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The Dynameos Conspiracy by Dave Folsom
The Dynameos Conspiracy
By
Dave Folsom
This book is a work of fiction. Names, places, or incidents are either products of the authors imagination or used fictionally. Any resemblance to actual events, localities, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
This book is dedicated to my wife, Sandy, who spent many hours editing, commenting, and suggesting changes that always made the story better.
©Dave Folsom 2010 All Rights Reserved
No part of this book may be copied or reproduced in any form without the express permission of the author.
ISBN-13: 978-1460989746
ISBN-10: 1460989740
Chapter One
Adrenalin fueled fear pushed him up the creek bank crawling on hands and knees through foot-deep snow. At the crest of the road he could see a distant light shining faintly through the wind-driven blizzard. He left the Toyota nose first in icy water, remembering vaguely sliding off the road. Throbbing pain tore through his chest in radiating waves and he forced himself to concentrate on one thing; he had to make it to the house.
He rested a moment at the edge of the road feeling heavy, wet flakes plaster his face. Shivering as the wind swirled around his thin coat, he remembered the day, years before, when greed, and a desire for power started him down the path that eventually landed him on this lonely road, dying.
Visions flashed through his mind surrounded by fog. Surely, it wasn’t him, staring into the barrel of a suppressor-equipped pistol, turning, trying to run, slipping just as he reached for the car door, staggered by the hurt exploding in his chest. He had hit the ground hard but the snow cushioned the blow and he lost consciousness for a few seconds. He saw himself laying very still trying to make the hurt go away, yet terrified that the shooter would walk closer to make certain of the kill. The grinding of an engine starting came to his ears and the sound of a vehicle driving, crunching the cold snow. He had waited, unmoving until he was sure he was alone, before he got his knees under him, grabbed the door handle and pulled himself up. It took strained effort to open the door and slide in, start the car and begin driving.
He remembered the persistent guilt that convinced him to contact the Justice Department, seeking escape from the cavernous hole he’d made for himself. Brokering a deal, he covertly fed information to his handler at irregular intervals. Now, the piper had come to collect his tithing.
Gathering strength to stand, he began walking, a shuffling, stumbling gait. Gulping air in shallow breaths, the snow tugged at his shoes, and he imagined the feel of quicksand. His legs numbed until he could no longer sense his feet nor the merciless cold. A chill penetrated his bones, sapping his rapidly failing strength. Just as he feared he wouldn’t make it, the door suddenly appeared. He groped for the doorbell and pushed the button, once, twice, as consciousness faded away.
When the doorbell rang, I barely heard it through a dinner induced slumber. My overstuffed deep-brown leather recliner wrapped comfortably around my carcass, bathing me in friendly warmth. I dozed, stomach full, muscles tired, listening to soft piano music and waiting for the hour to grow late enough to justify crawling into bed. Across the room, built into the massive timber framing of my house, the stone fireplace spread flame shadows across the room with its warmth. I grumbled at being disturbed. The bell rang again, demandingly, until finally I moved, shuffling wearily to my front door wondering which of my neighbors would be crazy enough to be out in a snowstorm. Mrs. Dixon, my surrogate grandmother, housekeeper, cook, secretary, and fairy-godmother, wasn’t likely, though not impossible, since she’d left less than an hour before. What I didn’t expect was an unshaven ghost of a man dressed in a threadbare Carhartt jacket barely able to hold off the bitter cold and driving snow. He stood bent-over in my open doorway, bareheaded, snow decorating his hair, and a thin face dominated by pain filled eyes. Cold-stiffened fingers clutched my doorjamb. His sunken eyes cried out silently and his lips moved when he saw me, but no sound came forth.
I grabbed at his shabby coat as he slipped down the edge of my door expelling air from a narrow mouth. It sounded like an elephant had stepped on his chest. We ended up on the floor with the upper part of his body draped over my threshold. I groped for a pulse and the skin on his neck felt cold and clammy. Whatever he had wanted to tell me was gone forever. I dragged him inside and closed the door.
He looked familiar in a vague sort of way, older by years than I remembered. He’d been heavier then, muscular, handsome and on top of the world. In his hip pocket I found a folded leather mess that had once passed for a wallet. Inside, an identification card confirmed the name. I searched the rest of his mostly empty pockets and almost missed it. Deep in the left front pants pocket I found something strange. Inside a small kraft paper envelope rested a tiny, yet thick object, with fifteen prongs on each side. It looked like a miniature computer chip. Puzzled, I went to my desk, found a small Ziploc plastic bag, slipped the little chip and its brown bag in and dropped it into my top desk drawer.
Robert Martin, when I’d known him, excelled at everything. He played football mostly, some basketball, and a little bit of everything else. If he couldn’t play it, he looked good on the sidelines in his varsity sweater. He dated the head cheerleader and they looked like the all-American couple, primed for two point three children and a house in the suburbs. I hadn’t seen him since the night we graduated from college.
I called the Sheriff, who I knew wasn’t going to like a call-out on a snowy December night. Homer Brenner served as Sheriff due to many friends in politics. It bordered on a miracle that he was decently competent. In the twenty years he’d held the position, he’d become very good at it. I had to give him that, but with the caveat that sometimes he allowed his need to be re-elected to color his decision-making process. Being a cop is hard enough these days, when the criminals have more rights than ordinary citizens. Brenner could be pigheaded at times, but then he worked under a periphery of rules and regulations that made his job frustrating and difficult. We weren’t exactly friends, but then I’d been partially responsible for that. Brenner had yet to forgive me for interfering a couple of times in ways he couldn’t understand and I couldn’t explain. As a result, I wasn’t on his favorites list. I’d campaigned for him simply because none of the other choices were better. That I’d called him out on a miserably cold and snowy night undoubtedly would make him grumpy, but would give me sadistic pleasure. It took the sheriff twenty-seven minutes to speed the eleven miles to my place in a blinding snowstorm.
Sheriff Homer Brenner stormed through my door like a rouge elephant, waving his arms and shouting orders. Two deputies, two volunteer firemen and two emergency medical techs followed him in. Brenner looked the part of Sheriff. Over six-foot, but a couple inches shorter than my six-four, Brenner stood slightly overweight, narrow faced, in his mid-forties and with just enough hardness in his eyes to convince most people he was tougher than owl-shit. Surprisingly, he was street tough and I liked him, I just didn’t want him to know it. He glowered at me and jerked a thumb at the body on my entryway floor.
