Dying Embers

by Robert E. Bailey

  The coffee machine dispensed cups printed with poker hands. I got a busted flush. Before the coffee was cool enough to drink, the lieutenant hard-heeled the boards into the bus terminal with Fairchild and another deputy in lockstep.

  Lieutenant Ross was black and slim with one of those ageless, clean shaven faces that, just now, was a mask of determination. He wore a blue serge three-piece suit. His unbuttoned jacket breezed about as he approached, revealing a gold watch chain on his vest, a gold detective shield on his belt, and a fat nine millimeter on his hip. Five or six strides away he started talking. “Mr. Hardin, I’d like you to come over to the sheriff’s office.”

  “Am I under arrest?”

  “I’ll arrest you if that’s what you want.”

  I stood up. “Well, if I’m under arrest, let’s go.”

  “You’re not under arrest,” he said.

  I sat back down.

  “I just want to review your statement,” Ross said.

  I patted the bench next to me. “Sit. Talk. I explained what happened to Deputy Fairchild, but if there’s something you don’t understand—I’m your guy.”

  The lieutenant worked up a serious scowl. “It would be better to do this across the street. More private. Just one detective to another.” The detective part came off on the ragged edge of a short ration of civility.

  “Lieutenant Ross,” I said, and waited a couple of beats while I tried for a sympathetic face. “What you want to do is take me across the street and jerk me around. You want to run a tape recorder while you ask me a lot of questions that you already know the answers to. You hope that I will lie to you, say something stupid—maybe even incriminating. Let me assure you, I haven’t broken the law, and I have nothing to hide. I’m just not in the mood. If you have some questions, sit! Ask!”

  The lieutenant put his hands in his pants pockets, rose up on his toes and studied me with his lips pressed into a taut line. When he rested his heels back on the floor he said, “All right.”

  I sipped my coffee. “Buy you a cup?”

  “Keeps me up,” Ross said. He nodded at the deputies. They left. “I want to know about the gun.”

  “Detonics .45 caliber auto loader, serial number 6117—belongs to me. But you know that. You already ran the registration.”

  “Why do you have a gun?”

  “Second Amendment.”

  “Why did you bring a gun to Brandonport, Iowa?”

  “I came here to work. I’m a detective.”

  “You’re a detective in Michigan,” said Ross.

  “I’m pursuing a case that started in Michigan. Iowa has reciprocity with Michigan on both my private ticket and my permit to carry.”

  “I’m not so sure about that.”

  “Call the State Police. I did.”

  “You have to check in with us,” said Ross.

  “Had a little problem at the airport,” I said and took another sip of my coffee.

  Ross smiled. “You know a woman by the name of Betty Simmons?”

  “There was a lady by the name of Betty at the shop where I bought this hat and shirt. Don’t know her last name.”

  “When did you buy the hat and shirt?”

  “When I got off the airplane.”

  “How long after?”

  “Immediately.”

  Ross sat on the bench across from me, folded his hands in his lap, and studied me. Finally he said, “Here’s my problem. I ran the pistol, like you said, then I ordered an NCIC. While I was waiting, I teletyped for your DMV information. I got your date of birth and your height and weight. Now I’m looking at you. I had a different picture in mind.”

  I took the hat off and showed him the dangling hair piece. “Ponytail comes with the hat.”

  “I’d like to see your driver’s license,” said Ross.

  I dug out my wallet.

  “While you’re at it,” he said, “let me see your private ticket and your permit to carry.”

  I gave him the cards, and he did a couple of takes between me and the pictures. He said, “Where’s the moustache?”

  “In the drain at the airport men’s room.”

  He took out a pad and started to copy the license numbers and expiration dates from my private ticket and my concealed pistols permit. While he wrote he asked, “So what do you do, lift weights or what? I’m in the gym three times a week and can’t bulk up like that.”

  “I work the street. You get soft, you get hurt. I’ve just been doing it longer than you.”

  He rolled his eyes up to meet mine and said, “I’ve been doing it for eighteen years.”

