3 - Buffalo Mountain: Ike Schwartz Mystery 3

by Frederick Ramsay

  “Too bad,” one of them said. Whaite thought he looked like one of the Childress boys but couldn’t be sure. “Steve had that place about all fixed up. He had his permit to hook up to propane and everything. He did a nice job, too. Them space heaters need watching twenty-four seven. If they don’t set the house on fire, they’ll get you with the carbon monoxide. He shoulda known better.”

  “And if it wasn’t an accident?”

  “What? Who’s saying so?” The other men looked up at Whaite.

  “I was out there yesterday. His space heater was off.”

  “You went to his house?”

  “No, I checked out the chimney. No hot air, none of the swirls it makes when it rises that you see, especially on a cold, sunny day.”

  “Anyway, not seeing smoke or exhaust from the chimney don’t prove anything. It coulda been on pilot, or a thermostat, and kicked in after you left.”

  “Could. You been in his house, do you remember a thermostat? I mean, if he was going to hook up a propane tank, why would he go to the expense of buying a space heater with a thermostat?”

  “You got a point. And Steve, he didn’t earn too much. Better lately, when he got that part-time handyman job with the guy up in Floyd.”

  “When I was up there, there were tire tracks leading out, but not back. This morning I saw your truck’s tracks and traces of at least one other set. That car went in after I was there and before you arrived, and it wasn’t Bolt.”

  “I remember them tracks. Didn’t mean anything to me at the time.”

  “Wick Goad says Sonny Parker sold kerosene to some strangers just before that and he saw them head up the mountain.”

  “Who’d want to burn Steve out?”

  “I don’t know. I thought maybe you guys could help.”

  “How?”

  “What can you tell me about the man he works for?”

  “Nothing. Steve, he’s pretty tight about him. Just said he paid pretty good and he didn’t have to do too much.”

  “Did any of you ever see him?”

  The men looked at one another, lips pursed. Finally one cleared his throat. “I did. Just one time and not too good. Here’s the thing. I don’t want to get in the middle of some old mountain thing so you didn’t hear it from me.”

  “Some old mountain thing?”

  “You know how it was—well, it sometimes pops up again—old feud or something. So, like I said, I didn’t get a clear view of him but he looked like a Harris.”

  Chapter 23

  Saturday mornings marked the end of the week. That was the good news. The bad news, another week would start in twenty-four hours. Ike took a deep breath and pushed through the glass door of the Crossroads Diner. He was immediately assaulted by the mixed aromas of coffee, bacon, and frying onions—and loud voices. Not the usual chatter about local gossip, politics, and Hokie football, but voices raised in anger. Flora Blevins held her finger a quarter of an inch from Brent Wilcox’s nose.

  “Let me tell you something, you carpetbagger, this diner ain’t going nowhere.”

  “You might be persuaded to the contrary when I bring in paper defining the town’s right of eminent domain.”

  “Maybe. And you might be persuaded to the contrary by a right-up-your-caboose-with-a-pump-action twelve-gauge.”

  “Are you threatening me? Ms. Blevins, I can swear out a warrant and have you arrested. A felony conviction would make your case for holding out extremely difficult. There are all these witnesses.” Wilcox turned to the assembled breakfast clientele. “You heard what she said.” He caught sight of Ike and turned to him. “Sheriff, I insist you arrest this woman for assault. She threatened me. These people are my witnesses.”

  “Anybody hear Flora threaten Mr. Wilcox?” No one replied. “Looks like you must have been mistaken, Wilcox. None of these good people heard a thing. You were probably speaking too softly.”

  “You heard her. I know you did.”

  “Sorry, I found myself so enthralled by the scent of fresh brewed coffee I lost track of everything else.”

  “She threatened me and I plan to swear out a warrant.”

  “Be my guest. Miss Falco over at the station will help you with that, but I think you’re wasting time. It’ll be a ‘he says, she says’ thing in the end.”

  For what seemed a full minute but couldn’t have been more than a few seconds, Wilcox glared at Ike. “I’ll have your badge, Sheriff.”

