3 - Buffalo Mountain: Ike Schwartz Mystery 3 (22 page)

Chapter 44

Ike hustled the two into his office. They both unconsciously ducked coming through the door. A pair of giraffes, Ike thought.

“Ike…” Sam began.

Ike waved at her to wait and indicated they should sit.

“Karl, how badly do you want to be an FBI agent?”

Karl frowned. “Ever since I was a little kid, that’s all I wanted to do. The other kids in the neighborhood all wanted the NBA or the NFL, but not me. I was going to be a G-man. I took a lot of heat for that, especially because of my size.”

“Do you want to go back?”

“That’s the problem. Bullock has essentially poisoned the well for me. If he has his way, I’ll have a hearing on my competence soon. I could be sacked or not, but it would be desk duty for me for who knows how long.”

Ike studied the young man. He certainly had the credentials and, Ike guessed, the smarts, courage, and instincts to be good at anything he put his mind to.

“Okay, I have something for you that might alter that—some information that could pull your boss’ chestnuts out of the fire. If he bites, he wouldn’t dare have you fired. You want it?”

Karl frowned and nodded. “Sure. But I don’t understand.”

“The Bureau’s, shall we say, obvious, clumsy, inappropriate, unprofessional—you pick one or all of the above—presence in this town, and all that interviewing, at your chief’s orders as we know, spooked your Ponzi operator. He’s skipped town, gone, kaput. They may or may not track him down again anytime soon. I can give him to you today, and you can look like the Lone Ranger to your superiors. It may or may not save your boss’ butt. I don’t know and I don’t care. That will depend on how perceptive his supervisors are. In any event, it ought to save yours.”

“What have you got on Wilcox?”

“He’s driving a Ford Taurus with stolen plates. Essie has the numbers. He should be easy to track. The Taurus has already been reported as stolen, by the way, so your guys had better move fast before some other country hick cop beats them to the punch again.”

Karl’s eyes lit up. “Can I use your phone?”

“You can use that empty desk. And I want to talk to your boss when you’re done.”

Sam, whose blush had faded in the previous few minutes, stood to leave with Karl. “Hold on, Sam. Sit.”

Karl slipped into Whaite’s old desk and picked up the phone. Ike turned back to Sam. “I reworked the duty roster this morning and you are off tomorrow. You might want to use the time to help Karl.”

“Help? Oh, help, right, I got that end covered, Ike, thank you. You say you changed the schedule this morning?”

“Just anticipating. You never know how these things will work out.” He walked to his office door. “Essie,” he yelled, “you owe me a jelly-filled.”

“No, I don’t. Now, this here is a fix-up. The bust-up was real and for the reasons I said.”

“We’ll talk about that later.” The phone rang again. “And this has got to be Act Three. Hello? Tom? What does the mayor of Picketsville want with his ‘ought to remember who your friends are, Sheriff’ today?” Ike listened, smiled, and sat back in his chair. It didn’t squeal. Somebody had finally responded to a work order.

“Calm down, Tom, the FBI is on it right now and should have your man in custody by nightfall. I wouldn’t be too hopeful about recovering your money, though. He was working a Ponzi and by the time all this is sorted out, there won’t be much left. What? I’m sorry about that…next time check out anybody who wants your money but says you have to keep what you’re up to a secret. It’s a tip-off.”

Karl wigwagged that he was finished with his call. Ike stepped into the main office and took the phone from Karl.

“Special Agent Bullock? How are you-all this fine day?”

Everyone in the room stopped talking and stared at Ike. Never in all the years he’d lived in, worked in, or simply occupied space in Picketsville had he ever spoken with an accent. But today his mouth seemed filled with corn pone.

“Yessir, well, Special Agent, this here is Sheriff Ike Schwartz down at Picketsville…you remember? Well, that’s mighty fine. See, here’s the thing, your ole boy jest pulled that’n off something fine.” Karl flinched at
boy.

