3 - Buffalo Mountain: Ike Schwartz Mystery 3 (20 page)

Chapter 40

Sam lingered at church. The wind had picked up and, in spite of its central heating, the church had been chilly. She had the time, goodness knows, and a cup of coffee would warm her up, she thought. Whether she would admit to it or not, she needed people. Blake Fisher, apparently sensing her discomfort, wandered over.

“How are you, Sam?”

“Fine, Father Blake.” The
Father
part she’d acquired from Karl, and it sounded oddly discordant to her lapsed Lutheran ears. “I’m fine, thank you,” she added. It was not true but the best she could do.

“You must try Tina’s oatmeal-raisin cookies. They are famous in the church, maybe in the county—I’m not sure about that—but they should be. I have my private stash Tina makes for me up in the office, but I plan to scarf off as many of these as possible now, save the others for later.” Sam saw the smile and felt grateful for the attention. She did not need a cookie, but then…They moved to the table with its tray of cookies and coffee urn. He filled a cup for each of them and offered her a cookie.

Rose Garroway, overcoated, hatted, and gloved, slipped up beside Blake.

“Harry Potter,” she said. “A word to the wise. Joe Bartlett is on his way over here and he’s got the little English wizard on the brain.”

“What?” Blake said.

“Joe. He heard the school library has shelved the Harry Potter books and he wants you to sign a petition to have them removed.” She glanced over at an impatient T.J. and Minnie standing by the door. “He asked me and I said I liked the Potter stories, and he said they glorified satanic practices and the occult. Oops, here he comes now. And here’s T.J. He’ll want me to leave. Bye.”

Joe Bartlett moved toward Blake like a heavy cruiser doing twenty knots on a calm sea. Members of the congregation were washed aside in his bow wake and all but tumbled into each other as he passed. The look on his face made Blake cringe. He glanced around for an escape but could find none. In his greed to garner more than his fair share of cookies, he had pinned himself and Sam behind the refreshment table, an easy target for Joe’s big guns.

“I guess you’ve heard, Vicar, about what’s going on in the library at the school?” Joe said, breathless and red-faced.

“No, Joe. Is there trouble?”

“Harry Potter,” he said, fixing Blake with a righteous stare. “They are letting our kids read books inspired by the devil.”

“What’s the problem with the books, Joe? I’ve read them and seen the movies. They are not great literature, but I can’t see…”

“Vicar, I am amazed. You’ve read them?”

“Yes, have you?”

“Certainly not. I won’t have sorcery and magic in my house.”

“You haven’t read them but you are prepared to have them banned? Why?”

“Come on, Vicar, surely you know. They are about wizards and witches—all the denizens of the Devil’s army—children at risk, and all that. I have a petition here I want you to sign.”

“No, I don’t think so, Joe. I won’t sign.”

“You won’t? I’m disappointed, Vicar. And I’m sure the Mission Board will have something to say about that.”

“They may, Joe, and you are certainly free to bring it up, but I will not sign. Would you like to know why?”

“Um. Sure, I guess, but I can’t see how you can stand there and let something like this happen. Don’t you care what happens to our children?”

Joe poured himself a cup of coffee and grabbed a handful of cookies, half of which he stuffed into his mouth, the other half into his pocket.

“We are in the Advent season now. You know what that’s about, of course?”

“One of those historical things, I guess. For me, we are getting ready to celebrate the birth of Jesus, so I don’t understand all this stuff about repenting.”

“Well, stay with the birth of Jesus, then. Who came to worship him in the manger?”

“Shepherds, angels…”

“Anyone else?”

“Three kings came with gold and frankincense and myrrh.”

“Not kings, Joe. Kings is not how the Greek reads. They were magi.”

“Well, okay, wise men, then.”

“Not quite.
Magi
shares the root from which we get the word magic. They were magicians, stargazers, astrologers—wizards are what we would call them today. And they brought gifts. What do you suppose those gifts were meant to symbolize?”

“Gold is for the riches of the world, frankincense is for worship, and myrrh is to remind us that we all will die but we will die in the Lord. It’s in that hymn.”

“That is the traditional Christian view, but I don’t believe that’s what the magi had in mind. The ancients believed gold had magical properties. For example, they believed gold could remove poison from beverages, so kings drank from gold chalices, not to show their wealth, but to benefit from its magic. Alchemists tried for centuries to turn base metal into gold. They believed they could do so because there was some sort of residual magic in the metal and the right incantation and procedure would make the conversion possible.

