If a Tree Falls

by Robert I. Katz

  “If it’s a company van,” Bill Harris said, “it might not be registered to him.”

  “Maybe,” Drew said.

  “I think it’s time to pay Mr. Sullivan a visit,” George Rodriguez said.

  “How did it go?” Lenore asked.

  “Good,” Kurtz said. “We have a suspect. A guy named Seamus Sullivan. They’re heading out to talk to him now.”

  They were grateful for Kurtz’ input but this was police business and Kurtz was not a cop. “Go home,” Bill Harris said. “We’ll let you know how it turns out.” He hesitated. “Thanks,” he said.

  Kurtz sat down on the couch in the living room, thought about putting his feet up on the coffee table, glanced at Lisa, sitting in a chair, knitting, and changed his mind. Lisa smiled.

  “You want a drink?” Lenore said.

  “Yeah. Thanks.”

  Lenore poured a generous serving of Hennessy VSOP into a snifter and handed it to Kurtz. Kurtz took a long sip, let it linger around his tongue. “I can’t believe it actually worked,” he said.

  Just then, Gary walked in. “Hey,” he said.

  “We have a suspect,” Kurtz said. “A guy named Seamus Sullivan.”

  Gary blinked. “That’s…interesting.”

  “You know him?”

  “Know might be too strong a word. I’ve seen him around town, spoken to him once or twice.” Gary shrugged.

  “What’s he like?”

  “He seemed normal enough.”

  “I don’t like him,” Lisa said.

  Kurtz looked at her.

  “It’s nothing specific. He doesn’t say very much. He’s polite enough, I suppose. It’s just…” Lisa frowned. “Something about his eyes. It’s hard to say. He tends to follow you with his eyes.”

  Kurtz hardly knew what to say to that. Something about his eyes was not exactly evidence of criminal behavior, but still, some people just gave off a strange vibe. “Drew, Bill and George are heading out to see him. They’ll let me know how it goes.”

  Kurtz suddenly noticed something. He stared. “What is that you’re knitting?”

  Lisa grinned at him. “Booties.”

  Kurtz’ eyes grew wide. “They’re pink,” he said.

  “They do say you’re a smart one,” she observed.

  Gary grinned. Lenore blinked, then slowly smiled.

  “I had Sharon when I was eighteen,” Lisa said. “How old did you think I was, Sugar?”

  Kurtz knew better than to answer that one. He glanced at his father. “Uh, congratulations?”

  “Thanks,” Gary said. “Why don’t you pour me some of that brandy? We should celebrate.” He looked at Lenore. “How about you?”

  Lenore grinned. “Afraid not,” she said. “Not for about eight more months.”

  Kurtz choked on his brandy. Lisa grinned at Lenore. Kurtz’ father laughed softly, “I guess we both have something to celebrate.”

  “No,” Seamus Sullivan said.

  George Rodriguez frowned. Bill Harris looked around the comfortable living room. Drew Hastings allowed a small smile to cross his face.

  “You’re not going to search anything. Not without a warrant.”

  “You know how this looks, Seamus.”

  “Not my problem. I don’t give a shit how it looks. I also know my rights and I know how you cracker cops operate. I’m not letting myself be railroaded. Get a warrant.” He grinned.

  Seamus Sullivan had answered the door, smiled and greeted them cordially. He had even invited them inside and offered them tea. Beyond that, he wouldn’t budge.

  “Sorry, boys, but I got no reason to regard any of you as a friend.”

  George sighed. “I’m sorry you feel that way, Seamus. It would be easier to eliminate you as a suspect if you let us look the place over. It wouldn’t take long and we would be out of your hair.”

  Seamus Sullivan made a rude noise. “Get a warrant,” he repeated. “Until then, forget it.”

  “I hate stakeouts,” Bill Harris said.

  “I’ve only done a couple,” Drew Hastings said. “Boring, very boring.”

  George Rodriguez shook his head. “Pretty tough to stake him out. He’s living in an isolated house in the woods. You can’t park a car on the street because there is no street.”

