Nickel City Storm Warning (Gideon Rimes Book 3)

by Gary Earl Ross

  Half a minute after she clicked off, the phone buzzed in my hand. I did not recognize the number. “Hello?”

  “Mr. Rimes? It’s Eli Aronson. You may not remember me—”

  “I remember you,” I said, lowering my voice to keep from bothering Cissy, who was at the monitor station with Pete as her sister napped in his bed. “Lawyers who try to beat me up in court kind of stick in my brain like Gorilla Glue.”

  “Sir, it’s my job to present—”

  “I know, I know. A zealous defense of your client.” I sighed. “What can I do for you, Mr. Aronson?”

  “First, you should know this is a burner. I get them from time to time for private communications with clients.”

  I sat up straighter. “A disposable phone means you don’t trust something.”

  “Correct.” He took a deep breath. “Ms. Trinidad said I could trust you, Mr. Rimes. But if you ever tell anyone what I’m about to say came from me, I will deny it, even under oath. I can’t risk disbarment.”

  “All right,” I said, suppressing my impulse to feign surprise at a lawyer willing to lie.

  “Are you recording this call?”

  “No, especially not if it can blow back on Phoenix.”

  Aronson was quiet a long time, maybe thinking about that, maybe about what he could or couldn’t say. Then he sighed. “I was assigned a new client this evening. I won’t tell you his name, but during my first talk with him, your name came up.”

  “My name? How?”

  “He spent most of the day in custody, waiting for a lawyer who never showed up. He was kind of frantic when I got there and wanted to talk first thing about what I could do to get him out of this mess.” Aronson hesitated. “He began to tell me things he thought could get him a better bargain with the DA.” He paused again. “One of the things he mentioned was your name. I take confidentiality seriously but sometimes…”

  “Sometimes you have a duty to warn.”

  “Yes. But I have a duty to my clients too, even the scum.” His voice was taut.

  “Before you warn me of whatever he said, let me tell you what I know.”

  “Okay.”

  “You don’t have to confirm what I say, but your client’s name is either Carey or Robbins. My guess would be Carey. Because I trust the arresting officer not to have revealed me as the source of the heads-up that got them busted, I am also sure they had no idea I saw them interrogated. So when my name came up with you, it must have been out of the blue.”

  “Yes.”

  “He may have said something about my being at PAUSA Art House or a guy named Carter John, or Mars, shot to death outside the library yesterday. Your client was there and then got arrested for breaking into the home of the woman who shot his friend. He may have mentioned other names, like Wally Ray Tucker or Drea Wingard. Or even Copperhead.” I paused. “You see the snake on his arm?”

  “Yes.” Then, a sudden intake of breath when he realized he had identified his client.

  I waited a few seconds before I continued. “Does this man know you’re Jewish?”

  “He asked once he got my name straight.” Aronson laughed, bitterly. “He said he wouldn’t hold it against me if I could get him a good deal.”

  “Mighty white supremacist of him,” I said. “You could recuse yourself.”

  “I still might. My grandfather…” His voice cracked.

  For a moment I pictured the public defender as a boy, listening to a tale of horror one child had survived but no child in a sane world should ever hear, except that every child must if the evil that produced such horror was to remain in the past.

  “I take it then you know about Liberty Storm and my client, the keynote speaker at the diversity conference downtown.”

  “Yes.”

  “Back to your duty to warn,” I said. “Any idea where your client was staying, so police can find his confederates before people get hurt?”

  “He mentioned an apartment and walking around a neighborhood but didn’t know how to get to it by himself because he’s been here only a couple weeks. I got the impression his friends have been here longer, especially somebody called Wally Ray.”

  “So how did my name come up?”

  “Once he started talking, everything was about Wally Ray,” Aronson said. “Wally Ray said this. Wally Ray did that. He never gave a last name but said Wally Ray was the one behind everything, the one supposed to take care of everything, like money for all of them to disappear, his lawyer cousin to get them out if anything went wrong. Then he said something completely confusing, but he seemed to think it might help him get a deal. It sounded like a threat. Only your last name came up, but I figured it had to be you.” Aronson paused. “After they got back from the art house, Wally Ray said he had a mind to pack a second Babyhawk, just for Rimes. Any idea what he meant by that?”

