“What gives it away?” I asked.
“You fit the general description. Big fella with a surfer dude haircut. What brings you to Tupelo, Doctor?”
“Heard you were looking for a tape. Is that true?” I was not going to allow him to dictate the conversation by asking me questions. That was my thing. He nodded. “There has been some kind of misunderstanding.” He raised his eyebrows to query me to continue. Clever bugger, he was asking me questions without actually talking. “The tape in question does not exist. There is a tape involving some men asking about some money owed to you, but that’s it. No mention of you being involved in Paul Deland’s murder, although the men asking about that money seem to think that Junior might have had something to do with it. Your man on the inside, your police informant, got his story wrong.”
“Is that so?”
I was really starting to dislike this guy. I had the gun. I ask the questions. What part did he not understand? I pulled the tape out of my pocket again. Held it up for him to look at. Then, I dropped it on the floor and smashed it with the heel of my shoe.
“And now even that tape no longer exists. Strasser, you got no beef with me. You want no beef with me. I will let your little show of force last night slide. Once. Not twice. I am asking for a truce while I nail one, or both, of the Estes boys for the murder of Paul Deland. If I find 15K sitting around during my investigation, I won’t even pick it up; that is, unless you want me to set it aside for you before the cops show up to haul them away. Would you find that satisfactory, Mr. Strasser?”
He studied me. I could tell he was wondering how far I would take things if he refused. I wondered if he could tell that I was not sure how far I would take things either. I could kill in self-defense. I already had, years ago. More than once in a jungle in Cambodia. More recently in a hospital in Memphis in defense of a fellow doctor. Possibly, shortly, if anyone in Strasser’s gang even looked at Ellie cross-eyed now that I had delivered my ultimatum.
Strasser seemed to sense the change in my resolve. “Jackson Estes and his nit-wit of a brother were hired to do a job for me; they do not work for me. Thus I owe them no loyalty. I find your offer completely satisfactory, Dr. McCain.”
I nodded at his declaration of acceptance of my offer and holstered my Glock. Reaching into my back pocket, I grabbed the cheap handgun I pulled of Strasser’s man. I hit the magazine release and checked to make sure the gun was empty before throwing the magazine to the man I took the gun from earlier. Turning to Strasser, I said, “You really should pay your men a little better. Raven Arms makes their guns out of cheap zinc alloy, basically a type of pot metal.” I grabbed the cheap handgun with both hands and brought the gun down hard across my knee. The gun literally broke in half in my hands. I tossed the pieces to the man, smiled, and backed out the front door.
CHAPTER 36
“Holy cow,” said Boyd, “You actually broke the gun in half with your bare hands? That must have left an impression.” I smiled to myself as I recalled the look on their faces when I broke the gun in half. “So, you think we have a truce with him?”
I wasn’t sure. There was no guarantee that Strasser would keep his word. However, for now, he appeared to be a man of reason. There was also no way of knowing if he believed that the tape I destroyed was the real thing. It wasn’t, but it didn’t matter. I broke the blank tape as a visual aid to help Strasser realize I was not his enemy. Unless he went after me or one of my friends. If he made that mistake again, then I would probably shoot him, plain and simple.
Even if Strasser decided not to call off his men, I could not help thinking that the last 24 hours had been fruitful. I had successfully pulled off my plan, aptly named Operation Stromboli, which pitted the Emmettsville faction and the Tupelo faction against each other. The pressure on Jackson and Junior should be twice as strong as they felt a double squeeze from Strasser on one side, Boyd and me on the other side. I wanted those two to squirm, to feel the heat. Get them nervous and jumpy, they would eventually screw up; the average person usually succumbs to extreme pressure.
But was the pressure extreme enough? I was not sure. Suddenly, my inner voice spoke up, giving me another idea. It was time for a triple play on the Estes brothers. It was time to get the Emmettsville PD involved, and I had the perfect plan.
We were only five minutes from my apartment when I realized I had not checked my pager all day. There were five separate pages from the hospital. Not a good sign. If I did not change my actions, I was probably going to lose my job. I needed to get to work on time and finish a shift. I also needed to get my car out of their parking lot if the hospital had not already had it towed for me.
We parked the Jeep and went inside. Surprisingly, there were no messages on the machine. I couldn’t believe it. Maybe they were waiting for me to show up at work to fire me. I stir fried some chicken and vegetables, my version of Gai Pad Khing, a Thai ginger chicken stir-fry with oyster and fish sauce, while I explained the next step in Operation Stromboli. Once again, Boyd was impressed. With the Gai Pad Khing and my plan.
I never did buy another vehicle for Boyd, so he left for Emmettsville with my Jeep while I prepared for work. I arrived at the hospital by 6:30. As expected, my Mercedes was no longer in the parking lot. Security informed me which towing company had my car. I wanted to be early for work, and I was. Not to make myself look good, but to see if I was even expected to work that night’s shift. Remarkably, my name was added to the control board shortly after I walked into the ER. I received a few stares from the nurses. A few were bold enough to ask me if Ellie was alright. Dr. Pratt also asked about Ellie. He was remarkably understanding about the whole thing.