  “If you think you’re up to the job, go for it. In the meantime, I’ll be watching you.”

  Wilcox stumped out, cursing.

  “Who is that creep, Ike? Where’s he get off coming into my diner that I have been running since my old daddy died and left it to me, and tell me to move it or he’ll tear it down?”

  “He’s what they used to call a shill, Flora. He makes things happen by bluff and bluster. The law of eminent domain is nowhere as simple as he wants you to believe. He can’t do anything without the Town Council approval. They can’t invoke it without a master plan. They can’t implement a master plan without hearings and on and on. As much as Wilcox and his speculator friends want to grab up real estate, there are more who will put the pressure on the Council to keep the Crossroads in place.” The patrons nodded and a few applauded. “There, you see? And I loved the bit about the twelve-gauge up the caboose. Nice touch.”

  “You didn’t do so badly there yourself, Ike. Breakfast is on the house.”

  A free breakfast called for a celebration of sorts, so Ike sat in a booth instead of his usual place at the counter. He wouldn’t have to order. Flora always brought him the same thing every morning. Once he tried to shift to the Valley Triple Stack—three humongous pancakes awash in butter and syrup, but Flora brought him two eggs over easy, bacon, grits, and whole wheat toast—buttered. He gave up. Flora held as her dietetic credo—eggs, bacon, grits, and toast were the only sensible way to begin a person’s day. She did not want to see Ike slip into bad dietary habits, so whatever he ordered, she overruled and served him his usual.

  Ike had not called Ruth the night before. She wanted to be alone and he’d decided to respect that. He’d meant to call Sam but forgot. He considered calling Charlie and decided to wait until later in the morning. He did connect with Whaite, who told him he thought Steve Bolt worked for Kamarov. That was news, assuming someone saying the man he worked for “looked like a Harris” qualified as a lead. Bolt’s house torched probably had more immediate significance. Why would anyone want to do something like that? Unless the man was Kamarov. Then…then what? So far, only Sam, Whaite and he…no, that wasn’t right…Sam, Whaite, Ruth, Charlie, and he knew Kamarov was dead. Unless Bolt killed him and dumped the body in Picketsville figuring nobody that far away would make the connection. But then, who set fire to his house?

  He mopped up some egg yolk with a toast crust and paused, hand in midair. He lowered it and pulled a clean napkin from the dispenser on the table. He retrieved his pen and wrote down the four possibilities he’d identified as likely sponsors of the black program.

  1. Central Intelligence Agency

  2. Federal Bureau of Investigation

  3. Defense Intelligence Agency

  4. National Security Agency

  5. Other?

  He put a plus after the CIA, a double plus after the FBI, a minus after the DIA, and a double minus after NSA, rating each as likely candidates. The Other category he added in case their search drifted into the area of those unnamed and unaccounted for programs he knew existed in the darker recesses of the government but rarely identified.

  Where did Bolt fit? He finished his breakfast, endured a dirty look from Flora for not finishing his grits, and asked for a second cup of coffee and a piece of paper. When the coffee arrived, he transferred his list to the paper and studied it. He pulled Charlie’s secure cell phone out and turned it on. He fumbled in his pockets and found the number he’d been given to call and punched it in. There followed an empty space and then Charlie answered. />
  “It’s about time I heard from you. What have you been doing?”

  “Long story, Charlie, and I’m not in a place where I can tell it, but here’s what we have so far.” He filled him in on Sam’s tracking and what seemed three other entities stalking Kamarov’s money transactions. That meant at least two of them believed he was alive. He assumed one belonged to Charlie’s people. He told him about the arson at Bolt’s house. Could Charlie think of any reason why someone who might have been working for Kamarov would have his house burned to the ground? Charlie said he was stumped.

  “Suppose they were looking for something, couldn’t find it, but believed it was hidden in the house? To make sure it never surfaced, they burned it to the ground. If I’m right, they’ll be after Bolt next.”

  “Where is he?”

