“How so?” Kel asked.
Deveroux smiled and looked at Kel. “Because, bubba, I sure did feel like kickin’ his ass last night. That’s a fact.”
“Do us both a favor, Shuck, why don’t you keep that little tidbit to yourself.”
“Plan to.”
“Just the same, it doesn’t hurt that you have General Fick as an alibi.”
The truck’s speedometer cable began to whine. Deveroux had to raise his voice to be heard. “You may be jokin’, but there may be some truth in that. You’ll get a chance to meet him, by the way.”
“Who? You mean Fick?” Kel shouted back.
“Yeah. I figured the cops would want to talk to him once they found out he’d been there with me. I know I would. Pays to be proactive sometimes. I gave him a call while I was waitin’ on you to get dressed. He said he’d meet us there.”
Kel nodded but didn’t venture shouting out a response.
The street was filled with people. Most were talking among themselves and pointing dramatically in various directions as they watched ribbons of smoke and steam curl up and off the blackened shell of Ngo Van Thu’s house, but others were watching several heavily suited firemen roll up hoses and stow various pieces of equipment on the one fire truck that remained on site. An orange-colored sawhorse sat in the street, shunting vehicular traffic onto long, looping detours around the block. Shuck Deveroux was forced to park on a side street almost two hundred yards away.
As Deveroux and Kel approached the barricade, a large uniformed policeman who’d been standing on the sidewalk talking to a young female jogger saw them and yelled for them to hold up. As he hurried out to meet them, his swollen belly stretched his shirt to the point that it resembled a ripe melon.
Deveroux had his badge ready, and he flashed it in an effort to forgo a confrontation. “It’s okay, officer, I’m lookin’ for a Detective Rugelo, Lieutenant Larry Rugelo. Supposed to meet him here. He around?”
The officer slackened his hurry but kept approaching, his eyes squinting at the strange-shaped gold badge being held up by a man in blue jeans and dirty Chuck Taylor high-tops. “Ahh, yeah. Lieutenant’s over by the fire truck. Blue warmup suit. Bad disposition.” He acknowledged the fact that Deveroux and Kel had showed no intention of stopping by waving them on as if he were giving permission. “You two are clear. Be sure to sign in. Proceed.”
As they approached the fire truck they saw Detective Rugelo, a short man with graying Brillo-pad hair and thick glasses that resembled wire-framed ice cubes, talking to a middle-aged couple in matching blue Sierra Club T-shirts, khaki shorts, and snow-white Nike walking shoes. They had a small ugly dog that resembled a dirty mop on a leash. Whatever the couple was telling Rugelo, he was interested enough, or compulsively anal enough, to take copious notes. Several yards behind him, on the sidewalk across from the smoldering husk of Ngo’s home, hands in the pockets of his blue windbreaker, stood Paul Fick.
Deveroux paused at Rugelo’s side long enough to discern the detective’s rapt attention before taking hold of Kel’s arm and walking over to the sidewalk beside Fick. “Mornin’, General,” he said as he turned slightly to capture Kel’s eye. “Sir, this is Dr. McKelvey of the Central ID Lab in Hawaii—we call him Kel. Kel, this is Brigadier General Paul Fick.”
As Kel shook hands, he felt a strange knobbiness and looked down to see the shiny, hard nubs that made up Fick’s mangled right hand. He looked up quickly when he realized that he’d been staring. “Pleased to meet you, General Fick.”
“Doctor.”
“Shuck here says y’all have a mutual interest in Jimmy Tenkiller. Me too. The lab, I mean.”
“Is that so?” Fick asked. “What interest does the laboratory in Hawaii have in Tenkiller? As I recall, your unit deals with MIAs. Is that correct?”
“Yes, sir. MIAs and KIAs both. Tenkiller’s a KIA-BNR. Killed In Action, Body Not Recovered.” Kel answered quickly, almost nervously. He’d misjudged Fick. From a distance, the general’s outward appearance suggested a frailty, almost feebleness, but the gray, mottled eyes that now took Kel’s measure radiated the crisp intensity of a live circuit.
