The Buck Stops Here

by Mindy Starns Clark

  I closed my eyes, trying to refocus on our own conversation.

  “So Tom Bennett was your boss, but he was also one of the five,” I said slowly.

  “Yes, of course,” James replied. “We worked together for a year and half and were finally ready to release in March of ninety-nine.”

  “Release?” I asked, not following much of what he was saying.

  “Our encryption program,” he said, obviously frustrated with my stupidity. “Everybody knew it was better than what was already out there, that it could’ve made us a fortune. But Tom had to follow the rules, had to do everything by the book. His way was taking too long. Is it any wonder some of us ended up courting the T-Seven?”

  “Courting the T-Seven?” I asked, and it struck me that Sparks’ thought processes were about as confused and jumbled and nonsequential as the computer code he probably wrote.

  “You never heard of the T-Seven?” he asked, his lip curled in a sneer.

  “No, I’ve never heard of it. What is it?”

  He used both hands to hold up seven fingers, wiggling each finger as he spoke.

  “What was it, you mean. Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Sudan, and Syria. The T-Seven. Also known as the Terrorist Seven.”

  “I see,” I whispered, remembering that his mother had spoken of this, that James had been convicted for selling a computer program to a restricted country.

  “Our team may have started with five, but with all of the… issues…we had to deal with, folks started dropping out. There were three of us for a while, then just two. There are still two. Despite what everyone thinks, I have never acted alone.”

  His eyes were intense, and he held my gaze for a long time. I wasn’t sure what he was trying to tell me, but I knew it was important.

  “Are you talking about Tom?” I asked. “Are the two of you still some kind of team?”

  He laughed.

  “Me and Mr. Goody Two-Shoes? I don’t think so. He was the first one to pull out. He abandoned all of us and headed off to do his own thing. Ended up filthy rich, while we never saw another penny from the work we did—officially, at least.”

  I clenched my hands in frustration.

  “James, you are confusing me. What are you trying to say?”

  “That I have never acted alone.”

  “In the boat?” I asked, grasping at straws. “You weren’t alone in the boat?”

  He rolled his eyes, exasperated.

  “I’m not talking about the boat,” he said loudly. “I’m talking about the sale to the T-Seven! I wasn’t acting alone.”

  Suddenly, I wondered if he wanted to be overheard; if, for some reason, he was eager to carry on this conversation in such a public place. I glanced up at the guard who had come into the room with him, and I realized that the man had moved much closer to us and was well within hearing range of our conversation.

  “Unfortunately,” James continued loudly before I could say anything, “we got busted. Or maybe I should say, I got busted. I was the one the FBI caught on tape. When they investigated, I said I acted alone, but I didn’t. It wasn’t only me. I even have proof—”

  Looking back, it’s hard to describe what happened next. I saw the guard make some movement, and then, almost instantly, an argument erupted across the room, with a woman suddenly slapping the face of a man. She stood and yelled, and the other two guards who were manning the room all rushed to step in before any more violence occurred. One of them grabbed her hands and held them behind her back while the other collared the man and led him back to the door. This, in turn, seemed to rile up everyone in the room, and for a moment I panicked, realizing that I was, after all, in the presence of a bunch of prisoners—even if this was minimum security. The guard nearest to us put his hand on Sparks’ shoulder and whispered something in his ear. Finally, once the man and the woman had both been removed from the premises, the din seemed to die back down. I looked over at Sparks, and much to my surprise, he was standing up. He looked at me and smiled, a grin that spread his mouth but did not reach his eyes. Still, he seemed genuinely happy, as if he had achieved some sort of goal.

  “Sorry, Mrs. Webber,” Sparks said, holding out his hands. “I guess I have to end the story there.”

  I shot up out of my chair.

  “End it?” I cried. “I want to know what happened. I want to know what you were doing when you killed my husband.”

  He merely shook his head and let the guard escort him away.

  “Sorry,” Sparks called out, over his shoulder. “This meeting is adjourned. Don’t come back.”

  Nineteen

  Sparks had used me. I wasn’t sure how or why, but I was convinced that our entire conversation in the common room had been some sort of performance. He had been manipulating something. When I left there and got in my car, I felt utterly exploited.

  I thought about speaking to the warden, but I didn’t think he could shed light on anything—not to mention that I didn’t want to call attention to myself just now. There had been some sort of interplay there between Sparks and the guard. I had to figure out what it was.

  While my memory was still fresh, I needed to write down everything I could remember from our conversation. I sat in my car in the prison parking lot, pulled out a pen and some paper, and jotted down everything I could remember. My notes were free association, a jumbled mess of names and facts.

  The Cipher Five

  Diffie and Rivest

  “Me, my wife Beth, her brother, Tom, Phillip Wilson, and Armand Velette. All five geniuses. All brought something good to the table.”

  “Tom had to follow the rules, had to do everything by the book.”

  “Courting the T-Seven”

  “The team started with five, but then there were three of us, then just two. There are still two. I have never acted alone.”

  “I was the one the FBI caught on tape. But it wasn’t only me. I even have proof.”