  Excerpt Seven

  In the Mouth of the Wolf by Drea Wingard, with Grant Gibbons (7)

  One afternoon in mid-March, there is a knock on the door of the three-room LeDroit Park walk-up you will abandon before your book is published.

  “Just a minute!” you call.

  Holding the gun still unregistered in DC, you move to the narrow student desk near the door and tap keys on your laptop. After a moment, the screen fills with an image of the corridor. Unaware of the miniature camera mounted above your entry, Lieutenant Wesley and Sergeant Covelli of the Fairfax police gaze about as they wait for you to open the door.

  Closing the laptop and sliding the gun into a drawer, you unlock the door without removing the security chain. Peering through the crack, you try to look surprised.

  “Lieutenant! Sergeant!”

  “Ms. Gibbons, finally.” Wesley lets out a breath as if exhausted. “May we come in?”

  “All right.” Hesitantly, you unchain the door and step aside to let them pass. Making a show of locking up after them, you turn to find them standing in the center of your living room, unbuttoning their coats and facing you.

  “Love the hair,” Wesley says. “And no glasses! Makes you look different.”

  “Kind of the point.” You pause. “Are you here to tell me you arrested them?”

  Wesley shakes her head. “But imagine our surprise when we drove out to your house and found a SOLD sign in front. Why didn’t you tell us you were moving?”

  “A spur-of-the-moment decision.” You lower your eyes as if embarrassed. “I needed to be free of that house.”

  We’ve been looking for you for weeks.” Covelli doesn’t even try to mask his annoyance. “Didn’t know whether you were hiding or in a shallow grave somewhere. Suppose we had made an arrest and needed you to—”

  Wesley places a hand on her partner’s forearm. “It’s okay, Glenn. I’m certain Ms. Gibbons—excuse me, Ms. Wingard—has an explanation. Like a swastika on your door and a threatening phone call?”

  Pleased your lawyer has told them what you said she should, you bite your lip, squeezing your eyes shut as if about to cry. “Wally Ray Tucker. He said we had unfinished business and he knew where my daughter was.”

  Wesley draws in a sharp breath. “You could have come to us. Should have. We’d have had Maryland pick him up for harassment.”

  “Instead you sold your house, all your stuff,” Covelli says. “Kept your friends in the dark.”

  “For their own safety.”

  “You had to know we’d find out about the name change sooner or later,” Wesley says. “As well as the move.”

  Covelli’s voice is almost a growl. “You upended your life for this asshole.”

  “He upended it when he killed my husband!” Tears come—real ones—and you begin to tremble. You drag the left sleeve of your blouse across your eyes but make no effort to hide the anger rising inside you. “I just wanted to get it back.”

  “You wanted to get Tucker back too. Ruin his life.” Wesley comes to you, places a hand on your shoulder and gazes down into your eyes with earnest sympathy. “I understand. But the flier
s? All that information you’ve been spreading around? You should have brought it to us instead of mailing it anonymously.”

  “And sending it to every police agency and news outlet in DC metro,” Covelli adds. “Not to mention city councilmembers, county supervisors, the Supreme Court, and all 535 members of Congress. The only one you missed was the president.”

  You step away from Wesley. “I sent it only to people who would read it.”

  Covelli pulls a folded sheet of paper from his inside pocket. “But the boldest stroke was slapping this on public bulletin boards across two states and the District. You must have dropped coins into a FedEx copier like it was a slot machine.”

  “I didn’t think my husband would mind if I used life insurance money to go after his killers.”

  “Well, you hit the jackpot. Local and network news. Major newspapers around the country. Everybody wondering where you are.” Covelli unfolds the flier and holds it up to the light at the edge of a curtain. “Wanted in Virginia, for the murder of Washington Post reporter Grant Gibbons: Wallace Raymond Tucker and the White Supremacist group known as Liberty Storm.” He lowers the paper. “Where’d you get the picture of Wally Ray?”

