Werewolf Cop by Andrew Klavan Page A

wasn’t.”
    â€œOnly it was. Only it might have been, anyway,” said Rebecca Abraham-Hartwell. “A sailor off that ship was busted for killing a hooker in New Orleans last week. He was looking for a deal, so he told the cops there that they’d been tipped off—on the Chevalier —they were tipped off that the Coast Guard was coming for them. He says they took the girls out of the container, cut their throats, and threw them overboard. Raped them first, made a party of it.”
    Zach flinched at the image, but he said, “What’s that got to do with Goulart?”
    â€œSailor says they got the tip on the Wednesday. That’s before we even contacted the Coast Guard. On the Wednesday, no one knew we were onto them but you, me, and Goulart.”
    â€œ. . . and the CI who tipped Goulart off in the first place. And whoever told him .”
    â€œThe sailor says the tip-off came from law enforcement.”
    â€œThe sailor also rapes and kills women. That raises some questions in my mind about his character.”
    There was a flash of irritation in Rebecca Abraham-Hartwell’s green eyes. Irritation—and anxiety, too. Well, yeah: she worried about what people thought of her, and Zach—Zach was the Cowboy—honest to the ground and universally respected. If she lost his good opinion, she’d lose the support of every agent in the division. They’d mutter to one another about her behind her back whenever she passed by. So this was getting tense for her now. She couldn’t afford to alienate her best man.
    She broke eye contact. Stood. Went back to her desk, around her desk. Zach avoided watching her. He gazed stonily at the TV where some rioters were throwing bottles at some big old church, it looked like.
    Rebecca Abraham-Hartwell yanked a desk drawer open, yanked a manila folder out, her motions tight and brisk: more of her I’m-all-business routine. Zach just about never lost his temper; but he was, all the same, getting good and angry at her now.
    She gauntlet-slapped the folder down on the desktop. “We’ve put key captures on his work computer. Taps on his desk phone and cell. A trace on his cell.”
    Zach stood up. He didn’t say anything, but the way he stood up, the way he glared at her, let her know that she was close to losing him entirely. Bugging his partner’s phone and computer? She better be right. She damn well better be.
    â€œWhy just Goulart?” he asked her. “Why not me? I knew about the Chevalier . So did you.”
    â€œBecause I know you didn’t do it. And I know I didn’t. Just hear me out, okay?”
    â€œI’m listening.”
    â€œGoulart has been making multiple calls to burners, untraceable phones.”
    â€œProbably to CI’s.”
    â€œHe’s made several night visits to an abandoned mansion up near Rhinebeck. Windward, it’s called. We think he’s using it for some kind of message exchange.”
    â€œTo meet a source, more likely.”
    â€œAnd he’s got an alias drop.”
    â€œProbably . . . some girl. Or some case or something.” But even in his anger, Zach knew this was suspicious, hard to explain. An alias drop—the old trick where you set up an e-mail account under a fake name, then leave draft messages for your contact to pick up—it was pure dealer stuff, pedophile stuff, a ruse meant to cover the trail of your communications.
    Rebecca Abraham-Hartwell saw Zach waver. She seized on it, pressed her advantage. “When we monitored the drop? The receiving end? An untraceable IP. Pinged around hell and gone until we lost it. Very sophisticated. Someone who really-really didn’t want to be identified and knew his way around a computer.”
    â€œYou read any of the e-mails?”
    â€œThey were mostly in coded language. ‘I may go out walking later.’ That sort of thing. One said ‘Contact you later.’ He