3 - Buffalo Mountain: Ike Schwartz Mystery 3 (7 page)

Chapter 12

Blake Fisher climbed the stairs to the double offices wedged into the rear of the church building. Voices and footsteps on the stairs announced the arrival of Rose Garroway and her niece, Gloria. Blake spent the next hour showing Gloria the routine he hoped to adopt. He was delighted at how quickly she assumed charge of the files and equipment. Obviously, she knew her way around a computer and soon sorted and disposed of the piles of papers and correspondence her aunt had created on the desk. She needed no instruction in the mechanics of the answering machine—a fact that impressed him enormously, as he usually had to make two or three stabs at recording a message before getting it right. With a sigh of relief, he gave her the times and dates of the Christmas services and listened as she recorded the new message flawlessly on the first try.

Marge Burk thumped up the stairs just as she finished.

“Vicar,” she grumped. Marge had not yet warmed to Blake. She still pined for his predecessor, even though the latter had been dead nearly a year. Marge, as church treasurer, handled the books, deposits, and bill paying, including cutting Blake’s paycheck, a fact that always made him a little nervous. If Marge had been an ally, he probably would not have worried.

“I need your signature on these checks.” She dumped the checks out in an untidy pile. He spread them out and inspected each as he signed.

“No need to read ’em,” Marge said. “They’re all legit. Nobody’s skimming the till.”

“Never believed they were,” he said, trying to keep the annoyance out of his voice. “I just like to see what I sign. There ought to be an easier way to do this.”

“You don’t bank over the internet?” Gloria asked.

“Can’t figure computers out—hate ’em, in fact,” Marge said. “What’s to keep the whatchacallems…hacks, from getting in and taking our money?”

“Hackers. Well, you have password protection and a PIN and the fact is, if they wanted our money and were really that good, they’d have had it years ago. The money is in the bank and the bank’s computer is the one they would attack, not ours.”

“Still, I’d have to learn to use that thing there and I don’t want to. How come you know so much about it, anyway?”

Blake interrupted before the winter’s chill outside was replicated by the one developing inside.

“Marge, you haven’t met our new secretary. Gloria Harkins, this is Marge Burk, our treasurer.” Gloria smiled. Marge grunted.

“I used to work at a bank, Mrs. Burk, and there is no reason for you to have to work the computer at all. If you leave me a list of the bills and the amounts you want transferred, I can do that for you.”

“You can do that? See, that’s what I mean. If you can do that, what’s to prevent someone else from signing on and—?”

“I would have to set the system up with the bank. Only authorized persons could log on and access the system. All you would need to do is deposit the money and designate what bills were to be paid and when. I would set it up for only the signatories, which includes you, and when you have a moment I could show you how to use the system, just in case I wasn’t available or you preferred to do it yourself.”

“Um, you do that, honey…how long would it take?”

“I can have it up by tomorrow.”

“Good, we’ll hold these bills and do them then.” Marge scooped up the stack of checks and thumped down the stairs without a thank you or a goodbye. Rose, who had been uncharacteristically quiet, said, “She’s just like her mother—rude as a Russian.” Blake was not sure how rude Russians were, but he guessed in Rose’s octogenarian world, they must be very rude, indeed.

“Gloria, there is nothing I can teach you, and Rose can show you where she’s hidden all the things she did not want me to see. I have a luncheon appointment and will be out the rest of the day. My calendar is on my desk. Feel free to fill it if necessary.”

***

Donnie decided to milk ATM machines before he tried credit cards, but his gas gauge read empty. The garage where he stopped to fill up had a sale on tires and his were looking bad, so he bought a set of four and had them mounted. He almost went for four custom chrome wheels as well, which would have set him back another two grand. He didn’t know if the card would take that much or not. He settled for a tank of gas and four tires. The bill came to nearly seven hundred and fifty dollars. He swiped the card and waited while the processing program ran. He put the card away. The clerk looked at him and asked for some identification. He showed him his driver’s license. Fortunately, the clerk hadn’t thought to ask for the card back. There was no way he’d ever pass for Randall Harris. Flushed with this minor triumph, he ditched his plan to do the ATMs first and headed for the ABC store. Using a second card, he stocked up on vodka—the big gallons. To complete the transaction all he had to do was enter a zip code. The beer he picked up with a second card and then some groceries, again with the first. He’d be fixed for a week at least. Overall, he’d managed to charge over a thousand dollars.

He drove to Roanoke and hit two ATMs, extracting three hundred dollars from each. From Roanoke he drove south to Rocky Mount, Martinsville, and then across the state line into North Carolina. The ATMs continued to spill out money. Since he’d never had an ATM card, it didn’t strike him as odd that the ATMs kept paying the minimum instead of shutting him off. He glanced at the remaining balance line and whistled. The dude had nearly one hundred thousand dollars in his account. What kind of person had that kind of money in a bank account? He headed west to Mount Airy, hit two more machines, and then caught I-77 to the parkway and drove home. He tried to calculate how many ATMs he’d have to hit, at three hundred dollars a pop, to pull out the whole one hundred thousand. He quit after the third three in a row appeared in his mental arithmetic and the prospect for yet a fourth seemed likely.

