The Fitzgerald Ruse

by Mark de Castrique

  Calvin returned to his chair. “So, what’s the plan?”

  I looked out the window behind Nakayla. The sun had set about forty minutes earlier and constellations formed as stars broke through the darkening sky. My idea came as an illumination from points of light, needing only imagination to connect them.

  “If Ethel Barkley’s lockbox does contain something they don’t understand, maybe a coded account book or map, then knowing how to decipher the code is what they want most.”

  Calvin held up his hand to stop me. “How about nailing our asses to the wall because they think we robbed their cache? And the fact they think your Grand Cayman account holds their money.”

  “That too. But you suggested that something about the lockbox intrigues them. I think it holds papers written in code, because I think I know the key to breaking it.”

  “You do?” Calvin and Nakayla exclaimed together.

  “Yes. But knowing the information could be dangerous. If all you can give them is my name, then odds are they’ll keep you alive till they get to me.”

  Nakayla scowled. “So you’re going to be bait.”

  “No. I’m talking about a worst-case scenario using the code as a backup bargaining chip in case one of you is taken. We can’t dangle that carrot because we don’t know how to reach them. I’m planning something much simpler.”

  “What?” Calvin asked.

  “We create a ruse. We find another lockbox. One that I dig up from a spot that might fit in with the information they have. I’ll work that out tomorrow and keep as close to known facts as I can.”

  “What happens after you dig up this lockbox?” Nakayla asked.

  “I leave it in the trunk of the car and then stake it out.”

  Calvin pushed away from the table and my proposal. “They’ll smell it ten miles away.”

  “Not when they think the police aren’t looking for them. If Newland agrees, then we plant a story that Lucas is the prime suspect in the murders of both Amanda Whitfield and Ethel Barkley. Newland can say Lucas probably followed me from the bank, broke in for the lockbox, and then went to Ethel’s apartment in search of more money.”

  Nakayla shook her head. “The suspect was described as Hispanic.”

  “By witnesses that the police will say were unreliable. Captain will change his story for us.”

  She still looked unconvinced. “Who’s protecting you while you’re digging up bogus treasure?”

  “I’ll have Nathan handle that. You two need to be doing something else, something that will keep two of them occupied and make it look like I’m going behind your backs. Like you said, Calvin, a thief is going to project his own behavior on the situation.”

  Nakayla and Calvin exchanged a quick glance.

  “Makes me nervous,” Nakayla said. “I don’t like you digging out in the woods by yourself.”

  “I’ll be sensible.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, right. Your name and sensible don’t belong in the same sentence.”

  “I like it,” Calvin said. “If the spot’s right, you can dig it up in broad daylight. That’ll make sure they see you and you’ll be less vulnerable to attack. What’s your timetable?”

  “We’ll lay it out to Efird when we give our statements tomorrow. If he and Newland go along, the planted story should hit TV in the evening and the newspapers Friday morning. We’ll stake out the car Friday night.” I winked at Nakayla. “If we nail them, then we’ll have had a good first week in business.”

  We talked through more details, agreeing that Nathan Armitage should be brought into the scheme. His men could handle burying the lockbox and provide the protective surveillance when I dug it up. Efird and his police team would stake out the car, and Nakayla, Calvin, and I would be elsewhere.

  Calvin agreed to meet us at police headquarters at nine, where we’d give our statements and propose the plan to Efird. I figured Newland would approve, even if he had to do so by cell phone from the commode in his bathroom.

  Nakayla and I took the elevator with Calvin to the lobby. Behind the locked doors, we watched him walk to his car and drive away. No one appeared to be following him.

  I deadbolted the apartment door and slid the sofa in front of it. When Nakayla and I undressed for bed, I set the Kimber on the nightstand, a round loaded in its chamber.

  As I’d thought, the messages on the answering machine were from reporters, one from the Asheville Citizen-Times and three from the network-affiliated TV stations in the area. All of them wanted to talk to me before deadline. I saved their phone numbers. Tomorrow I would use them to tell the story I wanted made public.