“You move it?” he grunted.
“Of course, it’s ten below out.” I wasn’t going to wait for the Sheriff with my door standing open to the freezing wind. And I couldn’t shut the door without moving what remained of Robert Martin.
“Know him?” Brenner always asked questions in two or three word sentences while fumbling with the Glock on his hip. It made his black leather holster squeak, a move designed to be intimidating, but I’d seen him do it too many times.
“His name’s Robert Martin. I knew him years ago, in college. I haven’t seen him since. He rang the doorbell and died. I don’t know what he wanted.”
“Don’t bullshit me Trainer, goddamn it,” Brenner snorted. “Nobody just happens at your door by accident. What the hell did he want?”
I know I’m in trouble when Homer calls me by my last name, Trainer. That’s me, Lee Trainer, ordinary citizen, innocent farmer, minding my own business, having a quiet evening at home on a winter night.
“Sheriff,” I replied, not trying to be civil, “the man dropped dead on my doorstep. I didn’t invite him. I haven’t seen him in years. I don’t even know what killed him. Give me a break, will you?”
“You better hope it was natural, ‘cause if it isn’t, I’m going to be all over you.”
By the time the Coroner came, located a single, small caliber gunshot wound, the EMT’s removed the body, and Brenner stomped out followed by his armed entourage, it was after midnight. I went to bed mildly speculating over what had been on Robert Martin’s mind after all these years. It surely hadn’t been to hash over old times because there weren’t any. He’d been one of the anointed, with effortless good grades, natural athletic prowess and rugged good looks. He floated through his college years with little effort and even less accomplishment. That I knew Martin at all was a statistical aberration, a chance of fate that assigned us to the same dorm room the fall of our freshman year. We shared a fourteen by fourteen space and little else for three months until the jock frat called him like wolves in the wild. I saw him infrequently after that, except passing between classes and not at all after graduation. I had no idea where life had taken him. Apparently, it had been in stark contrast to his academic successes.
I rose early the next morning, as is my habit, and moved to the kitchen, poured myself hot coffee and added enough cream to turn it the color of caramel. Martha Dixon sat at my kitchen counter watching me with disapproving eyes, drinking coffee black. There wasn’t much I did that gained her approval. The Dixon’s live a quarter-mile down the road and her husband Jake, after working at the sawmill, helps me with the stock. Behind the house is a fifty by one hundred hen house which is the permanent residence for two thousand cackling, curious, busy, multi-colored laying hens, working their little feathered hearts out trying to fill Jake Dixon-designed and Trainer-built homemade roll-away egg trays. I like chickens. They are surprisingly like people, intelligent and easily trained. They establish a rigid cast system, a pecking order if you will, that guides everything they do. The more aggressive hens eat first, lay claim to the top roost, and generally bully the weaker ones. Spend some time in a chicken coop and you’ll better understand why society works like it does.
Martha Dixon is a sawed off, white-haired wisp of a woman who has become my friend, confidant and surrogate, though self-appointed, grandmother. She worries about me, especially the way I make my living. Her fear is that someone who does not get up every morning and work from eight to five at a regular job must be doing something illegal. I’m constantly having to answer her inquires as to what I’m doing. She knows that though the chickens do well, gathering eggs and a small herd of white-face cattle alone wouldn’t support the place. Things like Robert Martin are always happening and it’s that which makes her constantly suspicious. I took a sip of coffee, burnt my tongue and told her about the night before.
“It never ceases to amaze me that you seem to attract trouble. One of these days you’re going to get your fingers burnt.” She said it with resigned disgust in her voice.
“I don’t have an answer for that. It just happens, I guess.”
“How did he get here?” Bless her, Martha dove right to the obvious. It was a question I hadn’t yet considered. It was too far to walk, especially in his condition and in the dead of winter. My little chicken and beef ranch is at the end of the county road, eleven miles south of Lander,Montana. TheRocky Mountainssurround the valley and air is clean most of the time unless a winter inversion holds down the wood smoke. Lately, we’ve been invaded by self-styled country folks grasping for a piece of the good Montana life. As a result, our winter air is worse than Los Angeles at times. I’ve never been able to understand people who insist on burning wood for their sole source of heat, claiming loudly that they are getting the best of the local utility.
I thought back to the night before and whether Brenner had mentioned a car and decided he hadn’t. “You didn’t see another car in the driveway when you came in did you?”
“No. What have you got yourself into this time?” Martha Dixon gave me her best disapproving look and busied herself with breakfast. She didn’t want an answer and I didn’t give her one. I didn’t have one to give.
The phone rang and Martha answered it still berating me with her piercing gray eyes and stabbing out her filter cigarette. I get back at her by nagging her about her smoking. Her sharp face is mapped with smoker lines and I hide the ashtrays and matches every chance I get.
“Deputy Randall,” she said, scowling, with the phone pointed at me.
Jeb Randall is the closest thing to a friend I have that wears a law enforcement uniform. Sometimes we work together, trading notes like a couple of teenagers with a new copy of Playboy. Since he likes chickens, I overlook that he works for Brenner.
“What’s up, Jeb,” I asked.
“You interested in what killed your friend last night, Lee?”
“Wasn’t my friend, Jeb. I’m trying not to be interested. I’ve got five hundred day-old chicks coming this week. Busy, busy, busy. No time for dead people on my doorstep.”
“Go ahead and joke. You’ll be crying another tune when Brenner has you down here under the lights.”
“All right, all right, so maybe I’m interested.”
“Small caliber bullet, probably a .22, in the back, a little too high to be instantly fatal. Very slow external bleeding. Coroner says cause of death was probably internal blood loss. May have been shot as early as a hour or more before he showed up at your place. Lee, it would look professional if it hadn’t been so sloppy. We’ll know more after the autopsy.”
“Two questions,” I said. “Why would a pro snuff a regular guy and why, if Martin was shot that early, didn’t he seek help?”
