The Holler Thief: A Private Eye Mystery

by Jim Heskett

  Harry and his son watched the police arrive mere moments later and force both men into submission. And even though Harry had only exposed his child to a few seconds of the scrum before hurriedly pointing him away, he had apparently seen enough. The boy went on to remain quiet for most of the day, and all attempts by Harry to discuss what they’d witnessed were met with silence.

  Everyone comprehended the incomprehensible in different ways.

  Now, Harry looked up to see someone standing outside his office door. Due to recent dangerous events, he was staying in here with the shades drawn and the door locked. A nameless outline stood there, hovering.

  But Harry had a pretty good idea who he’d find standing on the building’s sidewalk. He approached and lifted the shades a touch to spy Serena standing out front with a purse in hand. She usually left it in her car. Her hair was a little mussed, her cheeks red. She’d hurried here, or maybe had come straight from a jogging or weightlifting session.

  He opened the door and then shut it behind her after she swept inside.

  “I have something amazing,” she said as she set the purse on his desk and offered him a touch of a mischievous smile.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “Hopefully, something that will let us skip all this crap and get us some real answers.” She removed a phone in a glittering pink case and set it on his desk.

  “What’s that?” Harry asked as he stared at his own face’s reflection in the dark screen. But he already knew the answer.

  “Ginnifer Applewhite’s phone.”

  Harry cocked his head. “How did you get—“

  She held up a hand to silence him. “Don’t ask. It’s better if you don’t know.”

  Harry wasn’t sure how he felt about that, and he spent the next several seconds breathing and considering his options. He had a strong suspicion of how she had acquired it, even though picturing the steps necessary to steal the phone from police storage seemed impossible. But Harry had watched Serena do many “impossible” things in the past.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” Serena said.

  “What am I thinking?”

  “You’re thinking that I should put this back where I found it. But I want you to consider all the brick walls, all the dead ends, all the left turns you’ve faced during this case so far.” She pointed. “That could potentially cure all of those ills and take us straight to something tangible.”

  He winced as he picked up the phone. She was absolutely right. And she was smart to do this without asking his permission first, because it made it much harder to say no now. The infiltration and robbery had already taken place. Now, it almost seemed foolish not to use the contents of this phone. Harry finally decided that with this object in his hands, he no longer cared how it had come to arrive in his possession. It was too juicy not to use.

  He would save the ethical reckoning for later.

  “I’m not guiltless. I’ve cut corners, I’ve used website search tools that are technically illegal for me to use.”

  She put her hands on her hips. “Not sure I follow. You want the phone or not?”

  “What’s done is done. We might as well use it.”

  “Can you unlock it?” Serena asked.

  “Maybe. If I have the right cable. I think I have one in a drawer somewhere.”

  He poked around until he found the cable, then he plugged it into his laptop. He began the investigation protocol to test the phone’s security. It was an older phone, not updated to the newest operating system, which was lucky for Harry. These older phones had plenty of security vulnerabilities.

  Two minutes later, Serena scooted around to behind his desk so they could look at Ginnifer Applewhite’s phone together as the unlocked home screen displayed.

  Harry went right to the recent calls list. And he found a call to a number associated with Rourke Mannafort, about twenty minutes before Ginny’s death.

  40

  Thomas Bixby sipped the whiskey as he reclined in the chair. The drink helped soothe the repetitive pulsing in his injury. That woman had appeared out of nowhere and shot him. Shot him. Thomas had never been shot in his entire life. It actually hurt quite a bit.

  Maybe he should have gone to the hospital, but the bleeding had stopped. Thomas’ boss had referred him to a retired doctor who lived in the holler, a few minutes’ walk from here. That old coot had extracted the bullet and cleaned the wound, then sent Thomas on his way with an expired bottle full of Amoxi-something to treat the potential infection.

  He kept changing the bandages every couple hours like on the doctor shows on TV, and so far, everything had been improving. He could barely use his left arm and it pulsed once every thirty seconds, just often enough that he would never forget.

  The woman who had attacked him was named Serena Rojas. So far, no one around the holler seemed to know how badly the situation had spiraled last night. Thomas’ task had been to apprehend Harry and question him to finally find out exactly how much he knew about Mr. Mannafort and his operations in the area. In reality, because of the interference by Kemba Wood and Serena Rojas, Thomas had found out zero new details. When he’d returned, Thomas had told his direct supervisor he hadn’t been able to find Harry. That lie had passed without too much trouble. But then Thomas had to explain the bullet wound. With a less-than-convincing speech, he’d explained that a target practice bullet had ricocheted and struck himself in the forearm. While his direct boss didn’t openly doubt this explanation at the time, he hadn’t seemed to fully believe it.

  Now, Thomas had spent most of the day thinking about Kemba the barber, Harry Boukadakis, and especially Serena. Thomas figured maybe she was Harry’s girlfriend, but that didn’t make sense. He was short and chubby and she was on par with those girls he would see at the clubs in the big cities. The kinds of clubs with a velvet rope and a big guy with a clipboard and tight t-shirt who only let in the attractive people. Girls like her didn’t go for guys like him unless they were rich, and Harry Boukadakis did not seem to be a man of wealth.