“He’s what? Suspended from duty? Well dog my cats if that ain’t sumpin’ else. Well, now I sure am sad to here that, yessir. Well now, here’s what I’m wonderin’. We have us a federal offense in the act, you could say, and I’m just, as I say, just wonderin” iffen I can borry your boy so he could help us tomorra? Big case—interstate bank fraud. Shore could use some—he can? As long as I like? You’ll do what? Assign him to us on a interagency loan. Well that’s mighty nice of you, Special Agent Bullock. Yessir, mighty nice, and thank yew.”

Ike hung up and turned to the group. “What?”

“What was that all about?” Sam said.

“Dog my cats?” Essie added.

“Needed to get that bonehead thinking he was doing us a favor. He has to be angry at Karl even with the tip on Wilcox. He was set to fry him and now he can’t. I figured he couldn’t resist cashing in on one of our operations, especially since he would be dealing with good ole Sheriff Hamhocks. Anyway, Karl, you’re going to score some more points with your people before we’re done here. Hell, we might even get you a promotion.”

The phone rang. “There isn’t supposed to be any Act Four in these plays. Who can this be?”

“Sheriff?” Colonel Twelvetrees sounded serious. “You have a minute?”

“Got the rest of the day, Colonel. What have you got?”

“I found your truck. No, that’s not quite right. T.J. found it. See, we are a team. I am nearly blind—can’t see things worth a hoot, but I can grasp their significance. T.J., on the other hand, can see the things clear as day, but not see the significance, you follow? I told him you were looking for a truck with a crushed passenger side and some red paint. He knew where one was. I asked ‘where?’ and he said ‘at the house of the man Sheriff Ike asked him the questions about.’ He said you should go see Donald. That work for you?”

“Tell T.J. it works beautifully.”

“I’ll tell him. Now you understand what I was saying to you earlier? It’s a matter of fitting him in the right slot, not setting him apart.”

Ike hung up. “We may have our truck. Donald, that’s T.J.’s neighbor, has one, it is banged up on the passenger side and has red paint on the door. Oh, and he’s one of the people we have on the pictures from the ATM cameras. That will help us get a warrant. Can you two be back here tomorrow by two? I could use some help.”

“We’re going for Oldham?”

“He’s the one with the credit and bank cards—that’s your department, Karl—and the suspicious truck—that’s ours.”

“Why two in the afternoon?”

“It will be one o’clock tomorrow afternoon before I can clear warrants in Floyd County. We’re crossing jurisdictions and I need them, and I have some calls to make. We can use probable cause on account of the credit cards to search the house and property. That will get us the truck. We’ll give it a going over, too. We can sweat Oldham a little and who knows where that might lead? Maybe he’s the guy, maybe not. Red paint is red paint.”

“Not this time,” Sam said. “If his is the truck, we have him cold.”

Chapter 45

Most of the snow in the valley had melted or turned to slush, except out in the country. There a thin sheet remained, part snow, part ice, covering fields left fallow for the winter or struggling to produce a crop of winter wheat. In the moonlight, you couldn’t tell anything about the snow except it sparkled and gleamed like an old-fashioned Christmas card. Ruth edged toward Ike. The car’s center console prevented any thoughts she might have had to snuggle. She smiled and wondered when she’d last thought of snuggling. She’d have been in her teens, probably.

“It really is beautiful, isn’t it?” Ike nodded, and swung the car into his parents’ driveway.

“Is there anything I need to know about the celebration? I mean, I am not used to Christmas, much less Chanukah. And even then, the commercial version of Christmas is the only one I know.”

“This is nothing like either. We are not orthodox. Rabbi Schusterman told Abe as far as he was concerned we might as well go to the Episcopal church for all the piety he saw. He said Blake Fisher had a better sense of Judaism than either of us. He’s probably right. He called us ‘bacon Jews.’”

“Bacon Jews?”

“Very, very unkosher.”

She sat back and watched the scenery slide by. The Schwartz farmhouse stood a half mile from the road. The row of trees on either side of the driveway flashed by, creating a changing panorama like a film strip. Ike pulled up to the front porch.

“Hop out. I’ll park the car over by the barn. There will be others coming and I want to give them room.”