“Your guess is as good as mine. By the way, he was an ex-con. Illinois State Prison, served eight years of a fifteen year term for bank fraud and embezzlement. Paroled two months ago. Disappeared a week later. Currently wanted for parole violation, failure to report.” Jeb sounded as if he was reading off a wants and warrants sheet. The more he talked, the less I liked it.
“That doesn’t sound like the Robert Martin I knew.” I said. “There must be a mistake.”
“Fingerprints don’t lie.”
“Something is wrong, I can’t see my Robert Martin as a career criminal. There wasn’t enough time. I’m going to have to check it out. Thanks, Jeb. What does Brenner want?”
“That’s what I’m really calling about. He wants to see you down here. ASAP. When can I tell him to expect you? Remember, he won’t be happy if we have to come and get you.”
“The Sheriff’s happiness is the least of my worries, Jeb. But I will come in this afternoon, after we finish chores.”
I rang off and Martha fed me breakfast of cracked wheat and oat bran, hot with skim milk and no sugar. Her motive is to cure a creeping cholesterol problem that worries me not at all, but is her crusade. Cracked wheat isn’t bad if you boil it long enough to make it tender. Martha apparently thought if I had to masticate it like a feeder steer that alone would help my fatty blood. On weekends, when I’m alone, I nuke it long enough to tenderize it and cover it with cream and enough sugar to make a thousand pound bovine hyperglycemic.
The business about no car bothered me, so, full of unsweetened boiled grain, I bundled up in Carhartt bibs, a faded Carhartt jacket, ski mask and wool cap, since the temperature still hovered at ten below. I figured Martin couldn’t have made it far in his condition, and I decided to trudge through the twelve-inch deep snow on foot. The county road ends in a sometimes dusty cul-de-sac less than three hundred yards from my front door. The lane out to my front gate is a narrow path through the corner of an alfalfa field which allows me to bale my driveway. As I walked shuffling through the new fallen snow, I could see holes that could have been footprints made during the storm. I looked around the end of the county road and found nothing. About a hundred yards down the road, where Thirteen Mile Creek bends in and eats away at the road edge during spring floods I found a ten-year oldToyotanose-first in the creek. It lay over the bank, below a sight line if you were driving, covered with last night’s snow. Even Martin’s crawling path up to the road’s edge was mostly obliterated. I skidded on my Carhartts down to the car and looked in. I found nothing except enough blood to confirm it had been Martin’s. I climbed back to the road and looked across the field to my timber frame house in the distance, reflecting on the determination that had gotten him that far.
I called the Sheriff’s office and sometime during the day the county wrecker picked up theToyota. Jake and I did the chores, ground feed, hauled oyster shell and gathered eggs. We have the egg gathering down to an non-mechanized science. The nests back into a central hallway and the eggs roll away to the rear. Egg gathering is a snap and one person can do it if necessary, which is likely when I’m gone. Jake designed the system. He’s as handy that way as his wife is nosy.
The Lander County Courthouse and Jail rose out of a grassy hillside in August of 1901, two blocks offMain Streetwith a clock tower easily viewed from most of town. Its local limestone construction makes it look massive and formidable and a century of freezing rain, gale force winds, driving snow and earthquakes have done little to improve its drab castle-like exterior. The door into the Sheriff’s offices and the jail area consists of two thicknesses of steel plate with little steel pyramids pointing out at you. It looks like something out of a dungeon-keeper’s daydream. And it’s heavy. It takes genuine effort to open it, even when it’s unlocked. I decided outlaws must have been tougher in the old days.
Sheriff Homer Brenner wasn’t happy when I finally reached the office and I wasn’t that late. There’s no pleasing some people. Homer occupied a worn wooden desk in the middle of dense clutter that is the badge of honor for overworked public servants. Jeb Randall sat across the room in a barren side chair. I said hello to Jeb and ignored Brenner.
He couldn’t ignore me. “Trainer, it’s about time you showed up.” the Sheriff thundered, his belief being that intimidation was somehow synonymous with loud.
“Nice to see you, Homer,” I said sweetly, trying on my best behavior. I assumed he knew from past experience that yelling at me was a waste of time.
“Trainer,” he sputtered, trying to control his voice, “I want you to understand something. I don’t like unexplained murders in my jurisdiction, and I especially don’t like them on your doorstep. Explain to me why I shouldn’t throw you to the wolves.”
“Sheriff Brenner,” I said formally, “you know as much as I do. Am I supposed to do your job for you?”
Jeb jumped in before Brenner could answer. “Lee, why don’t you brief the Sheriff on your connection with the deceased and maybe we can proceed from there. Okay?” Always the diplomat, Jeb stroked the Sheriff’s ruffled feathers and looked at me with eyes that told me to tread lightly. My friend is always disgustingly practical. He saves coupons and buys his clothes at K-Mart. But he’s a good cop. I wish I could make him Sheriff.
I told my story, skimpy though it was. Homer didn’t like it, but he couldn’t find a reason to hold me. I left him fuming behind a pile of unread paper. Something told me I hadn’t heard the last of Robert Martin. I felt mildly curious about why he wanted to see me, but not enough to lose sleep.
I drove west out of town, following Highway 43 to the county road turn off. I noticed the car behind me right away, not because I’m particularly perceptive, but a crimson red Escalade in Lander is hard to miss. He followed me close at first, then dropped back and held a dozen car lengths between us. It had been so long that, at first, I wasn’t even alarmed. I cinched down my seatbelt, an unconscious old habit. Just before the turn onto the two-lane gravel road leading to the ranch, he started up on me fast. I couldn’t see his face in the rear view mirror, but by then I knew what was coming. I tried to cut him off while reaching for the .357 I keep under the seat. I almost succeeded. My little Chevy bounced off the heavier SUV and skidded sideways into the ditch, rolled once and landed right-slide up before sliding to a stop. I could see theLincolnbacking up at high speed through the blood running between my eyes. Somehow, I still had a hold on the .357.
The Escalade stopped and I played dead. The sound of a door opening reached me and I tried to imagine him walking around the vehicle, cautious, wanting to make sure. I heard the crunch of leather and gravel. Counting to five, I estimated where the SUV sat and fired the .357 twice through my broken side window.
