“Hell, yeah,” the bartender said. “Only thing is, I can do that now. All I gotta do is pick up the phone and call one of those lazy brothers of mine, make him come down here and tend bar for me. Trouble with that is, it costs me money. I can either save the money and do the work myself, or I can let someone else do it and have to give ‘em a paycheck.”
I grinned, and winked at the bartender. “Ah,” I said, “but what if you didn’t have to pay anything?”
The bartender laughed. “Then somebody would be coming down here dragging me off to jail, because they call that slavery. Maybe you forgot, but they outlawed that a long time ago.”
I waved my empty hand to dismiss his concerns. “No, no,” I said. “You just, you just wait. You’ll see, everybody will see, I’m going to change the whole world.” I drained the whiskey from my glass and put it back on the bar, pointing at it to tell him to fill it up one more time. He took it, then quickly made me another whiskey sour.
“Well, when you figure out how to give me a bartender that won’t cost me anything, you let me know. I’m ready, trust me. You know, I haven’t had a vacation from this place in eight years. Haven’t missed a single day of work, either.”
I nodded, and smiled. “You just wait,” I said again. “You just wait. I’m gonna change the world, make it a better place for everybody. That’s what I’m gonna do.”
The bartender wiped up a wet spot on the bar in front of me, and shrugged his shoulders. “Why bother? Everybody in the whole world is only out for themselves, why not just make the world better for yourself?”
I shook my head. “Cause that’s what everybody does,” I said. “Everybody else, that’s all they want to do, just want to make their own lives better, make themselves richer, get something for themselves. I want to be different. I want to be remembered because I’ve made the world a better place.”
The bartender grinned. “Well, I’ve heard of a few people who felt that way, over the years. Seems like most of them end up getting screwed out of everything they had. Be careful, Buddy; don’t let that happen to you.”
“Can’t nobody screw me out of it if I’m giving it away, right? When I get this done, I’m going to make sure that everybody can use it, put it out there so anybody, anywhere, can use this to make their lives better. That’s gonna be my legacy, that I made the world a better place for everybody.”
I finished my glass and asked for another, but he told me I’d had enough and cut me off. I didn’t get mad; I understood that he had to protect himself. In this day and age, bartenders could get sued if they let someone drink too much, so I just paid my tab and wandered out to my car. I got in and started it up, then made my way slowly home through those same back roads.
Chapter 9
Sometimes, an investigator gets a feeling that’s hard to shake. As professionals, we know that we have to go by the facts as presented, and yet there’s something that hits us from time to time, that thing that most investigators refer to as “the gut,” that says something just isn’t adding up.
My gut was telling me that about this guy Sal. His fingerprints had been run through every database available, and nothing came up. Same for the DNA swab—no matches. Granted, a full DNA comparison took time, but the process had been streamlined for a quick scan that was about ninety percent accurate. We’d checked the registration on his car, looked at the property records on his house, and both came back to a company called LJM, Inc., which was wholly owned by another company, which was owned by another company, which was owned by yet another company that happened to be in Kuala Lumpur. Each and every one of them had a registered agent that was nothing more than an attorney’s office, and unless I wanted to go to Malaysia, it wasn’t likely I was ever going to find out who owned any of them.
Then there was Sheriff Branson. He claimed not to know Sal, and yet he was aware that Deputy Johnson had gone out to speak to the guy. That didn’t quite add up, nor did the way Branson looked at him. There was something in Branson’s face that was almost challenging Sal to recognize him, but each of them claimed not to have ever met the other.
I had asked Branson what Johnson wanted to speak with Sal about, assuming it was Sal he went to see, but Branson claimed not to know. He said Johnson had only called him to say that he needed to run out to Selkirk and talk to someone. He didn’t even know, he said, if it was related to another case or something personal.
