by F J messina
35
Sonia walked across the street to Brad’s office. What was that all about? Was that jealousy? Or was he really that pissed that he couldn’t get to me in ten minutes or less? What the hell’s his deal? And what the hell’s my deal? Sonia reached the steps that led up to the white house and stopped. She stood still, letting out a deep breath. Am I just looking to get beat up by some guy because he’s handsome and strong and . . . whatever? How about nice and kind and considerate, like Johnny? She took another quick breath and started up the steps. Crap, I don’t know. I just don’t know.
Sonia knocked on the door to Brad’s office. It struck her that after all they’d been through in the last day, she still felt the need to knock.
“Come in!”
Sonia stepped in, but she didn’t quite know what to say. “You needed to see me?” It felt very unsatisfying.
Brad was sitting at his desk. He spoke without looking up. “Yes. But also, I’m sorry for interrupting your . . . your whatever with the sergeant.”
“Detective Sergeant. And his name is Johnny Adams.” This time it was her voice that was terse. She clenched her teeth. You’re not getting off that easy.
“Okay, yeah.” He finally looked up at Sonia. “Still, I was impatient and I wanted to apologize. Thanks for coming over. Can I get you some coffee?”
Sonia almost laughed. “No thanks, I think I’ve had my fill.” . . . of a lot of things today. She took a seat on one of the chairs in front of his desk. Yeah, yeah, I know, you’re in the power seat and I’m not. Big whoopee.
“Can we get started? Are you ready to work?” Suddenly, he was all business.
Sonia gave in to the softness of the seat. “Honestly, I’m kind of beat. I was hoping to get some rest today,”
“Oh . . . .”
Sonia could see the dismissive look on Brad’s face. She sat up as tall as she could in the damn chair. “No, no. I’m ready. I’m ready to go. What do we need to get done today?”
Brad plowed on, seemingly oblivious to her first response. “First, we need a plan for how we’re going to handle it the next time that feed and hay truck comes to town. Then we need to get back to what we were talking about before things popped on Friday.”
“The computer program?” Sonia felt a little flip in her stomach. The thought of writing a sophisticated program, not being clear what it was supposed to achieve, scared her.
“Yeah, the computer program.”
“Alright, we can talk about that.” She felt her anxiety rising. She was more than confident in her programming abilities, but she hated the thought of working under the pressure Brad was bringing to bear. “What about the plan for the truck?” She wanted off the topic.
“Okay.” Brad stood and walked over to the table with the computer and other pieces of electronic wizardry on it. He picked up a small black box with a tiny antenna and turned back to her. “I recently did a job for a major oil company in the eastern part of the Kentucky. It involved following one of their executives as he traveled through several states.” He walked back to his desk. “It was too long a trip to follow him directly and hope to go unnoticed, so they sprang for a GPS locator with a range of about fifteen miles.” He held the tiny device up and turned it around in his hand so Sonia could see. “I planted it on his car. I think we’re in the same situation here.”
Sonia peered at the device, intrigued. “Hmm.”
“My guess is that we’ll be gone at least two days following that truck, and doing straight ahead visual surveillance, there’s no way he doesn’t pick up on us after a while.” He looked down again at the device. “That’s why we’ll need this.” He smiled and shifted his gaze directly to her. “The question is how do we get the GPS locator onto the truck.”
Sonia’s head and shoulders pulled back imperceptibly. “What did you do before?”
Brad slipped down into his big, executive chair. His blue eyes twinkled and he got a real “country boy” grin on his face. “Oh, that was easy. I knew when the guy was in his office and where he parked his car. I just waited for a good opportunity and walked right up to it. I looked around to see if anyone was watching, then I stuck it under his rear bumper.” He leaned forward, his elbows on his desk. “I’m afraid we’re not going to get that opportunity with the truck.”
Sonia thought for a moment. “I agree. That’s going be a tricky bit of business.”
“I do have an idea though,” said Brad, raising his eyebrows and smiling a sly little smile. “That’s if your partner, Jet, has the cojones to pull it off.”