  “I’m ready,” called a voice from the other room. Nasally, high-pitched, and often breaking, Rourke Mannafort didn’t sound like a powerful man. But he dressed like one, talked like one, and spent money like one. Thomas would’ve assumed Serena to be attracted to a man like this. But then again, Thomas knew diddly-squat about women. He’d never had a real girlfriend, even. Most of his relationships with the fairer sex were of a transactional nature, and he sometimes preferred it that way.

  He hopped up from the chair in the sitting room and entered the hallway. Mr. Mannafort had the nicest house in No-Name Holler, for sure. Maybe the nicest house in Arkansas. Thomas loved how it seemed smaller on the outside, since some of it was built into the hill. It was possibly the only “hidden” mansion in the world.

  Someday, Thomas would have all of this. Or better.

  He smiled at the fancy framed art and the pedestals with little sculptures on them. The kitchen was so expansive it had a sitting area with a couch. A couch in the kitchen? Seeing it made Thomas chuckle every time.

  He entered the large dining room to see Rourke Mannafort at the head of the table. He was older, in his fifties, with a head of silvery hair and brilliant blue eyes that looked almost glowing against the milky paleness of his skin. Four other people sat at the table. Thomas knew all four of them, but some he had only seen once or twice.

  Mr. Mannafort held out a hand with his palm open. “I said I’m ready.”

  “Coming, sir,” said a man Thomas had never seen before. This new arrival was older and brown-skinned—possibly Middle Eastern—and wore little round glasses. He entered the room with a handful of file folders. He positioned two of them in front of Mr. Mannafort and then sat at the table.

  The big boss sighed as he slipped reading glasses from his shirt pocket and then opened a folder. His lips didn’t even move once as he read, which impressed Thomas. His eyes darted back and forth over the words, and his expression remained unch
anged as he flipped pages.

  The boss read through one folder, the only sounds in the room his breathing, the turning of the pages, and echoes from a grandfather clock ticking in the foyer. Thomas wanted to drop in a joke to ease the tension, but he had to resist the urge. He’d never actually spoken to Mr. Mannafort directly before, and he didn’t want to blow his first impression.

  Everyone stared with rapt attention as the boss moved onto the second folder, the little reading glasses perched on the end of his nose. Eventually he put both of the folders down, cleared his throat, and then scowled.

  “This is bullshit,” he said, waving bony fingers at the folders.

  “Sir?” said the man who’d brought them, his face drawn down in disappointed shock like that time Thomas forgot to do a book report for grade school and got in serious trouble.

  “These reports on Harry Boukadakis and Serena Rojas stink like propaganda. These histories sound either made-up or just plain wrong.”

  The report-bringer leaned forward, hesitance on his face. “Why do you say that, sir?”

  “You tell me. Connect the dots and prove to me you’re capable of doing more than copying and pasting. Show me you can read between the lines.”

  Thomas marveled at the way each word from the boss made the awkward silence in the room sound more like a deafening boom. Not a single person had a gun out, but Thomas inherently understood this situation held a lot of danger for everyone at the table.

  The man in the hot seat wrung his hands together as he blew out a breath. “Well, yes, it’s true that there are inconsistencies in their timelines before they were here. But I don’t know what to make of it. Credit reporting agencies are unreliable, so I chalked most of it up to human error.”

  Now Mr. Mannafort looked angry, which made Thomas inch back in his seat. He actually started to fear for the new man at the table.

  The boss jabbed a finger at Harry’s report. “He lived near Washington, DC, for two decades.” Then he stabbed at Serena’s. “Technically, Serena still lives in DC. So you have two people with unexplained skills in espionage and social warfare and backgrounds that sound made up. And both of them have spent most of their adult lives living near the capitol. I’m not sure how I can paint a clearer picture for you.”

  The boss tilted his head and stared at the report bringer with a look that made Thomas’ pulse quicken. He wasn’t even the one in trouble, but he could feel the anxiety wicking off the other man.

  “Sir… are you trying to say they’re spies?”

  Mr. Mannafort sat back, with a flat smile on his face. “Maybe. Or maybe not spies, but they work for the government. Or more likely, they worked for the government. And not as in they clerked in some senator’s office or were bean counters at the IRS. Bean counters don’t get faked histories when they leave their government jobs.”

  The new man thought this over for a few seconds. “Sir, if that’s true, then we should be careful with them.”

  “Or maybe we’ve been too careful. Maybe letting these two walk around is leaving a couple of pit bulls off leash and trusting they won’t bite anyone.”

  Now the report-bringer seemed confused. “I don’t… I’m not sure what you’re saying, sir. Are you saying we should kill Harry Boukadakis and Serena Rojas?”

  Now the boss sat back, removed his reading glasses, and tugged on his lip with the thumb and forefinger of one hand. He appeared deep in thought, considering his options.

