“Lieutenant, gentlemen, ma’am. Welcome to Camp Freedom, home of the Infidel Army.”
Agent Fowler introduced them and nodding at the half dozen armed militiamen standing around, said to Dautry, “We’d appreciate a few minutes of your time - at the command level, so to speak.”
Dautry smiled. “Certainly, sir.” He turned and issued a curt dismiss order to the group, and they moved off towards two barracks-like buildings. “We can talk in here,” Dautry said, gesturing at the large building behind him.
Once inside, Fowler got right to the point. “We find your decision to place armed militiamen on the streets of Bangor highly disturbing,” he said formally. “It is provocative in the extreme, and presents a high potential for violence. Homeland Security is responding to the alleged terrorist activities in Bangor and we are asking you to stand down.”
Dautry smiled coldly. “As usual,” he said, “the U.S. government is a day late and a dollar short. There are eight people dead and a score or more injured in Bangor as a result of obvious terrorist acts, and you’re just now showing up.” He gestured expansively. “Look around. We have the training, the equipment, the experience, and the Constitutional mandate to insure the safety of the people of Bangor, and we will continue to do just that.”
Dautry turned towards the door. “The invitation to look around was rhetorical,” he said as Rick Fowler stepped into the doorway of an adjoining room. “If you want the full tour, come back with a warrant. And now, if that’s all,” he said, “I’ll ask you to leave.”
Clipper stepped close. “If one of your gorillas so much as spits on the sidewalk,” he growled, “he’s going down for an armed felony, and I’ll be back for you with a conspiracy warrant.” He stiff-armed the cabin door, faintly surprised at its steel-clad weight and stalked back to the Suburban. He was still fuming minutes later as they drove out of the compound.
“Well, that was a waste of time,” he grumbled.
“Oh, I don’t know,” said Rebecca Sousy, working on her laptop computer. “We made a movie.”
Later, in Clipper’s conference room, the four of them plus Dave Adams and John Peters watched as Sousy’s laptop fed its video to a wide screen TV.
“Between these,” Fowler said holding up a tiny button shaped video device, “and the Suburban, we had eight video cameras running. The software combines and interweaves the video and audio feeds, and this is what we end up with.” The video started as they turned onto the entrance road, and showed, in split screen, the views to each side and ahead. The entire perimeter of the clearing showed in stark detail as well as the faces of all the militiamen. Clipper noticed that both Fowler and Sousy had moved around the interior of the building they were in, and managed to film a couple of adjacent rooms through open doorways.
If Clipper was impressed, Dave Adams was awestruck. “We’ve got to get one of these,” he said, pawing blindly at Clipper’s arm.
A half-hour later, Cameron Shibles summarized their scrutiny of the video.
“Ok,” he said. “We can put names to about half of these yahoos, and we’ve got vehicle registrations for eleven vehicles, including four identical flat-black Ford F-150 crew-cab pickup trucks that have the look of military vehicles.”
“There’s another one just like them parked on Main Street,” said John Peters. “That’s what they use for patrol vehicles.”
Shibles nodded and continued. “Ok, five Ford pickups. You can see that their camp is laid out as a military compound with the buildings fortified and each window commanding a firing lane.” He shook his head. “This would be a tough place to assault.” He stood and moved to the still image of the clearing on the screen. “No phone or electric lines in,” he said, “but you can see here,” he used a pen for a pointer, “a large liquid propane tank, presumably for powering a generator, and here, a satellite communications dish.”
Agent Fowler picked up the summary. “All the rifles in sight were M-15s, the civilian model of the army’s M-16, and, by the size and shape, it appears that the holstered side arms were Beretta M-9s. However, we re-interviewed the man who lives at the observation post, and he believes he may have heard some automatic weapons fire mixed in with the semi-auto.” His voice turned grim. “We also noticed this.” He manipulated the video control, and the image on the screen zoomed in to a point on the main building’s low front porch. Clipper squinted at the image of a small, circular object, eyes widening as he recognized the U.S. Army issue hand grenade pin.