  “I’m a librarian.” There is more than a hint of pride in your voice. “Finding information is what I do. So is sharing it.”

  “But this complicates our investigation.” Wesley tries to keep her voice level. “You named names, real names and nicknames, and even had a picture of someone we don’t have enough evidence to charge yet.”

  “Then he can sue me for libel, if he can prove it was me.”

  “If Wally Ray ever gets to trial, his lawyers would use your flier to show unfair pretrial publicity. He could walk.”

  “He’s already walked. Maryland doesn’t know where he is, do they? I bet Carl Lee Stoneman isn’t saying a word in Richmond, either.”

  Wesley and Covelli exchange looks of surprise but say nothing.

  “Wally Ray told me he was gonna be a ghost but he’d always know how to find me.” You curl your hands into fists, nails digging into your palms. “I figured if he had a way to disappear, I needed one too. Level the playing field.”

  “The case is far from cold, Drea.” Wesley says. “But we can’t crowd source justice. We have to follow procedures that give us usable evidence.” She looks about the apartment, at the sparse furnishings, the bare bookshelves, the drawn curtains. Then she turns back to you. “You actually want to live like this? Holed up in Dracula’s castle on a sunny afternoon, afraid of a scumbag like him?”

  “I’m not a person of interest in a murder. It’s not my face on bulletin boards for miles around. If they got half a brain to share, they’re all hiding somewhere too. Afraid of me.”

  Covelli studies you a moment. “Then I’ll wish you good luck the way my grandmother would have. In bocca al lupo!”

  You smile because you know the idiom from a former co-worker. It means may all your troubles come at once so your suffering is brief. You know also the correct response. “In the mouth of the wolf,” you say. “Crepi il lupo.”

  Covelli laughs and translates for Wesley. “May the wolf die.”

  33

  The second day of the conference, I spent the hour before our eight-thirty meeting with James Torrance reviewing my fifteen minutes of fame on YouTube. Three mobile phone videos of my encounter with Carter John and his Nazi clowns had been uploaded. Most interested in Clown Four, whose utensils and glass had been wiped clean, I scanned the videos for every possible look at him. Certain he was Wally Ray Tucker, I had talked with Bobby then and again last night about what he had seen that convinced him Clown Four was one of his attackers outside Temple Beth Zion. Cold pale eyes, he had said both times, in a face so white black eyebrows seemed unnatural. Drea, I recalled, had described the cruelty in his eyes. Even if he wasn’t Wally Ray, Clown Four was driving events toward an outcome he wanted.

  Each clip had been shot from a different angle but all began after Carter John’s companions donned their clown masks, so I got no look at Clown Four’s face. The video shot from my left had recorded me in profile and caught John moving and gesturing in such a way that he partially blocked Clown Four. The clip from the front showed the two men to be about the same height—five-nine in John’s records, five-ten in Wally Ray’s—average. The video recorded from behind the five men yielded something closer to a five-dollar scratch-off than a Powerball jackpot, but it was useful information. The hair beneath the edge of Clown Four’s mask was short and black, unusually dark, as if dyed. So it wasn’t a wig. I would have to make sure everyone was alert to the momentary disconnect sparked by someone whose parts didn’t quite add up—in this case, the person whose skin seemed out of place against jet black hair.

  At eight-thirty Pete and I joined Rafael Piñero and Maxine Travis outside John Torrance’s first-floor office and went through the frosted glass doors. Blazers pressed, the Donatellos were already inside, standing at the unstaffed reception desk. As we had for the past few days, Pete and I wore sports jackets over our ballistic vests. Rafael was in a suit, and Travis was in a stylish tan blazer. We were all dressed to be taken seriously.

  “He said to bring you right in,” Matt said as Mark pushed open a second frosted door.

  In a lightweight gray suit, white shirt, and sapphire tie, James Torrance watched us file in and form an arc in front of his large desk. Elbows resting on the tempered glass top and hands clasped between his chin and his chest, he studied us a moment. “All right, what’s got you all so hot and bothered this morning you had to see me?”

  Matt gestured to Rafael and Travis. “First, sir, these are Detectives Piñero and Travis from the Homicide Squad.”