“Of course.” Fick smiled. There was no trace of humor. “I remember. I simply didn’t think that the army was spending its resources to look for him.”
“We don’t pick the cases, General,” Kel responded defensively. “He’s on the list; he’s our responsibility.”
Fick nodded. He understood all too well. His eyes lingered on Kel briefly and then shifted back to the remains of the house. He was finished with the conversation. Kel paused, and then he too turned and looked at the smoking rubble. Deveroux did likewise.
“I’m guessing you’re Agent Deveroux,” a voice behind them said.
Deveroux turned. Detective Rugelo had finished talking to the Sierra Club couple and was standing behind, one hand outstretched, the other holding a small green notebook. His thick glasses made his green eyes look like cat’s-eye marbles.
“Yes, sir,” Deveroux said, shaking hands. “That’s right. You’d be Lieutenant Rugelo. Glad to meet you, sir. Got a real mess here, looks like.”
Rugelo nodded, his eyes watching Deveroux closely. “Could say that. Things have changed somewhat from when we spoke earlier.”
“How so?” Deveroux responded. Kel had taken notice of the conversation and was now close to Deveroux’s shoulder, openly eavesdropping. Deveroux noticed. “Oh, by the way, Lieutenant, this here’s Dr. Robert McKelvey, head of the Army Central ID Lab. Kel, this is Detective Lieutenant Rugelo, Rolla PD. He’s the one I mentioned earlier.”
“Hey.” Kel nodded.
Rugelo nodded back and then re-engaged Deveroux. “Wasn’t sure before, but now it appears that we’re dealing with a probable homicide.”
Kel and Deveroux exchanged a look. “What changed to make you think that, Lieutenant?” Deveroux asked.
“Hadn’t talked to the fire marshal when I first called you. Now he tells me he doesn’t think this was an accident. He’s sure it wasn’t, in fact.” Small nods made it clear that he was referring to the fire, lest there be any misunderstanding.
“Arson?”
“You got it,” Rugelo replied. “And if it wasn’t an accident, then that means Mr. Thu’s death probably wasn’t an accident. Appears he was murdered.”
Deveroux nodded. “How’s he know it was arson?”
“Now, Agent Deveroux, that’s the fire marshal’s business, not mine. But as I understand it, the pattern of the fire, where it started and how it spread, all that indicates it was intentionally set. He also thinks he found some evidence of an accelerant. He’ll run some tests later, but he’s relatively sure right now. Coroner’s boys are in there with him right now getting the body out. They say it’s pretty burned up.”
Kel waited for a pause and then spoke. “Probably none of my business, but maybe Ngo—or Mr. Thu—maybe he set the fire. Just ’cause it’s arson doesn’t make it murder.”
“You a cop? Doctor…”
“McKelvey. No, sir. Forensic anthropologist.”
Rugelo nodded slowly as if suddenly everything had come into focus for him. “I see. Well, Dr. McKelvey, no offense, but I suspect you’re right about this not being your business. I’m just a poor small-town cop, but I don’t think Mr. Thu is responsible for burning his self up.”
“Why not?” Deveroux rejoined the conversation. At some level, he figured it was his business.
Rugelo pointed over to his left at what had once been a garage. “You know what that is, Agent Deveroux? How about you, Dr. McKelvey?”
“Looks like a garage. What’s left of one,” Deveroux replied.
“Correct,” Rugelo said. “That’s what we call around here a two-car garage. Now, what else do you see?”
Deveroux and Kel looked at each other and then at the garage. They looked at each other again and then back at Rugelo. Deveroux shrugged.
“Nothing?” Rugelo asked. “If that’s your answer, then you
’re right. Nothing. As in no cars. See, the Thus owned two cars.” He paused while he flipped a page in his notebook. “A blue 2006 Cadillac Seville and a white 2007 Lincoln Town Car. Both of which, as you have just observed, are missing.”
“Mr. Ngo, I mean Thu, whatever we’re callin’ him this mornin’, told me last night that his wife was visitin’ friends up in St. Louis,” Deveroux countered.