  Drew smiled. “This is West Virginia. We wear a camouflage jacket, sit in the woods and wait until a deer comes along. Then we kill it. We know how to do a stakeout in the woods.”

  George raised an eyebrow, then nodded. “Better you than me,” he said.

  “He’s got a carport,” Drew said, “but no garage. Did you notice that?”

  Bill nodded.

  “I did,” George said. “A late model Toyota Camry. No van.”

  “But there’s an ATV sitting next to the Toyota,” George said.

  “A Polaris,” Drew said, “I saw it. So where is he keeping the van?”

  “Somewhere else,” George said.

  “How long have you known?” Kurtz said.

  “A couple of days. I thought I might be. Lisa and I went into town and I picked up a pregnancy test at Walmart.” Lenore grinned. “I picked up three of them, just in case the first one turned out negative.”

  “Did you know about Lisa?”

  “Nope, but it doesn’t surprise me.”

  “It surprises me. I don’t know why, but I thought she was over fifty.”

  “With skin like that? She doesn’t have a wrinkle on her.”

  “I figured she was well-preserved. My father is sixty. He’s robbing the cradle. Who would have thought?”

  Lenore grinned. “I expect that Lisa is keeping him young.”

  Kurtz grinned back. “Or making him very old, very fast.”

  The hospital had restored Jerry Mandell’s privileges but Jerry, wisely, in Kurtz’ opinion, had decided to confine himself to office work, at least until Georgia Philips arrived. Jerry’s mood seemed better. He even smiled, now and then. Maggie and Mary seemed relieved.

  One problem solved. Seamus Sullivan was another problem, but one which, happily, Kurtz had no responsibility for solving. The intrepid private detective had done his job. Now he could fade off into the sunset, leaving the grunt work to lesser mortals.

  “My, aren’t you full of yourself?” Drew Hastings said.

  Kurtz smiled. Drew sipped his coffee. By now, the staff had gotten used to the Sheriff appearing at odd hours and unless Kurtz was with a patient, just buzzed him on in.

  “So, what happens next?” Kurtz asked.

  “Now, we look for the vehicle, and whatever other toys or mementos he might have stowed away.”

  “How do you do that?”

  Drew shrugged. “We knock on doors. Storage units are easy to set up and they’re cheap. Most of them are pre-fab, just some metal walls with a garage type door. They don’t have to have heat, electricity or running water. There are a lot of them around, more than two-hundred in just the northern part of the state.”

  Kurtz blinked. “That’s way more than I would have thought, a population this small.”

  “Yeah, but we don’t have to do it ourselves. There are six-hundred state police in West Virginia and dozens of local departments. They can do an initial canvass of all of them in less than a day.”’

  “And then what?”

  “Hopefully, somebody will identify him. We can’t search a storage unit without a warrant but we can review surveillance tapes. The better places have twenty-four hour surveillance.”

  “I doubt that he would be doing anything criminal in front of a storage unit.”

  “No, of course you’re right, but maybe we could see something that would give us a handle on the guy.”

  “Good luck,” Kurtz said.

  Seamus Sullivan sighed. He’d had a good run in Clark County but he never thought it would last forever. It had already lasted longer than he had expected.

  God damn bear. He had been so careful, too.

  If they had any evidence, they would have
already arrested him. At least, they would have shown up with a warrant. Nope. The first visit was just to feel him out, get a sense of the place, see how he would react.

  He had toyed with the idea of letting them search but there was no percentage in it. Seamus was nearly certain that every bit of visible evidence had been removed but allowing a search was not going to get them off his back and maybe, just maybe, some stray bit of DNA might be lurking in the corners. He had washed the walls with bleach and shampooed the carpet but he couldn’t get inside the plumbing. The house had electricity, running water and a septic tank. His little lovelies had a small bathroom of their own and he had encouraged them to take as many showers as they desired. Seamus liked them as fresh as a daisy when he walked down those stairs. It was pretty certain that some stray bits of organic matter were even now clinging to the pipes.

  Nope. Better to keep the forces of law and order at a distance for as long as possible.

  Meanwhile, it was almost time to disappear.

  “There’s a basement,” Drew Hastings said. “A big one.”

