Vengeance Is Personal (A Colton James Novel, Book 2)

by Thomas DePrima

  Several minutes later a woman of about twenty-six entered the room. She bore a striking resemblance to Mrs. Newberry but was dressed a little less formally in a brown skirt and thin beige sweater that left little to the imagination. I stood up and extended my hand. "Mrs. Hutton?"

  "Miss Hutton."

  "I'm Colton James of the FBI."

  "Yes, I heard. I'm a bit surprised that you asked to see me. I wasn't the woman who was kidnapped."

  "I know. That was Sherri Mondel. Shall we sit down?"

  She nodded.

  "The reason I wanted to speak with you," I said after we had taken our seats, "was because of a conversation I had with Lieutenant Finn. He told me you had new information that hadn't come out during your past interviews."

  "You mean about the accent of one of the robbers?"

  "Exactly."

  "And you came all the way down here from New York to ask me about that?"

  "Who says I came from New York?"

  "You. Your accent gives you away."

  "The FBI has offices all over the U.S., and special agents can be posted to any of them."

  "So you're not from New York?"

  "Can we get back to the robber's accent?"

  "Of course. Sorry."

  "Please tell me what you know about it."

  "There's not very much, really. I mean, I don't know very much. It's really just something that occurred to me while I was at the recent Kentucky Derby. I overheard a couple of ladies speaking about the race and was intrigued by their accents because they reminded me of the way the robber spoke. So I joined their conversation, and, during a lull, I asked them where they came from. They said they were both from Sparta, Kentucky. That's all there is to it. I can't prove the robber was from Sparta, but the speech pattern of the women reminded me so much of his."

  "I see. What was different about the way he talked? Was it unusual phrasing? Or was it just his pronunciations, emphasis, or drawl?"

  "He didn't say anything unusual. He ordered us all into the center of the room, and everyone was in such shock that no one hit the silent alarm. I'm just as guilty as everyone else. I don't think there's been a bank holdup around here during my lifetime."

  "So he didn't say anything unusual, such as the kind of hyperbolic gangster talk we all hear in the movies?"

  "No, they just grabbed all the used bills from the vault and prepared to leave. After they grabbed Sherri, the leader warned us not to call the police or hit the alarm for at least ten minutes. Then he said, 'Let's go,' to the others and they hurried out."

  "Okay. Thank you, Miss Hutton."

  "Wait a minute. Now that I think about it, he didn't say, 'Let's go.' He said, 'Let's draft.'"

  "Let's draft? You're sure? Could it have been 'let's drift?'"

  "No, I'm sure he said, 'Let's draft.' Until I began replaying it in my mind just now, I didn't realize it. I guess I was still pretty shaken up right after the robbery."

  "That's common. It had to have been an emotionally draining experience. That's why we perform several follow-up investigations. Thank you, Miss Hutton. And for the record, I did come down here from New York, but it was as part of the continuing investigation. I just learned of your new information an hour ago when I spoke to Lieutenant Finn."

  "I only told Bobby about that a couple of weeks ago. And I knew you were from New York. But I— don't think you were born there."

  "Right again. I attended college there and stayed. It's my adopted hometown now."

  "I knew it. But you were raised within— a hundred miles?"

  "Yes, I was." I smiled and said, "You have a sharp ear that matches your sharp intellect. May I ask you a question about your heritage now?"

  "Of course."

  "Are you related to Mrs. Newberry?"

  "She's my oldest sister."

  "I see."

  "We do look a lot alike."

  "Yes, you do." Standing up, I said, "Thank you for your cooperation and information, Miss Hutton."

  "Samantha. Or Sam," she said as she stood up and moved around to where I was standing.

  I smiled and said, "Thank you, Sam."

  "Um, are you going to be in town for a while?" she asked as she moved even closer.

  "Not long. Maybe a couple of days."

  "If you're still here on Friday and you like to dance, I recommend the Hitching Post."

