As the Crow Dies

by Kenneth Butcher

  He turned a corner and entered a more modern addition to the inn which included various meeting and banquet rooms. He paused outside one of these, where another man in a suit stood guard. This one was not wearing Grove Park security credentials. Segal noticed he had an earpiece, and the way his jacket hung—a slight outward pucker of fabric—left no doubt that he was armed. The security man who had escorted them leaned forward and whispered something to the guard, and the guard nodded. He turned toward them, smiled, and asked to see their IDs. “Good to go,” he said. He opened the door for them.

  Segal entered a banquet room of medium size. It had been converted into an operations headquarters of some sort. Down the middle of the room was a large table scattered with papers, briefcases, and laptop computers. Several men in shirtsleeves worked at the table. More men and women were at other tables or pacing back and forth talking on cell phones.

  Two large whiteboards were positioned beyond the table. Standing in front of these were Segal’s boss and a man with an unmistakable air of authority. The man pointed to different notations on the board and spoke to their boss in a hushed tone. His gestures moved from left to right, as though he was narrating a sequence of events. The boss spotted them and motioned them over while still engaged with the other man. When Segal got there, the man stopped talking and gave him his full attention. Dinah walked to the side of Segal. Guilford lagged a little behind.

  “Agent Straus,” said the boss. “These are the officers I told you about, Ira Segal and Dinah Rudisill. And I believe you may already know Jerome Guilford with ONI. This is Agent Straus with the Secret Service.”

  They shook hands.

  Straus struck Segal as a competent, smart, no-nonsense sort of guy.

  “If you haven’t put it together yet,” Straus said, “we’re here doing advance work. Asheville is getting a visit from the president of the United States.”

  Segal felt the tumblers click into place. No, he had not put it together. And yes, it explained why everyone at the station was talking about canceled vacation leaves and why their boss was so edgy about solving the case. The president was coming to town, and they had at least one murderer and his support group running around, to say nothing of Francis Elah, fugitive from the U.S. government.

  Segal wanted to speak to Dinah.

  With her fist, she gave a light tap on his thigh instead.

  Wait, he thought.

  “I understand we have some loose ends we may need to worry about,” Straus said, “especially with regard to Francis Elah.”

  Segal noticed something in the man’s voice. It was not just that the Secret Service officer had said the name, it was how he said it. He said it as if he knew the name well and understood everything connected with it, probably more than Segal knew.

  “Francis Elah came to our attention while investigating a murder here in Asheville,” Segal explained. He ran through the facts of the case. When he got to the meeting designed by Jerome Guilford to put pressure on Emily Elah, Guilford interrupted by literally stepping in front of Segal.

  “And when we last checked in, Emily Elah and her daughter, Suzanne, have dropped off the grid,” Guilford said.

  The Secret Service man, Straus, gave him full attention. The dickishness of Guilford’s interruption seemed to irritate him. “I heard there was an incident with a couple of your men at the Biltmore House,” he said.

  Jerome Guilford blanched. “Not in the Biltmore House exactly, but there was an interruption of our surveillance of a site of interest on the grounds. It had to be dealt with.”

  Straus didn’t blink. “I heard a rabid fox bit the shit out of your guy, is what I heard. Is that what you mean by an interruption to your surveillance?”

  Jerome stuttered.

  Straus held up a hand. “Listen, Mr. Guilford, you are not in a meeting room in Washington. We are here, on site, preparing for a visit from the president of the United States. We need to deal with reality here in a straightforward way. Can we do that?” With this remark, Straus gave them all a quick scan.

  Segal nodded.

  “Good. We will note the unknown whereabouts of these people and assume they represent some sort of potential threat and act accordingly. In other words, please find them before the president gets here, and let me know if help is required. Now, let me fill you in on the plan for the visit as it currently stands.”

  With that, he moved them over to the whiteboards. Segal wanted to say there was more to the story, but Straus spoke with such authority that he went along. Besides, Segal really didn’t know what else they had, and he did not especially relish the idea of discussing crows and raccoons and mule deer with the top advance man for the Secret Service.

  Straus walked them step by step though the itinerary, beginning with Air Force One landing at the Asheville airport south of town, the motorcade to the Grove Park Inn, and some recreational things after that. “Fortunately,” he said, “this is supposed to be a low-key vacation visit, only the president and his wife. No speeches, no black-tie dinners, should be no big crowds. That’s why there has been no announcement as yet. Everything easy-going and casual—for example, he wants to go to 12 Bones barbecue. That will be Wednesday lunchtime.”

  “Sir, I think you mean Tuesday. Tuesday lunchtime.” It was one of the men at the table working on a laptop.

  Straus stepped from the boards. “You’re quite right,” he said. Then, to the others, “Just this morning, the whole visit was moved up a day. Looks like we changed the dates on the board but not the days of the week.” He stepped forward to make the corrections. “That’s why we interrupted what you were doing and called you in. Otherwise, we would have been having this conversation tomorrow morning, and we would have been better organized.”

  Segal stepped forward and spoke up. “This may be a coincidence—”

  “—I don’t believe in coincidence,” Straus said. “Only facts.”

