Fat Assassins (27 page)

Ulyssa and I sat sipping Diet Cokes when Jake and Eric arrived.

“Sorry we’re late. We’d planned on only interviewing a few folks, but it turned into a circus.” Eric said pulling up a chair at the table forcing Jake to sit next to Ulyssa. The waitress walked over for their drink orders.

“Coke, please.” Jake ordered.

“I’ll have a Sprite. Thanks.”

“What happened?” Ulyssa asked.

“Today totally ruined my impression of the elderly community. I used to think they were all sweet, but they’re all a bunch of freaks and criminals!” Jake seemed genuinely disturbed by his visit to Sacred Care.

“No kidding! You name it and they’re doing it.”

Interesting. They never agreed on anything, so today must have been especially traumatic. I couldn’t help my curiosity. “What happened?” 

Jake started the story. “We started by interviewing the staff to find out who Roberta may have been in cahoots with and they suggested we start with Cassandra Michaels. Things went downhill from there.”

“Michaels? Any relation to Sophie, the newspaper editor?” I asked.

“It’s her mom.” Eric answered.

“We started by asking a few benign questions, but it quickly became clear she was hiding something so I pressed her for more information. It turns out that she’s a sort of eco-terrorist, except that she used animals for terrorist activities.”

“What?”

“I guess she got real mad at the Social Security Administration a few years ago and released some bats inside the Charleston field office. Nobody saw her do it, but she confessed the whole thing to us today. Luckily, the statute of limitations has expired and we can’t prosecute her.”

“I don’t get how that’s ecoterrorism.”

Jake took a long drink of his soda then continued the saga. “The bats are an endangered species, so they had to shut the office down and hire specialists to remove them. Plus, it took an additional month for professionals to clean up the bat guano and return the place to a clean status.”

“Guano?”

“Bat droppings!”

Bletch. Bletch
.

“Why would she do something like that?” Ulyssa asked.

“Apparently, she wasn’t happy that the SSA had sent a representative out to the nursing home to verify her mother’s age. I guess if you’re over 103 years old, it’s policy that they send someone to verify that you’re still alive. Cassandra took it as an insult to her family, thinking the SSA was calling them cheats and liars. I guess she didn’t realize it was standard policy, so she took matters into her own hands and released the bats. Her little attack created a severe backlog in benefits processing because the SSA headquarters had to manually create social security checks for two months until the field office resumed operations.”

“Wow. Sophie comes from a long line of nut jobs!” Ulyssa said.

“It took us two hours to get to the bottom of that story.” Eric added. “Then we had the issue with Jackie.”

“Worse than Cassandra?” I asked.

“Comparable. We reviewed the computer logs at the nursing home for evidence and found logs with Al Rahman as the username.”

“Al Rahman? Al Rahman?” Ulyssa seemed to be searching her brain for a match.

“He’s the Chief Operations Officer for Al Qaeda.” Eric answered, saving her mental strain.

“Yeah. You shoulda seen it…..the DHS guys got real excited because they thought they had a lead on him using the chat logs. We heard all kinds of theories about how he’d probably been trying to recruit America’s elderly since they’re all pissed about Social Security and Healthcare benefits. They even went so far as to say that the elderly were a prime recruiting ground since they’d already lived their lives and would be more likely to die for a cause. After a bit of research we discovered the accounts were tied to Jackie LeMonte not an international terrorist cell.” Jake took another sip of his soda. “He confessed to using the name for certain suspicious online activities, such as surfing porn and purchasing questionable items.”

“Hahaha. That’s classic!” I said.

“Why in the world would Jackie pick a terrorist name though?” Ulyssa asked.

“He’d just taken a computer class and was looking for popular names so he could blend in. He pulled the name from Google trends, thinking Al was the first name and Rahman was the last name. He had no idea it was prominent terrorist name. In fact, he thought Rahman was Ramen and women would flock to him because he was the rich owner of a noodle empire. He almost had a heart attack when the DHS agents started accusing him of conspiring with terrorist organizations. That interrogation took three hours, but you should have seen the DHS guys going nuts when they thought there was a tie between Al Qaeda and the explosion at the electric substation. It was phenomenal. Everything else paled in comparison to those two.”

“There’s more?” I asked.