  41

  Harry watched the Arkansas State Police cars crisscrossing the dirt roads as he and Serena piloted his aging car through No-Name Holler. Heads marked with ultra-short haircuts and aviator glasses swiveled every time Harry drove past.

  He wasn’t usually the sort of person to draw attention. Harry didn’t fit too many “person of interest” checks. He looked more like a high school geometry teacher (who still lived in his mom’s basement) than someone capable of performing a premeditated criminal act. But while crime in Eureka Springs existed, two homicides within a single week put everyone on edge. Cops, civilians, and tourists all seemed to cast probing eyes at each other on the roads, instead of a usual friendly wave.

  With Serena in the passenger seat, they pulled into the driveway of the cabin where Lukas had been killed. Days-old police tape rested on the ground, with a loose chunk caught on a tree branch flapping in the light breeze. Aside from that, everything else seemed the same, as Harry compared his mental image of the last visit to their current surroundings. It didn’t seem as if the police had connected Ginnifer Applewhite’s death to Lukas’ yet, otherwise the cabin would’ve been re-flooded with investigators.

  On one level, that made Harry disappointed, because it seemed obvious to him there was some sort of connection. But, on the other hand, unfettered access to the cabin could definitely work out in his favor. Harry didn’t know for certain why, but he had a strong desire to solve this case before the police. Maybe he felt like he owed it to Lukas, or to Kemba, or maybe he just wanted a solid W in the wins and losses columns.

  He moved to open his car door, but Serena shot out a lightning fast hand and dropped it on his shoulder. “Me first, please. You stay here. Hopefully, you haven’t forgotten what happened last time we were visiting.”

  “Go right ahead. I definitely will not stop you.”

  Harry’s bodyguard left the car and darted into the trees, where she disappeared. One second there, the next, gone. It always amazed him how she could do that.

  Now in the silent car alone, he sighed and wondered if he still had any granola bars in the glove compartment. If so, they were probably months old and like chunks of stone by now. Still, he might check anyway to ward off the grumbling in his stomach.

  Serena rounded the far side of the cabin, then she peered in the windows—much more carefully this time—and then nodded to Harry as she walked back and slipped inside the car. And after all that darting around, she wasn’t even the slightest bit out of breath.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  “For what?”

  “Being here. For being my friend.”

  Serena turned toward him and smiled, a rare and genuine upturning of both sides of her mouth. “I appreciate you saying that. Something had made me feel off my game all week. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

  “There’s a lot of that going around. But I can’t shake this feeling that we’re close. Maybe there are more answers inside that building. Something we missed.”

  “Let’s do it.”

  They left the car and Harry made a slow circle around the cabin exterior, concentrating on noting every detail he could. The smells, the sounds, anything that seemed different from his last visit here. So far, his senses told him nothing had changed. Then, through the front door, he put his memory through the same checklist, and it came back clean.

  But that had to be wrong. He’d missed something. There had to be information floating in the ether they could grab. But as he crossed the threshold, nothing seemed out of place or different or unusual.

  He stood in the middle of the single room and put his hands on his hips. “How do Lukas Maslow and Rourke Mannafort connect? Do they? Are we wasting our time trying to link this upper class hillbilly to the killing of a mentally handicapped religious zealot?”

  Serena opened her mouth, then seemed to understand it had been asked rhetorically, and snapped her jaws shut. She walked around the cabin, tapping the knuckles of one hand against the wood, probably searching for a hollowed-out section of the log cabin wall.

  Harry focused on the bathroom, located on the same wall as the closet, with doors to provide privacy.

  He opened the sink cabinet where a shoebox sat. Harry thought he had seen this shoebox before, and he was surprised the police hadn’t taken it into evidence. Kneeling, he opened the box and found collections of loose papers. Some were pencil drawings made on yellow legal pad paper. Drawings of angels, random people, practice sketches made up of lines and circles. But there were a large
number of flyers taken from town. Some were used as scratch paper for more drawings, and some were untouched.

  In several high-traffic areas around Eureka Springs—especially downtown—there were multiple public bulletin boards where anyone could staple a flyer about an upcoming art show or open mic night or garage sale. Harry knew their source by the telltale staple puncture wounds all over the pages.

  Harry thumbed through all the various flyers until he came to something interesting. Something he hadn’t expected to find.

  “What is it?” Serena asked.

  “What’s what?”

  “You were sighing.”

  Harry pursed his lips. “I was?”

  “Yep.”

  “Didn’t realize. Anyway, I found this shoebox under the sink. I was wondering why the cops hadn’t taken it. It’s possible someone placed this here since they’ve investigated, but I kinda doubt it.”

  Serena crossed the room and dropped to a knee next to him. She pointed to a rectangular outline in the dust where the box had been. “I agree. See how perfect that straight line in the dust is? No one’s moved that box in a while. Just means the cops didn’t even examine it.”

  Harry noted the color of the wood and the color of the shoebox were close enough that someone might’ve not even seen it. If some uniformed cop—distracted while thinking about what she intended to have for lunch that day—opened the sink cabinet and took a quick glance for blood spatter and found none, could’ve entirely missed this piece of potentially crucial evidence.