The Vulture (13 page)

Chapter Twenty-four

Charlie Garland spent the day on the phone with contacts in various agencies. He had to call in a few favors and needed the director to call his counterpart in the Federal Bureau of Investigation to get what he wanted, but he finally had a name. Oswald Connors, junior senator from Idaho, had made the request to have Karl Hedrick removed from the Picketsville bombing case. Idaho. Of course, another Idaho association. Now all Charlie needed to discover was who made the call to Senator Connors and he'd have his man. He hoped.

The director of the FBI, in turn had to wonder why the director of the CIA was interested in a local, and only remotely possible, terrorist strike in Virginia. That agency did not stick its nose in for no reason. They wanted to know who sent the request. That meant they must know something about him. He scratched his ear and then ordered his people to pull any files they had on the junior senator from Idaho.

Karl Hedrick's friend in records thought Karl had been given a raw deal when he was assigned a desk. He called Karl and told him so. Karl thanked him and, as an afterthought, asked if he would send a copy of what the director had asked for. That's when he discovered the rumor about Senator Connors.

The senator, it was alleged, liked boys. Not as in he supported the Boy Scouts of America, or Big Brother, but as in the sixth-century BC Greek-sense. No reports of pederasty had been confirmed, nor had there been any accusations made—only rumors and gossip. Whether there was substance to them had not been determined. The file noted: evidence or not, the rumors should be taken seriously. The senator served on an oversight committee that had both the CIA and the FBI under its purview and, therefore, had access to sensitive classified material. Analysts at the Bureau felt because of that, he could be an easy target for possible blackmail and subsequently a threat to National Security. What all this had to do with his request to pull Karl from the case, he did not know, but he passed the information along to Charlie anyway.

***

For his part, Charlie did not like coincidences. He knew that they happened naturally and often. Much of Russian fiction was predicated on them. What were the chances that Lara would be domiciled in the same town in the middle of central Russia where Zhivago rode in to borrow a book? Or was it to buy a loaf of bread? Charlie couldn't remember. This business with the attempt on Ike's and Ruth's lives seemed riddled with too many coincidences. The mysterious repeater tower was in Idaho. The junior senator with a penchant for interfering with investigations (and possibly young boys) also hailed from Idaho. And that ranch, mustn't forget the ranch with the familiar-sounding name. The Idaho connection seemed too much a coincidence to dismiss.

So, two questions: if the FBI had files on the allegations about Connors' behavior, who else knew? It would be fair to guess someone else did. Was it another Idaho link that would close the loop and encircle our master bad guy? That would certainly explain a lot. Charlie called a contact he knew and trusted at the
New York Times
and fed him just enough to set him on the hunt. Then, he had Alice run up a list of all of the senator's contributors, both the ones declared on the disclosure forms and the darker ones buried in PACs. Somewhere in the list of righteous political movers and shakers lurked a very nasty piece of goods and Charlie wanted him. As soon as he had that information, he would set the dial under the pot to boil and that should make someone jump.

***

At first glance, the tape from the dash cam that recorded the shooting outside Buena Vista didn't show much. The deputy approaches the car and as he leans in, he is shot point blank, and the car speeds off. The assailant's license plates were missing. That, Frieze's supervisor assumed, was the reason the deputy had pulled the car over in the first place. There were some other small irregularities regarding operating procedure used on approaching a suspicious vehicle. If the result had been anything other than lethal, Frieze might have had a “sit down” with the sheriff's administrative assistant. But Frieze was dead and calling his sloppy technique into question at this point would be beating a dead horse. The PR person who made that statement had blushed and muttered something about there being no pun intended.

Before Frank could task Charlie Garland to secure the dash cam footage, the Rockbridge Sheriff's Office, as a courtesy, sent a copy to Picketsville. A few eyebrows were raised at the time. What did the Picketsville Sheriff's Office needed with it, anyway? It wasn't in their jurisdiction and did not involve any of their people. They shrugged and reminded themselves that even hick cops got the courtesy nod once in a while. The chief was funny that way.

As he had done with the previous surveillance tape taken at the site of the bomb-planting, Frank called in as many deputies as were available to scan this new footage.

“What's wrong with this picture?' Frank asked them.

Charlie Picket scratched his grizzled head and asked, “What do you mean?”

“All of you went through the academy. Sometime or another you called in a 10-38 and made a stop like this one. What's not right?”

“One correction, Frank,” Billy said. “The word I get from the County is he never called it in. He just made the stop, which is why they didn't know about the shooting for, like, two hours after it happened.”

