by Tom Fowler
"I did some asking about you," White said. "Talked to a Captain Sharpe in Baltimore."
"Leon is a big fan," I said.
"He told me you're a self-impressed rogue with no regard for process."
"He sometimes couches his fandom in tough talk."
White said, "Well, he did also say you're smart and tenacious."
"I told you. He has a foam finger with my name on it."
"Just make sure you keep us in the loop."
"You're not going to investigate?" I said.
"It's been ruled a suicide," White said. "I get your point about the guys coming to visit you, but that's not enough to reopen the case."
I preferred them staying out of it. Rich and I were more likely to find the truth unencumbered by the deputies' investigation. "I'm sure we'll keep you informed," I said.
"Be sure you do. We can haul you down here again. Having a chat with the mayor won't save you from an obstruction charge."
So the sheriff's department, or at least White, knew about our talk with Ken Dennehy. Interesting.
"Noted," I said.
***
Rich and I sat in my motel room after the deputies let us go. I sat on the bed. If lounging on it proved any indication, a mediocre night of sleep awaited me. Rich was parked in an office chair. The room lacked a desk but still had a padded chair with arms and wheels straight out of cubicle farms. I wondered if it was more comfortable than the bed.
"They grill you much?" I said.
"Not really," said Rich. "They asked why I was here, why I brought you along, why I thought Jim was murdered." He shrugged. "Pretty basic. You?"
"The deputy I talked to didn't seem impressed to share the interrogation room with a 'Baltimore hotshot,' as he called me."
"Did you set him straight?"
"To whatever degree I could," I said. "I still wonder who called 9-1-1."
"Probably someone here," Rich said.
"Look at the parking lot. Three other cars, and none within a few doors of our rooms."
"You think it was a setup of some kind." It wasn't a question.
"I just wonder."
Rich fell silent. Maybe he ruminated on it, too. After a moment, he said, "I want to visit the charity tomorrow."
"What do you think we'll find?" I said.
"I don't know. Hell, there's a lot I don't know since we got here. Maybe I'm hoping we'll find some clarity."
"I might settle for a couple shady dudes giving us the side-eye."
Silence again served as the only reply I got. Rich stood and pushed the corner of the drab curtain back. He peered out the window.
"Thinking we might have more visitors?" I said.
"I wish I knew what to expect," said Rich. He still looked out into the parking lot. "Did the deputy believe you about Jim?"
"I think so."
"Same here. Did he say they'd do anything?"
"I doubt it," I said. "He mentioned it's still officially a suicide, so until that gets overturned, they're not investigating."
Rich let go of the curtain and sat back down. "I heard pretty much the same thing. No one even suggested they would talk to the coroner." He shook his head. "I wish the county had a medical examiner."
"The coroner could be good at his job."
"Maybe," Rich said. "But he's elected, in a county where a lot of people know each other. He stays popular, he can keep getting elected even if he doesn't know a scalpel from a hatchet."
"We could always pay him a visit," I suggested.
"No." Rich shook his head. "I'd rather work around him. Let's figure out what happened. Then we'll drop the evidence on the sheriff's desk and make him act."
I hoped it would be enough. "I'm with you," I said.
CHAPTER FIVE
Land of the Brave served Garrett County, Allegheny County, and parts of West Virginia from its office near Deep Creek Lake. It was about fifteen minutes outside of Oakland. The area was home to a ski resort, plenty of camping, and a more upscale feel than anywhere else in Garrett County. It seemed a curious place for a nonprofit to make its home, but here was Land of the Brave. They had their own building, a single-story structure that was probably a restaurant in a past life.
The parking lot butted against Route 219. A sign in the lot simply read "Land of the Brave." No signage or other information showed on the building itself. It had beige siding, a couple bay windows, and a large ovular door bisecting the exterior. We walked past one of the windows. Inside, a few people sat at desks. Rich and I went inside. The receptionist, a pretty blonde girl who looked like she still had a couple years to go at Frostburg State, smiled and greeted us.
