9 More Killer Thrillers

by Russell Blake

  “Why, God? Why?” he said.

  He sat there like that, leaned back in the chair and watching the ceiling for a long time. After a while, I started looking at the ceiling above Gunner’s chair, too.

  “You expecting an answer?” I asked.

  Gunner kept staring upward, but a quiet convulsion in his torso turned into a chuckle and then a laugh. It was the kind of laugh that made others suspect the laugher was losing his marbles. I don’t think he meant it to sound that way.

  “You okay?” I asked quite seriously.

  Gunner’s laughing tapered off. He righted his head and leaned forward, reaching for the cheese Danish he’d bitten into earlier. I watched as he chewed and swallowed a chunk of pastry, washing it down with a gulp of tepid java.

  At least he was taking nourishment.

  “Okay, Beck,” he said at last. “I guess I needed to blow off some steam. I’m good now.” Gunner dabbed at his forehead with a napkin. “Thanks for the sweets, by the way,” he said, toasting me with the half-eaten Danish.

  “Never let it be said I didn’t do the least I could do,” I replied, adding my coffee cup to the salute.

  “Can we talk business now?” I asked. “I’d like to fill you in on some things, and pick your brain on a few others.”

  “Right,” Gunner said, adjusting his seating position for maximum comfort. “What’s up?”

  “Did you hear about the fire at Rodney’s place last night?”

  “Yeah. It was in the sheriff’s morning report. Barn and some animals lost. What about it?”

  I paused to choose my words.

  “I was out there, at Rodney’s, before the fire,” I said.

  “I assume you mean you were out there again, after our visit yesterday morning.”

  “Uh huh,” I said. “I was sort of following up on the stolen meteor. You haven’t heard any more about that by any chance, have you?”

  “No. And local law enforcement ain’t investigating either. His Highness, Agent Costa, left the impression that we small town goobers weren’t invited.”

  I understood Gunner’s irritation at being supplanted by out-of-towners.

  “That’s partly why I’m here. I think leaving the Sheriff’s Department out of the investigation is a mistake.”

  “Oh, really,” Gunner said, leaning back in his chair.

  “Yeah. And I’d like to shed some light on the situation for you . . . that is, if you goobers aren’t averse.” I smiled.

  Gunner chuckled.

  “I’m afraid it doesn’t work that way, Beck. Unless the feds invite us back in, we’ve gotta stay out. I do appreciate your gesture though.”

  “How about we forget about the feds and their investigation for now? I’m just a concerned citizen with a brand new matter.”

  Gunner appraised me with some apprehension.

  “And what might this ‘new matter’ be?”

  “I’m thinking of investing in cattle,” I said. “And I hear there’s somebody around here shooting at cows in the middle of the night.”

  Gunner laughed.

  “That’s pretty thin. I s’pose Benny Volnscheid’s your CI?”

  “What good would it be for me to have a Confidential Informant if I didn’t keep his . . . or her . . . identity confidential?” Who could argue with that?

  “Okay. You win,” Gunner said. “I’ll open a file. But what, exactly, do you want me to do about it?”

  “Just keep your ear to the ground. If you hear anything having to do with Rodney, or his meteor, or his cows, or his farm, or his barn, just let me know.”

  Gunner didn’t look too excited to be my eyes and ears.

  “And if I find out something like you mentioned,” Gunner said, “you’ll tell me how it fits into what you’re up to?”

  “Of course.” I opened my arms, palms up. Mi casa es su casa.

  “All right,” Gunner said. “I’ll keep my eyes peeled.”

  “Thanks a bunch, Gunner. I owe you one.” I stood to leave. “Keep the donuts, by the way.”

  “Of course,” he said.

  CHAPTER 21

  Ames, Iowa.

  Kent Evans had been searching the internet diligently every day since his visit to Holton’s farm to plant the virus in Holton’s cattle. Today, Google delivered. There were a number of articles that contained Holton’s name.

  Kent clicked on the first result.

  Farmer Loses Herd to Fire.

