6 - The Eye of the Virgin: Ike Schwartz Mystery 6 (13 page)

Chapter Twenty-six

The Dogwood Motel sat back from the road surrounded, not surprisingly, by dogwoods. Constructed in the late sixties, it had been built adjacent to the then newly constructed Picketsville by-pass, a road which rerouted the traffic on Route 11 away from the downtown area. At the time, the project met with stiff resistance from the town’s chamber of commerce but was supported by the police, the college, and the local school district. In the years that followed, I-81, built a mile east of Picketsville, took most of the through traffic away from the by-pass and the motel fell into general decline. It had begun its life as part of the Holiday Inn chain. It then shifted from one franchise to another as it aged and decayed. Finally a local businessman bought it, remodeled it, and turned it over to his wife to run. He called it her hobby job, something to keep “the little woman” busy and out of his affairs. Unfortunately, at least one of his “affairs” became public and the subsequent divorce settlement specified she receive the house, the motel, and enough cash in lieu of alimony to secure her future for the rest of her life. She moved to Hilton Head and left the motel in the uncertain hands of her prematurely pregnant daughter and reluctant son-in-law.

Dogwoods are known for their lovely blooms in the spring, but not for seeds. The Dogwood Motel, never-the-less, had become a very seedy establishment. A cow bell had been attached to the office door frame and it clanked a welcome of sorts as Ike stepped in. The aforementioned son-in-law, Harvey Bristol, slouched behind a cluttered counter which held a registration pad, a stack of men’s magazines, two empty beer bottles, and an overflowing, but still smoldering, ashtray.

“Afternoon, Harvey.”

“Sheriff?” Harvey seemed disconcerted by the sudden presence of the police. “Trouble?”

“No, Harvey, only a question or two if you don’t mind. I’m interested in some guests you may have had this past weekend, Friday and maybe Saturday.”

“Well,” Harvey shuffled papers around on his counter. His eyes never quite met Ike’s gaze. “Anybody in particular?”

Ike slid a picture of Sacci across the counter’s gritty surface. “Him for one.” Harvey tugged at his collar and swallowed. “The reason I ask, is one of your neighbors reported hearing a possible gun shot on Friday night coming from this motel.”

“That would be Buster Hawkins, I expect. Buster hears all kinds of things. And he talks too much.”

“The picture, Harvey. Do you recognize the man?”

Harvey held the picture to eye level and squinted. “Could be. I think his name was Italian or something; foreign, anyway. I need to check my cards.” He lifted a battered box to the counter top and pulled out a stack of creased registration slips. He sorted through them and replaced all but two. “Friday was slow. We only rented two rooms and, looka here, this one says Sacci, Franco Sacci, like I said, Italian.”

“Who else stopped that night?”

“Okay, now I remember. Like, it was slow. I told you that already, right? Okay, so two cars pulled in. Three guys in one, one guy alone, but they was together, you know?”

“They were traveling together?”

“Like as. And they took two rooms. See, here’s the other room. The guy who signed for it was somebody named Avriam Kolb. What kind of a name is that?” Anyway, the rooms both had twin beds so two guys went into each, right?”

“Did you hear a shot?”

Harvey’s line of sight shifted into the distance. He wiped his nose with a dirty handkerchief. “Hear all kinds of things around here. Don’t usually pay them no mind. Ain’t none of my business what people do.”

“It is if what they do can cause trouble with the law. Can I see the rooms these four men used?” Harvey hesitated and looked uncomfortable. “I could get a warrant, but I’d rather not disturb the judge. You know how testy he can be. He doesn’t need to hear about another problem at your motel, does he, Harvey?”

“Um, no I guess not. I gotta warn you, though, things been pretty slow, like I said, and I had to back down on the cleaners and all.”

“What you’re saying is, the rooms haven’t been cleaned since Saturday?”

“Things have been—”

“Slow. So you’ve said— repeatedly. Take me to the rooms.”

Harvey ushered Ike along the cracked sidewalk to rooms at the far end of the line. Ike noticed the chipped and weathered paint on the stucco’s surface, the weeds pushing up through the fissures in the concrete sidewalk, and the odors, mildew mixed with garbage and petroleum rising from the numerous oil stains on the parking lot’s gravel surface. Harvey unlocked the two adjoining rooms and started to shuffle away.

“Not so fast, Harvey, I’m not done with you.”

“Look, you can see the rooms. Okay, I ain’t cleaned them. I told you business was slow and I had to lay off some of the cleaners.”

