“Don’t interrupt. We were there at this place and your father was there, all smiling and greeting all his old political pals. There was a lot of back slapping and you and I…this is scary…”
Ike’s phone beeped, informing him he had an incoming call waiting.
“Hang on a second, Ruth, someone’s trying to reach me.’
“They can wait, this is important.”
“I’ll be right back.” He hit the flash button.
“Ike, this is Darcie, Whaite’s wife. Where is he?”
“I’m not sure. Did you call Rita at the office?”
“I did. Nobody can reach him, Ike, and I know something awful has happened.”
“Darcie, hang on. I have someone on the other line, I’ll be right back.” He flashed back to Ruth.
“I have an emergency on the other line. Can we talk about this later?”
“One minute, Schwartz, or you know what you will not find under your Christmas tree.”
“Okay, but make it quick. So this scary thing was?”
“We were married, Ike.”
“I’m okay with that, at least, dream wise. Is that the nightmare part because—?”
“Shut up and listen. The celebration is going on all around and then it changed, like instead of being there, I’m watching a television show and the voice-over announces us—no, you. He goes on about your dad—the political legend, and then about you—Senator Schwartz—lots of applause—your wife—they didn’t even call me by name. Do you believe that? There’s some more applause and, then, are you ready for this? Our son—thunderous applause.”
“We had a son?”
“We did.”
“I gotta go, but you’re right. Mixing our gene pools is indeed scary. But hey, if you want to try, I know how babies are made. We could—”
“In your dreams, Schwartz.”
“Actually, it was in yours. Is that it?” Ruth had already hung up. “Darcie, are you still there?”
“I’m here, Ike, and I’m scared.”
“Stay calm, Darcie. You know he’s not in a police car. His cell phone is probably off—”
“No, that’s the other thing. I’ve been dialing it for hours and all I get is his voice mail.”
“Well, there you go. It’s off.”
“No, if it were off, it would go to voice mail, like, right away. But it rings and rings and…” Ike heard the sob in her voice. “See, I have these premonitions and last night I woke up and I just knew he’d been hurt. Now, this morning, I think it’s worse. He’s—”
“I’ll get right on it. It’ll be just fine. I’ll call you back in an hour when we know something. Now you just get those kids ready for school. In an hour.” He hung up and called Essie at home.
“Ike, Essie, are you up?”
“Been up for a while.” Essie also occupied the other half of the human race.
“I want you to call Rita and ask her to stick around for a while past the shift change. Then I want you to go out to Whaite’s house and look in on his family.”
“What’s going on?”
“I’m not sure but Whaite hasn’t been heard from since late last night and Darcie—”
“She has second sight, I know. She thinks something is wrong?”
“Yes.”
“Then she’s right. I’m on it.” Essie’s line went dead.
Ike showered and dressed. He reached for the doorknob when his phone rang again. The caller ID read SHRFF OFF-PKTVLL.
“Ike, this is Rita. We just got a call from the Floyd County Police Department. There’s been an accident and—”
“It’s Whaite. How bad?”
“Ike, he was dead when they found him. His car must have skidded and he lost control. He hit an oak tree head on.”
Ike hung his head. Whaite—gone. “Rita, can you give me a few more hours this morning, I—”
“Whatever you need. I already called everybody in. I figured you’d want to talk to them.”
“Thanks. I’ll be right there.”
***
Deputies crowded the office area. They almost never saw each other at the same time. More men entered and stamped the snow from their boots. The room hummed with subdued greetings. Ike stood in their midst and asked for their attention. He filled them in on what he knew, which wasn’t much. Rita said there’d been a second call from Floyd County asking for someone to come down to identify the body and inspect Whaite’s car. Ike asked his deputies for their cooperation in rescheduling shifts. He said he’d be in touch regarding any services and went on through the dismal litany of things to do, bases to touch with an officer down.
“Sam?” he said, looking around. He realized he hadn’t seen her at the briefing.
“She didn’t answer her phone, Ike. She may not know.”
For an instant, Ike had a moment of panic. Another deputy out of touch—phone not responding.
