Keeping The Faith (John Fisher Chronicles Book 2)

by William Lehman

  She slowly turned her head to look at me, saying "Guys stationed in Alaska, and guys that winter over at Operation Deep Freeze huh?" She didn't move away though, or freak out, and I couldn't smell any fear, so I guess it was all good. We spent another hour or two there that night. I had forgotten how good it felt to just shoot the shit with someone else that had "seen the elephant." By the time we left, Dooley (Patrick if you must know, but no one calls him that) and I were friends. While I was still a "damn squid", I was spec war so it was OK. Seems Dooley was an armorer for MAC-SOG, and had come up with some of the shit that eventually became standard issue. Of course, he field-tested stuff, so he had seen actual combat. He told me some stories about the old days at the start of the Teams, I told him some of the few unclassified stories about what the Teams were up to now. The only drag about telling sea stories out in town...most of my good ones are classified. On the way back to the pier, Alex informed me that Dooley's day job was as a timber cruiser and that he might have found, or would find, some more kills for me to look at. I filed that away under things to check on later, then thanked her for a fun evening and headed for the boat and bed.

  Mary called the next morning to talk, she hadn't gotten back up to the island yet, it would probably be a couple days before she could get back up there. Then we talked about personal things that are really none of your business. After that I did my normal morning ablutions, made breakfast, headed to my temporary office, and started doing some serious work on the case; paperwork, that is. I wanted to try to get as much data on the reported cases as I could and put that data into a usable format. I wanted to see if I could find any patterns I could exploit. This involved the standard map with pins, that you see in every hack TV "crime drama", but it also involved using a spreadsheet program (no, not Lotus or Works, there's proprietary software provided with the program that does our police reports) and lots of data entry. This took me all damn day, well into the evening, and I still wasn't done. Hey, typing speed was never a requirement for law enforcement. I finally got fed up at about eighteen hundred and called it a day. The next day was more of the same, and I finished the data entry for all of the unsolved poaching cases over the last year that involved 'Thropes or were "weapon unknown". Then I had to go to the local Sheriffs (two counties border the park), and the Fish and Wildlife boys, both federal and state, and ask for their poaching reports for unsolved cases that met the same criteria, and enter that data. When I saw how much was there, I knew I was in for at least four more days just doing data entry, and half of these cases may not even be related to our rogue 'Thropes. This was all just too much, I needed a beer. I didn't want to drink alone, so I headed for the VFW.

  I went there straight from the office, but being a detective, I only wore the uniform when it suited me, so that was OK. The "Powers That Be" really frown on you drinking in uniform, and I try never to piss them off unnecessarily. It's funny that the times I have thought it was necessary, they haven't agreed. When I got there, the place was about dead, maybe fifteen guys there total. One of them was, of course, Dooley. I got the feeling he pretty much lived there except to sleep and work. It may still have been early for him, because he was mostly sober. He looked up as I walked in and waved me over. Well, not wanting to be an asshole, and not wanting to drink alone in a crowd, I walked over to his corner of the bar and sat down. He looked up at me and smiled. "John" he said "It's good to see you, but you look like Hell. What makes someone like you look like they were pulled through the knothole backwards?"

  "Hey Dooley." I said softly "Be careful about that 'someone like you' crack, huh? It's not a secret or anything, but I really don't want to advertise, Ok?"

  "Yeah sure John, but you didn't answer my question."

  "Paperwork, Dooley, paperwork."

  "How much paperwork can there be for a Forest Ranger?" Dooley asked with a grin. "I thought you had office poges for that."

  "Well Dooley, you see, I'm not actually a Forest Ranger."

  "See, you were with Alex, and I got the feeling that it was an after work kind of thing...oh my gods, John, I'm sorry, are you one of the office types I was just slamming?"

  I had to laugh at that. "No Dooley, I'm not an office poge. Though the last couple of days it's felt like that. No, I'm a Park Police detective."

  Dooley thought about that for a few moments, and then said "Oh, Christ, you're THE MAN?" You could hear the capital letters in that sentence. He smelled more nervous about this than he had about my being a Team Twelve member.

