Chilling Effect (25 page)

actually investigating Isaac’s murder or apprehending the murderer, but now that she’d done their work for them, they sure were looking for a conviction.

“Hey, let me ask you something. If he’s convicted, what happens

to the casino? Who runs that?”

“Well, that’s not just Lee. He’s just the CFO. Th ere’s a whole

board, so nothing much changes there. I imagine that some day-to-

day changes will happen. Maybe Buckmount Security gets the boot,

and we get to actually handle the biggest calls in our jurisdiction.”

“I bet you’d also take over the security at the testing facility.”

“Heck, yeah,” the other offi cer piped up. “Th at’s good money, too.”

She thanked them for their time. Th ey resumed their salmon

debate before she even walked away.

Inside the conference room, she set up her laptop and pulled

out her cell phone. Sid answered himself.

“Tell me you haven’t blown up any more cars, Higgins.”

She pulled a face at the greeting. Last she checked,
she
hadn
she

’t

blown up any cars, ever.

“My vacation’s going swell, Sid, thanks for asking.”

He chuckled at that. “What’s going on?”

“Well, this lunatic tribal court judge set the . . . uh . . . event for this Friday.”

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MELISSA F. MILLER

“Carole Orr is one of a kind, Aroostine. But she’s smart and

she’s fair. And I think you’re going to like her. She did a presentation on tribal issues for the department a few years back; she made quite an impression.”

“Sid, I have a trial
tomorrow
. I don’t like her.”

“It’s not a trial. It’s a judgment circle.”

“How did you already know that? Did she call you?”

“Fat chance of that. Judge Orr doesn’t have much use for Main

Justice or the Ninth Circuit, for that matter. As a matter of fact, I’m not sure she even feels particularly friendly toward the Supremes.”

“So how’d you know about the judgment circle?”

“Th e Offi ce of Tribal Aff airs has had a few run-ins with the

good judge over her judgment circles; she’s infamous around there.”

Great.

“Well, I’m sort of in a spot here.
You
agreed to loan me out to the Chinook, and apparently they want to do it this way. Any pointers?”

“Nope.”

She’d say this much for Sid. He was an inveterate know-it-all

when he knew something—to the point of being insuff erable—but

when he didn’t know, he admitted it up front and moved on with

his life.

“Th anks.”

“Don’t mention it.”

He was not, however, funny.

“Good-bye, Sid.”

“Good luck. You’re gonna need it.”

She blew her hair out of her eyes and examined her phone’s

display. Th e battery was low. Considering her makeshift workspace

lacked a telephone, she couldn’t risk having the battery run all the way down and die. She dug around in her bag in search of the charger. She tossed the car keys and her wallet onto the table. Th e paper that the man at the diner had stuck under the windshield wiper

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CHILLING EFFECT

was peeking out of the wallet. She found the charger and plugged

it into the wall outlet.

But instead of charging the phone, she pulled the scrap of paper

from her wallet and dialed the number. She didn’t know how she was

going to convince the man to tell her what he knew about the drones, but she had to. Th e phone rang for what seemed like minutes.

Finally, he answered.

“Hello?”

“It’s Aroostine Higgins. Please don’t hang up.”

He didn’t speak, but he didn’t hang up—she could hear him

breathing.

“Please, I know you’re afraid to talk to me. And I can’t make

any promises, but I will do everything I can to protect you if you

talk to me.”

“I don’t know.”

“Listen, Lee Buckmount is under house arrest for Isaac’s mur-

der. Th e police are watching his every move. And the judge has

scheduled the trial for tomorrow. It seems as if Buckmount’s going

to plead guilty to the murder. All I need to do is connect him to the theft of the drones and the embezzlement.”

“Well, if that’s what you need, I can’t help you anyway.”

“Why not?”

“Because Isaac wasn’t ever able to tie Buckmount to the drones.

And he was the smartest guy I ever met. So, I don’t think it can be done.”

He was talking. She may not have liked what he was saying,

but he was talking.

She grabbed a pen. “Let’s back up. What’s your name?”

