The U.S. Marshals’ jet landed in Rock Springs at nine on Sunday night, and after taking out a rental car, Paul O’Malley drove to the Homewood Suites by Hilton at the outskirts of town. On Monday morning, he was up by six, and following a quick shower, he dressed and made his way to Morning Joe’s Coffee Shop. As he sat down at a table, Duke immediately took notice. Who is this guy? he wondered. Definitely not from around here, he thought.
“Sally, I’ll take the table with that gentleman over there, if you don’t mind?”
“Fine with me, Boss, I’ve got my hands full with the counter anyway,” she answered.
“Good morning, sir, I’m Duke. Can I get you some coffee to start? I don’t think I’ve seen you in here before?”
“No, I’m just here on business. I’ll probably be gone before the day is over.”
“Really. What sort of business are you in, if I may ask?”
“I’m a sales rep for a new national sugar-free chocolate manufacturer, and I hope to stop over to see a Regina Roberts at Reggie’s Chocolate Delights when she opens around nine or so this morning. Do you know her?”
“I most certainly do. As a matter of fact, she should be coming in for coffee anytime soon. I’ll point her out to you when she gets here, Mr…?”
“Oh, it’s Potter, Jeff Potter with Chocolite, a new fat-free and sugar-free dark chocolate. We sell it by the bar already made, or someone like Miss Roberts can make her own by simply using our ingredients. Here’s my card.”
“Sounds exciting. I’m sure Reggie will give you her full attention, though I recommend you discuss business with her at her shop rather than in here, if you don’t mind? We’re a small coffee shop, and we need to keep customers flowing, if you know what I mean. We’re definitely not like Starbucks, where you can park yourself for hours with a laptop or some tablet. Heck, we don’t even have Wi-Fi in here.”
“Not a problem. I’m sure her shop will do nicely,” O’Malley replied.
“You want just coffee for now, or can I take your order at the same time?” Duke asked.
He ordered a small orange juice, two eggs with wheat toast, a side of hash browns, and a cup of coffee. Duke smiled at his new customer and walked back to the counter.
“Sally, do me a favor, will you? Have Doris deliver the order to that man’s table over there. I’ve got to step out for about ten minutes.”
“No problem, Boss. We’ll get the juice and coffee over there right away,” she replied as she looked over the order slip. “Freddie, two over light with hash browns and wheat.”
Duke walked into the back room, took off his apron, and left by the side door heading straight for Reggie’s place. It was only seven o’clock, so he had to ring the doorbell at the side entrance to her store. There was no answer. He pulled out his cell phone and quickly called her number using his speed dial.
Reggie had been released from the hospital on Sunday afternoon and was still somewhat sedated with pain killers. She had gone to bed early on Sunday night and did not fall into a deep sleep until around four in the morning. Her phone rang several times before she answered.
“Hello, who is this?”
“It’s me, Duke. I’m downstairs at your side door. Let me in, I’ve got to talk to you right away.”
“Duke, it’s only seven, and I’ve had a rough night. Can’t you come by a little later on? I’m still in bed.”
“No, damn it, there’s a guy in my shop having breakfast, and he’s looking for you. I don’t like it. Please, get out of bed and let me in.”
Still in somewhat of a daze, she slowly got out of bed, being very careful not to bump her bandaged arm as she did so. Slipping on a robe over her pajamas took a bit longer than she thought. Ten minutes later, she appeared at the side door, lifted the shade, and saw Duke in a frenzy standing at her doorway. She unbolted both locks and opened the door. He rushed in and locked the door behind him.
“Are you expecting a sales guy from a new chocolate company today? This guy says his name is Jeff Potter, with a company called Chocolite.”
“Never heard of him. Never heard of Chocolite either. But that doesn’t mean anything. I often have salesmen stopping in unannounced selling flour, all kinds of powdered ingredients for making chocolate or caramel or whatever.”
“What are you going to do? Let me go back and get my gun and be here when he does come to the store. I don’t like it. It’s too soon after the shooting.”
“There’s a patrolman coming into the store right before I open at nine. Detective Wayne said he would be assigned there for the next few days. And besides, I wasn’t planning on spending much time in the store anyway. I’ll be resting upstairs most of the day, and I’ve got a double lock on my apartment and only one entry. Maria should be in by eight and has agreed to handle the counter until four. Aren’t you a bit paranoid here? I don’t plan on going into hiding.”
