As the Crow Dies

by Kenneth Butcher

  “Cormorant?” Segal asked.

  “Private military subcontractors,” Dinah explained.

  Segal waited. She did not elaborate on why it was unusual for the others to talk with them.

  “Did Francis ever say anything about her or about what he was doing there?” Segal asked.

  “No. Of course, when I first saw him, I was surprised as hell and asked him what he was doing there. I mean, I had a hard time figuring Francis with anything military. He told me how great it was to see me and kind of changed the subject to what was happening in Asheville. I gathered that whatever brought him there was something he couldn’t or didn’t want to talk about. You steer clear of things that are not your business in that kind of situation, so I didn’t bring up the subject again, and he didn’t volunteer anything else about his project or about the mystery woman.” He tapped the photo with his finger and added, “I figured she was in military intel of some kind or another.”

  He turned the page to another picture. This time, the mystery lady had her glasses off and appeared to be clearing something from the corner of her eye. She was also turned more toward the camera, so Segal got a better view: slim figure, high cheekbones, heavy eyeliner.

  Next to that picture was one of the German shepherds alone. Segal glanced at Andrew’s face and picked up on the tension and sadness. Dinah had filled him in a little on the situation. From talking to some of the staff, she learned that the dog had not made it back from Afghanistan, killed in the same explosion that almost killed Andrew. Segal thought it was time to change the subject. “What can you tell us about the company, Creatures 2.0? Do you know any of the people there?” he asked.

  “Well, I knew Chickey, if that’s what you mean. That’s a shame, what happened to him. I never worked with him, but I’d run into Francis and the gang once in a while out for beers or something.”

  “Did Chickey ever seem like he was arguing with Francis? One of the guys at the company said there were some disagreements,” Segal said.

  “No, I never saw anything like that. Chickey was more like a little brother to him. He idolized Francis, dressed like him. Even started wearing his hair kind of sticking out of his ball cap like Francis does.”

  Segal had his cues with Dinah. He gave her room.

  “Is there any chance someone could mistake Chickey for Francis? I mean, at a distance or maybe in poor light?” she asked.

  “Sure. They were built pretty much alike,” Andrew said. “You could easily make that mistake.”

  “You mind if we take a couple of these pictures with us to make copies?” Dinah said.

  “I promise I’ll bring them back.”

  Andrew beamed, seeming more than happy for her to have a reason to return.

  As they got ready to leave, Dinah paused and held up a finger. She flipped back a couple of pages in her notebook.

  Segal waited on her. She usually had facts scratched in the corners of her pages.

  “Got it,” she said. “I did a reverse search with the name associated with the number written on the back of Chickey’s card. Do you know someone named Lucile Devroe?”

  Andrew got another grin on his face. “Now you’re talking about another one of my favorite people. She works over at the Biltmore Estate. Kind of a student of Francis. Good lady.”

  The intercom crackled. A scratchy voice interrupted them. “Andrew Roche, report to physical therapy. Andrew, P.T.”

  Andrew’s face darkened for a second. Then he smiled an apology. “The master’s voice,” he said.

  Segal looked at him, thinking how small and vulnerable he looked, how all he had been through registered in his figure if you only knew how to look. And Segal knew all too well how to look.

  CHAPTER 10

  Perfect Brown Shoes

  Segal did not know what to expect from the guy from Naval Intelligence. In the first place, he didn’t even know if he would be wearing a uniform or not. Were guys in Naval Intelligence actually in the navy, or were they civilian support staff? Would this guy have a military bearing like a navy SEAL who got a desk job? Or would he be more like a computer analyst, some back-room kind of guy who pored over data and looked at satellite photographs through a magnifying glass?