I heard him swear and race back to the car. A sharp crack put a neat little hole in my windshield and a car door slammed. I rose up in time to see the vehicle jump ahead and I emptied the revolver before it disappeared. I wiped the blood out of my eyes and reloaded my gun from a cartridge box in the glove compartment. As I dropped each load into the cylinder, I developed a burning desire to know more about Robert Martin.
Chapter Two
One of the most clinical places imaginable is a hospital emergency room. These people have seen so much blood and gore it’s likely they don’t really see the patient. It’s probably a defense mechanism. LanderCounty’s brand new TraumaCenterwas no exception. The farmer who stopped didn’t know me and it took some convincing that I wasn’t a threat. The triage nurse looked over her bifocals at me, inspected my damaged head and made me lie on a gurney. My blood dripping onto the sterile hospital floor bothered her not a particle. I found her disinterest unnerving since the sight of me made me sick.
My nurse, a skinny, dark-haired, middle-aged lady with a slightly pock-marked face, dabbed efficiently at the blood on my head with an alcohol-soaked cotton ball. Her plastic badge said “Mrs. Nichole Larson, RN.” Nurse Larson announced in all seriousness that I would probably live another day and that the Doctor would be along shortly. I was thrilled.
Homer Brenner wasn’t. I’d asked Mrs. Larson to call the Sheriff when I’d first come in and I knew he would have preferred my prognosis to be less hopeful. Brenner stormed into the Emergency Room cubicle with leather squeaking, handcuffs rattling and arms waving. “Goddamn it, Trainer, what the hell are you into this time,” he yelled, ignoring the hospital rules posted conspicuously in every corner.
Nurse Larson answered for me. “I beg your pardon,” she said in a voice that would have frosted a feline in heat, “you get out of here until we are finished. If the doctor says its okay, you can talk to Mr. Trainer then.” She had both hands firmly in the middle of Homer’s slick black leather jacket, pushing toward the door. I grinned. In ten seconds she had him out and was back succoring my wounds. She did it not with strength, but with pure authority. Brenner looked sheepish as she back-pedaled him through the door. I decided if she wanted me to do anything, I’d damn well do it.
The doctor came in, approved Mrs. Larson’s work, confirmed her diagnosis of my immediate future and later sent me a bill for two hundred dollars. They both released me into Brenner’s custody and he volunteered to drive me home. From that I surmised he wanted something.
To tell the truth, I wasn’t in the mood for conversation or a verbal lashing and Homer must have guessed it. He didn’t say a word on the way to the ranch except for a grunt when I pointed out my crippled Chevy sitting in the ditch. My head ached, the gash in my forehead throbbed and most of my body wore a bruise or a contusion. At least, it felt that way.
Homer was a model of patience. I was seriously considering putting Nurse Larson on retainer when he spoke for the first time.
“All right, Trainer, do you want to tell me what this is all about?”
“Homer,” I said, calling him by his first name because it irritates him when I try to be folksy, “I honestly don’t have the slightest idea why Robert Martin picked my doorstep to die on. Or why the guy in the red Escalade was so dedicated to my sudden demise. There must be a connection though, and I assure you I intend on finding out what it is. But not until tomorrow.”
Dispatch squawked on Brenner’s radio that the Escalade had been found abandoned. “Rental, phony name and driver’s license. Dead end.”
Brenner growled under his breath, “That’s no help, damn!”
He looked at me and said, “You come across anything and I want to be the first to know about it. Are we clear on that? You withhold anything and I’ll throw the book at you.”
“Don’t threaten me, Brenner. You do your job and I’ll tell you whatever I think you need to know.”
“Goddamn it, Trainer…” The Sheriff’s temper flared and I could see him struggling to regain control. He had to have the last word, so I let him have it. “Just step lightly, that’s all I’m saying. Work with me.”
We were at my front gate and I pushed open the car door despite the protest of every muscle from my head down. I struggled out with a groan or two that weren’t entirely for the Sheriff’s benefit. A hot bath and bed were high on my agenda.
“Okay, Homer, I’ll let you know,” I said agreeably.
I heard ‘you better’ sandwiched between my slamming the car door and the engine roar as he pulled away. Like I said, Homer always likes to have the last word.
I rose early the next morning. Most of me still hurt and the best way I know to work out sore muscles is more work. Not the boring kind, like jogging or weight-lifting, or that newfangled Nautilus stuff, but real work, the kind that makes you sweat and strain. Two thousand food-gobbling chickens produce prodigious masses of nitrogen rich organic compost that makes gardens grow pumpkin-sized tomatoes. We clean most of the coops with a small front-end loader, but there’s always a corner here and there that has to be cleaned by hand.
I shoveled hard most of an hour into the half-yard bucket on my Ford 4000 tractor. I was beginning to feel human again when Jeb Randall came through the side door. One of the things I like about Jeb is that he isn’t afraid to walk in a little shit now and then. He has a pretty dark-haired wife namedNancy, city-bred in a suburb ofMinneapolis, I think, and when they got married Jeb forgot to mention that he had another five hundred girls in his harem. I’ll say this for her, she jumped in and read everything she could lay a hand on about poultry and it wasn’t long before she was teaching me how to improve my operation.
Jeb stood in the access hall looking down through two inch poultry mesh and watching last year’s pullets busily doing chicken things. He likes to watch them almost as much as I do. He said something that I couldn’t hear over the din of cackling layers.
“What?” I hollered.
“Come outside. I want to talk.”
We stepped out into peace and quiet. Jeb followed me over to my old hay wagon and we both sat on the rough fir floorboards. “What’s Brenner want now?” I asked as soon as I was comfortable. Jeb was trying hard not to get his shiny black sheriff’s boots muddy so I knew this was an official visit.
“We’ve got another body.” He waited like a good interrogator should, to see if that bombshell drew a reaction. It didn’t.
“The sheriff thought you should know.”
“Good of him,” I said, feigning disinterest.
“Milton Berger, down at the bank, shot twice, .22 caliber, very efficient.”
That got a reaction. “The hell!” I mumbled, taken aback.
Jeb, pleased with himself that he’d finally struck home, continued, “His wife says somebody called him late last night and a short time later he left the house. He told Mrs. Burger that he had to go out for a while on bank business. Long-haul truck driver spotted the body early this morning along the highway out here about five miles up the road.”
