“I’m a little west of you. And a little rural.”
“Terrorists hiding out in the hollers, Dad?”
“You never know, honey. Have you heard from your brother lately?”
“I got an e-mail from him this morning. He sounds good. He sent some pictures. There was some bad news, though. His deployment was supposed to be up in four weeks but they just got notice of extension for another six months. Apparently the Taliban is really coming back with a vengeance. Mark said they’re pulling twenty thousand troops from Iraq to send to Afghanistan and he might end up there.”
Knox swore under his breath. “I know he can’t say exactly where he is, but is he in the line of fire at his current position?”
“He only said he was keeping his head down and trying to do his job.”
Knox slumped back on the bed. “Look, what do you say we all plan to do something together when he gets back? Go away somewhere. Maybe the Mediterranean. Just the three of us. Wind down and take a breather. My dime.”
“That sounds great. But the Med is expensive and I probably make more money than you. How about I chip in too? Mark’s the poor one. Serving his country doesn’t even get him minimum wage.”
“Nope, my dime. And you need to save your dollars.”
“Why?”
“To take care of me in my old age. I won’t be doing this crap forever.”
There was a change in his tone when he said this and his daughter was quick to pick up on it.
“Dad, is everything okay?”
“Fine, sweetie. And a piece of advice, you don’t waste premium theater tickets on old farts like me. You get a nice young man to join you in seeing Wicked. I want grandchildren, okay? I’m not getting any younger here.”
“Okay, sure.”
“I’ll talk to you soon, honey.”
“Good-bye, Dad. And . . . take care of yourself.”
“Always.”
“Dad?”
“Yeah?”
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
Knox didn’t want to hesitate, but for some reason he did. “Everything will be fine, Mel.”
Knox clicked off and dropped the phone on the bed. Now he felt worse than he did before he’d called. He knew he’d frightened his daughter and there was nothing he could do about it now. Maybe he wanted to scare her. Or at least prepare her for when he didn’t come back home, or even for when she might have to come and ID his body.
He looked around the dismal interior of his room. How many crappy hole-in-the-walls, how many effed-up towns, how many shitty countries had he spent the majority of his life in? The answer was clear: way too many.
He lay back on the bed feeling lonelier than he ever had.
Wicked? Yeah, I can tell you all about wicked, honey. But then I’m afraid you’d hate your old man, and I’d rather eat a machine-gun round.
His cell phone buzzed.
It was Hayes. He knew without even looking. He didn’t want to answer it but he had to. Official protocol, meaning he didn’t want to be transferred to undercover duty in, say, Tehran or Pyongyang.
“Joe Knox.”
Hayes snapped, “Where are you?”
“On the hunt.”
“On the hunt precisely where?”
“Southwest Virginia.”
“That’s not precise enough.”
“To tell you the truth, I’m not even sure where I am and the reception up here is lousy, sir, I can barely hear you.”
Hayes raised his voice a few notches. “Have you sighted him yet?”
“If I had I would’ve already called you. I’m just trying to run some leads down and get a more pinpoint location.”
“Why didn’t you have the chopper take you all the way in?”
Because then you’d know exactly where I was. “A bird dropping a fed in the middle of this place would’ve aroused a little bit of suspicion. If Carr was around he wouldn’t have been much longer. I’m going to poke around and then get back to you.”
“I’m not exactly on board with how you’re handling this, Knox.”
“Flying by the seat of my pants, sir. Doing the best I can, what with all the prohibitions on what I can look at or the roads I can go down.”
“The minute you know anything, Knox. The very minute!” He clicked off.
Knox looked up in time to see the Fonz deliver his trademark line on TV.
“Sit on it, asshole,” Knox said in his best Arthur Fonzarelli voice.
CHAPTER 42
ANNABELLE AND CALEB marched into Union Station and went straight up to the clerk that Knox had talked to. Annabelle flashed her fake FBI badge.
“Agents Hunter and Kelso. Was there a man in here earlier asking questions and showing you a photo? He would’ve identified himself as Joe Knox? Said he was with Homeland Security?”
“Yes, that’s right,” the woman said nervously.
Annabelle let out an audible sigh. “Then we have a big problem.”
The woman looked anxiously at her. “What was the problem? We helped Agent Knox as best we could.”