  I sat with pen in hand, thinking that was when the little fight erupted. I closed my eyes, picturing it, remembering the movement of the guard just before it happened, and then the way he put a hand on Sparks’ shoulder and leaned over to whisper to him. Had that whole ruckus been engineered?

  Once the fight began, my conversation had ended. With a gasp, I got it: Sparks was warning the guard, I have proof. After Sparks forced his hand, the argument served as a diversion and had probably given the guard a chance to communicate something with Sparks while I was looking the other way.

  If that were true, then it led to another question: Could the guard have somehow been involved with this team, this Cipher Five? More likely, the guard was working for one of them now, perhaps as a messenger, protecting whoever the other person Sparks was referring to when he said, Despite what everyone thinks, I have never acted alone.

  I looked at my notes, concentrating. The team started with five, then there were three, then just two. What did that mean? In what capacity did the team still exist? Were they still writing encryption programs? I knew Sparks wouldn’t be allowed to do such a thing in prison. Certainly, Tom was still involved with computer encryption, though now in the employ of the U.S. government. What of the others? I reread my notes. What of Beth Sparks, Phillip Wilson, and Armand Velette? Was one of them the second person to whom Sparks was referring?

  I studied their names, wondering if Phillip Wilson was related to Veronica Wilson, the woman at the helm of Family HEARTS, the New Orleans charity Tom wanted me to investigate. He must be, I decided, which was one more reason that Tom wanted me to go there.

  I heard voices and glanced up to see the main door open and the visitors that had been in the common room now filing outside. Most of them got in cars, though a few walked past the security gate to a covered bench near the main road. I realized that it was a bus stop, that some of these people had had to take a bus here in order to get in a visit.

  My pulse surged when I saw that there was already one person sitting there: the woman who had start
ed the fight. Though the guards had escorted her out of the building right away, she was still stuck here, waiting for the bus.

  I needed to talk to her.

  Fortunately, it wasn’t hard to tail a bus. When it pulled up about ten minutes later, I started my car and followed it down the road, allowing a big distance between me and it. Not that anyone would be looking, but I didn’t want to take any chances.

  The bus went to the town of Dawson first, making several stops along the main street. Then it drove on toward Americus. I stayed behind all the way and watched as it made a few stops in town there. The woman I was waiting for finally got off at a stop near a grocery store, her vivid purple shirt making her easy to spot. I pulled into the grocery store parking lot, dug some cash out of my purse and shoved it into my pocket, and then took off after her on foot.

  She was walking toward a row of run-down houses when I caught up with her. I called out and she turned, a look of irritation on her face at the sight of my navy suit and pumps.

  “Excuse me,” I said. “I need to talk to you.”

  “What do you want?” she asked, though it came out sounding like “Whachoo wont?”

  “I was at the prison today and I saw you there. I just need to know something about that fight you had.”

  She turned and started walking again.

  “Why is that your business?”

  “It’s not, really,” I said. “I just need to know if that was a real argument or if you had it on purpose.”

  “On purpose?”

  “Like, did someone tell you to get into a fight just then?”

  She crossed her arms over her chest and kept walking.

  “Why would I tell you that?” she asked finally.

  “I’ll pay you,” I answered.

  That actually got her to stop walking.

  “How much?” she demanded.

  My mind raced.

  “That depends,” I said. “How much were you paid to have the fight?”

  “Twenty dollars,” she said, not even realizing what she had done, that she had already admitted the truth about what I wanted to know.

  “Twenty dollars,” I replied, nodding. “Okay, I’ll give you thirty to tell me all about it.”

  “Make it fifty and you got a deal.”

  I acted as if I were thinking it over, but in truth I would’ve willingly paid ten times that for the right information.

  “Fine, fifty,” I said, reaching into my pocket to get the money.

  “Not here, not here,” she said quickly. “It looks funny. Next thing you’ll know, we’ll get busted for a drug deal or something.”

  “Where, then?”

  She glanced around, waved at a friend who was sitting on a nearby porch, and led me in that direction.

  “Hey, Miz Cora,” she said loudly, taking the three stone steps that led up to the covered porch. “You making beans for dinner?”

  The old woman was sitting on a rickety metal chair, snapping the ends from fresh green beans and dropping them in a pot.

  “Looks like it, don’t it?” the woman replied.

  She didn’t seem surprised by the addition of two new people to her porch. We sat in the remaining chairs, and from there I could look back down the hill and see my car sitting in the grocery store parking lot. My friend grabbed a big pile of the unsnapped beans and surprised me by putting them in my lap.

  “Miz Cora’s practically deaf and half blind,” the girl said to me softly. “Jus’ hand back some of them beans to me along with the money.”

  I did as she asked, discreetly reaching into my pocket and counting off two twenties and a ten. I wadded them up with the beans, handed them back to her, and watched as she smoothly extracted and pocketed the cash.

  “It’s getting hot, huh?” my friend yelled to the old woman.

  “Yeah, it’s a big pot,” the lady replied.

  My friend turned back toward me and spoke softly.

  “Okay, here’s what happened,” she said. “Last night I got a call from Les Watts, one of the guards at the prison.”