“Who the hell would want to kill Milton Burger?” I said more to myself than to Jeb. Burger was a short, overweight, pompous individual that took sadistic pleasure in making a saint squirm over a five hundred dollar car loan. Ambitious, but with a diminutive personality, he was an indecisive, frustrating man. It was hardly a reason for murder, maybe throttle a little, but not murder. Milton Berger was the Peter Principle in action. As Vice President of Commercial Loans, he sat way beyond his competence.
“We were hoping you could help us out in that department,” Jeb hinted.
“I can’t, but it’s becoming increasingly apparent that I’d better do some looking around.” I didn’t want to, but this thing didn’t seem to want to go away. Damn, and there was all that chicken feculence to shovel.
I could see Jeb staring at me the way he does when he thinks I’m lying to him. “Honest to God, Jeb, I don’t know what this is about.”
He wasn’t buying it. “You know Lee, we’ve been friends for a long time. It would help a lot if at times like this you’d be straight with me. Christ, if I knew even a little about you I could protect you from Brenner better. Don’t you think it’s about time you let me in on your little secret.”
“There’s no big deal, Jeb. Nothing mysterious. I’ve just been unfortunate enough to get mixed up in some things in the past. I don’t do it on purpose. I just like to nose around and help people. That’s all there is.”
“So, if that’s true, how did Martin know about you?”
“I don’t know for sure, but it makes sense that someone had to have told him, which means he had to be working for someone who knows me.”
“Nuts! Lee, if that’s the way you want it, I guess I don’t have any choice.”
He was peeved at me, but what was I going to tell him? We were so naive then; we swallowed everything the government told us. Recruited right out of college, I’d been trained to oppose ‘enemies of freedom’, the words were. I’d spent fifteen years living on the fringe, traveling the world, until I couldn’t tell who the enemy was. I came out with a scrambled life that required another five years to understand. I was picked because I’m nondescript. If I was to rob a bank today and one hundred people saw me do it, the best description the law would get would be a hesitant, “and I think he was tall.” We used force only when necessary and never with guns. Killing was avoided because it drew too much attention. Criminals today scare me with their fascination with high tech artillery. Back then, it was too hard to talk your way out of a tight spot if you were caught in a foreign country with a gun, so we never carried them. Mostly we dealt with the enemy more up close and personal. There are times when one man alone can accomplish more than an army.
That’s what makes Homer Brenner suspicious of me. He can’t find a record anywhere with my name on it. Everything he tries draws a blank so he’s sure I’m either CIA or Mafia connected. I know because he came out and asked once. I’m officially retired and special assignments are less frequent now. And it’s a good thing. I get into enough trouble in Lander.
Jeb’s eyes carved into my skin waiting to see if I was going to lay a story on him. “It could be as simple as he turned on my lane by accident. He obviously was trying to get away from a shooter. Perhaps they were meeting along the highway, the shooter is following, one of them, shoots Berger and wounds Martin. Martin gets away and takes the first road off the highway. That would be mine.” I theorized.
“Brenner thinks you are some sort of retired spy. He called you an ‘ex-spook.’”
I hesitated, not wanting to have this conversation, but Jeb was my friend, so I told him. “I am an ex-spook, but I don’t have any agency connections any more.”
“You would tell me it you did, right.”
“Of course. Jeb, he could have known I was around, or someone could have told him, but I doubt it. I certainly didn’t know he was here. But, if was connected he wouldn’t contact me unless he had problems. I think it likely he picked my place by accident.”
“Sure, and I’m Santa Claus. All right, I give.” He changed the subject but I knew it hadn’t gone away. It lay there between two friends like sour refuse. “Can you think of any connection between you and Milton Berger?” Jeb continued, pressing because his cop instincts forced him and he couldn’t leave it alone.
“No.”
“You’re sure?”
“Hell, is anybody ever sure of anything? If there was anything I’d tell you. Honestly, I don’t understand myself why Martin chose my doorstep to die on or why that character in the red Escalade was so intent on blowing me away. I wish I did. Can I talk to Mrs. Berger?”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. Just want to talk to her. See what she has to say.”
“I’m on my way over there now. I guess you could tag along as long as you keep your mouth shut.”
“I promise,” I said crossing my fingers.
“By the way, the Caddy was squeaky clean.”
“Of course it was,” I said.
The Berger’s lived in an expansive ranch-style home in the hills above town that provided mini-hideaways for the socially affluent. The grounds, immaculately landscaped with a variety of trees, bushes, delicate shrubs, and strategically placed stones guided the winding concrete paths to the front door. The place looked tens of thousands of dollars above an assistant vice-president’s means. Banks are notorious for long titles and short salaries. Mrs. Berger greeted us at the front door. I saw a slightly heavy woman, pushing forty and hating it, pretending to be ten years younger and fortunate enough to have the money to partially succeed. Her hair draped around a sharp face falling in professionally styled curls with a tint of red. In not too many years it would look harsh, but today she looked bewildered, as if she couldn’t comprehend what had happened to her carefully laid out world.
Jeb introduced us and I followed him in. Mrs. Berger sat demurely on an expensive blue-flowered couch with her hands together in her lap. She related her story much as Jeb had told me earlier and dabbed occasionally at her eyes with a lacy white handkerchief.
As Jeb carefully questioned her, something he is extremely good at, and it became obvious that she was one of those women that had lived with a man for years and really didn’t know him. No, she said, she didn’t know whoMiltonwent to meet or where. He didn’t normally tell her those things. No, she didn’t know ifMiltonhad any outside interests other than the bank.
“How did he seem to be lately?” Jeb asked.
She looked puzzled. “What do you mean?”
“Well, for instance, did he seem more nervous lately or did he do anything unusual?”
“No…, well, there was something…, I don’t know if it means anything.”
“What?”
“The other day he said something strange, like…’ the spooks are coming…,’ or something like that. I thought he was talking about the auditors at the bank; maybe he was.”
Jeb looked at me like he’d all of a sudden discovered that I was from outer space. He stood abruptly and nodded for me to follow suit. He thanked Mrs. Berger and assured her that the Sheriff’s Department was doing everything possible.