  Bill Harris nodded. George Rodriguez shrugged. They were looking at the records on file at the County Offices for Seamus Sullivan’s house and property. Seamus Sullivan owned 2.4 acres, abutting on the state forest.

  Seamus Sullivan’s house and property were off limits. Everything else was fair game.

  An hour later, Bill Harris got a report from one of his surveillance teams, who were quartering the woods surrounding Seamus Sullivan’s 2.4 acres. “Looks like a second car port out here. It’s hidden under some big oaks. Camouflaged pretty good. Small trail leading down toward the house.”

  “Anything there?”

  “Nope. It’s empty.”

  Great. “What’s the floor? Dirt? Concrete?”

  “Just dirt.”

  “Any tire tracks?”

  “A couple.”

  “Take castings. You never know.”

  The voice sounded amused. “Already doing it.”

  “Excellent.”

  What the hell?

  Kurtz sat in the cafeteria and looked down at a piece of carrot cake with cream cheese icing, trying to decide if he had purchased more than he felt like eating. Finally, he picked up the fork, cut off a sliver and brought it to his lips. Not bad. He had put on a pound or two since coming home. He still worked out four times a week but the food around here was a lot better than he remembered.

  What was that guy doing? A construction crew had finished working on a retaining wall outside the cafeteria window. This one guy was now poking around the building’s foundations. There was nothing out there but the gas tanks, oxygen and nitrous oxide. Neither oxygen nor nitrous oxide were things that a layman should be messing with. Kurtz ate his cake and watched him until the workman finished whatever he was doing and wandered off.

  A few minutes later, Kurtz was staring down at the tanks. They appeared undisturbed, not that he was an expert on the care and treatment of gas tanks. A few minutes later, dressed in scrubs, he walked into OR Three. Susan Atkins, one of four anesthesiologists in the group, was checking her machine. She looked up as Kurtz walked in. “Hey,” she said. “What’s up?”

  “Do me a favor,” Kurtz said. “Check the oxygen and nitrous.”

  “I already did. I do it before every case. They’re fine.”

  “Check them again.”

  She frowned and turned on both gasses. The flowmeters on the anesthesia machines registered normal. “Satisfied?”

  “How would you know if somebody had switched one gas for another?” Kurtz asked.

  Susan blinked. “You mean like that movie, Coma?”

  Kurtz frowned. He had forgotten about Coma. Maybe the workman hadn’t. “Yeah,” he said.

  “We monitor the percentage of oxygen being administered to the patient. It’s national standard, mandatory on every case. If the oxygen concentration goes below the limit, the alarm will beep.”

  “What’s the limit?”

  “Whatever you set it at, but it can’t go below twenty-one percent. That’s room air.”

  Now that he thought about it, this all sounded familiar. “Why weren’t they analyzing the oxygen in Coma?”

  Susan scratched her head. “No idea. I never saw it.”

  “Okay. Thanks.”

  “What’s this all about?”

  Kurtz sighed. “Nothing,” he said. “I’m just being paranoid.”

  An hour later, Kurtz saw the same workman—at least, he thought he was the same workman—poking around in the storage area between the OR’s. Twice, now. Something about that guy was giving him a bad feeling. As soon as his case was over, he gave Drew Hastings a call.

  “Thin guy?” Drew said. “Narrow face? Losing his hair?”

  “Yeah,” Kurtz said.

  “His name’s Gil Laimbeer. He’s with the FBI.”

  “Oh,” Kurtz said.

  “Ignore him,” Drew said.

  “Will do. Good to know the G-men are on the case.”

  “And keep your mouth shut,” Drew added.

  What a bore…

  Dave Mahoney had been a proud member of the West Virginia State Police for nearly two years. He had quickly learned that most of the job was routine, interspersed with moments of excitement and rarer moments of panic. He had realized just as quickly to appreciate being bored. It was better than being shot at.

  This was the fifth self-storage facility he had visited. The guy behind the counter looked a lot more bored than Dave Mahoney. He was short and thin, with a red face and long, reddish-brown hair. A nametag on the left side of his chest said, ‘Hal Rivers.’