“Anybody heard from Sam?”
As if on cue, she walked in the door and was greeted by a dozen pairs of eyes.
“What?” she said.
“Okay, everybody, that’s it,” Ike announced. “Sam, I’ll catch you up on the way to Floyd.”
“We’re going to Floyd?”
“It’s Whaite. He was killed in a car accident. You and I are going to ID the body and…other things.”
“Not his wife?”
“Not if I can help it. She has kids to look to and…Not now.”
Sam’s eyes started to tear up. She blew her nose. “I don’t guess he’ll be needing these things.” She dropped the pictures taken from the ATMs on Whaite’s desk.
Ike waved her into his office and pointed to his only other chair. He shuffled through the paperwork on his desk—forms to fill out, reports to be filed. He sat and sighed. Charlie Garland’s superphone bleeped. Ike closed his eyes. He did not want to talk to Charlie right at that moment. The phone went into urgent mode.
Chapter 35
Sam rose to leave but Ike signaled for her to stay seated. The phone continued its insistent beeping. He drummed his fingers and after a moment punched the receive button.
“Charlie, this is a bad time. Can I call you back?”
“This will only take a minute.” That’s what they all say, Ike thought, and watched as Sam fitted a new battery into her phone.
“Okay, but please make it quick.”
“Last night two rather hefty men left the Russian embassy in a hurry. They were whisked off to Dulles, where an official Russian jet sat on the taxiway, motors spinning, and waiting for them. They are gone. Our intel people are convinced they are the probables of your homicide. We are closing up shop.”
“That’s it?”
“You said be brief.”
“Not enough. What about the black program? Aren’t you interested in tracking that down?”
“Not my department, Ike. We’ll stay tuned in, but we think Kamarov was their only real asset. With him gone, the program will disintegrate. If he told them anything, they know it already. If he didn’t, they never will. End of story.”
“It won’t work, Charlie. Too many loose ends, and besides, I want a crack at the person who did it.”
“The goons on the plane will be met by our people at the other end, maybe not right away, but some day.”
“What about Bolt? What about the credit cards?”
“I expect we’ll find out what that’s all about eventually.”
Ike shook his head. “We are in a mess down here right now and I haven’t the time or the inclination to debate this with you. I just lost my best deputy in an automobile accident. Coincidently, he was the lead tracking Kamarov. That worries me. Now, we will have to start all over again. I’m telling you this so you will know that if you don’t see any progress at this end, it’s because we have paused, not stopped.”
“I’ll be pulling for you.”
“That’s all you have to say?”
“Um…no, I need the phone back.”
Ike s
hoved the phone into a desk drawer. “We’re on our own now, Sam. I don’t believe for a minute that Kamarov was a simple takeout by his own people. It’s possible, even logical, but—”
“I heard. There’s the cards and Bolt. The FBI ran the black program, we’re pretty sure of that. The last time I looked, they were still trying to find our corpse. Lately, there’s been an unusual amount of traffic looking in the John Doe reports of area police departments. Eventually they are going to tumble to us. They’re not convinced his people did him, and since they have the same capacity to ferret out the Russians as the CIA, why don’t they go away, too?”
“Point taken. You are absolutely right. We are not done with Kamarov.”
***
Ike let Sam drive and they covered the roads to Floyd in relative silence. Ike found himself fighting conflicting emotions. He was alternately angry, guilty, and saddened by Waite’s death. It seemed so unfair, so unlikely that a routine, no, make that marginal, investigation should end in death. Whaite had been following a lead three degrees removed from the real interest. Ike had sent him on the job, and now he wondered if he’d been wrong to do so. And he thought of Darcie Billingsly and two children under eight. What a waste.
“Boss?” Sam broke into his thoughts.
“Yeah?”
“I heard your half of the conversation with your friend at the CIA. They think that Harris’ or Kamarov’s killing had nothing to do with the people running the black program?”
“Pretty much, yes.”
“I guess I’m happy about that.”
“Because of Karl?”