Slow didn’t come close to describing Harvey’s business. Dead would be better. The rooms were stuffy and reeked of dead air and the aforementioned mildew.

“Which room is this one?”

Harvey consulted his cards. “This is the one with the Kolb guy and one other man.”

“What’s the other man’s name?”

“Brown, but that can’t be right. He didn’t look like no Brown I ever seen.”

“Exactly what do Browns look like?”

“I don’t know, but this guy looked like he came from Iraq or one of them places. Say, do you think he was a terrorist? Maybe there’s a reward.”

“Don’t hold your breath. So, Kolb and Brown were in this one. That means Sacci and…who, were in the one next door.”

“Right. He said his name was Paul Wentz, but I don’t think he was a—”

“A Wentz? Because he didn’t look like any Wentz you’d ever seen?”

“Exactly. He coulda’ been another one of them. Is that why you’re here? Are there terrorists loose around here? Buster Hawkins said they were talking about that up at the diner, how they can get at the water supply and bring down the whole town. I didn’t pay him no mind at the time. You know Buster, but holy cow. I guess we got ourselves a problem after all.”

“No terrorists, Harvey, four guys, probably bad guys. One of them managed to get himself killed by one of the others and therefore, you have a crime scene, not an international plot. I’m taping off these two rooms and calling it in. Evidence Technicians will be here soon. You leave them and these two rooms alone ’til you hear from me. You got it?”

“You mean CSI will be here? Wait ’til I tell Dottie. She’ll be stoked.”

“You call no one except me, you got it?” Harvey nodded his agreement but the idea of making a picnic out of this new-found notoriety lurked in his eyes. “I mean it, Harvey, you don’t want me talking to the judge about another problem in your motel, right?”

Harvey grunted his acceptance and wandered back to his office, ash tray, and magazines.

Ike stepped carefully into the rooms, careful to touch nothing. In the second room there were stains on the shabby carpet that could be blood. He thought he smelled the residue of cordite, impossible after a week, of course. He spun three hundred and sixty degrees memorizing the room and its contents. The beds were unmade, the bathrooms cluttered with towels thrown on the floor, that is, except in the second room, the one with the stains. There were no towels in it at all. Ike shut the doors of both rooms and walked back to the office.

Harvey had resumed his place behind the counter, a fresh bottle on it, and a new cigarette dangled from his lips. He swiveled around.

“Now what?”

“Your trash, Harvey. I see you have a dumpster out back. When was the last time you had a pick-up?”

Harvey looked confused, fiddled with his cigarette, and tapped ashes in the general direction of the tray. He missed. “I don’t use that service no more. Times are hard. I generally let her fill and then I get one of the locals with a pickup to empty it and haul it to the county landfill.”

“Am I correct in assuming you haven’t emptied that thing since sometime last week?”

“Well, yeah, I guess. See—”

“Things have been slow, I know. Good. Leave it alone as well. Until we can check out where all your towels went, it’s part of the crime scene as well.”

“Towels? What towels? Someone stole my towels? Damn, I’m sending them a bill. I got their credit card number right here and—”

“You have a what? You have a credit card number? I’ll need that, too, and thank you Harvey, you just made my day.”

Some law enforcement units were blessed with the latest in hi-tech equipment, elaborate computer links to national and international agencies, and personnel. Other, smaller and more poorly endowed departments, require outside help, even Providential.

This day Picketsville, that is to say, Ike, was plain blessed.

Chapter Twenty-seven

Charlie called as Ike walked in the door. Essie handed him a stack of pink call-back slips, and Sam started talking to him, fourteen to the dozen.

“Whoa. Stop, give me a break. I’ll take those slips, Essie. You sure you edited out the crap?” She nodded. “And Sam, I need to talk to our friend in the Puzzle Palace first. Then you and I can chat. Where’s Karl, by the way?”

“He’s been called back to D.C. He couldn’t convince them he needed time here. Anyway, this is about the…what did you call them?”

“Never mind. Sorry about Karl, but Charlie first.” He waved her into a chair and picked up the phone.

“Okay, Charlie, you have my complete attention. What can you tell me?”

“Remember I said I thought the microdot was bigger than normal, if there is a normal for this stuff.”

“Yes, and I said it might have been an extremely old one.”

“You did, and you were wrong. So was I.”

“A rare confession from you, Charlie.”

“Don’t start. This is serious.”

“Okay, sorry. Go on.”

“I was wrong because I said it was a microdot. It isn’t. It looks like one but it’s something dicier.”

“Are you going to tell me? Better yet, do I want to know?”