Ruth stepped gingerly from the car onto crusted snow and climbed the steps to the front door. She hesitated. Should she knock or just let herself in? She did not know what her relationship with Ike entitled her to. Before she could decide, the door swung open and Abe Schwartz, wearing a bright red flannel shirt, held out his hand.

“Come on in, Miz Harris.”

“It’s Ruth, Abe, not Ms. Harris. Please?”

“Well, thank you for that, Ruth. Now you get on in here and have you some punch and eats. Where’s Ike?”

“Parking the car.”

She stepped into the hallway and shed her coat. Abe took it and hung it on an old-fashioned oak coatrack. The house was warm and filled with the aroma of country cooking. A blast of cold air signaled Ike’s arrival. He hung up his coat next to hers and led her into the front parlor. It had been decorated with an evergreen tree festooned with what appeared to be odd-shaped balls. There were garlands of pine and ivy strung around the room, and a menorah had been placed on the mantle.

“Except for the menorah, this could be any Christian holiday home,” she said.

“How so?”

“Well, you have a Christmas tree, and it’s decorated and…is that mistletoe?”

“It is, and Abe is headed this way, so if you don’t want the old coot to buss you, step away.”

“Who says I don’t want your dad to give me a kiss? Look, I’m moving right under it, so there.” Abe smiled and obliged.

“Merry Christmas,” he said.

“And a…what? Happy, merry, joyful…Chanukah.”

“Any and all will do. Let me get you a dish.” Abe wheeled and headed for the dining room, where he proceeded to heap food on a plate.

“Good Lord, he isn’t going to eat all that, is he?”

“Actually, he’s filling it for you. Abe eats like a bird.”

“One of you two Schwartzes will be the death of me. Wow, thank you, Abe. Can I get a doggie bag?”

“She’s a card, Ike, you keep her close. You ain’t getting any younger and you ain’t much of a catch either.”

“He really loves me. He just says those things to keep me humble.”

“Somebody has to. Anyway, it’s all very…um, ecumenical.”

“You think? Actually it’s primarily Jewish.”

“That’s a what, a Chanukah tree, then? Come on.”

“The trees, evergreen, even the mistletoe, have nothing to do with the Christian holiday. They are pagan symbols co-opted by Christians somewhere along the way. It is their genius. The menorah on the mantle is Jewish, and so are the dreidels on the tree.”

“The whats?”

“Tops. Chanukah toys for children.”

“No Christian symbols here at all?”

“Just the one.”

“Where?”

“We put a star on the top of the tree.”

“The only Christmas I know is trees, Santa Claus, and somebody singing ‘White Christmas.’”

“That’s an American shopping mall Christmas—sorry, holiday celebration. The courts have pretty much removed most of the Christian symbolism from public places.”

“And Jesus is…?”

“The Holiday Infant. Not even my time, but I think that’s pathetic. Sorry. Now I’m waiting for the ACLU to take them to court on the rest of it as well. Separation of church and state and all that. Paganism is a religion. In fact, the Supreme Court has said so. Satanism, Wicca, they all come under the designation of religion.”

“And?”

“And, I reckon that means we’ll be taking Halloween out of the schools next. No more witches and devils. The pity is, we pride ourselves on our pluralistic society, and now we are tearing it down in the name of not offending anyone.”

“You’re on a rant, aren’t you?”

“Just a little one—in honor of the season. See, it’s as though you have a box of precious stones and you crush the red ones because they offend the green ones. And then they are crushed because the blue ones have issues and pretty soon you have…?”

“I give up—what?”

“Sand. We are homogenizing our society and losing our brilliance.”

“Oh, really—”

“You know the problems Old Europe has? They used to be homogeneous. Now they are faced with an influx of Turks, Africans, and Arabs, and they don’t like it. They are being forced to become pluralistic. We are going the other way, and it worries me, that’s all. Soon the level playing field of homogeneity will be attained, and even the vestiges of your pagan ancestors will have disappeared.”

“But not
your
pagan ancestors?”

“No, our story begins at the beginning and does not include pagans in any of it, except for an occasional drop-in.”

