by K R Hill
“Maybe we should just put it on eBay and sell it to the highest bidder.”
Chapter 23
Dalton said, “I think I know the best thing to do with the Key. Singh, you said your brother-in-law had a jewelry shop in Little India, right?”
“Yes, yes, a very good shop. He makes all his own pieces. If you need a ring for your young woman, I will be happy to get you a wonderful discount.”
“Can he make a copy of the Key, just for show?”
Mr. Singh’s mouth fell open. “Oh, Mr. Dalton is being tricky. You are planning something sneaky with the Key. I just know it. Why else would a private investigator need a copy of a priceless relic?”
“It has to be perfect, Singh. Perfect weight, color, everything. Can your brother-in-law’s shop do that quickly?”
“Ha, yes. With nothing more than a photo he can copy the Queen’s necklace. I’m not saying he makes copies of jewelry often, but he can do it, if there is a good fee involved.”
“It has to be quick and be able to fool an expert for a few moments.”
“What are you planning?”
“We can’t control what any museum does with the treasure, if they find it. Right?”
“No sir.”
“I just think that the Key needs to disappear. But the only way I can get the treasure hunters off my back is by having them search somewhere else.”
“I see. How can a normal-looking man like you be so devious? I think I know what you are planning. If those bad men see the Key is not authentic, they will murder you with no second thought.”
“Can you help me?”
“I am calling the jeweler now.”
Traffic was moving along at forty miles per hour, and that was a miracle for an LA freeway. It moved at that speed just long enough for drivers to get their hopes up. Here and there it slowed down to almost a dead stop, before it picked back up. They came into the Little India off the 91 freeway and cruised along Artesia Boulevard. About a block from the restaurant area, where several of the Indian restaurants sat beside sari shops and markets filled with spices, they passed the jewelry shop.
“Make a right turn at the traffic light. I’m sure he will give you a very good price, and the quality is the best you can find anywhere.” Singh opened his door when they arrived in the parking lot, climbed over the seat, and pulled a backpack off the floorboard; he shoved the Key inside.
Dalton grabbed his arm. “This has to be done in secret. Nobody finds you, do you understand?”
Singh leaned back against the car and tapped his forehead. “I didn’t want to tell you this. But most of his business is making copies of expensive pieces for insurance companies.” He glanced over his shoulder. “And he makes some for dubious people who might want to substitute a fake for a valuable piece so it appears nothing has been stolen. And that you did not hear from me. I said nothing.”
“Okay,” said Dalton, nodding. “I feel better.” He shoved a stack of bills from the basement into Singh’s hand.
“My commission,” said Singh, pulling out two one hundred-dollar bills and shoving them in his pocket. “Now, Mr. Dalton, I brought you here because this is the best place to have that copy made. You will see. The Indian underground will take care of you.”
He watched Mr. Singh walk around the corner and disappear. Dalton was climbing into the car when his phone rang. He answered and heard Nick’s voice.
“Boss, I’m on my way back. You’re not gunna believe this. I have information that will blow this case out of the water. I can’t speak about it on the phone. Get to a computer to contact me. Remember how I told you to contact me?”
“Give me thirty minutes.”
***
When Nick’s image came on the computer screen in the library, Dalton thought it was the wrong person for a moment. Even Singh laughed because Nick was wearing a cowboy hat.
“Hey,” said Nick. “When you need to get information in Texas, you’d be surprised what a cowboy hat will do. You should see my boots.”
“Another time. What did you find?”
“When the team and I were digging into the records, I found a gap in Sophie Devonshire’s life. For two years there was no written trail, no medical receipts or DMV records. It was as though she just vanished for those years. That made super detective Nick suspicious.”
“What did you find?”
“Do I get a drum roll?”
“I’m gunna drum roll on your head.”
“Okay, boss. Sophie Devonshire died in 2005. Our client is an imposter.”
“She died?” Singh pressed his hands to his ears and dropped into his seat.
“You’re sure about that? You have the death certificate? Witness reports? Please tell me there was a death certificate that will hold up in court.”
“Yeah, boss. I got all the paperwork, and I had it notarized as well.”
Dalton let out a big sigh and looked around the library. “If she died, who is the woman that hired us?”
Nick pulled his hat off and tucked his hair back. He flopped his hat back into place, cocked up in the front like he was all full of himself on a Friday night and approaching a good-looking woman in a bar. “Well, that’s the ten-million-dollar question. I’ve been interviewing neighbors and teachers at the high school, and a few family members. Sophie and another girl, Sadie Crawford, were joined at the hip for years. They went everywhere together. When Sophie was hit by a hit-and-run driver, Sadie dropped out of school and moved away within a year of the accident.”
“Our imposter’s name is Sadie Crawford. Now that she’s lawyered up, a DNA test is out of the question.”
“We may not need that. Two neighbors and a teacher from school mentioned that Sadie had a large birthmark on her left forearm.”
Dalton thought back to the afternoon he had gone to visit Sophie Devonshire in her office. He remembered the slender, beautiful woman, handing him a drink. He remembered her outstretched arm and how he had looked at it and wondered if she’d burned herself. “You did well, Nick. Get back to California. I need you here yesterday. We’re going to put an end to this thing. Make sure you bring those documents.”
