by Dan Arnold
Tonight she wore a green dress that could have been tailored to fit her. It had some sort of sparkly crystals and sequins on the bodice. She had a necklace and earrings, also made of sparkly crystals that flashed changing colors in the light.
She introduced me to her cat whose name was Mr. Tumescence, although she always called him “Tummy” or “Tum Tum.” She explained that when she named him, she thought that the word meant “Fat.”
Go figure.
We headed to the trendy sushi place, best known for the creative and colorful preparation and presentation, by an award winning chef.
“… My family name goes back to some of the people called Romani who traveled throughout Europe, without any particular national allegiance,” she said.
You could have knocked me over with a feather!
“My grandfather was a leader among the Romani here in America, back at the end of the nineteenth century,” I said.
“We could be related,” we both said, together at the same time.
We both laughed, and I asked her, “How did you end up here in East Texas?”
She was pensive for a moment.
“My boyfriend in college was from here. We were going to get married, or so he said. After I graduated, I moved here to be with him. He’s gone to Chicago now, and married to someone else. I’m still here.”
She made a face.
“Where’s your family?” I asked
“They’re mostly in the hill country, just northwest of Austin. My brother and his family live in Dallas.”
“What about your family?” she asked
“I’m all there is. The end of the line, I was an only child.”
“Where are your parents?”
“They were killed in a tornado in Oklahoma, several years ago, while I was in the Navy.”
“How long were you in the Navy?”
I figured I should restrict my answer to the most recent term of service.
“Eight years. I probably would have made a career of it, the Navy that is, but I got hurt and some other things happened that sort of ended my interest.”
“What do you do now?” she asked.
That question posed a problem. She didn’t know that I was working for her boss.
“After the Navy I went to work for the Department of Homeland Security. Eventually, I got tired of the system and the politics. There were too many layers of bureaucracy. I came back here and went to work for myself. I own my own business”
“Doing what?”
“I do private investigation.”
“Really, a P.I., like on TV?”
I get that a lot.
“Well, no, not really. I drive a pickup, not a Ferrari or anything. I help families in crisis and locate missing heirs, that sort of thing, and I provide services to attorneys and corporate clients. It tends to be kind of boring and tedious work, mostly”
“Wow,” she said. “I kind of figured you for a security type. I knew you weren’t one of those goons Walter uses, but you have a certain air about you.”
“Goons?”
What was she talking about?
“Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean you look like a goon, or anything… uh, I just meant that you don’t act like a typical, pot-bellied, business type.”
I must have looked exasperated, but I was really only amused and a little perplexed.
“OH! I really am sorry. I know you own your own business. I just meant…” She trailed off, dismally.
I laughed.
“It’s OK. I get that a lot. People are always asking me if I’m in law enforcement.”
She looked relieved.
“That’s it. That’s what I meant. Do you carry a gun?”
“Yes, I do. Not always, of course, but usually.”
“Why, what are you afraid of?”
“When I have my gun, I’m not afraid of much of anything.”
We both smiled, and drank some wine.
Eventually, I asked her about Walter’s “goons”.
“Mr. Simpson never travels without his security people. Walter hires them, and I think he scrapes the bottom of the barrel. Oh, I’ll bet they’re plenty competent. They manage to be big and scary, very well. They have the whole intimidation thing locked down. They just lack class.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“They’re all stamped from the same mold. You know, former football jocks, ex-military, swaggering, cocky, adolescent, locker room, baboons.”
She rolled her eyes.
“Have you had problems with them?” I asked.
“Every single one of them has hit on me. They’re vulgar and disgusting. Walter seems to think it’s funny. I am not amused.”
I nodded.
“Yeah, I can see that.”
“I am so sorry if I indicated I thought you were like one of those guys.”
“Not a problem, Christine.” I smiled.
We both enjoyed dinner and being together.
Eight
Something happened in college. Ted Simpson left A&M early one semester. He didn’t drop out of school and he didn’t fail any classes. He returned to the university the next semester and finished college with a respectable GPA. Why had he left College Station early that semester? Where did he go? There was a trail here, a hidden trail.
There had been no illness in his family. He hadn’t reported any illness of his own to the school. Had his father sent for him? The classmates I interviewed only told me they all knew he had left. If they knew why, they weren’t talking. I was still trying to find his former roommate. I also wanted to interview his current roommate, his wife of twenty five years, Corinne Simpson.
I was following still another trail with regard to the “goons” Walter employed as security.
Christine had been right. Ted Simpson never travelled without a security escort. Because I did the occasional personal security job myself. I was familiar with a variety of possible threats, and did potential threat assessments for some of my corporate clients. I could understand his need for personal security, if he were traveling in a third world country, where kidnapping or murder was a very real and constant threat, but why do so in the U.S.? What or who was he afraid of? What was Walter’s connection to this? The more I dug, the more questions I had.