  “Help you?” Hal Rivers said.

  Dave showed him an enlarged picture of the photo ID from Seamus Sullivan’s driver’s license. “You ever see this guy?”

  Hal Rivers stared down at the picture, then up at Dave Mahoney, then down again at the picture. “He in trouble?”

  “A routine investigation,” Dave Mahoney said. “I’m not at liberty to say more.”

  Hal Rivers pointed at the photo with a long, bony finger. “That’s Ed Blaine. He rents a unit from us.”

  Dave Mahoney smiled. “Does he, now?”

  Hal Rivers solemnly nodded.

  There was something to be said, Dave Mahoney thought, for small successes. The simple satisfaction of a job well done without the excitement of a running shoot-out was not to be sneered at. Five minutes later, he was on the phone with Bill Harris. “The place is pretty low-class. It’s all concrete block construction with tin roofs over the units and garage door fronts. Customers supply their own locks.

  “Surveillance cameras?”

  “Nope.”

  “There is now,” Bill Harris said.

  Chapter 26

  Nothing happened for the next three days. The cameras and binoculars trained on Seamus Sullivan’s house picked up some movement behind the window screens. Nobody came near ‘Ed Blaine’s’ storage unit. Seamus Sullivan exited the house at least once a day, got into his car and drove into town. He was followed. If Seamus Sullivan was aware of this, he gave no indication. Once, he went to the local Walmart and picked up some electrical supplies and a couple of bags of groceries. Once, he went to a bar, had a burger and a beer for dinner.

  “He’s toying with us,” Drew Hastings complained.

  “No shit,” Bill Harris said.

  George Rodriguez was not with them. He had come down with a bad cold and was shivering in bed in his hotel room.

  “I’ve got a friend,” Kurtz said. “A psychiatrist.”

  Bill Harris rolled his eyes.

  “You want to hear this or not?” Kurtz said.

  Bill shrugged, signaled to Frannie for another beer. “Might as well.”

  “His name is Bill Werth. He tells me that psychological profiling is not much help when it comes to predicting behavior.”

  “Yeah?” Drew said. “It surprises me that he would admit it.”

  “He says they’re
better at figuring out why they did what they did than they are at predicting what they’ll do next, except that people hardly ever change.”

  “Sounds like he just contradicted himself.”

  “Not really. According to him, it’s the little things that can’t be predicted, but the big things are set in stone. For instance, a guy is confined to a mental institution for pathologically criminal behavior. He’s a model patient, goes to all the meetings, says all the right things, expresses sincere remorse. They decide he’s no longer a danger to society and let him go. Approximately half of them return to their prior criminal behavior, and half of them don’t. And they can’t tell the ones who will from the ones who won’t.

  “However, and here’s the main point: all of them want to. The urge to do whatever anti-social bullshit got them in trouble never goes away.”

  “But some of them are able to resist it,” Bill Harris said.

  “Yeah.”

  “And the rest of them either can’t, or just don’t want to,” Drew Harris said.

  “Sort of obvious, actually,” Bill said.

  Kurtz had already seen five patients in the morning. He had the afternoon free, which was why he had his second beer sitting in front of him in Mabel Stone’s fine establishment, along with the bison pastrami on sourdough bread that was three quarter’s eaten.

  “So, this guy, Seamus Sullivan, or Brian Murphy if you want to speculate, may, someday, quit, but he will always have the urge to do it again.”

  “I can’t see this guy quitting,” Bill Harris said. “He’s been doing it too long.”

  Kurtz finished his beer and wiped his mouth with a linen napkin. “And meanwhile, he’s biding his time, making you guys look silly.”

  Drew shrugged. “Part of the job.”

  “He’s been here, what? Fifteen years?”

  Drew nodded.

  “Fifteen years, fifteen girls buried in the woods.”

  “So?” Bill said. “One a year.”

  “Except for Faye Lurie and Lydia Gonzalez,” Kurtz said, “and they’re just the ones we know of. It’s more than one a year.”

  Bill and Drew mulled this over. Kurtz finished his sandwich.