Caleb spoke up. “The problem is his name isn’t Knox and he isn’t with Homeland Security.”
The woman blanched. “Omigod.”
Annabelle said, “Omigod is right. I need to speak to everybody he talked to, right now!”
A few minutes later Annabelle and Caleb were seated in the supervisor’s office. The train attendant was there too, having stayed behind at the station to catch up on some paperwork and been summoned when Annabelle had made her demand of the manager.
“We thought he was a fed.”
“I’m sure. He probably told you not to say anything to anyone about what he’d told you, right?” said Annabelle.
“That’s right, he did.”
“Standard operating bullshit, I’m afraid.”
“But his credentials looked authentic,” the Amtrak supervisor said.
Caleb held out his creds so they could look at them closely. They were still a bit warm from Annabelle having just created them in the van on the way over. “I’m with Homeland Security. Did you note that in the upper-right-hand corner of the picture there’s a small ‘e’ done in reverse like there is in mine?”
The train men looked at each other and shook their heads. The supervisor said, “I didn’t know to look for that.”
“That’s because it’s a secret,” Annabelle chimed in. “To prevent people from successfully duplicating our creds. It’s a double-edged sword, I know. It’s a secret so the public isn’t supposed to know. But I thought a notice had gone out to certain levels of the federal government about it. You’re a federal agency, right?”
“Quasi-governmental,” the supervisor replied. He added, “And let me tell you, nobody from the federal government tells us shit about anything. Hell, a lot of them question why the country needs trains at all. What with the highways suffocated and the skies filled to overflowing and every civilized country in the world building trains and rails at record paces, you’d think they could figure it out for themselves.”
“We’ll put in a good word for Amtrak at the next budget meeting,” Caleb said sarcastically. “But right now we need to find this jerk-off, fast.”
“Wait a minute, aren’t you guys supposed to wear jackets with your acronym on the back?” the train conductor said.
“Yeah,” Annabelle said impatiently. “When we’re knocking down somebody’s freaking door to make an arrest! Not when we’re undercover trying to nail a spy.”
Caleb gave her a sharp and totally choreographed glance along with a quick shake of the head.
“He’s a spy?” exclaimed the supervisor.
“Yeah, he is,” she admitted. “Now, I need to know exactly what you told him.”
The two men filled her in while Caleb took notes. When they were done, she said, “I don’t blame you for what happened. And hopefully we’ll be able to run him down with the intel you just gave us.”
“Wish us luck,” C
aleb said sourly. “We’re going to need it because he’s got quite a head start.”
The pair quickly left and returned to the van.
“Nice job in there, Caleb,” Annabelle said admiringly.
“I was in the thespian club in college. I had dreams, you know. Not Hollywood, God forbid. The stage.”
“So you wanted to be on Broadway but ended up a librarian? How come?”
“I loved acting but there was a downside I could never get over.”
“What was that?”
“Stage fright. I was sick for hours before every performance. I lost so much weight and went through so many costumes I finally had to give it up.”
“Well, today you were a star.”
CHAPTER 43
THE INTERVIEW with Charlie Trimble was going better than Stone had expected. His questions were polite but prepared. And then it began to change. The reporter sat in his old swivel chair, a piercing expression in his gaze, one that was making Stone extremely uncomfortable.
“You seem familiar to me, Ben. Have we met before?”
“I don’t see how.”
“You ever been in Washington?”
“Never.”
Trimble sat back and drummed his fingers on his desk. “Why’d you come here?”
“Just making sure Danny was okay.”
“That’s all?”
“Why not?”
Before Trimble could launch another question, Stone pounced. “What do you know about Debby Randolph’s and Rory Peterson’s deaths?”
At first, Trimble seemed taken aback by this, but his expression became bemused. “Why do you want to know?”
“Some people tried to kill Danny. I think somebody tried to OD Willie.”
“I talked to Bob Coombs about that. Do you have any proof?”
“Just what Willie told me and what the doctors found in his system.”
“Willie’s a drug user, not the most reliable people in the world.”
“Have you talked to him about that?” Stone asked sharply. Trimble shook his head. “Then you’re not really in a position to gauge his credibility, are you?”
Trimble’s face flushed but then he smiled. “You make a good point. I do need to talk to him.”
