A Game of Inches

by Webb Hubbell

  “Check the printers and copier. They may have planted one of those devices that reads whatever is printed,” I suggested.

  “That’s next on the list,” Stella confirmed.

  “What about the information from Novak about Nadia?” I asked.

  Maggie responded immediately. “It’s all in the safe, which hasn’t been tampered with as far as we can tell.”

  “Well, hopefully we learned a lesson. We need to be more careful,” I said.

  Martin spoke up. “I hate to mention this, but Stella has been working here all alone for several nights Our hacker is bound to be getting frustrated—he may have come for you.”

  Clovis began to rumble, but I cut him off.

  “Clovis, you’re too close. Thanks Martin, and be sure Stella is never here alone. Any of us, for that matter.”

  I turned to Stella. “Any good news?”

  “I’m close to tracing our hacker. Another few hours should do it.” She didn’t look the least bit concerned.

  “Great. Okay, Stella, back to work. I want the rest of us to work on improving our plan, figure out what we need, and how to get it.”

  “First, I’m going to check the printers and the copier,” Stella replied.

  The gaps were obvious. We were still waiting for Novak to let me know who was paying Nadia. I told them I hoped to have solid information about L&A by tomorrow. We could only hope that one of the two remaining girls from the banquet appeared, and we still had heard nothing from Tennessee. Lots of minor missing pieces were missing as well, but I felt those four were critical to bringing the overall picture into focus.

  Stella came back grinning from ear to ear, waving a tiny piece of electronic equipment above her head.

  “A device that sends our adversary a copy of every document printed on the copier or any printer in the office. Our intruder was here to plant this baby—I have to tell you I feel much better.”

  We all took a collective sigh of relief. The tiny devise gave me an idea.

  “Don’t disable it quite yet. Maggie, please prepare two subpoenas, one for Red Shaw and one for Lucy Robinson. Print them out so our adversary thinks they are targets of our investigation. Then you can do whatever you want with the devices.”

  Everyone but Maggie looked puzzled, but there was method to my madness. If our adversary turned out to be Red after all, I’d get an angry call from him fairly soon. If not, our true adversary might think we were barking up the wrong tree and relax until the real subpoenas went out.

  “I’ll reinstall the device,” Stella said, “but I’d like to leave it active for the rest of today and tonight. I can use it to help me determine who our hacker is. I’ll set up a direct connection from Maggie’s computer to one printer so no one can read any of the real stuff.”

  “Okay, but we’ll need the copier by tomorrow afternoon.” I said.

  “Isn’t that wishful thinking?” Maggie asked.

  “It better not be.” I tried to sound confident.

  Stella smiled. “With this device and the other work I’ve been doing, we’ll know the identity of our hacker long before tomorrow morning. You can take that to the bank.”

  I wished I felt as confident.

  Martin had left the room to take a call a few minutes earlier. He returned smiling.

  Maggie asked, “Who was on the phone?”

  “Micki. They won’t get in until late tonight, so she wants to go straight to the Hay-Adams. She promises to meet you here by eight o’clock tomorrow morning.”

  “Is that it?” I asked.

  He grinned. “No. Are you ready for this? She said to tell you she’d never doubt your instincts again.

  “Of course she will—just give her a couple of days.” But I couldn’t help feeling a little twitch of anticipation.

  Maggie asked, “Anything else?”

  “As a matter of fact, yes. She told me they’re bringing two extra passengers.”

  “For Pete’s sake, man—who?” I tried not to lose my patience.

  “Marshall’s wife, Grace, and someone named Anna Crockett.” He was still grinning.

  * * *

  TUESDAY

  * * *

  May 3, 2016

  64

  WITH “ANNA CROCKETT” dancing in all our brains, it was tough to concentrate. Maggie and I spent the time tending to the minute details of preparing a memorandum I hoped to use, trying to bolster my theory any way I could. Stella was hard at work going through all the responses the website had received. Most of them were junk, but I still hoped that it might get us closer to the two missing women. Clovis and Martin worked on the logistics of protecting the crew of people who would be staying at the Hay-Adams, now including one Anna Crockett.