“Yeah. But it was minor stuff. Disturbing at best.” Eric answered. “There was a lady who had the remains of her forty-two cats cremated and stored in a jar so they could be buried with her.”

Bletch.

“We found out about that because there was a big dispute between her and her roommate. I guess the roommate had complained to OSHA and some other government organizations because she felt that it was unsanitary to store animal ashes indoors. When she found out we were agents, she wouldn’t leave us alone until we pretended to file a complaint on her behalf. We told her that there is a complaint backlog in Washington and it usually takes 96 months to process. I don’t think she was too quick with the math because she seemed pretty pleased with the information.”

Jake picked up the conversation. “Don’t forget about the couple who were running a prescription pill drug ring. Rumor had it that Viagra was their biggest seller, but I didn’t even try to investigate that any further. I felt that was more a local police matter that didn’t require FBI oversight.”

“Whatever, coward. You were worried about getting beat-up by a seventy year old woman.” Eric retorted. “I think she coulda taken you. You’re kinda soft.” 

Jake ignored him. “Bottom line, the DHS guys decided that this was no longer a matter of National Security and decided to disband their task force. They’ll be heading back to DC tomorrow.”

“Do you think it was the sordid stories of the elderly or the constant torture of the Game Show Network that made them downgrade the incident?” Eric joked.

“Whew. That’s a relief!” I exclaimed, quickly adding when they both stopped laughing to stare at me. “That it wasn’t an Al Qaeda terrorist attack.”

“Yeah. I’m not sure exactly what happened, but I don’t think it’s tied to transnational terrorism. Maybe local activists or gang wars. We’ve got a few more leads to follow tomorrow.”

“That’s enough shop talk. Let’s order some food. What kind of pizza do you like?” Jake asked.

“Cheese and black olives.” I answered.

“I like extra pepperoni.” Ulyssa said.

“Pepperoni for me too.” Eric said.

Jake waved to the waitress. “We’ll do a medium extra cheese with black olives on half and a medium extra pepperoni. Thanks.” Eric turned to me. “So, what were you up to today?”

“Umm.” I stalled, unprepared to talk about my undercover work today.

“Boss! Boss!” Bob and Billy yelled as they came rushing up to the table wearing their Sherlock costumes. “We think we found some important evidence.” They waved some hairy melted plastic at Jake.

“We found these at the scene of the crime.”

“Yeah. We think they might be the disguises of the terrorists.” Ulyssa and I exhaled simultaneously.

Damn!

Jake leaned back in his chair and sighed impatiently. “What were you doing at the crime scene? I hope you didn’t destroy any evidence!”

“But…look..” Bob stammered.

“Even if that’s real evidence it would be inadmissible now because you’ve contaminated it.”

Whew.

“What if….the Mexicans that Roberta keeps talking about weren’t Mexicans at all. Maybe they were wearing these as a disguise.” Bob persisted, waving our disguises in our faces while we watched them like a couple of wide-eye cat clocks.

How did these two figure it out?

Ulyssa let out a nervous burp.

“We appreciate your support guys, but most criminals don’t wear kiddie costumes.” Jake sounded like an impatient parent talking to a small child. “They use ski masks and professional makeup kits.”

Bob and Billy looked dejected. They turned and left the pizza place throwing the glasses in the trash on the way out the door. Ulyssa stopped burping. The waitress laid the pizzas on the table and handed each guy a pizza server. They slide two slices onto the plates and handed them around.

Eric asked his question again. “So, what have y’all been doing all day?” Ready this time, I said. “Not much. Just some job hunting.”

“You’re not working right now?” Jake asked. “I thought you were a consultant.”

I’m so not good at lying.

“No. I was a consultant, quit a couple weeks back. We’ve been living on savings while we look for jobs.”

“You’re both unemployed?” Jake didn’t realize how rude he was acting right now. Or maybe I was just being ultra-sensitive.

“I could get you a job at the Police Station. Mary Lou is about to have her baby. You could be the dispatcher/secretary until she gets off maternity leave. Maybe you’ll have another job by then.” Eric offered.

“I don’t know….maybe.” I answered.

“I could call my boss and see if anything is open in the FBI Charleston field office. No promises, but I could check it out. Would you be eligible for a clearance?”