Once again, that didn’t make a lot of sense. The deputy had ended up dead, so unless there was already something going on between him and Sal, then it made sense that he was going to talk with someone about an ongoing investigation. If that were true, however, then Branson should have had some idea of just what investigations might be involved. It struck me as odd that he didn’t mention any investigations that Johnson might have been working on as possible reasons for his visit.
I had told the jailers to make sure I was aware of any incidents that involved Sal, so I wasn’t terribly surprised when I got the call saying that he had apparently beaten the crap out of almost a dozen gang bangers. Let me rephrase that—I wasn’t surprised to get the call, but I was absolutely shocked to hear that this apparently confused and normal-looking guy could hold his own against what amounted to a squad of street soldiers. I’d be surprised if any martial arts champion could handle even half of those guys, but when I arrived the next morning to look at the video of the event, there was absolutely no doubt in my mind that I was watching someone who had been trained for years in at least four or five different martial arts disciplines.
Movies make it look like an average size man or woman can take on a group of guys like that and kick their asses. In reality, however, it’s just about impossible, simply because you can’t possibly watch every direction every second. When you see some action star take on dozens of bad guys at once, it’s all scripted, it’s all choreographed. Put that same actor, even if they’re actually trained, on the street, and let more than two or three come after him, and he’s going to end up on the short end of the stick, no matter how good he might be.
Sal could probably teach every one of those action stars some serious new tricks. As I watched the video, I almost had the sense that he was anticipating every move of his opponents. It was incredible, but it only served to heighten the mystery surrounding this man.
I told the correctional officers that I wanted to meet with Sal again, and to have him brought to the interview room. I went on ahead and sat down to wait, but it didn’t take long. He was brought in only a couple of minutes later.
“Agent Decker,” he said. “See? I’m still here, just like I promised.”
I grinned. It isn’t often you meet a murder suspect who manages to hold on to his sense of humor. “Sal, how are they treating you in here?” I asked him.
“Well as can be expected, I guess,” he said. “You may have heard, I had a little altercation last night at dinner time. Everything turned out okay, but still, I’m trying to keep a lower profile than that.”
I couldn’t help but chuckle. “Yes, the correctional officers showed me the video of your ‘little altercation.’ I’ve got to say, Sal, that was quite a show you put on. Mind telling me where you learned those kinds of moves?”
“I would if I could,” he said. “Unfortunately, all that’s hidden behind that door in my head.”
I think I squinted at him. “Door in your head?”
Sal nodded. “Yeah, that’s how I’m thinking of it. It’s like there’s a door inside my head, and everything prior to when I woke up in the basement is on the other side of that door. The worst part is, the damn thing’s locked and I don’t have the key.”
I sat there and just looked at him for a moment. “Sal, it may be that part of my job is to help you find that key, but you do realize that finding it could mean facing the fact that you did murder deputy Johnson. Right?”
He nodded again. “Agent Decker, I’m fully aware that, right at this moment, I’m the only viable suspect. Even I’m havi
ng a hard time trying to hold on to the idea that someone else killed him, especially if that really was my living room where I found him. By the way, I was thinking, if that was my house, wouldn’t the county tax assessor know who I am?”
I gave him my sad grin. “Already thought of that, and tried it. Unfortunately, that house belongs to a whole string of companies, and God only knows who owns them. Some outfit in Malaysia seems to be at the top of that chain.”
“In that case, I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that anything else I might have had is owned by them, too?”
“Yep,” I said. “I’m afraid so. There is a CSI team sifting through the ashes of the house, and I’m kind of hoping they might stumble across a fireproof safe or something, hopefully with some sort of documentation that will say who you are. I’ve already tried every other way I can think of, everything from fingerprints to DNA to facial recognition. It’s almost like you don’t even exist, but the fact I’m sitting here talking to you sort of shoots that theory down. Whoever you are, you’ve managed to stay off the radar pretty well, apparently for your whole life.”
“Well,” Sal said. “I’ll admit I’m a little disappointed. This is a pretty weird feeling, not knowing who I am.”
