Shoofly Pie & Chop Shop: 2 Bugman Novels in 1

by Tim Downs

  Truett shook his head again. “The spyware uploads the reports of your activities to a server, and they’re forwarded from there to the interested party. That’s why it’s called spy ware; we can track the reports to the server, but no farther. It’s like a Swiss bank account: we know where the deposits are going, but there’s no way to know who’s making withdrawals.”

  Lassiter was beginning to pace now, growing more agitated by the minute. Suddenly he stopped and turned to Truett. “What day did this happen?”

  “Last Tuesday, about midmorning.”

  Lassiter’s eyes darted back and forth like two bees in a jar. “The plants weren’t dead,” he whispered.

  “What?”

  “The exterminator. He said he found termites; he said he needed to fumigate. He tented the whole house—wrapped it up in plastic and filled it with gas. He said the gas would kill every living thing—but I forgot to remove the plants, and the plants weren’t dead.”

  Truett glanced at Zohar, then back at Lassiter again. “What was the name of the company?”

  “I don’t know. I mean, I didn’t look. He said my wife hired him—some kind of service contract or something …” His voice trailed off as he spoke.

  Zohar spoke up. “Nathan, listen to me. Do you know this exterminator? Have you used him before? Did you recognize him?”

  Lassiter shook his head dumbly. “He was a tall guy with huge glasses.”

  Truett started. “Did you say glasses?”

  “Big, thick lenses. Made his eyes the size of walnuts.”

  Truett slumped back against the sofa. Zohar turned and looked at him.

  “I met this man,” Truett said. “He had a little boating ‘accident’ on the Fourth of July, and we dragged him out of the water. He had a lot of questions about the company—questions about genetic privacy. He was with a woman.”

  “A woman,” Lassiter said breathlessly. “Was it Margaret?”

  “What does your ex-wife look like?”

  “She’s … she has … she’s sort of …” Lassiter struggled to provide the most basic details about the woman he shared a bedroom with for seventeen years. “She has brown hair.”

  Truett shook his head. “This woman was a blonde.”

  “Did you get names?” Zohar asked.

  “I didn’t catch them. They were both doctors, I remember that. He said he was a professor somewhere in the Carolinas.”

  “And her?”

  Truett squinted hard, searching for faded bits of memory. He shrugged. “All I remember is, she had remarkable eyes: one green and one brown.”

  Lassiter drew a sharp breath. He staggered forward, groping for the edge of the sofa. He sank down on trembling legs and sprawled backward, blinking at the ceiling. “Riley … McKay,” he said in two gasps.

  Zohar glanced at Truett, and Truett nodded.

  “She’s the one,” Lassiter panted. “Pathology fellow … called me on the carpet … asked too many questions … had to get her out of the office …”

  “Calm yourself,” Zohar said sharply.

  “Calm myself?” Lassiter struggled to an upright position. “Are you out of your mind? Do you know what this means?”

  Zohar said nothing for a moment, staring directly ahead. “It means that someone’s asking questions—questions about you. She’s enlisted someone’s assistance—or vice-versa—and they’ve gone so far as to break into your home and tap into your computer. That suggests a very high level of … interest,” he said, his voice trailing off into silence again.

  “I’m out of here,” Lassiter said, struggling to his feet. “We have to fold this thing right now.”

  “Sit down and be quiet.”

  Lassiter stared at him in astonishment. “Julian, someone is on to us. Somebody knows.”

  “Someone is asking questions—what we don’t know is the answers they’ve come up with. We all have a great deal invested in this program, Nathan. It would be premature to abandon it over the first breach of security. Agreed, we have to take action—but remember, whatever action we take has its risks. We need to find out what they know, who knows it, and how they learned it. With luck, we’ll be able to close those loopholes and have an even stronger system than before. What we have here is an unparalleled opportunity to learn.”

  Lassiter sank down again and buried his head in his hands.

  “This exterminator,” Zohar said. “You mentioned paperwork.”

  “I’ve got it—somewhere.”

  “Find it. When you do, we’ll have Mr. Santangelo look into it.”

  Lassiter looked up. “Why him? Why does he have to know about this?”