  As I crawled into bed beside Nakayla, I did something I’d never done before. I left my prosthesis attached to my stump. Then I checked that my pistol was within easy reach. The gallows humor hit me. If the showdown came tonight, at least I’d be fully armed and legged.

  Chapter Seventeen

  I slept fitfully, a combination of discomfort with my leg and excitement that we were going on the offensive. In Iraq, the adrenaline rush came as we moved in for an arrest or when a sting operation reached the climactic moment. But this time the surge of energy arrived early and the anticipation of action accelerated my pulse. This time the confrontation would be personal, and I knew for all my talk about justice, I shared Calvin’s desire for revenge.

  At six, I rose, trying in vain not to disturb Nakayla. She bolted upright, throwing off the sheet. She’d slept fully dressed except for her shoes. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. I just can’t sleep. I’m going to run out for a while.”

  “Not by yourself.”

  “I’ll be fine. It’s early enough that anyone following me will stick out like a cat at a dog show.” I slipped off my pants and released my prosthesis.

  “Where are you going so early? And why are you removing your leg?”

  I hopped to the closet and retrieved my second prosthesis, the one designed for more physical exertion. “I want to look for a place to bury the dummy lockbox. I don’t want to approach Efird with missing details.”

  Nakayla grabbed her shoes from under the bed. “If you’re going out in the woods, you’re definitely not going by yourself.”

  I leaned against the wall, clutching my leg and realizing how vulnerable I must look to her. “There’s a greater risk if you go with me.”

  She raised her head, one shoe dangling from her toes. “What? You think I’ll be in your way?”

  “No. But you’ll ruin the story we want them to create. I’m supposed to be doing this behind everyone’s back. If you’re with me, then it looks like I’ve brought in an accomplice. That won’t make sense.”

  She frowned. “Okay. But call in every ten minutes. Where do you think you’ll go?”

  “I’d like to check out Beaver Lake, the place where Fitzgerald injured his shoulder and where Grove Park guests could go swimming.”

  “It wasn’t just for the guests. At one time, it was a public beach, but as long as I can remember, there’s been no swimming. You could only use small boats or canoes. Once I saw an old postcard that showed diving boards and bathhouses. Those facilities were torn down long ago.”

  I grabbed a clean stump sleeve and sock from my dresser and sat on the bed to attach the leg. “Is the lake shore built up?”

  “There are houses around it. Most are set back across the road. Merrimon Avenue runs along one side. You have to get a permit if you want to use a boat, and one end is still heavily wooded. There are walking trails, but at that end the path’s more overgrown.”

  “Sounds promising.”

  Nakayla stared at me a few seconds and her eyes glistened in the dawn light spilling over the ridges. “You be careful, Sam. I mean it.”

  “I will. And I’ll call in.”

  She followed me to the lobby, insisting that she watch until I reached my car.

  I kissed her. “I’ll see you at police headquarters.”

  “Oh, yeah? Well, I hope you’
re better with the details of your trap than your logistics for transportation.”

  “What?”

  “We left my car at the library yesterday. Did you want me to take a cab?”

  I kissed her again, longer this time. “I’ll be back for you.”

  Beaver Lake lay several miles north of downtown. It was more a large pond than a lake, but as I turned left into the adjacent community, I looked down the length of water to the wall of mountains behind it. The tranquility of the scene suggested why the spot would have been so popular. The far end of the lake appeared as Nakayla had said, wooded with an overgrown shoreline, and I suspected I was at the spot where the diving boards and bathhouses once stood. Now there was just a boating area with a small hut that must be the source of permits or rentals.

  I turned left again onto another residential street running along the west side of the lake. Looking across the glass-smooth surface, I saw no cars heading my way. Within a hundred yards, a barricade of trees shielded me from view, and I felt more confident that my scouting mission would go undetected. I made my second phone call to Nakayla and assured her everything was fine.