"Are you veterans?" she said.
"I am," said Rich.
"Thank you for your service. Do you need some help?"
"We do." He showed her his badge. Not to be outdone in the presence of an attractive girl, I flashed my ID. "I think we need to talk to your boss."
"Is this about the poor man who killed himself?" she said.
"Yes," I said when Rich didn't answer. He shot me a sidelong glance. I frowned at him. What was the benefit of keeping those details on the down-low?
"Sure," the receptionist said. She walked past us to the other side of the building. Everything was laid out with an open floor plan save for one office. It was obviously built after the rest of the place. Its walls looked like someone had been in a terrible hurry to hang the drywall and sacrificed professionalism for haste. Whoever painted it displayed the same work ethic. Maybe corners like good construction had to be cut to afford the square footage near the lake. Rich and I waited. A moment later, the girl returned. "You can go in."
The office looked no better on the inside. The painter had done just as shoddy a job inside. I could not claim painting expertise—my next time taking up a roller would be the first—but uneven applications and bad corner work are easy to spot. A few pictures dotted the walls, mostly of men in Army uniforms. The desk the director sat behind looked as hastily assembled as the walls surrounding him. He stood and fixed us with a neutral expression. No nameplate sat on his desk, but the degree on the wall behind him—a bachelor's from West Virginia University—identified him as Peter Rodgers.
"How y'all doin'?" he said. I heard traces of an accent my amateur ear would place as hailing from Tennessee. Rodgers looked a shade under six feet and quite a bit over 200 pounds. His shaved head made his age tough to guess, but I went with mid-forties. The office was about the size of an extra bedroom in a townhouse, with just enough room for Rodgers' desk, a couple shabby guest chairs, and a small round table and shopworn loveseat.
"Detective Ferguson," Rich said, giving a businesslike reply while showing his badge.
"And Detective Ferguson," I said, taking out my ID.
"All the way from Baltimore," Rodgers said as he looked at Rich's badge. A smirk briefly crossed his face, like he knew Rich had no jurisdiction so far from the big city.
"Jim was my friend," Rich said. "We served together."
"We were all sorry to hear what happened to him."
Rich and I sat in the guest chairs. Rodgers showed us a smile, but any warmth it held didn't reach his eyes. "Terrible thing," Rodgers said. "It's always a shame when we can't reach someone."
To his credit, Rich didn't take the bait. He stayed focused on his questions. "Can you tell me what your organization does?" he said.
"Glad to. We work with veterans. You said you served?" Rich nodded; Rodgers continued. "You found a good job for yourself. A lot of the ones who come back aren't so lucky."
"I know."
"I'm sure you do. What we do is work with the ones who have problems adjusting to life once they're back home. Usually, that's trouble finding a job."
"You don't offer counseling?" said Rich.
"We make referrals," Rodgers said, "if we feel someone needs the extra help."
"Did Jim Shelton?"
"He was talking to a psychologist we helped him find, yes."
"Recently?" I said. Rodgers inclined his head. This shrink must not have interfaced with the VA because Jim's records didn't mention any recent visits. "Do you know how his therapy was going?"
"We don't get involved on that end," Rodgers said. "It'd be a legal issue for us. The therapists do their work and we do ours."
"So you never hear from them?"
"Their offices let us know if they pick up a patient we referred. We don't ask for anything else."
"Did Jim talk to you or anyone here about how it was going for him?" Rich asked.
"Here and there," said Rodgers. "He said he found a good medication. We thought he was doing well."
"What about his job?"
"Yes. He was an excellent worker. We gave him a couple choices of what to do. He tried working with the bees once and really took to it. Lotta guys don't even try it." Rodgers paused. "It's consistent work. You're doing the same things a lot. Very . . . rote, if you will. Jim loved it. I think the buzzing sound was good for him, too. He mentioned that he actually found it soothing."
"What did he do?" I said.
