Zero Day (32 page)

A
S THEY WERE DRIVING
back through Drake, Cole slowed her cruiser and pulled to the curb. Puller looked where she was staring.

“Roger Trent is back in town,” he said.

A black Cadillac Escalade with gold trim sat idling at the curb, a man he’d never seen before at the wheel. Puller eyed the driver closely, his gaze taking in all relevant details and his mind crunching through those observations and arriving at certain conclusions.

Interesting
.

Next to the vehicle stood Roger Trent. He was dressed in a suit. Puller noted that it looked baggy and wrinkled, as though the man had slept in it. He had opened the door of the vehicle and was about to step inside.

“Looks like he just walked off the plane,” he noted. “Let’s have a chat with him.”

She pulled to a stop next to the Escalade and Puller rolled his window down. “Hey, Roger, got time for a cup of coffee in the Crib?”

Trent scowled at Puller and then glanced at Cole. “I just had a cup of coffee there.”

“Got some things to talk to you about. Won’t take long.”

“Is it about those death threats?”

“Yep.”

“I’ll give you ten minutes.” He turned and walked into the restaurant.

A minute later Puller and Cole were seated across from him.
They ordered their coffees. The place was about three-quarters full and everyone there kept shooting nervous glances at the trio.

Puller noted this and said, “You come here often? I understand you own it.”

“I own just about everything in Drake. So what?”

Puller ran his gaze down the man’s wrinkled suit. “You just get back into town?”

“Yeah, again, so what?” He glanced sharply at Cole. “I thought you wanted to talk to me about those death threats.”

“We’re working on it, Roger.”

“Right. Well, you might want to look a little closer to home. Just like last time.”

“I have. And I don’t think that’s the source. I wanted to let you know that.”

“I’m not sure you’re the most objective person to make that decision.”

“We think Molly Bitner’s murder had something to do with her working at your office, Roger,” said Puller.

This comment drew a sharp glance from Cole, but Trent didn’t catch it. He was staring at Puller.

“And why do you think that?”

“Soil reports.”

“I don’t know what that means. What sort of soil reports?”

“You know, the environmental kind.”

“I still don’t understand.”

“Eric Treadwell and Dickie Strauss were friends, did you know that?”

“Not really, no.”

“They have the same tat sleeve. Dickie said he copied it from Eric’s.”

“What does any of that have to do with me?”

“I’m not sure, Roger,” said Puller. He took a sip of coffee and studied the man. “How’d the trip to New York go?”

Trent looked startled. “How did you know that’s where I went?”

“Bill Strauss told us. He wouldn’t tell us why, but he did say that
your company was very profitable and investment opportunities were everywhere.”

Trent glanced away and Puller saw a small tremor start up in the man’s left hand.

“Everybody needs energy,” added Puller.

“Right,” said Trent curtly. “Are we done here? Because you clearly have nothing to tell me that is helpful.”

Cole glanced at Puller. He said, “I guess so. You should probably go home and get some sleep. You look beat.”

“Thanks for your concern,” snapped Trent.

As the other man rose, Puller did too. He stepped closer and said in a low voice, “I would take those death threats seriously, Roger. But maybe not for the reason you think.”

Trent grew a shade paler, turned, and left. A few moments later the Escalade roared off.

As Cole and Puller walked outside, she said, “What exactly was that about?”

“That man is scared. For a lot of reasons. Personal. Business. Why do you think that is? He owns the whole town. Big fish in a little pond.”

“I don’t know,” said Cole.

“Big fish in a little pond,” repeated Puller.

Cole got it. “There’s a bigger fish in town.”

“Could be.”

“Who?”

“We find baldy.”

“How? You said you had an idea.”

“Let me put it another way. We find Dickie Strauss.”

“You think he’s the guy Dougett saw running from the house?”

“Fits the physical description. Burns on the arm? Try a tat sleeve. And if it wasn’t Dickie, it might have been one of his tat sleeve crew.”

“There aren’t any gangs in Drake, Puller.”

“None that you’re aware of,” he corrected.

“Why would Dickie Strauss have been in that house? And if he
was, then that means he killed Larry Wellman. Why would he do that?”

“That’s not necessarily so.”

“What do you mean? They were both in the house and Larry ended up dead. Somebody had to kill him. He didn’t hang himself.”

“Agreed.”

“So what’s your point?”

“Let’s just find Dickie instead of arguing. Any idea where he might be?”

She slid the cruiser into drive. “Yeah.”

“Where?”

“You’ll find out when we get there. I can play things close to the vest too.”

T
HE CONCRETE DOME
. Puller studied it as they passed by.

“Maybe Drake should make that into a tourist attraction,” he said.

“Yeah, that would be a great draw. Stare at cement for a dollar,” replied Cole.

