The Fitzgerald Ruse

by Mark de Castrique

  The man’s lips twitched and then an uncontrolled belly laugh erupted from his slender body. “By God, you live up to your billing. I’ll say that. Have a seat, Sam. It’s time we laid our cards on the table. I don’t think any of us knows exactly what’s going on, and it’s my belief that ignorance can get you killed. It’s also my belief that you’re probably the guy in the crosshairs, and I’d like to keep you alive, if only to trade insults.”

  I wasn’t ready to show my cards when I didn’t know the game or the wager. “That’s hardly a challenge if my opponent is an FBI agent who ran from a shootout.”

  Keith’s smile froze for an instant. Then he shrugged. “I don’t pull my trigger till I know the good guys from the bad guys. Maybe you do things differently, but one thing I do know about you, you’re not stupid. So leave your attitude on the other side of the door and let’s see how we can help each other.”

  From the corner of my eye, I saw Nakayla take a seat. In my head, I heard Donaldson’s admonition to his cousin, “You’re pissing on a friend, Terry.” What did I have to lose? This FBI agent was right about one thing—I was in the crosshairs. And if he could keep me alive, why shouldn’t I listen to what he had to say. So what if he made me mad. Better to be pissed off than pissed on.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  I gave Craig Keith a closer look as I eased into a chair at the end of the table. He had me by a couple years—probably in his mid- to late thirties—and his clipped accent pegged him north of the Mason-Dixon line.

  “What did I do to come into your sights?” I asked. “Surely the FBI and Homeland Security have bigger fish to fry.”

  “You found a body next to my girlfriend’s office. You know the statistics as well as I. How many times does the first person to report discovering a body turn out to be the murderer?”

  “Then your girlfriend is Cory DeMille, Hewitt Donaldson’s paralegal?”

  “Correct. And when she picked me up at the airport Tuesday night—actually one o’clock Wednesday morning—and told me about the murder, I got interested. Hewitt said the only thing missing was his aunt’s lockbox, and that piqued my curiosity further. Cory told me Hewitt was meeting you at the Grove Park so I showed up.” He nodded to Nakayla. “I underestimated your abilities.”

  “And why were you at the Grove Park?” I asked.

  “To size up a potential suspect. Like I said, the first person to find a body is often the murderer.”

  His story seemed a little too pat. “You just happen to be dating Cory DeMille, and you just happen to be an FBI agent?”

  “According to Detective Efird and Mr. Armitage, you just happen to be a former Chief Warrant Officer being hunted by international thieves who just happened to steal a lockbox that you just happened to have in your office. Which is more preposterous?”

  I turned to Nathan, seeking some clue as to how much he had told the agent.

  He cleared his throat. “I saw Agent Keith eating lunch with a man in the window of the Kanpai restaurant half a block from your office. I called Detective Efird who brought him here.”

  “Before I finished my pad Thai,” Keith interjected. “On the bright side, Terry Barkley got stuck with the bill.”

  Efird picked up the story. “When I learned he was FBI, I told him about your Ali Baba case and that your friend, Warrant Officer Calvin Stuart, had warned you Hernandez and Lucas thought you’d ripped them off and were coming after you.”

  While Efird spoke, I kept my eyes on Nathan. He gave a slight shake of his head and I knew he hadn’t said anything about our plan. But now I had an even bigger worry. If Keith had set the resources of the FBI in motion to scrutinize me, how quickly would they turn up the offshore account and the gems and gold I was laundering for Nakayla? Her illegal inheritance was what had convinced Ali Baba I’d stolen their loot and would certainly fuel an FBI investigation.

  I decided I needed to be on the offensive. “So you think my situation is preposterous? These guys cost me my leg and killed two of my buddies because I was closing in on them. Check the military case record. Earlier this summer, I broke a high profile murder that linked to Thomas Wolfe. That brought me to the attention of Ethel Barkley, who claimed to have an F. Scott Fitzgerald manuscript. She must have thought I was some literary expert. Check the police record. She came to me.”

  “And should I excuse the timing of all this as coincidence?” Keith asked.

