Eddy's Current (25 page)

“Fine; let me speak to him.”

“She’s not a him, sir. She’s a her. Her name is Sherry Montel, special agent Sherry Montel.”

“Okay. Let me speak to her highness.”

“Such talk is not necessary, sir. Please speak to me with the same respect I’m giving you.”

“Fine.
Please
let me speak to her
royal
highness.”

“Sargent Briggs, I want to respect your authority as the investigator generally in charge of things at the Montana State Highway Patrol, but this is now a matter for the FBI to deal with, and we’ll let you know when and if we need your help,” agent Montel said, snapping off each word at the end of its final letter.

“I don’t understand your attitude, agent Montel. I asked you nicely about the SUV and you responded as if I asked for something improper. I don’t get it. I’ve got an investigation to close out here. I need the SUV and I need your report as to the cause of the left front fender issue,” Briggs stated.

“What are you talking about when you say ‘the left front fender issue’?” agent Montel asked calmly.

“Didn’t Cottrell tell you about the left front fender?”

“No,” Montel responded, without hesitation. “There’s nothing that he would have needed to tell me. I’m looking at the final report. It states clearly that the left front tire blew out, which sent the SUV head–on into the concrete piling, killing both passengers instantly,” Montel dutifully reported.

“How could you possibly have the final report this early on?” Briggs asked.

“It’s final,” Montel replied.

“Please send me a copy of your report, all details included,” Briggs requested with fake polite words delivered from an obviously angry mouth.

“That will not be possible. This is a confidential report,” agent Montel stated curtly. “Your boss will receive a summary report. He may have already received it.”

“Then send back the SUV; it’s Montana State Highway Patrol property.”

“No.”

“Then put me through to your supervisor.”

“No. These decisions were made by my supervisor. Any further questions, Sargent Briggs?”

“Yes, what are you trying to pull! I’ve got two dead people here, and I have to answer to their families. You have no right to do this. We will take this to whatever level we have to take it to in order to get you to cooperate. This is not your case; it’s ours,” Briggs said, his voice now elevated, his words clear, direct and sharp, and his tone mean.

“Who are
we
, Sargent Briggs?” Montel asked smugly. “If you are referring to the Montana State Highway Patrol brass, you probably ought to check with them before you kick me around anymore. Have a nice day,” Montel said quickly before hanging up the phone without saying goodbye.

Briggs was now convinced that flawed personality types, along with various and sundry other pains in the neck, were sent from God in disproportionately large numbers this week to make things even more miserable than usual for him. He didn’t recall any specific terrible sin he had committed lately. God’s research angels must have gone deep into his past and dredged up some infraction that Briggs had forgotten about but hadn’t been disciplined for. Briggs reasoned that God was just now administering the appropriate torment for this long–past sin.

God kept better records than that, Briggs believed, because God didn’t make mistakes. Maybe one or more angels had overslept or something, and issued an incomplete report to God years ago that was uncovered recently by an auditor angel who was auditing Briggs’ balance sheet. Briggs wasn’t quite sure what his own angels had been doing when they were supposed to be advocating for him, though. Maybe Briggs’ angels were napping when the auditor angel came to them to ask them about his findings, and those naps, too, will be discovered years down the road, causing God to send down an unexpected blessing or two to re–balance the scales.

Briggs did not see that his scales were ever balanced. His scales always seemed to be out of balance against him. Briggs trusted God fully, though, so his scales must be in balance, in spite of the fact that God’s instances of punishment seemed to far exceed the seriousness of Briggs’ infractions. He didn’t question God; his presumption, always, was that he deserved the punishment. Otherwise, why would a just God continue to place so many flawed people of low intelligence into his life?

Briggs went to his boss’ office, Lieutenant Jim Washburn. Before he was able to speak a word, Washburn spoke, firmly and definitively: “Here’s the final report on the SUV crash, Sargent. Now let’s leave this one alone and move on, okay? It’s clear that the FBI has done what you asked, and they’ve sent a summary report of their findings to us so we can close this investigation. That’s what you wanted, and that’s what we got.”

