3 - Buffalo Mountain: Ike Schwartz Mystery 3 (19 page)

Chapter 38

Ike let the words sink in. Bolt had somehow managed to survive. What did that do to Charlie’s theory about Russian assassins?

“What kind of trouble are we talking about?”

“I know something about Harris, and your guy was asking about him and me.”

“What can you tell me about Harris?”

“I figure it’s worth something, don’t you think?”

“It’s worth a great deal to us. So talk to me.”

“No. I meant it ought to be worth some money. I can tell you things that can maybe solve who killed him.”

“You know he’s dead? How do you know that?”

“I hear things.”

“But you know he’s dead for certain?”

“Okay, I give you this one for free and then you can decide if a thousand dollars is a fair price for the rest. See, I did odd jobs for him, you know. Like, if he didn’t want anybody to see him but he needed money, he’d give me his bank card and the pin number and I’d go withdraw what he wanted.”

“You didn’t skim a little on the side?”

“I thought about it, but he always paid me good, so no, I didn’t.”

“That’s it? That’s the free information that’s going to convince me to hand over a thousand dollars?”

“No, no, let me finish. He gave me this package to deliver if anything ever happened to him, see. He set up this, like, code deal where if he didn’t do something two days in a row, I was to deliver it. Well, two days went by and so I figured he must be dead.”

“Did you deliver the package?”

“I might have. How about my money?”

Ike sat down and scratched his head. He was getting hot. He unzipped his parka. He looked at his watch and realized he was five minutes away from being late at Ruth’s. He needed time to mull through what Bolt said. He remembered the
Washington Post
articles he’d read. Could there be a connection? He made up his mind to bluff.

“So you drove to Washington and dropped the package off to someone in Rock Creek Park. Have I got it right?”

Ike waited. Silence at the other end. Ike knew he’d guessed correctly.

“That guy’s dead now, did you know that, Bolt? He’s dead and his apartment was trashed. Are you listening?”

“Hey, I don’t know about that. I just —”

“Listen to me. You can forget about money. You need to think about your future and if you have one. Right now, with the evidence we have, you are looking good for a murder.” He heard Bolt try to interrupt. “I said, listen to me. That’s worse case, I can probably hang this one on you—if not directly, at least as an accessory after the fact. Now, there’s a rumor you’re dead. If I let it out that you’re not, do you suppose some folks just might come gunning for you?”

“I didn’t do nothing wrong. I took the package like I was told and delivered it. That’s it.”

“And your house got torched and two beefy guys dragged you out of a fleabag motel. Doesn’t that suggest something to you?”

More silence. Ike wondered if he’d hung up. “Bolt, you still there? I have one more thing to say to you. The deputy who was killed came from your part of the world. If someone killed him, what do you suppose will happen next? He was a Buffalo Mountain man.”

“Oh, sweet Jesus. Somebody else will be killed.”

“What happened?”

“I told you, I took the package to—”

“No. Before that.”

The line remained quiet. Ike could almost hear the gears grinding as Bolt thought through his options.

“Okay. See, Harris, like once a month, he would go to Richmond to, you know, get it on.”

“Get it on?”

“With women.”

“He visited prostitutes?”

“Yeah, I guess. Port of Richmond—bars, stuff like that. Anyway, before he left, he’d use his cards, the bank card especially, to get cash. Then he’d leave them behind in a desk drawer. I guess he thought they could be stolen in one of them places. He was probably right. I had a friend who went to this massage place in Roanoke and they pretty near cleaned him out.”

“Identification?”

“No, he didn’t even take a driver’s license.”

“He did this often?”

“Yeah. Like I said, once a month or so.”

“So Harris is supposed to leave for Richmond, and then what?”

“Well, now I think he did leave but he never came back. That’s my take on things. Anyway, I knew where he was going so I says to that nut case Donnie—”

“That’s Oldham?”

“Yeah. I says, ‘We’ll wait ’til he leaves then fake a burglary,’ only we were too late.”

“How, ‘too late’?”

“When we got there, the whole place was, like, turned upside down and the cards were gone.”

“Oldham didn’t take them?”

“No. I made him turn out his pockets. He didn’t have nothing except a cigarette lighter and silver penknife he copped.”

“He didn’t double cross you and get to Harris early?”

“I don’t see how he could. I mean he ain’t too bright. How’d he know who he was—he never met your guy before that.”

“You’re sure?”

“Um…I guess so.”

“You’re not sure?”

“I don’t know. What do you want me to do?”

“You have a good hiding place now, I expect. Get back in that hole for the weekend. Monday, you call me again and we’ll arrange to meet—someplace safe.”

Ike hung up before he could answer. Ruth was going to give him a hard time. There would be no point in calling. He’d just have to go, take his medicine, and then, after a drink, and a little schmooze, who knew?

***

Saturday morning arrived cold and clear. People began to assemble along the street for Whaite’s funeral. They exhaled in steamy columns as they mingled back and forth. Essie Falco asked Ike if she could rent a horse from the riding stable. She said she wanted to saddle it and put boots in the stirrups backwards like she’d seen in funerals on television. Ike turned her down.