“No. I’ll talk to you off the record. I’m not testifying or giving a statement or anything like that.”

She chewed on the pen. Ordinarily, she’d tell a source who wanted

to remain anonymous to take a hike. Th e Department of Justice

201

MELISSA F. MILLER

couldn’t risk relying on information if they couldn’t probe the source’s credibility. She reminded herself she wasn’t operating as an assistant US attorney at the moment—she was a lawyer bringing a case to the

Tribal Court, which apparently had no rules.

“Th at’s fi ne,” she agreed. “Can you tell me how you knew Isaac

Palmer?”

“Sure. We took accounting classes together at the community

college in Redmond.”

“You’re an accountant, too?”

“Nah, I’m a bookkeeper. After we got our associate degrees,

Isaac went on, got his CPA and everything. He loved numbers more

than anybody I ever met. We used to study together back in the

day and became friends. He could spot patterns and stuff real fast.”

She had no idea what any of this had to do with military drones.

But she scribbled it down anyway.

“Okay. So he told you about the embezzlement?”

“Yeah. He swore me to secrecy. He was worried about his girl-

friend. She works at the casino, too, and he didn’t want her to get into trouble for what he was doing.”

Th e fact that Isaac had described Ruby as his girlfriend made

Aroostine’s heart ache.

“Sure.”

“He said the siphoned funds were almost embarrassingly easy to

spot. It was like whoever did it was so arrogant and confi dent, they didn’t bother to really hide it. Th ere’s lots of ways to fudge numbers that would make it hard to detect, but according to Isaac, this was sloppy work.”

Th at description squared with what she knew about Buckmount—

arrogant and confi dent.

“And how’d the drones come into all this?”

“So, Isaac told me about the money transfers because he had

heard from some guy that Buckmount had stolen some drones from

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CHILLING EFFECT

the testing facility—not any drones, military drones. Isaac was worried that the money in the off shore account was going to be used to buy black market bombs to arm them.”

“Why? I mean, there are lots of things Buckmount might have

wanted to use the money for? Why did Isaac jump to bombs?”

“I’m not sure. Something the guy told him, maybe? Anyway, he

asked me to look into it, on the down low.”

“Why you?”

“My brother works at the testing facility.”

“And?”

“So I told him I heard some drones had gone missing. He

freaked out. He told me not to breathe a word to anyone about

it because the military didn’t know and Buckmount Security was

going nuts trying to fi nd them before news got out.”

“Did you tell Isaac this?”

“Yeah. And I could tell it really bugged him. It didn’t make sense

for Buckmount to steal the drones and then send his security people out to beat the bushes looking for them. Unless it was all an act.”

“But that’s a risky bluff . Th e more people the security person-

nel questioned, the greater the chance word would spread about the

theft, which would inevitably get back to the military base.”

“Th at’s exactly what Isaac said. And the illogic of that drove

him bonkers. He was a very logical, kind of regimented guy. Like,

anal-retentive, I guess you’d say.”

Th e reasonably prudent person.

“I could see that bothering him. Yeah, when he called me, he

made me walk through everything we knew one last time, trying to see whether we’d missed something, but we couldn’t think of anything.”

He fell silent for a moment, and she listened to him breathing.

Th en he said, “Finally, Isaac decided that he’d leave the sleuth-

ing to the FBI or whoever. He told me he was going to give you the

spreadsheets and try to forget about the whole thing.”

203

MELISSA F. MILLER

“Spreadsheets?” She sat up straighter and tried to stay calm. Joe

had been right about Isaac.

“Yeah. He said they’d show you everything you needed to know

to trace the—You didn’t fi nd spreadsheets at his house?”

“No. I’m not sure how thoroughly the police searched it,

though. Th ey were looking for a gun, not a pile of papers.”

Th e man laughed. “Th ey won’t be a bunch of printouts. Isaac

would have stored them electronically, on a fl ash drive or something.”

“Are you sure?”

