre farm.

  Still, I love it. I always have.

  It reminds me of being a little girl again.

  Growing up, there were always a million and one chores for my brothers and me to do on the farm. Pulling weeds, raking leaves, chopping wood, you name it. And like most kids, Stevie, Hank, and I would argue about who had to do what.

  To put an end to our bickering, my father devised an ingenious system of sticks and carrots, tailored to each of his children’s specific preferences. Whichever two of us finished all our weekly chores first got to do something we loved. The one who finished third got the opposite.

  In the case of Stevie, the future Marine, his prize was getting to shoot old cans and bottles using one of our father’s real rifles. His punishment was getting his fake BB gun taken away for a couple of days.

  For Hank, the athlete, it meant getting to toss around the pigskin with our old man…or not being able to watch any Astros or Cowboys games on TV for the whole week.

  In my case, the penalty was having to skip three desserts in a row. (I’ve always had a sweet tooth, I admit it.) But my reward was getting to sit on my daddy’s lap while he drove our tractor around the farm cutting the grass. I’d giggle and squeal with joy as it rumbled along. I remember the speed, the sense of danger, but always feeling safe and protected in his arms.

  Well into my teens and adulthood, I kept riding that tractor and mowing the lawn every chance I got. The day my father died, I drove it before his funeral. Then I did it again after the service, trying desperately to re-create that sense of security and comfort.

  Which I guess I’m trying to do again today.

  But also, I’m celebrating.

  I’m going over every square inch of our precious farmland, savoring every single one. Because official word just came from the bank.

  We get to keep it!

  Apparently, the twelve-thousand-dollar lump-sum payment my family “miraculously” managed to “scrounge up” thanks to “pinching pennies” was just enough to get them off our backs.

  We’re still plenty in the hole. But at least we’re finally in the process of climbing out. We still have to be careful, of course. We can’t give in to temptation and pay back too much too fast—and give ourselves away.

  But for now, we’re doing all right. We can breathe easy.

  The Rourke family farm is going to stay in the hands of the Rourke family!

  I cruise around our property, enjoying it more than ever. The relief, the joy, the sense of accomplishment I feel are indescribable. I’m so lost in my revelry…

  I almost don’t notice the giant dust cloud rolling down the distant county road. This is no natural phenomenon.

  I slow the tractor near the fence and watch it come toward me…with mounting horror.

  It’s a caravan of shiny black SUVs and Suburbans, each one with blue and red lights flashing in the windshields.

  Well, goddamn. That’
s sure not the local sheriff.

  It’s got to be the Feds.

  As I watch them pass by, panic rising, I question where they could be heading.

  In any case, if they’re speeding through our neck of the woods, it can only mean one thing.

  They’re onto us.

  6 minutes, 30 seconds

  He was onto them.

  After Mason hung up this morning with a colleague in the FBI’s Digital Evidence Laboratory’s Forensic Audio, Video, and Image Analysis Unit, based in Quantico, he couldn’t help but punch the air in excitement.

  Another one of his “haystack-and-needle territory” hunches, as prickly Texas ranger Kim might call it, had paid off. In spades.

  While local and federal agents searched for the man with the long white hair in the UT baseball hat who was caught on tape buying the Halloween masks, Mason turned his attention to the phone call that had led to him in the first place.

  It had come in through the FBI’s national tip line, which—in order to encourage informants to be as forthcoming as possible—was supposed to be completely anonymous.

  To many agents’ frustration, it actually was.

  The Bureau had plenty of other sneaky practices. It used lots of maneuvers, strategies, and technologies that the public was intentionally misled about.

  But when it came to the anonymous hotline, the protocol was airtight. Calls were recorded but could never be traced back to a specific number or location. The phone system was deliberately stripped of that capability altogether, just in case any overzealous agent ever got the idea to try.

  Which was fine by Mason. He understood the reason for the policy and respected it. He was always a play-by-the-rules kind of agent anyway. To do otherwise, he felt, was sloppy and reckless. Mason was clever. Creative. Incredibly thorough. He was meticulous. At times he could be almost obsessive.

  But he always followed proper procedure. Always. That’s how his career rose so high so fast. And as important as this case was, it wasn’t going to be any different.

  So Mason couldn’t trace the anonymous call.

  That didn’t mean he couldn’t listen to it—very, very closely.

  Three big clues jumped out right away. The male caller spoke in a whisper but had the same distinct west Texas accent as the robbers. Second, an approaching train whistle could be heard in the background. Third, the call ended with the unmistakable chunk of a plastic handset being hung up in a metal cradle.

  Which was excellent news. It meant the call was likely made from an old pay phone, not a cell. That meant it was made in public. And that meant possible witnesses.

  Mason and his team got to work. They reached out to Amtrak and every private rail transport company in the Southwest. They carefully mapped the exact locations of every single train in west Texas on the date and time (3:19 p.m.) the call was placed.

  Then, they cross-referenced the locations of all the region’s working pay phones. There are so few of them left in service, this proved a lot easier than they’d thought.

  Before long, they’d narrowed it down to three possible pay phones—in Garza, Dawson, and Scurry Counties. Forensics teams were dispatched. They pulled hundreds of different prints off the Garza and Dawson phones…but only about a dozen from the Scurry one, located outside a grungy Shell station, which suggested to Mason it had fairly recently been wiped clean.

  He instructed an agent to place and record a similar call from that pay phone at precisely 3:19 the following day, making sure to include the approaching train whistle and hanging-up noise for digital analysis.

  Just this morning, a tech from the FBI’s cutting-edge audio lab back in DC phoned Mason to tell him that, with a statistical certainty of 96.3 percent, the sounds were the same.