When we were outside and far enough from the house not to be overheard, Jeb jumped into me with both feet. “Tell me why I’ve heard the word ‘spook’ twice in the same morning?” We got into Jeb’s car before I answered. He turned and looked expectantly at me. He wasn’t happy.
“There’s not much I can tell you, Jeb. It’s a coincidence, believe me. Spook is an old euphemism from the past. You’re going to have to trust me. I don’t even think they use it anymore.”
“What does it mean?”
“Take a guess.”
“Shit!”
“It can’t be connected,” I reasoned out loud, less convinced than I sounded. “Besides, what possible connection could the murder of a small town banker have to do with my past?”
“You tell me. There are too many coincidental happenings here for my liking. What the hell am I going to tell the Sheriff? That my friend Trainer is connected somehow to these murders but he can’t tell us why because he used to be some sort of James Bond? Brenner’s going to love that one.” Jeb slammed both palms into the steering wheel so hard I was afraid he’d break it. I found myself straining our friendship and I didn’t like it.
“Jeb,” I said, trying to ease his policeman’s conscience that was debating on whether to arrest me on the spot, “I honestly don’t know any more than you do about what’s going on here.” That part was truth, but somehow I’d gotten Jeb out on a limb and I need a way to get him back. I had one but I didn’t want to use it, but I needed time and it was the only way to get it. I debated on how far I could trust Brenner and quickly decided it had to be Jeb alone.
“You’re not helping me here,” he said.
“Drive to your house, Jeb.”
“Why?”
“Please, for me. I’ll explain when we get there.”
“You’re very damned secretive all of a sudden,” he grumbled, but he started the car and headed home. I’d have suggested my place, but his was closer and I needed him on my side quickly.
Nancygreeted us; cute, bubbly and petite, her dark hair was stuffed under a multi-colored scarf and a smudge of gray chicken dust decorated her cheek. Even after a morning in the chicken coop,Nancylooked freshly scrubbed. Without effort, she could work up a sweat and still look neat.
“Hi Lee,” she said to me before kissing her husband. Some guys have all the luck, but Jeb’s mind was elsewhere.
“All right, we’re here, Lee,” Jeb said over his wife’s shoulder.
“Everything all right?”Nancyasked.
“Nancy, do you have some coffee?” I asked.
“Sure…, I’ll make some.” She looked at Jeb questioningly and he nodded his head in agreement.
“Jeb, I want you to make a phone call. Do it through the operator so you are sure who you get. It’ll be long distance.”
Jeb picked up the phone. “Who am I calling?”
“The Justice Department in Washington, D.C.” I recited the number from memory. “When you are sure you have them on the phone ask for extension A45043. When they answer identify yourself and say, ‘from where the sun now stands I will fight no more forever.’”
After a moment or two, Jeb repeated the quotation from Chief Joseph’s surrender at theBearPawMountains. He listened to the response and I could see the surprise on his face. They wouldn’t tell him anything, but he would never mistrust me again. He’d earned it.
Jeb hung up the phone and turned to look at me. “Jesus, Lee, who the hell are you?”
Chapter Three
I had Jeb off my back, if only temporarily. I’d revealed a part of my life I’d spent years trying to forget and I didn’t especially like it. Jeb’s inbred honesty and his job as a cop would put our friendship in second place if he suspected me guilty of something. I knew he’d hound me until he’d satisfied himself, one way or the other. I’d gained time, but that was all.
Jeb drove me home. The sky had cleared to a sapphire blue and the air shone with frost crystals. The mountains surrounding us rose like white frosted peaks from the valley floor. We both knew the temperature would fall into the basement that night. Jeb’s long fingers gripped the steering wheel tensely. I could see his mind working, grinding, evaluating, and probing what he’d heard on the phone. Someday I’ll have to call that number myself and find out what they say.
When he stopped the car he turned to me and said, “I hope you understand that if Brenner gets wind of anything that implicates you, there won’t be much I can do to stop him.”
“I know that, Jeb, and I’ll try to keep you and the Sheriff informed, but I’m used to working alone.”
I could see Jeb was still struggling with himself. His eyes stared though the through the windshield without seeing it or anything beyond it. Deafening silence filled the car while I waited for him to say something.
Finally, without looking at me, he said, “Okay. Just don’t get yourself killed.
“Never.” I said it with more conviction than I felt. It had been a long time since I’d been stalked and I didn’t like the feeling.
I watched Jeb drive out of my lane with more than a little regret. I wondered if the easy friendship we had could withstand these events. I hoped so, but at that moment it looked grim. I first planned to track down the last ten years of Robert Martin’s life, right up to the moment he died on my doorstep. It looked easy, based on the information Jeb supplied, yet I debated over whether or not to call or make the trip to Marion. Penitentiaries do not thrill me, although modern ones are like seaside resorts compared to the one I experienced. I remembered damp stone walls, moldy straw and rats, highlights of my two month incarceration in northern Kosovo in 1998. I was pretending to be Swiss and, caught in a sweep of foreigners, paid dearly for the experience. It took them fifty-eight days to decide I was harmless and my papers impeccable. Robert Martin, according to Jeb’s wants and warrants sheet, served nearly nine years, a long time in anyone’s book. I walked around the house and entered through the kitchen. Martha was in one of her good moods.
“About time you showed up,” she grumbled disapprovingly, while I removed my snow-covered boots. “Have you eaten?” Martha worries incessantly about my eating habits and insists on feeding me whenever she can catch me not doing something else.
“No, as a matter of fact.”
“I’ll make you a sandwich. Just like a man,” she said, “you’d starve if someone didn’t look after you.”
While Martha Dixon busied herself with satisfying my assumed hunger, I called Robert Martin’s previous residence. The switchboard transferred me through three people before I finally was able to speak with someone who knew anything. Robert Martin, a deputy warden said, had been paroled two months previously. Beyond that, he would tell me nothing. Confidential records could not be divulged over the phone, he said, and snowed me with bureaucratic double-talk. I hung up knowing that a trip to Marion was going to be necessary and I had new chicks on the way. “Where are you going now?” Martha said. When I returned to the kitchen and told her I had to take a trip.
“Marion, Illinois.”
“You’ve got new chicks coming.”
“I know that.”
“Well, what are you going to do about them?”
“Jake will have to take care of them. I’ll only be gone a day or so. See if you can get me a flight out of Great Falls, tonight.”