  “Now, Nathan,” Zohar said with a minimum of reassurance, “Mr. Santangelo is a part of our team. He’s on your side. Remember, Mr. Santangelo is an active FBI agent, and that allows him to do a certain amount of investigating without arousing suspicion.”

  “He’s an assassin,” Lassiter said.

  “He’s an authorized representative of your own federal government. Where’s your patriotic spirit?”

  “I’m leaving town. I’ve got vacation time coming—”

  “You’ll do nothing of the kind. Someone in your office is asking questions; this is hardly the time to do something out of the ordinary. You’ll return to work tomorrow just as you always do.”

  “I’ve got to get that program off my computer—”

  “You’d never find it,” Truett said. “It takes a professional.”

  “Then you guys remove it.”

  “No,” Zohar said. “It might prove useful. For now, I want you to use your computer as you normally would—but you are not to send e-mail, and you are to make no attempt to locate or remove that surveillance program. Do you understand, Nathan? If you do, they’ll know—and so will we. You’re to return to your regular daily routine, and you’re to act as though nothing is out of the ordinary.”

  “I … I don’t think I can do this.”

  Zohar looked at him. Beads of sweat dotted his forehead like dew on a leaf. The blood had drained entirely from his cadaverous face, and the pallid skin surrounded his eyes like two purple sinkholes.

  “Nathan,” he said evenly, “let me reiterate what I said earlier: this committee is a body. As you well know, there are times when a part of the body becomes diseased, and then surgery is required to remove the diseased member. It may be painful, it may be costly, but otherwise the disease could spread—and that wouldn’t be fair to the rest of the body, now would it? Mr. Santangelo and I want you to understand: we are not above doing surgery, should it become necessary. Do I make myself clear?”

  Lassiter said nothing.

  Nick held the pole of the aerial insect net in his left hand, with the wire hoop parallel to the ground. With his right hand he pulled up on the tail of the net, holding it open like a giant gauze cone. Below the net, a forty-pound sow lay decomposing in the July sun, swarming with hundreds of cream-colored larvae, each vying with its neighbor to see which would reach the breakfast table first.

  Nick watched the black dots hovering above the decaying sow. He lowered the net slightly, causing their instinctive escape behavior to lead them up and into the waiting net. Then he brought the net down with a swatting motion, finishing the stroke with a quick flip of his wrist. The net swung up and over the hoop, confining the tiny occupants in the tip.

  The long meadow sat like a green cap atop the steep ridge comprising the town of Tarentum. The view from the field was spectacular; as a boy, Nick had spent many an afternoon here, gazing at the panorama of the Allegheny River below and watching the cars that crossed the Tarentum Bridge until they disappeared into the town of Lower Burrell. Down the hill, through the tips of the trees, he could almost see the back of his house. Nick thought of this field as his private property. His neighbors, aware of his strange entomological studies, were more than happy to let him have it to himself. Above the houses, exposed to the clearing winds, it was perfectly suited for some of his more malodorou
s experiments.

  He opened a wide-mouth killing jar and draped the tip of the net inside. He sealed it again, allowing the ethyl acetate to do its work. Nick had already sent most of the predictable specimens to Sanjay for DNA analysis; he was hoping for something a little more unusual today—perhaps a Phormia regina or a Holarctic blowfly. In a few minutes, he would drop the specimens into an opaque jar of 95 percent ethanol to preserve them, and to prevent ultraviolet light from degrading their DNA.

  From his backpack came a high, trilling sound. Nick took out his cell phone and opened it.

  “Yes?”

  “Nick? Nick Polchak?”

  “Who’s this?”

  “Nick, it’s Freddie, over at Bug Off.”

  “Hey, Freddie, how’s the bug business? Did you pick up any—”

  “Nick, we got a problem.”

  Nick paused. “I’m listening.”

  “The FBI paid me a visit this morning. Did you hear me? Not the police, Nick, the FBI.”

  “That’s interesting. What did they want?”

  “He wanted to know about a fumigation we did at 1874 Branchwater Trail. Sound familiar? It seems the FBI did a follow-up inspection and guess what? No termites and no sign of wood damage.”

  “Another satisfied customer,” Nick said, swinging his net at a passing secondary screwworm fly.