  The road dipped closer to the water and what looked like little more than a logging road branched off. The CR-V bounced over the ruts until I braked at a chain stretched between two rusted metal posts. A white rectangular sign on a pole stood to the left, warning that Lake View Park was privately owned by the residents and forbidding swimming, skating, and use after dark. On the other side of the chain was a small clearing. Beyond, a wide path continued into the woods.

  The paved road lay about twenty feet above me, but my Honda was still visible. As daylight intensified and traffic increased, someone would notice it. To the right of the chain, the gap between the post and the nearest tree looked wide enough for my small vehicle to slip through. I pulled closer, positioning the Honda to maneuver the space at the widest angle. Then I got out to make sure my clandestine action wouldn’t end in the embarrassing feat of wedging my CR-V between tree and post.

  My best calculation indicated the width had about a six-inch margin. I folded the passenger side mirror snug against the door, rolled down my window, and drove as close to the post as I dared. A squeal sounded as the mirror and bark rubbed each other. Nothing fell off, and I made it into the clearing without mishap. I was out of sight of the paved road but a sitting duck if another car pulled in and blocked my escape. The path veered to the left and stayed wide enough to let me drive into the trees where someone would have to come on foot to discover me.

  The leafy canopy reduced visibility to predawn gloom. I locked the doors and walked deeper along the path. Too far and I’d risk losing any escape route if things went badly. I was searching for a location that wouldn’t be that changed from the 1930s or 1940s.

  A canoe lay on its side next to an old picnic table. Mold grew on the table’s surface and spider webs paralleled the chain of a bicycle lock that wrapped around the upper section of the table’s legs and looped the forward seat of the canoe. Had anyone wanted to steal it, simply chopping the wooden leg or removing the seat would have done the trick. Ahead, the path narrowed, and heavier ground growth indicated it was rarely traveled. I turned to the lake, figuring the canoe must be close to some water access.

  Saplings and ragged shrubs hung over the shore. I retraced my steps a few yards and saw a narrow break not much larger than the width of the canoe. Stepping carefully and with the surer footing of my second prosthesis, I came to the edge of the lake. An old concrete piling jutted from the soil where the lapping of the water kept it clear of silt. At some point it must have been the foundation of a dock or maybe part of a broader launch site.

  I snatched my phone from my belt and took a photo. Then I turned around and shot another of the picnic table and canoe. Here was the spot where I’d unearth a mysterious lockbox, and whether our enemies thought F. Scott Fitzgerald or Nazi sympathizers had buried it, I didn’t care as long as the bait proved too tempting to resist.

  I dialed Nakayla. “I’m done. I’m coming back.”

  “Good. Call me when you turn on Caledonia. I want to be in the lobby when you park. No sense–”

  My mind shut out her voice as leaves crackled behind me. My gun hand held the phone; my back was an inviting target.

  Leaves rustled again, softer this time. I slowly turned, keeping the phone to my ear and straining my peripheral vision for a glimpse of the intruder.

  Out of the shadows stepped a white-tailed doe, her nose sniffing the air furiously and her long ears swiveling like radar antennae.

  “Sam, can you hear me?” Nakayla shouted.

  “Yes, dear.”

  I laughed as the doe bounded down the path, her beautiful white flag disappearing into a thicket of laurel.

  “I don’t know. Sounds too crazy to me.” Detective Efird looked at the picture on my phone for a third time. “You want them to see you, but you don’t want them to come after you. How are you going to guarantee that?”

  “I’m counting on you. Just a couple men in camo on the perimeter. Hernandez and his people don’t know the terrain. I think they’ll watch me as best they can, but not risk a move. The area’s not that isolated.”

  Calvin, Nakayla, and I sat with Efird in an interview room. We’d completed and signed our statements on the Grove Park shooting, and Calvin had briefed Efird on the Ali Baba case. His report had been concise and discouraging. After the ambush that killed Ed and Charlie and cost me my leg, the investigation had floundered. Because the primary suspects were civilians, the military lowered the priority. Calvin said he’d pressed for action, especially since he thought we’d been the victims of an assassination team, not a random insurgent attack.

