The Travelling Man (10 page)

CHAPTER
7

rolling, rolling, rolling, keep them doggies rolling

Matt Kravis watched, waited, and listened. The small town grapevine was always far more reliable than any other media source when it came to local news.

He was sitting on the pleasant town square eating a sandwich slowly as the gossip flittered around him on the soft desert winds. The news of two deaths at the hardware store had already been usurped by the flashing noise of the FBI crashing through town and shooting dead a supposed serial killer and the country’s most wanted.

The locals were running a gamut of emotions ranging from horror to excitement with excitement taking an early lead. For Kravis, it was all too familiar a scene and whatever small naïve hope that he’d held on to that he might be wrong, was now firmly out of the window.

He watched as the FBI agents strutted their way past like conquering heroes with victory painted on their smug features. Some of the younger women in town were nudging each other in swooning enthusiasm at the fit looking men and Kravis watched on.

A Granton deputy strolled by, glaring at the out of town cops with a dark expression. He was a big guy, broad-shouldered and stacked with hard muscle. He moved gracefully within his large physique, well used to his size and presumably how to use it. Kravis filed the guy away as one to avoid if possible.

The deputy stopped to talk with the Sheriff and Kravis felt his eye drawn to the woman. She stood as tall as the deputy and, although much narrower, she looked athletic and strong. When she’d braced him at the boarding house, he’d been surprised by the twinkle of intelligence behind her eyes as she’d looked him over. This was the third small town that he’d visited on his journey and most had been policed with overgrown bullies with badges. They were men seduced by the power of being the biggest fish in their small ponds, but she was different and he wasn’t sure how he felt about that. On the one hand, she would be far more difficult to man oeuvre around, but on the other she could be of genuine help. After all, this was the first time in his travels that he was finally close. If he was not ahead of the game, then he was at least only a few steps behind.

----------

Cassie sat across from Special Agent Harper in her office, nursing a strong black coffee and trying very hard not to look incompetent in the FBI’s eyes. The very notion that the most wanted man in the country had been a Granton resident that she knew relatively well did not look good and she knew it.

“I understand that you’ve had a couple of other as-yet-unexplained deaths recently?” Harper announced, still wearing his sunglasses even though the office was only dimly lit with the blinds down against the harsh sun.

“Harlan Harris and Davey Mackie,” she conceded reluctantly.

“I’m sure that our investigation will clear those up for you,” Harper said, staring down at his untouched coffee with a slight twinge at the mouth. “I can’t imagine that you managed to have two unidentified killers loose in your town.”

Cassie could see that the guy wasn’t trying to be condescending but he was, nevertheless, and it was a bitter pill to swallow, especially in her own office. “You think that Dinkins killed Harris and Mackie?”

“Makes sense to me,” Harper shrugged, standing. “I’ll give you a rundown of everything gathered from Dinkins’ apartment when we have it all lined up nice and neat; suffice to say that it was a treasure trove of evidence and a real win.”

“I’m sure that your bosses will be most pleased,” Cassie said a little bitterly.

“Don’t worry, Sheriff,” Harper smiled, or at least his mouth stretched wider in an approximation of one, “I’ll be sure to give your department full credit for the assist, just as long as you and your men keep out of the way. We have the best investigators working on it, Sheriff, I can assure you. Too many noses spoil the broth and all that.”

With that, he was gone and Cassie let out a long breath of pent up anger as the door closed behind him.
This is still my town you prick
, she thought angrily,
and I’ll stick my nose wherever the hell I want to
.

----------

Becky spent her afternoon off trying to catch the eye of one of the TV news reporters, but to no avail. The town was currently full of young FBI agents. These men were buff specimens alright, but their faces were cold and their eyes hidden behind expensive dark glasses. The whole town was buzzing with their arrival and subsequent shootout. Becky had known Marshal Dinkins a little, but she only really had expert witness statements to give if the reporters wanted to know about his ass-grabbing techniques.

The afternoon was wearing on and the locals were starting to thin. Becky sat watching one of the reporters recording a piece in front of the town square. She moved a little closer to catch his words.

He was a ruggedly handsome man wearing a blue shirt, stone chinos, and dusty hiking boots. She had seen him reporting on conflicts from all corners of the country and had more than once indulged in a few fantasies over his appearance. More often than not, he was crouching besides a police car as the bullets fired overhead and his steely set jaw never faltered. He looked every inch the outdoors reporter, but Becky had seen him fussing over his hair between takes, berating a young woman for not applying enough makeup and at one point refusing to come out of his large Escalade, complaining about the heat.

Far from being disappointed with the man’s image being tarnished, she found it more than thrilling to see the magic of TV in action. As much as she might want to be an actress, she wanted to a star more.

She sidled up to the large white news van emblazoned with the KWTC logo on the side. She could hear the voices as Derek Rydal wound up his report as he stared into the camera.

“…where this once oasis town in the middle of the desert had its peaceful nature devastated today as the FBI took down the country’s most wanted man. Granton was forever changed as they discovered that a monster had lived amongst them, a monster that had attended barbeques and ball games. A man that a few called a neighbor and more called a friend.”

Becky almost laughed aloud at the corniness of it all. She didn’t think that Marshal had many friends other than his pet apes that followed him around, let alone attended “ball games”. Hell, Granton didn’t even have a field, let alone a team.

“The scars of this story will never heal in this quiet corner and these good people will never forget today when the violence of the outside world forever shattered their sense of security. This is Derek Rydal reporting for KWTC, live in Granton.”