“Essie, we all loved Whaite and want to honor him but it’s eight miles from Six Feet Under’s to the Baptist church and another eight to the graveyard. In this weather and moving at the rate of a walking horse, we won’t get the service over until tomorrow. Besides, that’s really for military funerals. Sorry.”

She looked crestfallen and started to say something when Billy Sutherlin put his arm around her.

“Come with me, sweetcakes. I got a better idea.”

Ike watched the two leave. God only knew what Billy’s idea might be. Ike supposed he’d probably want to veto it, too. At the same time, he realized the two were close to Whaite and whatever it turned out to be, he should probably keep quiet.

Police vehicles from surrounding jurisdictions began arriving an hour before the start of the procession. Their occupants filed into Unger’s to greet Darcie and view Whaite. At ten o’clock, they would form a motorcade and follow the hearse and limousine to the Baptist church for the service and then to the cemetery. A bus carrying four men in kilts and seven men in full dress uniform arrived—the pipers who would play “Amazing Grace” and the men who would provide a twenty-one gun salute at the graveside. Ike was impressed.

He thought about his years in the CIA—about the men and a few women he’d known who had been killed in the pursuance of their job. He thought about Eloise, his wife of a hundred days. Not one of them was celebrated by an assemblage of agents in uniform. No string of cars from other agencies, other jurisdictions, escorted them to their grave. No bugler played taps. No kilted pipers piped them on their way. Just a few friends, a few words, and a brief letter of thanks in the mail a week later.

But the law enforcement community…that was a different story entirely. It knew how to take care of its own.

Before he left the office, he straightened his tie. He was in full regalia, uniform, duty belt, and cap. He made a point of never wearing his “Smokey the Bear” hat; it embarrassed him just to think about it. He was very lax about uniforms in the department as well—his and others. Billy, for instance, wore cowboy boots and a Stetson. Other deputies varied their uniforms to suit their taste. Only Sam Ryder consistently showed up for duty correctly dressed, although her shirttail usually flopped out over her belt. He put on the embarrassing hat, straightened it, and stepped outside. That’s when he saw his deputies waiting. Every one of them in uniform, correct head wear, shoes polished, and standing at attention. He couldn’t help himself. A lump formed in his throat and he realized how proud he was of them all. He snapped them an awkward salute. They returned it. For him and for them, it was a first.

At that moment, Billy’s “idea” turned the corner and fell into line with the growing number of police cars filling the funeral home’s parking lot and lining the street. At least a dozen late nineteen-sixties Chevrolet Chevelles appeared, their motors throbbing. Most were red, but a few black and blue ones punctuated the line here and there. Billy had contacted Whaite’s car club and they were there to pay their respects—not to the police officer—but to the car owner whose vehicle routinely bested them in showoffs. Whaite’s wrecked but still brilliant red car, loaded on the bed of a Rollback, brought up the rear. Someone had strung a black garland across its shattered windscreen.

He gave Billy a thumbs-up. Essie, her arm around Billy’s waist and tears in her eyes, beamed.

At a signal from Siegfried Unger, an auxiliary policeman stopped the traffic on Main Street and the procession began. The hearse and limo pulled out and, one by one, police cars and motorcycles, lights flashing, and finally the Chevelles. The whole formed a line a half mile long and headed to the highway. It was a sad but noble day for Picketsville.

Chapter 39

Everitt Barstow scurried up to Brent Wilcox outside the Dollar Store. Wilcox plastered on his best smile and waited for the ponytailed academic to tell him what had upset him.

“Brent,” Barstow said, and looked nervously over his shoulder, “what’s going on?”

“Sorry? Nothing is going on.”

“Listen, for the last two days, two ham-fisted G-men have been up at the campus interviewing all of us. They are asking about the investment package you’ve put together—how much we’ve invested—things like that.”

“What did you tell them? You know, Everitt, the only way this deal can go down and generate the returns I mention in the prospectus is if we keep it absolutely under the radar. If anyone gets wind of the details, other investors will—”

“I know, I know, I remember the pitch. But these guys were from the FBI. You know how I feel about them. I didn’t give them anything. Obviously, Big Brother has gotten wind of your idea to access the federal parks and wants to stop you. But still, I’m not sure the others are as sharp about this as I am.”

“What are you saying, Everitt?” Wilcox’s smile stayed frozen in place even though his face muscles had started to cramp.

“I think I need to pull out—just temporarily, of course. It’s the name thing, not the money.”

“The name thing? What do you mean?”

“If there is a leak to the press, for example…like, say the sheriff gets hold of this and talks or something…The word around town is, he’s got it in for you…How would it look if a tenured professor were to appear in the story? I have a small reputation in the ecology community. Removing natural resources from federal lands, no matter how carefully managed, is not going to read well. I don’t want my name to appear. So if you would just refund my investment—”

Wilcox let his smile slide off his face. “It’s Saturday, Barstow. I can’t transfer a sum that large until Monday. And, anyway, I think you are making too much of this and should reconsider.”

“Not until Monday?”

“Close of the business day on Monday, yes. It’s the best I can do. Don’t worry, your money is perfectly safe. Look, the feds have a responsibility to assure that any program that involves government property is fiscally sound and, I should emphasize, solidly funded. If too many people like you panic…see…I think you should take the weekend to think it over.”