***

Sam stared at her computer. As long as its use had stayed within ethical parameters, she had no problem, but she could be breaching those boundaries and moving into areas she’d only flirted with before. In the past, entering into her personnel file or doing a favor or two for a friend had constituted her only brushes with serious hacking. But probing into the dark recesses of the intelligence world…She could only imagine what the consequences might be were she caught. She shivered. Ike said she didn’t have to do it, but the challenge was irresistible. She’d never done anything on such a grand scale.

She took a deep breath and typed in the characters that would activate her genie program, her first-level search engine. Once started, she would stay at the task for the next fifteen hours. She would not want to back out and try to reenter. If she’d inadvertently left a footprint, there could be a tracer program waiting for her when she logged back in. By staying online she could see one coming and shut down before it found her, as she had with the Department of Motor Vehicles.

After an hour she hit on a program that seemed to be paralleling hers. Someone else asking the same or similar questions. She followed it—a lion stalking a water buffalo—risky for both. She ran her program invisibly on top of the other. A series of numbers scrolled down the screen—apparently dollar amounts—and she guessed location codes. She actuated a save program and grabbed the file as it grew, as well as all of the previous entries. The scrolling stopped and she backed out.

“Ike,” she called, “you need to see this.”

***

Andover Crisp’s phone rang. “This had better be good news or heads will roll.”

“It’s a start, Mr. Crisp. He’s on the move. We have hits on credit cards and ATMs. He left Roanoke and headed south. Then he veered west. His next stop should be Bristol, Tennessee, or somewhere down I-77.”

“What’s he doing?”

“It looks like he’s cashing out his bank account and buying things.”

“What kind of things?”

“We won’t know that for a while. We have to wait for the transactions to be posted or send someone in. And he’s drawing out the maximum three hundred at every ATM.”

“Keep the accounts open. I want to follow him wherever he goes. Put everyone on it. I want that man.”

Chapter 13

T.J. stared over the fence as Donald pulled his truck into the yard. He watched him park and unload bags and bottles, carry them into the house, and carefully cover his vehicle with its tarpaulin. T.J. knew Donald always kept his truck covered because it was a special truck. Donald told him so. Everybody knew Donald. He had money and lots of friends at The Pub. T.J. didn’t go to The Pub, but he knew about it. Donald had told him—about the girls and the fun they had there. He said T.J. should come with him some time. He said the girls asked about him. T.J. thought that would be a fine idea. He didn’t know much about girls—only what Donald told him and he wasn’t too sure about most of that. Some of the things he said happened between men and women didn’t make much sense and he thought Donald must be fibbing. Still, there were times when…he wanted to know for sure. He lifted up on his toe tips to see better.

“Hey, Donald, what’re you doing?”

“What’s it look like I’m doing? I’m putting the tarp on the truck like I always do.”

“Are you going to The Pub, too?”

“Probably. Going to look in on some of the girls. I think they missed me. I had a payday today and I think I’m going to make a night of it.” He waved a stack of bills at T.J. “What do you think of these babies?”

“That looks like a lot of money, all right.”

“Those girls are going to be hot for me tonight.”

“I bet they will be. Why don’t you take them for a ride in your special truck? They would probably like that and maybe they would do those things with you.”

“Forget the truck, T.J. No bimbos ride in it with me. You got that?”

“Is it because you don’t want them to see the dented fender?”

“What are you talking about? There ain’t no dented fender on this truck.”

“I saw a dent in there.”

“You didn’t see nothing, dummy. You got that? Say anything else and I’ll tell them girls you’re a idiot. Now beat it.”

“I’m not a dummy. I’m the best reader in my class.”

Donald scooped up a handful of snow, packed it, and threw it at T.J., who barely ducked in time.

“Beat it, you hear me? I don’t have time for you, dummy.”

“I’m not a dummy,” T.J. repeated as he turned away. “You’ll see.” His mother stood in the kitchen door and waved to him.

“T.J., it’s cold out there. Come in and help me put these groceries away. It’s getting late.”

“I’m coming.”

“You look upset, T.J. What happened?”

“I’m not a dummy, am I?”

“Who said you were a dummy?”

“Well, Donald did…and Dad. He said it a lot.”

“Your father is not the one to judge anyone. You are a wonderful person and I depend on you, T.J. I could never depend on your father for anything but I can with you. So, does that make you a dummy? Of course not, and you can forget Donald Oldham. He’s a lazy bum who lives on disability checks he doesn’t deserve.”

