The Crisp Poleward Sky

by Jeff Siebold

  “Asked Sally to run that down when you called,” said Clive. “We have the results here. There are some irregularities. Quite a bit of money moving through his bank accounts. So, what tipped you off?”

  “Counterintelligence training,” said Zeke. “Ramirez was lying and trying to get me to abandon the investigation.”

  “How did you know?” asked Clive.

  “Lots of small things,” said Zeke. The way he looked at me when he lied. His blink rate changed. He touched his face. A couple other things. But I confirmed it when I agreed that he was probably right, that there was nothing else for me to find out.”

  “What happened then?” asked Clive.

  “He smiled. Just for a quick moment. A smile of relief that I’d bought into his lie and agreed to his suggestions,” said Zeke.

  “But you obviously haven’t,” said Clive.

  “Once we determine what we’re up against, I’ll be heading back to Phoenix to interview the assassins.”

  * * *

  “Glad you could make room in your schedule for us, Assistant Deputy Director,” Clive said. He and Zeke were sitting around a low coffee table in the man’s office. Coffee, tea and oatmeal cookies were set out on the table before them.

  “My pleasure, Mr. Greene,” said Cy Stiles. He was a short man with long, gray hair that was brushed back away from his face and apparently kept there with a substantial amount of hair spray. His face was tanned and his shoes were well polished.

  “As you know, we’re here about the student loan issues,” Clive continued. “We need your perspective.”

  A young woman, presumably one of the ADD’s aids or interns, shrunk back away from the table and attempted to disappear into the sofa cushion. Stiles eyes flashed red for a moment, then he regained control.

  Sensitive subject, thought Zeke.

  “Yes, of course,” said Styles. “First, nothing we discuss can leave this room. I have your word on that?”

  Both Zeke and Clive nodded.

  “This could damage the President!” said Styles. “We have to keep it under wraps.” He sighed a deep sigh. “But we do need your help.”

  “Yes?” asked Clive.

  “Well, apparently it’s been going on for years. Maybe for three or four administrations. Billions at stake, here,” said Styles. He spoke in short, clipped sentences, many of which had an exclamation point at the end.

  Pretty dramatic, thought Zeke.

  “This is my aid, Sarah Helms. She’s been looking into it for us. She brought it to me, actually. Tell them, Sarah.”

  Zeke noticed that she was a tall, thin woman in her thirties with brown hair and watery green eyes. She wore a woman’s business suit over a white shirt with a bow at the neck. She wore no wedding ring, but had a small, gold Cartier watch on her left wrist. Sarah adjusted herself and sat forward on the couch.

  “Well, we were looking at defaults, actually,” she said. “A small team of the Director’s staff. Student loan defaults. And we started examining them in detail.” Her voice was deeper than expected, almost masculine.

  “How many are there, typically? In default,” asked Zeke.

  “Millions of loans a year. More during a recession.”

  Zeke nodded. “How much money are we talking about?”

  “In default? About $137 billion last year. That was up 14% from the year before.”

  Zeke whistled softly. “How many are involved? In the entire program, I mean.”

  “I know, we get used the size of it,” said Styles. “There are about 42 million people involved. They owe a total of 1.3 trillion dollars in Federal student debt.”

  “So we noticed that there was a pattern of students receiving loans, then dropping out almost immediately,” said the aid. “A higher than expected percentage. Much higher than the typical college dropout rate,” she added. Her clipped speech mirrored the ADD’s vocal patterns. She kept her body very still as she talked.

  Zeke nodded. “What about repeat offenders?”

  “Yes, some applied more than once. Received funding then dropped out. Sequential years,” she said.

  “You can do that?” asked Clive.

  “It’s a government program. It’s a matter of understanding the rules and using them to your advantage,” said Stiles.

  “We figured money was being stolen,” Sarah continued. “But the proceeds of the loans go directly to the schools. Not to the individual students.”

  “So to make it work, someone in the schools would have to be involved,” said Zeke.

  “It seems so,” said Sarah. “We thought it would be some of them. So we started looking for schools that meet the pattern.”

  “High, early dropout rate and high delinquency in student loans? Then repeat the next year?” asked Zeke.

  “Yes, the anomalies,” said Sarah, nodding.

  “And you found…?” said Clive.

  “We found a number of them.”

  “You’ll need to excuse me, gentlemen,” said Stiles, looking at his watch. “Another meeting.”

  “Certainly,” said Clive.

  “Stay here. Get what you need from Sarah. Remember, confidential!”

  He stood, shook hands all around and left the office.

  “Do we have any idea who’s behind it?” asked Clive, once Stiles had gone. “It sounds like it’s a fairly organized effort.”

  “We don’t,” said Sarah. “But yes. You’d need the student identities. The right employees at the colleges. Access to the funds.”

  “I assume you have a list that we can start with,” said Clive.

  “We do. Most likely candidates on the student side. Most likely colleges. We used a number of criteria,” said Sarah.