The evening was chaotic. The type of evening that often accompanies being a Level 1 Trauma Center in a large city. We had six people with gunshot wounds that evening. More than usual, but, unfortunately, business as usual in all other regards. One did not make it; a poor young woman that happened to be collateral damage in a drive-by shooting between rival youth gangs. I was exhausted when I crawled into bed at eight the next morning.
I woke up Monday a little after two in the afternoon. Six hours of sleep. Not enough, but all I was going to get. I cooked some more stir fry for lunch and jumped in the shower. I checked my pager, no messages. There were two on my answering machine. The first one was from my mother. As usual, I skipped over it. The second was from Virgil. “Hey, L.T. I’m back in Huntsville. Boyd followed Ellie all the way to Memphis. No problems. Mark followed her in as well. By the way, Happy Belated Birthday.”
Yesterday, Sunday, was my birthday. I had forgotten all about it while driving all over God’s creation, threatening a Dixie Mafia crime boss, and watching a young woman die a senseless death from gang violence. I was 34.
For some reason, after calling my insurance company and reporting the damage to the Mercedes, I decided to listen to the message from my mother. It was from yesterday. She had called to wish me a Happy Birthday, the only person who called me on my birthday. There was genuine love in her voice. She also sounded better somehow. It was hard to explain.
Her only son had locked her out of his life for the last 14 years. During the time, she had called numerous times. Her tone always had a degree of anxiety and yearning to it. I replayed the message. She sounded older. I replayed it again. The anxiety, the yearning, it was gone. That’s why she sounded better. Nothing but untempered love in her message. Even with increased age in her voice, she sounded like the mother I had known before Scott Oswald Beyers came into her life. Maybe she had finally left the SOB.
My right hand absently started to drift toward the phone as I contemplated calling my mother for the first time since I joined the Navy. My phone ringing jolted me out of the moment. I answered, half expecting it to be Mom. “Hello,” I said.
“Hey, sleepy head, I did what you asked,” roared Boyd. “I called Jackson and told him he might want to check his pawn shop out. When he went inside, I called Chief Parker and said what you told me
to say. He flew right over, just like we figured. Jackson was still inside when the Chief arrived.”
“And?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you mean by you don’t know?”
“Just that. Parker went in. They were both in there about ten minutes, then they both left separately. I followed Jackson, and I’ll be damned if he didn’t drive over to the police station and spend another 30 minutes in there.”
Boyd and I were confused. It seemed that the third part of Operation Stromboli had not gone as expected. We were hoping that law enforcement would want to know why a bunch of broken alcohol bottles was found in Jackson’s future pawn shop. That was supposed to be the third part of the squeeze on them, yet Boyd said Jackson acted like he hadn’t a care in the world when the Chief caught him in there. If Tyler himself had not confirmed to Boyd that the Chief was clean as a whistle, we both might have thought the Chief was dirty.
“I’ll bet we screwed this one up,” I said.
“How so?”
“LeClair and I took too much alcohol. With what little we left behind, Jackson could have easily come up with some story about why it was there. He could even admit it was there and report it stolen. Crap, I didn’t think of that. Well, at least he knows his alcohol is gone. And as long as Chief Parker called in Brent and Daryl going missing, Strasser should think the Estes boys did something to his men. Still not a total failure.”
“Oh, you are right about that. At the junkyard, I was listening to Jackson yell at Junior about the missing booze. They definitely think Strasser took it. Junior wants to kill Strasser, and Jackson is thinking about letting him.”
“You’re kidding me, right? And you got this all on tape?”
“I do. Don’t get me wrong, they’re not planning anything. Junior is venting, and Jackson keeps telling him that it will all happen in due time. Whatever that means.”
Boyd played the tape back for me through the phone. He was right; there was nothing overly incriminating on the tape. Boyd also informed me that he had checked on Brent and Daryl. They were quite sullen, and the smell from the back of the truck was less than agreeable, but they were otherwise okay.
“So what’s next, Lieutenant?”
“I got an idea. It’s a lot more direct.” Boyd sounded intrigued. “How about I drive over to their stupid junkyard, walk right in, and tell them I know they killed Paul?”
“Shit. That’s pretty direct. What do you think that will do? They’re just going to deny it.”
“Of course they will to our face. But they don’t seem to know we have been recording them. It seems that only Strasser knows. They are bound to walk into their office and start talking about it as soon as I leave. If we’re lucky, one of them will say something incriminating.”
Boyd spent a good time playing devil’s advocate to my plan. What if they didn’t have anything to do with Paul’s death? What if they decided to come after us? Did I realize that the cops would not be able to use our tape in court?
“I’ve thought about all that, Boyd. But I got to know if we are chasing the right guys. My inner voice tells me we are. Even if we can’t use the tape in court against them, it might be enough to convince someone like the Tennessee Bureau to go after them finally. If not, I do have federal connections. I’ve purposefully avoided using them, but they are there if we need them. Besides, we want these guys busted for murder, not some damn RICO charges.”
We both tried to poke holes in the plan, but neither of us could find enough negatives with the plan to decide against it. What was the worst that could happen? Could they get even more mad at us? Big frigging deal. I welcomed their hate.