  We reconvened around five-thirty. I told everyone to take the night off, but my suggestion fell on deaf ears. Martin was determined to be part of the team that went to the airport. Stella planned to work all night, and Clovis wasn’t about to let her out of his sight. I admit to feeling a bit concerned that another assassin was already scouting out Barker’s. Yes, we were running out of time.

  The bar at Barker’s on a Sunday night was practically empty except for me and my babysitters at a corner table. Barb had been replaced with Bill, who had the personality of a lamppost. After a plate of Buffalo wings and a couple of beers, I trudged off to bed, hoping sleep would bring peace rather than nightmares.

  ******

  I was at the office by seven the next morning. A warm shower had cleared my head, and I didn’t want to miss anything. Someone had shoved a very thin manila envelope under the office door—Red Shaw’s stamp was in the left hand corner. I tore into it while the coffee was brewing.

  I couldn’t believe what I was reading and called him immediately.

  “Did you read what you sent over?” I asked.

  “Of course,” he answered.

  “Are you sure? Who is your source?”

  “The information is accurate. What you do with it is up to you, but it is accurate. You know perfectly well why I can’t tell you how I obtained it.”

  He was right. I thanked him and he said, “Be careful, Jack—seems to me you’ve uncovered a hornet’s nest.”

  “That I have, Red, that I have.”

  I made a mental note to ask Maggie to prepare a subpoena for all the records belonging to L&A as well as their bank account at Parra Bank in Alexandria.

  Stella and Clovis had never left. They looked a bit ragged.

  “Y’all get any sleep?” I asked.

  “Really, quite a bit. That big sofa in the conference room is actually quite comfy.” Stella answered with smirk. “And I managed to pinpoint our hackers. They’re here in the District. Clovis is going to visit them this morning.”

  “Hold off on that. First, it might be dangerous, and, second, I want to serve them with a subpoena when he does. Know anything about them.”

  “Just that they are very good at what they do. My bet is they’re Chinese, but I could be dead wrong. Clovis and I have a bet. My money is on the office is some kind of International headquarters or an Eastern trading company. Clovis thinks they’ll be Eastern European.”

  “Either way, Clovis, don’t go alone, and be extremely careful,” I said.

  Clovis noticed the envelope from Red when he brought me a fresh cup of coffee.

  “What’s that?” he asked.

  “The information on L&A we needed. Take a look,” I said.

  Clovis turned the pages in silence and looked up. “Is this for real?”

  “My reaction precisely. My source is solid. It’s for real.”

  Clovis whistled.

  It wasn’t long before Maggie, Beth, Paul, and Micki joined us. They had brought coffee, pastries, and a lot of excitement. We congregated in the conference room. After we all got comfortable I tried to start.

  “Where and who is Anna Crockett?” I asked.

  “Don’t you even dare, Jack Patterson,” Micki interrupted. “We have a story
to tell, and we spent the plane ride home deciding how we are going to tell it. Sit down and no interruptions.”

  “It’s your show, Ms. Lawrence.”

  Quickly Micki took us through the boring details of the flight to Knoxville, pulled pork and ribs at Cleveland’s Barbeque, and the morning drive to Bibb. I was quickly bored by tales of stopping at several sawmills for Larry on the drive down, but I knew better than to interrupt.

  Once in Bibb, Micki went to the local library to scan the newspapers from around the time of Billy’s birth. Beth and Paul headed to the bar where Billy’s dad had been arrested after murdering his mother, and Larry crossed the street to check out the only gas station/country store that was still in business. They all agreed to tell anyone who asked that they were doing research for a book on Billy Hopper’s life.

  Micki spoke. “The library was about what you’d think in a small town. One librarian at the front who was friendly and real curious about why I was there. Back copies of the local newspaper were stacked on shelves by year—no microfilm, nothing on computer. The older ones were pretty fragile, and it took forever, but I found the articles about Billy’s father’s arrest, his conviction, and his death in prison. The library’s copy machine was at least ten years old and had been broken for months, so I used my iPhone to get pictures. You can at least see the headlines. If you need actual copies, someone will have to go back with a real copier/scanner.

