The new kid tapped on Frank’s door. He was either about to explode or he had developed a severe rash in that place where no one wants one.
“Come on in. Steady, son. What’s on your mind?”
The words poured out of the young man. Spewed, you might say, like lava from a B volcano movie except, as everyone outside Hollywood knows, lava generally flows slowly, inexorably, destroying everything in its path. The kid said he had managed to tap into some of the more sophisticated software installed years before by Sam before she left for NSA. He’d been able to enhance the residue left from the damaged bumper sticker. He said he discovered where the car had been leased. He had checked with the rental car agency and they gave him the name of the person who’d rented it the afternoon Frieze was shot. As he spoke he shifted from one foot to another. Pranced would be a better descriptor.
“That’s good work.” Frank held up his hand to slow or stop the rush of words. He glanced at the slips of paper on his desk. “The name, was it this one?” Frank tapped one of them and slid it across the desk. The kid read it and his face fell.
“Yes, sir, him.”
“Don’t look unhappy, kid. You just cracked the egg. We needed a solid reason to haul this guy in here. You found it.”
“I did?”
“You did and I’m not sure anyone else would or could, so chalk up one for you. Now, go tell Essie to call in Billy and then tell them both to meet me here ASAP.”
“Yes. Sir. Ah…who is this guy?”
“Big-time bully, braggart, and small-time thug. And it appears he just made a big mistake.”
“Sir?”
“You don’t have to call me sir. This guy? His mistake was to use his real name. What kind of idiot on his way to commit murder does that? Anyway, who is he? He’s a man who hires steroid-pumped misfits to provide security at rock concerts and things like that. Where his people work, there is always trouble. Sometimes I think his roidheads pick the fights themselves. Luckily, there haven’t been that many events in the area lately, but when there are, all the cops within fifty miles are put on notice. I’ve always wondered where people like him got their money. Now I know. It looks like he’s muscle for someone bigger. That’s good work, kid.”
“Thanks. So how come you needed this? I mean, what else did we have on him that finding this helped clinch the deal?”
“He showed up on some security footage as the probable guy posing as an FBI special agent over at the ME’s office. We couldn’t be sure, though. The image wasn’t so hot. Now we have something solid. The important thing here is, if we pick up someone like him, and if we can get him to talk, we might get at the top. Nobody believes he’s working alone. With a little persuasion he just might crack a door wide enough to give us a chance at ending this mess. One way or another, I think we have the first piece to put together a case for murder one and put one more skell away for good.”
Frank put out a BOLO for Jack Brattan, wanted as a suspect in the murder of a police officer. He should be considered armed and dangerous.
***
Ike had launched the Vulture early and the tape of that flight was running on the screen in front of the group. Everyone squeezed together and stared at the diminutive screen on the Vulture’s monitor.
“You see these people? They’re going and coming from this one building. They are carrying towels and small bags or something similar in their hand. That building is the bathhouse or I’m crazy.”
“If you say so, Ike. Why is that important?” Ruth asked.
“Okay, wait a second while I boot up last night’s recorded run.” He switched the settings and fast-forwarded the recording to a spot he’d apparently marked earlier. “Now, here is a night view at…” He checked the time stamp. “Eleven thirty-two. Watch this house and then that one.”
Against the dark background, greenish silhouettes moved across the space between the two buildings.
“This one is the location where I believe Pangborn and his guest are staying. So, out come two people. By the stride and relative size, I’m saying they are adults. Connors and Pangborn, most likely.”
“So?”
“So, I don’t know. It’s just nags at me. They go to that one which I am sure is the bathhouse.”
“Okay. So what? Sure, it’s little late for a shower, but lots of people do that before going to bed.”
“Indeed. If that’s what’s happening. Pangborn doesn’t have a private bath? You think? The interesting part is what happens next. Watch.”
They watched as a single figure entered a second building and a few moments later two others emerged and went to the presumed bathhouse. What might have been the first returned to his original destination.
“What do you see?”
“No idea. People going to the bath place. Potty break?”
“I don’t know. I need eyes on the ground. The drone is nifty, but at an elevation of one hundred feet or even at fifty, we are missing too much. Spencer, where are those IDs? Your gang has work to do. Where’s Sam? Time is wasting.”
“You’re in a hurry?”
“Have you forgotten? There’s a memorial service for me any day now. I don’t want to miss it.”