“No; that’s not what I want. I’m telling you that I met with an FBI agent, a man by the name of Cottrell. He and I inspected the left front fender. There is no question that the fender was blown up and out, probably by an explosive device. That fender did not explode because of a blown tire. The tire was probably blown as a result of the explosive device that exploded under the fender. Did the FBI send any pictures of the fender?” Briggs asked.

“You know what, Briggs? They did. They did send pictures of the left front fender. Look, look at it. It’s not ‘blown up and out,’ as you say. It’s fine. The tire blew out. That’s what the final FBI determination is and we’re going to live with that. Do you understand that, Sargent Briggs? Leave it alone, okay?” Lieutenant Washburn was shifting in his chair, ruffled, confused but determined to convey the conclusion to Briggs and determined to have Briggs accept the explanation and the report as final.

“I’m signing off on the report as final, Briggs, and I am closing the case. It’s over now. I need you to meet with the families and tell them that this was a horrible accident and that we’re so sorry that it happened.”

“I would like a few days to go over things, Lieutenant, to verify the facts before I meet with the families.”

“Denied. The facts have been verified. Your job is to meet with the families. Set up your meetings for tomorrow morning. You will tell the boy’s father, and then you will go to the home of coach Orlanzo, meet with his wife, and tell her.”

Briggs went to his desk with Lieutenant Washburn’s report. He compared the pictures of the fender in the report to the pictures he had on his digital camera. There was no question that these were two different fenders. Briggs was frozen. He would not face the families and tell them something he knew was untrue, especially about something so serious as this, but he had been given a direct order that he had no choice except to follow.

There could be an appeal procedure, but Briggs wasn’t sure there was enough time, and he wasn’t sure whether or not anyone would listen. He was technically required to hand over his digital images to Washburn, but he no longer had faith in his boss. He would justify his decision to withhold the pictures by reasoning that the pictures had been taken with his personal camera rather than a state of Montana–issue camera. He wasn’t so sure that God would accept that reasoning, so he filed his decision in a category he called, “God Will Deal With This Later.” It was a gamble, though, because God took such sins seriously. Briggs believed that God didn’t wink at this or any other sin.

Briggs did not believe in making phone calls to families of crime victims to inform them of important findings regarding their injured or dead loved ones. Meeting with them face to face was Briggs’ own commitment to improving manners in the world. He didn’t learn that from a consultant. Briggs went to the asylum to meet with Winston.

The asylum was white. Everything was white. The lights illuminated bright white light only—light that was not even tinged yellow, orange or brown. The walls and ceilings were painted white. The floors were covered in white ceramic tile. The ceiling fans, air conditioner vents and blinds, were all white. The whole place screamed a false sense of pureness and happiness at the patients and their visitors and caretakers. It was almost as if a madman had escaped from the asylum and returned with a white covering of some sort for everything in the place to hide the deep sadness there under a thin veil of waxed–paper purity. The white was for the caretakers and visitors. The patients were not fooled by it.

Briggs proceeded inside, to Winston’s room. “Mr. Winston, my name is Sargent Mark Briggs, and I’m with the Montana State Highway Patrol. I’m an investigator, and I’m in charge of investigating your son’s horrible accident. Let me say first, sir, that I am deeply sorry about your loss. Your son had a spotless reputation, and he truly was a good and decent person. You and his mother must be crushed. How is she doing?”

“My wife is dead. She died years ago from cancer,” Winston replied coldly.

“I am so sorry. I can’t seem to say the right thing to you, Mr. Winston, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

“Please tell me who murdered my son, Sargent Briggs,” Winston pleaded, then continued, monotone, and as if he were reciting one very long sentence, “We know what happened. Agent Warwick told me. He apologized. He said he was sorry. It sounds as if you’re sorry, too, Sargent Briggs. Everyone’s sorry, but that doesn’t change the fact that my family is dying around me. Did I cause this, Sargent Briggs? Did I?