“You might want to know, but I can’t say anything now. Here’s the immediate problem. It’s a micro chip, a piece of miniature electronic business, not micro-photography, that’s been embedded in a small disc. That’s why we mislabeled it. It’s a look-alike.”

“Not a microdot.”

“No, and because of that, you can’t use the bogus ones I brought you earlier. If the guys looking for this stuff are even slightly sophisticated, they’ll know right away they’ve been had. I can fix you up with a better substitute but it will take some time. We have to find a similar chip and write to it. The properties people may have what we need. They may not. The techs here say this one is Chinese and different. How different, I can’t say or even if the people who’re after it will know either. Can you buy me a day?”

Ike scratched his head. “I can. I’ll put a car outside Dakis’ house twenty-four-seven. That will hold them off for a while. I’ll let it out that we’re closing the investigation tomorrow and that should bring them back into play right after that—that is if they’re still local and listening.”

“Good. We’ll ship you a dummy chip by helicopter ASAP.”

“I’m impressed. This must be pretty hot for the agency to pony up for a chopper.”

“It is. Okay, I need to talk to Sam, your hacker and—”

“She’s right here. I’ll put you on speaker phone. Okay, go.”

“Ah, Ms. Ryder, you are to be congratulated. The security boys in the basement said you got into the back door faster than anyone, set a possible record, in fact. The gang in the anti-hacking division put your name up on their bulletin board. Not everyone gets that sort of recognition.”

“You knew I hacked in?” Sam looked chagrined.

“Oh, yes, but don’t let that get you down, They were impressed at the way you worked and, in fact, it was all they could do to keep you from breaking in deeper. You know we have the ‘hacker room’ for people like you and not nice people who want to steal our stuff. Most are satisfied to take what we give them. It’s very useful for us that way and we get to meet some interesting people. Except in rare cases, yours being one, hardly anyone attempts to go farther.”

“I thought I did, go in farther, I mean.”

“Did you, indeed? Why do you say that?”

“Well, Ike asked me to poke around and dig up anything you might have on Sacci/Zaki, and some other things.” Sam squinted her eyes at Ike, seeking advice as to how much she should tell Charlie. He nodded. “So I went into your personnel files looking for Thomas Wainwright.”

“You didn’t.”

“Yes, sir, I did. Got him, too.”

Charlie fell silent. Ike thought he heard paper being shuffled in the background.

“I’m listening,” he said finally.

“I managed to find his personnel file, I think. It had a number but I don’t remember that part. I read it, took some notes and—”

“You didn’t download it, I hope.”

“No, sir, I didn’t, but I could have. I did retrieve a picture of him though.”

“That’s it?”

Sam thought, scrunched up her face, an expression Ike recognized as her “liar’s face” and said, “Yep, that’s it.”

“Okay, good. Don’t go there again, you hear? It could be dangerous for you and…you listening, Ike? You keep her out of our files. I mean it.”

“I hear you, Charlie. Now, what are you not telling me?”

“You have everything I can share at the moment.”

Ike stared at the phone and scowled. It was not like Charlie to be circumspect. Something was up. Maybe Sam knew.

“Okay, we’re done here. Hurry that chip along, will you? I want to close this thing and get back to the real business of sheriffing.”

“Breaking up teenage keggers in the woods?”

“That and setting up speed traps. The town needs budgetary relief, and I need to make some new friends. Goodbye, Charlie.”

Ike hung up and swiveled to face Sam. “All right, Sam, what didn’t you tell Charlie and what didn’t he tell me?”

“Well,” Sam rifled through a sheaf of papers she held in her hand, “I have his picture.”

“So you said.”

“And, this is the screwy part. Didn’t you say Wainwright was tasked to Homeland Security?”

“That’s what Charlie said, yes.”

“Not so. It didn’t make any sense at first, his assignment, that is. It was, like, in code. So I searched around…remember, I didn’t dare stay too long, and I found a key, a coding key, you know what the numbers stood for. I could see, for example he’d been assigned to the Near East in the past, Egypt, and so on. The last assignment code meant Mossad. Does that make any sense to you?”

“It might and it might not. I’ll have to think about that for a while. I have a simpler, safer task for you to do. I have some credit card numbers. See if you can find out to whom they belong and anything else you can turn up. And, whatever you do, don’t mess with the CIA’s database. At least not for a while.”

“Right. I’m on it.”

Sam scurried from the room. Ike studied the picture of Tommy Wainwright. “I wonder,” he said and placed the picture next to Franco Sacci’s. “Do you two know each other?”