“Okay. But I’m telling you I don’t think that package is on there.”
“Then we confirm it.”
Five minutes later they had their confirmation. No package.
Lan looked worried as he surveyed the room. “I never saw anything like that.”
“Dog might’ve eaten it,” said Cole, drawing a long look from Puller. “I guess I could have the vet check or do an X-ray.”
“It’s paper, it probably wouldn’t show up, or else the mutt’s already digested it and pooped it out,” replied Puller.
Cole’s phone buzzed. She saw the caller ID and looked surprised.
“Who is it?” asked Puller.
“Roger Trent.”
“Your mining mogul.”
The phone continued to ring.
“Aren’t you going to answer it?” said Puller.
“Yeah, I guess I am.”
She opened the phone. “Hello?”
She listened, tried to say something, and then listened some more. “That’ll be fine,” she finally said. “See you then.”
She closed the phone.
“Well?” asked Puller.
“Roger Trent wants to see me. At his house.”
“Why?”
“He says he’s been receiving death threats.”
“You better get going.”
“Why don’t you come with me?”
“Why? You want some backup on this?”
“Couldn’t hurt. And I can tell you’re curious about the man. This way you get to see him up close and personal.”
“Let’s go.”
CHAPTER
30
COLE AND PULLER drove to Trent’s home in her cruiser.
She said, “I’m taking a shortcut. Cuts off a chunk of time but it’s bumpy.” She hung a hard right and swung onto a narrow road full of potholes.
It looked familiar to Puller. He gazed around and then saw why this was so.
“What the hell is that thing?” He pointed at the towering concrete dome over and around which trees, vines, and bushes had grown. He’d seen it on his way in here the first night, when he’d gotten lost.
“Folks around here call it the Bunker.”
“Okay, but what is it?”
“Used to be some sort of government facility. It was closed up long before I was even born.”
“But certainly the older folks in town know what it was. Some of them had to work there.”
Cole shook her head. “Nope. No one from Drake ever did work there, at least not that I know of.”
“I know the government is a financial black hole, but even D.C. won’t put up a facility like that and not even use it.”
“Oh, they used it.”
She slowed down and Puller focused on the stretch of houses he’d glimpsed the other night. In daylight the place didn’t look much different than it had at night. The houses were at least five decades old and possibly older. Many looked abandoned, but not all of them. They stretched over a web of streets, row after row. They reminded him of military housing. Each one looked the same as its neighbor.
“Are you saying they brought in people from outside the area to work the Bunker?”
She nodded. “And they built all those homes to house them.”
“I see there are people living in them still.”
“Only over the last few years. Economy cratered, people lost their jobs and their homes. These places are old and haven’t been kept up, but when you’re on the street you can’t be choosy.”
“Any problems? Desperate folks sometimes do desperate things, especially when they’re in close proximity to each other.”
“We patrol it pretty regularly. What crime there is has been just petty stuff. People mostly stay to themselves. I guess they’re grateful to have a roof over their heads. County tries to help them out. Blankets, food, water, batteries, books for the kids, stuff like that. We’re over here a lot telling them not to use kerosene heaters and crap like that in the houses for heat. And ways to keep themselves safe. Already had one family nearly die from carbon monoxide poisoning.”
“And the government just lets you use the housing?”
“I think the Feds have forgotten it was ever even here. Sort of like the end of that movie, Raiders of the Lost Ark. One more box in the warehouse.”
Puller glanced back at the Bunker. “When did it shut down?”
“Don’t know exactly. My mom told me it was sometime in the sixties.”
“And all the workers?”
“Packed up and moved out.”
“And the concrete?”
“My daddy said that was something to see when they did it. It’s three feet thick.”
“Three feet!”
“What my daddy said.”
“And nobody in Drake ever talked to these folks, found out what they were doing in that place?”
“From what I heard, the government supplied the workers with most of what they needed. And it was all guys, all of them in their forties and single according to my parents. Of course some would come into town on occasion. My dad said they were real tight-lipped about what they did here.”
“If they were in their forties back then, most if not all of them are probably dead by now.”
“Guess so.”
Puller eyed the Bunker and saw the rusted fencing with barbed wire topper that ran around the facility. In between the structure and the neighborhood was a stand of trees. Next, Puller shifted his gaze to a little boy and girl who were playing in the front yard of one of the houses. The boy was running around in a circle while the girl attempted to catch him. They both fell down in a tangle of arms and legs.
“You have kids?”
Puller turned to see her gazing at him. She had slowed the car to a crawl while she too watched the children.
“No,” he replied. “Never married.”
“When I was a little girl only thing I wanted to be was a mom.”
“So what happened?”
She hit the accelerator. “Life. Life happened.”
CHAPTER
31
PULLER’S EYE GAUGED IT to be about fifteen thousand square feet with a central block and two wings emanating from that core. It looked like a Parisian cathedral dropped in the middle of West Virginia. The Trent mansion was on the very top of a hill that apparently held no coal deposits, because the land was still intact. The road up was laid with heavy cobblestone-style pavers. A gate awaited them at the entrance to the formal grounds that were enclosed by a six-foot-high wrought iron fence. There was an armed guard at the gate. He looked like a long-retired cop, Puller thought. Fat and slow. But he could probably still shoot halfway straight.
As Cole slowed the cruiser Puller said, “Gates and guards. Man needs protection?”
“Like I said, coal companies are never popular, least at the places where the coal comes out. I’m sure they’re a lot more popular where there aren’t any mines or lopped-off mountaintops.”