“No, he has lots of money. I saw it.”

“He also called you a name. So, if he does that, do you believe everything he says?”

“No, I guess not. He told me about girls, too. He said…”

Gloria Harkins blushed and said, quite quickly, “Well, I don’t know, T.J., but some time we’ll talk about all of that…not now, though.”

“I think I should call Miss Deputy Ryder and ask if she can take me for that ride she said she would.”

“Not today, T.J. I think the roads are still a little slick.”

Chapter 14

“You owe me thirty bucks.” Hollis hobbled up the steps to Donnie’s door.

“What makes you think I owe you thirty?” By his calculation Donnie figured it would be closer to two hundred. But thirty suited him just fine.

“Them machines have a limit of three hundred a day. Ten percent of three hundred is thirty. You used it yesterday so that’s thirty bucks you owe me. ”

It was doubtful Donnie had ever heard the expression “honor among thieves.” If he had, he felt no compunction to correct either Hollis’ assertions or his math. He peeled off a ten and a twenty and handed them over.

“Another thing, I need to use the card myself.”

“No way, man. This card don’t leave my sight for a minute.”

“Yeah? What happens to that card if I tell certain people you have it?”

“And you’d go down with me for giving me the PIN.”

“Well, as to that, actually it was Dermont who did it, so I’m in the clear. He wants to know when you’re going to fix him up with Dolores, by the way.”

“The runt would suffocate if he got near her. She’s over a hundred fifty pounds of skin pillows. Besides, what’s he going to do if he got there? I’ll string him along and then…who knows, maybe old Dolores might just give him a go.”

“I still need that card.”

“You ain’t getting it.”

The two glared at each other. Hollis figured with a broken leg, he didn’t stand a chance if he tried to wrest it away. Finally he pleaded.

“Donnie, please. It’s only for a couple of days. My folks are taking us to Charlotte and I thought I could, like, pick up the max on each of the days. When I get back, you’ll have it again.”

“There’s no way. Not ever.”

Hollis clenched his jaw. “I could make trouble for you, you know.”

“And I could shut you up forever.” They glared at one another for a few seconds. Hollis almost backed down.

“Okay, I got something better,” Donnie capitulated.

“How better?”

He pulled the three credit cards from his pocket and selected one—the one that seemed to require a picture ID. “I’ll rent you this one. It’s better because you can not only charge stuff, but you can get a cash advance at most of the ATMs, as well.”

“What kind of cash advance? Do they have a maximum on them?”

“Not on these, no sir. This guy must have been rolling and the credit line is really big. So you charge some stuff, hit an ATM, and you’re good to go.”

“Sooner or later they’ll get suspicious.”

“You said you wanted the card for a couple of days. What can happen in a couple of days? If they start looking at you funny or anything, say it’s your uncle’s or something and you don’t know squat.”

“How much you want for it?”

“Fifty bucks.”

“Fifty? All I got is this thirty you just gave me.”

“I’ll take the thirty, you can owe me twenty.”

Hollis handed the money back and Donnie gave him the card. “When do you leave?”

“Tomorrow.”

“So, you start getting rich tomorrow.”

***

Ike rubbed his eyes and leaned back in his chair. He’d spent an hour staring at the computer screen trying to understand what Sam had turned up. They’d guessed they were watching someone track credit or cash card transactions. He couldn’t imagine what that might have to do with Kamarov. Sam had copied the whole operation on a disc and returned to her probing. She called it “flying a stealth bomber.” There did not seem to be anything more for him to do and that made him frustrated.

He went back to his office and dialed Ruth. He drummed a pencil on the desktop while Ruth’s disapproving secretary made a point of putting him on hold. Tappity-tap-tap. He didn’t expect a simple hello and he didn’t get one.

“What’s up, Sheriff? Nothing important to do so you call your sweetie?”

“My sweetie? Who is this? Agnes must have connected me to the sophomore dorm.”

“How’s this, then? Whatcha want?”

“Better. Lunch with my sweetie, and a little…I think the expression is, face time.”

“In the cafeteria and public eye and I can’t give you more than half an hour.”

Ike drove through town and up the hill that led to Callend College. The driveway into the campus had been plowed and cindered. Apparently Callend College had a better street maintenance capacity than Picketsville. He parked in a No Parking area, locked his duty belt and gun in the trunk, and climbed the four steps to the broad porch that ran the length of the building. Winter had reduced the college’s signature wisteria to a leafless snarl of ancient branches clinging to sagging trellises set in the porch eaves.

The cafeteria was located in the basement of Lowell Callend Hall—Lo Cal to the students. He entered and was assailed by a cacophony of female voices, clinking plates, and a gust of unexpected heat. Ruth waved to him as he entered and pointed to a tray in front of an empty chair. Unless he’d gone through the line with someone with a Callend College ID, he would not have been able to buy anything. Apparently Ruth did not want to wait and had chosen lunch for him.