  “Ask Amanda Whitfield about timing,” I snapped. “People can be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Ethel Barkley hired me at the wrong time, the first day Nakayla and I opened for business. For nearly six months of this year I was in a damn V.A. hospital. Then my name gets plastered all over the news and Ali Baba comes after me as soon as they can. Both events coincide because of earlier, separate events. You, on the other hand, show up on the night of the murder and happen to take an interest it what is clearly a case for the Asheville Police Department. I find that preposterous.”

  Efird grinned, but I didn’t know if it was because he enjoyed seeing me angry or because he’d witnessed the FBI take over cases before and he was rooting for me.

  Keith kept his cool. If my barbs bothered him, he didn’t show it. “I know you’re aware of the Silver Legion of America.”

  “Yes. Ethel Barkley’s husband and her brother, Hewitt Donaldson’s father, were members.”

  “And you’re right. I didn’t just happen to be here.” Agent Keith paused and then slid his chair closer to the table. “This isn’t for public consumption, but I came to Asheville about six months ago as part of a small project jointly run by the Bureau and Homeland Security. We called it Resurrection Watch.”

  The rest of us exchanged glances. The name meant nothing.

  “It was more of a to-do list than a full-scale operation,” Keith explained. “Since so many things had been missed in the buildup to 9-11, we wanted to make sure we weren’t repeating mistakes. Like assuming we know who our enemies are. So, somebody got the bright idea to check on all known antigovernment groups, present and past, not only abroad but of domestic origin: the Klan, the neo-Nazis, and the Christian militias, to name a few. These organizations go through cycles, and charismatic leaders can appear who resurrect and reinterpret old doctrine and demagoguery to build their own powerbase. Sometimes they simmer below our radar until they break out with some act of violence designed to gain notoriety and recruits.”

  “You went all the way back to The Silver Shirts?” I asked.

  “We went back as far as we had information to follow. A thick file had been built on Pelley and the Silver Shirts in the early 1930s, and though they’d supposedly dissolved in the 1940s, we eventually got around to them. The only current activity, other than the occasional scholarly paper, had been a series of petitions from an attorney in Asheville, North Carolina, named Hewitt Donaldson. He requested any information on Hugh Donaldson.”

  “A son trying to understand his father,” I said.

  Keith rolled his eyes. “I’m not a shrink. But since he was linked in our database with the Silver Legion of America, I decided he’d be a good starting place.”

  “And then you could check them off your list if he proved harmless.”

  He pointed a finger at me. “Hey, you wouldn’t believe how many nutcases out there have formed so-called citizen action groups, and the Internet is like a primordial soup breeding these vermin.”

  “I think it’s called free speech,” I said. “And you’re still here. Was Hewitt Donaldson not harmless, or did Cory DeMille turn out to be the one you wanted to more thoroughly investigate?”

  For the first time, Agent Keith’s composure faltered and even beneath the beard I could see his cheeks redden.

  “That’s okay,” I said. “Nice to know you’re human. So, in order to spend more time with Ms. DeMille you got Donaldson copies of the minutes from the House Committee on Un-American Activities and any other declassified information you could access, and he told you about his aunt’s lockbox,
which is why we’re all sitting here.”

  Agent Keith looked like I’d trotted out his mother and revealed indisputable evidence she was Osama Bin Laden’s concubine. His mouth and eyes popped open in amazement. “Hewitt told you that?”

  I grinned at Nakayla. “We’re detectives, Agent Keith. Like you said, I’m not stupid, and I’m good at my job.” I had him off balance and pressed for more information. “Did you ask Hewitt Donaldson to get you access to the lockbox?”

  “Sorry. That falls under an ongoing investigation.”

  Efird had tilted back on the rear legs of his chair during our exchange and came crashing forward. “Bullshit! You were chasing Sam, the wrong man, and you were present at a shooting where you didn’t identify yourself as a federal agent.”

  “I’d left before it happened.”

  Efird looked at me with an invitation to jump in. I accepted. “Oh, so you followed the wrong man and then missed the right man. Maybe the Grove Park’s video security cameras will back your story, maybe they won’t.”