“In a mahogany box or an urn, which? Never mind, what happens next?”
“You up for some acting?”
“I am the president of a moderately good university and I have chaired at least three dozen board meetings. Does that qualify? Also I am married to you and if that doesn’t take a creative spirit, I don’t know what does.”
“That last is not quite the role I had in mind. But the first…I need a bitchy bureaucrat.”
“I can do bitchy.”
“I know.”
***
Martin Pangborn was not happy. No one could tell him anything about the missing agents he’d sent to track the woman. If that weren’t bad enough, his source at the FBI reported that the Picketsville Sheriff’s Department had issued a BOLO for Jack Brattan. They had him identified as the prime suspect in the killing of a Rockbridge County deputy. The source suggested it would be a good idea to find Brattan before cops did. Pangborn told him that that would be his job. The voice on the other end of the line stammered a few words and then said he’d see what he could do.
Oswald Connors studied Pangborn with the look that one will sometimes see on a man eyeing his wife while considering whether to have an affair with another woman. Pangborn did not miss it.
“I own you, Senator. Don’t you forget it.”
“Yes, as you so frequently remind me. I think you have bigger problems to deal with than what I might or might not do, don’t you think, Martin? You’re right, I can’t turn on you. That would be like playing Russian roulette with a fully loaded revolver. But the thought crossed my mind that you might be better served in the short run by putting some distance between us. The last thing you need is for both of us to be together if people start asking embarrassing questions.”
“There will be no questions asked of me, embarrassing or otherwise, I assure you.”
“Of course not. You are insulated, I know that. I merely thought that for both our sakes it might be prudent for us to be in different places for a while.”
“You have a point. Okay, tomorrow, you’re out of here. We still have a little business to transact tonight.”
“Tomorrow, then.” Connors looked relieved.
***
Frank Sutherlin glared at Special Agent O’Rourke. The sun had been up less than an hour when the Feds in the person of O’Rourke, had arrived in town and begun pushing. Interference by Federal agents was nothing new. Local police expected it. The attitude in Washington seemed to be that anything occurring outside the Washington beltway must be hopelessly inept and uninformed and in dire need of a guiding hand. He knew that, but why was this officious Bureau wonk sitting in Ike’s office telling him that the FBI would assume the total responsibility for the search and apprehension of Jack Brattan?
“It’s way out of your jurisdiction, O’Rourke, and since when did a BOLO, become limited to one agency’s enforcement?”
“It’s Special Agent O’Rourke, Deputy. Technically speaking, interstate is our jurisdiction. It is out of yours. The dead cop was shot over near Buena Vista. That’s not even close to Picketsville.”
“It’s close enough. Okay, you’re right about who owns the perp when he is finally caught, but we popped the lead. We want to follow it. It’s our BOLO, after all. Every law enforcement operation can and should pursue and arrest. So what’s your interest that makes it so special? This is local, right?”
“It was a cop killing. The Bureau has launched a new program. We are concerned with the rise in attacks on police and other law enforcement personnel. We have made it our business.”
“That a fact? Is the FBI telling every other police department this? I’m just asking because that seems a big undertaking. There are something like fifteen thousand taxing districts in the USA and I reckon each one of them has a police department in one form or another as part of it. Hell, I ain’t even counting the federal units, the armed services, and you guys. How in the name of everything holy do you figure to keep them in line, O’Rourke? I don’t want to believe we are the only one you’re going to be talking to. We aren’t, right? Okay, now I am committed to interagency cooperation and all that. Always have been, unlike some of my colleagues. See, I’m your friend in this.” O’Rourke sat back and frowned. “But what you’re forking out here is bullshit and there is no way I am going to have you horn in on this. You pull whatever strings you have and try and stop me, but we’re going after Brattan and if we are there first, he’ll be ours.”
O’Rourke stopped smiling. “You’ll regret this.”
“Yeah, maybe. See you around, Special Agent O’Rourke.”
When the main door to the offices slammed shut behind O’Rourke, Frank had Essie call the FBI and then get Billy on the line. He wanted to know all about the new program directed at investigating attacks on law enforcement personnel from the Feds and alert Billy of this new wrinkle.
The race was on. They had to find Brattan before the Feds did and started a game of hide and seek with their killer. And who the hell was Special Agent O’Rourke, anyway?