Sam sighed and slouched a little in her seat. “Yes. He’s a no good double dirt bag, but I’m glad he’s not a murderer, too.”
“Well, yes. You know, Sam, it’s just possible you have him pegged wrong.”
“I saw the name, Ike—Hedrick, K.”
“Well, you know, he has a job to do. He can’t pick and choose. If he’s ordered to join a special operation, he doesn’t get a choice.”
“Yeah, I know, but what about the woman on the phone?”
“There is probably some perfectly reasonable explanation for that.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know, Sam, I’m just trying to be neutral here. I had hopes for you and Karl and I’m not willing to let them go just yet.”
“Can’t see it. Sorry.”
Ike decided he’d never make a living as Dear Abby. Luckily they arrived at the county police barracks and had other things to occupy them.
The sergeant at the desk referred them to Officer Martz, who happened to be in. Sam and Ike found him two-finger typing at his desk. Ike introduced himself and Sam. Martz stopped his pecking and led them to the morgue. Ike made the official ID and set up the transfer of the body to Unger’s Funeral Home in Picketsville. Siegfried Unger had taken over the business from the Quade family, who’d run it for three generations. Since the fourth didn’t want anything to do with it, they’d sold to Unger, who renamed it. Folks thought the name change somehow violated a tradition and got to calling Siegfried Unger, Six Feet Under.
Ike and Sam spent a few minutes staring at Whaite’s waxen face. He realized how helpless people were in death. If he could, he would have reversed every decision he’d made about the investigation, and Whaite would still be alive.
“It’s part of the job, Ike,” Sam said, reading his mind. “Whaite knew that, we all do. It’s what we do.” Ike nodded, but he didn’t feel any better.
Martz took them back to the main building and ushered them into a small conference room.
“Here’s what we have. It isn’t much, but before we write accident on anything we check—you know—just in case. Well, we canvassed the houses in the neighborhood. Nobody saw or heard anything. I guess the snow muffled the sound. One lady lives almost directly opposite the scene, so we spent some time with her. Now I have to tell you, she’s old, hard of hearing, and maybe has a little trouble seeing as well.”
“My favorite kind of witness,” Ike said.
“Right, I know what you mean. Anyway, this woman said she must have witnessed the crash. I asked her what she meant saying, ‘she must have witnessed the crash.’ She didn’t report it so what happened? Well, she thought she heard something but when she looked out the window, except for the lights going out, she couldn’t see anything. ‘What lights?’ I asked. Now I have to tell you it was confusing. She did not see the skid, she says, only heard it. She said her cat distracted her and she took her eyes off the road for a second. She said…” Martz pulled a notebook from his pocket and consulted it.
“She said, ‘There was the little bang and then, another, bigger, bang.’ She couldn’t figure out what the first one was all about. I asked her to describe the first one and she said, ‘like a crash when cars hit each other.’ That isn’t much in itself except a minute later she said something like, ‘it’s funny, because before I turned off the TV, a pickup truck drove by going the other way and its side was all banged up and it looked like it had hit something.’ Any of this work for you?”
“You left out the part about the lights.”
“Oh that. Yeah, she said she thought she saw lights, but when she looked closer, they were gone. By the next morning she figured she’d seen a soul passing. Mountain people—superstitious lot.”
Ike felt the butterflies begin to swarm in his stomach. “It might not have been an accident.”
“I told you, the lady is a quarter deaf and half blind. She had her TV up full blast and apparently had been watching an old auto racing movie. She lives alone. I don’t know how much is memory and how much is imagination. She kept referring to the driver as Steve McQueen. You follow?”
Ike still felt the butterflies. He turned to Sam. “Deputy? Any thoughts?”
“I think we need to look at Whaite’s car.”
Chapter 36
The rest of the week slid by, gray and cold. Slush and dirty snow lined Picketsville’s streets. Even the multicolored lights and decorations looked old and tired. Things seemed to move in slow motion. Essie stepped up and took over the day to day. She made the arrangements for the memorial service. She talked to, soothed, and supported Darcie. Pastor Jim from the Baptist church arrived and consulted. By Thursday all the important details had been taken care of. Ike felt relieved. That afternoon a woman in a black leather slacks suit sailed into the office. Essie directed her to Ike. She flashed her ID and asked for Charlie’s secure phone.