  His blue eyes appeared to near absolute zero as he glared at me. “What do you want?”

  “Some cooperation,” I said. “Detective Efird’s working two murders and I have a vested interest in staying alive. Do you know if Donaldson pressed his aunt to give him the lockbox?”

  “Yes.”

  “Which explains this timing issue, doesn’t it? Ethel Barkley got spooked when she thought the FBI was coming for her sacred trust, and she got me to get it out of the bank and handle anything that would be personally embarrassing. She’d learned about me through Donaldson but thought it better to approach me through someone else.”

  “I don’t know what was going through the old lady’s head. Hewitt said she was crazy as a loon.”

  “And there you’re both wrong. She took prudent steps to complete what she saw as her mission. What’s so important to the Bureau about the lockbox?”

  Keith shrugged. “It’s a loose end. That’s all.”

  I shook my head. “I’m not buying it. My experience with the politics of the military is probably not that different from the politics of the Bureau. Nobody wants to be embarrassed, and when something’s a loose end, the translation means it’s an uncontrollable unknown that might come back to bite somebody. You’ve learned something in helping Donaldson that’s raised your interest in that lockbox. It can’t be a secret to bring down the Third Reich or demolish the Silver Shirts. What is it?”

  The room grew quiet. We stared at the FBI agent: four against one waiting for an answer that might show our government placed a priority on truth and justice.

  Keith focused on Detective Efird, one lawman to another. “Hugh Donaldson was an FBI informant. He was recruited when William Dudley Pelley moved to Asheville and he was instructed to keep tabs on him. When Pelley founded the Silver Legion of America, Hugh Donaldson became a very valuable asset, not only for his inside information on an organization that wanted to subvert and rewrite the U.S. Constitution, but for the close association Pelley sought to establish with the Nazi regime. Donaldson moved to the inner circle, at the expense of his reputation and his relationship with his family. No one knew, and his sister and her husband were true believers in Pelley’s vision.”

  “This information would have been too sensitive to be in the reports of the House Committee on Un-American Activities,” I said. “Does Hewitt Donaldson know?”

  “No. I just read the confidential file last week. When I got here, the guard had been murdered and the lockbox stolen. I was still getting my bearings.”

  Efird stood and leaned against the back of his chair. “If Hugh Donaldson was one of the good guys, then what’s the Bureau afraid of?”

  Keith looked at me. He and Efird may have shared the bonds of law enforcement, but he knew I understood the fickle currents of political intrigue and public opinion.

  “The Bureau’s concerned about what Hugh Donaldson did,” I said. “We’re in the midst of heated debates on water-boarding, prisoner humiliation, due process for enemy combatants, and the uneven implementation of questionable policies that could be viewed as undermining our Constitution as severely as William Dudley Pelley sought to do in 1935. Hugh Donaldson was an attorney whose client was the person the FBI targeted for undercover surveillance. How do you accomplish that and maintain the attorney-client privilege that’s at the heart of our judicial system?”

  Nathan gave a low whistle. “A seventy-year-old black eye is still a black eye, and it couldn’t come at a worse time.”

  “We don’t know the particulars,” Keith said. “Maybe Hugh Donaldson did his absolute best for Pelley.”

  “And maybe he had his sister steal a manuscript from F. Scott Fitzgerald for Pelley and not the FBI, an agency that hasn’t exactly had a stellar relationship with the artists and writers of our country.”

  Keith’s eyes swept the room, making sure he had our undivided attention. “Let’s cut to the chase. Anything in that lockbox that’s a record of Hugh Donaldson’s undercover work is the property of the FBI. I’ll cooperate with the local investigation as much as I’m able, and given your suspects hatched their scheme in Iraq, then traveled to New Jersey where they threatened your friend Calvin before coming to Asheville, I think a case can be made for full Bureau assistance. You’ll get your murderers, Detective Efird, but I’ll get my documents.”