  “Exactly my point.”

  He handed the cards back. “So what are you doing in Brandonport?”

  “I came here to find someone.”

  Ross twisted his head and said, “You need a gun to find someone?”

  “You need a gun to talk to a man in a bus station?”

  “My job,” said Ross with a positive nod of his head, “requires me to wear a gun.”

  I played with my hat and did my best Dennis Weaver, “There you go.”

  Ross stared at me like he didn’t get it, or it wasn’t funny if he did. He put his pen away. “You going to tell me who you’re looking for or claim privilege?”

  “Jacob Anderson. I’d claim privilege, but I want your help.”

  “Don’t know him,” said Ross. “This a domestic thing?”

  “Mr. Anderson is an undercover operative. He was doing an industrial undercover when he disappeared about a week ago.”

  “This a drug thing?”

  “Industrial espionage. Mr. Anderson worked for the Dixon agency here in Brandonport, but his undercover job was up in Wisconsin.”

  “I know Dixon,” he said. “He’s retired from the Bureau. Why don’t you just ask him?”

  “Did that. Dixon doesn’t know where Anderson is and doesn’t seem very concerned about it either.”

  “So how did you get involved?”

  “My client ran the operation, Dixon just subcontracted the labor.”

  “So who’s your client?”

  “Privileged.”

  “I thought industrial espionage was against the law.”

  “It certainly is. We were doing a counter-espionage job.”

  Ross hauled out his pad and pen again. “Jacob who?”

  “Anderson,” I said. “a.k.a, Jack Anders, 8-14-76, I don’t know his social security number. I was planning to visit Dixon in the morning and review Jack’s personnel file for some leads.”

  Ross wrote it down but kept the pad and pen out. “You told Betty that you were a secret agent,” he said and looked up from his pad and grinned.

  “A joke,” I said. “Sometimes the best cover is the truth, especially if the interviewee isn’t likely to believe it. I had to explain why I was removing my shirt, tie, and jacket while she was ringing up this T-shirt and hat.”

  “You said you were part of a murder mystery tour.”

  “She suggested the idea so I let her believe it.”

  Ross thumbed up a couple of pages in his pad. “That was right after you got off the plane.”

  “Immediately.”

  “That’s what you said before.”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “Was the terminal already dark?” asked Ross.

  “No.”

  “Why did you change your clothes?”

  “I wanted to change my profile,” I said.

  “Why?”

  “There was a fellow on the airplane with me that I’d seen once too often.”

  “You were being followed?” asked Ross.

  “Maybe.”

  “What makes you think this man was following you?”

  “The little hairs on the back of my neck,” I said.

  Ross blinked. “So what did you do when he got off the airplane?”

  “Watched him.”

  Ross wrote a short note. “What did he do?”

  “He picked up his bag and went outs
ide. He watched the baggage carousel through the window, talked on a cell phone.”

  “Anything else?”

  “He lit up a cigarette.”

  “So he was outside the terminal.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Ross made another small note. “You felt that this man’s actions were threatening to you?”

  “I thought he was watching the baggage carousel and waiting for me to pick up my bags.”

  “How would he know what your luggage looked like?”

  “They were the only ones left.”

  Ross twisted his head and tapped on the pad with the point of his pen. Without looking up he said, “So when did he come back into the terminal?”

  “I don’t know that he did. I was at the bank machine when the lights went out. I lost track of him. The machine ate my bank card.”

  “He’s not the man who ran off with your baggage?” asked Ross. This time he looked up and fixed hard eyes on me.

  “Absolutely not.”

  “What did you do when you caught the man who stole your bags?” Ross made the question sound like an accusation—a question he should have asked casually. His third mistake, but who’s counting?

  “Someone yelled, ‘Fire!’ and there was a panic at the door. I never got near him. I was lucky to keep my feet while I backed out of the crowd.”

  “That’s what you told Deputy Fairchild,” said Ross, still with some heat in his voice. Deputy Fairchild brushed in the door and headed for us at a determined gait.