“Lady, I’m positive. Isaac considered hard copies to be nothing

but clutter—it didn’t matter what it was. But something important,

yeah, totally. He would have put it on one of his crazy, indestruc-

tible USB drives. He used these drives made out of some kind of

metal alloy that’s fi reproof, waterproof, and crushproof. Th at’s all he used; he wouldn’t trust those cheap ones you get for fi ve bucks at the offi ce supply store.”

She asked, “If you had to guess, where do you think he would

have hidden it?”

“I dunno.” Th e man thought for a moment. “Maybe his car?”

“His car?”

“Yeah, he loved that old thing. He called it his favorite thing in

the whole world.”

Hope and anticipation electrifi ed her. Her left leg jittered. Pent-up energy and impatience were taking over.

“His car. Great. Let me search his car. I’ll call you back if I don’t fi nd it.”

“You can if you want to, but I don’t have any other ideas, and I

told you everything I know.”

“Okay, thank you.” Th e words poured out in a rush, and she

hurried to end the call. She grabbed the car keys from the desk and ran out of the room.

204

CHILLING EFFECT

She skidded to a stop just outside the door and stared down at

the heavy, metal keychain ornament in her hand.

A metal alloy. Indestructible. He loved his car.

Heart thudding, she turned and walked slowly back into the

conference room. She examined the cylinder. On fi rst glance, it

appeared to be a single piece of metal. But when she looked closely, she noticed a thin seam running around the bottom. She turned

the bottom of the cylinder, below the seam, to the left. It moved. It made two whole revolutions and then unscrewed in her hand. Th e

cylinder was a hollow tube. Attached to the base was a solid metal

USB drive, made from the same material as the cylinder.

She stared at her palm. All this time, she and Joe had been car-

rying around the evidence that had cost Isaac his life.

205

Aroostine slept in. She rarely slept past sunrise, but when she rolled over to eyeball the clock on the bedside table, she thought she’d

misread it. She blinked. No, it really was nearly ten o’clock.

She threw back the light blanket and padded out into the kitchen.

“Morning, sunshine,” Joe said in an entirely too-chipper tone.

He slid a mug of tea across the counter toward her.

“Th anks.” She raised it to her lips, and the unmistakable, warm

smell of cinnamon fi lled her nose. “Where’d you get this?”

“Boom asked me yesterday what your comfort foods were. I told

him cinnamon tea, oatmeal with blueberries, and dark chocolate.”

He ticked off the items and gestured to a small basket near the stove.

Th en he placed a bowl of oatmeal in front of her. “How’d I do?”

She smiled up at him, and mixed the fat blueberries fl oating on

top of the oatmeal into the hot oats. “A-plus. Th at was nice of Boom.”

He perched on the stool next to hers.

CHILLING EFFECT

“It was. He said he wanted to give us a token of appreciation. I

got a basket, too, for helping him with his offi ce project.”

“Oh, yeah? What’d you get?”

“Fresh roasted coff ee, a six-pack of local beers, and an éclair the size of your face. Th e éclair’s long gone, but I fi gure we can take the chocolate and the beer back to the hotel with us tomorrow.” He

sipped his coff ee.

“What did you do for him, anyway?”

When she’d fi nally dragged herself home the night before, she

collapsed into bed and was asleep within seconds. Th ere’d been little time for chitchat.

“I built a bunch of shelves. Easy stuff . He had all the materials

there. He just needed someone to put them together.”

“Well at least one of us was productive.” She frowned down at

the oatmeal and pushed the bowl away.

“I thought you said those spreadsheets prove the embezzlement

case against Buckmount?”

She nodded. “Th ey do.” As the man had promised, Isaac’s docu-

ments provided a perfect road map. All she had to do was connect

the dots.

“And Buckmount’s going to plead guilty to Isaac’s murder and

Ruby’s abduction?”

“He is.”

“So, it sounds like you’re in pretty good shape.”

“Except for the drones. I have nothing on him for the drones.

Or the break-in at Ruby’s.”

He tilted her chin up. “Hey, you have to go to court with the

facts you have. You aren’t a miracle worker.”