Another question nagging at me was why hadn’t the police found Dustin? He was pretty easy to spot, pushing his shopping cart along. Of course it was possible other things interfered with the BOLO. It only meant “be on the lookout.” Unless they were seriously looking for a suspect in a specific crime, a lost Alzheimer’s patient, or something that posed an actual danger to the public a BOLO was sort of an “oh by the way” for the street cops. If Dustin had robbed a bank, or if he were a loose tiger, they would be looking more intently. These things would be cause for an “all points” bulletin.
My phone rang. It was my personal cell phone, not my office phone or the other mobile phone. I looked at the caller I.D.
“Hey, Christine, how are you?”
“I’m pissed!”
“Excuse me?”
“I’ve had it. Now it’s Walter who’s hitting on me.”
“Oh. I’m sorry to hear that.”
I was wondering why she was calling me about a personal problem at her place of employment.
“He said he knew I had gone out with you, and what I needed was a ‘real’ man, with a ‘real’ job.”
I sighed. I had no appropriate words in response.
“So, that’s it. I quit.” She stated.
“Now hold on, it’s never a good idea to quit a job, unless or until you have another one lined up.”
“You sound like my father. I don’t care. I’d rather wait tables than work in that place. I told Walter he could find another receptionist.”
And there it was. I needed a receptionist. Christine needed a job. How very convenient for everyone, right?
Maybe it was a little too convenient.
How had Walter kno
wn Christine and I had gone out? Did Christine tell him? Would Walter like to have a spy in my office? Suddenly Christine was available.
Good grief! I was turning completely paranoid. I might as well be schizophrenic too.
“Are you still there, in the Simpson building?” I asked her.
“No, Walter became very angry. He called me some names I won’t repeat. I told him he could go to hell. He had one of his security goons escort me out.”
She sounded like she was about to cry.
“OK, Christine, can you come here, to my office?”
“Sure, where is it?”
I gave her directions.
“I’ll be there in about fifteen minutes,” she said, and hung up.
The first time I called her, to ask her out, I called the number on her card, which I had picked up at her desk. It said “Christine Valakova, Liaison.” I found it an amusing title for a receptionist to put on a business card. Later, she gave me her personal cell phone number.
Did Walter have a way of knowing the content of every call coming into that office? Did he monitor Christine’s cell phone? Where had the “security goon” come from? There was no security desk at the Simpson building. Anyone could walk in off the street, get in the elevator, punch a button and walk right into Ted Simpson’s office. Stopping to talk to the receptionist was merely a conventional courtesy. A guy who was that worried about personal security would have had a security desk, right inside the entrance to the building. Simpson could certainly afford it.
But the thing bothering me most, the thing I kept coming back to was that Walter had known about my date with Christine.
There was another possibility.
Big business is highly competitive. There is money to be made in corporate espionage. When I do security and threat assessment for corporations, sometimes it includes electronic counter measures. Basically, it’s looking for bugs and hidden cameras in meeting rooms or other sensitive areas, and monitoring certain people’s activities. You would be surprised at what forms hidden cameras or microphones can take. Cyber security has become the primary focus for most governments and multi-national corporations, even smaller business need it because the valuable data is digital. They want to protect their digital records from computer hackers or employee theft. There is any number of highly sophisticated ways to steal data. It always comes back to people though, people using electronics to get what they want.
Which is why, I can find a bug.
I went into my storage room and retrieved one of my RF, VLF, UHF and infrared scanners. Back in my office, I searched the whole room, but only found one little bug. It was a little smaller and thinner than a pack of cigarettes or a deck of cards. The microphone itself was tiny. It was attached to a battery pack that could provide power for up to 220 hours. It was stuck under the bottom of the chair at the front of my desk. It wasn’t a recorder; it was a voice activated transmitter.
That was why Walter had come to my office.
He wanted to play spy.
He hadn’t sent in a real professional to secure several more sophisticated devices, while I was somewhere else. He had planted this one, all by himself, with me sitting right in front of him.
Now I knew why he hadn’t gone to another agency.
Walter had to have either a signal amplifier nearby, or someone parked nearby to listen in, or more likely, a receiver attached to a digital recorder. It would make it easy for someone to retrieve the recording from outside my office, at their convenience. It couldn’t be far from my office though. The wireless signal range on his transmitter was only about 50 yards.
Was this the real reason Christine was coming here, to retrieve a recording?
I ruled that out when Christine showed up.
If Christine was acting, she was good at it. Her eyes were red, as if she had been crying. Her eye makeup was even smeared. She appeared to be very upset.
Why had she called me? Didn’t she have a girlfriend she could call?
“Thank you for seeing me, John. I know you have better things to do than listen to me whine about my job, my former job, I should say. What a horrible day!”
