Then there was the murder case.
Matt’s cell phone rang with a familiar number. “Chris, can you please tell Wyatt I’ll be in as soon as I can? We’ll give Frank a few more minutes.”
“You know why Frank’s upset.”
Knowing why Frank was upset didn’t mean Matt was going to put up with his open frustration and increasing unreliability. Frank blamed himself for his intern Emma’s death, and nothing Matt said could change his mind on the matter. But grief coupled with guilt made for bad decision-making.
He held up his phone. “Mind closing the door while I take this?”
Christine nodded and left while Matt answered his phone. “Costa here,” he said.
“It’s Joe Molina,” the caller replied. Molina was the son of Southwest Copper Refinery’s owner. “We need to meet.”
“What happened?”
“I can’t do this anymore.”
Like clockwork. Every week for the last three weeks, since Matt convinced Joe that it was in his best interest to cooperate with the FBI in their undercover investigation of his father’s refining plant, Joe had second thoughts.
“Joe—”
“You don’t understand. I can barely look my dad in the eye. It’s eating me up. Why can’t you just arrest David Hargrove and make him talk?”
Hargrove was the assistant manager in charge of waste disposal at Southwest Copper, and the primary suspect in their investigation.
“Where are you right now?” Matt said.
Joe was going to blow this investigation if he kept talking about the case over the phone. Matt had repeatedly told him how to reach out to him, what to say over the phone—and what not to say.
“I’m at my house. I’m going to the plant in a minute, but I could hardly sleep last night. You know Hargrove is behind this, right? That’s what you said.”
Matt forced himself to remain calm. “Joe, I explained to you that we suspect David Hargrove is involved, and the information you provided about the company’s contracts with A-Line Waste Disposal and Trucking has helped us tremendously. But everything we have can be explained away by human error or mismanagement—to bring this to court I need to find the actual illegal dump site or someone willing to turn state’s evidence.”
“But Hargrove’s involved—you can make him talk!”
“How? Put him in an interrogation room and wait for him to spill his guts?” Matt couldn’t bite back his sarcasm. That wasn’t like him, especially with a civilian. Especially a civilian who wanted to do the right thing even if it hurt someone he cared about. Joe had made it clear when Matt first approached him that he was helping solely to clear his father’s good name. There was no evidence that his father, John Molina, knew about any illegal dumping. But because it was his company that officially contracted with A-Line—the trucking company that handled the disposal of their copper slag—the father could be held liable if his employee was found guilty of illegal doings under the company’s name.
Matt continued. “I explained to you early on that if Hargrove gets any hint that we’re looking at him for taking kickbacks from A-Line—or worse—he could destroy evidence.”
“I think I need to talk to my dad.”
“We discussed that option, and you said your father would never work with the FBI again after the fallout from the fumbled AREA investigation two years ago. I concurred. Your father is not under investigation, and the agreement between you and me is that your father will have limited immunity, so if an overzealous prosecutor thinks he should have known what was going on, he’ll be okay. I’m not interested in going after your family business. I just want to put a stop to the serious environmental damage and loss of wildlife that I suspect your manager David Hargrove may be responsible for.”
“I know you’re right, Agent Costa. I’m just not cut out for this.” His frustration was clear in his tone. First Frank, now Joe.
“You’re doing fine,” he assured Joe. “If I’m right, and the trucking company A-Line is responsible for illegal dumping, we’ll be able to trace the shipment and arrest everyone involved—including David Hargrove. And your father will be cleared.”
“I’m heading to the refinery now. We have a staff meeting, and the next slag pickup should be scheduled.”
“Call or text me when you get that information, and we’ll plan accordingly. This is good news, Joe.”
“I hope so.”
Matt ended the call. It had taken longer than he thought, but ultimately it was necessary to keep Joe on task.
But Joe wasn’t the only person Matt had on the inside.
He grabbed his case folder and walked down the hallway to the main conference room. He was relieved to find everyone was waiting there.
On Matt’s recommendation, Christine had replaced him as the SSA when he moved to the DC office five years ago. They’d always worked well together, so there was no jurisdictional pushback when Matt was called in to run these cases as head of the recently formed mobile response team. The team’s mission was to step in to help solve cases that local agencies might not have enough investigative resources to manage.
Other than Christine, there were four other people in the room.
Zack Heller, a white-collar-crimes expert, was the newest member of Matt’s team. The jury was still out on him: Zack was originally from the New York office and a brilliant accountant, the only one of them who truly understood the financial end of hazardous-waste disposal. He’d previously investigated several cases involving graft and corruption in that industry, so he understood the issues. But his communication style was lacking, and his overeager personality grated on Matt. At thirty-seven, he was tall and skinny, with a shaggy mop of blond hair. The FBI had personal grooming requirements, but Zack’s hair wasn’t quite long enough for Matt to compel him to get a haircut.
Ryder Kim was the team analyst and Matt’s right hand. He was young—twenty-six. He’d served in the military for three years, then went to college and immediately joined the FBI as an analyst. Matt recruited him straight from the Academy, where Ryder had achieved the highest scores across multiple classes. The kid was a logistics expert and was serving as the liaison between the undercover team Matt had placed in the refinery and the town of Patagonia, and Matt. Ryder was also responsible for research. If Ryder couldn’t find something, it couldn’t be found.
Patagonia’s marshal, Wyatt Coleman, was an all-around good cop, but he wasn’t experienced in multijurisdictional investigations. As marshal he worked under the sheriff’s department. Few towns had local marshals anymore, but Patagonia was a remnant of the Old West. At first Matt had been hesitant to bring him in, but Chris assured Matt that he could trust Wyatt. Matt knew it was important to have someone on the team who personally knew all the parties involved. Wyatt had even agreed to keep the investigation quiet because one of his own deputies had a brother who worked for Southwest Copper, and Matt wasn’t positive that Hargrove was the only individual involved in the alleged dumping scheme. As far as anyone outside of the task force was concerned, Wyatt was helping Matt solely with the Emma Perez murder investigation.