  "Dooley, it's Ok. I'm not looking for you, there's nothing that you've done that I'm interested in. Relax man." Jeesh, some people. They see a badge and immediately think Jack Booted Thug. I'll have you know that I only wear Jack Boots on weekends! "Look," I continued after a pause "I'm still the same guy you had a beer or several with the other night; I've just got a badge. I'm over here for a poaching case. Some group of 'Thropes is killing shit inside the National Park. That's a no-no, and I want to find them and nail them for it."

  Dooley sat and thought about this for a few seconds. "You know, I wonder if this has anything to do with Johann's not being around any more."

  "Who's Johann?" I asked, thinking bingo to myself.

  "He's an old buddy of mine. Had some of the most amazing stories. He was one of you guys. A 'Thrope that is, not a SEAL or a Forest Service type. He had been in "Nam in some sort of capacity."

  "When was the last time you saw him?"

  "Oh, 'bout six months ago. He used to come into town once a month or so to sell stuff to a couple of the art studios in town. He would stop in here on the way through town, have dinner, hoist a few, shoot the shit, sometimes stay overnight at my place or some other guy's, and then he was gone again."

  "Was he a member of the VFW?" I asked. If he was a member I should be able to get a full name off the records.

  "Uh, yeah, I think so...yeah, I saw him show his card one time when he logged in."

  "All right, thanks Dooley, you may have helped more than you know." I walked up to the bartender and placed a fifty on the bar. "That's for Dooley's drinks for as many days as it holds out. Do you guys keep the log books for members?"

  "Yes sir, we do. Why do you ask?"

  "Dooley was talking about a buddy of his that used to come around here about once a month. Guy name of Johann. I was wondering what his last name was."

  "Hell, we don't go through more than about a book a year. Johann should be in the current book, you're welcome to look." the bartender said with a gesture toward the log book.

  It took me about twenty minutes of searching, but I finally found it; Johann Messinger. I wrote it down, and headed for the boat and bed.

  Early the next morning I was up and at it early. As soon as I finished my morning routine I was headed for the office. I was there by seven thirty and on the computer by seven thirty-five. I ran through all of the Veteran's Affairs website's first. No sign of a Johann Messinger. Then I tried the official military website's, the ones that you have to have a password and a Common Access Card (that's the new military and government smart ID card) and finally found him there...Dead. What was really interesting was that he had been dead for awhile. Like since nineteen freaking sixty-five! Seems he was killed in a helicopter crash during an assault on a Viet Cong stronghold. His burned-beyond-recognition body was buried with full honors. Ok, now this was getting weird. I got a live 'Thrope that's telling 'Nam stories to someone that would recognize a fake, using the name of a guy that's been dead for over forty years. I did pull the picture of the guy off of the military records page, just for grins. Then I sent it through the program we have to manipulate photos of suspects, and aged the man a few different ways, balding, or full hair, and normal progression age versus just a few years age. I printed them up, then went back into Sequim.

  It took two or three shops, but I found someone who recognized the photo. Not the old army one, but the one that I had shopped for a partial aging process. The owner of the store said that
there were a few differences, hair length, and things like that, but that it was unmistakably Johann. After that I found three more stores that recognized him. None of these folks had seen him in months. Well, that led me to wonder if Johann was doing time, so I stopped in at the local county sheriff's office again. No, they didn't have a Johann Messinger in the lockup. No, they didn't have a John Doe in the lockup, nor did they have anyone that looked like the picture that I showed them in the lockup under another name.

  Then one of the deputies looked at the picture again. He stared at it for a moment, then started digging through the notebooks under the front desk. Eventually he came up with the one that he was looking for. He thumbed through it for a moment and then opened it fully, and turned it around so that I could see the pictures.

  They weren't pretty. I knew where Johann had gone though. He was in the local cemetery as John Doe number 201305. Shit. Then my phone rang, it was Lieutenant Murphy.

  "John, who is Johann Messinger?"

  "And good morning to you too L.T."

