“Like what?”
“He’s just off. His behavior, it’s...atypical.”
“Are you suspecting Mansfield of something?”
“Maybe.”
“You think he’s involved with his wife’s disappearance somehow?”
“I’m not ruling that out.”
“Seems kind of far-fetched to me.”
“‘Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.’ Sir Arthur Conan Doyle said that over a hundred years ago. It’s still true today. Besides, the FBI has already worked the obvious.”
“Life isn’t a Sherlock Holmes novel, L.T.”
“But you’ll do it, right?”
“Sure. I’ll meet with Mansfield. I’ll try to rattle his cage. Maybe bring up life insurance. How much was Shelley Baxter insured for? Who was the beneficiary? That kind of stuff.”
“Thanks, Larry. When you meet with this guy, bring your A game. He’s smart. Real smart. Partner in a prestigious D.C. law firm by 35. His name on the sign by 40.”
“This is ridiculous.”
I ignored Larry’s complaining. “Back in high school you played sports, right?”
“Football. Fullback for awhile, then running back. Why?”
“Did you ever have any trouble getting girls?”
“No,” he replied laughingly.
“Do you remember any of the smart kids? Perhaps an obscenely smart kid from high school with a chip on his shoulder and a major feeling of disdain for nearly everyone around him?”
“Yeah, Stephen Race.”
“Well, Mansfield is your Stephen Race all grown up, who now has money and power, and he’s still the smartest guy in the room and still hates the guys who got the girls in high school.”
“This is D.C., L.T. I run into those guys every day.”
“Have him explain the ransom drop to you, Larry, then tell me what you think of George Mansfield.”
“I said I’ll do it. Today even.”
“Thanks.”
Having the FBI helping me, even on a small level should have made me feel optimistic. It didn’t. It had been exactly a week since Boyd left his cryptic message with LeClair, and time was ticking by every day without feeling like I was any closer to knowing Boyd’s current status. How much longer could I keep my frustration from turning into anger? I didn’t know. I had already held it together longer than I had expected I could. I had never read a comic book in my life, but I knew of the Hulk’s desire to smash things. The simplicity of the approach was sounding more and more appealing with each day.
Fly back to D.C. and smash Mansfield in the face until I get real answers — now that sounds like a great idea. Meet with Evan Baxter and make him tell me what he knows or I smash things — another great idea.
Three hours later, I received a page from Larry, which prompted another stop at a payphone. True to his word, he had information on Evan Baxter. Evan was Shelley Baxter’s older brother at 39 years old. He moved to Dubuque in 1988 and opened a bar near the Mississippi River named Riverside. He had never married. No trouble with the law. No outstanding loans or debts. Rotary Club member. The bar had a good reputation with the Better Business Bureau and the local Chamber of Commerce. All in all, on paper, an upstanding citizen of the community. Larry even found a newspaper article detailing an annual fund raiser for a local women’s shelter in honor of his sister.
“I met with Mansfield,” Larry added after giving me the information about Evan Baxter. “You’re right; he’s a jerk. No more, no less than many of the politicians around here, but still a Grade A asshole. It seems my interrogation skills weren’t much better than yours.”
“You didn’t get anything?”
“Nothing useful. He merely repeated what you had already told me. I was able to get the information on Shelley Baxter’s life insurance. It was sitting in the old file. It seems Shelley changed the beneficiary on her policy to her brother a month before the kidnapping. Evan Baxter was the recipient of one million dollars.”
Knowing Evan received the life insurance payout didn’t change my feelings toward Mansfield. The man was a snake. A narcissistic jerk. A pompous ass. But he hardly seemed the cold-blooded killer type.
With all the stops to use payphones, we arrived in the river town of Dubuque minutes before midnight, checked into a hotel, and went to bed. Tomorrow, we would meet Evan Baxter and see if he could shine any light on our investigation. At the minimum, he could tell us what he told Boyd when they met.
***
I woke up Saturday to a chill in the room, turned on the local news while lying in bed and noticed the current temperature was 52 degrees, a far cry from the 82 degrees yesterday when we left Memphis. The weatherman gave the historic high temperature for the third day in September, a sweltering 97 degrees. Along with a record low of 44.
