Got as far as a warrant application and Garrison's lawyers had it tied up in 48 hours contested search. Insufficient probable cause. Judge agreed. Reyes watched the warrant die and Garrison knew it died and he sent a flower arrangement to Danny Faulk's house the next day. No card, just flowers.
The room was completely silent. Cole stood there and felt the particular cold anger of a man confronting something that is designed to be infuriating, designed specifically, deliberately to demonstrate that the person doing it believes themselves untouchable. The flower arrangement, that was Garrison's language, that was always Garrison's language, not threats, gestures. Elegant, deniable gestures that communicated absolute certainty of his own invulnerability. When did the flower arrangement arrive?
Cole said. Six weeks ago, Reeves said. Three days after the warrant died. And Kirby's assault. Four weeks ago.
Accelerating. Cole said word Tuck had used at the bar. He was mapping the timeline. And the timeline was telling him something about Garrison's confidence level. Each move bolder than the last.
Each one designed to test how far he could go before someone pushed back. The flowers had been a test. Kirby's broken collarbone had been the next one. " He's going to keep going," Cole said. " He's not going to stop until someone makes him stop or until he goes far enough that he can't walk it back." "
That's our read," Reeves said. Cole looked around the room. Eight men, many had history with real history, the kind built from being in difficult places together and making hard decisions together and carrying the consequences of those decisions side by side. He looked at Cutter, who was still watching him from the bed with that measuring expression. He looked at Bur and Lomax.
He looked at Tuck, who had driven through the night to deliver a name, and had admitted his own failure cleanly without being asked to. " I need to talk to Reyes," Cole said. Reeves reached into his pocket and set a phone on the table between them. " She's been waiting." Cole looked at the phone. "
You told her I was here. I told her there was a possibility you'd surface tonight, Reeves said. I said if you did, you'd want to talk to her directly. A pause. Was I wrong?
Cole picked up the phone. He went into the bathroom and closed the door, not for secrecy, but because he needed four walls and quiet for this particular conversation, and the men in the other room understood that without being told. He sat on the edge of the tub and he dialed the number on the screen. It rang once. Agent Reyes, a woman's voice said, "Alert, direct, no performance.
She'd been expecting the call." " This is Cole Decker," he said. A brief pause, not surprise, but the pause of someone shifting into the correct mode for an important conversation. Mr. Decker, I appreciate you calling. Tell me what you have and what you need, Cole said.
I don't have time for the longer version of this conversation. Another brief pause this one assessing. Then I have a financial map that puts Garrison at the center of a restructured operation generating approximately $2.3 million annually through the distribution front. I have communication records calls and texts that put his people in Clarksville 2 days before each of the seven incidents. I have a statement from one of his former associates placing Garrison as the directing authority of the postrelease operation.
She stopped. What I don't have is the physical records from the Clarksville warehouse. Without those, I have circumstantial. With them, I have a case that his lawyers cannot touch. How do you know the records are there?
The same former associate who gave me the statement placed documents documents in that facility 4 weeks ago on Garrison's direction. He was present when they were filed. He cannot testify to what those documents say because he didn't read them. But he can testify that they exist and where they are. Your warrant application was denied.
Cole said Garrison's lawyers moved fast and my application had a weakness. I was working from secondhand information about the facility's internal layout. The judge found it insufficient to overcome the privacy expectation on a private business property. Her voice was level, but there was something beneath it. the controlled frustration of a professional whose work was being beaten by a technicality.
If I had direct firsthand information about the specific location of specific records within that facility, I could build a new application that his lawyers couldn't contest. Cole understood what she was not quite saying. You're telling me you need someone who has been inside that warehouse. I'm telling you what my case needs, Reyes said. I'm not telling you anything else.
Cole was quiet for a moment. He looked at the wall of the small bathroom and he thought about Garrison and he thought about the flower arrangement and he thought about a kid named Kirby with a wire in his collarbone and he thought about Danny Faulk watching his garage burn from a safe distance. If someone were to provide you with firsthand knowledge of the interior of that facility, Cole said carefully, what would the timeline look like for a new application? 72 hours, Reyes said faster if the information is specific. And Garrison would be in custody before the end of the week, she said.
This time with a case built to hold. Cole sat with that for a moment. 72 hours. The warehouse in Clarksville. Three employees around the clock.
two carrying a safe on the second floor. Mr. Decker Ray said, "I want to be direct with you. Please, I know who you are, not just the name. I know the file. I know what happened four years ago and what your role was in the original investigation, officially and unofficially.
I know why you went to Harrisville, and I know what it cost you to go there." A pause. I'm not asking you to do anything illegal. I want to be completely clear about that. What I'm asking for is information and how that information is obtained is not something I'm directing.
That's a careful sentence. Cole said, "I'm a careful person," she said. " So are you. That's why this conversation is happening." Cole exhaled slowly. "