Boyd said, “After all the sneaking around, you are just going to walk up to them and flat accuse them. It seems so anticlimactic. We could have done that at any time.”
“Hey, without all the subterfuge we would not have known who to accuse in the first place.”
It was decided. I was going to walk right into E’s Salvage Yard and tell them I knew they had killed Paul and see what transpired afterward. Keep it simple stupid.
***
I wanted to get to Emmettsville before the junkyard closed for business, so I packed my Glock 21 and extra magazines and jumped in the Mustang. Boyd still had my Jeep, which was enabling him to drive around Emmettsville without drawing attention while he prowled around in the background. The same level of concern did not apply to my situation. Once Strasser’s men attacked Ellie, I decided to take the gloves off from there on out. Anyone stupid enough to cross me was going to get busted up bad. I was not sure if I was the unstoppable force or the immovable object. I was not sure it mattered. If anyone got in my way, I was going to mow them down. If anyone tried to push me around, they would bust themselves up like ships on an iceberg.
I pulled up to the junk yard 45 minutes before closing time. Boyd was right; the whole idea seemed like such a cliché. A plot line pulled from nearly every cop and detective movie. Shrugging off the notion, I stepped out and walked up to the front door. Jackson was working the service counter. His eyes nearly bugged out in surprise when he saw me stroll up to the counter. He recovered a normal composure relatively quickly, yet it was easy to see that he was undecided about his next step.
Earlier I had decided against doing any talking inside the office building. There were two men in front of me, both of which turned in my direction when Jackson’s eyes bugged out. I shouldered past them and placed a piece of paper on the counter. Slid it across. Jackson’s eyes never left mine while he reached down and retrieved the paper. Mine never left his while I backed out of the building.
It took me nearly 15 minutes to find Boyd in the woods near the junk yard. He had set up the laser microphone 100 yards from the edge of the timber line. As a joke, I tried sneaking up on him. I failed.
“Now you know why all the Special Forces guys aren’t built like football players. Damn, did you step on every twig on your way in?”
I knew he was teasing me; I had not been that loud. “I figured I better let you know it was me since you are so itching to shoot someone.”
“Shoot at someone. At, is the key word.”
“Well?” I asked.
“Well, what?”
“You heard anything yet?”
“No, you kind of have to go in there and accuse them first, don’t you?”
“Been there, done that?” Boyd wrinkled his brow in confusion. “I wrote it all down on a note, and I slid it across the counter.” He shrugged his shoulders indicating me to continue with my story. “I wrote down what I told you I was going to say. ‘I know you did it. Once I find the .22 your ass is mine.’”
“Just like that?” I shook my head yes. “Then, no, I got nothing?”
We listened for another half hour but heard nothing of any importance. It sounded like business as usual in E’s Salvage Yard. The microphone performed flawlessly, so that was not the problem. We were easily 300 yards from the window Boyd had targeted, yet we could hear everything going on inside the building. The whole thing seemed sort of surreal to me. Light carrying sound waves back. Boyd explained that was not exactly how it worked. The whole thing was a type of optical interferometer. Invisible infrared light traveled through the air and struck the window. Some of the light was reflected from the outside window pane back to the device. Boyd referred to it as a reference beam. Some more light bounced off the inside window pane back to the device — the modulated beam. When the two beams traveled back to the device, the light waves combined and interfered with each other, causing peaks and dips in intensity as one beam was modulated more than the other by the sounds hitting the panes of glass. The electronics turned the intensity variations back into audio.
I said, “So the windows vibrate as sound waves hit them, the laser picks up those vibrations, and then this doohickey turns the light back into sound. Fascinating. It makes no sense, but fascinating.”
Boyd said it made no sense to him either except when the
optical engineer at work explained it. A laser microphone does have its drawbacks. The worst was setting it up. Bouncing invisible light over long distances and being able to recapture that light in the device is understandably difficult. Plus, I noticed that the microphone also picked up noises occurring outside the building. Something that was unavoidable. Finally, apparently they are not too hard to defeat. Just place something that vibrates on the window, like a small speaker taped to the window or even something like an electric toothbrush or shaver, and you can’t hear a darn thing.
It also did not automatically make the people you want to eavesdrop on say something you wanted to hear, which was becoming more and more apparent as we could hear people milling around inside getting the business closed up for the day.
Boyd said, “You sure you gave him the right note? You didn’t give him your grocery list or something? Maybe Jackson is just sitting in there scratching his head in bewilderment.” I told him to give it time. Maybe the brothers would discuss the problem after all the employees left. “That ain’t going to happen, my friend. Jackson is not in there. He left about 20 minutes before you got here.”
That was not what I wanted to hear, and to our chagrin, Jackson left about ten minutes later without giving any indication that he had even read my note. We loaded up in the Jeep and decided to follow him. Within in a few minutes, Jackson pulled into the driveway of an old two-story farmhouse. Turn of the century, and not exactly well maintained. It needed a new roof and a paint job. The yard needed mowing. Junior’s two-toned Ford was parked in the yard. A well-worn path of dead grass revealed he often parked there. Probably too lazy to walk the ten extra steps from the driveway.
Memphis Legend Page 40