  “Nick, this is serious. He knows the job was a scam. He wants the names of my people who did the job—he wants to look at my service log. And if he does, guess what he’ll find? All my people were on other jobs that day. How am I supposed to explain the extra crew?”

  “Times are good. You hired on for the summer.”

  “Sure, and then he’ll want to see employment records. I’ve got no tax IDs on you guys, no social security records … and get this, Nick: He checked with neighbors, and he found somebody who saw you guys. He asked me about one of my employees, a tall guy with big glasses. Who have I got who looks like that?”

  “That’s your problem, Freddie. You don’t hire enough goodlooking people.”

  “Look, this is not a joke. He’s threatening to pull my license. Did you hear what I said? My license. I did you a favor, and now the whole thing’s blowing up in my face. Nick, what did you do? This is the FBI!”

  “What does he want, Freddie?”

  “He wants names.”

  “Did you call me on your cell phone?”

  “Yeah. Sure.”

  “Then he’s probably got my name—you’ve used it about a dozen times. Like you said, Freddie, this is the FBI.”

  “Nick, I’ve got until tomorrow morning to cooperate. He’s coming back, and he says he’s going to—”

  “I’ll take care of it, I promise. Did he leave a card?”

  “I got it right here.”

  “Then give him a call, and let him know you’ll be happy to cooperate.”

  “What do I tell him?”

  “Tell him my name—and tell him I want to meet him.” Nick paused. “Better yet—tell him he wants to meet me.”

  Dr. Polchak? I’m Special Agent Cruz Santangelo. Mind if I join you?” Nick and Riley sat side by side on the upper deck of the Majestic, the premiere riverboat of the Gateway Clipper Fleet. The wooden deck was scattered with tables, mostly empty on this early morning excursion that offered a panoramic one-hour tour of the Ohio, Allegheny, and Monongahela Rivers. The deck was surrounded by a white spindled railing, trimmed with touches of red and blue. Two black smokestacks protruded through the deck, completing the picture of a patriotic showboat from a bygone era. They sat in the full sun near the port paddlewheel; it was the noisiest spot on the upper deck.

  Nick nodded toward the wooden bench opposite them, and Santangelo took a seat.

  “I assumed we would be meeting privately,” Santangelo said without taking his eyes off Nick.

  “I think this is someone you’ll want to meet. Special Agent Santangelo, this is Dr. Riley McKay of the Allegheny County Coroner’s Office.”

  “Cruz,” he said. “It’ll save us ten minutes.” Santangelo looked at Riley for the first time. Medium build, short blond hair, fair skin—and the unmistakable eyes. “Dr. McKay, it’s a pleasure to—”

  “May I see your credentials?” Riley extended her hand. “I’m the suspicious type.”

  Santangelo smiled. “We’ve noticed.” He handed her the small leather folder. Riley laid the credentials open on her lap, took out her cell phone, and punched an autodial number.

  “Sheila? Riley McKay. Yes, I know I’m late—I left a message for Dr. Lassiter. Look, I need a number for the FBI office over on East Carson.”

  “If I’d known you were coming, we could have met at your office,” Santangelo said. “We’re just across the river.”

  “Thanks, Sheila.” Riley dialed the number and waited. “Good morning. Do you have a Special Agent Cruz Santangelo? No, don’t connect me—he’s sitting right here. I’d like to describe him to you: He’s about six-foot, maybe six-one.” Santangelo nodded at the latter number. “Midthirties, lean build, Hispanic mix, black hair, well-tanned, dark eyes. Sound familiar?”

  Santangelo motioned for the phone. Riley hesitated, then handed it to him. “Stephanie? Cruz. Everything’s OK. Go ahead, answer the lady’s question.” He covered the phone and held it out to Riley. “We’re suspicious too,” he said. “Those kind of questions can set off a lot of bells and whistles.”

  Riley listened intently, fixing her eyes on Santangelo’s. “Thanks,” she said simply, folding the phone and returning it to her purse.

  “Well?”

  “She says not to go out with you.”

  Santangelo let out a laugh. “They warned me not to date coworkers.”

  “Would you like to see my credentials?” Riley asked, lifting her gold coroner’s badge from her purse.