"Honey. He checked on the health of the bees and the hives, of course. But he also bottled up honey, and boxed up cases. We take it to local markets and sell it. Organic raw wild honey."
"Very Whole Foods-y," I acknowledged. I'd bought the identical product before.
"Well, we don't have a lot of stores like that up here," Rodgers said, giving us a brief grin. "But the markets we do have are happy to sell what we give them. Now, we take it to West Virginia, and you get some different stores down there. Even a Whole Foods or two."
"Anything else besides honey?" Rich said.
"Our company leases land from farmers. Most up here don't use all their fields anymore, so they're glad to take money from us. We're limited in what we can do. Honey is a popular seller. We also grow some fruits and vegetables, and sell bags of topsoil."
"You pay the veterans?" I said.
"What we can," said Rodgers. "They get a basic stipend, plus a cut of whatever gets sold out of their lots."
Rich said, "So the more they produce, the more they can make."
Rodgers nodded. "Exactly. It's not as much as a good full-time job, but we do what we can. Cost of living is pretty low up here."
I figured it was quite a bit cheaper in Oakland or border towns in West Virginia than by Deep Creek Lake, but didn't bring it up. I didn't want to antagonize Rodgers. At least, not yet. "What about housing?" Rich said.
"What about it?" Rodgers said.
"You said cost of living is cheap. I've driven around. It's an interesting mix of houses, but there are definitely some not-so-nice ones out there. Do you help people find better housing?"
"We haven't yet, I admit. No one has asked. Obviously, we don't want anyone living in squalor. We're not going to butt in, though. People need to learn to ask for help."
"About Jim," Rich said. "His wife is convinced he didn't kill himself."
Rodgers said, "I don't mean to sound indelicate, but don't wives normally think so? You're a cop in a city with a lot more crime than we get out here. You see many families who agreed with a determination of suicide?"
He had a point. I was on Team Rich here, but Rodgers' statement was valid. Families rarely believed their loved ones were capable of suicide. Even when signs of depression were copious and obvious, disbelief was common. Denial, after all, was the first stage of grief. "Families never agree," Rich said, echoing my thoughts. "Sometimes, they're deluding themselves. Other times, they're right."
"You think they're right here?"
"I do. Jim wouldn't kill himself."
"I'm sorry, Detective. Deputies investigated. The coroner ruled it a suicide."
"I'm here to make sure they didn't miss anything," Rich said. "It was less than a week ago."
"They know you're here?" Rodgers said.
"Why?" I said. "You going to call them and narc on us when we drive away?"
Rodgers put his hands up. "I don't want to see you get hauled off because you're concerned about your friend."
Rich smiled. In profile, it looked just as sincere as Rodgers' had. "We've talked," he said.
"Good. I wish you gentlemen good luck, then."
We didn't have any other questions, so we left. Rich stewed all the way back to the motel. I didn't try to talk to him. He needed space and time to process everything. And I wanted to look into Land of the Brave and Peter Rodgers.
***
Free wi-fi is a minefield. People gleefully connect all manners of devices to unsecured networks. If they knew the information a fellow like me could get in just a few minutes, they would wait to look at their cat pictures and political memes. Even an average hacker—and I am well above average—can get login details, passwords, and personal info in short order. The motel didn't offer wi-fi, but my laptop found other networks nearby. Unsecured, of course. Hard pass.
With no wireless I trusted, I hunted around for a wired connection but never found one. I fired up my mobile hotspot. It was a couple years old, but it offered a reliable 4G connection that no one could trace back to me. I interfaced it with the router and joined the network. Stage one, complete. I was too paranoid to have one simple layer of protection, however. After obtaining an IP address, I launched a virtual private network. Companies use VPNs so remote workers can connect to the corporate network securely even over the public Internet. Some free ones are out there, but I used a paid service offered by some acquaintances.