“I can imagine,” I said. “Of course, I’m sure you know that the sheriff insists you’re only pretending to have amnesia. If he can convince the prosecutor of that, you’re going to have a headache on your hands.”
Sal leaned on the table and put his head in his hands. Usually, when someone is trying to lie, they do everything they can to maintain solid eye contact, on the theory that it will make them more believable. “What do you think, Agent Decker? Do you think I’m faking it?”
I shrugged, but shook my head at the same time. “I’m not really sure what I think, not yet. There’s something about you that seems to ring true, I will say that much. At the same time, it’s hard to believe that the only suspect we got in a murder investigation can’t remember who he is. You can probably understand that, can’t you?”
He looked back at me and nodded his head. “Of course I can, like I said earlier. Even I think I must’ve done it, and as much as I want to know who I am, I’m dreading the moment when I find out. What if—” He paused, searching for the words. “What if I’m a murderer?”
Chapter 10
“All right, do me a favor,” I said. “I want you to tell me the whole thing again, just like you did before. Try to tell me every little detail, everything you can think of. If you remember something you haven’t already talked about, tell me about it, no matter how insignificant you might think it is. Okay?”
He sighed deeply. “Well, as I said before, the first thing I remember is waking up. I was lying on something like a table; I don’t even remember any padding. I swung my legs around and sat up, and then I realized I was only wearing a pair of boxers. I looked around, but it was dark. I saw a few little lights, different colors, like power lights and indicators on different kinds of equipment, maybe. I could see a few things, enough to know I was looking at some kind of laboratory. I mean, I saw beakers and test tubes, that kind of stuff. There was a thing over in the corner that almost looked like a coffin, except I could tell the lid was transparent, like glass.”
He paused for a moment, as if trying to think through what he was telling me. For a moment, I wondered if he was simply making it up as he went along, but that wasn’t the feeling I got.
“I think,” he went on, “that’s the point where I noticed the flickering light hitting the floor, and that was when I saw the stairs. I got up and went toward them and started up them, and I could see the flickering was even brighter on the wall at the top. I thought maybe it was a fireplace, but by the time I got up there I knew it wasn’t. I looked into the living room and saw that there was a fire in the corner, and it was spreading up the wall and across the carpet. It looked like a lamp had been knocked over, and it was sparking, like a short circuit. I think there was a chair on fire, too. I remember thinking that I needed to get out of the house, but I didn’t have any clothes on, so I looked to the right and saw a bedroom; the door was open and I could see inside. I went in to try to find something to put on, and dug some clothes out of the dresser that was there. I put them on quick and found a pair of shoes, too, then hurried back out into the hall and through the living room, trying to get outside.”
Again, he paused, and I could see that he was trying to to be sure he was accurate when he told me what happened next. “That’s when I tripped over the man on the floor, while I was trying to get outside. I didn’t see him, because he was partly behind a coffee table or something, and I had my eyes on the door, anyway. I wasn’t looking down. When I tripped, I looked down by my feet to see what I had tripped over, and realized it was a man. And when I looked again, that’s when I saw the blood. It was gushing out of the side of his neck, not super fast, like it barely had any pressure behind it. I tried putting pressure on it to staunch the bleeding, but it just oozed between my fingers. The guy looked up at me—” He paused, like he’d remembered something important, then said, “You know, it suddenly occurs to me that he looked surprised, like he wasn’t expecting to see me there. He tried to say something, but nothing would come out, and then he just sort of went limp and stopped breathing. That’s exactly when I heard something behind me. I turned to look, and the sheriff was standing there, and he started yelling at me, asking what was going on, and then he looked at the dead man. He checked for his pulse but there wasn’t one to be found, and then he grabbed me and dragged me outside.”
That got my attention. “He didn’t try to get the deputy outside?” I asked.