***
He headed to the car and drove in silence through downtown Long Beach. On Sixth Street he approached the arts district. Over the top of one of the large craftsman homes that had stood there since the early 1900s, he saw his office building. Along the sidewalk ran a boy of about eight, chasing after his friend riding a laser skateboard. A couple of elderly men were sitting on a lawn, watching the world go by. Everything looked normal.
He was about to explain to Singh why they were back at the office, when a black, unmarked car came screeching around the corner and blocked the street. Lights flashed in its grill. Dalton checked the rearview and watched a white SUV lock up its brakes and block the street behind him.
“Oh!” cried Singh. “My shotgun is in the boot. Let me get my shotgun.” Singh started climbing over the seat and into the back of the car, where he grabbed the top of the back-seat and began jerking and pulling, trying to rip into the trunk.
“Leave it alone, Singh. We’re not going to shoot it out with these guys.” Dalton put both hands on the steering wheel. “Just keep your mouth shut if they ask you any questions. The only thing I want you to say is: ‘lawyer.’”
The amplified voice shot down the street over a loudspeaker.
The two boys who were chasing each other stopped in mid-stride. The old men stood up and walked to their porch, pulling their chairs behind them. Several people came out their front doors, looked about, and then slipped back inside their houses.
It was the FBI. Dalton had been expecting them. Jax had warned him they were coming. They had lost one of their own and were kicking over every rock in the case, trying to find who had executed their agent. Men and women jumped out of their vehicles and came toward Dalton with their weapons drawn.
“I’m a private investigator!” shouted Dalton out the window. “I’m car
rying a concealed weapon, and I have a permit to carry it. I’m now exiting the vehicle.”
It didn’t take the agents long to lock him in handcuffs and take his weapon. Beside the SUV they surrounded him.
“Well if it isn’t Lowenthal, the big slug. I heard you got relieved of duty.”
“This is Jason Dalton. Dalton, this is senior agent Trent.”
“We met,” snapped Dalton. “You two look like Laurel and Hardy.”
One of the agents laughed, then cut it short with a hand over his mouth.
Trent pushed to the front of the line and snatched the file out of Lowenthal’s hand. The chewing gum in his mouth snapped as he flipped through the file. Across the back of his hand was a Marine Corps tattoo.
“You’re an Army guy.” Trent looked up and closed the file in an aggressive manner. The gum snapped. “I was in the Marine Corps. Army is almost like being in the military, isn’t it?”
“Ask the two jar-heads I left at the hospital. Do you always wait until the handcuffs go on before you antagonize your prisoners?”
“I have your fingerprints on a chest that contained the remains of an FBI agent.”
“That’s old news. Did you really have to come in with your siren screaming just to tell me what I already know?”
An agent at Dalton’s car shouted, “The key does not fit the lock!” He raised a crowbar. “Do you want me to open the trunk?”
“The only way you’re getting in that trunk is with a warrant,” said Dalton.
“The car is clean,” shouted a female agent, stepping away from the vehicle and closing the door.
“Okay.” Agent Trent rubbed his hands together. “Take off the cuffs. The suspect is not going anywhere.”
The agent behind Dalton removed the handcuffs.
“This should interest you, Dalton.” Trent took out a photograph and held it up. It turns out this woman works for the district attorney. Her name—”
Dalton broke the guy’s jaw with a right, then hit him again as he was dropping forward. He spun and danced backward, and hit another agent squarely on the forehead. The female agent came at him with a baton. Dalton shoved her aside, and agents wrestled him to the ground. “That’s assault on a federal officer.”
Lowenthal tried to bend over and help his boss stand up, but his belly prevented him.
“You piece-of-shit FBI. You’re exposing a federally protected witness. That woman is going to be killed because of you. You had a corrupt agent. Now you’re trying to cover it up. What happened to doing the right thing?”
In spite of his protests, agents carried Dalton to the nearest vehicle, shoved him into the backseat, and slammed the door.
From his seat Dalton got a good view of Singh going ballistic. The Indian started jumping around and throwing his arms in the air and shouting. “Everyone on the street! You know Jason Dalton. You know he lives here with you in that office up there in that building. These police officers threatened his family. A member of his family is going to be killed just so they can make their case. Turn on your cell phones. Did you film what just happened? Everyone in these houses around me, call your police department. Tell them what happened. Put it on YouTube. Call the radio stations. Call the newspapers. Tell them the FBI is dirty! They had a member of their own department helping an illegal organization, and now they’re trying to frame a hard-working citizen so they do not look bad.”
Several agents shouted at Singh. When that had no effect, one of them wrapped him up in a bear hug and tried to pull him to the vehicle where Dalton was sitting.
“We see what you’re doing!” shouted a bystander, shaking a chain-link fence.
A woman held up her cell phone. “That’s right, we see who you are. We have your license plates. We have the whole scene on film. The ghetto has eyes, motherfucker.” She turned and ran into her house, and locked the metal security door.