  “That’s what I told Deputy Fairchild three times. How many more times would you like to hear it?” My coffee had cooled. I took a long drink.

  “Just one,” said Ross. He snapped his pad shut and put it away. “I want you to come over to the sheriff’s office and give me a written statement.”

  “You don’t get a written statement unless you read me my rights,” I said. “If you read me my rights, you get a very short statement about how you can direct your questions to my attorney.”

  “Lieutenant!” said Fairchild.

  Ross was on his feet and reaching for his handcuffs. He looked at Fairchild. Fairchild wagged his head in the negative.

  “What?” asked Ross in a clipped tone, leaning toward Fairchild.

  “We got the security tapes from the airport, and we got your NCIC back on Hardin,” Fairchild said. “You better look at ‘em first.”

  I heard the cover snap back down on Ross’s handcuffs. He turned and looked at me, his hands folded in front of him. “I don’t suppose you’d mind being our guest for a few minutes?”

  “Nah,” I said. “I’ll follow you over. I want my property, all of my property, and I want it double quick.” I stood up. “And if I don’t get it, you will be in a courtroom—a federal courtroom—and I’ll be sitting next to the jury. You’ll be the one sitting on your thumb trying to look intelligent.”

  Ross’s eyes went wide and hot. His mouth drooped open slightly as he leaned toward me, inhaled, and said, “Nobody talks to me that way.”

  “Sure they do,” I said. “Your mother did. Your drill sergeant did, and your wife still does.”

  “My wife is none of your business!”

  I smiled and looked from Ross to Fairchild and back. Fairchild’s face colored red. Ross looked sideways at Fairchild and then back at me. He straightened back to the vertical. His neck and shoulders relaxed. He pointed at Fairchild.

  “Fairchild’s wife talks to him that way,” Ross said. “My wife doesn’t talk to me that way.”

  “You’re a lucky man,” I said, “because mine does. Only she points her finger while she’s doing it.”

  We laughed and went across the street. Jaywalked, this time. Folks actually slowed down and changed lanes.

  Betty sat on a bench in the waiting room of the sheriff’s office. I gave her a wink and a smile, but she looked away as we passed. Ross and the deputy led me down a lime green hallway and I heard footsteps in the waiting room behind us.

  “Can I go now?” Betty asked. “They said I could go after he walked by and saw me sitting here.”

  A male voice answered. “Not yet. Please just wait. The stenographer needs you to sign your statement. She’s almost done.”

  Ross pushed open a wooden door with a frosted glass window and led us into an interview room furnished with a gray metal table and a couple of straight-backed wooden chairs. A stanchion fan guarded the corner next to the barred windows. The table was set with a video recorder and monitor. A manila folder lay abandoned on the top of the recorder.

  “This is from the security camera that’s aimed at the main door over at the airport,” said Fairchild. He flipped on the monitor and the player and hit the play button on the recorder.

  Time lapse video, in black and white, wiped a fresh picture across the screen every three seconds. The man with my bags lurched across the screen. A crowd appeared at the door in two wipes. The man with my bags was tall, and you could see his head above the crowd. On the next wipe the head was gone. Fairchild turned off the player.

  “I’ve done this a frame at a time,” Fairchild said. “No silly hat and no head with that bald spot in the back.”

  “It’s pretty dim,” Ross said.

  “I turned the contrast all the way up,” Fairchild told him.

  “What bald spot?”

  “The one on the back of your head,” Ross said.

  “Oh, that one. I keep the hair combed over that.”

  Ross gave me a deadpan face. “Are you saying you’re on that tape?” he asked.

  “I’m saying that if I were on that tape I would already have my luggage. Somebody tune this guy up? What are you trying to finger me with?”

  Ross picked up the folder and opened it. “Shit,” he said. He threw it back on the table. He pointed a finger at me. “Whatever kind of happy horse-shit you people are up to, you don’t do it here. You don’t do it in Brandonport.”