  “Homicide.” James offered neither a hand nor a greeting. He looked at Pete and me and then the Donatellos. “Why is homicide here?”

  “We had a lengthy conference call last night,” Matt said. “All six of us on speaker to discuss some new evidence.” Matt passed the narrative to me with a nod.

  “Last night I learned Wally Ray Tucker, the man who murdered Drea Wingard’s husband, has been in town for more than two months and is planning an attack.”

  James lowered his hands to the desktop and narrowed his eyes at me. “That’s always been your assumption, Mr. Rimes. What you’ve planned for. Even if this Tucker character isn’t in town, you believed from the beginning somebody would try something.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “My son and his girlfriend told me about the clowns the other night. You, Matt, kept me up to speed on the shooting at the library. Metal detectors all over the place, so guns are covered, right? Cops. DPS people. Mr. Rimes, it seems everything you and your associates have done has been on target. What is it about this new information that needs my attention?”

  “We think we now know how. What we don’t know is when.” I had an idea when but wasn’t ready to bet Drea’s life on it. I had forbidden her to attend the remaining plenary sessions. Now, I explained what I had learned last night, without giving up Eli Aronson.

  “What the hell is a Babyhawk?” James said.

  I handed the explanation off to Mark with a gesture.

  He tugged his beard as he took a breath. “An unmanned aerial vehicle, sir. A drone.”

  James was quiet a moment. “Military-style or like the weather cam?”

  “Closer to the weather cam,” Mark said. “Nobody will be firing rockets at the hotel, but even small drones can pose a serious threat. Remember how Heathrow was shut down?”

  “That’s the other side of the ocean. I thought drones were supposed to be registered as aircraft here in the States. Can’t we check that out, like a firearms registry?”

  “Like there are unregistered guns, there are unregistered drones.” Mark paused as James shook his head. “But yes, a drone has to be registered with the FAA if it’s two hundred fifty grams or more, essentially half a pound. Anything under that is considered a toy.”

  “So we might be att
acked by toys? Like something out of a comic book?”

  “Mr. Torrance,” Rafael said. “We arrested two men yesterday who were going after one of Mr. Rimes’s associates. They had homemade plastic explosives, crude but effective, and a military-style knife. The man behind all this got a bad conduct discharge from the Marines—for what we haven’t found out yet. But we believe he is capable of making explosives and packing them in at least one flying toy. Maybe more.”

  Before James could respond, Mark took the floor. “Babyhawk is a brand name for racing drones the size of your hand, but there are lots of similar brands. Quad copters, with four sets of rotor blades. Fast. Agile. A flying time of, say, three to eight minutes, a range of four hundred feet or so—all depending on total weight and the type of battery.”

  James bit his lip. “How much damage can they do?”

  Mark shrugged. “Depends on the size of the explosives. But you could pack enough to cause serious hurt. Weight is the key.”

  “Be more specific, Mark,” James said. “What kind of damage?”

  Mark took out a folded sheet of paper. “The average Babyhawk is between eighty and a hundred grams. If you pack too much additional weight, it won’t fly as far or as long. You can replace some of the drone’s weight with plastique if you remove the propeller guards and two of the four screws that hold each rotor to its motor. Some models have cockpits, which can hold extra weight. They all have cameras that can’t be removed if the operator wants to see where he’s flying. Sometimes he wears special goggles. Sometimes he’ll pair a camera to a smartphone that can be attached to the flight controller and linked to a detonator. That means he can look into your eyes from hundreds of feet away before he sets off his bomb.”

  Mark unfolded the printout and handed it to James, who smoothed it out on his desk to study pictures of Babyhawks, other drones, goggles, and controllers.

  Mark shifted into a mini-lecture on plastic explosives, describing how blocks could be cut and shaped to direct the force of a blast in a desired direction. Plastique was stable and wouldn’t explode if burned or shot. It required a detonator. Ball bearings, nails, other metals, and glass could be packed inside and sent flying outward at more than twenty-six thousand feet per second. “Depending on the height of the blast radius,” he said in conclusion, “ten or twenty grams of plastique could kill or injure the people closest to it.”