by David Archer
“Has he ever brought any work home with him? Any paperwork, that sort of thing?”
Christina looked down at her purse and seemed to wrestle with herself for a moment, then reached inside and withdrew a small device.
“Just this,” she said. “It was hidden inside a ripped place in the bottom of his bag, the same one the bloody shirt was in. I don’t know what it is and I can’t get into it, it’s encrypted. I don’t know if this will help or not, but…”
Chapter 3
Pete looked at Josie, who held out her hand. Christina dropped a little USB drive into her palm, and Josie wheeled herself over to her own desk and plugged the small memory storage device into her computer. A little box popped up on the screen, and she sighed. “It's encrypted, all right,” she said. She looked around at Christina again. “Don't suppose you'd have a guess about the password?”
Christina shook her head. “No,” she said. “I have already tried everything I could think of, and got nowhere. Is there any way to get past that?”
Josie punched a key on her computer and a new program window opened up. “Probably, but we are talking at least a few hours, and maybe a couple of days; 1024-bit encryption takes a little while to crack.”
Pete looked at Christina. “You think this has something to do with whatever your husband does for a living? I’d hate to waste time on it if it’s just his laundry list.”
Christina smiled, but there was pain in it. “Whatever’s on that came from his work. No doubt about it. I'm not even sure I want to know exactly what is on it, but it might help you figure out what he’s doing.” The smile cracked, and suddenly she had tears falling from her eyes. “He had someone else’s blood on his shirt,” she said, trying to stifle a sob. “No matter how I try, I can’t come up with any logical reason why he would have somebody else’s blood on his shirt. There’s just something so sinister about that, something terrifying about it. I have got to know what happened, I have just got to know whether he is really the man I think I married or not.”
Chance was staring at her, but Pete was up instantly out of his chair and put an arm around her shoulder. The girl leaned against him, and Pete muttered soft reassurances as she cried for the next couple of minutes. “There, there,” he was saying softly. “We’ll figure it out, and maybe it won’t be nearly as bad as you’re afraid of. Just let us do our job, okay? We’ll figure it out for you.”
Josie had glanced around at them, but the look on her face was just sympathetic. Christina began to regain her composure, and she finally pushed Pete away gently.
“Please forgive me,” she said. “I have been holding this in for almost a week, now. I haven’t been sleeping as much as I should, I can’t seem to focus on anything… It’s like I'm living in a nightmare.”
“I understand,” Pete said. “Why don’t you let Josie get all the information we will need from you, like your husband’s full name, address, where he was born, Social Security number and things like that. Give us a couple of days to work on this, and we’ll give you a call. I don’t think it will take too long to figure out what’s happening, and then maybe your life can get back to normal.”
The girl nodded. “Or maybe I’ll know whether I should just move out and try to raise my kids alone. That’s not what I want, but Darrell just isn’t—he just isn’t Darrell. I know that sounds crazy, and I can’t really explain it, but there’s just something so different about him.”
She followed Josie over to her desk, and Pete sat down at his own again. He looked at Chance and shrugged. “See what I mean?” he asked softly. “You never know what’s going to walk through that door. Pretty weird case, right?”
“I don’t know,” Chance said, also whispering. “If you see blood where you don’t expect to see it, and then the person you think you know suddenly starts acting weird, I can see why someone would want answers.”
Pete grinned. “Good,” he said. “Because you’re on the case. Soon as Josie gets done with the initial interview, I’ll put her to work digging into his background, and you can go find and follow the guy. In the meanwhile, Josie will have her computer working on getting past whatever security is on that memory stick. We may find some answers there, too.”
“Fair enough,” Chance said. “Anything else going on around the office today?”
“Not really. Got a call from an insurance company this morning, they’ve got a life insurance policy to pay out on, but they can’t find one of the beneficiaries. Josie is working on that one, trying to get a line on where the guy moved to about five years ago. That’s the only other thing we’ve got right now.”
“So, you want me to just follow this Darrell Johnson around? That ought to be plenty boring.”
“All depends,” Pete said. “There is some reason the guy ended up with blood on his shirt. Might be no big deal, or maybe he turns out to be a serial killer.” Pete looked Chance in the eye. “He could end up right down your alley.”
Chance shot him a sour grin. “Not really funny, Pete,” he said. “This lady seems to be in pretty rough shape over whatever is going on.”
Josie got finished with Christina, taking down all of the information that they would need to begin working on the case, and the girl turned back to Pete.
“Thank you, Mr. Dixon,” she said. “You’ll call if you find out anything?”
“Absolutely,” Pete said, nodding. “We work for you, Mrs. Johnson.”
He got up out of his chair and walked her to the door, then came back to find Chance standing over Josie, who was studying her computer screen. The login screen for the USB drive was right in the center, and Josie was typing away in another window.
“Any luck?” he asked, but she shook her head.
“Not yet, but I'm making progress. I know the password only has six digits, but that could be any combination of letters, numbers and special characters, like punctuation or symbols. I'm writing a program to try different combinations until it finds the right one.”