She turned down a street and steered the cruiser into the neighborhood that had once housed people that had worked in the nearby facility. They passed abandoned houses that were starting to cave in, and other homes where people had worked to make them livable. Puller stared at small kids with dirty faces, and skinny mothers who ran after them. He didn’t see many men, but figured they were probably out earning a living or at least trying to find work.

He sniffed the air. “Nice aroma.”

“We try to get them to take their trash to the dump, but it’s an ongoing struggle. And the bathrooms in these places stopped working a long time ago. Most have put in outhouses of some kind.”

“Nice life for the citizens of the richest nation on earth.”

“Well, those riches must be concentrated in the hands of a few, because we don’t have any of it.”

“They are,” said Puller. “Like your brother-in-law.” He looked around. “Those are electrical poles, but those transformers don’t seem to be hot.”

“People here were trying to tie into them and getting fried. We had the electric company turn this part of the grid off and do a workaround.” She pointed to a telephone pole that had some cable
running from it down to the ground where it snaked inside some of the homes.

“Telephone service is being tapped into, as you can see. We let that pass. Folks here can’t necessarily afford cell phones. But they can still talk to people. Phone company is okay with it. Hell, more and more people don’t even have landlines these days. They make their money off cell phones and data usage and stuff like that.”

Cole pointed up ahead. “There’s our destination.”

The place was at the end of the street and far larger than the other homes. Puller stared at the massive overhead doors painted red, though the paint had mostly faded away.

It struck Puller what he was looking at. “A firehouse?”

“Used to be. Hasn’t been used for that since they domed over the Bunker. At least that’s what I was told as a kid.”

“So what do they use it for now?”

The next instant Puller heard the motorcycle start up. Actually, it was more than one motorcycle.

“Harley club,” said Cole. “Of which Dickie Strauss is a member. They call it Xanadu. Some of them might not even know what it means. But it helps keep most of these boys out of trouble.”

“And Treadwell too? He had a Harley. Is that where the tat sleeve came from?”

“I don’t know about the tat sleeve. And no, not everyone in the club has one.”

“But it would have been nice to know that Dickie and Treadwell belonged to the same club.”

“We just found out that it might have been Dickie that ran out of the Halversons’ place. Until then, I had no reason to suspect he was involved.”

“But maybe the motorcycle gang was connected to Treadwell’s death.”

“It’s a club, Puller, not a gang. Most of the members are older guys. They have families and bills to pay.”

She pulled the car to a stop in front of the old firehouse and they got out. Through the open doorways Puller could see an old fire
truck with rotted wheels in one bay, and the ubiquitous fire pole just beyond it. Wooden lockers lined both sides of the wall, and there was old firefighting equipment stacked in piles.

In the other bay were a half dozen vintage Harleys. Puller counted five men inside, two on their Harleys and revving the motors and the others tinkering with their machines.

“How come those guys aren’t out working?”

“Probably because they can’t find jobs.”

“So they just sit around playing with their expensive rides?”

“Most of these bikes are twenty years old, Puller. Nobody’s playing with anything. I know most of those men. They work hard. But when there’s no work, what do you do? County unemployment rate is nearly twenty percent, and that’s folks who are still looking. Lots of people have just given up.”

“Do they keep their bikes here?”

“Sometimes, why?”

“You said the people who live here are scavengers.”

“Yeah, but they don’t touch the motorcycle club stuff.”

“Why not?”

“Because the club members help them.”

“How?”

“They collect food, blankets, and hire some of the guys to work for them when they have jobs lined up. Most of the club members have special skills: mechanics, plumbers, electricians, carpenters. Like I said, hard workers. They’ll go by the houses and fix stuff for the families free of charge.”

“Bunch of Good Samaritans.”

“We do have them here in Drake.”

They walked up the cracked concrete drive to the front of the firehouse. Several of the men looked up. Puller saw Dickie Strauss walk out of a back room, stop, and stare at them. He was wiping his greasy hands on a work rag.

Cole said, “Hey, Dickie, we’d like to talk to you.”

Dickie turned and ran toward the back of the building.

“Hey,” shouted Cole. “Stop! We just want to talk.”

Puller had already moved forward, into the building.

Two guys who’d been working on their Harleys blocked Puller’s way. They were both built like fireplugs, older than Puller, with tie-dyed bandanas and overly confident expressions. Their hands were huge and the pronounced cords of muscles in their forearms showed they performed physically hard labor for their daily bread.

Puller held up his badge. “Out of the way. Now.”

One of the men said, “This is private property. Let me see your warrant.”

Cole said, “Let him by.”

Puller had one eye on the fleeing Dickie and the other on the lead bandana.

“I need to talk to him,” said Puller. “Just talk.”

“And I just need to see your warrant.”

“This place is abandoned.”

“Does it look abandoned to you, slick?” asked the other man.

