3 - Buffalo Mountain: Ike Schwartz Mystery 3 (12 page)

Chapter 24

Whaite felt his frustration rising. Every time he thought he had a lead, someone stalled him or disappeared. He needed to talk to Bolt but nobody knew, or would admit to knowing, where he could be found. The volunteer fire company up on the mountain didn’t think Whaite had done them any favors by suggesting arson. Now they would have to call in the County to investigate. He tried to reach Ike at the office. Essie said Ike was out and she didn’t know where. She put Sam on, who sounded like a bad soap opera.

“I don’t know anything,” she mumbled.

“What’s up with you, Sam? You sound like you missed winning the lottery by one digit.”

“Karl,” she said. Whaite thought she might be crying. “He’s what you said and worse.” She hung up.

Karl? He didn’t remember saying anything about Karl. Whaite redialed and tried Essie again.

“What in the billy blue blazes is going on up there?”

“She’s got man trouble with that smart-alecky FBI guy, and Ike owes me a jelly-filled.”

“I don’t think I want you to translate that. I ain’t had my second cup yet. Look, I need some help down here. Get Ike to call when he gets in or Sam when she’s normal.”

He drove on to Willis. If he couldn’t find Bolt, he’d do the next best thing and find Oldham. He pulled in at the first establishment that had salt- and mud-encrusted trucks and older model cars parked in front. He wanted to talk to the locals, the ones who drove pickups and beat-up Malibus. He pushed in through the door, which scraped on the linoleum. Code violation, he mused. Men sat around drinking an early lunch. All eyes focused on him. Conversations stopped, started up again, but the eyes never left him. He nodded to several, pulled up to the bar, and ordered a coffee.

“You’ll have to wait,” the proprietor said. “I just this minute started a fresh pot.” Whaite smiled and nodded again.

“No hurry.”

Whatever the laws were regarding smoking in public facilities, they clearly did not apply there. A haze of acrid blue smoke hung from the ceiling. He could only escape it by slouching down. Three men sat at a table next to him. He smiled, stuck out his hand.

“How do, Whaite Billingsly. You from around here?”

The men inspected him. “You wouldn’t be Howard Billingsly’s boy, now, would you?” one asked. Howard, in this part of the world, was pronounced Haired.

“Howard from up near Slate Mountain?”

“That’s the one.”

“No, I’m his nephew a couple of times over. My daddy was Dink Billingsly from over to Buffalo Mountain.”

“Well, I thought you looked familiar. You ain’t from around here no more, though, are you?”

“Nope. Moved up to Picketsville.”

“Now I got you. You’re a deputy up there.”

“That’s me.”

“That your car—the fancy one?”

“It is.”

“Don’t look much like a police car to me.”

“It’s my own. Long story on why I’m messing up the paint job with salt and cinders.”

“Chevelle—what year?”

“Sixty-seven. Got the big 396 engine.”

“She’s a goer, I’ll bet. So, what’re you doing down here, if I ain’t being too personal.”

“Looking for a guy we think might know something about a corpse we got on ice up at Picketsville.”

“Dead man? Who? Again, if I ain’t being too—”

“Not sure. Rumor has it might be a Randall Harris. Ring a bell?”

Conversation in the immediate area stopped. The men stared at Whaite and then quickly averted their eyes.

“There was a Randall Harris up near Floyd, but he weren’t no real Harris. He come from somewhere else and talked funny, like he come from some other country, or maybe Boston—one of them foreign places, you know?”

“You see him around here much?”

The man studied Whaite for a full mountain minute, evidently weighing which way he would answer.

“He’s dead, you say?”

“As a door nail. Somebody shot him more’n once.”

“Can’t help you, son.”

“Figured as much. Just thought I’d ask. You wouldn’t happen to know someone named Oldham, Donald Oldham, now would you?” Whaite felt sure he was on the cusp. The answer might or might not come. It depended on how this man or any of the others, who were pretending not to eavesdrop, felt about him, or about Oldham. The first man shrugged and sipped his beer. A younger man with sawdust in the cuffs of his trousers looked up.

“I know him,” he said. “He’s that new boy who works up at the mill some days.”

“And?”

“Well, he’s lived here for a spell. His old man ran a gas station down on the corner. When it burned down folks figured Donnie put the torch to it. He lives up past The Pub, about a quarter of a mile further on and down that side road where you see the rusty Purina feed sign.”

“Thanks. Why ‘new boy’?”

“He’s, like, a new boy on account of his family come from outside, you know, Ohio, I heard. But he took to calling himself a mountain man. Claims to be descended from one of the old families—Moles, I think. He swaggers around with that old five-shooter in his pocket he must’ve picked up in a pawn shop somewhere and talks about setting the record straight.”

“What record would that be?”

“Who knows? He’s loony.”

The first man broke in. “Oldham is all talk. He ain’t close to being no mountain man. He might wave that popgun of his around and bully somebody smaller than him, but he ain’t got the courage of a whorehouse cat. He’d steal your wallet if you ain’t looking, and maybe cheat you out of a few beers, but that’s it for Donnie O, I’ll tell you.”