  We both snapped beans and dropped them into the pot as we talked.

  “Did you know him?” I asked.

  “Sorta. Enough to say hey. We went to the same high school. I see him whenever I go out to the prison to visit my husband. Anyway, he called me to ask if I could go for a visit today. I was thinking about it anyway, so I said sure. Then he said he would pay me twenty dollars if we would ‘cause a disturbance.’ So I’m like, what you mean a disturbance and he say, you know, like a fight or something. Just make some noise. He said, go ahead and have your visit, but if I take off my hat and scratch my head, you start hollering about something. If I don’t give you that signal, don’t worry about it. I’ll give you twenty dollars either way.”

  I digested this information, tossing a bean with a worm hole into the trash bag. Glancing down the hill, I spotted a blue sedan just turning into the lot where I had parked my car. It passed my vehicle and then parked far down at the end of the next row, where I wouldn’t even have seen it if I hadn’t been looking.

  I tried to focus on the conversation at hand.

  “Why did you think he wanted you to do that?” I asked.

  “So he could win a bet.”

  “A bet?”

  “He said they been having lotsa arguments at visiting time, and the guards all have a bet going. He said one more fight in the common room today and he would win the bet.”

  I glanced at the old woman, who really did seem oblivious to our conversation.

  “You believed him?” I asked.

  “I believed he was gonna pay me twenty dollars,” she said. “What do I care what his reason is?”

  I thought about that, snapping the last of my beans.

  “Does this Les guy live in town?” I asked.

  She shrugged.

  “You gonna tell him what I tol’ you?”

  “No,” I said. “I promise. But I sure would like to know where he lives.”

  She shrugged.

  “Somewhere over to the other side of the bridge. I ain’t sure where.”

  “Do you have a phone number for him?”

  “No, but he’s supposed to meet me later at the Brown Door to give me my money. He couldn’t chance being seen paying me at the prison.”

  “What time?”

  “Four-thirty. You not gonna come there, are you? He’ll get mad if he finds out I tol’ somebody the bet was rigged.”

  “Don’t worry,” I said, dropping the last bean into the pot. “I won’t tell him if you don’t.”

  Twenty

  The very next order of business was to ditch the blue sedan once and for all. I didn’t want the driver to see where I was, so after the young woman and I parted ways, I crossed the street, cut across an empty lot, and then slipped into the grocery store parking lot the back way. The loading bay was empty but the door was open, so I went inside, finding myself in the food storage area. There was a hallway to one side, so I made my way through there, accidentally coming upon a group of teenage employees taking a break.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, trying not to look too flustered. “I had to use the restroom and I got myself all turned around.”

  A girl pointed the way into the store, and the next thing I knew I was in the meat department. Smoothing my clothes, I grabbed a few items at random and walked to the checkout. I paid the cashier and went to my car. Before I had even started the engine, I could see the blue sedan pulling out of the parking lot and onto the main road. I tried to catch up, but I got stuck behind a big truck and finally lost sight of it.

  A thought had occurred to me earlier, when I was sitting on that porch with the green beans, but I needed to go somewhere to check out my theory. I drove around town a bit and finally pulled over at a gas station, parking in such a way that the rear of my car was protected by the building and a tall fence. I pretended to put air in my tires, kneeling down so that I could see the underside of my vehicle. It
didn’t take long to find that my theory was correct: A tracking device had been affixed to my car.

  Heart pounding, I went into the station to borrow a screwdriver; then I came back out and tried, as discreetly as I could, to pry the device loose. It popped off fairly easily into my hand, and I pocketed it and returned the screwdriver.

  Back in the car, I studied the device, a small black metal object about an inch in diameter. It had been affixed to the inside rear bumper with a sticky pad, and I was surprised that it hadn’t fallen off in all of my driving.

  I felt a bit ashamed of myself as I looked at it, feeling I should have figured this out sooner. There never had been two cars tag-teaming me. There was only the one, and when I wasn’t in sight, the driver was keeping track of me with this device.

  Now that I knew, I had several choices. The easiest, of course, was simply to put the device on some other vehicle and let it drive away. That wouldn’t solve the bigger problem, however, which was to find out who this fellow was working for. That seemed to me to be the more important issue, and one worth pursuing.

  I still had an hour and a half before the prison guard was to meet the woman at the Brown Door and give her the $20 payoff. Using that time wisely, I drove to a dollar store and bought 15 helium balloons, some duct tape, and a baseball bat. Then I crammed the balloons in the car and headed out of town, watching the passing scenery for a usable location. Finally I spotted one, a field off to my right with no fencing and an old abandoned barn on the premises. I drove onto the grass and across the field, coming to a stop behind the barn.

  Quickly, I got out and ran to the back of my SUV, flipping it open and pulling out all 15 balloons by their strings. I taped the tracking device to the balloon strings, and then I held my breath and let the whole thing go. Much to my relief, the little device was light enough, and the balloons whisked it away into the sky almost instantly.

  Without pausing I grabbed the baseball bat, opened the other four doors of the vehicle as wide as they would go, and then crept inside the barn, careful not to leave any footprints in the dirt.