  “What are you talking about?” I asked.

  Ross handed me the folder. I looked at it and handed it back.

  “I’m retired,” I said. “I guess my clearance isn’t. I’m doing exactly what I told you I was doing. I’m a private investigator working for a private client.”

  “What about Gus Harris?”

  “I don’t know anyone by that name.”

  “He’s a local drug informant and petty thief,” Ross said. “He’s the man who stole your bags.”

  “And?”

  “And someone with a lot of upper body strength—someone who knew exactly what he was doing—got behind him in that crowd and snapped his neck like a chicken.”

  10

  GO TOWARD THE LIGHT. I think that’s the usual advice. In Brandonport the only light showing was the bus terminal—a veritable Las Vegas in a sea of empty streets, darkened shops, and rolled-up sidewalks. I jaywalked my luggage across the street and hoped that heading for the light worked out better for me than it did for the insects that visited the bug zapper on my deck at home.

  “You can’t stay here unless you have a ticket,” said the clerk from behind the counter. His blue uniform jacket didn’t quite make the trip around his belly. He had sleep in his eyes and the map of Ireland on his face.

  “Great,” I said. “What’s the first bus in the morning?”

  “Davenport,” he said. “Leaves at seven-thirty.”

  “How much for a ticket to Davenport?”

  “Seven bucks.”

  “Just right,” I said, “I’ll have a ticket for Davenport.”

  “Ticket counter opens at six A.M.”

  “So how come you’re open?” I asked.

  “Western Union,” he said, “and the Omaha bus comes in at two-thirty.”

  “You don’t mind if I use the telephone?”

  He pointed a thumb to his left. “Knock yourself out.”

  I used my card to call home. Ben answered and said Wendy was at the high school to see the play.

  “Tell her the ATM ate my debit ca
rd and to wire me some money. I’m at the bus terminal in Brandonport.”

  He reminded me that the only Western Union in Belding was at the Covered Village Mall and that it didn’t open until morning. He didn’t know what time exactly.

  “Not to worry,” I said. “I’ll be here in the morning. What are you up to?”

  “Nothing,” he said.

  “How’s that game you were playing—the one where the guy has to find the horse and the flute?”

  “I had to start over. I picked up all the treasure in the present. The trick is to play the flute to get into the future and pick up the treasure—so you can pick it up again in the present and then go into the past and pick it up again.”

  “Sounds complicated,” I said.

  “That’s the only way you can buy enough bombs and arrows to finish the game. I finally figured out how to beat the guardian at the last gate. I’ll show you when you get home.”

  “Cool. Have you got a pencil?”

  “I’ll get one,” he said.

  When he came back to the telephone I gave him the information Wendy needed to wire me some cash and finished with, “Give your mom a big hug and kiss for me.”

  “I’ll tell her you said hello,” he said, and hung up.

  The big lockers were fifty cents. The two suiter went in because it was scrunchable. The green bag with the firearm tag had disappeared en route—fancy that. And the bag of clothes that Ross had gotten from Betty also fit, but the locker just wasn’t deep enough for the suitcase.

  I went back to the counter and found a sign that read, “Ring bell for service.” I could hear the clerk snoring. He lay stretched out on a baggage cart. I left his bell unrung and found a bench—one where I had my back to the wall. I draped one leg across the luggage and tipped my hat over my face to check my eyelids for pin holes. Any crap from the clerk and I’d tell him I was waiting for a wire. Until then, I’d follow his lead. A good idea doesn’t care who has it.

  • • •

  Three men stood in front of me. The man in the middle had a revolver on his hip. I’m not sure why I opened my eyes but I closed them again. Someone made throat clearing noises. I opened my eyes again. They were still there.

  “We want your suitcase,” said the man with the gun, his arms folded over a blue security guard shirt with the sleeves rolled up past his elbows. Grizzled but mostly gray hair hung to his shoulders. Lines cut deep into his face and across the bridge of a nose that from my angle, looked as big as Lincoln’s on Mt. Rushmore.