“One down,” Rugelo said. “That leaves one car unaccounted for.”
“Maybe it’s in the shop,” Kel volunteered.
“Maybe,” Rugelo answered. He clearly didn’t have any patience with Kel. “But you saw that couple I was talking to when you arrived? Nice folks. Live down there,” he pointed to the right. “Couple doors up from the intersection. They’ve gotten interested in fitness recently. Walk around the block three, sometimes four nights a week. Nice folks. So nice in fact that when they saw a strange pickup truck with out-of-state plates on it parked across the street several nights in a row, they didn’t think it was their place to report it. They took note of it, but they didn’t report it.”
“They get the tag number?” Deveroux asked.
“No. Not entirely anyway. The wife, now she remembers it as having an Indian shield with feathers on it. That’d make it an Oklahoma license. She also remembers it beginning E-T-T. Also thinks it might have been red.”
“You run the plate?”
“Doing it now, but with only a partial, it’ll take a while.”
“Interestin’,” Shuck Deveroux said with an affected air of finality. “Still doesn’t mean it’s a homicide. I mean, that still doesn’t explain the missin’ car.”
“Oh, no?” Rugelo’s temper began to flame up. “Really? And so just why were you visiting Mr. Thu last night, Agent Deveroux? What was the purpose of your visit? As I recall, you told me you were working on a serial homicide involving several of Mr. Thu’s former acquaintances. Cut the bullshit, Deveroux. You’re on my turf now, and I happen to have the burned body of a very important resident of this town on my hands, and that isn’t doing much for my disposition. I don’t give a flying dog fuck who you or Dr. Doolittle here are, but I want more answers and less evasion. You understanding me?”
“Fair enough,” Deveroux responded. “I’ll make you a deal, Detective Rugelo. I’ll sit down with you and answer any questions you got, and in return, you let Doc McKelvey here take a look at Ngo’s body.” He turned to look at Kel. “That okay by you, cowboy?”
Kel nodded, careful not to rub the detective’s patience any more raw than it already was.
“No. Wrong answer,” Rugelo replied, “I’m dealing the cards here. Instead, how ’bout you tell me what I want to know because you were the last person to see Mr. Thu alive and because if you don’t, I’ll park my car sideways up your ass and open the doors? How ’bout that? You do that, and then maybe we can talk deals. And as to letting your doctor buddy here look at the body, that’s not my business. In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m standing in the street along with you three stooges. Why? Because until the fire marshal gives me a thumbs up, this is his scene, and until the coroner says so, nobody even goes close to the body. That’s how it works in Rolla, Missouri, Agent Deveroux. This isn’t a military installation; you have no jurisdiction here. And furthermore…” Rugelo was interrupted by his cell phone ringing. He took it out of his pocket and checked the number before answering. “Yeah, Lieutenant Rugelo. Yeah. Yeah,” he plugged one ear with an index finger and turned away from Deveroux, hunching his shoulders as he spoke. He stepped away. “What? How long ago?”
Deveroux looked over at Kel only to see that he’d bailed out of what was taking on the appearance of an ass-chewing and had joined Fick in watching two heavyset men wearing rubber gloves carry a blue vinyl body bag out of the jagged opening that had once been the front door. The men stepped carefully, treading past smoking embers and chunks of fallen bricks and half-charred wooden beams, and struggled to lift the bag into the back of a white cargo van. Behind him, Deveroux could hear Rugelo saying, “Give me that again,” and, “How do you know?”
“Since you’ve got everythin’ here under control, I’m goin’ to go see if I can make the acquaintance of the coroner,” Kel turned his head and said to Deveroux. He put his hands in his pockets and started walking down what was left of the brick walkway toward a silver-haired man who a minute before had been giving directions to the men with the body bag. “I sure would like to take a look-see at the remains,” he said over his shoulder.
“Good idea,” Deveroux agreed. “Don’t go too far, though. The way it’s lookin’, the general and I may need you to post bail for us.” He smiled and gave a sideward flip of his head to indicate his reference to Rugelo.