After establishing a session with the VPN, I then used an anonymizer to further hide my traffic. With three layers of security in place, I got to work. Land of the Brave had been around for six years. Three years ago, they moved from the second story of a building in downtown Oakland to their current location. The organization didn't have increased revenues corresponding with the move, however. Money earned from selling their products followed a gradual upward trend, but I saw nothing to indicate they could soak up what I presumed to be twice the rent with no problems. So I dug deeper.
I expected Land of the Brave to use WordPress for their website like so many others did. Instead, they had their own web server running Apache. Luckily for me, they had missed the last couple Apache updates. Any outdated software is vulnerable. A simple search showed me an exploit. A minute later, I had it loaded and ready, and once sixty more seconds elapsed, I gained unfettered access to the server. Their site wasn't bad. Like most small companies, however, their web server got pressed into service in other areas. It also served as their file server.
I poked around the files for a few minutes, and ended up copying everything. Nothing else looked interesting enough to pilfer. I covered my electronic footprints and disconnected from the server. The files were mostly boring. I had two cups of coffee at breakfast, and fifteen minutes with these files left me yearning for a third.
Nothing in the personnel records raised a red flag. The organization kept files on all the veterans it helped; I ignored all of them except for Jim Shelton's. If we needed to, Rich and I could go back and pore over them later. For now, I wanted to preserve their privacy. I took a small portable printer out of my bag and printed the file. I knew Rich would prefer reading a hard copy.
My phone rang a few minutes later, offering me a reprieve from this tedium. Gloria Reading called. If Baltimore could be said to have socialites, Gloria would be first among them. She and I enjoyed a relationship of fun and convenience. Her parents and mine moved in the same social circles. Gloria enjoyed those circles more than I did. "You're a hard man to find," she said when I answered. I heard the playful edge in her voice and imagined the lascivious look I saw often on her face.
"I'm out of town with Rich," I told her.
"I didn't think you guys were the type to go away together."
"We're not." Gloria knew me well enough to know that Rich and I were a distant sort of close. "Rich wanted my help with something."
"Wow. That's a big step, isn't it?"
"I guess it is," I said. "One of Rich's friends from the Army died. It's been ruled a suicide. We came out here to . . . make sure the investigation was good." Even though we knew it probably wasn't.
"I'm sorry for Rich," Gloria said. "Did the man have a family?"
"Yes."
"That's terrible." She paused. "Is there anything I can do?" A few months, maybe even thirty days ago, Gloria wouldn't have asked. When we first met, I think she found the idea of me working quaint in some way. In an ideal world, I wouldn't have needed to. But I blew my money bankrolling my hacker friends when I lived in Hong Kong. Nineteen days in a Chinese prison later, I was back in the States and had become the object of my parents' ire. They wanted me to get a job helping people; I wanted to work as little as possible. We soon found common ground: I would work for their foundation and solve cases pro bono. Over time, Gloria took an interest in my work. She had even come with me on some of the more social outings my cases required.
"I doubt it," I said. "I'd suggest you come ski at Wisp, but it's not really the season yet."
Gloria chuckled. "I'm not much of a skier."
"Neither am I."
"You've had some dangerous cases recently," she said. "Is this going to be another one?"
"I hope not," I said, "but I wonder. It seems like the police are watching Rich and me. He thinks I'm paranoid. Maybe I am. We've already had a few guys try to stare us down and dissuade us, though."
"What happened?"
"They weren't very good at the dissuading part."
"Be careful, C.T."
"That sounds dangerously like concern," I said with a grin I couldn't help.
"I don't want to see anything happen to you," said Gloria. "I . . . enjoy our time together."
"So do I."
"When do you think you'll be back?"
"I don't know. I hope no more than a few days."
"Make sure you come back in one piece," Gloria said in a sultry voice. Even through the phone, it sent a shiver down my spine.
"I'll do my damnedest," I said.
***
Rich came by about an hour later. This time, I sat on the desk, laptop in its eponymous place, and he sat on the bed. "I heard you on the phone earlier," he said. "Gloria?"