Kendra glanced hopefully at Lynch. “You’ve got an ID on him?”
“Yes,” Griffin said over the shuffling of papers. “His name is Justin Hayes. He served a six-year prison stint a while back for assault. He was acquitted on another case and was suspected of a hit against a witness in a civil trial, but the DA couldn’t make their case.”
“Charming guy,” Kendra said. “Your basic thug for hire, I assume.”
“Yep. And his face matches one of the sketches you gave us. This is definitely the perpetrator.”
“Good,” Lynch said. “Do we know where to find him?”
“That’s the tricky part,” Metcalf said. “It’s rather awkward. You see…Justin Hayes has been dead for three years.”
Chapter
9
Kendra and Lynch followed Metcalf quickly through the maze of hallways at FBI regional headquarters. “We’ve been pulling together everything we can about Hayes. Stuff is still printing out as we speak.”
“Printing out? You mean we’re not getting one of your famous PowerPoint presentations?”
“Sorry to disappoint you, but there isn’t time. We’re gathering the info in Griffin’s office. That’s where we’re headed now.”
“I looked up a photo of him online on the way here,” Kendra said. “It’s definitely the man I saw the other night. I have to say, he was pretty spry for a dead man.”
Metcalf gave her an amused glance. “I guess you just have a way of bringing that side out in people, Kendra.”
They rounded a corner and entered Griffin’s glass-walled office, where two other agents and an assistant sorted through stacks of paper still warm from the printer. Griffin was seated at his desk finishing up a phone call. After a moment, he slammed down the handset. He picked up a grainy printout and showed it to Kendra. It looked like a driver’s license photo. “So this is the guy?”
“Yep.” Kendra nodded. “That’s the one Jessie tossed off the catwalk.”
Griffin dropped the printout. “I figured. That’s where we picked up the blood sample.”
“So his name is Justin Hayes,” Lynch said. “Why do people think he’s dead?”
Griffin picked up another piece of paper and tossed it to Lynch. “Maybe this death certificate had something to do with it.”
Lynch and Kendra looked at the certificate.
“Malta?” Kendra said.
“Yes. Boating accident.” Griffin rummaged around his desktop until he found another photo printout, this one of a small sailboat. “Pleasure craft versus cargo ship.” He picked up another photo printout of the sailboat’s wrecked hull washed up on the coast.
“Let me guess,” Lynch said. “No body ever found.”
“No. But a pair of eyewitnesses saw it happen and swore they saw him impaled with a piece of his mast and go down spurting blood from his mouth.”
“Kind of a gruesome detail,” Kendra said.
Lynch nodded. “Specific and memorable. Perfect for getting a rubber stamp at a coroner’s inquest.”
“Which is exactly what happened even without a body,” Griffin said.
Lynch studied the wreckage photo. “Do we have names and addresses for the witnesses?”
“We’re still working that up.”
“What about known associates?”
“He was very much a freelancer. At the time of his so-called death, he was under investigation for some dirty tricks on behalf of the Cardinelli crime family.”
“Cardinelli…” Lynch repeated thoughtfully.
Griffin looked at him. “Did you ever have any contact with them?”
“Not directly. But there’s some overlap between them and the MacDougal syndicate.” Lynch turned to Kendra. “In my FBI days, I spent a year undercover with the MacDougals.”
“I heard about that,” Kendra said. “It was one of the first things I ever heard about your work. You were still with the FBI then. Everyone says you pretty much brought down that organization single-handedly.”
Lynch shrugged. “Aw, shucks. I don’t want to brag.”
Griffin made a sour face. “The dozens of men and women who worked on that case for over four years might not want you to brag, either. Even if there’s an element of truth to it.”
“The point I’m trying to make is that I met people who did work for both organizations,” Lynch said.
Kendra held up another photo from Griffin’s desk. “People like Justin Hayes?”
“No, I’ve never heard of him before tonight. But his elaborate faked death has a familiar ring to it. There aren’t many people around who could orchestrate something as elaborate as that. Offhand, I can only think of one.”
“Rick Zales?” Griffin said.
“Bingo.”
“Who’s that?” Kendra said.
“Rick Zales pulled similar stunts for the MacDougal organization while I was undercover there,” Lynch said. “But he also worked for the Cardinellis at the time of Hayes’s so-called death. This stunt reeks of him.”