“I was only trying to help, Sargent. When Style & Shores began their games I looked the other way, but I did help to expose them. I worked hard on it, put my career and my life on the line—did everything I could to beat the bad guys. Have you ever worked hard to beat the bad guys, Sargent Briggs?” Winston asked, crying out through his tears, his speech breaking up more and more with each word he spoke near the end of his long run–on sentence.

Winston had been sedated for several days to treat him for his depression. Briggs didn’t know any of that. All he knew was that he had a sad father in front of him who was distant, confused and anguished over the loss of his son. Briggs also couldn’t help but notice that this father believed that his son was murdered. Briggs wondered now, more than ever, why the stupid people involved so far didn’t seem to understand that a serious crime had taken place.

“Mr. Winston, would it be possible for me to meet with you and this agent Warwick person you mentioned? By the way, who is agent Warwick?” Briggs asked.

“River is his first name. He’s an agent for the U.S. Federal Intelligence Agency, and he’s going to help me,” Winston cried out loudly. Then he began to scream out his distress in a loud shrill. “Please help me, please help me, because they’re all looking for my daughters and me, and they’ll hurt or even kill us all to keep me from talking! Please help me, Sargent Briggs. Please help me!”

Winston’s attendants heard his screams. They came into the room and forced him to lie on the couch. They injected him with even more drugs to further sedate him.

Briggs decided to track down River. Rather than use a computer, or other sneaky and complex ways to track down government secret agents — taught to him by yet another stupid genius God put in his life at a seminar he had attended years ago on “investigative techniques” — Briggs picked up the phone, dialed the number for the USFIA and asked if they had an agent there named River Warwick. “This is official Montana State Highway Patrol business. I need to speak with an agent you have there by the name of River Warwick,” Briggs said to the supervisor on the phone at USFIA headquarters in Houston.

“Sir, this is a national intelligence agency. We need specifics before we can allow you to speak with anyone here about official business. What kind of response do you think you would get if you phoned, say, the U.S. Army Intelligence Office, and asked to speak to a man by the name of River?” the supervisor said.

“I must have been mistaken. I meant to dial the number for the USFIA. I must have inadvertently dialed the number for the U.S. Army,” Briggs replied, with the least amount of etiquette, manners and sensitivity possible. “Now, let’s start over. Do you have an agent there by the name of River? Do you have an agent there working with a Mr. Winston? It’s about a suspected murder in Montana.”

“And you’re from the Montana State Highway Patrol?”

“Yes, I am.”

“Oh, you must be investigating the SUV crash.”

“Yes, that’s it. Yes. Is River there? Please let me speak with him.”

“Hold the line. I’ll find him.”

Briggs didn’t know River at all, so he didn’t like him. As he did with most people he heard about but hadn’t yet met, he placed River in the “Probably Stupid, And Doubtful To Prove Otherwise” category. He believed it was more respectful to categorize people this way than it was to blindly stereotype them. He wasn’t sure, but he believed he had been taught to be reserved like that in the consultant’s session on sensitivity, although he doubted so, because he didn’t recall a thing the consultant said in that or any other session. People in this category may or may not have been sent from God to torment Briggs with their stupidity. A small handful of them proved to be okay throughout the years, although Briggs didn’t recall any particular one that was.

“Agent Warwick, can I speak with you face to face? I would prefer not to speak on the phone,” Briggs said, after Warwick answered his call.

“Are you calling me from a phone in your home or office, or from your cell phone?”

“Neither. I’m calling you from a pay phone. I don’t have a cell phone. I can’t stand the damn things.”

“It’s okay, then, we can talk,” River said reassuringly.

“My name is Sargent Mark Briggs and I’m an investigator with the Montana State Highway Patrol. I’m investigating the car crash that killed James Winston. There’s a coverup going on, and the FBI is participating in it. Mr. Winston’s son was murdered. It was not an accident.”

“I’ll have to preliminarily establish that you are, in fact, Sargent Briggs. Please tell me your badge number, your driver license number, Social Security number and your birth date,” River said.

Briggs provided River with all the information he requested. River took a few seconds to run a preliminary check on Briggs. River was then satisfied that Briggs was the real deal.