“Jesus, this is serious. Somebody’s trying to kill you. This isn’t life as usual. I’m going to be here in the back room, whether you want me here or not,” Duke yelled as he stormed out the door and, looking back over his shoulder, shouted, “and lock the door now!”
She climbed the stairway to her apartment and locked the door as she entered. She headed straight for the shower. The hospital had given her a plastic sleeve to cover the bandages on her arm. Dr. Lombardi had been emphatic at telling her not to get the bandages wet, or the stitches might be loosened in the process and might not hold. She slipped the insert up her arm, fastened the top with the Velcro strap at the end, then fastened the lower strap below the elbow. She was amazed at how easy it was to attach as she turned the shower on. Fifteen minutes later, she slipped on a pair of loose-fitting lounge pants and a zippered tee shirt, and after several unsuccessful attempts to comb her hair using the wrong hand, she made a bee line towards Duke’s coffee shop at seven-thirty.
When she walked in and sat at her usual table near the window, he was surprised to see her so soon after he had left her place.
“Good morning, Duke. Looks like another fine day out there.”
“Must you sit at the window? I’m surprised you’re not wearing a target on your shirt. You’re getting me nervous.”
On the far end of the coffee shop, O’Malley looked up from his breakfast and observed the conversation, even if he could not hear what was being said. Reggie looked up and toward O’Malley and gave a weak wave. O’Malley could not avoid seeing her bandaged arm. Duke made his way to O’Malley’s table with a pot of coffee.
“Mr. Potter, that’s Reggie Roberts over there, and she asked me to tell you that she can see you around nine-thirty. She’s nursing an injury, as you can see, and needs to get the store ready to open. Fortunately, she’s got some help coming in. Trying to put chocolate into bags with only one arm isn’t a pretty sight.”
“That arm is all bandaged up. I sure hope it’s nothing serious?” O’Malley chimed in.
“I think she got it from a fall down some stairs a few days ago. She didn’t think it was too serious to worry about, just an inconvenience for now,” Duke answered.
In the next ten minutes, Reggie ate an English muffin with jam, thanks to Sally applying the condiment on the muffin for her. She then ordered two coffees to go with two bran muffins. She always brought coffee for Maria when she came in this early. At five minutes to eight, she got up from her table and left the coffee shop. Duke had his eye on O’Malley all this time, to see if O’Malley paid too much attention to her moves. To his surprise, the stranger ordered more coffee and had his nose in the morning paper.
At eight-thirty, O’Malley rose and, after paying his bill, left the coffee shop as Duke watched him get to his car parked out front. He had told Duke in their earlier conversation that he was staying at The Homewood. Duke pulled out his cell phone, dialed a number, and waited for someone to answer.
“Homewood Suites, how may I direct your call?” the voice on the other end asked.
“Howie, is that you?”
“Duke, to what do I owe the pleasure so early on a Monday? Oh, oh, did I miss a golf date or something? I thought we were on for Wednesday?” Howie added.
“No, we’re on for Wednesday at seven. I need a favor. Did you have some guy check in yesterday named Jeff Potter?”
“Let’s see here. I wasn’t at the desk last night, so hang on. Potter, Potter, I don’t see that name. We have a McCarthy, Bragg, O’Malley, and Simmons, that’s it last night. Why?”
“I’ll explain later. Do me another favor, will you? Let me have the addresses they signed in with,” Duke pleaded.
“Okay, but if anyone asks, you didn’t get these from me.”
Duke jotted down the addresses, Madison, Iowa, Alexandria, Virginia, Boston, Massachusetts, and Havre, Montana. None of these meant anything to him. Which of these guys is posing as Jeff Potter? he wondered.
At nine-thirty, O’Malley entered Reggie’s store. Sitting near the doorway was a uniformed policeman looking at all the people entering the store. He walked up to the counter where Maria was attending to a customer who was checking out. He asked if Regina Roberts was available. Almost on cue, Reggie appeared from the back room.
“Mr. Potter, I believe. What can I do for you?”
“The weather is unseasonably warm for August, isn’t it?”
Reggie’s eyes widened, and she stood there speechless.
“It should cool off next month,” she replied.
“Then I’ll be sure to come back then.”
As if out of a spy movie, she found herself responding to some code she had been given years earlier by the US Marshals Service. She led the man to the back room and up the staircase to her apartment and closed the door.