Chapter 26
Sebastian Gaylord was nearly apoplectic. The midday news had identified one of the two killed at Gaylord Manor the night before as Billy Zick, and the other as some Historical Society volunteer he’d never heard of. The details were sketchy, but two things stood out in Sebastian’s mind; Janice Owens was still alive, and there was a new and unknown player in the game, and he or she was a killer. He thought about that, groping for the scotch bottle he kept in his desk drawer. Whoever killed Zick must be the same person who had left the note on his windshield. Sebastian looked nervously over his shoulder as he made a mental note to jack up his security, and then stiffened. No! Among all his employees, Zick had been his only real confidante, so he was going to have to deal with this himself. Putting the bottle away, Sebastian lifted his desk phone and called Missy Truman into his office.
“Clear my calendar,” he said when she stood before him. “I’m going to be out of town for a few days.”
“Yes, sir,” she said. “Who’ll be accompanying you?”
“No one. You’ll hold down the fort here, and if anyone wants to know where I am, I’ve gone into seclusion to work out a new budget proposal.”
When his perplexed assistant had gone to carry out his orders, Sebastian removed a small .22 automatic from his top desk drawer and slipped it into his jacket pocket. Leaving his office, he stopped in the kitchen to pick up a flashlight, then left the house.
Clipper had put in a call to Dr. Ray Wheeler, a doctor of psychology the department retained for its occasional mental health assistance needs, and at five o’clock, he drove to Wheeler’s office.
“Hi, Clip,” Wheeler greeted him at the door. “How goes it?”
“Fine, Doc,” replied Clipper. “Thanks for seeing me this late. I’ve just got a little puzzle I’d like you to take a look at.” Clipper went on to explain Janice’s investigation into Eleanor Gaylord’s disappearance, telling the whole story right up to the murders of the night before. “My question,” Clipper said as he took out Ann White’s diary, the letter he had recovered from Jimmy Lindquist’s house, the note received by Carol Murphy, and the two letters addressed to Janice, “is what do you make of these? Can you tell me how many different people wrote them?”
Wheeler glanced at the letters and then absentmindedly lit his pipe as he began reading the diary. Clipper sat patiently as he read until, after half an hour, Wheeler grunted and looked up.
“There’s no doubt that the diary and the letter to Chief Thomas were written by the same person. And, I’m no expert, but they both look about the same age as well. These other three letters are a different matter entirely. They’re newer, obviously, and the handwriting looks like the author was trying to copy the diary writer, either on purpose or subconsciously, but what’s most interesting is the style and content.” Wheeler paused to re-light his pipe. “They go from almost playfully pleading to informative to matter-of-fact, from a poetic riddle to a poetic heads-up to a bald statement of fact. I would guess that whoever wrote these notes has some deep, personal involvement in Eleanor Gaylord’s disappearance, and was also intimately connected to Ann White.”
Clipper considered. “Do you think we’ll get more notes?” he asked.
“I think you might if the writer thinks he’s being ignored,” Wheeler said. “And, by the way, despite the signature, I do think this is a ‘he.’”
“Thanks, Doc,” Clipper said gathering up his documents. “I owe you a beer.”
Wheeler laughed.
“I’ll take the beer,” he said, “but what I really want is to know who-dun-it.”
As a tired Clipper was pulling into his yard, a shadowy figure was slipping into the barn behind Gaylord Manner, and the Infidel Army command was sitting down to an intense strategy session. On Main Street, the militia patrols continued.
Chapter 27
Saturday morning, Clipper and Janice went out for breakfast and then to the police station. Clipper had made some calls the night before, and they now sat in the conference room with an impromptu Eleanor Gaylord taskforce consisting of Dave Adams, John Peters, Carol Murphy, Roy Wheeler and Jimmy Lindquist who had been picked at the convalescent home where he was recuperating by Peters.