“And we’re clear,” a man said from off camera.

“For Christ’s sake, Jerry,” Rydal snapped as he slapped at his neck. “How about you get some fucking bug spray that actually works!”

Becky watched as the older man muttered under his breath but still walked away obediently. She could see what being the star meant and she desperately wanted a taste.

“What do you want, an autograph?” Rydal said impatiently as he caught sight of Becky.

She suddenly felt tongue-tied as he noticed her skulking around the van. She wanted to tell him that they were just alike, that they were peas in a pod and that she wanted everything that she had owing. “How about I give you something instead?” she purred seductively and smiled as his eyes lit up.

----------

Ellie listened intently while never looking up as her grandmother and Mrs. Cohen talked. She had learned from an early age that grownups only felt like you were listening to their conversations if you were looking directly at them; out of sight, out of mind seemed like a very apt saying.

“I always knew that there was something off about that boy,” Mrs. Cohen said with her arms folded across her chest and the smug knowing look of those with hindsight.

“But a serial killer?” her grandmother asked, surprised. “You can’t tell me that you ever expected the Dinkins boy to have been capable of this?”

“I knew it. I knew that he would always be found guilty of something like this,” Mrs. Cohen reiterated firmly. “It’s in the eyes you see, always in the eyes.”

Ellie had listened to them talking about a serial killer called Herod. They were talking about all of the news coverage that had dominated the TV for weeks now, only she couldn’t remember any mention of the guy. Her mom let her watch the news as she said that it gave her a window on the outside world and a broader perspective, whatever that meant. She enjoyed the news despite a lot of it being pretty dull, but she knew full well that she would have recalled any mention of a serial killer terrorizing the country.

“It was lucky that the FBI were on hand to help out,” Mrs. Cohen said pointedly. “Such a relief to see the professionals in town.”

Ellie felt her grandmother stiffen and wondered why.

“I’m sure that Cassie had everything in hand; perhaps she was the one who called in the agents in the first place. Perhaps she was running the operation,” her grandmother replied in a harder tone than Ellie was used to.

“Perhaps,” Mrs. Cohen said, not convinced.

Ellie suddenly had the inspirational thought that her mother was being criticized by Mrs. Cohen and felt an immediate need to defend her. “My Mom’s the best at catching bad guys,” Ellie piped up.

“I’m sure that she is, dear,” Mrs. Cohen said smiling condescendingly. “Well, I must be off. Bobby is in much demand from the media, him being Town Manager and all,” she said grandly before extravagantly waving her goodbye.

Ellie watched the woman walk away as her grandmother’s face tightened and wondered how it was that adults could be friends with people they didn’t like. She thought that the whole world would be much simpler if you didn’t have to pretend all the time.

----------

Cassie made her way through the Town Hall records room. There were agents combing through the town looking for everything Marshal Dinkins related. The town officials were falling over themselves to be of use and Cassie thought that anything she did would be pre-approved as it would be assumed to be related to the FBI’s investigation. In reality she was more interested in Harlan Harris and thought that this would be the perfect opportunity to poke around the man’s life without any of his friends noticing.

Granton was a small town where everyone knew each other’s business and Harlan had been a central cog in the town’s machine. He sat on most committees and while his contributions weren’t on the same level as Jim Lesnar’s, he had been far and away the town’s second best benefactor. As such, she knew that the man had plenty of friends and cronies who wouldn’t take too kindly to her poking around the dead man’s affairs. While it should have been a relatively simple process to access his records in an official capacity, for the time being she wanted to fly under the radar.

The Town Hall was one of the older buildings in town and held hard copies of much of Granton’s paperwork. The computer age only stretched so far in Granton and if you wanted to find something, you often had to actually get off your ass.

The records room was a long basement stacked high with metallic shelves and cardboard boxes. There had been a retired librarian, Mrs. Davies, who had spent one long summer organizing the records into a categorized system that made things easier to find and Cassie had said a silent prayer to the woman on more than one occasion.

She only used the small but powerful flashlight on her keyring to light her way, not wanting to announce to those upstairs that she was nosing around.

She quickly found the paper trail for Harlan Harris that showed just what the man owned in town. She found planning permissions, tax records, land rights, and licenses amongst other things that proved that the hardware store was only a small part of the man’s property portfolio. While his assorted properties were not incriminating in themselves, she found it hard to believe that the income from a small town hardware store would have been sufficient to warrant such a portfolio.

There was a small note in one of the files that spoke of a small tract of land outside of town. She knew by the description that it was some way out into the desert and that there was nothing of any use or value there.

She placed the coordinates into her mental notepad and filed them away for future investigation.

Just then, the main overhead lights came on, flooding the place with bright light and illuminating her presence.

“Who’s down there?” a familiar voice shouted.

She recognised Cary Borage; he was a friendly old guy who volunteered at the Town Hall on weekdays. Most of the staff were voluntary and their duties consisted of little more than handing out forms and taking them back in again whenever anyone in town wanted to do anything that demanded permission.

“It’s only me, Cary,” she called back.

“Sheriff? What you doing stumbling around in the dark?”

She walked out between the rows of shelving and into the light just as Cary came down the steps. He was a retired man in his late seventies now and by far the biggest gossip in town.

“You doing a little digging for them agents?” he asked eagerly.

“Now you know, Cary, I can’t just go chatting away about police business,” she said, deftly avoiding the question.

“Say no more,” he grinned, closing one eye and tapping the side of his nose. “Were you there? You know when they…” He mimed firing a machine gun.