  Last night sometime after midnight, fire claimed a barn and beef herd in rural Ottawa County, Minnesota. Records indicate the farm is owned by Rodney Holton, a longtime area resident . . . .

  Kent scanned the rest of the article. It was unclear whether the entire herd had died, or whether at least a few had survived. It would be unusual for an entire herd of forty beef cattle to all be locked inside one barn at any time, let alone at the exact moment when a fire broke out. Some of them must have survived.

  He searched through other articles about the fire. None gave details about the number of head lost. And none mentioned anything about Foot and Mouth Disease.

  Damn, damn, damn!

  Kent’s heart pounded in his chest. His family’s future rested on the FMD he had planted at Holton’s farm, and broad publication of its discovery.

  The fire should have drawn a lot of attention to Holton’s cattle. The disease should be visible by now. Why was there no mention of FMD on the internet? Could the state of animal medicine in that county be so poor that no one noticed the lame animals or the blistering in their mouths?

  And now, if he was unlucky enough that the entire Holton herd had been destroyed by fire . . . . He couldn’t stand the thought. He had to find out.

  * * *

  He ducked out of his home office under the pretense of visiting a veterinary client. Sales calls were a normal part of Kent’s work days, so Jeannie hadn’t seemed suspicious.

  Kent decided the only way to guarantee that authorities would find his FMD outbreak was for him to contact them with an anonymous warning. He had read about terrorist groups using fake email accounts to communicate among themselves. If fake emails were secure enough for Al Qaeda, he reasoned, they would work for him, too.

  Using a free computer station at the Ames Public Library, Kent logged onto the internet as a library “Guest” and created a new webmail account under the name “US Forever.” Once the new email was up and running, Kent had to decide whom he should contact with his anonymous tip about the FMD at Holton’s farm. He considered notifying the FBI, the CDC, and Homeland Security, but ultimately decided on the local sheriff’s office as the most likely to take action in response to his warning.

  It took some digging, but he located an email address for the Ottawa County Sheriff and tapped out the following email:

  Dear Sheriff,

  I have come upon information about a terrorist attack in your county. Cattle belonging to Rodney Holton have been infected with the Foot and Mouth virus. If the herd isn’t destroyed promptly, the disease will spread rapidly.

  I urge you to act with all haste!

  A Patriot

  After reading the email over and correcting typos, Kent clicked on the “Send” button. To insure his continued anonymity, he wiped down the mouse and keyboard with his shirt.

  Now there was no way the authorities could overlook his private contagion. By evening, the FMD outbreak should be all over the internet . . . it had to be.

  CHAPTER 22

  Red Wing, Minnesota.

  On the way home from Gunner’s office I punched up Agent Costa’s cell. I didn’t know whether he’d be awake yet after the long night at Holton’s, but I thought I’d try.

  “Costa,” a gravelly voice answered.

  “Top o’ the mornin’ to ya, Constable. I trust you slept well?”

  “I got my three hours.” Costa cleared his throat. “Sorry. I haven’t had my coffee yet. You sound annoyingly chipper.”

  I swung the Pilot into my garage and shut off t
he engine.

  “Yeah,” I said. “There’s nothing like the smell of kerosene and burnt hide in one’s nostrils to start off the day.” It had been a grisly twenty-four hours. “I’m checking in to see whether you have anything new on the meteor robbery?”

  “You just saw me six hours ago.” Costa said, sounding a bit cranky. “Scratch that. Hold on, I’ll see if there is anything new.” He put me on hold. For a full three minutes I listened to the insanity-inducing sounds of a digital keyboard rendering Another One Bites the Dust. I was about to hang up when Costa returned.

  “Are you still there?”

  “Yeah . . . barely,” I said.

  “The latest I have is that the computer folks in the DC office are still crunching algorithms,” Costa said. “They have a satellite image of a car they think might belong to our POI.”

  “POI?”

  “Sorry. We used to call them UnSubs. Now they are Persons of Interest.”