Cole was about to pull her gun when the lead bandana put a hand on Puller’s shoulder. A second later he was facedown on the concrete floor. His stunned expression revealed that he had no idea how he got there. The other man yelled and swung at Puller. Puller grabbed the man’s arm, cranked it down, whipsawed it around, and the man joined his buddy on the cement. When they tried to move, Puller said, “If you get up I will put you both in the hospital. And I don’t want to do that. This is not your fight.”

Both men collapsed back down and stayed there.

Puller had just straightened up when Dickie’s huge friend, Frank, rushed at him from a darkened corner of the building. His nose was bandaged and he had two black eyes from the previous collision with Puller’s head. He was holding a long board.

“Payback,” snarled Frank.

He was about to swing it against Puller’s head when the shot whipped past him and carried a chunk of the board with it. The impact knocked the wood out of Frank’s hands.

Frank, Puller, and the other Harley guys looked over at Cole. Her Cobra was now pointed at Frank’s crotch.

“Your choice,” said Cole. “Do you want kids or not?”

Frank quickly backed off, his hands protectively over his privates.

Puller raced past them and out the rear entrance.

The dirt bike whizzed around the corner and came at him. Dickie had taken the time to put on a helmet, or else Puller would not have done what he was about to.

He pulled his forward M11, took two seconds to aim, and shot out the rear tire. The bike slid sideways, Dickie fell off, and the two-wheeler came to rest about twenty feet from him.

A few seconds later Dickie was yanked up by Puller.

“You could’ve killed me,” shouted Dickie.

“If I’d shot out your front tire, you’d’ve gone head over bars. This way the only thing you hurt was your ass. But then again, with you, I don’t see much difference between that part of your body and your brain, if you actually have one.”

Cole rushed up to them and holstered her Cobra. She got right in Dickie’s face. “Are you an idiot or what? What the hell kind of stunt was that?”

“I just freaked,” whined Dickie.

“Were you really infantry?” asked Puller. “Because First Division has pretty high standards and I don’t think there’s any way they would’ve let a screwup like you in the ranks.”

“Go to hell!” snapped Dickie.

“Where you’re
going
is jail,” Cole snapped back.

“What for?”

“Trying to kill a military officer, for one thing,” said Puller. “That’ll put you in a federal pen until you’re middle-aged.”

“I didn’t try to kill you.”

“What do you call trying to run me down with your bike?”

“You were trying to kill me,” Dickie shot back. He glared at Cole. “He shot out my tire. Could’ve killed me.”

“Well, I’m sure you gave him a damn good reason. Now tell me why you took off like that. All we wanted to do was talk.”

“This guy already beat up Frank. I didn’t want him to come after me. He’s a psycho.”

Cole said, “That’s bullshit and you know it. Why did you run, Dickie?”

The young man said nothing. He just looked down at the ground,
his chest huffing in and out. There was blood on his elbow from where he’d hit the ground.

“Okay, have it your way.” Cole cuffed him and read him his rights.

“My dad will be pissed about this.”

“I’m sure he will be,” said Cole. “That’s your problem. But if you talk it’ll go a lot easier with you.”

“I’m not saying anything. I want a lawyer. This is bullshit. My dad will sue your ass off.”

“Did you kill Officer Wellman?” said Puller. “That’ll get you a one-way ticket to life in prison. Too bad West Virginia doesn’t have the death penalty.”

Dickie’s face collapsed and the anger bled out of him like a ruptured artery.

Puller continued. “What would you say if we told you we had an eyewitness who put you at the Halversons’ right about the time that Deputy Wellman was killed? And then saw you running away from the place?”

When he spoke Dickie’s voice was so low they could barely hear it. “That’s not… I’d say that person was nuts.” There was nothing behind the words. Dickie looked like he might throw up.

Puller said, “Up to you. But we have eyewitness testimony. And I’m betting you touched something in that house. We’ll get prints and DNA samples from you. We’ve got some unaccounted-for trace at the murder scene and something tells me they’ll match yours. Then it’s bye-bye to the rest of your life.”

Cole added, “And because of the little stunt you just pulled we have probable cause to get those samples.”

“And we don’t even have to get them from you. Since you were in the military your prints and DNA are on file,” said Puller.

“You can’t access those for a criminal investigation,” said Dickie. “Only to ID remains.”

Puller smiled. “So you checked? Interesting.”

Dickie’s face turned the color of vanilla. “I didn’t kill nobody.”

“But you were in the house?” said Puller.

Dickie looked around. The Harley guys were clustered near
the back of the firehouse watching them. Frank and the two that Puller had laid out were looking particularly homicidal but made no move to advance on them.

“Can we go somewhere private and talk about this?” Dickie asked.

“First smart thing you’ve said since I’ve known you,” answered Puller.