“Like my namesake?”

“Precisely. They are important to the story but only—”

“No ‘but only,’ Ike. Face it—no Ruth, no King David, end of story.”

“Well, we might assume that the Lord could have managed a David some other way.”

“I know little or nothing about theology and less about Judaism, but I will bet you a night of sweaty bed wrestling your scholars would not agree. If I understand the book your mother gave me right, it’s that story or no story.”

“You’re probably right. And that leads you to what conclusion?”

“That your more-or-less Christian mom is a better Jew than either you or your dad is now, or ever will be. She is on to something.”

“What?”

“It’s not for me to say, but I need to talk to her and soon.”

Other guests began to arrive and Ike and Ruth were distracted for the moment. Leon Weitz cornered Abe, who smiled and began one of his anecdotes about politics in the Commonwealth. Blake Fisher came in looking much too young and alive and escorting a beautiful young woman, who, he claimed, played the organ. To Ruth’s chagrin, he confirmed Ike’s description of the decorations. Several other couples arrived, people she did not know but assumed were family or friends. Ike greeted them and brought most over to her to be introduced. Had she been raised in Virginia, she would have recognized most of the names as belonging to former governors, senators, and the upper echelon of Commonwealth politics. She smiled and tried to recall the memory tricks she’d been taught to retain names. She failed.

From time to time, individuals and small groups disappeared down the hall. They returned within minutes. She looked at one group and raised one eyebrow to Ike.

“They are wishing my mother the best for the holiday—saying hello, maybe a disguised goodbye.”

“Can I…?”

“She’ll call you, Ruth. She’s saving you for later. Eat your food.”

“I did. I ate more than I ever do and I didn’t make a dent in this pile of cholesterol-enhancing…didn’t anyone ever teach you about salad?”

“It’s not the season for salad. From Thanksgiving to the first of January, we eat ’til it hurts. You are not participating. You need to get into the program.”

“So arrest me, Sheriff. You’ll never take me alive, copper—at least not with this in my system.”

Ruth spent the next hour mingling with the guests. She put her still-heaping plate down only to have Abe hand her a new one. She stuck to the punch, which she assumed was nonalcoholic. It wasn’t. She lost track of Ike. She scanned the crowd in the parlor and the dining room without success. She put her plate down again. No Abe, no threat of a third. Finally she caught sight of the two of them in the hallway.

“She would like to see you, Ruth,” Abe said. “She’s pretty worn out with all the coming and going but she said to send you in.”

“I won’t stay long.” She made her way down the hall toward the rear of the house. The door stood ajar. She tapped lightly, paused, and went in. Ike’s mother seemed much as she remembered from her last visit—paler maybe, but that could be the effect of the candles flickering on the mantle.

“Happy Chanukah and Merry Christmas, too,” Ruth said. She took a seat next to the bed.

“How are you, Ruth?”

“Very well, thank you.”

“They think I don’t know about moving the party up. They think I might not make it for another week. Men!”

Ruth smiled and took her hand. “Ike said you wanted to see me, especially.”

“I do. He’s a good man, isn’t he, my Isaac?”

“Yes, he is. A little unruly at times and annoyingly independent.”

“He’s like his father. More than either will admit. They go at each other…oh my, the arguments they get into. I think they take the other side just to be perverse. You ever notice that with Isaac?”

“Does it snow in Maine?”

“What? I guess it must but—”

“I’m sorry, figure of speech. Your son can be the most contrary man I ever met. Yes, he will deliberately bait me. If I say black, he’ll say white. Sometimes I could—”

“He must care for you very much. He only does that with people he loves.”

“Well, I—”

“It’s all right. Now tell me, what about my story? Did you read it?”

“Yes, it and several others. It’s history but it’s more than that, isn’t it?”

“Yes, a whole lot more. And?”

Ruth thought for a long moment. Was she really ready for this? She looked into the luminous questioning eyes of the dying woman opposite her. She blinked back a tear.

“David is a fine name for a boy,” she murmured.

“Yes, isn’t it? Thank you, Ruth.”