“So getting back to my question. Danny and Willie both are targets. They both knew Debby. Willie was engaged to marry her.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“No one apparently did. Debby supposedly commits suicide. Willie thinks that’s impossible. He talked to her the night before she was found dead. She sounded great.”
“Sheriff Tyree looked into all that. It did seem crazy that Debby would do that, but all the evidence pointed to suicide.”
“It’s pretty easy to make murder seem like suicide if you know what you’re doing.”
Trimble shot him a penetrating look. “You know about such things?”
“I’m just trying to get to the truth, Mr. Trimble.”
“Call me Charlie. And why are you so set on doing that? You’ve only been here a short while.”
Stone rubbed his shoulder and then his head. “Let’s put it this way, I don’t like being pushed around.” And then there’s Abby. “How was Peterson killed?” he asked.
“Gunshot. Probably during a robbery. There was a safe in his office that had been forced. Cash, some files, and his computer were stolen. Tyree’s been working that one too, but he’s not come up with much, at least that he’s confided in me. He’s the entire police force, you know.”
“He could call in the state police.”
“He might do that.” Trimble smiled. “Or maybe his brother.”
“His brother?”
“Howard Tyree. He’s the warden up at Blue Spruce Prison.”
“He never mentioned that.”
“Well, I’m not sure the two get along all that well. So my suggestion of him calling in his brother to help was a poor attempt at a joke. Tyree’s on his own.”
A few minutes later Stone left the Divine Eagle office and headed to see the sheriff.
He found him in the jail building going over some papers.
When he told Tyree what had happened to him in the mineshaft, the lawman nearly came out of his chair. As Stone continued explaining, Tyree started to nod.
When Stone finished he said, “The hospital confirmed that Willie had oxycodone in his system. Willie was allergic to it. He never would’ve voluntarily taken it. Plus it’s pretty expensive without a prescription.”
“So somebody did try to kill him,” Stone said.
“Looks that way. And a smart way to do it, actually. Prescription drug abuse is rampant around here. I spend a lot of my time with that crap. Black stain on what is otherwise a nice place to live. But you can’t lock everybody up who’s addicted. Hell, there wouldn’t be any miners left to work. You try to rehab them, get their methadone pop every day, but it’s not enough. Every cop up and down the Appalachian mining country knows we’re fighting a losing battle. But we don’t have enough resources. We’re overwhelmed.”
“This area is pretty remote. Where do they get all the drugs? It’s not like there’s a pharmacy on every corner.”
“They can get it from any number of sources. Sham pharmacies on the Internet, pipeline from the Mex border. Many a miner has sucked away his life savings and his marriage over that crap. Old saying up here is, ‘Methamphetamines keep you awake and oxy keeps you high.’”
“Sheriff, I believe there’s a connection between Danny, Willie and Debby Randolph’s death.” Stone went on to tell him about Willie proposing and then him talking to Debby the night before she was found.
“I didn’t know about the engagement, but I knew Willie was convinced she hadn’t killed herself. He was all over me about that. But all the evidence pointed to suicide.”
“Who performed the autopsy?”
“Doc Warner. He’s not a full-time pathologist, but he’s a qualified medical examiner. And it seemed straightforward. She put a shotgun in her mouth and pulled the trigger.”
Tyree didn’t look at Stone when he said this last part. Stone noticed this and said, “I’m not telling you how to do your job, but it’s rare for a woman to kill herself with a gun. And with so many drugs around here, you’d think she would’ve just popped some pills and gone quietly.”
“I know. That’s been bugging me too.”
Stone began cautiously, “I saw Danny lying on top of Debby’s grave that night.”
Tyree looked surprised. “Where were you?”
“Behind the stone wall. I heard something and came to see what. I was going to go to Danny when I saw you walk up.”
Tyree looked uncomfortable. “Craziest thing I ever saw. I didn’t understand what he was even doing there. I just put it down to Danny being Danny.”
“Meaning what exactly?”
“Meaning unpredictable.”
“Abby made him leave town.”
Tyree sat back in his chair and scowled at Stone. “She never bothered telling me that,” he said in a hurt tone. “And she told you?”
“She was afraid for him, I guess. And from what happened to him once
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