  “Like a low threshold for admissions?” guessed Zeke.

  “Yes,” she said. “Schools that are easy to get into. Hungry for students and the accompanying tuitions.”

  “Sounds right. Who has access to the schools’ finances?” asked Zeke.

  “It differs from one institution to the next. But most colleges have a similar organizational structure,” said Sarah.

  “It’s usually the responsibility of the Vice President of Finance and Administration, I’d guess,” said Zeke.

  “Yes. I’ll get the lists for you,” she said.

  “Good,” said Clive. “And we’ll want an introduction to the schools from this office, some sort of pretext to give us access to the right people and records.”

  “Sure. The ADD has a lot of influence. We’ll work you both into our normal oversight team. Maybe as government auditors,” Sarah said, thinking aloud.

  “Good, yes,” said Clive. “We’ll get this going as soon as that’s ready.”

  Chapter 6

  The inside of the truck cab was painted red. Red like one of those older trucks, maybe a farm truck from the 1930s, a faded, matte red that favored a pinkish hue. It was the original paint, in a truck that had seen too many summers and was seemingly waiting to be put out to pasture.

  Susan pulled open the truck door and it closed behind her with a groan. Dressed in jeans and a tie-dyed shirt, she repositioned herself on the overstuffed seat, getting comfortable. She set her small backpack between her legs on the floor. The driver said, “Where ya heading?”

  “Going to Des Moines,” she said easily. “But I’ll ride with you as far as you’re going.”

  “I’m turning north at Iowa City,” the man said, “but I can take you that far.”

  They were about ninety miles west of Chicago, where the man had stopped on the shoulder of the interstate ramp to pick up the hitchhiker. In 2005 in the Midwest, hitchhikers were not an unusual sight.

  “Thank you,” she said. “Every ride helps.” She smiled warmly at the man.

  They rode in silence for a while.

  “I’m Henry,” the man said. “I have a farm near Cedar Rapids.” He said it as if to impress Susan.

  “Hello, Henry,” she said. “I’m Susan. Heading home from college for the
week.”

  Henry nodded at the woman, who he estimated to be in her mid-twenties.

  “University of Chicago?” he asked.

  “No, University of St. Francis. In Joilet.”

  “Which is why you’re on Interstate 80,” said Henry. Henry Rothier was a farmhand. But he was also a petty thief and had been arrested four times for stealing, and twice for drunk and disorderly behavior. Now, he was working on his sister’s Iowa farm, making a few extra dollars for beer and whiskey. He was thin, in his late thirties, and had a pronounced stoop in his shoulders, even while driving. He wore worn workboots and denim overalls and a yellow t-shirt under it that had started out white a few days ago. His hair was uncombed, as if he’d slept on it recently. He smelled of farm.

  “Which is why I’m here,” she agreed with a smile. “Do you mind if I roll the window down?”

  “No, that’s fine,” said Henry, agreeably.

  She cranked the window down manually and took a deep breath of the outside air. “It always smells so nice out here,” she said. “Like fresh hay.”

  Just before they reached Moline traffic slowed to a crawl. A large truck with a lighted arrow on the back was stopped in one lane, directing traffic to merge right. Four State Police cars were blocking the shoulder and the lanes and the officers were looking into each car.

  “What’s this?” asked Susan.

  “A roadblock,” said Henry. “Not sure why. They must be looking for someone.”

  Henry pulled his truck up to the roadblock and rolled down his window. “What’s up?”

  The officer looked into the truck at Henry and at Susan, then waved them through without answering.

  “You don’t see that very often,” said Henry.

  The truck bumped along on the Interstate, rattling and groaning with unexplained noises. Eventually they passed Moline and took the Bypass around Davenport, across the Mississippi River into Iowa.

  “I never get tired of seeing the river,” said Susan.

  At the Iowa I-80 truck stop, Henry exited the Interstate and pulled up to a gas pump.

  “Do you need to go inside?” he asked, delicately.

  “No, I’m good,” said the girl.

  “OK, well, I’m going in,” said Henry. He turned and smiled a silly smile at her.

  She nodded.

  He opened the driver’s side door, which apparently hadn’t been oiled for a half century. It groaned loudly as he stepped down to the pavement. Then he started to walk toward the building. Susan looked through the back window. The rear of the truck was open and covered with loose hay. There were several rolls of barbed wire and a dozen or more fenceposts loaded on top of the hay.

  Susan considered her options. She could stay in the truck, fairly invisible, all the way to Iowa City, and then catch another ride, probably south to Hannibal or St. Louis. Or, she could continue west to Des Moines, and then south to Kansas City, her original plan.

  * * *

  “OK, I just need to pump some gas, now,” said Henry, squinting a bit.

  Susan smiled at him and nodded her understanding.

  Henry fiddled with the gas cap and the fuel pump, and when he had it right, he jumped back up in the cab.