“Okay, I'm guessing that's real important, by the way. So, with that in mind, what else is wrong with this picture?”

“Umm, I'm not sure but shouldn't he have readied for a confrontation? Like, he doesn't unsnap the strap holding his piece on its holster,” the new kid said.

“Exactly. That's drilled into us all the time. If you pull someone over, your never know what you are about to run into. You always have you gun free and safety off, right?”

The men murmured their assent.

“Next?”

“Crap, he's got his hands in his pockets when he steps up to the driver's side door.”

“Anyone like to guess what that means?”

“It means he knew the guy he pulled over,” three said at once.

“So we have a murder, yes, but not a random shooting. This was premeditated. Whoever was in that car knew our deputy and lured him to his death. So, who has a motive to shoot our fellow officer?”

“Oh shit,” said Billy. “He's the cop at the 7-Eleven when Ike went in and the bomb was planted, so that means he, for sure, had to be implicated. He wasn't just there by chance. He must have followed Ike there. So, it looks like someone in charge decided he couldn't be trusted to keep his mouth shut and had him erased. Whoever these guys are, they sure play rough. Jesus, Frank, that raises another question.”

“Which is?”

“What if they know we've seen the tape? What if this guy was rubbed because someone found out we pulled the surveillance tape from the store and they were afraid we'd make the connection and get to him? If that, is it possible they, whoever they are, might be after us, too?”

“How do you figure?”

“We know what it means. Like, if somebody has eyes or ears on us, doesn't it follow they know that and could come down here to make sure the rest of us don't pass on what we know? Maybe punch one of us out to intimidate the rest into not saying anything?”

“I hadn't thought of that. It's a stretch but I guess it could be. So, everybody, if what Billy thinks is the connection, there's a cop killer out there and one or two of us could have a target on our backs. All of you stay sharp. We don't need any more of us going down.”

“Frank, you think that's possible?” One of older deputies had a worried look. When the first of his six children arrived, he'd transferred in from the Baltimore Police Department because he believed Picketsville was not a high-crime duty station. Now, he wasn't so sure.

“You're good, Bob. First of all, you haven't seen the tape and, second, for all practical purposes, aren't tight with the investigation. No worries.”

Bob didn't seem convinced. He had less than five years to his twenty and pension and he wanted to be on the right side of the sod when he got there.

***

“You want a what?” Charlie had received some bizarre requests from Ike in his time but his insistence he needed a drone fly-over in the middle of nowhere took the cake. “Where? Idaho. Yes, of course, Idaho. That's where you are and you want this because? Suspicious buildings? Ike, I love you like a brother, but if you think I am going to be responsible for the internecine warfare that will erupt when the other branches find out the Agency is doing domestic surveillance on the hotbed of conservative America, you are nuts.”

“Not the Agency, Charlie. A private contractor eager to demonstrate his wares to an unidentified government agency alleged to be in the market for a hi-res TV surveillance drone.”

“I see. And we need this why?”

“There is a ranch out here with too many men in full military attire who're resident and some of whom are, even as we speak, searching our cabin. I may have footage for you to run some facial recognition scans in a few hours. At any rate, all of this activity is too much to dismiss as suspicious human nature. The place is called New Star, like fifty-one star, for God's sake. Worse, since we arrived here we have been scrutinized, followed, photographed, and now our belongings are being searched. It is way over the top, Charlie. I want a peek into that ranch and the military arrangements of their buildings. So, can you fix it?”

“Why can't you ever ask me for something easy, like a small nuclear device or the original Enigma Machine? Why don't you just buy one from Radio Shack or something?”

“They are too obvious, have limited capability and wouldn't last five minutes in the sky. I want one of those sneaky ones you told me about.”

“Sneaky? Like the thing that looks like an eagle? It's just a rumor, Ike. Maybe you'd like an armored personnel carrier, too? They are real and available to every police department and sheriff's office in the land. Why don't you ever ask for something easy?”

“If the armored car looks like a buffalo, I'll take it.”

“Yeah, yeah. Okay, give me some time. By the way, we have a development at this end. Karl has been told to stand down. I have been pursuing who made the request and why. You might find it interesting to know it was Senator Connors.”

“The senator from Idaho. I'm not crazy about that being a coincidence, Charlie. Stay on that and get me some satellite pictures of the New Star Ranch. Sam will send you the GPS coordinates. Oh, and who is Martin Pangborn?”

Ike tapped off and turned to the two women. “Well that's interesting.”

“What's interesting?”