Sonia laughed out loud, her first good laugh in the last two days. “Are you kidding? If there’s anything that Joyce Ellen Thomas is not lacking, it’s cojones. You should have seen the plan she came up with to catch ol’ Bob Dylan? Trust me, if Jet is consistent about anything, it’s that she is always ‘balls to the wall.’ She’s up for anything.”
Brad stood and walked over to the coffee pot on the counter to the left of his desk. “Sure you don’t want any?”
Coffee almost always sounded good to Sonia, but her nerves were jangled enough. She waved him off.
Brad poured himself a cup and turned to face her. “Okay then. If you think she’s up to it, here’s my plan.” He took a sip. “We’ll never get an opportunity to get to the truck when the driver isn’t around, not here in Lexington. So, we’ll have to place the locator under its bumper while he’s sitting right there in the truck. That’ll demand two things. First, the truck has to be stopped. Second, there has to be a distraction.”
Sonia cocked her head. “Okay . . .?”
Brad walked back to his desk and stood between it and the chair in which Sonia was sitting. He leaned back on the desk, crossing his legs at his ankles. “Now, we know that when the truck leaves Dahlia Farm it doesn’t head directly for the interstate. It turns right at the castle instead. I assume he’s heading for the Blue Grass Parkway or another farm, although he might be on his way to Louisville on 60. Either way, once he’s turned at the castle, we’ve got to get him to stop, and we can’t count on a traffic light or anything else like that.”
Still struggling with sinking into the chair, Sonia put her hands on the cushion and pushed herself up just a bit. “So how do you plan on getting him to stop?”
He smiled broadly. “That’s where your buddy Jet comes in. You and I will be in my car. Jet will be driving her car. Instead of following the truck, we’ll need to get in front of him, right in front of him. We’ll be communicating with Jet on our walkie-talkies.” He put his coffee down on the desk behind him and used his hands to demonstrate the different positions of the cars and the truck. “When we’ve got my car right in front of the truck, and Jet right in front of us, we’ll give her the signal and she’ll come to a full stop, right in the road way. Of course, we’ll pull up right behind her and, hopefully, the truck will be so close behind my car that he won’t be able to get around us. Jet will cause a regular traffic jam, with at least the three of us fully stopped on the road.”
Sonia blinked. This sounds crazy. “What then?”
“Then I get out of the car and walk right up to her.” He gesticulated with large motions. “I’ll make a big fuss, like maybe I almost wrecked my car. It’s got to be enough of a commotion to keep the truck driver’s attention focused on me and Jet.”
“And?” The dread in her voice was pretty obvious.
“And that’s when you get out of the car, nonchalantly, as if you just need to cool your jets or something.” Brad was really getting into his portrayal. He stood up, no longer leaning against the desk, his body swaying as he spoke. “You start strolling around, moving back toward the truck and all the way past it. You’ll have the walkie-talkie hidden in your hand, so when you’re near the back of the truck you can give me a signal. I’ll hear it, even though it’s still in Jet’s car. When you give me the signal I’ll really blow up at her and start waving my arms or whatever.” He bent toward her and lowered his voice almost to a whis
per. “That’s when you slip behind the truck and place the locator under its back bumper.”
Sonia’s eyes were wide open, as was her mouth. “What if there’s another car behind the truck? Won’t they see me doing that?”
Brad leaned toward her. “If we’re lucky, we’ll be able to make this happen when it’s just the three vehicles and there won’t be anybody there. If we’re not lucky, and someone is sitting right there behind the truck,” he cocked his head and smiled, “that’s when you use those chocolate-brown eyes and that beautiful smile of yours. Just do what you need to do, give them a big friendly wave, and walk back to my car.”
“And they’ll buy that?”
Brad stood up straighter and leaned back against his desk and grinned. “Sometimes you’ve just got to take some chances, you know what I mean?”
Sonia took a big breath and let it out. “Wow. That’s some plan. I’ve got to hand it to you, that’s a hell of a plan.” There was a pause while Sonia thought about things. “I can tell you one thing.”