  "John, don't give me any crap. Who the Hell is Johann Messinger, and why do I have guys from back east calling me up and demanding that we stop any inquiries about him NOW?" She sounded completely nonplused about the whole thing.

  "Look L.T., I'm sort of public right now, give me a moment." I pulled the phone away from my ear and looked at the deputy that had been helping me. "Excuse me; I have to talk to the boss. I can give you a name for that John Doe though, if you can tell me one thing."

  The deputy raised his eyebrows in silent query.

  "Did the body fail the Chaney test?"

  "Oh yeah...big time; tested positive for wolf."

  "Ok, the John Doe's name is Johann Messinger. Gotta go, I'll be back if I need anything further."

  As I walked out to the Durango to continue the call with the lieutenant, I put the phone to my ear just in time to have it blasted by the shouts of my boss. "God damn it John, what the Hell is going on over there?"

  "Let me get in the rig, and I'll explain all, boss." I crawled into the driver's seat, closed the door and said "All right boss, now I can talk Johann Messinger was a person of interest. I say was, because he's dead...Twice."

  I pulled the phone away awaiting the inevitable blast. After she calmed down, I continued. "What I mean by dead twice, is that he was killed in an auto accident about six months ago, up here in Sequim and filed as a John Doe. But the Army says he was killed in a combat-related helicopter crash in 1965."

  "John, you're the guy with all the military experience, what do you think this means? Did he desert and fake his death?"

  "No, I don't think so...for two reasons: one, he was using his own name up here, he'd joined the VFW, and everything, not the sort of thing a deserter would do; two, the pressure you are receiving. Someone doesn't want anyone to ask any questions about Johann. That smells like Black Ops stuff to me."

  "Ok, what are we talking about here, Black Helicopters, conspiracy theory stuff?"

  "No, but there were some outfits in 'Nam that 'didn't exist'. Stuff like the Phoenix Project. Guys that were never there, doing things they never did."

  "You mean like death squad stuff?"

  "That's exactly what I mean. Johann was a 'Thrope. I'm betting he was one far before he died. Like he was one in 'Nam. Whether he was infected before he joined the Army, or whether he got infected while he was in, I think he got grabbed up and was offered a spot in Black Ops. He obviously had a DD-214, because he couldn't have joined the VFW without it. So he left under honorable conditions. Why he joined the VFW, and why he was using a name that the Army had listed as KIA, I don't know, but there's something weird going on. I just don't know if it's related."

  "Well John, keep me informed. I'm not going to tell you that any direction of investigation is off limits, just keep me in the loop."

  After that, I drove back to the office. There were a few things to look at.

  Chapter Six

  I got back to my temporary office an hour or so later and started digging through the police reports and sorting them by date. A few hours after that, I came to a very interesting realization. About eighty percent of the unsolved poaching cases involving possible 'Thropes in the last year happened in the last six months. In other words, since the death of one Johann Messinger. Or the second death, whatever...

  This brings me to the question, how does a dead Black Ops (I'm going to take it as a tentatively proven hypothesis that Johann was some sort of Black Ops type) guy cause a huge rise in poaching, and the killing of livestock? Most of the "outside the park" police complaints were for the killing of "Jim-Bob's" cow and such. So I sat down with a couple of the reports from before and after the death to compare. After reading through them all, I noticed something. The stuff before Johann's death had very little evidence. There was a half a foot print, a vague supposition that it was 'Thropes, but no proof, no witnesses. There was a sharp line in the cases within a week of Johann's death. Post death, the number of poaching cases takes off almost immediately, and starts getting sloppy too. People start seeing animals, finding tracks, the number of domestic animals dying goes up...I looked at the clock and it was twenty-three hundred. Shit, it's time to quit for the night. I drove back to the boat thinking once again that my theory about having more time off now that I'm a detective didn't quite pan out.