  That was the Mason Randolph way. Deliberate. Methodical. Successful.

  Mason had been driving along I20 for the past three hours. An endless stretch of flat, brown desert in every direction, not unlike the surface of the moon.

  But right now, he’s crouching next to a bit of shrubbery growing along the side of the highway. His vehicle is pulled over on the shoulder, its hazard lights blinking.

  Something in the underbrush caught his eye, and he simply had to stop.

  With a contemplative sigh, Mason places the item into a large plastic evidence bag, careful not to disturb it. He stands. He’s wearing mirrored aviator sunglasses but still has to squint. The blinding midday sun is that damn bright.

  Back in his SUV, the evidence bag sitting on the passenger seat next to him unsealed—two gross violations of FBI policy the agent typically reveres—Mason is nearing the end of his drive. He’s on his way to Scurry County to rendezvous at the Shell station with some fellow agents already following up leads and interviewing possible eye-wits.

  But when Mason turns off Exit 174, he passes a sign that reads BIG SPRING—HOWARD COUNTY…not “Scurry.”

  In fact, he passed the Scurry exit some eighty miles ago—and kept on going.

  Mason parks his SUV in front of a well-kept double-wide mobile home, situated on a modest plot of trimmed grass. He gets out, taking the plastic evidence bag with him. He rings the doorbell. He waits.

  The door is finally opened by a petite, kindly woman of seventy-two with long gray braids.

  “Mason?! Is it really you?”

  She stands frozen, her jaw hanging open in total surprise. “I…I don’t believe it!”

  “Hey, Ma.”

  Mason engulfs his mother in a tight embrace.

  Pamela Randolph practically squeals with delight. When their hug finally ends, she takes a step back. Dabbing away happy tears, she gives her son a long look. The tailored suit. The shiny FBI badge on his belt. The dazzling smile.

  “My handsome little boy…”

  “You don’t look half-bad yourself.”

  Pamela playfully swats at Mason, then turns around and calls into the trailer: “Joe, come quick, Mason’s here!”

  “Who?” a voice hollers back gruffly.

  “Mason!”

  “You tell that bastard whatever he’s selling, we don’t want it!”

  The tiniest tense pause—then Mason and Pamela both burst into laughter.

  It’s an old family joke. Years ago, when Mason was barely out of the academy, he was stuck working a major white-collar case in Houston over the holidays. It didn’t look like he’d be able to make it home in time for Christmas, but after driving across the state for seven hours straight, Mason arrived just as his family was sitting down to Christmas Eve dinner. Since his cell phone had died, all he could do was ring the bell and pound on the door—which his father at first refused to answer, thinking it must be carolers or donation seekers or some kind of exceptionally rude traveling salesman.

  All these years later, the joke was still trotted out any time Mason showed up at his childhood home unannounced. Sure, it had gotten a little cheesy at this point. A little predictable. But Mason didn’t mind at all. Consistency, dependability, steadfastness—these were qualities he loved so much in his parents, married fifty-one years.

  “Don’t just stand there, silly. Come in, come in!”

  It breaks Mason’s heart, but he has to decline.

  “Wish I could. But I’m working. I just stopped by to give you these.”

  Mason removes the contents of the evidence bag, and Pamela’s eyes light up.

  It’s a loose bouquet of local wildflowers, picked along the roadside: brown-eyed Susans, mountain pinks, blackfoot daisies, white asters.

  As she takes them with a giant smile, Joe Randolph totters up to the doorway—slowly because of his arthritis and the oxygen tank he’s got to wheel along with him, but quick as he can because his son is there.

  “Gosh, it’s good to see you,” he says, pulling Mason into a bear hug.

  “You too, Pop. How’re you feeling?”

  Joe shrugs. Like his son, he’s not one to complain, no matter how hard life gets.

  “I didn’t think we’d
get to see you for another two weeks,” he says, changing the subject away from his health. “Lemme guess. You got a case nearby?”

  Mason nods. “Chasing down a lead in Scurry. Thought I’d stop in.”

  “Well, we’re so glad you did,” Pamela says, her eyelids still fluttering with joy.

  Then Joe’s expression turns serious. He grips Mason’s shoulder, his grasp trembling from age, but still firm as iron. He looks his son dead in the eyes.

  “Whoever you’re after, whatever they done…you’re gonna catch ’em?”

  “Pop…you bet I am.”

  6 minutes, 15 seconds

  I never thought this day would come.

  “Dearly beloved…”

  Not in all my life.

  “…we are gathered here today…”

  What I mean is, I never thought this day would come again.

  “…to celebrate the holy union of Margaret Elizabeth Rourke…”

  Suddenly I feel sixteen again, as giggly as I did the first time I went to my high school prom. As beautiful as I did the first time I was crowned Miss Scurry County.

  But about a million times happier than I did the first time…I was a bride.

  Charlie wasn’t a bad man. Just a young one. We were both still kids, foolish and drunk in love. Drunk in lust, really. (In Charlie’s case, he was often drunk on something else, too.) When I got pregnant at twenty, he surprised me by doing what he thought was the noble thing. He proposed—even though I wasn’t sure it was what I wanted.

  When the county judge at our simple courthouse ceremony asked us that big final question, I thought I was being coy and cute when I said with a smile, “I guess I do.” I understand now that was my doubt bubbling up to the surface.

  I realized pretty quick that I should have listened to it.

  Charlie left me and baby Alex less than a year later.

  But that was a long time ago. A whole other lifetime. Today I really am marrying the man of my dreams. And I’ve never been more sure of anything.

  He’s good and warm and decent and loyal, with a brain just as big as his heart.