“Will that take long?”
“There are twenty-six possible letters, double that with capitals, and ten numbers, but then we add in the usual thirty-two special characters, and we've got about a hundred and fifty million possible passwords. Computers are fast, but it could still take thirty to forty hours to go through that many possible combinations.”
“Okay. What have you got on Darrell Johnson?”
“Check your printer,” Josie said. “I’ve already run a full report on the guy. Took everything she gave me and then got his credit report, photos, social media profile, everything. And yes, he works for the DOJ, but his job description doesn’t add up to a consulting expert. According to what I found, he’s just an accountant.”
“An accountant?” Chance asked. “Why would an accountant have to travel?”
“I could think of a few reasons,” Pete said. “DOJ has offices all over the country, so there might be times when they need somebody from accounting to come and take care of something. It doesn’t sound all that farfetched to me, until we throw the bloodied shirt into the mix.”
“And that could be something as simple as getting into a fight,” Chance said, “or maybe he actually helped somebody out who got hurt. I figured out a long time ago that things don’t always turn out the way they look.”
The two men went to the printer and picked up the report while Josie went back to doing her thing on the computer. Chance took the report and began looking through it.
“This guy’s office is over on South Las Vegas Boulevard,” Chance said. “Josie gave me his picture, so I'm going to wander on over there and see if I can get an eyeball on him.”
“You got his car and tag number, too,” Pete replied. “If nothing else, get a look at it and maybe you can spot him when he leaves work. Might be worth tailing the guy, see if he makes any detours on the way home.”
“That might be a good idea,” Chance said. “I’ll play it by ear, how about that?”
Pete nodded agreement.
“Yeah, that’s fine. See you tomorrow morning?”
Chance nodded as he took the pages and put them into a folder, then headed toward the door. “Probably,” he said, “unless something happens.”
“No problem. Call if you need me.”
Chance walked out, got into his old pickup, and headed toward the DOJ office for Southern Nevada. It was in the Foley Federal Building, the federal courthouse for the district, and was on the fourth floor. The parking lot was in the back, so he went around the block and parked in the public access portion.
He sat in the truck and looked into the staff area. Johnson’s car, a green, late model Chrysler, wasn’t in sight, so he decided to try to spot his quarry more directly. He got out of the truck and walked into the building, then rode the elevator up to the fourth floor. He stepped inside the DOJ office and found himself in a reception area with a counter. A lady behind the counter looked up and smiled.
“Hello,” she said. “Can I help you?”
Chance didn’t want to give away the reason he was there, but he was hoping to at least get a glimpse of Johnson. “Yes,” he said with a smile. “I was wondering if you folks are doing any hiring? I’m an accountant.”
The lady’s smile vanished. “Hiring? I'm afraid they don’t do any of that here. You have to look online, I think that’s where you would put in an application.”
Chance feigned an expression of surprise. “Really? I looked at the website, and it said the accounting office was here.”
She shook her head. “Sorry, no. That must’ve been some kind of error.” She turned her attention back to whatever she had been doing before he came in, and Chance knew he had been dismissed. He turned without another word and walked out of the offices, then rode the elevator back to the ground floor. When he got back to his truck, he took out his phone to call Pete.
“Funny thing,” he said when he answered. “There doesn’t seem to be an accounting office over here. Now, what kind of accountant doesn’t have an accounting office to work in?”
“That’s definitely curious,” Pete said. “Is the guy there?”
“I don’t see his car in the parking lot,” Chance replied, “and I never got a look at him. He could have been back in the offices somewhere, you don’t get past the reception desk without some kind of special authorization. I tried to get past by saying I was an accountant looking for work, but according to the receptionist, there is no one from accounting working there at all.”
“According to Mrs. Johnson, he’s in town right now. Seems to me he would at least put in an appearance there today. You might just stick around a while, see if he shows up. Maybe he’s out running errands or something.”
Chance let out a sigh. “Yeah, that’s what I figured,” he said. “Looks like I’ll be sitting here sweating my ass off for a while.”
Pete laughed. “Better you than me, bucko,” he said. The line went dead and Chance dropped his phone into his pocket.
Two hours later, there was still no sign of Darrell Johnson. Chance picked up the file and looked at the Johnsons’ home address, then started the truck and headed in that direction.
The Johnsons lived in a large, hacienda style house on Callahan Avenue, in Paradise. Luckily for Chance, its next door neighbor was a chiropractor’s office, surrounded by a parking lot that was mostly just sand. Chance pulled his old truck into the parking lot behind the clinic, where he could get a clear view of the house.
Darrell Johnson’s Chrysler was parked right behind the house, sitting beside his wife’s Cadillac. It occurred to Chance that the place was awfully nice—Chance translated that to “expensive”—for someone on a government salary. Of course, it was possible that Mrs. Johnson had done well enough on her children’s books to afford the place, but it still seemed out of character for a government employee.
* * * * *
At the office, the phone on Josie’s desk rang and she snatched it up. “Pete Dixon Investigations,”she said. “How can we help you today?”