  As it turned out, the guy reminded Segal of the lawyers he saw in the courtrooms and the restaurants around Pack Square. He was dressed in a good suit. The suit fit him, and more importantly, he fit the suit. He was one of those guys who lived in his suit. Segal never felt exactly right dressed like that himself. He did okay with a shirt and tie and sport coat, especially since the pockets of sport coats seemed designed for carrying a paperback book. A suit, on the other hand, never had the desired effect, or at least that’s how he felt. A suit felt false on him. He felt like someone had dressed up a barnyard animal as a joke.

  But Segal’s eye was drawn even more to the guy’s shoes. They were a medium shade of brown and highly polished. They looked solid and substantial without being stiff or uncomfortable; perfect and unlike any shoes Segal had ever owned or even seen in the stores around Asheville. He had seen this kind of expensive shoe, but always on guys from New York or D.C.

  Segal took all this in before he and Dinah entered the conference room at the police station, bringing with them their files and notebooks. The conference room had a long window in one wall with Venetian blinds that could be closed for privacy. Right now, the blinds were open, so Segal could see the man sitting with his chair pushed away from the conference table. He had one leg crossed over the other, allowing Segal to make his observations of the perfect shoes. Dinah turned toward Segal and rolled her eyes.

  The guy read something on a phone with a plus-sized screen. He had a smile on his face. He put the phone down immediately when Segal rounded the corner with Dinah in the lead and entered the room. He rose and extended his hand.

  “Lieutenant Segal and Sergeant Rudisill,” he said. “My name is Jerome Guilford. I was sent by ONI. I was just reading about you.” He held up the phone with his other hand.

  So, this was Naval Intelligence, getting information from Google on a cell phone. Segal could imagine what kinds of postings the guy was reading—news reports about Segal’s incident from two years ago, a classic standoff with people pointing guns at each other, just like in the paperback books he read—only this one didn’t end like they did in the books. Nobody got what they deserved that time. What he would not be reading about was all that Segal had lost, nor about the long period of convalescence and rehabilitation.

  But to Segal’s surprise, Jerome Guilford was not checking him out, at least not at the moment. The navy man touched the screen and a YouTube video of the Blue Ridge Roller Girls was activated. The whole team showed up in the video, but the focus was clearly on Dinah—or, as the crowd was shouting, “Dinosaur.”

  Segal grinned. It was little wonder the camera followed her. For one thing, she was the jammer, and for another, she was clearly faster, more agile, and by any measure better than anyone else on the track.

  “You got some moves there, sergeant,” the navy man said and gave her a smile. “I see you’ve got a bout tomorrow tonight. I may have to stop in and see you girls in action.” He scratched his nose and gave Segal his profile. Then he reached for a box of tissues and whispered as if to himself, “I doubt there’s much else happening in Asheville,” before he sneezed.

  Dinah’s expression did not change.

  That’s right, Segal thought. Don’t rise to the bait. He knew she was used to the YouTube stuff. Given her notoriety on the track and the number of people recording the matches, she dealt with it. She’d also been a runner and a gymnast in school and in the military, but she was a modest person and didn’t like to talk about it. He remembered her interview comment for the department when someone asked her about her athletic accomplishments. Her only answer was that she was “pretty comfortable with the physical part of the job.”

  The next words out of his mouth are going to be about her size, Segal though
t.

  “I have to say, you’re smaller than I thought you would be,” the navy man said.

  Dinah remained silent.

  Segal watched for her “tell”; little splotches of color along her collar bone. There were none. She wasn’t fuming. Mad maybe. No fangs yet.

  He swallowed; an awkward moment. No one said anything.

  Finally, Guilford blinked. “So, I heard you’re looking for our guy, Francis Elah. You think he might have been involved in a murder here in Asheville.”

  Dinah was writing. She’d deflected confrontation, propping her legal pad on her knee, taking notes under the table.

  From Segal’s viewpoint, Guilford could not see what she was writing.

  Segal could see it. “OUR GUY.” The word OUR, was underlined.