  "Uh, thank you. I'll remember."

  "I hope to see you there, Colton."

  "I can't promise anything. It depends on how my investigation goes."

  "I hope it goes slow."

  I smiled but didn't say anything. She smiled again, then turned and left the room, leaving the powerful scent of her perfume wafting in the air.

  Mrs. Newberry was at the door before I could leave. "Is everything okay?" she asked.

  "Fine, Mrs. Newberry. Thank you for your cooperation and for that of your staff."

  "Was Samantha helpful?"

  "She was very cooperative. Whether her information is helpful or not remains to be seen. But every small piece of data we collect helps us put the case together."

  "What did she say?"

  "She said you're her older sister."

  "What's that got to do with the robbery?"

  "Not a thing. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have other visits to make."

  I understood Mrs. Newberry's interest. Perhaps she felt that her sister was under investigation and, as the older sister, was probably acting in a protective capacity. But it was up to Sam to tell her what we discussed, or not.

  ~ ~

  I visited each of the locations where the cars were swapped and where Sherri Mondel was left, asleep, in the grass on the side of the road. As expected, I saw nothing that would help me advance the investigation. The grass was still ripped up a bit from all the law enforcement vehicles that had converged on that spot, but the original tracks were long gone.

  ~ ~

  I picked up some takeout on the way back to my hotel and sat down to eat after cleaning up and taking a hot shower. The food was still warm but barely edible. I wondered if my taste buds were changing since I'd begun eating quality food, or if my palate was simply becoming too discriminating for takeout from a greasy spoon diner. Since my college days I'd been able to eat virtually anything served up as food. I ate as much as I could tolerate, then tossed the rest in the waste basket and lay down on the bed to think. If I spent much more time on the road I was going to lose weight.

  The expression 'let's draft' was helpful. Drafting was a racing term that referred to the slipstreaming process where one or more cars followed directly behind another car to cut down wind resistance and used the slight vacuum created behind a lead vehicle, therefore improving fuel economy during a race and increasing the time between fueling stops. It was also used in bicycle racing, speed skating, and a few other such racing sports but was far more often associated with car racing.

  Unfortunately, I still had no way to tie the four men to the bank robbery. I needed something else, and I didn't think I was going to get it here. I thought about Sam— her young, lovely body, and the subtle invitation. It was a shame I couldn't find an excuse to stay around town for a while and perhaps learn if she was as approachable as she appeared, but I had important things to take care of in New York, and I couldn't allow myself to get distracted. Perhaps after I had finished my business on Staten Island I could return for a follow-up visit.

  Before turning in, I made reservations on a flight to Cincinnati and arranged for a rental car. This would be my first trip to Cinci, but I didn't have time for sightseeing or anything else right now.

  ~ ~

  I stopped at the police headquarters to say goodbye to Lieutenant Finn after checking out of the hotel in the morning.

  "Leaving so soon?" he asked.

  "Yes, I've completed my tasks here. Thanks for the tip about Samantha Hutton and the robber's accent. I'm going to Sparta, Kentucky next. It's a fairly small community, and I don't hold much hope I'
ll learn anything there, but you never know."

  "Good luck, Special Agent James."

  "Thanks, Lieutenant."

  ~ ~

  I turned in my rental car at the airport, then got in line at the metal detection/x-ray station. When it was my turn, I held up my FBI wallet and opened it. The TSA person came around the metal detector and looked at my ID, then at my face, then back at the ID.

  "Just step around the metal detector, Special Agent James," he said.

  I nodded, walked around the metal detector stall, and continued on to my gate where I sat down to wait for my flight.

  ~ ~ ~

  I exited the highway near Sparta when I saw the signs for the Kentucky Speedway. There was a Ramada Inn there by the intersection with the Sparta Pike, but I didn't check in because I didn't know how long I would be in the area.