“Sam, your husband is in the doghouse again. He's off the case. Before you ask, I don't know why, but it's hard not to believe it has something to do with the three of us.”

“Someone up there doesn't like him. I'll call and find out why. Do we get our drone?”

“Maybe. Charlie is not happy, but he's working on it.”

Chapter Twenty-five

The deputies operating out of the Rockbridge Sheriff's Office spent their off-duty time in two places. The more abstemious ones were to be found at a diner on old Route 60. Those more likely to require liquid support before or after work would be found at Benny's Sport Bar and Grille, AKA the Cop Stop, a few clicks east. Billy and Essie assumed that Frieze would probably frequent the latter and that is where they headed.

They left Picketsville toward evening and the twenty-minute drive from the office to and through Buena Vista went by in frosty silence.

Billy plastered a smile on his face. “So, is that new perfume? You smell nice.”

Essie riding shotgun, stared straight ahead. “It's soap…Dove bar.”

Billy realized he needed to deal with the chill in the air. He also knew this wasn't normal coming from the usually voluble Essie, and therefore, it could not be good. “Oh. Well, it's um…nice. Say, what's eating you, Babe?”

“When were you going to tell me?”

“Tell you what?”

“That Ike ain't dead.”

Billy made an effort to rearrange his face into something resembling incredulity. Billy had never been good at covering his emotions, which explained why he was such a bad poker player. He failed at this as well. “What makes you think…wait a minute, why you asking something like that?”

“Look, Ma didn't need help watching them babies. You and Frank talking about everything else 'cept Ike, and everyone acting so smug and cheery. There're only two possible reasons for that. First, you don't care he's dead and for sure that ain't the case, so second, he ain't dead. You all thought that if I knew about him being alive I'd tip it to anyone who mighta been watching. Am I right?”

“Well, yeah, but you have to understand—”

“I don't have to understand anything. You all treated me like…Listen, I'm part of the office, right? We're a team. So teammates trust each other. If they have a problem, they hash it out. They don't go jumping to conclusions like you and Frank did.”

“Essie, I'm sorry, but it was so important that nobody know. Not then. Not now. So—”

“So…okay, at first I would have, you know, tipped off anybody who could have been sent to check, I mean, but now I had time to think about it, I wouldn't have. I am not stupid, you know. So, how about I come back to work full-time? I'm going crazy out at Ma's.”

“Yeah, Okay, I guess. Talk to Frank. Here we are. Jesus, what a dive. Okay, remember, we are just being cool. If we're asked, we just want to share our sympathies about a fallen brother and all that. Otherwise, we're grabbing a quick beer on our way to work.”

“Got it, but I ain't done with this.”

The bar was crowded with off-duty cops, firemen, truckers, and the town layabouts. There is an aroma that identifies bars where desperate men drink—somewhere between stale beer and fear. Well not fear, exactly. Something that signals danger anticipated and/or avoided. Whether going on duty or coming off, there was an exhalation of that distinctive scent—cop pheromone. Essie excused herself and cut through it on her way to the restroom. It was a “lady thing,” she said. Billy found a high-top near a pair of cops and ordered two beers. Essie emerged from the restroom and a man whose moustache suggested he was a devotee of
American Chopper
sidled up to her and offered to buy her a drink.

“You got plans for tonight, honey?” he asked.

“Sure do. How 'bout you, sugar?”

The guy hitched up his jeans to show off the horseshoe-sized rodeo buckle. “Mebee we could do some of that planning together.”

“You think? Well, here's the thing. I got two little kids to home. I got number three in the oven, you could say. I ain't got rid of the belly fat from the second and there's a road map of stretch marks the whole way round. And, oh I forgot, my husband is mean as a snake and packs a .357 Magnum. You okay with all that?”

Moustache drifted away. Essie pulled up to the high-top.

“What was that all about?” Billy said.

“He wanted to know if I wanted to romp in his playpen. Then he changed his mind.”

“Yeah?”

“I told him you packed a .357 and were the jealous type. That caught his attention and he asked to be excused.”

“Wow. You still got it, Babe.”

“And don't you forget it. What did you learn so far?”

“Not much. The two dudes at the next table were sort of friends with Frieze, not real close, though. They thought he was weird. They said he belonged to some right-wing survivalist thing and kept at them to sign up. I kinda think that might be important, but I don't know why.”

“We should buy them a drink, don't you think?”

***

Charlie Garland finished his call to the drone vendor and hung up the phone. He shuffled the papers on his desk and drummed his fingers. Martin Pangborn. His eyebrows converged. He knew that name from somewhere. Where or when? Not recently, but not that long ago. He yelled for Alice to come in. He needed her to run a complete scan on Martin Pangborn.