  Segal cleared his throat. “A body was found yesterday, Mr. Guilford. It has been identified as Charles Atley, a.k.a. Chickey.” He opened a folder and slid out a picture of the victim at the site where he was found. Guilford did not pick it up or study it. Segal had the impression he’d already seen the photo through whatever magical route Naval Intelligence gathered its information.

  “And you have reason to think Francis Elah may have been the shooter.”

  Dinah wrote, shooter.

  Segal picked up on it. They had not told Guilford the man died by gunshot

  “We don’t have any specific reason to think he was the shooter,” Segal said. “We don’t really know what to think. We find this man dead, murdered—Charles Atley, that is. We find from the contents of his wallet that he works for a place called Creatures 2.0. Then we find out that the head guy at Creatures 2.0, Francis Elah, Chickey’s boss, is missing. No one seems to know where he is. We heard Francis and the victim argued before Francis went away on some mysterious project, so maybe Francis snuck back in town and took care of business.”

  Guilford nodded. He reached for another tissue.

  “On the other hand, we are also told the victim looked like Elah and dressed like him, too. So maybe it was a case of mistaken identity. Maybe Elah was the intended victim and Charles Atley was in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong appearance.”

  Guilford blew his nose a second time.

  “Then again,” Segal said, “maybe Francis Elah had nothing to do with the incident either way. Maybe it’s a coincidence that Francis went missing at the same time strange stuff happened here.”

  More honking.

  “No matter what, we need to find Francis Elah,” Segal concluded.

  “And what were you told about the project that took Francis Elah out of town?” Guilford asked, high-tossing the tissues, missing the wastebasket against the wall.

  Dinah stopped writing.

  Segal glanced at her, then spoke. “All we were told, by the people at Creatures 2.0 and by Elah’s wife, was that he was going away on a project for the government. They knew he would be gone and out of contact for a while. They expected him home by now, but he has not shown up. We didn’t even know which branch of the government he was working for, at least not till you walked through the door and informed us.”

  Guilford played with a paperclip on the desk. “Well, with all due respect to what I am sure is a very competent Asheville law enforcement team, you should not draw too many conclusions from that. ONI gets involved with a lot of things.”

  “Actually, we were hoping you could tell us something about the project, maybe something that could help us out,” Dinah said.

  Guilford’s paperclip was now a spiky strip of metal. “There is very little I am at liberty to divulge about the project, for reasons of national security. I can tell you we are searching for Mr. Elah, too. Mr. Elah went AWOL on us. We need to find him.”

  Pissed at the games, Segal reclined in his chair. Dinah bit her lip. Segal checked her above her collarbone and saw one red patch.

  “And we believe Mr. Elah took some things when he disappeared, things that belong to the government.”

  Segal and Dinah waited again.

  Guilford must have sensed hostility. He threw his hands up. The paperclip bounced off the desk. “Look, this much I can tell you. You should consider Francis Elah a dangerous person. Very dangerous. You find him, we need to know about it. In fact, if you think you know where he is, don’t try to apprehend him. Inform me. I will put a team on it.”

  “And what about Chickey?”

  “Who?” Guilford asked.

  Dinah pressed her palms on the desk and leaned in. “Mr. Atley.”

  “I appreciate your problem with the death of a local man, but what’s at stake here is bigger than that.”

  Segal forced his brows together. “You know, Mr. Guilford, I’m having a hard time.”

  “You are?”

  “Yes, sir. Squaring what you just said with the interviews we’ve done so far. Elah appears to be a creative individual. Not a combat type.”

  Dinah grunted.

  Guilford glared. “You don’t believe Francis Elah is a dangerous man? Try telling that to Charles Atley.”

  Segal declined to respond but held Guilford’s eye.

  “What I’m trying to tell you is to take this seriously. Don’t be fooled. People could be in danger. A lot of people. Francis Elah may seem innocent to you, but I happen to know he has been in the company of some very violent people in a very high-pressure situation. You have to realize people change. Especially when they’re cornered.”

  Segal did not respond.

  Guilford’s face colored. He sat deeper into his chair. “What are your plans for Creatures 2.0? Surveillance?”