  My electronic road atlas instructed me to follow the signs for Highway 35, and a couple of minutes later I entered the town of Sparta. Then, about ten seconds later, I crossed over railroad tracks and saw only open country ahead. I assumed I had left Sparta, so I turned around and went back. I didn't mean to disparage the community. It looked like a nice place to live. It was just a lot smaller than I'd expected, and I hadn't begun with high expectations. The actual township boundaries might have included a large land mass, but my reference was to what would normally be considered the business district.

  There was a small convenience store there, and I was feeling thirsty, so I stopped in to get a soft drink. The owner was apparently a racing fan, and he had a lot of images and memorabilia decorating the wall behind the counter. As I scanned the pictures, one of the images jumped out at me. It was one of the perps from the bank robbery.

  "That fella there in the center picture looks familiar," I said in a sort of southern drawl. I knew Samantha Hutton would never be fooled for an instant, but I hoped the store manager didn't have as keen an ear.

  "That there's Jimmy Cotton. He's our local hero. He's made it into the Sprint Cup top twenty-five drivers this year. We expect to see him go all the way over the next few years. Just a couple of years ago it looked like he was out of it forever."

  "Really? What happened? Bad accident?"

  "No. Money troubles. He hadn't been able to line up any decent sponsorships, and he blew his only two engines a couple of months before the qualifying rounds here. Racing engines are damn expensive, and he didn't have the money to buy replacements. He and his brothers disappeared, and we figured they were gone for good. Then a couple of days before the qualifying race, they showed up with two brand new engines. Said they went to Vegas and ran a hundred dollars into thirty-five thou. Anyway, he qualified, and then came in ninth. It was enough to get him some serious sponsor money, and he was on his way to the big time. He's one gutsy driver, and we know that one of these days he'll make it to the top."

  "He still live around here?"

  "His folks still live here, and the boys come to visit once in a while, but he and his brothers live down in Charlotte now. That is, when they're not on the road."

  I finished off my soft drink and said, "Thanks. I hope they make it to the top." Then I turned and left the store.

  Before starting the car and heading towards Interstate 71 and Cincinnati, I thought about what I had just learned and hoped I had the lead I needed. I could easily get the date of the qualifying race from the internet. If that tied in with the bank robbery, I had the motive. If I could learn where he had purchased the two engines, I might be able to prove they had paid cash. Once I spelled out all the connections, it should be enough of an evidence trail to suit Brigman.

  It's true that without the gizmo, I never would have known what the perps looked like. And if I hadn't known what the driver looked like, I probably wouldn't have struck up the revealing conversation with the store manager. Knowing that the perps were in Charlotte also helped me confirm that I had the right people. But I believed I could convince everyone that I had done it all with brilliant deduction.

  * * *

  Chapter Six

  When I reached Cincinnati, I had to decide whether to stay in town for the night or head home. New York won out, so I drove straight to the airport and turned in my rental car.

  ~ ~ ~

  As I entered the lobby of my building, the guard on duty was one I didn't recognize. He looked legit, so I said, "Colton James eleven-oh-two."

  He punched the apartment number into the computer, looked at the monitor, then looked up at me before saying, "Okay, Special Agent James. Welcome back."

  I pulled up short and said, "What?"

  "I said welcome back."

  "How do you know I've been gone?"

  Looking at his computer monitor, he said, "The computer has you using the elevator Sunday, and this is the first record of you being in the building again. And your key hasn't been used in the elevator system or your front door."

  "I had no idea you recorded all that information. I thought the system was only to verify my identity."

  "The system is really sophisticated and collects a lot of data. It's all intended to give our co-op owners the maximum in protection."

  "I see. Thanks. Good night."

  "Good night, sir."