“Have you called a friend or family member yet?”
She nodded. “Yes, I called my mom. She told me I had done the right thing. I guess so, but it won’t be easy to find another job. She suggested I should file sexual harassment charges against Walter and Simpson Oil and Gas.
“You certainly can.” I agreed.
“I’m not going to go through all of that. It would take months, and there are no witnesses on my side. I almost wish I hadn’t quit, but then I remember Walter, and the goons.”
She made a disgusted face.
“That sounds like a name for a 60’s rock band, ‘Walter and the Goons,” I said.
She laughed at that.
“Today might not be as bad as you think, Christine. It just so happens, I need a receptionist and general office hand. I can’t pay you as much as Simpson Oil and Gas was probably paying you, but it would help you out, till something better comes along.”
She made a face I couldn’t quite interpret.
“Thank you, John. That’s very sweet. I know you’re just trying to be helpful. I’ll be alright though. It only seems terrible, right now.”
The phone on my desk rang.
I looked at Christine and raised my eyebrows, to see whether I should take the call.
She nodded her response.
“Tucker Investigations, John speaking,”
It was another case of finding missing heirs for a local attorney. I got all the details and promised to investigate.
Christine had been paying close attention to my conversation.
“John, do you answer all your calls yourself?”
“Yes, even if I’m not here in the office, call forwarding goes to this cell phone. I tapped my jacket pocket. If I miss a call, they can leave a message.”
“How many calls do you get in an average day?”
“I don’t know, maybe a dozen.”
“Do you meet with people here in the office?”
“Sure.”
“How often, I mean, do you meet with clients every day?”
“Yes, nearly every day, sometimes two or three a day.”
“How do you get anything done? When do you have time to do your work?” she asked.
“I told you I needed help.”
“If you’re serious, I’ll help out, for a while.”
I’m completely serious; I don’t really have a new employee handbook or anything though.” I smiled
She smiled back. “We’ll work out the details as we go along. One thing though…”
“What’s that?”
“This office is far too small, too crowded, and pretty much too ugly.”
“Oh, really?”
“We can do better, John. You need something much more professional and attractive.”
“I think I have that.”
“You must be kidding, this is drab and… hideous.” She said.
“Oh, I agree, but things are changing. I just acquired something very professional and attractive.”
She looked around the room.
“What would that be?” she asked.
“That, Christine, would be… you,”
“John, I can’t work for you if you’re going to hit on me, too.” She frowned.
I held up my hands.
“No, no. I’m serious about how much you can help improve things around here. You’re the best qualified person I could possibly have hoped for.”
She smiled as she said, “Time will tell.”
Nine
I’d done more than my five thousand dollars’ worth of work for Ted Simpson. I endured about ninety five million dollars’ worth of annoyance. Walter Farley was on my list of least favorite people.
I decided to call Mr. Simpson directly.
“Simpson here,” he answered, on the second ring.
“This is John Wes
ley Tucker, Mr. Simpson. I need to meet with you to discuss something that’s come up.”
“It better be damned important. Did Walter tell you to call me?”
“Yes sir, it is important, and no, Walter doesn’t know I’m calling.”
I could hear the wheels in his head grinding.
“Alright, can you come by my office at the end of business today?”
“Yes, sir, I’ll be there about five o’clock.”
“Fine.” He hung up.
Tony ran a list of every late model Chevrolet Impala, registered to owners here in East Texas. It was far too many cars. Even allowing for the parameters we’d set, there were just too many to follow up on. We were only looking for blue cars. There were thirty-seven, late model, blue Impalas, registered in just the few counties closest to Tyler. We knew the owner of the vehicle might not be the same person as the driver we were looking for, so we couldn’t really eliminate anyone. We couldn’t ask the police and sheriff’s departments in all those counties to investigate the owners, and any possible drivers of every blue Impala, without probable cause.
Tony ran all thirty-seven owner names through the various criminal data bases. He got several hits. There were five out of the thirty-seven, in three different counties, with arrest or criminal records. One of them had been interviewed and released already. There simply wasn’t any probable cause to justify a detention and questioning of any of the rest of them.
I happened to look to my left, as I was approaching the parking lot where I’d met Dustin. Was that him in the shadows between the wall and the end of the strip mall? I couldn’t turn left because of the median. I had to go all the way up to the next light, and do a U-turn.
As I pulled into the parking lot, I spotted Dustin. I hit the speed dial on my cell phone, but Tony didn’t answer. I left him a quick message, as I parked in front of the strip mall, just a dozen feet from the corner of the building.
Dustin was smiling again as I approached him.
“You that angel, Good Angel,” he said.
“Hello, Dustin. How are you?”
“You know how I is. I done told you.”
I was confused
He grinned, then he did his little shoulder roll dance move. He ended with a laugh.