“Clearance?”

“Yeah. They just run a background check to make sure you don’t have a criminal or espionage background. If you’ve lived in Nitro all your lives, getting a clearance should be easy.”

I choked on my Diet Coke and Ulyssa saved me from anymore discussions.

“We’ve got a couple interviews next week. We’ll let you know how they go.”

“Ok. Just give me a shout if you need any help.”

“Me too.” Eric added.

“Um. Thanks.” Ulyssa steered the conversation to a safer topic. “Where are you originally from, Jake?”

“Originally? California. I spent four years in the Air Force stationed in Nebraska. After that I applied to the FBI and went through Quantico. I’ve been in Washington D.C. ever since.”

“Do you ever go back to California?”

“Every other year. My parents passed away a few years ago and it’s only my sister and her family out there now. Her husband doesn’t like me very much, so I send the kids presents and visit every other year. It’s usually pretty awkward when I show up.”

“Why doesn’t he like you?”

“I beat him up in high school.”

“What?”

“He was a bully and picking on some Freshmen, so I gave him a good taste of his own medicine.”

“Wow. You’ve always had a strong sense of justice, huh?”

“I guess so. Maybe that explains why I ended up with the FBI. I don’t believe in gray areas. It’s either right or wrong. Hearing criminal excuses over the past few years has only reinforced that belief. Criminals always have an angle or excuse. Like they were backed into a corner and didn’t have a choice. I don’t believe that. We all have a choice.”

I felt little beads of sweat forming along my hairline. 

Please don’t let him find
out we’re working for the mob as assassins. There’d be no mercy.

“Did it work?” Ulyssa asked.

“What?”

“Beating him up.”

“Oh. Yeah. He stopped bullying people, but he never really forgave me.”

“How did he end of marrying your sister?”

“He started dating her after I joined the Air Force. He seems to love her, so I leave him alone. But I’m waiting for the day when he gets out of line with her or the kids, then he’s gonna get another dose.” He grabbed a slice of his pizza. “But enough about me. I want to hear stories about Shasta.” 

Ulyssa started laughing. “There are plenty of Shasta stories. You’ll have to pick a topic!”

I gave her a warning look.

“How about Shasta in high school?”

“Ohhh. Good choice! I’ve got the perfect story.” I felt my face starting to change colors. “We used to wait on the high school steps after the school bus dropped us off. One morning we were sitting there and I noticed something sticking to the back of her sweater. It was a pair of red lacy underwear.” She howled with laughter.

“You being the great friend you are didn’t tell me until after third period.”

“Wait. You didn’t tell her?” Eric asked.

“Nope. I figured if the guys saw her sexy undies, she’d get a few more dates!” The table erupted in laughter and I punched her in the arm.

We finished up our pizza and the guys insisted on paying. We were sipping the last our of sodas when Jake shocked us with a question. “Do you girls have any ideas who might be behind the explosion? Any theories?”

“Um. Nope.”

“Nada. Nothing.”

We’re the worst liars on the planet.

“We’ve got a couple leads we’re checking out tomorrow, but I wanted to see if you had any ideas.”

“Who are you interviewing tomorrow?” I asked.

Eric answered. “We’ve been trying to track down Roberta’s daughter. She was with her at Home Depot when Roberta attacked the cop car, but she fled when the police got involved.”

I looked at Ulyssa. We knew where to find her.

“We could show you.” I said.

“We can’t let you go on an official investigation with us.” Jake said.

“But you’ll let a couple of Sherlocks destroy an official crime scene?” Ulyssa responded.

“Touche’. We’ll pick you up at 8AM tomorrow. Where do you live?”

“We’ll meet you at Starbuck’s in the morning and we’re driving ourselves.”

“Okay. Sounds like a plan.”

“Thank y’all for dinner.”

“Thanks. We’ll see ya in the morning.” I gave them a wave.

The following morning, we parked the Sidekick in the Starbuck’s parking lot and made our way inside. I ordered a triple Venti mocha cause it was going to be a triple espresso kind of day. Ulyssa ordered a triple Venti Carmel Machiatto. We’re both going to be high octane today! The guys arrived shortly after us and waited while we accessorized our coffees with sleeves and splash sticks.