  “Ms. Hicks wouldn’t leave my side and started to fidget when she saw I was looking at papers from around the time of Billy’s birth. I found plenty of births, deaths, marriages, and divorces recorded in the public announcements, but no reference to a Zeke, Donna, or a William/Billy Hopper.

  “Since that was a dead end, I went back to the papers eight to ten months before Billy was born. One article caught my eye.” Micki’s eyes sparkled.

  “Jack, I bet you can guess. I suspect that’s why you sent us there in the first place.”

  She had me.

  Maggie spoke up. “Come on, you two. We don’t have time for games.”

  “About nine months before Billy Hopper was born, the Bibb Gazette ran almost giddy accounts about second term Senator Jason Boudreaux’s long weekend at the Happy Valley Mountain Lodge near Bibb, Tennessee. The pictures show him shaking hands with constituents, fishing the mountain streams and enjoying the local high school basketball game. One of the best photos is of him with one very attractive fifteen year-old student—Donna Crockett.”

  Clovis blurted out, “Donna was Billy Hopper’s mother’s first name.”

  Micki smiled. “They are one in the same, but you’re getting ahead of the story. Let’s us finish.”

  It was hard to be patient, but Micki was having fun.

  “I was trying to get a few more pictures when a weather-beaten guy in a Sheriff’s uniform barged into the library and snatched the newspapers from my hand. The librarian must have called him. He shoved the papers back on the shelf and got all huffy. ‘The people of Bibb don’t cotton to nosy reporters stickin’ their noses in where they don’t belong.’

  “I assured him I wasn’t a reporter, just doing research for a book about Billy Hopper. He didn’t care. He said, ‘It’s a shame that boy lost his daddy, but folks around here don’t like busybodies nosing into their private matters. You better git’ on out before people get nervous.”

  “Sounds like an implied threat to me.” Maggie noted.

  “Nothing implied about it. I later found out found out that the deputy, one Zach Hopper, is Zeke Hopper’s second cousin. I worried he might try to confiscate our belongings so I left in a hurry and went searching for Larry.”

  Beth jumped right in. “While Micki was at the library, Paul and I found the bar where Zeke was arrested. We ordered a beer and struck up a conversation with the bartender. The bar was exactly what you’d expect—dark, musty, smelled of old French fries, and had a juke box in the back.

  “We told the bartender about the book, and it turned out he was there the day Zeke was arrested.

  “He told us that Zeke always was bad news—nasty, drinking all the time, never could hold down a job. Then one day he shows up with this quiet little girl who was pregnant. He only brought her into the bar a couple of times. She never spoke a word, sipped on a Coke in the corner while Zeke played pool. Pretty soon, Zeke showed up without her. Big difference was all of a sudden Zeke had money. Not a lot, but enough to buy beer, order food and if he lost at pool he paid his debt instead of fighting over it. When people asked about the money, he laughed and said he’d done a rich uncle a favor.’

  “We had another round, but the bartender didn’t have much else to say, so we left pretty quickly.” Beth said.

  “Aren’t you going to tell your father about the guys hitting on you in the bar? Paul said they gave you a pretty rough time.” I was surprised by Micki’s tone.

  “No, Micki, I’m not. I went with you as part of a team. I had a job, and I tried to do it. I’m glad Paul was there, but quit treating me like a child. I’ve paid my dues.”

  She was clearly ready for a showdown—this I didn’t need.

  “Okay, enough—you two simmer down. When do I get to meet Anna Crockett?”

  “After you hear about Larry,” said Micki.

  “Larry?” asked Stella.

  “Larry. While we were all busy with research and talking, Larry found the country store where Billy was found as a child, sat down in a rocking chair outside, and started whittling.”

  “Whittling?” Clovis asked.

  “Exactly. He pulled out his pocketknife and a piece of wood and started whittling as if he’d lived in Bibb all his life. Wasn’t long before he was joined by a couple of other guys rocking and whittling, and he learned all about the store owner finding Billy that morning, and those ‘no good, no count Hoppers.’”