One of the black boys that went to Dalton’s class ran out onto the sidewalk and threw a rock that hit the police car Dalton was sitting in. “That one there with the short hair, we saw him show that picture to Dalton. Ha! That army guy busted you right upside your ugly-ass head.” The ten-year-old boy laughed and took off running.
Singh ran over to Dalton and tapped on his window.
“Get to my office, Singh,” Dalton instructed him. “Pull out the middle drawer of my desk and turn it over. On the bottom is a phone number. Call that number and tell the man what happened. Tell him my name. Don’t forget, Singh. You do it, and you do it now. Go!”
***
They took him to the same facility he’d been in with Nick. Before this trip, he’d never suspected the building had a basement. Two large agents took him down in the elevator. Each held an arm as they escorted him past the line of cells. They opened one, pushed him inside, and shut the door. As they walked away, they joked about Agent Trent’s broken jaw.
The cell was empty except for a toilet bucket in the corner. He chose a spot on the floor as far away from the bucket as he could get, leaned against the bars, and stretched his legs. He sat there for two hours before the same two agents opened his cell and lifted him to a standing position. Without a word, they led him to the elevator and into the light of day.
In a large, stark office, they shoved him into a chair and stood guard, one on either side. Behind a large desk stood a man with his back to Dalton.
“Sometimes I like to just stand here and look out past the parking lot, out toward the foothills in the distance. That would be Pasadena out that direction.” The man turned from the window.
His chest and shoulders said he kept himself in shape. The top of his head was bald. The remaining hair around the sides was black and short. A tiny dot of blood on one cheek showed that he had recently shaved.
“I hear my agent was trying to play hardball, Mr. Dalton.”
Dalton rubbed his wrists where the handcuffs had been and looked at the man behind the desk. “What do we have when law enforcement officers threaten a person’s family?”
The middle-aged man put his hands on his hips. “You have an agent trying to extract information.”
“Am I being recorded, sir?”
“No, Mr. Dalton. This conversation never took place.”
Dalton nodded. “That’s twice your agents have threatened to expose my fiancée. A lot of people went to a lot of trouble to protect my identity and any connection I may have with that woman.”
“Yes, I believe you. In fact, I just got a call from the director of the Bureau. Special Agent
Trent is going to be eating through a straw for about six weeks. I’m sure he’d like to make you disappear in facilities that aren’t supposed to exist. That would make me happy too.”
“I have not been read my Miranda rights. I have not been charged with a crime. Nor am I here voluntarily. You are holding an American citizen against his will without charging him with a crime.”
“I’ve been told to give you up. It seems a certain officer whose name doesn’t exist except in whispers among politicians, has taken a liking to you. In fact, I’ve been ordered to turn you over.”
Dalton stood up. “It sure has been fun.” He turned to leave, and looked out through the window that the man behind the desk had been preoccupied with. Out across the concrete, several vehicles were parked in rows. The entrance to the parking lot was a long chain-link gate, controlled by a booth.
Three Army Humvees were turning off the street and into the driveway. Even from the office, Dalton could hear the man in the lead Humvee shouting orders at the agent in the booth. When the gate did not open immediately, the lead Humvee crashed right through the gate and knocked it to the ground, dragging it halfway across the parking lot, where it smashed into a couple of parked cars and fell to the ground. The other two vehicles followed the first into the lot. The instant they stopped, six men in full military gear ran toward the facility, shouting as they went.
The man in charge jumped to the pavement and shouted orders. He was tall
with broad shoulders and skin black as roasted coffee. From the floorboard of the vehicle he picked up a loudspeaker. “You are harboring an officer of the US army. Deliver him now or we will take him with extreme prejudice. You have thirty seconds.”
Men and women ran down the hall and shouted orders. Dalton heard weapons being taken out of storage racks and loaded.
The man behind the desk pushed Dalton out of the way and stepped into the corridor. “All agents are ordered to stand down. If one weapon is discharged, that agent will be suspended indefinitely without pay. Do I make myself clear?”
Dalton was escorted out the back door and across the parking lot, where he was handed over to the military commander. He tried to keep the smile off his face as he climbed into the Humvee.
As the vehicle started to roll forward, the commander shouted to the driver: “Sergeant, take out that fence.” He pointed.
“Sir, yes sir.” The young driver pulled the wheel, and the vehicle swerved from the driveway and crashed through the chain-link fence, pulling most of it into the street before it broke free of the vehicle’s bumper and shot back toward the driveway like a broken rubber band.
The Humvee bounced all over the road. Dalton held on tight to the bars that held the antenna above him. He thought back to the good old days, when half his life was spent in vehicles like this. But now it seemed strange to be sitting there in civilian clothes, without a helmet strapped to his head and some sort of assault rifle in his lap.
“Major Dalton.”
“Yes, Colonel.”
“You are a pain in my black backside. You always have been. Do you know how many orders I had to disobey, how many favors I had to call in, just to get me out here today and rescue your butt?”
Dalton tried not to smile. “You got the call.”
“Hell, yes. I take it your cover is blown.”
“Like a claymore mine, Sir. The FBI threatened to expose my woman.”