The guard must’ve been informed of their arrival, because he opened the gates and waved them through.
“Good thing we’re not here to kill the guy,” said Puller. “The rental cop just made it pretty easy.”
“He takes his orders from Trent. Like most folks around here.”
“You trying to tell me something?”
She said, “I said most folks, not all. And certainly not me.”
Up close the house looked twice as big as it did from a distance. A maid in a domestic’s uniform opened the front door. Puller half expected her to curtsey. She was Asian and young, with delicate features and dark hair that was tied back in a neat braid. She escorted them along a hallway of immense proportions. It was wood-paneled with large portraits professionally hung on the walls. For a second Puller thought he was actually in a museum. The floor was tumbled marble in a maze of colors. Cole’s cop boots clicked on its surface. Puller’s combat boots absorbed all the sound of his footfalls as they were designed to do.
Cole obviously didn’t appreciate his humor and didn’t answer, keeping her gaze straight ahead. They passed a staircase. Puller’s gaze slid up it in time to catch a teenage girl staring back at him from the top of the stairs. Her face was plump, her cheeks crimson. Her hair was a tangled mess of highlighted blonde tresses. An instant later she was gone from his view.
“The Trents have kids?”
“Two. Teenage girl and eleven-year-old boy.”
“I take it Mom and Dad aren’t exactly ready for Social Security.”
“Trent is forty-seven. His wife is thirty-eight.”
“I’m glad they’re young enough to enjoy their money.”
“Oh, they enjoy it.”
The maid opened a door and directed them inside. She closed the door behind them. Puller could hear her timid footsteps pitter-pattering down the hall.
The walls were upholstered in a dark green fabric. The floor was cherry wood with a satin finish. Two squares of oriental rugs covered parts of it. The chairs and couches were leather. The window treatments blocked most of the light from outside. The chandelier was bronze, held a dozen bulbs, and looked to weigh a ton. A large table sat in the middle of the room with an enormous flower display in a crystal vase resting on top of it. More paintings were on the wall here. They looked old, original, and expensive.
Everything was tastefully done. It had been a careful eye that had coordinated all of this, thought Puller.
“Have you been here before?”
“A few times. Social occasions. The Trents have a lot of parties.”
“So they invite the working class to their soirees?”
Before Cole could respond to this the door opened and they turned toward it.
Roger Trent was six-one and quickly eating himself to obese status. His neck was thick, his chin had a twin, and his expensive suit could not hide the width of his waist. The room was cool and yet he was sweating.
Maybe from the long walk down the hall, thought Puller.
“Hello, Roger,” said Cole as she put out a hand for him to shake.
Puller shot her a glance that she ignored.
Roger?
Trent snarled, “I’m getting tired of this shit, you know that?”
“Well, death threats are pretty serious,” said Cole.
The coal baron glanced up at Puller. “Who the hell are you?”
“This is Special Agent John Puller from the Army CID back in Virginia,” answered Cole hastily.
Puller put out his hand. “Nice to meet you, Roger.” He glanced at Cole in time to see her grimace.
The men shook hands and Puller came away almost believing he’d just held a fish.
“Death threats?” said Puller. “How did they come to you?”
“Phone calls.”
“Did you happen to record them?” asked Cole.
Trent gave her a patronizing look. “The recording only works if you don’t answer the phone.” He sat down in a chair but didn’t motion for them to do the same.
“We can try and trace them,” said Cole.
“I already had my people do that.”
“And?”
“Disposable phone calling card.”
“Okay. How many threats, when did they come, and what phone number were they called into?”
“Three. All around 10 p.m. the last three nights. All on my cell phone.”
Puller asked, “You have caller ID?”
“Of course.”
“And you answer calls where you don’t recognize the number?”
“I have many business interests outside this area and even in other countries. It’s not unusual for me to receive such calls and at odd hours.”
“How many folks have your personal cell phone number?” Cole asked.
Trent shrugged. “Impossible to tell. I don’t give it out freely, but I’ve never tried to keep it a secret either.”
“What were the contents of the threats?”
“That my time is coming up. That they’re going to see that justice is done.”
“Those were the exact words? Each time?”
“Well, I don’t know if that was it verbatim. But that was the gist,” he added impatiently.
“But the call said they’re going to see that justice is done? Meaning more than one person?” asked Puller.
“That was the word they used.”
“Man or woman’s voice?”
“I’d say it was a man’s.”
“Gotten threats before?” asked Puller.
Trent glanced at Cole. “A few.”
“Like this? I mean was it the same voice?”
“Those other threats weren’t by phone.”
“What then?”
Cole cut in. “We investigated those. And they were dealt with.”
Puller gazed at her for a few moments before turning back to Trent. “Okay. So why do you think they’re threatening you?”
Trent rose and looked at Cole. “Why is this guy here? I thought it was just going to be you.”
“We’re working a homicide case together.”
“I know that. I spoke with Bill Strauss. But what the hell does that have to do with my situation?”
“Well, one of your employees, Molly Bitner, was also murdered.”
“Again, I don’t see a connection. And if she’s dead I doubt she’s the one threatening me.”
“Did you ever meet her?” asked Puller.
“If I did I don’t remember. I’m not even sure what office she worked in. I don’t get down to that level of employee.”
Puller resisted the urge to knock the man through a wall. “You have another office around here?”
“I have several.”
Zero Day Page 16