He sat down. “What’s that?”
She gently bobbed her head. “No one will be more into the plan than Jet. This is right up her alley. Pedal to the metal all the way ‘round the track.”
Brad pointed right at her. “So, you think you can handle that?”
Determined to prove herself up to the challenge, she winked at Brad. “I can do it.”
Brad cocked his head and grinned, a little perplexed. He turned his attention to some paperwork sitting on his desk.
Finally, Sonia asked, “And what about the computer program?” It was a challenging issue for her, but she didn’t want to get caught napping.
Brad looked up. “I think you’re right. If you benchmark some of the times and dates from your notes, we may be able to get a clearer picture of who is actually involved in this whole mess, at least here in Lexington. How long do you think it will take you to do that?”
The question threw Sonia a bit. She wasn’t quite certain how to write the program, but she was certain about one thing: she wanted Brad to know she was absolutely on top of this. “Honestly, I don’t know. It really doesn’t seem that difficult, but no program comes together like you see it on TV.” She wiggled her fingers in the air. “The crazy technology member of the crime team, the girl who always has wild hair and wears outrageous clothing, sits down at her computer. Thirty seconds of fingers flying over a keyboard and it’s done. She says, ‘I’ve got it! The unsub last used his phone at a diner off I-70 in Terre Haute, Indiana. He was sitting next to a guy eating pea soup and drinking and ice tea─unsweetened.’ ”
Brad stopped and looked at her. A quiet smile crossed his face, and those bright, blue eyes twinkled with pleasure. “You can be one funny lady, Sonia Vitale. One beautiful, funny lady.”
Sonia’s heart stopped. She hadn’t meant to be funny. She really had just been trying to say that writing a computer program wasn’t like you see it on TV. Still, to have gotten that reaction from Brad was . . . nice. She could feel the warmth of his eyes flow over her body from all the way across the room.
A demure smile crossed Sonia’s face. “Thanks.” She let out a deep breath. “Listen, my mind was fried when I walked in here, and now I’ve got to go tell Jet that the three of us are going to pull off something that sounds more like a bank job than a simple surveillance. I’m sure I can write that program for you, but not before I get a little sleep. Okay?”
“Okay,” said Brad, continuing to smile. And, Sonia noticed, continuing to appear to be drinking her in with his eyes. “You go get some rest. It’s not likely we’ll see the truck until at least Monday, maybe later. You go formulate some brilliant plan, and then see what you can do for us on that computer of yours.”
Sonia stood up. She felt like she should say, “Thank you,” but she wasn’t sure why. Still, her time with him this morning had moved from down-right insulting to challenging, and now to pleasant. She really didn’t want to break the mood before she left.
She searched for something nice to say. “Great work. I think your plan is really going to succeed. And also, again, thank you for last night. You have no idea—”
He waved her off. “No thanks necessary. Training and responsibility . . . .” His smile broadened. “And sometimes, you know, you just want to do it.”
Those last words sang their way into Sonia’s heart. Heading for the door, her back toward Brad, Sonia smiled and said, “I’ll see you sometime soon.” Dunny. When the door clicked behind her, Sonia just stood there for a moment, enjoying the first real joy she had experienced in a long time─other than last night’s kiss. But that was more passion than joy, wasn’t it? She walked out into the sunshine of the day. For the moment, at least, there was warmth in the air, warmth in her heart, and warmth in Dunny’s smile. And there was something else as well─the growing feeling that no matter what came her way, she was going to see this thing to its end. Not a bad start to a Saturday.
36
Sonia had tried to work on the computer program on Saturday afternoon, but her brain was just worn out. Instead, she had driven the few short blocks to the center of town and parked her car. She’d walked around Triangle Park, the wedge-shaped park across from Rupp Arena, the cathedral in which University of Kentucky fans worship their true religion─college basketball. She just needed a break.