“Paul O’Malley, Reggie. We got your message. Are you okay?” he asked as he flashed his marshal’s badge from inside his coat pocket.
“After ten years, Mr. O’Malley, this is not something I expected. How did they find me?”
“Sit down. It’s a long story. Witness information has somehow leaked out to somebody, and you’re not the first one to have problems come up lately,” O’Malley began.
“What’s going on? Why now after ten years? Aren’t those guys still in prison?”
“Yes, they still are, and for quite some time more. But even from the inside, they can get things done.”
“But how did they know where I was?”
“Someone’s gotten into our system and appears to know who to contact about your location.”
“How can this happen? I thought only a few marshals controlled this stuff? And why me? There are thousands of witnesses in the program. My last contact was with Cliff Mead, and that was over five years ago. What happened to him?”
“Mead retired late in 2011, and we haven’t assigned anybody new to your file because we didn’t think it was necessary.”
“You said I wasn’t the only one who’s been affected. How many others?”
“So far, we only know of two others, both within the last few weeks.”
“And what happened to them?”
O’Malley had a very sullen look on his face after hearing the question. Reggie knew the answer before he had time to speak.
“Aw, shit, how?” she asked.
“Both of them shot in the head, no witnesses. One in Arizona, the other in Massachusetts.”
No sooner than O’Malley’s response came out, Duke bolted through the apartment door with his revolver pointing directly at O’Malley.
“Freeze, asshole. Put your hands where I can see them,” he blurted.
“Duke, what the hell are you doing here? I can handle this,” answered Reggie.
O’Malley began to reach for his inside coat pocket when Duke motioned for him to keep his hands where he could see them.
“Duke, I’m going to ask Reggie to reach into my coat pocket with her good arm while I keep both of my arms held high. She’ll find my credentials in the inside pocket.”
“He knows about me, Mr. O’Malley. I trust him more than anyone, especially more than I trust your office right now,” she emphasized.
“So, it’s O’Malley and not Potter, is it?” Duke asked.
“Paul O’Malley, head of the witness protection program from the U.S. Marshals Service. It’s important that no one know that I’m here.”
“What the hell kind of protection are you people exactly providing, Mr. O’Malley?”
“Up until now, the best protection she could ever ask for. You can say that about over eight thousand other former witnesses, too. This situation is a first for us, and we are frantically working to find the leak as quickly as we can,” he answered with a defensive look.
“The witness we lost in Arizona had been in the program for over twenty years. These things can happen, but quite honestly, they’ve never happened to us before. I’ll be talking to your local police this afternoon to make sure you’re well-protected for a while. I don’t suggest you leave the store or your apartment for now,” O’Malley went on.
“I wasn’t planning on going anywhere, Mr. O’Malley. But I need to buy food and toiletries if I’m going to be cooped up in here all the time. How long do you expect me to hide in here?” she asked.
“Hopefully, not too long. Whoever it is hasn’t finished the job yet. So I expect you’ll still be a target. We’ve started tracking down all passengers on incoming flights to Rock Springs in the last two weeks. If the assailant drove into Rock Springs, we’re checking all credit cards used at the two gas stations in town over the last week. After I leave here, I’m going to the arena to get copies of any video cameras from the Saturday the shooting occurred. We’ve already started to match a rifle to the shells used, but that’s a long shot. There are probably thousands of rifles using those shells,” O’Malley went on.
“There is, of course, another alternative. We can relocate you again to a new place.”
“No way. These last ten years, I have made more friends than I ever imagined, and I have more than one reason to want to stay here,” she explained as she turned to face Duke just a few feet away. “It’s taken me all these years to finally know what I want to do for the rest of my life, who I want to be with, and where I want to live. I plan on dying here, whether by some gunman or of old age, but I’m not moving again.”
“Think about this,” Duke chimed in. “I can take you anywhere as Mrs. Duke Sheridan. We can disappear as quickly as you want.”
“I don’t want to disappear. I was petrified ten years ago when I moved here. But now, I wouldn’t live anywhere else.”
“I’m heading over to the police station now to talk to Detective Wayne. I hope to tell him as little as I need to about the shooting and why you. If he follows up with you later on, tell him nothing, not until I say so. We’re trying to put all these pieces together. Maybe the gunman hasn’t informed whoever’s paying him that the target is still alive.”