Jessica stirred next to me. “Weather in the Midwest sucks. I can’t believe I was attending college in Champaign this time last year.”
“If my memory is correct, you were complaining about the weather then as well. Look, on the bright side, it’s not supposed to rain.”
She threw a pillow at me before getting out of bed and shuffling off to the restroom to get ready for breakfast.
Anyone who has ever lived in a river town can tell you the river does something to the town. Adds something. A buzz. An energy. The bars are livelier. The restaurants are more daring with the menu. The shops are more unique. The river seems to breathe a certain life into a river town in much the same way a large university does a college town, only the effect of the river often permeates deeper into the community. Even at eight in the morning, Jessica and I could feel that energy in Dubuque as we sat in a small diner eating breakfast. Enough so that Jessica stopped complaining about the cool weather. If we weren’t there on a mission to find Boyd, we would have enjoyed seeing more of the picturesque Midwest town. Explored the beautiful bluffs overlooking the mighty Mississippi River. Shopped the downtown district along the river. Rode the Fenelon Place Elevator, the self-proclaimed world’s shortest, steepest scenic railway.
Instead, we were planning our approach on Evan Baxter. Well, not so much planning as arguing over which approach to take. I wanted to take a direct, honest approach. Appeal to his sensitivities. Boyd had already talked with him, so Evan had to know Mansfield was looking for someone believed to be his sister. Jessica wanted to saddle up to him at the bar if possible. Use her feminine charm to see if she could find out anything. I lost the argument.
After breakfast, we walked by Riverside Bar. At first glance, the bar looked like it consisted of three different buildings conjoined to form one business. The buildings looked almost dilapidated until you realized on closer inspection that Evan Baxter was trying to capture the antiquated, historic charm of the area. The place was huge. Much bigger than LeClair’s.
“This is not what I expected,” I said. “I don’t think your idea of saddling up to the bar to talk to Evan will work here. A place this big, I doubt he works the bar.”
“Me neither. This looks like a night club or something. There’s probably 30-plus employees working on a Saturday night.”
“We don’t even know if Baxter comes in,” I said. “He might have a manager doing the night work.”
“He comes in alright.” The female voice behind us sounded eerily familiar.
You have got to be kidding me. Maybe if I don’t turn around, I’ll realize it’s all in my imagination.
One look at Jessica, and I noticed she was thinking the same thing. It had been three days since I refused to work with the FBI and threatened Supervisory Special Agent Sampson. In return, he had promised to make my life a living hell. To hamper my attempt at investigating Boyd’s disappearance. At the time, his threat seemed hollow. Seriously, who inside the FBI would allocate time and money to such an asinine cause? Yet, when I turned around, Special Agent Marshall was standing in front of us on a sidewalk in Dubuque, Iowa smiling as if she
had walked up on two long-lost friends. Nine hours from Memphis. It appeared Larry was wrong about the FBI’s interest in me. I was done trying to second-guess the Feds.
Marshall didn’t wait for us to respond. “There’s more than one bar inside. Evan Baxter likes to work one of the bars on Friday and Saturday nights. The one farthest from the loud music, where it’s a little quieter and a little slower paced. He always works with another bartender so he can socialize with the patrons, flirt with the girls. From what I’ve learned, he’s a rather good-looking fellow.”
As usual, Marshall looked pleased with herself.
“Come on, you two, get that look off your faces,” she continued. “Visiting the brother was the obvious next step. Unlike my idiot colleagues, I didn’t see the need to tail you. Jumping ahead of you was much easier. Great job losing that tail, by the way. I heard all about it. I sincerely wish I could have seen you scale that fence. I liked your Memphis escape even better than how you shook your tail in D.C. Lifting the agent’s ID so he wouldn’t be able to get through the gate at the Naval Hospital was genius. If they hadn’t been so stupid, so focused on their own agenda, they would have known you were still working your case, not just trying to lose them. You gave them everything they needed to know to look for you at Mansfield’s house or place of employment. Which one was it, by the way? Home or office?”