  Odd question, Segal thought.

  Dinah furrowed her brow.

  “We hadn’t made any plans for surveillance at Creatures 2.0,” Segal said.

  Guilford paused, then said, “Let me see your folder.”

  Segal obliged and passed it to him.

  The ONI man helped himself. He leafed through the photographs and the short list of objects gathered as evidence at the scene of the crime. When he got to the contents of the victim’s pockets, he ran his finger carefully from word to word.

  Segal glanced at Dinah. She saw it, too. “This is all you found?” he asked.

  Segal scratched his forehead. “What exactly are you looking for? Maybe we could keep our eye out for it.”

  “I’m afraid that’s classified.”

  “From your investigation so far, is there anything you can tell us that would help us find Elah?” Segal asked.

  “I’m sharing as much as I can, lieutenant. Up to this point, there is not much I can tell you. The fact that you were looking for him brought me over. That’s it.”

  This got Segal’s attention. “That reminds me, Mr. Guilford. We were surprised at how quickly you showed up. Surely, ONI doesn’t have an office here in Asheville. Was it you who questioned Mrs. Elah?” Segal was thinking of the big federal building on Patton Avenue. It housed a number of agency offices, more than he could keep track of.

  “Some of our people have contacted Mrs. Elah in an effort to gather information. Not me personally, not yet.” Guilford pursed his lips as if trying to come up with more for them. “You see, I’m a different type of information gatherer. I guess you could say I find ways to persuade people to share information they might otherwise not choose to share. That is one of the reasons I was brought in.”

  “Like enhanced interrogation,” Segal said.

  “Waterboarding,” Dinah said.

  Guilford looked at her. His nostrils flared. “Waterboarding is a very crude method of enhanced interrogation, and as it turns out not all that effective. It has a bad reputation in some political circles. There are much more effective methods if”—he raised and wagged his right index finger—“you’re willing to get creative.”

  There it is again, Segal thought. The only way to solve a problem is to pressure someone else into solving it for you. He had seen this all too often.

  “Well, we’ve interviewed Mrs. Elah and some of the emp
loyees at Creatures 2.0, and they seemed genuinely concerned for Francis Elah.”

  “I’m sure they were. In my experience though, somebody always knows something. Meanwhile, I’m interested in any hard evidence you’ve gathered.”

  “We’ve got no real evidence concerning Francis unless you count Richard. Some of the employees, maybe Mrs. Elah also, believe that if Richard is here, Francis must be nearby.”

  “Richard?” Guilford said, his Adam’s apple bobbed. He leaned forward in his chair. “Are you talking about the crow? What do you know about Richard?”

  Dinah jotted a note.

  Segal wondered if they had just handed Guilford the first piece of information he didn’t have before they entered the room. “Yeah, we saw Richard, over at the Creatures 2.0 lab,” he said.

  “And you’re sure it was Richard?” Guilford asked. It seemed more a challenge than a question.

  “Well, there was a big crow. And then they told us the crow’s name was Richard,” Segal shrugged. “Didn’t seem to be too much question in anyone’s mind about it.”

  Guilford sat back and exhaled slowly. “Richard,” he said softly. “And did he have anything with him?”

  “Did the crow have anything with him?” Segal asked.

  Dinah frowned, then jotted another note.

  Guilford shook his head and said, “Never mind.” He reached for his phone and then stopped. Instead, he got up. “Listen, I’ve got to get going.” He handed them multiple business cards. “Call me with any developments.” He went out the door and then appeared again. “The bout is at eight tomorrow night?” he asked.

  Dinah was up. She nodded.

  “And you’ll both be there?”

  “I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Segal said, and gave Dinah a sheepish grin, having missed all her other bouts lately.

  Segal watched through the Venetian blinds as Guilford strode off with great purpose.

  “Well, that tweaked something way up inside his butt,” Dinah said. “I don’t like him.”