  “I trust you. I think trust is important, don’t you?”

  “I think trust has to be earned.”

  Santangelo turned and looked at Nick. “Dr. Nicholas Polchak,” he said. “BS, MS, and PhD from Penn State University. Professor of entomology at North Carolina State University, member of the American Board of Forensic Entomology. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Dr. Polchak. Man, do we have a colorful file on you.”

  “Shucks,” Nick said, “those are just my federal offenses. How long have you been with the Bureau, Mr. Santangelo?”

  “I’ve been a field agent for five years. Before that, I spent six years at Quantico.”

  “Six years at Quantico? That’s too long for the academy.”

  “I was with the Hostage Rescue Team.”

  Nick sat up a little straighter. “I’m impressed,” he said. “Dr. McKay, we’re looking at a former member of the FBI’s very own Delta Force, trained in urban warfare, special weapons tactics, close-in combat—even aerial assault. The HRT is the bad boys of the FBI.”

  “The good boys,” Santangelo corrected. “ ‘The minimum force possible, the maximum force necessary’—that’s our motto.”

  “Five years as a field agent, and six years before that. Why, Mr. Santangelo, you must have been at Waco.”

  Santangelo barely nodded.

  “I remember reading about that,” Nick said. “It was almost a two-month standoff, wasn’t it? There were three hundred FBI agents, including your own elite hostage rescue team, against a handful of ex–Seventh Day Adventists. You guys brought in snipers, tear gas, even a tank. By the time the smoke cleared, there were eighty people dead—including a bunch of kids. Not exactly a high point for the FBI, was it, Mr. Santangelo? I’ve always wondered: Where does an HRT member go after Waco?”

  Santangelo paused, but his expression never changed. “Pittsburgh,” he said simply. He turned his attention to Riley now. “And you, Dr. McKay—you must be the woman.”

  “What woman is that?”

  “It seems we three share a common interest: a certain Dr. Nathan Lassiter.”

  Nick and Riley said nothing.

  “OK,” Santange
lo nodded, “then let me get things started. On Monday of last week a pest-control service tented the home of Dr. Nathan Lassiter for fumigation—a fumigation that was entirely unnecessary and that did not, in fact, occur. The following day, a crew posing as exterminators illegally gained access to Dr. Lassiter’s home, at which time they performed a thorough search of Dr. Lassiter’s computer—including the installation of a surveillance program to allow ongoing monitoring of his investments and activities. How am I doing so far?”

  “Impressive,” Nick said. “How did you learn all this?”

  “We watched them do it. The Bureau is conducting its own investigation into Dr. Lassiter’s affairs; not long ago, we installed the same surveillance software on his computer. We watched every keystroke as it occurred.”

  “What does this have to do with us?” Riley asked.

  Santangelo narrowed his eyes. “I figure you for a real smart woman, Dr. McKay. I’d appreciate it if you’d give me a little credit in return. We talked to one of Lassiter’s next-door neighbors; she had a brochure from the Bug Off Exterminator Company. Yesterday, I interviewed Mr. Frederick Krubick, the proprietor of said company. That’s where I got your name, Dr. Polchak. That same neighbor observed three figures enter the back of the house. She said one of them walked like a woman.”

  “I resent that,” Nick said.

  Santangelo looked at Riley. “By your presence here today, I’m assuming that woman was you.”

  Riley hesitated, then slowly nodded. “Why are you investigating Dr. Lassiter?”

  “Funny. I was about to ask you the same question.”

  “You first.”

  “Now wait a minute—let me explain something. The two of you are interfering with a federal investigation. You’re already guilty of breaking and entering and illegal wiretapping—that’s just for starters. I’m not here to answer your questions—got it?”

  Nick shook his head in disapproval. “It’s way too early for the fastball. Your curve ball was doing just fine.”

  “I could have you two brought up on charges.”

  “But you won’t,” Nick said. As he spoke, the riverboat began to pass under the span of the Smithfield Street Bridge, and the cool, gray shadow crept over the upper deck like a mist. Nick leaned back against the railing and stared into the sky. “This is my favorite part,” he said, gazing up at the hundred-and-twenty-year-old maze of rusted trusses, pins, and eyebars less than twenty feet away.