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Karen drove slowly down the long, dirt road leading to the Belinski farm in Colrain, Mass. She parked and walked up to the front door of a dirty white farmhouse that was showing its age. There was a mist in the morning air, and the heady smell of damp grass and cow manure. A dog was barking over by the barns. Cows were mooing. A middle-aged woman answered the door. “Hi, Mrs. Belinski?” The woman nodded. “I’m Detective Tindall with the Greenfield Police Department.” Karen showed her badge. “I’m wondering if I could ask you and your husband a few questions about some construction around this area.”
“Come on in. My name’s Carol. I don’t know anything about any construction, but let me get Stan.” She texted on her phone for a few seconds and said, “Stan will be here in a few minutes. Coffee?”
“No thanks, I just had some.” Karen looked around and saw framed pictures everywhere. A very furry gray cat sidled up to Karen’s ankle.
“That’s Angel. She won’t hurt you.” Karen smiled.
The back door opened and a lanky man entered the mud room and pulled off his knee-high rubber boots. “Hi, I’m Stan. What’s this about?”
“I’m Detective Tindall from the Greenfield Police Department. I’m trying to track down a farmer around here who’s building some kind of underground tunnel system. Somebody raised a concern about that project, and whether it’s related to some unexplained tunnels that were found in Greenfield. They didn’t know where exactly this tunnel system was being built. I couldn’t find any kind of building permit for construction like that. So, now I’m knocking on doors, trying to find information. I figure that you farmers probably know everything that’s going on around here.”
Stan chuckled. “Well, maybe we do know more about other people’s business than we should. You’d be surprised what goes on with people on these farms. I don’t know about any tunnels being built, but if there were, I wouldn’t expect anyone around here to bother with a building permit. I do remember that Randy Heisler rented out his mini-excavator to someone over in Shelburne a few months ago. He’s got a nice Wallemac. You also could ask the concrete suppliers around here if they did any pours for something like that.”
“Do you know who the concrete suppliers are?”
“I’m sure there are a few around. The last time I used one, which was years ago, I used an outfit out of Chicopee. Chicopee Concrete, or something clever like that.”
“Well, you’ve been a big help, Stan. I appreciate it. Here’s my card if you think of anything else that could help.”
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KAREN PULLED OFF A dirt road into the paved driveway of a recently built ranch-style house with a three-car garage. Behind it was a compound of several recently constructed barns and outbuildings. The rain had stopped. As Karen got out of the car, a good-looking, middle-aged man pulled up on his four-wheeler. A small shepherd dog sat on the back-rack. “Can I help you, Officer?”
“Hi, I’m Detective Tindall with the Greenfield Police Department.” She showed her badge. “Are you Randy Heisler?”
“Yes Detective, I’m State Representative Randy Heisler. How can I help?”
“Oh excuse me, Representative Heisler. I’m looking for someone around here who’s building a tunnel complex. This inquiry is possibly related to some unauthorized tunnels that were recently found in Greenfield.”
“The mole people?”
“Yes, that’s the case. Earlier I spoke with Stan Belinski, and he mentioned that you recently rented out your mini-excavator.”
He thought for a few seconds. “I guess I never asked what the guy was using it for. Tunnels?” He shrugged. “I suppose it could be.”
“Who are we talking about?”
“Keith Lyman, from Shelburne.” Karen’s ears perked up. She’d been searching for farmers named Lyman, Manly, and Melsty around there, but was coming up empty. “He rented my Wallemac for a couple of weeks. I needed it to dig a culvert, but when I called him to get it back, he asked if he could buy it off me. He offered me two thousand over what I paid for it, so I sold it to him and bought myself a new one.”
“Is that unusual?”
“Well, I suppose.”
“Could you show me what a mini-excavator looks like?”
She walked with Randy to a narrow dirt road that headed around the side of a hill. A chartreuse machine was sitting next to a freshly-dug trench. It looked like a miniature bulldozer combined with a backhoe. “You operate that yourself?”
“Sure. I’m a farmer first, Representative second.”
“What do you know about Keith Lyman?”
“I don’t really know him, and I don’t know where his farm is. He struck me as being infatuated with camouflage. His truck was camo, and so were his pants and jacket. I’m not sure what that tells you about somebody, though.”
“I don’t know either,” said Karen. “I think if he lives in a tunnel, he probably doesn’t really need camo, does he?” Heisler laughed. “Well, here’s my card, if you think of anything else. Thank you, Representative Heisler.”
“You’re welcome. And you can call me Randy.” He winked.
“Then please call me Karen.” She smiled. “See you later.”
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AS SHE DROVE AWAY, Karen’s spidey senses were niggling at her. She decided not to show up at Keith Lyman’s farm right away, plus she didn’t know where it was. She would head back to her office and do some more research. Why didn’t any of her searches come up with a Lyman farm in the area? If the farm isn’t under his name, how would she find it? Time for some records research.
She stopped at the Town Clerk’s office in Shelburne Falls. The town clerk introduced himself as Perry Narden, and Karen figured that he was well into his seventies. “Of course, I’ve heard the name Lyman over the years, but I’ll have to look. There are Wymans too.”
“Oh, look for both, if you would, please,” said Karen. “Why don’t you take your time, and give me a call when you find something.” She handed him her card.
Karen headed back to the Greenfield Police Station and stopped into Chief Reyes’s office. “Hey Chief, I want to brief you on the tunnel case.” He motioned for her to sit in a chair. “First of all, I know that this is an FBI case, but I was thinking that we could make some headway by finding the farm with the tunnel complex being built. I decided to talk to the farmers in the area. I don’t think the FBI is doing that.”
“Karen, I’ve always given you free reign to look into anything. FBI involvement doesn’t change that.”
“And I appreciate it. So, I went to talk to a couple of farmers in Colrain who gave me a lead on a guy in Shelburne named Keith Lyman. By the way, one of the farmers I talked to is State Representative Randy Heisler.”
“Did you bother him?”
“No, he was really nice and he gave me the name of this Lyman guy. It turns out that another Lyman, Steve, is an anagram of Evan Melsty, which is the name Katrina Ryu gave us as the other guy involved in the tunnel case.”
Chief Reyes sat up. “An anagram? What the heck are you talking about?”
“When I told Gil Novak about this Evan Melsty guy, he told me that his named sounded more like an anagram than a real name. I scrambled the letters around for a while and came up with Steve Manly. Gil said Manly without an E was unusual, so he suggested Steve Lyman.”
“This sounds like something out of an Agatha Christie novel.”
“Anyway, Keith Lyman doesn’t seem to exist in this area. No farm deed, no license, no tax record. The anagram guy, Steve Lyman, also doesn’t seem to exist. I’m going to keep digging through records and I’m about to call Special Agent Davis, too.”
“Any word from London yet?”
“Not yet, I’ll let you know.”