Clipper started. “Thanks for coming in,” he said. “This thing has gone from a quaint forty year old mystery to a right-now double homicide, and I have a feeling that the key to Thursday night’s killings may lie in that original mystery. Someone, we don’t know who, is feeding us information claiming that Sebastian Gaylord killed his mother, but that could be anything from a lunatic’s fantasy to a political attack on him - at this point, we can’t even prove she’s dead. We are making the assumption that the person who’s feeding us the information is the one who shot Billy Zick, and our focus right now is to figure out who that is.”
Janice stood and outlined her involvement, from collecting Ann White’s original notes to Thursday night’s shooting.
“What did you find out about the sword?” asked Carol Murphy.
Dave Adams answered. “We were unable to raise any fingerprints from the sword or scabbard,” he said, “however, a dried residue we found on the blade did prove to be human blood, and the State lab reports it’s the same type as Eleanor Gaylord’s. We also had a handwriting expert look at Ann White’s diary and the notes, and he confirmed that the notes were written by someone trying to copy her writing. There were no fingerprints or identifying marks on any of the notes.”
Roy Wheeler raised his hand. “I’m not going to try to convince you folks that ghosts or spirits are involved here,” he said, “but I do see a great deal of personal involvement in those notes. I believe they might express very much what Ann White would have said if she had written them.”
Days ago, as soon as he had learned that Ann White had died of a cerebral hemorrhage, Clipper had talked at length with Jimmy Lindquist and finally convinced the old cop that he was not responsible for her death. Now he drew Lindquist into the conversation. “Jimmy, you were one of the last people to see her alive. What do you remember?”
The old man lifted a shaky hand to brush back his sparse hair. “She was angry,” he said. “Her brother, the Senator, had asked me to convince her to stop insisting that his wife had been murdered. I told her that the department was still working on the case and that she could get in trouble interfering with the investigation. She didn’t believe me, called me a liar and started yelling and slapping at me.”
“Were you alone?” asked Clipper.
Lindquist nodded. “We were in the front hallway and I didn’t see anyone else in the house. She was crying and she kept slapping me, and she was between me and the door, so I punched her in the stomach.” Lindquist looked around the room. “I’m not proud of that,” he said, “but I only meant to get away.”
“Think back, Jimmy,” Clipper said. “Did she say anything else?”
Lindquist was silent for a moment. “She said I was a liar, and she said ‘I don’t need you.’” He was quiet for another long moment, then, “And she said ‘those two bastards are just alike’, kinda’ like she was talking to herself.”
Janice jumped in excitedly. “‘Those two bastards’ could only be her brother Montgomery and her nephew Sebastian. She wouldn’t speak like that about anyone else in the house.”
“So,” Carol Murphy said, “it sounds to me like either Sebastian Gaylord killed his mother forty years ago and his father covered for him, or visa-versa. That’s a great story, but it doesn’t tell us who was in the house the other night.”
Roy Wheeler spoke up. “Well,” he said, “let’s see what we do know about that person.” He held up one finger. “If we take his information as truthful, he was in the house, or very close to the family at the time of the murder.” Second finger. “He feels very close to Ann White, almost appears to channel her.” Third finger. “He is apparently able to get in and out of the mansion unseen.” Fourth finger. “He seems driven by feelings of guilt and remorse, perhaps seeking to make amends.” Wheeler clenched his fist. “And finally, he did not harm Janice when she would have been an easy target. I believe these letters are as much a confession as anything else. You’re looking for an accomplice, probably a reluctant accomplice, to Eleanor Gaylord’s murder.”
John Peters spoke up. “How ‘bout this?” he said. “Montgomery Gaylord killed his wife and forced his kid to help, and now Sebastian is writing these letters about himself out of guilt.”
Ray Wheeler considered. “Stranger things have happened,” he said. “It’s certainly possible, but that doesn’t explain why his employee, presumably at his order, roughed up and then tried to kill Janice. If he’s driven by guilt, he would want her to succeed.”