  “Bolted—no pun intended. He’s gone to ground. But my deputy said he drove an old VW beetle. Shouldn’t be too hard to find. Any news on your APB?”

  “Nothing yet. You realize it will be easy for whoever is after him, too. If they can tap into our computer as easily as your gal tapped into theirs, an APB might have already led them straight to him.”

  “You have a point. I’ll think about it.”

  “Who’s your candidate for the second group? I assume you think you know who the first is.”

  “Actually, I don’t. Here’s my list.” He read the five names and his ratings.

  “You can pull the plus off of CIA. I checked.”

  “You’d say that even if it weren’t true. The plus stays, but my guess is FBI. They have the most to gain by discrediting the CIA and that’s what I think this is all about. You guys are jockeying for position and prestige in the big restructuring of the intelligence community game and would be only too happy to leak some dirt about the other.”

  “Okay. Maybe you’re right. But—”

  “But that does not explain Bolt and arson. I know, so, I’m adding another name to the list.” Ike retrieved the list and his pen and wrote.

  “Who?”

  “Who indeed? Who has the most to gain by killing Kamarov? Not you. You would turn him or trade him for someone they have that you want. Not the FBI. If they bought him, they’d want to keep him for now and then put him in the witness protection program. So who gains from a dead Kamarov?”

  “Are you going to tell me, or must I beg?”

  “Begging would help. His former bosses, Charlie. They are the losers. They had Kamarov bottled up, but perestroika and the fall of Communism made them forgetful, or careless.”

  “I vote for careless.”

  “Okay, so instead of liquidating him as they would have in the old days, they send him off to an uncomfortable retirement. Then he turns up here. If you were Kamarov, what would induce you to come to the States?”

  “Money, a new life, it couldn’t have been very upbeat for him in…what was that place?”

  “Novosibirsk.”

  “Right. You talked to Alexei in the old days. What would be your guess?”

  “I think he might have been approached by whoever did this. I think he might even have set up the meet himself. He persuaded the people—we’ll assume the FBI for the moment—that he had information that would embarrass the Agency. He wouldn’t have much of anything that could be used against them, so FBI seems the likely choice, not you. They snap him up and whisk him to wherever. Then things get screwy.”

  “Thanks for letting us off the hook. How screwy?”

  “He moves to Floyd. Apparently, they did not keep him on a close leash or they would have noticed our asking about Randall Harris. That means…what? I don’t know. Could he have had a second ID they didn’t know about? That seems unlikely. Anyway, they haven’t.”

  “Haven’t what?”

  “Picked up on the fact that local police are pursuing Randall Harris and his friends.”

  “Oh.”

  “Anyway, he’s shipped off to Floyd. Do you think the Bureau doesn’t know who makes up an important portion of the population down there? It had to be at his insistence.”

  “I still don’t follow…wait…you think he used them to get to us?”

  “Who’s he angry at, Charlie? Not the Agency, I don’t think.”

  “He finagled his way over here to blow the whistle on his former bosses?”

  “Somehow they found him and killed him. They dumped him in a place as far away as they dared to go from Floyd—small town with limited police. They couldn’t possibly know they picked the one town on the East Coast where there was someone who knew him by sight.”

  “Wow. Okay, but that ends your search, you know. Even if you could get witnesses and evidence enough to arrest, the minute you get close, they’ll invoke diplomatic immunity and ship their muscle home.”

  “But at least they’d know we know.”

  “Why bother, Ike?”

  “Charlie, in the insane world you inhabit, and I used to, you get to know people. When you are an operative, you don’t make friends, but to the extent two men on the opposite side of the fence could be, Alexei and I were friends. He tried to help me and paid the price. I owe him. If it’s at all possible, I’m going to get them.”

  “Your call.”

  “One more thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “What if Alexei had documents.”

  “If he thought he was in trouble or if he was killed, he might want to share them with the press! Blow the lid off everybody.”

  “And?”

  “He’d keep a copy hidden somewhere.”

  “And someone torched Bolt’s house.”

  “To get rid of the copies?”

  “Works for me.”