“Give me everything, Alice, his birth, siblings, where he went to school, girlfriends, boyfriends, imaginary or real, I don't care. I want it all.”

***

“So, what was the name of that organization he was pushing you to join up with?” Essie asked.

When Billy was on duty, as opposed to relaxing with friends, he had one of those faces that defied reading, try as you might. If he chose to and unless he was very angry or in pain, one look at him and you would think there was absolutely nothing behind those brown eyes. “The lights were on, but nobody is home,” the expression goes. It wasn't true, but it had always served him well.

Billy let Essie do the talking while he relaxed his expression into amiable stupidity and studied the two men at the other hi-top through the bottom of his beer glass. Essie opened her fringed leather vest, batted her blue eyes, and flashed her hundred-watt smile. She had a way of extracting information from men that was way different from his. At the moment, her way seemed to be working the best. Three beers and that smile would to do it. Essie was not another blond airhead, but she could convince anyone she was, if so moved. The two county cops were dazzled. That the beers were taking effect and they were a little tight made Essie's job a whole lot easier.

“Shit, lady, I don't know. It had something with a star in it, I think,” the first cop said. “So, who do you all work for again?”

Before she could answer, the second cop blurted, “There was a number in it, but it didn't make sense. Like, something-star, twenty-one…no, bigger number, I can't remember.”

“Fifty-one,” the first one said. “Yeah, that was it. He was a member of the Star Fifty-one. No, that's not right. It was the Fifty-first Star. I thought it was a Masonic thing at first, you know. A lot of them lodges have a star in their name, so that's why I thought that, but he said no way, it was a patriotic organization that had true patriots for members. I remember saying, ‘Well, of course it does.' On account of, well duh, if was a patriotic gang, wouldn't that be who'd be in it? I mean, it stands to reason.”

The other cop nodded. “Frieze was a nerdy kinda guy and I don't think he was wrapped too tight either. Anyway he said things like, ‘There is patriots and then there is true patriots. True patriots respect the Constitution of the U. S. of A. and the others just wave flags but don't do nothing when their country is under attack.' I asked him who was doing the attacking and he listed a whole bunch of people and, you know, organizations and such. Didn't any of it make much sense to me so I stopped listening. He was an okay guy, though, except for that. I mean nobody should take a bullet in the face like that. No way. Son of a bitch.”

“No, they shouldn't. Cops put their lives on the line and deserve better. Right, Billy?”

“Right, they do. Son of a bitch.”

“Damned straight,” the second cop said. “Umm. Come to think about it, that group there, it was like a survivalist thing, only military. Like, they went off in the woods out west somewhere and lived off the land, took target practice, stuff like that. You'd think mandatory range duty here would be enough, but he said he needed time with automatic weapons and the big stuff.”

“Big stuff?”

“Yeah. I don't know what he meant by that, I figured he was just blowing smoke.”

***

Sam removed the memory chips from the various surveillance devices she'd set around their cabin, loaded their images into her computer, and arranged them into a slideshow.

“That's one of the guys at the gate,” she said and tapped the screen. “He seemed to be in charge. The rest were mostly spear carriers, you know—stood around fingering their weapons and looking fierce. Oh, and I think that one was too, but I can't be sure.”

“Send that array to Charlie and ask him if he can put names to faces. Do you think any of these guys copied or took anything with them when they left?”

“Keyboard logger says no. They might have bypassed it by taking pictures of the screens but I doubt it.”

“We should be good for a day or two and then they'll be back. I wonder what we should leave behind for them to find that might knock over a domino.”

Ruth sat up. “Say what? You want them to suspect something? We don't have enough trouble already?”

“The fact that they felt a need to search this place means they are suspicious. What I want to do is satisfy their curiosity and confirm their suspicions, but send them in a different direction. I'm thinking of something that will divert them. Look, our cover story is pretty thin, right? I mean what is the likelihood the Gottliebs from North Carolina would come all the way out here to buy ranch land? Even if it were the truth, who'd believe that? It doesn't smell right. Now, suppose we were to leave brochures and a prospectus about mineral rights and fracking lying around. Now, our ‘secret' will be revealed. They will congratulate themselves for being suspicious in the first place and then smart enough to figure out what we were really here for. Since they know that we are not likely to do anything more than talk and poke around, they will leave us alone.”

“That is very devious.”

“My middle name. And then, because we are not really a threat to them, they will make allowances for our behavior which they might not otherwise do.”