  Efird flipped through the folder in front of him. “We have a positive ID on Lucas. Blackwater matched the prints faster than the FBI.”

  Calvin tensed. “You got Blackwater involved?”

  “Sam told us they were ex-employees. Newland sent the prints from the restaurant glass and they faxed us a positive first thing this morning. We’d already matched the body to the glass.”

  “What about Hernandez?” I asked.

  Efird slid a photo across the table. The man before us had a bullet-shaped head and thick, muscular neck. Dark eyebrows formed a single line across his brow and he stared into the camera with undisguised arrogance. I wondered if he was the man who’d pressed a gun to my head behind my apartment building.

  Nakayla passed the picture to Calvin. “A face only a mother could love,” she said.

  Calvin took a quick glance and tossed it back to Efird. “No. A grandmother who had bad eyesight.”

  Efird placed it on the folder. “I’ll buy your theory that at least one other person is working with him. But I don’t like Sam being exposed, and I don’t like telling the media we think Lucas is good for both murders.”

  “We want them to relax,” I argued. “They’ll also think I’m making my moves because the police are off the case.”

  Efird tapped the picture of Hernandez. “But you’re telling me this is the guy. Why shouldn’t I have his mug on every TV in the county?”

  “All I’m asking is twenty-four hours. We play the ruse and if it fails, you announce you’re searching for this man.”

  Efird gnawed on his lower lip as he thought things over. “And if Hernandez kills someone else in the meantime, how do I live with that?”

  “Who else? There’s no one left but Nakayla, Calvin, and me.”

  “Hewitt Donaldson,” Nakayla said. “And Ethel’s son Terry. If this is some family secret, then that’s who’s left.”

  She caught me off guard. I hadn’t thought beyond our immediate circle. Efird nodded, and I sensed my proposal heading for rejection.

  “But you could put them under police protection for a day,” Nakayla suggested.

  “We’re not the FBI,” Efird said.

  “What about Nathan Armitage’s men?” I asked. “I’ll pay for security. Nathan w
ill need to be involved anyway because he can take care of getting the box buried.”

  Efird shook his head. “You don’t run a sting by getting a lot of people involved.”

  “I agree. The people guarding Donaldson and his cousin only know they’re providing protective services. Nathan gets one trusted employee to bury the box by the concrete piling tonight. That’s it. You’ll have a few men shadowing me tomorrow when I retrieve it, and then we stake out my car.”

  “For how long?” Efird asked.

  “Through Friday night. If they don’t show, then Saturday morning you release the photo of Hernandez and start the manhunt. But you don’t have any hard evidence against him. Just a few senior citizens from Golden Oaks who’ll say they saw a Hispanic-looking deliveryman. Other than Captain, how do you think they’d hold up under cross by someone like Hewitt Donaldson?”

  Efird rubbed his hand across his mouth and sighed. “Okay. You’ve made your point.”

  I may have made my point but he hadn’t conceded. “What about Lucas? Did you find his car?”

  The detective pulled another sheet from his folder. “The key fit a white Hyundai Sonata parked near the Grove Park athletic facilities. A Hertz rental with a contract in the name of Greg Franklin was in the glove box.”

  “He would’ve had to show a driver’s license and credit card,” Calvin said. “But these guys have access to fake passports, whatever.”

  Efird looked at his report. “We called all the motels and hotels in the area and found our boy at the Appalachian Mountaineer. Front desk had a Greg Franklin registered and a white Sonata listed under vehicle. The room was clean and no one showed all night.”

  “Did you dust?” I asked.

  “Yeah. And that’s the odd part. The room had been wiped. The motel might have good housekeeping, but I doubt even the Grove Park staff would do that good a job.”

  Nakayla pointed a finger at Efird’s file. “Why would Lucas have keys but no identification?”

  “Maybe he was there for a hit,” Calvin said. “In New Jersey, the gangs always make a hit between five and six o’clock. You know why?”