Janice shook her head. “The only other possibility I can think of would be Ann’s son, Chester White. I tried to trace him through Google, but there’s nothing beyond the 1980 census that shows he and his father living in Portland.”
Clipper glanced at Dave Adams, who nodded and said, “We haven’t been able to find Pauline Ennis and her husband, so we can’t rule either of them out as Thursday night’s suspect either, but let me see what I can dig up on him.”
With that, the meeting broke up and Clipper dropped Janice off at home on his way to the Federal Building and the daily Homeland Security briefing.
Chapter 28
Kempton Dautry paced in front of the small group of militiamen. His plans were strictly compartmentalized, and he had spent the last hour going over his weapons shipment and end-game plans in private with his son, Raymond, and Neville Fuller. In the current group, he was addressing Kashif Amini, four special ops soldiers, and six other militiamen. All had been selected on the basis of their firm anti-government leanings and Dautry’s indifference to their ultimate survival.
“You have two objectives,” he said, “and your success will determine the overall success of our mission. Tomorrow night, you will strike at the heart of the bureaucracy with simultaneous attacks on the Bangor Federal Building, and the microwave towers and repeaters which carry the local law enforcement communications networks. These attacks will expose the government’s inability to protect its people and its assets, which is your first objective, and they will also create the chaos and confusion that will allow us to start our weapons on their journey to your brothers and sisters all over the country. After you have completed your assignments, you will return here to assist in the attack on the Federal agents.” Dautry raised his voice and a clenched fist. “You are privileged to fight the first battle of the new order!”
While the Infidel Army made its plans, Janice was reviewing the morning’s events in her head. Of all the things they had discussed at the police station, one question stuck in her mind like the words of a stubborn song. How did their informant get in and out of the house? Resolving to find the answer, Janice checked the gun in her purse and left the house. She drove to Gaylord Manson and, after first pulling the police seal from the front door, she unlocked it with her key. She entered cautiously and spent the next hour examining the house. She checked every door and window, knocked on walls for hollow panels and prowled the dim cellar. She found a small, unlocked window high on the cellar wall, but the thick coat of dust on the sill made it obvious that it had not been used as an entry point. Trying a different tack, she went outside and circled the huge building, peering closely at both foundation and eaves, looking for any signs of disturbance. She found nothing…nor did she sense the angry glare directed at her back from the dark interior
of the old barn behind the house. She re-attached the seal to the front door as best she could and drove home in frustration.
Later that night, Clipper snapped at her when she told him what she’d done, but he admitted that he was as baffled as she was. In the end, they agreed to go back together the next day and try again.
Chapter 29
Sunday dawned bright and clear. ‘A perfect day for a funeral,’ thought Clipper as he and Janice left the house.
Daniel Collins had just turned twenty-five when he died, leaving a young wife and infant twin boys behind. An Air Force veteran, he had been a Bangor Police Officer for three years and was contemplating an application to the Maine State Police when Jennifer’s bullet cut him down.
The funeral of a police officer killed on duty is an awe-inspiring example of the depth and strength of the law enforcement brotherhood. Although Daniel Collins had not been known outside of his small department, hundreds of law enforcement agencies from all over New England and New Brunswick were represented by thousands of uniformed officers paying their professional respects to a fallen brother. Dress uniforms abounded in uncountable shades of blue interspersed with brilliant white, and head cover ranged from Stetsons to heavily-embroidered ball caps.
The funeral had been moved from the funeral home to the city auditorium in anticipation of the large law enforcement turnout, and as Clipper, in his rarely-worn dress uniform with Janice on his arm, made his way to the section of seats reserved for the Department, he was in awe of the sea of black armbands and badge covers. After paying their respects, first at the coffin and then to the Collins family, he and Janice sat beside John Peters just as the short inter-denominational service was about to start.
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