Ike handed it over. The day before, Sam had taken its back off and studied its circuitry. Ike had an uneasy feeling she’d also found a jack of some sort in there somewhere and had hooked it up to her computer. Whether she’d downloaded its encryption program or not, he didn’t know and he didn’t want to know. The last thing he wanted was the feds in his shop arresting his deputy.
Essie watched the woman’s every move, in and out.
“Miss Agency-Ain’t-I-Something didn’t get that hottie outfit at the Dollar Store, did she?” she said. “I bet you can’t even get one like that in Roanoke.”
“That’s ‘inside the beltway chic,’ no doubt about it.”
“Inside whose belt? Are you talking dirty, Ike, or am I missing something?”
“Inside the Washington Beltway—the navel of the universe, font of all true wisdom.”
“Okay, I got you, I think.”
Ike and Sam had inspected what was left of Whaite’s vehicle. Muscle cars from that era had two things working against anyone hoping to survive a crash in them. They were heavy, with too much of the weight in the front end. In a head-on, a 396 V-8 engine could easily blow through the fire wall and wind up in the driver’s lap. Worse, the Chevelle was pre-air bag. It barely made it into the seat belt era. Whaite never had a chance. They saw where the Jaws of Life had been used to get him out—too late to save his life. There was a very suspicious scrape along the driver’s side front quarter panel. They decided to keep that bit of information to themselves until they
had time to assess it and make a plan. Right now, they did not want all the other deputies angry and out for blood. The chances of finding a hit-and-run driver were not good. They needed another angle and they hadn’t found one. Ike clenched his jaw. He’d find whoever did it. Nobody was going to take down one of his people.
***
T.J. stared out the second storey window down into the backyard of the house behind his. He had no idea how long he’d been standing there. The passage of time did settle easily in his mind. He owned a watch. He could tell time. But that was a discipline he had learned over a dozen years to please others. Time ticking away meant nothing to him. Memory difficulties, however, were not among the many deficits visited on him in his young life. On the contrary, his memory functioned perfectly. So, if he knew he was to be at a certain place at a certain time, he would not forget. He would look at his watch with almost compulsive regularity and when the large and small hands were in the alignment he needed, he would respond. He, like the inexpensive timepiece on his wrist, was amazingly punctual.
He stood close to the window, only vaguely aware of the cold sheet of air that coursed across its face and chilled the room. Like time, heat and cold were not prominent features in his awareness. Not that he didn’t know the difference; it just didn’t seem to register. He shivered briefly and shifted his weight from one foot to the other. The wind rattled the window frame and swirled around the narrow confines of the small backyard below. The blue tarp on Donald’s truck lifted and flapped angrily in an icy gust, fell, and covered the truck once more.
Donald parked the truck right where T.J. remembered. Donald’s mother used to sit and drink there.
Hey there, T.J., how you doing?
I’m doing just fine there, Mrs. Donald’s Mother.
Well that’s good to hear, boy.
What’s that you have in that bottle? Is it water?
Oh yeah, it is. It’s special water, T.J. It’s fire water. Hee, hee.
T.J. never did see the fire come out of the water and he wondered about that sometimes. Mrs. Donald’s Mother didn’t act like other mothers, not like his. She laughed and sometimes fell asleep in the backyard with her fire water and Donald would come home and yell at her and T.J. would go to the front of his house because he didn’t like the words they said when they yelled. But she wasn’t there anymore. “Gone to the Loony Bin,” Donald had said. T.J. asked his mother what the Loony Bin was, and she said it was not a nice word and why did he want to know, and he said it was just something Donald said about where his mother went. An institution, she said. Later, his father said he, T.J., belonged in the Loony Bin, too, and his mother had cried.
3 - Buffalo Mountain: Ike Schwartz Mystery 3 Page 18