“None’ya,” I replied forcefully.
“None’ya? As in none’ya damn business. That’s kind of childish, don’t you think?”
I didn’t reply.
Marshall continued, “Both, huh? That makes sense. He threw you out of the office, so you felt compelled to visit him at home.”
“Special Agent Marshall, wh—.”
“Ann,” she interrupted.
“What?”
“Call me Ann. Or Marshall. All this Special Agent stuff gets old after a while.”
“No, we’ll stick with Special Agent Marshall. You are becoming a thorn in our side.”
“I told you I was up for the challenge.”
I wanted to knock the self-satisfied smile off her face. If she had been a guy, I might have. “Special Agent Marshall, it appears you are too smart for me. Do whatever it is you want to do. Follow us where ever you want. But know this, Agent Marshall, if you are here to interfere with my ability to find my friend, then you and that damn smirk can suck it.”
“Dr. McCain, that hurts.”
“You’re getting a little better at faking it, Special Agent Marshall. You almost sounded sincere. I still don’t care. The FBI can go to hell. Good-bye.”
***
Special Agent Marshall said nothing as Jessica and I walked away. And we didn’t turn around to see if she was following us. It didn’t make any sense to check; Agent Marshall had the upper hand. She knew why we were in Dubuque and more or less what we intended to do. She could sabotage our investigation at any point by walking up to Evan Baxter and warning him about us, and there wasn’t a thing we could do to stop her. Her FBI badge gave her power and authority.
I paused for a brief second as I contemplated turning around and trying to appeal to Marshall’s sensitivities. Let her know how worried and desperate I was.
Jessica must have sensed my intentions. She tugged on my hand and said, “Forget about it, sweetie. It won’t work.” I could tell by the tone in her voice she was as flustered as I was. And as convinced as I was that any effort spent on Agent Marshall would be a waste of time. “There’s something wrong with that girl, Legend. She’s too pleased with herself.”
Jessica was right. Marshall had the look of someone who was winning at her favorite game. Only she didn’t look pleased; she looked amused. I didn’t feel so bad about telling her and her damn smirk to suck it.
“You know,” I said, suddenly smiling at my light-bulb moment, “it’s time for Operation Divide and Conquer.”
“That’s my Legend. Don’t let that crazy bitch get in your head.”
That’s when I knew my wife was as angry as I was. I teased her about having a potty mouth, but the f-word and the b-word were two words she avoided.
“Take me back to the room and tell me your plan,” she said. And that is exactly what I did.
***
I don’t know why, but I had a habit of naming my plans. Maybe I liked reveling in my own cleverness. Or maybe, when the chips are down, when your back is up against the wall, having an appropriately named plan helps you remember your purpose. Helps you focus. Keeps your eye on the prize. While Boyd and I were being chased through the Cambodian jungle by angry Vietnamese soldiers years ago, I kept calling our escape Operation Manifest Destiny. At first, I was referring to the fact that our escape required us to travel west into Thailand, much like the 19th-century doctrine of manifest destiny required Americans to expand west into North America. I also chose the name to instill hope in our group of four helicopter crash survivors. I insisted it was our destiny to get out of Cambodia alive. I repeated the mantra over and over until they believed it as much as I did.
Operation Divide and Conquer was simple, and based on the premise Special Agent Marshall came to Dubuque alone and, barring any unforeseen superpowers, couldn’t be in two places at the same time. At five o’clock, I left our hotel in the BMW, hoping Marshall was watching the hotel and ready to follow me. Dubuque was small, less than 50,000 people, meaning I was sitting in front of Baxter’s modest home within minutes. Ten minutes later, I was bored and was seriously beginning to rethink my plan. Boyd had probably talked to Baxter, why couldn’t I do the same? Skip all the subterfuge. An hour later, I was ready to walk up to Baxter’s front door when I spotted his garage door opening, followed by a man I assumed was Evan Baxter backing out of the garage in a new Land Rover.