“Hello,” said a woman’s voice, hesitantly. “I'm—the sheriff’s office gave me your name and number. My name is Joyce Whittington, and my husband...” She broke down and sobbed for a moment, and Josie’s eyes went wide as she turned to look at Pete. “My husband was killed in Las Vegas this morning, but there are things about it that I don’t understand. Detective Jensen said he wasn’t supposed to recommend anyone, but that you folks were good at what you do.”
“Just one moment,” Josie said. “I will get Mr. Dixon on the line.”
She put the phone on hold and looked at Pete. “This is the wife of the man who fell out the hotel window,” she said. “She said the detective at the sheriff’s office said to call you, because there’s something she doesn’t understand about it?”
Pete’s own eyebrows crawled up his forehead a bit, but he reached for the phone. “This is Pete Dixon,” he said. “How can I be of assistance?”
“Mr. Dixon, my name is Joyce Whittington. You probably heard about my husband dying this morning, falling from the hotel window?”
“Yes, ma’am, I'm afraid I did.”
“The sheriff’s office is saying that they think he might have gotten drunk and just fell. The problem with that, Mr. Dixon, is that my husband hasn’t had a drink in all the years that I have known him. He was a doctor, and he considered alcohol to be one of the worst poisons that you can put into your body.”
Pete, who was a recovering alcoholic, stuck a toothpick into his mouth. “I would completely agree with him on that,” he said. “Did they run a blood alcohol test?”
“Apparently not,” Mrs. Whittington said. “The detectives said that the medical examiner currently believes that it was an accidental death, so there’s no need for any other tests or anything.”
Pete’s eyes narrowed. “That sounds a little bit odd. Mrs. Whittington, do you suspect that he was murdered?”
“I—I really don’t know, but…” She paused for a moment. “Mr. Dixon, my husband has had nightmares for many years about someone coming to kill him. It’s like he actually expected it to happen, sooner or later, but whenever I would ask him about the nightmares, he would just laugh it off like it was no big deal. The trouble was, I have heard him on the phone with somebody a couple of times, asking if they were sure he was safe. I only asked him about that one time, because he got very upset and insisted that I was imagining things. Mr. Dixon, I don’t know who might have wanted to kill my husband, but I'm afraid that someone might have actually gotten it done. If that’s true, I want to know why. Can you help me?”
“I can certainly look into it,” Pete said, “but please understand that I can’t interfere in a police investigation. I can ask them to tell me what they know, but I also have to share anything I find with them. Also, I should tell you that this could get fairly expensive. I charge a hundred and fifty dollars an hour, with fifteen hundred upfront as a retainer.”
“That’s fine,” she said. “Can you take a credit card over the phone?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Pete said. “I'm going to put Josie back on the phone. She’ll handle that, and get all the information we will need from you.” He put the phone on hold, then nodded to Josie. She picked up the receiver on her desk and Pete leaned back in his chair. He looked up at the ceiling for a moment, then took out his cell phone and called Detective Bobby Jensen.
“Bobby? Pete Dixon. What’s the situation on this Whittington case? The widow just retained me to find out if her husband was murdered.”
* * * * *
Chance watched the Johnson place for a couple of hours, but there was no sign of activity around the house. It was already after four; he could probably sit there all night without seeing anything, so he decided to call it a day. The DOJ office opened at eight thirty, so Chance planned to be back in this parking lot by seven a.m. That should give him the chance to follow Johnson to work, or to wherever he was really going.
He started up the truck and headed for home, then took out hi
s phone to call Pete. “Okay, Johnson was already at home,” he said. “I’ve been watching the house for a while and he hasn’t moved. I'm going on home to the family, but I will be out here on top of him early in the morning.”
“Yeah, that probably sounds like the best plan,” Pete said. “Josie hasn’t gotten anywhere with the flash drive, yet, so we can compare notes tomorrow. Anything else?”
“Nothing I can think of,” Chance said. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow, I’ve got to go home and play video games with the boys.”
“All right,” he said. “And I just started on another case of my own. Remember that guy who fell out the window and almost landed on you this morning? The widow thinks he was murdered, and Bobby Jensen referred her to us. Might need your help on that one, but stay on Johnson for the moment.”
“You got it.”
Chapter 4
Chance pulled up in front of his house and got out of the truck, and Gabriella was delighted when he walked in. Lately, she had gotten used to him coming home after six, so seeing him walk through the door before five was a treat.
“Hey, baby,” she said. She opened her arms and Chance walked into them, wrapping his own around his wife as she pulled him down for a kiss.
“Mmmm,” he said. “I could really get used to this.”
“You’d better,” Gabriella said with a giggle. “You married me, remember?”
“I did? When did that happen? I must’ve been half asleep or something.” The palm of her hand smacked him in the back of the head, and he chuckled as he held her tight. “Don’t worry, baby, I'm only kidding. I remember it perfectly well.”
Chance started to call out, “Hey, Tommy,” but caught himself; Tommy had announced that since he was now ten years old, he was too old to be called Tommy. It would have to be just Tom, from now on.