Sunday had been different. After a leisurely breakfast at home, Sonia had gotten down to business. She was trying to create a database and form a query that would sort messages by the times they were sent. It would then isolate those that coincided with the benchmarks Sonia had created from her surveillance notes. By late in the afternoon, Sonia had completed the program and run it several times. Unfortunately, there was so much traffic in the system that no information of real significance had materialized. Sonia reminded herself that the reason computer programs don’t give users the answers they’re looking for is that the users are not asking the right questions. She hadn’t yet been able to get a handle on the precise query that would give her the information she needed. Finally, she had decided to take a break and let the computer inside her head mull over better ways to approach the problem.
At that point, Sonia had been starting to get hungry for dinner. She was also starting to yearn for something else. Based on her last few moments with Brad on Saturday, Sonia had felt certain that he might well give her a call on Sunday. Maybe he’d ask to spend some time with her, even if it were only under the guise of working together. By three o’clock in the afternoon on Sunday, she had been a little antsy about things. By five o’clock, she had begun to get frustrated. By seven o’clock, she had gotten miffed. By nine o’clock, she had opened a bottle of wine and put a serious dent in it all by herself. Sonia had gone to bed that night with an empty feeling in her heart, a banging sensation in her head, and a churning in her stomach.
Sonia heard Jet enter the offices of Bluegrass Confidential Investigations at ten o’clock on Monday morning. She was already hard at work at her desk. Jet walked directly to the doorway of Sonia’s office. “You’re at it bright and early.”
Sonia gave her a surly look. “Early bird . . . worm.”
Jet’s voice, on the other hand, sounded pretty enthusiastic to Sonia. “You think today’s the day?” Sonia had told Jet about Brad’s plan in a phone call the night before.
Sonia’s voice was as surly as her look. “You mean, the day the truck comes and we go out and try to pull off some cock-a-maim-me plan of Brad’s? I don’t know.”
Jet stepped into Sonia’s office, hitched her leg up, and took a half-seat on the corner of Sonia’s desk─something that would have been impossible on her own, given the scattered materials that always covered that surface. “Oh, you’ll be alright,” she smiled, “I mean, hey, it’s got to have some chance of failing or it’s not much of a plan.”
“Easy for you to say.” Sonia pushed her rolling chair back from her desk. “You’re not the one who has to walk around, how did he say, �
��nonchalantly,’ trying to hide something on a truck driven by a guy who may have personally murdered John Abbott Hensley.” She shook her head. “You wouldn’t have any better ideas, would you?”
Jet held her chin in her hand. “Not right now, but let me think about it.” She lifted her head higher and peeked at Sonia’s computer. “Now, what are you doing there?”
“Well, I didn’t have any luck with the computer program I set up over the weekend. Too much email traffic to sort out. It didn’t come up with any good connections.” Sonia pulled her chair back to her desk and looked at her laptop screen. “So, I’m trying out a few other ways of posing the question to the computer. We’ll see how it works.”
Jet stood. “Hang in there. I’m sure you’ll make it work. You’re the techie around here, right?” She turned and walked out of Sonia’s office, speaking as she went. “I’ve got two clients I’ve got to meet with. But I’m having them come in here to talk so that if we have to jump, I’m not out somewhere where you can’t get to me.”
“Yeah, thanks,” said Sonia, as she let the computer do its work. Eventually, she stood up and walked to the window looking out across East Main. Damn that Brad Dunham. He could have called yesterday, just to check in if nothing else. Was he so busy he couldn’t even make a phone call? She sighed. Just let it go. Who knows what he was doing? Maybe he really was busy. Maybe something came up.
Forcing herself back to the computer, Sonia looked down and saw something that surprised her. Having been queried in a different fashion, the computer program had isolated only a small handful of emails, one of which could be hugely important. “Yes,” she said softly. “Yes, yes, yes. Okay.” She was becoming excited, really excited, and animated. She sat down at her desk and watched carefully as the computer program kept working. “Now we’ve got something. Ask it the right question. That’s what you’ve got do. Ask it the right question and it will always give you the right answer.” Finally, in one loud burst, Sonia yelled, “Yes!” She turned and looked through the glass between their offices. She saw Jet smile at her.