  The next morning I was back at it, finally finished entering all of the police reports into the data base I was using, and started looking for correlations. Area-wise, I didn't have much luck, they were hitting all over the damn place, and didn't seem to generate any pattern. This was all assuming that all of the killings were by the same group. This might not have been a valid assumption, but I was willing to go with it for right now. When I sorted by dates, and geography, I had a little better luck, only in that I could track their sweeps through the area. Still, no real pattern though, they would sweep east to west, then sweep to the south, then back up to the north, then start up in the southeast...nothing predictable. Of course, this is only the kills that were found and reported, gods only know how many we didn't find.

  Mid-morning I got a call from Mary. "Hello, lover. John, there's a vehicle in the parking spot reserved for the Tanngnost."

  "Good morning Mary, well, have you told the Yacht Club caretaker?"

  "Yes, he says it's Lars'. So I guess you have something to drive now other than your police truck. At least as soon as I can find the keys for it."

  "Dare I ask?"

  "Oh, go ahead; you know I want you to."

  "OK, what sort of vehicle is it?"

  "It's a Sports Ute. Sort of."

  "Mary, you're being cagey, I can tell. Drop the other shoe."

  "It's a Lamborghini."

  "Nonsense, they don't make a sport utility."

  "Well, damn it, there's a charging bull on the back of this big fucking monster, and the label says Lamborghini LM002 big as shit. The license plate reads HAMMER."

  "That sure sounds like Lars. Give me a moment." I hit Bing up for Lamborghini, then corrected my spelling and tried again. Sure as shit, they do make a Sports Ute. If you can call the tank that I was looking at a Sports Ute. It looked more like an assault vehicle, although since it was a Lamborghini, it was probably a fully leather upholstered, with a top-end sound system, assault vehicle. I got back on the phone. "Wow. I just looked it up on the web. That thing is huge."

  "Yeah, it could probably take my bike in the back."

  Considering that her bike is a big Indian, that was saying something. "Well, I guess, give the house a look when you get there for keys; I'll try to come up in a few days and give it a look. Maybe I'll sell it and get something practical."

  "Don't you dare. If Lars owned this, it must have been practical for him. There must be a reason, that cunning old fox never did anything just for ostentation. The fact that it's painted nondescript dirt-brown, shows that. It's not like you can't afford the thing. And it is cool, in a 'give me any shit and I'll run
over you' sort of way."

  "You have me there. Ok Lover, I'll be up in a day or two; I'm having problems figuring out what's going on down here. Once I get to a good place to pause, I'll come up for a couple day break." We talked a bit more about nothing much in particular and then said good-bye, and I got back to work.

  I still couldn't figure out why Johann dying would have caused the upswing in poaching, so it was time to go knock on some doors. I drove down to Sequim and started talking to the merchants that had recognized Johann. What was he selling, things like that...It turned out that our Johann had been selling handcrafts, some of which were real works of art, others of which, were, well, crap. There were apparently at least six or eight, maybe more artists involved, the styles were too different for any less than that. Then I started talking to the retailers around town. Fortunately it's a small town so I didn't have to work too hard to find out where he was spending the money. Some of it was going for art supplies and tools, the rest of it was going for stuff that couldn't be made, found or killed.

  I recognized the supply lists the retailers were giving quite well; it was the sort of stuff the fur trappers would have bought at Rendezvous. I think I mentioned that I'm into historical re-enactments and such; yes I'm a card carrying member of the SCA, which is a medieval recreation group. But I have also played and hung out with some Blue and Grey re-enactors, some Single Action Shooting Society types, and some Fur Trapper types. Soggy Moccasin Rendezvous used to be one of my never-miss events, before work started taking so much of my time. The quantities were interesting though, he never bought much at any one place, but when you put it together he was buying enough supplies to keep a platoon of guys in beans and biscuits. There were a few oddities, lot more rice than I would have expected, and along with coffee, he always bought some green tea...sort of weird.

  Ok, well that gave me a few things; Johann was the "face man" for a group that was living somewhere up in the hills. It included ten to fifteen men (plus or minus a couple). I gotta believe that these where the same guys that were my mystery 'Thropes. I just don't believe in coincidence enough to believe that there were two mystery groups living up in the mountains unrelated to each other. Especially when there was an obvious tie-in between the two, namely Johann. Time to call in to the boss with what I had so far.