Whaite’s cell phone played two bars of “You Ain’t Nothing but a Hound Dog.” He thanked the men and took his call outside. It had warmed up and water dripped off the roof and down his collar before he could clear the building.

***

Ike had finished his call to Charlie Garland. He asked for, but did not finish, a third cup of coffee. Back at the office he took Whaite’s message. Before he could call, Sam burst into his office.

“I was afraid to say anything before, Ike. I thought, well, it’s his job and he should do it, but then if he had anything to do with—”

“Whoa. Slow down. Whose job?” Sam filled him in about Karl and her discovery he was connected to Cutthroat.

“You’re sure it’s Karl. The FBI is a big operation and—”

“It’s him. He told me he’d been reassigned. His name was on the roster.”

Ike spent an uncomfortable fifteen minutes trying to console her. He wished Ruth were there. She would know what to say. All Essie had to offer was an “I told you so” and when could she collect.

“Collect? What?”

“My jelly-filled.”

“Go away, Essie. Answer the phone. Do something out there.”

Sam settled down and filled him in on what she knew and what she suspected. The programs were still tracking the money transactions. She hadn’t found anything new, but she had an idea she wanted to try. Finally, Ike called Whaite.

“No news on Bolt?”

“No. I am going to find the other guy, Oldham. Maybe he can lead us to Bolt.”

“What do you have on him?”

“Mixed bag. He’s either a bad dude or a phony. The going sense around here is mostly the last.”

“Well, in case they’re wrong, be careful.”

Ike put the phone down and tried to unscramble the pieces. Somehow he knew that before he’d put this one to bed, he’d have to connect Bolt, Kamarov, and Cutthroat. The secure phone buzzed.

“Ike,” Charlie said. “Don’t mean to butt in so soon, but I started thinking about the Russians—”

“I know. It won’t work.”

“Not the way you put it, but maybe another.”

“How?”

“Do you have access to Washington papers?”

“We permit them in town on occasion.”

“Late edition Thursday or Friday morning. There’s a short report about a suicide in Rock Creek Park. Then, later that morning, some goons broke into the dead guy’s apartment, grabbed the girlfriend, tossed the apartment, and left her trussed up with a two-inch-wide strip of duct tape across her mouth, naked as a jaybird.”

“So, the District police aren’t buying a suicide.”

“Nope.”

“Charlie, tell me the significance of this. If I want to read the story, I have to go up to the college and make nice to the librarian, who doesn’t like me.”

“Why doesn’t she like you?”

“Enough already. She’s a he, by the way. What are you getting at?”

“The dead guy was a reporter, freelance columnist. He wrote in his date book he was to pick up something in the park. I’m guessing it arrived and he took a bullet afterwards. The apartment would be a ‘just in case.’”

“And Bolt’s house up in flames another ‘just in case’?”

“It’s a thought.”

A bad one. A dangerous one. If someone was after Bolt, Whaite could be in danger. He called Whaite, but he’d shut down his cell phone—new town ordinance—radio not responding, apparently out of range. For the first time since they’d found Kamarov’s body in the forest, Ike thought he might be in over his head.

Chapter 25

Hollis had finally figured out how to navigate with crutches on ice. He’d removed the rubber ends and driven a sixpenny nail in their place. He cut off the head of each and sharpened it to a point. The arrangement worked like two ice picks. But once the ice melted, the sharp points were useless. They skidded laterally on concrete and forced him to hop on one foot until he regained his balance. On turf they were worse. They punched a starter hole which then allowed the crutch ends to sink an inch or so into the ground, pitching him forward. He found a pair of pliers and tried to remove the nails but discovered that they were set in too firmly. When Donnie Oldham walked into his garage, he was attempting to refit the rubber end pieces by pushing the nails through their centers.

“What’re you doing?”

“I’m trying to fix these crutches back.” He slipped off his shoe and used the heel as a hammer to force the rubber tip back on the crutch. It slid into place but now the shoe was nailed to its end. He twisted it back and forth cursing the shoe, the crutch, and Donnie, who’d made him break his leg in the first place.

“They’re after you, you know,” he said as the shoe finally jerked free and hit him in the face. “Ow!”

“Who’s after me?”

“Some guy was in Jake’s this morning asking about you and Steve Bolt.”

“So what?”

“He was a police.”

“How’d you know that?”

“Ralph, he did the talking, Ralph and Bart from the mill, him too. Ralph said he was a cop.”

Donnie scratched his head and, to the extent it was possible for him to do so, looked thoughtful. “Why would a cop want to find me?”

“Don’t know. But Harris’ name came up, too. So maybe they want to know about them credit cards.”

“What did this guy, the cop, look like?”

“Sort of ordinary, tallish, pretty lean, and he wasn’t wearing no uniform. He said he was from Picketsville.”

“Who said?”