“Frankincense was burned in the Temple in Jerusalem and pagan temples all over the known world and especially at oracles. At Delphi, for example, a priestess would sit in a smoke-filled room, with candles or lamps set in front of large, split geodes, the origin of crystal balls in our time, I think, and chew hallucinogenic plants. The play of light and the smoke created an otherworldly illusion—‘smoke and mirrors,’ you might say. After a while, the prophecy would be handed to the supplicant written, as often as not, in myrrh ink. The important thing, Joe, is they represented the tools of their trade.”

Joe stared at Blake slack jawed.

“You see what happened? There was only one king in that room—a baby named Jesus. They laid the symbols of their power at the feet of a baby. He received the tokens of their power. That means the forces that frighten you are under submission to God. They cannot prevail. No, I do not worry about Harry Potter. Some persons may become enthralled by what he represents and lose their way, some may actually practice dark arts and lose their souls, but for the rest of us, Harry Potter and his gang are no more threatening than the unlikely gang from
Star Trek.

“So to answer your question, I am concerned about our children. If you want me to sign a petition to do something about child pornography, child abuse, or homeless children, by all means, bring it around, but this one—no.”

Pinned in behind the table, Sam had no choice but to listen. She did so with considerable admiration. Without realizing it, she’d worked her way through a half dozen cookies as her gaze shifted from one man to the other. Her appreciation of Blake had previously been attached only to his sermons, which she usually enjoyed. Otherwise, positioned at the front of the church, costumed in a white alb and stole, and backlit by candles, he seemed a remote and foreign presence. She had not seen this determined side. And at that moment, she began to realize that her drift from the church was occasioned as much by a perceived lack of intellectual challenge, as by its archaic forms and substance. Karl or no Karl, she decided she would stick with this church business for a while longer. As she left, she glanced back at Blake and for a fleeting moment wished he were a few inches taller.

Chapter 41

Karl Hedrick sat in his section chief’s outer office for an hour past his appointment time. He supposed the psychology ploy was meant to intimidate him. He found himself growing angry instead. At eight-thirty he stood to leave.

“Tell Bullock I will be in my cubicle when he’s ready.”

“Mr. Hedrick, he’s expecting you to wait. I’m sure he’ll only be a minute more.”

“Frances, I will not get on your case, because you are only doing your job, but I know, and you know, there is no one in there with him. He is playing head games and I am not willing to participate.”

Just then the door swung open. Frances must have depressed the talk switch and Bullock heard what he’d said.

“Inside, Hedrick,” he said, and lumbered back in his office. Frances gave Karl a weak smile and shrugged.

The next forty-five minutes consisted mostly of Bullock haranguing Karl, who listened as patiently as he could for as long as he could. Then, when Bullock came up for air, Karl recited the list of mistakes, misconceptions, and plain errors that had marked the operation to date. He reminded Bullock that it had been the Picketsville police who had saved his bacon in the past. He pointed out that going into the town and interviewing possible victims in the open invited their man to skip town, and then rounded on the idiocy of employing an incompetent answering service.

Bullock’s jaw dropped. His face turned cerise. Finally he sputtered that Karl would be on probation starting immediately and that he, Bullock, would recommend his termination. In the meantime, Karl would be well advised to rethink his words and perhaps his career choice. Karl knew there was a process and he could not be fired in anything less than ten working days unless he posed a clear threat to the Bureau. He thanked his boss and left the building. He didn’t feel like clearing out his desk just yet, if ever. The possibility existed that this last set of errors might catch up with Bullock long before the process to terminate began. He found his car, having packed it earlier, and drove southwest to Picketsville. He had a job to do.

***

T.J. arrived at precisely three o’clock. If Sam had been watching, she would have noticed that he also arrived at two forty-five, two fifty, and two fifty-seven. She had picked the hour when she would go off shift and could spend the time without a conflict. Ike had okayed the use of a cruiser.

Sam met T.J. at the door. “Are you ready?” He smiled and nodded. “Okay, then let’s roll.”

“Let’s roll,” he repeated.

They crossed the parking lot to the black and white. T.J. climbed in the passenger side. Sam settled behind the wheel and snapped her laptop into its docking station on the dash. They drove onto Main Street and toward the Covington Road.