  He told Straus about the raid on the house across town and in particular about the countdown dates listed on the board. While he ran through this, the other people in the room stopped what they were doing and gathered to listen. When he got to the part about the dates, Dinah held up her phone to show them the picture she had taken of the board. After that, there was silence.

  “Nothing else there?” Straus asked.

  Segal shook his head. “We still have a crime-scene crew at the house. If you want to send some guys over, we can show you where it is.”

  Straus motioned to two of his men.

  “I’ll get a cruiser to take them. You and Dinah stay here,” their boss said.

  Straus motioned them to the map taped to a whiteboard. Dinah took out a pen and marked the map with small circles. “This is 12 Bones,” she said, “and this is where the first body was found.” Straus nodded. They were joined by a couple other Secret Service guys and, of course, the ever-present Guilford. “And over here,” Dinah said, “is the building where we found the suspected sniper’s nest.” She drew a circle there and a dotted line connecting that with the site of the body—a straight, unobstructed shot.

  Segal counted for a couple of beats. Let it sink in.

  Straus motioned them to the table. “Let’s figure out if we can spring a trap,” he said.

  CHAPTER 35

  Spring the Trap

  Dinah studied Segal in action. They’d driven back down in the River Arts district. A long expanse of gravel lot extended from the Wedge Building over to the railroad tracks and all the way to the gated entrance in the chain-link fence bordering Lyman Street. Anyone parking near that gate would have a long walk to the brewery, the studios, or anything else housed in the Wedge Building. In spite of this, a few cars were always parked at that end of the lot, which made it possible for Segal’s old Volvo to blend in there. Dinah waited with him in the car, watched, and observed. It was as close to the action as the federal people wanted them to get, even though it had been their work, their intuition, their insight that had led the Secret
Service to this location.

  “No offense,” Straus said, “but we’re used to working as a team, and we have no history with you two.”

  “None taken,” Segal assured him.

  Segal was amazing, as was often the case. He negotiated at least this part of the assignment. Dinah knew he was worried about innocent local people getting caught up in the operation somehow. This way, they could give the feds a heads-up when they recognized locals, people with solid history coming and going. That, and they would be on hand to shut down the means of egress if things got out of hand. Jerome Guilford also had his team there by the Wedge Building, minus the guy the rabid fox had bitten the shit out of. The Secret Service made up the bulk of the expedition.

  It gave Dinah a chance to talk to Segal. They were running and refining scenarios to see what held up and what did not. It was easy for them to sit in the Volvo or get some air and talk strategy.

  Segal adjusted his position in the driver’s seat. “So, let’s assume your earliest read on this place was right,” he said. “In other words, let’s say it is or was a sniper’s nest.”

  Dinah nodded. She had already been over her reasons for thinking this was the case.

  She waited as Segal pulled a Sherlock Holmes compilation from the backseat and ruffled the pages. The feel of the paper on his fingertips seemed to have a calming effect on him. “At first, we assumed it was someone who was after Francis Elah. Chickey was in the wrong place at the wrong time. And he looked enough like Elah that the sniper shot the wrong guy.”

  “Either that or killing Chickey wasn’t a mistake,” Dinah said. “Think about it. We know they’re after Francis. We know they’re after Richard. We think they were after something at Creatures 2.0 the night Gloria got killed. For that matter, maybe killing Gloria was intentional, too. Maybe she and Chickey both knew something they weren’t supposed to know.”

  Segal continued to ruffle the book pages. “Makes sense, as far as it goes. What doesn’t make sense is what ONI wants us to believe. Which is that Francis is the killer. He has somehow gone out of his head, deserted from this big, secret military project he was working on. And now he’s returned home to settle things on this end.”

  Dinah stuck her head out the open passenger window and sucked in some cool air. “That still doesn’t feel right to me. What we’ve learned about the guy, what everyone says. Especially Nancy Lund. For reasons I don’t understand yet, Francis seems like a stand-up guy rather than a defector or a terrorist. On the other hand, let’s assume Francis got wind of an assassination plan. Why didn’t he tell someone?”

  “Who?” Segal asked. “He was already working for the government. They put him into Cormorant. How would he know who to trust? He had to come here and work things out? Even with proof, he might not have had enough details to be believable.”

  “Well, he sure knows how to win friends and influence people,” Dinah said. “ONI, Secret Service, Cormorant. They all want him.”

  Segal started to say something, but Dinah looked to the side and whispered, “There’s the red van again.”

  She slumped in her seat as an old, beat-up Ford utility van pulled into the parking lot for the third time that morning. If she knew nothing else, she knew this crew liked vans. Each time, a stocky man in coveralls had unloaded boxes out of the back and carried them toward the studio room they were trying to watch, although once he was inside the jig was up. They didn’t have surveillance inside. For a split moment, Dinah actually wished for Richard the crow.

  Segal held up a radio mic and said in a low voice, “The red van just pulled in again.”

  Jerome Guilford came back in a static-laden voice. “Copy that.”

  Dinah raised a pair of binoculars as the van pulled up near the building. The stocky guy got out and moved to the back doors. This time, instead of removing boxes, he took out a long canvas bag, which he hung from his shoulder by a set of straps.