Sal shook his head. “No, Sir. He grabbed my arm, and made me go outside with him. I think it was pretty obvious that the other guy was dead, or at least it was to me. I don’t think there was anything that could have been done for him.”
I nodded. “Okay, is there anything else you can think of that I should know? Think back, was there anything you saw in the basement that you haven’t mentioned already?”
I could see the gears turning in his head, and knew that he was genuinely trying to give me an honest answer. “I can remember looking around, when I first opened my eyes,” he said. “It was like—it was like I wasn’t really awake, yet, just sort of—I don’t know, like I was just beginning to realize that I was aware of my surroundings. Nothing actually looked familiar to me, even though I knew what some of the things I saw were. I mean, a computer is a computer, a glass is a glass. I was lying on this table, and as I sat up, I looked around—at that point, I hadn’t even realized I was basically naked. When I did realize it, that was when I saw the light and the stairs, and I just wanted to get out of the basement.”
“Okay, I can see that. Go on.”
Sal shrugged his shoulders and blinked. “I’m afraid that’s about it,” he said. “I wish I knew more about that basement, about all that equipment in there. Maybe it would tell us something about me.” He suddenly looked into my eyes. “Any idea how long it will be before they manage to dig through the basement part of the house? Maybe there’s a small chance they find something to give me a clue about who I am. Maybe they’ll find that fireproof safe you were talking about.”
“A CSI team is working on it,” I said. “We just have to give them time. Tell me, has Sheriff Branson been back to see you yet?”
He shook his head once again. “No, he hasn’t. I figured I would’ve heard from him before I heard from you.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I would’ve thought so, too.”
I told Sal to hang in there, and let him be taken back to his cell. I went to the little liaison office that was set up for my use, and called my office in Billings. It took a couple of minutes to get my supervisor on the line.
“Agent Decker,” she said. “What have you got down there?”
“Hey, Sally,” I said. “What I’ve got is a headache. So far, it looks to me like the suspect in the deputy’s killing is being h
onest when he says he can’t remember what happened. Even worse than that, though, is the fact that he doesn’t remember who he is, and we haven’t been able to find out. His house, his car—they’re all registered to a string of companies that leads back to Malaysia. Nobody seems to know who this guy is, not even his neighbors. The post office says he never got any mail addressed to an individual, it was always to this shell company called LJM, Inc. They ran his fingerprints, and got no match. Same for the preliminary DNA and facial recognition. It’s like he doesn’t exist, and that just doesn’t make sense. This guy is in his late twenties, I’d judge, and I can’t imagine how anyone could fail to turn up on radar somewhere along the line.”
“Does sound odd. Could he be a foreign national?”
“I don’t think so. Brown hair, blue eyes, no sign of a foreign accent of any kind. Everything about him screams American to me. I’m going to email you his photographs; see what the Bureau can come up with on him, would you?”
“Sure,” she said. “I’ll ask NSA to run them through their facial recognition, as well. Their database is a whole lot better than anything else out there.”
I said goodbye and hung up, then used the computer in the office to call up Sal’s booking photos. There were three of them, one taken straight on, and one for each profile. I sent them off to Sally and then sat back to think about the whole situation.
“Who are you, Sal?”
Chapter 11
I wasn’t surprised that no one other than my cellmate wanted to talk to me. It’s not every day that someone manages to completely destroy a mob from the BGF. As Gunner said, I had barely been tagged, myself. So everybody was giving me a wide berth, and I could understand.
After the fight was over, I had finished eating, and then continued to sit there with Gunner as we watched another movie on the television. It was one of the older Batman movies, with Michael Keaton playing the lead role. During a couple of the scenes where he was fighting off multiple opponents, I caught a lot of the men in the day room looking over at me. One of them, a young white man who didn’t seem to be part of the gang, grinned at me and said, “That’s it! You’re Batman, aren’t you?”
Thriller: I Am Sal - A Mystifying Crime Thriller (Thriller, Crime Thriller, Murder Mystery Book 1) Page 5