“Ralph.”

“Is that the best you can do, Hollis? I swear you are the ignorantest person I ever met.”

“Well, that’s for you to say. He was driving a big red car. That help?”

“You dope. Police don’t drive red cars. Even Picketsville police don’t and that’s a pretty backward place. Firemen drive red cars. He must have been a fireman.”

“Well now, that makes some sort of sense. Steve Bolt’s house was set on fire the other night. Maybe he’s a fire police. He’s probably checking out arson and, naturally, your name must’ve come up.”

“They’re not called fire police, you idiot, and why
naturally
?”

“I reckon everybody knows you set your old man’s gas station on fire, so—”

“Nobody knows that. It were never proved.”

“Okay fine. Still, this fire police is looking for you, so watch out.”

“Big deal. The day comes when I can’t take care of some jerk in a red car, I hang it up. I come for the card, by the way.”

Hollis replaced his shoe, rummaged around in his pocket, and tossed the card to Donnie. “Here, take it. It don’t work no more.”

“Why didn’t you just saw that nail off, dummy? What do you mean, it don’t work?”

“Well, I reckon we might get us some more snow and I want to be ready.”

“Right. What about the card not working?”

“I tried it this morning and the machine said ‘account closed’ and I should return it to the issuing bank. So here you are, Mr. Issuing Bank.”

Donnie frowned. How many of the other cards were canceled, he wondered. He’d have to try them. Tomorrow was Sunday. Did the ATMs work on Sunday? If the door was closing, he’d need to pull out as much as he possibly could before it slammed shut. Then he’d see about that fireman.

***

Sam shook her head. What a mess. She sighed and retrieved
Cat’s Eye
from the floor where it had landed previously. A bad read was better than no read, she reasoned.

Sledge felt, more than knew, that someone had slipped into his room. The scent—the scent of a woman—he’d know it anywhere, jasmine. He’d caught a hint of it this morning in the souk—penetrating the rich smell of garlic, roasting goat, and Near Eastern body odor. That was just before the sniper had cut down Rodriguez and all hell broke loose. And now—here it was again.

Adrenaline began to pump through his veins. The animal urge to strike lay, like a feral cat, just beneath the surface of his brain, making his heart race, and pricking up the hairs on the nape of his deeply tanned neck. Only a small candle flickered fitfully on the dresser. Too dark to see anything but he realized that, for the moment, his life depended on the woman—probably a woman—or it could be Dickie Farquar-Smythe. He was known to splash on a little jasmine from time to time, the little poof, but he was supposed to be studying Maori stone carvings in New Zealand. Whoever it was believed Sledge asleep. He kept his breathing steady, regular, his muscles tense.

Then he heard the rustle of nylon against nylon. Female legs crossing and re-crossing. Definitely a dame. He lay perfectly still, waiting—waiting for her to make the next move. His fingers gently stroked the one-of-a kind rosewood crosshatched grips of the Kimber under his pillow. He flicked the safety off—the click muffled by six inches of expensive Norwegian eiderdown. Next, another series of rustles—clothes probably—and two thumps—shoes being kicked off. The sheet and blanket on the other side of the bed raised and lowered and the mattress took the woman’s weight. Not too much weight. One ten, one fifteen at the most, five feet four inches tall, and buff.

Cat-like, he spun and had the woman’s throat between his thumb and forefinger in a classic Chi-Cha move. Her body went rigid. He suddenly realized she was naked and beautiful—the way only Eurasian women were beautiful. Hybrid vigor. He recalled learning that in his advanced agronomy course at Yale.

“You have thirty seconds to tell me who you are or I close my fingers and send you into Miss Chinatown heaven,” he rasped menacingly.

“Oh, don’t hurt me,” she whimpered and closed her almond eyes. Her full round breasts pressed urgently against his chest.

“Don’t pull that fainting Chinese virgin crap on me, Babe,” he hissed.

“How you know…?” Her body went limp.

“I can read a yin and yang as good as the next guy,” he smirked, and tapped the tattoo on her thigh.

She gasped at his touch. “You have me in you power, Scot.”

“You know me?”

“Everybody know Scot Sredge.”

“Yeah? So what do they call you, Sweetheart?”

She stretched her gracefully long arms and slipped her palms behind her head. One hand stroked her earlobe caressingly.

“Kin Tok ee.” She whispered.

There was something wrong with the accent. Not Mandarin or Cantonese but something…Her pelvis began the quintessential primal circuits, age-old and unmistakable in their meaning, forcing any thoughts of accents and origins from his brain. She took his hand in hers and slid it slowly across her belly.

“Be gentle,” she moaned and fell back on the silk sheets.

Sam snapped the book shut, heaved herself out of her chair, walked to the kitchen, stepped on the treadle of her garbage bin, and dropped the book in to join the eggshells, coffee grounds, and trash accumulated over the previous two days.

“Why won’t I ever learn?” The lid clanked shut. She polished off the last pint of Ben and Jerry’s and went to bed.