“What’s this?” he asked and inspected something that looked vaguely like an egg salad sandwich on white bread. It had two toothpicks with frilly ends sticking through a pickle slice in the middle of each half. Someone had thoughtfully removed the crusts, thereby rendering the bread visually as well as nutritionally neutral. Next to it was a squarish lump, the dark brown color of which suggested it might be chocolate, and a shallow cup filled with canned corn.

“Out of respect for you and the approaching season of Chanukah, I chose the closest things I could find that were kosher.”

“Very thoughtful. The next time I buy for you I will remember that. How do Connecticut’s aristocrat wannabes eat at Christmastime, anyway?”

“Out.”

“What this place needs is a New York deli—real kosher dills, rye bread, hot pastrami, and no mayonnaise on anything.”

“Sit and eat. You’re wasting time.”

“You behind in your payments again, or is the faculty still up in arms over the residents of the old storage building?”

“That’s the irony. As you predicted, the residents, as you so delicately put it, have solved my financial problems, but at a cost. The faculty union is meeting this afternoon to call for a vote of no confidence.”

“And that vote carries weight?”

“No, it’s just a positioning thing. Let people know how upset they are at me. It’s your fault, Ike.”

“Exactly how many of your highbrows actually take this deal seriously…I mean, what’s the extent of the damage, really?”

“Less than a dozen.”

“So your worry is…?”

“I have to take it seriously.”

“You have to pretend to take it seriously. But I know you, Madam President—you’re not even a little bit worried.”

“Don’t talk so loudly, someone might hear. And what are you up to?”

“I have a problem.”

“Serious?”

“Very.”

“Tell me.”

“I can’t. Well, I don’t know. Can you keep this under your hat?”

“Never wear hats, but the soul of discretion, that’s me.”

“Do you remember what I told you about my wife Eloise’s death? There was a Russian agent who got involved after I bolted the Agency. Apparently he figured out what happened, but not all of it. He came looking for me to tell what he knew. He never found me. He disappeared and we supposed the powers that be in Moscow had him put down.”

Ruth raised her eyebrows and spooned some soup. Ike had told her the story before. Now he filled her in on what Sam was up to and what he hoped Whaite would find, and most importantly, what the Agency believed. Ruth made him repeat the part about black programs.

“You don’t suppose the black paint they’re splashing on the walls in my storage building is because it’s a black program?” She was joking but when she realized Ike wasn’t smiling, she leaned forward and studied him. “It is, isn’t it?”

“Not because of the paint, but it could be. I don’t know.”

“Woof. Maybe I should vote for no confidence myself.”

“Nuts. Help me think this through. Wheel out your Ph.D. brains and give me a different take, one that won’t keep me up all night.”

“Well, two thoughts occur right away, maybe three. One is, perhaps this killing had nothing to do with anything at all. Somebody just mugged him and dumped him and he happened to fall on your turf.”

“Would you like to calculate the probabilities of that happening? What are the odds?”

“Not very good, but still a possibility. Okay, my second thought is, I don’t think you’ve considered all the other possibilities.”

“Like what?”

“It’s not Kamarov, just a look-alike.”

“Been there, done that, have to pass. It was Alexei.”

“Okay, here’s the third, but you are not going to like it.”

“Try me.”

“Are you sure all the bad guys that set you up in Zurich were rooted out? Like, how do you know the guy, what’s his name—the sleeper you said your friend, Charlie, took care of was really, um, taken care of? You didn’t see him do it, did you? So maybe this guy was trying to tell you that and they got to him first.”

Ike’s jaw snapped shut. Had he? He’d spent years blotting out the memories, even the end game. He remembered hearing elevator doors open. Did he see them open? Yes, but only the tops, but what then? He couldn’t be sure, and there was no way to find out. Maybe Sam could. He’d ask.

“I don’t know. Thanks a lot. Now I won’t sleep at all.”

“You asked for the Ph.D. brains—you got them. And I can help out in the sleep department.”

“No, you can’t. If what you’ve just supposed is true—as a hypothetical, mind you—then I am not the only target. You know the whole story, and Charlie knows you know.”

Ruth turned pale and pushed her soup away. “I had to hook up with an ex-spook with a history and now I’m a target.”

“Could be worse.”

“How?”

“I could be short, ugly, and dull.”

“Schwartz, I want you in my house with your gun and whatever else you need tonight and every night until we eliminate the possibility.”

“Well, as the soap salesman once told me, in every adversity lay the seeds of an equal and opposite benefit.”

“Yeah, consider it a perk.”

“You didn’t come up with that scenario just to lure me into your boudoir?”

“Take a hike, Schwartz, and call me when you’re on your way over tonight so I’ll know it’s you at the door. And don’t forget your cop belt.”

“Duty belt.”

“Whatever.”