Martha wasn’t happy about it, but while I packed, she made the arrangements. An hour later I was pointing my Honda north on Interstate 90. I had the mysterious computer chip in my pocket. ThroughWolfCreekcanyon, the highway twists and turns between high rocky cliffs inhabited by mountain goats and rattlesnakes. The Honda clutched at the snow slickened highway. I slowed, letting the little car feel its way through icy curves while I wondered what the hell I was doing. I couldn’t make sense of Robert Martin’s death on my front porch or how it could be connected to Milton Burger.
I pulled into Great Falls International fully ninety minutes before flight time and parked the Honda in a secured parking lot. Secure meant that if I didn’t come back in under thirty days to claim it, they would auction my antique Honda for the storage bill. From there, I wandered into the terminal looking forward to airport coffee and an hour of peace and quiet. Entering the cafeteria, I selected a table in the back where I could watch the few people wandering through. My steaming coffee threatened to dissolve the restaurant mug.
The man coming down the concourse looked ordinary, filling a gray topcoat hardly at all, medium height, his face shaded by a dark fedora. He wore wire-rim glasses that slid down on his nose requiring a frequent upward push with his index finger. He tried hard not to look at me. In his left hand he carried an airline carry-on bag and his movements were purposeful. No stopping to look at the terminal displays or magazines in the gift shop for him. When he entered the restaurant, he took a table near the door where he could watch everyone leaving, but didn’t have to watch the customers. Not once did he look in my direction. I watched him sprinkle fake cream and two packets of sugar into his coffee. Apparently he didn’t like coffee as well.
My plane wasn’t due for another half hour, so I strolled out onto the concourse, window shopping and watching to see what the man from the cafe would do. I was only mildly curious, not fully believing anything would happen. I went into a second gift shop, browsed the paperbacks and read two pages of Steven King’s Needful Things. I bought the book for something to read on the plane, and when I pushed my way onto the concourse he stood across the aisle, trying to look inconspicuous. By now, I was convinced. It figured that he wouldn’t make his move until boarding time when the confusion of passengers scurrying to get on and last minute arrivals was greatest. Everyone would be concentrating on their departure, especially the victim. It would be sudden and close, I was sure, a small gun, silenced, and he’d escape into the furor.
I had a small advantage. I’d played this game before and he, I hoped, didn’t know it. My mind rolled with anticipation, setting up counter moves and trying to out guess him. It’s like a chess game. The opening gambit is nearly always the same. He would jockey himself into a position to make a strike with the least risk to himself. Well, we’d see about that.
My first thought was to try and separate him out. I began to react instinctively, my long ago training returning. If I moved him away from the crowd there was a good chance he’d be off balance. He’d have to face me in the open and he wouldn’t like that. Or, better yet, I could make him come after me before he was ready. I liked that a lot.
I couldn’t take long to make a decision. The uniformed airline personnel would call the flight any minute. I started walking away from the boarding gate, rapidly, as if I’d forgotten something. At the far end of the concourse the crowd thinned and by the time I reached gate four, I was alone. I couldn’t look back to see if I was being followed. I had to trust my instincts that he was wondering what the hell I was doing. My footsteps echoed in the deserted hallway and I tried not to think of him shooting me in the back. By the time I ducked into the men’s room, my breath came in short gasps and tension rolled through every muscle. I pressed against the modesty wall and bit my tongue to keep from making noise.
It took fourteen minutes for him to get impatient and follow me. I heard the door open cautiously, metal hinges creaking slightly, enough to tell his movements. He rounded the corner trying to look casual, his right hand buried deep in his gray topcoat pocket. I hit him, left-handed, sharply, palm down. He looked surprised, choked and died all in the same breath.
In his pocket, I found a silenced Smith and Wesson, .22 caliber automatic. I searched quickly through his pockets not expecting to find anything. Like all professionals, he carried no identification. Well, the police could puzzle over that one. I was still on my knees when the door squeaked again and struck the body. A short-necked, solid-looking man with dark glasses tried to push his way in.
“What the hell…,” he grunted as I rose and grabbed him by the front of his coat, jerking him through the narrow opening. My flattened hand descended and I nailed him, carefully. I didn’t want to kill an innocent tourist. He was going to feel like he’d been hit by a Mack truck, but he’d live. And he was going to have to sweat a little over the fact he would be found with a dead man. The silenced .22 would make the cops especially suspicious, but I’d left him with enough of a bruised neck to make his story convincing.
I made the jet-way just as they were closing the door. The stewardess gave me a look that said something about lateness and tore off my boarding pass. The plane smelled of airline food and disinfectant and I could hear the on-ground generators running under my feet. People were settling in, stuffing carry-on luggage that should have been checked into overhead compartments and holding up everyone else. Boarding an airplane is a nesting process, something akin to chickens in a crowded tube looking for a place to roost. I found my seat and started to fasten my seatbelt. My seat assignment gave me the aisle, which required that I unfasten my belt and stand for two that were later than I. I decided to wait. The first, by the window, was a teenager with long greasy blond hair, a sad leather jacket and a flower tattoo on her left hand. She wore long dangle silver earrings and, given a though scrubbing, different clothes and a little make-up, might have been pretty, but I wasn’t going to bet on it. She reeked of tobacco smoke as she slide by me and I knew, for her, it was going to be a rough trip. The second, in the middle, was somebody’s grandmother. I knew because she said “thank you, dear,” when I stood. The flight, thankfully uneventful, passed with the grandmother showing me pictures and the young girl clutching an unlit cigarette. We were over Wyoming before I started to relax.
The stewardess’ working efficiently around the passengers looked as though they should still be playing with dolls. I’ve noticed lately that they’ve severely reduced the age requirement in nearly all occupations these days. The one that asked if I wanted a cocktail didn’t look old enough to drink. Unfortunately, (or fortunately, some say)Montana is one of those places where you can’t get there from wherever you are. The reverse is also true. You have to fly to a big city in a surrounding state and transfer. The first leg of my flight would take me toSalt Lake Cityand from there I would change planes (and sometimes airlines). Martha had booked me on United’s flight 732 fromSaltLaketoSt. Louis. Changing planes in theSaltLakeairport required twenty-two minutes, two minutes short of the difference between Delta’s arrival and United’s departure. Airlines are adept at making track stars out of their passengers.