  Ike hung up and stared at the list. As neatly as he’d spun it out to Charlie, he knew it didn’t add up. They may have wanted to, but the Russians did not kill Kamarov. And where was Steve Bolt? The television blared out an infomercial from the local tourism bureau. He caught sight of a long shot down the Blue Ridge Parkway and a few seconds of a humpbacked Buffalo Mountain looming in the distance. At that moment it seemed menacing.

  Chapter 24

  Whaite felt his frustration rising. Every time he thought he had a lead, someone stalled him or disappeared. He needed to talk to Bolt but nobody knew, or would admit to knowing, where he could be found. The volunteer fire company up on the mountain didn’t think Whaite had done them any favors by suggesting arson. Now they would have to call in the County to investigate. He tried to reach Ike at the office. Essie said Ike was out and she didn’t know where. She put Sam on, who sounded like a bad soap opera.

  “I don’t know anything,” she mumbled.

  “What’s up with you, Sam? You sound like you missed winning the lottery by one digit.”

  “Karl,” she said. Whaite thought she might be crying. “He’s what you said and worse.” She hung up.

  Karl? He didn’t remember saying anything about Karl. Whaite redialed and tried Essie again.

  “What in the billy blue blazes is going on up there?”

  “She’s got man trouble with that smart-alecky FBI guy, and Ike owes me a jelly-filled.”

  “I don’t think I want you to translate that. I ain’t had my second cup yet. Look, I need some help down here. Get Ike to call when he gets in or Sam when she’s normal.”

  He drove on to Willis. If he couldn’t find Bolt, he’d do the next best thing and find Oldham. He pulled in at the first establishment that had salt- and mud-encrusted trucks and older model cars parked in front. He wanted to talk to the locals, the ones who drove pickups and beat-up Malibus. He pushed in through the door, which scraped on the linoleum. Code violation, he mused. Men sat around drinking an early lunch. All eyes focused on him. Conversations stopped, started up again, but the eyes never left him. He nodded to several, pulled up to the bar, and ordered a coffee.

  “You’ll have to wait,” the proprietor said. “I just this minute started a fresh pot.” Whaite smiled and nodded again.

  “N
o hurry.”

  Whatever the laws were regarding smoking in public facilities, they clearly did not apply there. A haze of acrid blue smoke hung from the ceiling. He could only escape it by slouching down. Three men sat at a table next to him. He smiled, stuck out his hand.

  “How do, Whaite Billingsly. You from around here?”

  The men inspected him. “You wouldn’t be Howard Billingsly’s boy, now, would you?” one asked. Howard, in this part of the world, was pronounced Haired.

  “Howard from up near Slate Mountain?”

  “That’s the one.”

  “No, I’m his nephew a couple of times over. My daddy was Dink Billingsly from over to Buffalo Mountain.”

  “Well, I thought you looked familiar. You ain’t from around here no more, though, are you?”

  “Nope. Moved up to Picketsville.”

  “Now I got you. You’re a deputy up there.”

  “That’s me.”

  “That your car—the fancy one?”

  “It is.”

  “Don’t look much like a police car to me.”

  “It’s my own. Long story on why I’m messing up the paint job with salt and cinders.”

  “Chevelle—what year?”

  “Sixty-seven. Got the big 396 engine.”

  “She’s a goer, I’ll bet. So, what’re you doing down here, if I ain’t being too personal.”

  “Looking for a guy we think might know something about a corpse we got on ice up at Picketsville.”

  “Dead man? Who? Again, if I ain’t being too—”

  “Not sure. Rumor has it might be a Randall Harris. Ring a bell?”

  Conversation in the immediate area stopped. The men stared at Whaite and then quickly averted their eyes.

  “There was a Randall Harris up near Floyd, but he weren’t no real Harris. He come from somewhere else and talked funny, like he come from some other country, or maybe Boston—one of them foreign places, you know?”

  “You see him around here much?”

  The man studied Whaite for a full mountain minute, evidently weighing which way he would answer.

  “He’s dead, you say?”