“Well, Agent Deveroux,” Lieutenant Rugelo said, snapping his phone closed almost as if cued and walking back to where the men were standing. “Seems like one of us just got very lucky. This is now officially your case.”
Kel stopped and turned back.
“My case? How so?” Deveroux asked Rugelo.
“We just found the mystery truck. The one that couple saw parked here.”
“Where?”
Rugelo smiled without a trace of humor. “Right smack in the middle of Fort Wood. I believe that puts the ball back in your court.”
“Fort Leonard Wood?” Deveroux’s eyes met Kel’s, and then refocused on Rugelo. “Y’all get a hit on the plate?”
“We did.”
Deveroux waited for elaboration. When none came, he sighed. “How about a little help here, Detective? Now that I’m off your suspect list.”
Rugelo worked the muscles in his jaw; then he looked again at the notation he’d made in his notebook. “It’s registered to a Mr. Eddie Tenkiller of Onapa, Oklahoma.”
CHAPTER 55
Fort Leonard Wood, Missouribr
THURSDAY, APRIL 24, 2008
The speedometer cable screamed the whole way.
From what he’d been able to pry out of Detective Rugelo and what he’d gathered from talking to the provost marshal on Fort Wood, Deveroux had at least the basics of the situation understood by the time he arrived on the scene. Fick was with him, Kel having opted to accompany the coroner and the body to the morgue in hopes of picking up at least one puzzle piece.
Fort Leonard Wood was locked down tight when they arrived and they were forced to use the shoulder of the road and their horn to get past the almost mile-long line of waiting cars. When they finally reached the gate, Deveroux’s CID badge and Fick’s ID card, which indicated he was a general officer, proved effective, and the gate had swung open with much saluting and hardly any questions. They were headed for the new multimillion-dollar Army Reserve and National Guard Multipurpose Training Center under construction. The provost marshal had given him directions on the phone, and Fick once again knew his way around post, so they found it quickly. The situation, as it had been explained to Deveroux, was that the construction crew had shown up for work as usual, and found the gate to the chain-link fence surrounding the project site standing wide open. Not a big deal except for the person whose job it was to make sure it was locked down at night, but when the foreman attempted to open the multipurpose building, he found the door barricaded from inside with a thick sheet of plywood. When he finally finished cussing and tried forcing the door, someone inside fired two shots. No one was injured, but the mass confusion that had followed was predictable; every MP and would-be MP for a hundred square miles had descended on the location, all anxious for a piece of the most exciting thing to hit post in fifty years. And there were lots of MPs—Fort Wood being the home of the Military Police Training Center.
Deveroux knew he had found the right location when he saw the cars. Every official vehicle on post—cars, trucks, Humvees, hundreds, it seemed—was arrayed across the landscape with all the organization of a derailed circus train. People were milling about as well, coming and going and spinning in random circular patterns, working in and out between the cars, some be
ing pulled along by big, muscular German shepherds, everyone laden with clanking guns and creaking leather and squawking radios, everyone yelling Hooah and Sir, yes, sir. All that seemed lacking was the cotton-candy hawkers. Deveroux pulled his truck over the curb and braked to a stop on a grassy field a hundred yards away from the outer ring of vehicles. He didn’t wait for Fick but went sprinting toward the thickest clot of people.
“Halt,” a young sergeant, replete in flak vest, Kevlar helmet, and M-16 rifle intercepted him with a challenge. Deveroux had been so focused that he hadn’t seen where the soldier had come from. “This area is controlled access. You will turn your vehicle around and wait back there.” He made a chopping motion with his right hand, fingers held out straight like a knife blade, toward the field where Deveroux had just parked.
In his blue jeans and old, white cotton shirt, Shuck Deveroux realized that the young guard probably assumed he was either one of the construction workers or a gawker. He slackened his stride slightly and held his badge up where the soldier could see it clearly. “Agent Deveroux. CID,” he said. “I’ve got this scene.”
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