“We’ll just cruise to the edge of town, make a loop to the north and hit the interstate. We have a limited jurisdiction there, but it’s easy riding.”

“Can we make the siren go?”

“No, sorry about that, but unless we are in hot pursuit or want to alert someone, the siren stays off.” T.J. looked disappointed. When they’d driven west a few miles, Sam called in their location and Essie, whom she’d primed before they’d left, answered with a stream of official-sounding directives. T.J. sat up, eyes bright. He turned and pointed to the computer.

“What does that do?” he asked.

“It’s a computer on a wireless network. It talks to the ones in the office and the state’s database.” T.J. had a blank look on his face. “Okay, say we are following a car and it is doing something suspicious, like weaving back and forth. I can type in the license number and the computer will tell me all about the car, its owner, and anything else I might need. Watch.” She typed in the number of an old Honda Civic in front of them. In a moment the data flashed on the screen. “Can you read that?” T.J. squinted and studied the words.

“It says Honda Civic and has a man’s name. There is a year here, too. Is that the year of the car or of the man driving it?”

“Which line?” T.J. pointed to the screen. “That one is the year of the car. This one,” she pointed to another line, “should be the DOB of the owner.”

“DOB?”

“Date of birth—the year the owner was born.”

They drove up an access ramp and headed north on I-81. T.J. alternately looked forward and then at the equipment in the car. Sam explained each switch and variation on the dash from the cars he’d driven. Finally he sat back in his seat to enjoy the ride. As they pulled up behind a silver sedan, T.J. asked if he could work the computer. Sam smiled and nodded. He carefully tapped in the license number. The data shifted to this new parameter. Sam glanced at the screen.

“See? There you go. That’s the license number and the description of the car.”

T.J. studied the information he’d created. He frowned and looked up at Sam.

“Deputy Sam, that’s the wrong car. It’s supposed to be a Ford Crown Victoria and that’s a Mercury Grand Marquis.” Sam looked more closely at the screen. T.J. was right. The two vehicles appeared essentially the same, and easy to confuse. The license number did not belong to that car.

“Okay, T.J., now you can use the siren but—wait a second—first, throw that switch there. That will turn on our lights. Now, for the siren, just turn it on for a second and then off again. We don’t want to make too big a deal out of this.”

T.J. did as he was told and the siren growled. The car in front slowed and pulled to the side of the road. Sam called in her location and the 10-37, suspicious vehicle she had stopped, on the cruiser’s radio.

“You wait here, T.J., and watch. If anything looks funny you pick up the transmitter—that’s this thing—push the send button—like this—and say 10-31. You understand?”

“Ten thirty-one. Yes.”

Sam stepped out of the car and approached the driver’s side. As she did so, she unsnapped her holster strap and freed her Glock. The window on the Sable slid down. Sam stepped up and looked in.

“Mrs. Morse, is that you?”

“My word, Samantha, don’t you look smart in that uniform. I heard you left the college but now I see it’s true what they said—you’re a deputy sheriff.”

“Yes ma’am, I am.” Estelle Morse worked in the personnel office at Callend College. “We have a little problem here.”

“I wasn’t going too fast, I’m sure of that and—”

“It’s not speeding, Mrs. Morse. You have someone else’s plates on your car.”

“Excuse me?”

“It appears someone switched license plates with you.”

“Oh dear, is that serious?”

“Maybe. Stay right here.” Sam walked back to the police car. “T.J., what’s the owner’s name on the Ford?”

“That license belongs on a car belonging to someone named Enterprise.”

“It’s a rental. Okay. Essie, 10-63. I have a car out here belonging to Estelle Morse from up at the college wearing plates from an Enterprise rental. See if they are missing a car. It’s probably already at the chop shop, but give them a buzz. I’ll send Mrs. Morse to you for a set of temp tags and you can explain to her what she needs to do next. Handle the stolen plates with gloves at the edges just in case the mope who took the car was stupid and left us some prints.”

“Ten-four.”

Sam returned to Mrs. Morse and told her what she must do next. She also assured her several times that she was not in trouble and that everything would be fine. When she slid back in the cruiser, she saw that T.J. had been looking through the material on her clipboard.

“Good job, T.J., I might have missed that.”

“I was reading your papers.”

“They’re just the latest things we’re working on and some forms,” she said.

“There are pictures here.”

“Yes, they are pictures of people we want to talk to.”

“Why do you want to talk to Donald and Hollis?”