  “That could be a gun,” Dinah said. “That’s long enough to be a sniper’s rifle.”

  Segal relayed that information over the radio.

  Dinah put the glasses on the window of the studio in question. After a few minutes, more than enough time for the man to reach the room, she saw the window go up. “There’s movement,” she said. “He just opened the window.”

  Segal relayed.

  “More movement,” she said. “Something’s protruding from the window.”

  Soon after that, flashes appeared.

  “Crap,” Segal said.

  Guilford’s voice came over the radio. “We’re going in.”

  Dinah rolled her eyes.

  Jerome Guilford and two of his ONI men gathered outside one of the entrances to the building. The Secret Service men were at the outside bar of the Wedge Brewing Company. Jerome watched as they stood and left as inconspicuously as two men in business suits could. They walked up beside the loading dock and went in by the same entrance their suspect had used a few minutes earlier.

  Jerome went inside and more of his ONI team were waiting in the dusty hallway two floors up. He filled them in with hushed tones. There was a short and animated discussion on tactics and positions, and then they proceeded through the winding corridors as quietly as possible, the Secret Service taking the lead.

  Most of the studio doors were closed, and judging from the sound level many were unoccupied. One door was slightly ajar, and as Jerome it, he saw a nude model watching them, her expression showing no particular surprise or interest that people were inside the building.

  He went up another flight of stairs even more quietly, men in tow since they were drawing close to their destination. This floor seemed to be abandoned except for the room in question. As they approached its door, the Secret Service guys drew their guns and Jerome and the others followed suit. No one spoke. As the Secret Service men came even with the door, Jerome heard movement inside the room. He crouched behind the Secret Service in a ready stance with his weapon. A nod from the Secret Service man and a noise and bluish-white light flashed inside the crack around the door. One of the Secret Service men reached for the doorknob, turned it, and shouldered the door open, throwing his body into the room with the same motion. He shouted at the top of his lungs, “Secret Service! Drop your weapon and put your hands in the air.”

  As Jerome flew into the room with heart pounding, wondering where to point his gun, something heavy hit the floor. He turned to his right to see a man with his hands up. The man was wearing a welding mask and was visibly shaking.

  “What’s your name?” one of the Secret Service men asked.

  The man said something unintelligible beneath the mask.

  The Secret Service man reached forward to tip the mask up, exposing the face of a young man with a heavy brown beard. Seeing the men pointing guns at him did nothing to calm the man down. He tried to speak, but nothing came out.

  Segal was getting the feeling that he would rather be anywhere but this studio room. In the hallway outside the room, a small group of curious people had gathered. They were young, dressed mostly in the casual clothes of working artists. They were the people from the nearby studios, coming to see what the fuss was about. The model from the studio on the floor below came up the stairs dressed in a robe and slippers. From time to time, the people approached the door with feigned nonchalance and tried to peek past the men in suits.

  Inside the room, Segal joined the federal agents. Dinah was busy with Jerome. The head of the group, Straus, was standing by the open window looking at the view to the river and upstream to 12 Bones. Two of the other men were carefully searching the room, not that there was much to search. Another was going through the man’s wallet while the man himself sat on an old wooden chair and watched the surreal spectacle.

  Segal watched it, too. It was all too clear that they had sprung the steel trap of federal justice on a poor artist in the act of welding pieces onto a metal sculpture. A section of pipe rested on the sill of the open window.

  Segal liste
ned as Dinah finished with Jerome and got on her phone, changing her tone from authoritative to quiet. “Hey, Rhonda, Dinah Rudisill here. How’s your husband? Good, good. Listen, we might have a situation. You have the art gallery…?” After a minute or so, she put the phone down and announced to the room, “Okay, the gallery owner confirmed that she has some of the welder’s stuff on display.”

  Segal understood this meant there was no reason to think the guy on the chair was not exactly what he said he was and what he appeared to be. Segal looked at the piece the man was working on. It was a black bear wearing pants and an apron. The artist had been adding a pair of wire-rimmed reading glasses when he was so rudely interrupted.

  In the momentary silence of the room, a small, crackling voice was heard. Straus put a finger to his ear and said “Copy that” into a microphone mounted in the cuff of his jacket sleeve. “The motorcade is headed into 12 Bones now,” he said to the room. “We might as well hang here and secure this place till they leave.” The others nodded. He directed two of them down to the parking lot to keep up a lookout for anything unusual. The earpiece crackled again. Straus listened for a moment, then said, “Go with the Carolina Sweet Sauce. The hot sauce might be too hot, okay?” He looked at Segal and rolled his eyes, then resumed his view out the window. This tiny gesture made Segal feel close to Straus. Everyone has stuff to put up with, he thought.

  Voices in the hall grew louder. Dinah told Segal that word had somehow reached the group of people in the hall that the president and first lady were headed to 12 Bones.

  Segal considered where to go next when Dinah nudged his arm and held up her phone to show him a message. It was from Lewis Abraham at Creatures 2.0.

  The message read: Richard is back.

  Dinah said, “That crow might be smarter than all of us.”