  “Gotta shake it up once in a while, I guess,” I said, thinking exactly the opposite. “So can we check out the car’s owner . . . I mean, the POI . . . or are we waiting for him to drive our way?”

  “You know, Beck, you are not as funny as you think you are.”

  I’ve been told that before.

  “Like I said,” Costa continued, “DC is still working on the photo enhancement. They do not have a plate yet. And they may never get one, depending on the optical angle, light source, etcetera.”

  “A make and model then?” I said.

  “2012 or 2013 Toyota Corolla sedan. Black or dark green.”

  “Snazzy,” I said.

  “I don’t know what to do with that, Beck. Snazzy is not in my code book.”

  “Local vernacular,” I said.

  “Right.”

  “So you guys are gonna work on the plate for a while before you attempt to . . . uh . . . apprehend your POI?”

  “At least until that angle proves fruitless, Beck. Or sooner if it takes them too long.”

  I wondered what “too long” meant to the FBI. I had passed that intersection when I found out a biologic weapon might be missing.

  “Okay,” I said. “But keep me up to speed on new developments. All right?”

  “As much as I am able,” Costa said. “Need to know . . . you know.”

  “Righto!” I said. “We’ll chat later. Bye bye.”

  I disconnected Agent Costa.

  * * *

  Beth was in her attic artist’s retreat as I snuck up the stairway behind her. She was working on textiles today.

  “Hi, Babe,” she said, without looking up from her project. “Your sneaking needs some work.”

  “Rats,” I said, bounding up the last few steps, walking up behind Beth, and kissing her neck.

  She nudged me with her head.

  “Cut it out. I’m busy.”

  “A man tries and tries to let his woman know she’s appreciated, and what does he get?” I said. “He gets . . . .”

  “. . . demerits for bad timing?” Beth interrupted. I saw her reflection smiling in the window.

  “If that’s what you say, who am I to argue, My Love, My Dearest, My Queen of Everything.”

  Beth abandoned the jacket she’d been decorating and rotated her wooden stool.

  “You’re finally getting the hang of spousal worship . . . after all these years.” She smiled and stood to embrace me.

  She was just teasing with the “after all these years.” I’d always been properly worshipful. I liked the smiles and hugs.

  “When you’re done up here,” I said, “are you up for a round of computer sleuthing?”

  Still locked in a hug, she looked up at me.

  “I’ve always been a sucker for a good round of digital hide-and-seek. I tell you what . . . I’m going to finish detailing this jacket, and I’ll be down in fifteen minutes. Okay?” She broke free from my embrace and slipped back onto her work stool.

  “Nifty,” I said.

  * * *

  Precisely fifteen minutes later, Beth joined me at our kitchen table, easing her laptop computer onto the cool, black granite.

  “All right, Babe,” she said. “What are we looking for?” As she spoke, she cracked the lid of the computer and the screen came to life.

  “In the long run . . . Rodney’s meteor,” I said.

  Beth turned her head toward me. “And in the sprint?”

  “A car that was parked near Rodney’s farm two nights ago.”

  “Okay.” Beth readied her fingers on the keyboard. “What’s the license number?”

  “Don’t have that . . . at least, not yet.”

  “All right, let’s try make and model.”

  “Toyota Corolla sedan. 2012 or 2013. Black . . . or at least, dark.” If Costa’s surveillance team wasn’t sure if the car was black, how could they really know which dark color it was?

  Beth’s laptop paged through a few different screens, finally landing on one displaying a grid that listed owners of black Corollas.

  She looked over at me.

  “Wow. That’s a lot of Toyotas,” I said.

  Without turning back to the computer, Beth pressed the ArrowDown button. Rows and rows of owner names began scrolling up the computer’s display.

  “Oh,” I said. “Can we narrow these down to 2012 and 2013?”

  “These are just the 2013s,” she said. “The ones that are registered in Minnesota.”

  I winced. Beth was still looking at me.

  “If you know the trim options on your missing car, I might be able to knock this list down a little.”

  “Can’t you find the one that passed by a toll booth near Ottawa County? Or tanked up at a local gas station maybe?”