  Micki smiled like the Cheshire cat.

  “Here’s the best part—they told Larry that Donna’s mother is still alive and where he could find her. They warned him that the Hoppers still keep close tabs on her. Our presence in town was bound to spook them. They said she had a phone, but it was a four-party line, and the Hopper’s were likely to be listening in if we tried to call.”

  Beth picked up the story. “We decided to spend the night at the Happy Valley Mountain Lodge. It’s actually a very nice place—clean, beautiful mountain views, and a good breakfast. Plus it’s just far enough away from Bibb that the Hoppers would assume we’d left town. We found Anna’s house—it was just up the hill from the lodge. I could see a sheriff’s car parked out front. Over dinner we came up with a plan. Larry would call her asking if he could give her an estimate on the work needed to repair her sagging front porch.

  “She agreed and we showed up the next morning. She had some tools and spare lumber in her barn so Larry worked on her porch in case anyone drove by. She was overwhelmed at first, but Micki was wonderful about taking time and drawing her into her confidence.

  “When Donna learned she was pregnant, she contacted the real father. Two days later, Zeke Hopper was at their door telling them not to tell a soul about the real father. He would marry Donna and raise the child as his own, but Anna and Donna had to keep quiet, otherwise they would be killed. After Zeke killed Donna, Anna was ‘visited’ by several other Hoppers. They told her to keep quiet and to stay away from Billy, otherwise the boy would end up like his mother. They still drop by on occasion to remind her of their warning.”

  “What a terrible story. It’s hard to believe that could have really happened.” Maggie said.

  “You haven’t been to Bibb, Tennessee.” Micki replied grimly.

  “Any chance she has any proof about who the real father is?” I asked.

  “The real father sent her a hundred dollar bill every month for over the last twenty years.” Beth responded.

  “One hundred dollars? Every month? Did she keep a record?” I asked.

  “Better than that. She kept the envelopes with the money in them. Sh
e never spent a dime of his money. Her husband died when Donna was little, and they lived on his pension from the railroad. The envelopes and cash are in a box we brought with us from Bibb.” Micki was tickled. “Hopefully the father’s fingerprints are on the bills and envelopes.”

  “And you’ve left her at the Hay-Adams?” Maggie asked.

  “Don’t worry—Grace came back with Marshall, and she’s with them. They spent the whole plane ride home talking to her about Billy. It was Beth’s idea to call Marshall while we were still in Bibb. Anna had never left the county before, but after listening to Marshall she agreed to come with us to DC. She said she couldn’t believe Billy had killed anyone, and it wouldn’t hurt to see the nation’s capital before she died.”

  I smiled at Beth.

  “Good work—She might be just what Billy needs. Anything else?”

  “We have copies of the hotel register at the Lodge showing the real father spent four nights there with a ‘guest.’ We also have several pictures of that very frightened guest with the father. The man had no shame.”

  Micki handed a picture to Maggie and looked at me.

  “You already knew who Billy’s Hopper father was.”

  “I didn’t know, but I thought it was a possibility. It’s the only way any of this makes sense. Maggie…”

  “Yes, I recognize him. Jason Boudreaux, distinguished senator from Tennessee.” She tossed the photograph on the desk in disgust.

  65

  MY HUNCH HAD paid off, and now a lot of what we had discovered about Logan Aerospace and L&A made sense. My bet was that the bartender at the Mayflower would recognize a photo of the Senator as the older man who used to meet Nadia. We had so much more to figure out—Billy’s semen on the sheets, the locked doors, who had been paying Nadia—but the story was coming together. Now it was time to make the bad guys nervous.

  Maggie left to finalize and organize all the paperwork. Paul and Clovis would try to surprise the hackers with a subpoena. They’d probably pull up shop, but they’d know we were onto them. Beth and Stella were updating “Free Billy.” We still hoped we could locate the two girls. I thought about calling Novak, but decided against it. He would call when he was ready. No sense inviting questions I didn’t want to answer.