“Not until Monday, you said.”

“Monday, right.”

Barstow did not look happy as he turned and scuttled away. Wilcox waited until he drove off in his Saab. He checked his watch and headed for the bank. The cavalcade of police vehicles pulling out of Unger’s Funeral Home, their light bars flashing red, white, and blue, rolled toward him. That many policemen in one area and, worse, heading toward him, made him very nervous. It felt like an omen. He took it seriously. He hurried into the bank’s relative warmth.

***

Sam had started attending church because Karl wished it. He was the one with religion. She’d drifted away from the church and its trappings after a comparative religion course in college. She said she objected to the formalities. Later, the formalities purged from her life, she found it easy to drop the substance as well. Karl was a believer in his own way. In Picketsville the two went to the Stonewall Jackson Memorial Episcopal church. When she joined him in DC, they would drive to Fairfax. Now, with him out of her life, there was no reason for her to attend at all. But Whaite’s funeral had stirred an old need and so, on Sunday morning, she found herself parking beside the handsome limestone church. She climbed the few steps to the red-painted doors and was nearly knocked backwards when they flew open. T.J. Harkins stepped out. He saw her distress and must have realized he’d opened a door too hard—again. Apparently, he did that frequently.

“Oh, I am sorry,” he said, and then, seeing who he’d nearly knocked over, added, “Miss Sam, I am sorry. Are you okay?”

“Yes, thank you, T.J., I’m fine. How are you?”

“I am here to deliver Aunt Rose and Aunt Minnie to church and now I have to pick up Colonel Bob at the diner.”

“Well, I won’t keep you, then.” Sam reached for the door’s handle.

“Miss Sam?”

“Yes?”

“When are you going to take me for a ride in the police car like you said?”

“I did promise you that. We’ve been very busy and it’s been a sad time for me, and I forgot.”

“Are you still sad?”

“A little, yes.”

“When you’re finished being sad, can we go for a ride in the police car?”

“This is a special sadness, T.J. It won’t go away for a long time. But I’ll tell you what I can do…tomorrow at three o’clock…you have a way to know when it’s three?”

“Yes, I do. I have this watch.” He rolled up the sleeve of his coat and showed her his watch. “I can tell the time. I know three.”

“Fine, then, tomorrow at three. Can you come to the police station? We’ll take the ride then.”

T.J.’s face beamed. “I will be there at three o’clock tomorrow which is a Monday, Miss Sam.”

***

Ike needed time to think. He felt trapped in his tiny apartment and didn’t want to risk the roads to his A-frame in the mountains. The call from Bolt confirmed his doubts about the Russians. He believed they may have had something to do with Kamarov’s death, but Ike felt sure someone else did the actual shooting. He needed some fresh air. The morning’s cold had moderated to a bearable crispness. He pulled on his parka and decided to drive back to the cemetery. In the confusion of playing host to more than fifty police officers from more than a dozen jurisdictions the previous day, he never had a chance to say goodbye to Whaite. Then the mayor wanted to talk about the government’s harassment of Wilcox and did he know anything about it? He didn’t, but was glad. The mayor did not like that answer and reminded him there was an election coming up and Ike would be wise to choose his friends carefully. Ike reminded the mayor, in turn, where he was and what such an occasion required of him as the town’s top executive. Both had parted in a state of high annoyance.

He parked on the access road. The tire tracks from all the previous day’s vehicles had widened it to include a yard or two of the grassy verge. Muddy footprints marked the path to the site where Whaite had been laid to rest. Odd expression, he thought,
laid to rest
. Is that what death is, rest? That would make it something to look forward to. He stood staring at the freshly turned earth, head bowed. He’d need to replace Whaite. Not now, though. Let him rest. He would miss him and his country, no, mountain wisdom and patience. He’d lost a good man, maybe his best. The sun dipped behind a cloud.

He turned to go to his car and then abruptly turned back and walked to the corner of the graveyard where Eloise was buried. His wife, dead now nearly five years…had it been that long? He wanted to sit on the stone bench he’d placed there as a memorial, but it had an inch of melting snow on it. Instead, he stood. It had been a while since he’d visited the grave, and there were things he still needed to do. He took a deep breath and finally asked for her forgiveness. If he’d been smarter, if he’d been quicker, or if they’d never met, she’d still be alive and well, and probably enormously happy somewhere raising a passel of Irish-American kids. But he had not been the things he needed to be for her, and now she lay beneath six feet of ice-cold earth. He shivered at the thought. So beautiful, so young.
Laid to rest
.

“Do you like Ruth?” he asked. The wind picked up and howled through the pines in the state park to the west. “I want you to like her. She’s not anything like you. She’s smart and bitchy…she’s like an old-fashioned whetstone. She grinds at me. I’m a dull axe, I think. She keeps me sharp. And I think she is what I need right now. Do you understand?” The cloud passed and the sun shone again.

“Thanks.”

He walked back to the car. As he did so, it hit him. He hadn’t been thinking about Kamarov at all, but he knew at that moment why Charlie’s theory didn’t work.