  As I rode up in the elevator, I was a bit dismayed by what I'd just heard. We all know it's getting increasingly difficult to maintain a low profile these days. Every retailer and online internet site was collecting, assembling, and storing as much information about us as possible, not to mention the social sites that also kept track of our relatives and friends. They knew what we bought, when and how often we bought it, how much we spent, where we shopped, what sites we visited on the internet, and what data we searched for. They could even track our every movement using the GPS feature in our cell phones. The government collected telephone conversations without our permission and could even listen to conversations when they were conducted within earshot of a cell phone that had been turned off. The only way to stop that was to remove the battery and wait until the internal power system lost its charge, or keep it in a secure metal container, as I do. And now, SMART TVs and cable system boxes could literally watch us and listen to conversations in our homes, all without our permission. The millions of video cameras that were mounted everywhere were being used to capture criminals in the act and identify perpetrators, but they could also be used for less legitimate purposes.

  Of course, I have the near-ultimate snoop device. My gizmo can go anywhere and see anything, and the subject would never have a clue they were being observed. The ultimate would be if the gizmo could pick up conversations. But if it could, I hadn't figured out how to activate that feature. Even so, it really had become a world without secrets.

  I had to admit it was nice coming home and knowing no one was lying in wait for me in the darkness of my co-op. All of the exterior regular glass in my unit had been swapped out as part of my renovations, so my home was now as bulletproof as the White House. And the double-layer, welded, heavy-duty steel plating that completely covered the inside surfaces of the walls along the corridor, as well as the walls common to other co-ops, made them bulletproof as well.

  But no visitor should ever realize that because sheetrock had been glued to the steel and then painted. The walls looked exactly like the wall construction seen in most homes, except my construction couldn't pass the knuckle test. Normally, a hollow sound was heard when a sheet-rocked wall was thumped, except when encountering a wall stud. Lastly, my safe-room could withstand a rocket barrage.

  The lights came on in the vestibule as I opened my front door. Although the building security people could get into the vestibule, they'd never get beyond the inside door with less than an hour's effort and a whole lot of construction equipment. The steel door was sheathed in wood to make it appear like an ordinary, albeit highly decorative entrance door, but it was anything but. As the exterior door closed and locked, I pressed my hand against the palm-print sensor to unlock the inside door. For security reasons, I had
chosen not to have the inside lights come on automatically. If someone did manage to get the interior door open and I was in the apartment, the invader would be backlit while I was in darkness.

  As I reached over and waved my hand in front of the switch, the interior lights came on, highlighting the starkness of the bare rooms. It dismayed me a bit. I had to shop for some furniture now that I had wrapped up the bank robbery case.

  I pulled my wheeled suitcase to my bedroom and emptied it, with my dirty laundry going into the hamper and my shaving kit going into the bathroom. After hanging up my suits, I put the now empty suitcase in my walk-in closet. The suitcase and clothes stood out prominently in the otherwise starkness of the enormous closet.

  Although it was late I wanted a shower, so I stripped down and stood in the spray, savoring the steaming hot water until I felt weariness overtaking me. I'd read recently that some so-called experts were now suggesting that people not bathe or shower daily. Perhaps their advice was related to the severe drought currently being experienced on the West Coast and they were more interested in conserving water than out of any concern for health. I'd always been told that cleanliness was next to godliness. Regardless of their motives, I didn't shower as often as I did out of an obsessive desire to be clean as much as the sheer pleasure I derived from the simple act.

  After quickly shampooing my hair, I lathered and washed my body. I was yawning practically non-stop as I stepped out and began drying myself off. The clean sheets felt wonderful against my bare skin. I'd intended to write my report tonight, but I just didn't have the energy.

  "Oh, hell," I murmured. "I'll worry about finishing the report to Brigman in the morning."

  With that, I closed my eyes and was lost in sleep almost immediately.

  ~ ~

  After a quick breakfast and several cups of coffee in the morning, I headed to the temporary office in my safe-room. I didn't expect to use the gizmo, but the office would give me the visual privacy I wanted if I did. Despite all the security in the building, I had decided not to use the gizmo in my apartment following an absence until I had performed a full security sweep. This time I had only been gone for a couple of days, but it paid to play it safe.