My part of Operation Divide and Conquer was to act as the decoy, hoping Agent Marshall would follow me while Jessica walked to Riverside Bar to strike up a conversation with Evan Baxter. However, I had seen no sign of the irritating special agent. The way things were going, I half expected Marshall to be sitting next to Baxter in the front seat of his Land Rover. She wasn’t. I suddenly realized Jessica and I were basing our plan on the assumption Marshall had told the truth about Baxter working the bar on Saturday nights, which could have been a ruse on her part. I decided to follow Baxter. Other than one stop to return a movie at Blockbusters, he drove straight to the bar, parked in his reserved space, and went in the back door. That still doesn’t mean Agent Marshall was telling the truth, I thought.
I parked my car across the street with a good view of Baxter’s Land Rover. Around eight o’clock, Jessica arrived at the bar looking like a young woman out for a night on the town. Still no sign of Agent Marshall. I waited for another half hour before leaving to drive by Baxter’s house. I told myself I was there to case the neighborhood, but truthfully I was bored.
At 10:30, Jessica paged me using an agreed-upon alphanumeric message indicating she was done. I drove back to the bar and waited for her to exit. Around 10:50, she paged me again with the message INSIDE. Remembering her success with Nick Marino, I wondered if Jessica’s message was a sign that she had succeeded with Evan Baxter as well. I walked to the front door, paid the cover charge, and stepped inside the busy bar. The place felt like a New York nightclub. Flashing lights everywhere, and the DJ was playing horrible techno music. It was so bad it made me yearn for rap. I could only imagine what LeClair would have thought.
Riverside Bar had rooftop seating at two different levels, each with its particular ambiance. I found Jessica at the upper level sitting on a bar stool with her back to the bar looking for me. My hopes of success were quickly dashed when I saw the sour look on Jessica’s face. I had barely taken a step toward Jessica when she indicated with a flip of her head that I should turn around. It took me a few seconds to find what Jessica wanted me to find — Special Agent Marshall at a table by herself. As usual, she wore the same smug smirk that seemed to define her. I looked back at Jessica who conveyed through her expression that
I should talk to the pesky agent.
I shrugged my shoulders, turned around, and approached Marshall. She kicked out a chair as an invitation to join her.
“See, I was telling you the truth earlier,” she said as I was sitting down. “Baxter works the bar farthest from the music so he can flirt with the girls.”
“Let me guess; you’ve been here the whole time.”
Agent Marshall looked different somehow. It wasn’t the clothes, because I had seen her in casual attire several times. In fact, I had only seen her once dressed as an FBI agent. Her hair was different. She had changed something about her makeup.
If she noticed me observing her, she did not comment on it. “Of course. Where else would I be? Following you? Not hardly. Why follow anyone when you know where they’re going.” Her smirk was almost a smile for a second. “Don’t worry, I didn’t do anything to disrupt your wife’s precious little plan, although I don’t think she’s had much luck with him from what I can tell.”
“No luck, huh?”
“It’s a shame, too. She’s dressed to kill. What’s Plan B, Dr. McCain?”
I didn’t respond.
“Oh, come on, you’ve got to have a Plan B. What’s next, flirting? And are you okay with that? You must be very secure.” Her smirk was in full display.
I remained quiet.
“Alright, you still don’t trust me. I get it. You need proof. Like a Missourian. Isn’t that the Show Me State?”
“How do you propose earning my trust, Agent Marshall?”
“First off, enough with the Special Agent moniker. From here on out, it’s Ann. Or since I know how much you military guys use last names, you can call me Marshall.”
“Okay, Ann Marshall.”
“Very funny. Here’s where it gets interesting, L.T. McCain. I want to see how quick on your feet you are. See how well you can react to quickly changing events. How well you can play a role. Can you do that, L.T. McCain?”
“With the best of them, Ann Marshall,” I said with a smile.
Marshall quickly stood up from her chair, glared at me, and threw her drink in my face. No warning. No preliminary explanation. She followed up by stepping back from the table and holding her hand toward me palm forward as if to say stay away from me. She put her entire body into the gesture, a mixture of defiance and anger perfectly portrayed with her face and body, all the way down to the angry squint in her eyes.
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