  Efird stood still for a few seconds. Then he said, “You’re free to go. Give me one of those fancy FBI business cards and I’ll be in touch. I’m not making any promises till I talk to my partner and our Chief.”

  Keith reached in his coat pocket and flipped a white card on the table. He left without shaking a hand. No one offered one.

  After his footsteps died down the hall, I asked, “What do you think?”

  Efird wrinkled his nose. “He’s the kind of guy who’d ask you to turn around so he could stab you in the back. I believe most of his story and we’ll have to work with him. Chief Buchanan won’t want to antagonize the Feds when the payoff’s a double murder conviction. I’d like the Bureau to run Lucas and Hernandez through both foreign and domestic databases for any known associates. You and Calvin think there’s a third man involved, and now that Agent Keith’s been cleared we have no clue what the guy looks like.”

  “How soon can you request that?” I asked.

  “As soon as I talk to Newland.”

  “Isn’t today his colonoscopy prep?”

  Efird grinned. “He’s got his cell phone with him in the bathroom. Talk about multitasking.” He headed for the door. “You know the way out. Stay safe.”

  I went to the open door and closed it.

  “What do you think?” Nathan asked.

  “As far as I’m concerned, we press ahead. It’ll take the Bureau a day or more to get engaged, and in the meantime Efird’s got limited resources.” I turned to Nakayla. “You okay with that?”

  “No. But I don’t have a better suggestion. I hate to say it, but I trust Nathan’s Blackwater operatives more than I do the FBI.”

  “Then we’re committed. Nathan will bring us the secure phones by the end of the day, and I’ll talk to the press as soon as we get back to the office.”

  Nakayla caught my arm. “There’s one other thing I want to do. Agent Keith grilled you about the coincidence of timing. I want to check on his flight schedule. He said he was delayed and didn’t arrive till after Amanda Whitfield was murdered. Convenient, wasn’t it?”

  Nathan wrapped his arms around us in an impromptu group hug. “You really are detectives. Well, as the Master said to Watson, ‘The game’s afoot.’”

  Chapter Twenty-two

  “The door that I pushed open, on the advice of an elevator boy, was marked ‘The Swastika Holding Company,’ and at first there didn’t seem to be anyone inside.”

  I sat at my new desk and studied the sentence from The Great Gatsby, remembering Ethel Barkley’s copy with the numeral one penciled over the first T and the Z=Z equation on th
e following page. A computer would have cracked the code in a few seconds, but I had neither a software program nor an encrypted message to use as a target. If my deductions were correct, a simple letter substitution would give me the alphabet I needed. Despite Agent Keith’s warning, I wanted to be prepared to decode any documents before the FBI forever confiscated them.

  I realized my efforts could be little more than busy work while Nathan executed the details of our plan. Calvin’s supposition that the lockbox contained something requiring interpretation or deciphering was a plausible theory, but only a theory.

  If T was identified as one, then it made sense that T would equal A. The next letter, H, would be B, and E would be C. I scribbled the letters down in two columns: the left held the letters from the sentence and the right ran in alphabetical order from A to Z. I skipped letters when they appeared again like the second O in door. The sentence contained twenty-two letters of the alphabet, and my sequence ended with the G in “Holding” equaling V. Four letters remained without a coded equivalent: W, X, Y, Z. I looked back through the letters of the sentence. Four hadn’t been included in Fitzgerald’s sentence: J, Q, X, and Z. I assigned them to the missing letters of the alphabet and wound up with Z=Z, the equation written in the margin. I clapped my hands with satisfaction.

  “What is it?” Nakayla called from her office.

  “That sentence in The Great Gatsby generated an alphabet that fits the Z=Z equation. I’m pretty sure I’ve broken the code.”

  “How do you hope to use it?” She’d walked to my doorway and leaned against the jamb. “Keith will grab the lockbox at his first opportunity.”

  I held up my worksheet with the two columns of letters. “I’ve got this. Hernandez and his people might have Ethel’s lockbox with them, or once we bring Efird in the picture, he’ll probably find it where they’ve been staying. He’ll want the contents decoded if only to help build his murder case.”