  Beth sat there, still looking at me, but gave no response.

  “What?” I said. “They do that kind of stuff on CSI all the time.”

  “When was the last time you paid a toll in Minnesota?” she asked.

  Maybe I hadn’t thought that one through. Minnesota has no toll roads.

  “But the gas station cameras? We must have those?” I tried.

  “Sure,” she said. “I’ll look them up on YouTube. It’ll be just a sec.”

  Since she hadn’t begun searching again on the computer, I assumed this was sarcasm and I just didn’t get the joke.

  I shrugged my shoulders and tried to look ignorant. It wasn’t a stretch for me in this instance.

  “Babe,” she said. “Gas stations record those camera feeds on video cassettes or hard drives, not on the web. And if they keep the recordings at all, they’re probably in some back room, next to the spare toilet paper.”

  “Huh,” I said.

  “Even if I could get copies of those tapes, how many gas stations would we be talking about? Maybe fifty?”

  “Maybe,” I said. “Maybe more.”

  “Every recording would have hours and hours of video to be reviewed manually just to watch for black Corollas. It’d take an army of investigators a week to get their hands on all the video and sort through it.”

  I was stumped.

  “I’m sorry, Babe,” Beth said, “but I can’t just Google ‘black corolla at Rodney Holton’s farm’ and find your car. I need more to go on.”

  I stared at the worthless computer.

  “Crap,” I said.

  Beth was sympathetic. “Yeah,” she said. “Crap.”

  “Beth, there’s gotta be something more we can do . . . you can do.” I studied her face for signs of hope.

  She turned back to her computer.

  “I’ll search Ebay. Maybe the thief is trying to sell the meteor.”

  I laughed. It was a laugh of complete frustration.

  “I don’t think that’s gonna help, Beth,” I said. “That’s how the FBI zeroed in on Rodney in the first place. Might be how the thief did it, too. I doubt we’ll see that meteor for sale any time soon.”

  “Maybe the key words I should be searching are ‘biological attack.’” Beth was dead ser
ious.

  “Let’s pray it doesn’t come to that, shall we?” There was a sinking feeling in my gut, and I was pretty sure I wouldn’t sleep well until that North Korean “meteor” had been found.

  * * *

  My prediction of a poor night’s sleep proved to be accurate, and I was still tossing in bed when my cell rang. I grabbed the phone from my night stand and fumbled it onto the bedspread.

  “Good morning, Babe,” Beth said sweetly as she rolled out of bed and shuffled toward the bathroom.

  I reacquired the phone and squinted at the Caller ID. It was Gunner.

  “Tell me you’ve got some good news,” I said, answering the call.

  “Good morning to you, too,” Gunner said. “Hope I didn’t wake you.”

  “Nah. Well . . . actually, you did. But don’t worry about it. I’ve just got stuff on my mind. Didn’t sleep much last night.”

  “Hold on,” Gunner said. “What’s that sound I hear in the background?”

  I listened. “I don’t hear anything.”

  “I think it’s a bunch of tiny violins playing the world’s saddest song.” Gunner chuckled.

  “Somebody taught you a new joke, huh? I hope you enjoy it.”

  “Oh, I do,” Gunner said, laughing louder now.

  I put my phone on speaker and set it on the night stand, waiting for the Chief Deputy to regain professional composure. Eventually, he did.

  “Beck,” he said. “Becker. You still there?”

  “Yeah, I’m here. Now, was there some reason you called, or were you just itching to try out your new trick?”

  “Ahem.” Phlegm rattled through the phone.

  “Thanks, Gunner. That sounded delightful.”

  “Uh, sorry ‘bout that. Coffee grounds.”

  “You’re forgiven,” I said. “So what have you got?” I was fully awake now.

  “You wanted me to call if I happened to come across any info about Holton or his farm, right?” Gunner said.

  “Right.”

  “Well, I got something,” Gunner said. “And it’s coming into the LEC to meet with me at 10:00 o’clock. You can join us if you wanna.”

  “Who is it?” I asked.