United’s flight 732 turned out to be a Boeing 757, a cigar-shaped torture chamber for anyone over five-foot-eight. I took my seat between a college student and a tool salesman who wanted to practice his pitch. I nodded agreement occasionally and silently reminded myself to demand an aisle seat in the future. Three hours of squirming thankfully landed us in St. Louisand I found Budget Rent-a-Car open and manned by a bored young lady with long brown hair and coke-bottle-bottom glasses. She was fast and efficient, glad, I was sure, to have a live customer, and outfitted me with a red Buick Regal and directions to the car rental buses. Rain poured in buckets as I boarded the bus and the wind cut through my coat like a knife. The heater in the Buick would feel good. An hour later I’d changed highways twice and settled on a four-lane to Salem hopeful that at least one motel between here and there would have a vacancy. The weather turned to sleet and at midnight I found a bed.
I arrived at Marion before ten the next morning. The town looked busy, shoppers were out and the sleet had stopped. I made two circles of the outskirts before I found my destination. Prisons are ominous and depressing. Block houses and barbed wire, stone walls and re-enforced glass, make certain the place can’t be mistaken for a playhouse. The steel door on the sally port slamming shut behind me had a finality about it that made me glad the sign said “Visitors.” I wasn’t happy about my location, surrounded by barbed wire and bullet-proof glass and the subject of suspicious stares by both guards and cons. I felt guilty somehow, as if they all knew my secrets. I stood before a circular glass-enclosed cubical that said “Information” over it. A gray-uniformed trustee, in response to my inquiry, pointed a disinterested finger in the general direction of a hallway to the left. On my own, I pushed through a maze of anxious wives, girl friends and mothers waiting for a timed reunion restrained by inquiring observers. Each face mirrored shattered dreams and hopelessness, caught, I was sure, in a desperate existence. There aren’t many places where one can survey such a diverse group of physically and emotionally battered lives.
The Assistant Warden’s office, painted the same robin’s-egg blue that adorned the visitor’s room and the connecting hallways was a cheerless cubicle furnished sparsely with a well-used steel desk and unremarkable chair designed to discourage lingering visitors. When you are, as I am, six-foot four and one-ninety, there is not much posterior protection. After less than a minute of hard scrutiny my rear ached and I felt like a condemned convict.
The Assistant Warden looked like a prison guard. The same one I’ve seen in a dozen movies. His round burly face matched a body that stretched the limits of his uniform. His chest had slipped into a container for a dozen too many Big Macs and beer. I looked around for hoses and single bulb lamps. He stared at my business card suspiciously.
“Lee Trainer?” he said, reading my name from the card. “What the hell is an ‘Inquisitor’?”
“I collect information for a fee.”
“Sounds like a fancy name for a private dick.”
“Not near so romantic I’m afraid.” So I lied a little. If you are going to deal with public servants you have to have a business card, duly printed and embossed with your name and occupation. The occupation should include a least one verbose descriptive title, as many letters after the name as possible and the word “Consultant” if you can work it in. For instance, you don’t say John Smith, Plumber. It should read instead, John Smith, M.P. Registered Sanitary Engineer, and no one will know what you do, but it’ll sound good.
“What’s your interest in Robert Martin?”
I could not, at this point, see any reason for skirting the truth so I gave him a condensed version. “Martin was found dead several days ago and I’m helping the Sheriff’s department since I was in the neighborhood. I have no official standing, but you can check with their Chief Criminal Investigator if you wish.”
He squinted at me over a pair of Ben Franklin half-glasses and said, “Where’d you say you’re from?”
“Lander,Montana.”
“That where all the movie stars live?”
“Some do.”
He looked back at my card, squinting at the words and wrinkling his brow. “I guess it won’t be necessary to check. There ain’t nothing about Robert Martin that ain’t public record.”
I wasn’t unhappy he didn’t check. Jeb might not like the promotion I’d given him and I didn’t want to think of the Sheriff’s reaction.
“What I need,” I said, “is background on his time in prison. How’d he get along with the general population, who were his friends, did he have any visitors, that sort of thing.”
Assistant Warden Harlan Jenkins, his desk top sign declared, starred at me puzzled. “Well, Mr. Inquisitor, or what the hell ever you are, you sure don’t know nothing about Robert Martin.”
Up to this point it had been easy. The feds had a dossier spanning nine years, first as a resident of Alcatraz and later atMarion. The original charge, recorded August 1990, was murder. I looked at the date stunned. The Robert Martin I knew had graduated college with me in 1993. I quizzed Jenkins about the date.
“That’s what it says. I know for sure he was here when I started in 1997. Something wrong?”
“I’m not sure,” I said. In my mind I was beginning to catch on. If my Robert Martin had been working for the Feds, It would make sense that they’d dummy up a false identification. What better than a career criminal with little chance of release.
“Anyway, he spent a total of twenty-five years here, most of it in the ‘hole’. He couldn’t get along with the other prisoners or anyone else for that matter. Every time out he’d be ok for a while and then all of a sudden he’d get in a fight or something and back in he’d go. Martin holds the dubious record of having spent more time in the hole than any other prisoner.” Jenkins hesitated long enough to adjust his bifocals and read from the yellowed file spread on his desk. “Attempted escape, October 1990, July 1993, September 1995, and March 1992. A total of nineteen years added to his original sentence for escape attempts. Released on parole, after twenty years and nine months.”
“Do you have a picture?”
“Sure.” Jenkins passed me a standard prison photo, front and side profile of a hard-featured, dark-haired, middle-aged man vaguely resembling Robert Martin. He had the same chiseled facial lines, the same general athletic build, but there the resemblance ended. Piercing eyes stared out from the picture, eyes that were not and never could have been Robert Martin. If the man who breathed his last on my doorstep was Robert Martin, and I believed he was, then who the hell was the man in the picture? Many questions and damn few answers whirled through my head.
“The man in this picture is not the one we have in our morgue. Looks to me like you’d better keep looking.” I thanked the Assistant Warden and when the outside door slammed shut behind me I felt a chill. The heater in my rented Buick took ten miles to warm my bones.
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