  “They had the news on in there,” said Henry. “They were saying something about a husband and wife being killed, over in North Utica, pretty close to where we just came from.”

  He had a low country accent that smoothed out the consonants as he spoke.

  Susan made her eyes large for a moment, looked at Henry and said, “Oh. I guess I’d better be careful, hitchhiking and all.”

  “It can be dangerous, that’s for sure,” Henry contributed.

  “Can we turn on the radio? It’s probably on the news,” said Susan.

  “Radio doesn’t work,” said Henry. “Hasn’t for years.”

  They sat for a while longer.

  “Did you spill some paint?” she asked.

  “Huh?”

  “In the back, on the hay, there are some red splashes,” she said, casually.

  “Oh, that’s barn paint. we spilled some,” said Henry. Then he looked around and said, “Tank’s about full.”

  He jumped out of the truck and finished up with the gas pump, replacing the cap and looking around carefully before he climbed back into the truck. “I guess everybody’s inside, still watching the news,” he said as he started the red truck and shifted into low gear.

  They rode the Interstate in silence for a while. As they drove, Susan sensed Henry becoming increasingly nervous, fidgety, anxious, like a schoolboy getting ready to ask a girl to dance. It made her feel nervous, too. The cool steel of the switchblade low and horizontal across the skin of her stomach under her panties, was reassuring.

  Susan looked out her window and watched the farms slide by. It was getting dark out.

  A half hour later, Henry finally spoke.

  “I guess I’m going to have to let you off up here somewhere,” he said.

  “OK, sure,” said Susan. “How about right at the intersection of 380?” She was referring to the north south Interstate that Henry would be taking home to Cedar Rapids.

  “Well, I can drop you, but there aren’t any gas stations or restaurants there. Nobody really stops there,” said Henry. Then he said, “There’s nothing south of there, either, except that quarry. I could take you with me one exit north. There’s a couple of gas stations and stores there.”

  “Well, I’m heading west, so it might be better to stay on this road,” she said.

  “I guess you can, but it’s pretty dark, now. You sure you’ll be OK?” asked Henry. “Especially with those killings and all…”

  Susan smiled to herself in the dark. “I’ll be OK. I’m sure,” she said.

  * * *

  “I work in the auto center up at the Walmart,” he said. “Mostly do tires and stuff.”

  Susan had just settled herself in the passenger seat of a black mustang with tinted windows, gold piping and loud pipes. The driver, a pale, pudgy twenty-something with longish hair and a fuzzy beard, had stopped abruptly on the shoulder of Interstate 80, then backed up, spinning his tires, to pick up the lone female hitchhiker. She was heading west.

  “Which Walmart?” she asked, to be polite.

  “Over in Coralville,” he said, sticking his right thumb over his right shoulder. “I’m going home now.”

  Susan took this to mean that the store was behind them.

  He waited a beat, then said, “You like my wheels?”

  “Very nice,” she said. He pumped the accelerator so she could feel the power as the car responded, jumping forward.

  “Know why it’s black with gold trim?” he continued.

  “Why?”

  “Iowa Hawkeyes colors, that’s why!” he laughed to himself. “Best wrestlers in the country!” Then, “How far you going?”

  “I’ve got a ways to go, to Des Moines,” said Susan. “I’ll ride with you as far west as you can take me.”

  “I’m about thirty miles from home. I live in Victor with my ma,” he said, jovially. Then, “What’s your name?”

  “I’m Susan.”

  “How come you’re hitchhiking?” he asked.

  “Just trying to get somewhere,” said Susan.

  “Well, yeah,” he said. “My name’s Albert, by the way.”

  He smiled at her quickly and she noticed his dead tooth.

  “Hello, Albert. I appreciate the ride.”

  “Sure. It gets lonely driving up and down the interstate every day,” he added.

  “I can imagine,” said Susan.

  “Hey, did you hear about the killings?” Albert asked. “In North Utica?”

  “I did. Is there any more information? Did they catch the killer yet?” she asked innocently.

  “Don’t know. The guys saw it on TV in our waiting room. The waiting room for the auto service. Said a family was killed, dad and mom. They had two young girls, ” Albert said. “The cops said it was a ho
me invasion.”

  “They were killed in their home?” asked Susan.

  “They said so on the TV. Said it must have been before school let out, but after lunch. A neighbor girl found the bodies around three thirty when she stopped by to visit, I guess. Stopped by before she got her kids off the school bus.”

  “Why after lunch?”

  “TV said the mom called a neighbor at lunch time, and they talked about the Burgoo Festival.”

  “The what?” asked Susan.

  “It’s a big deal around here,” said Albert. “Lots of arts and crafts and food and stuff. Most everybody gets a booth and sells stuff. Ma sells pies.”

  “And it’s called a Burgoo Festival?” she asked, curious. “Isn’t that some sort of a sexual term?”

  “No, not this Burgoo. Burgoo is like a thick stew. It’s usually one of the more popular dishes at the festival.”

  Susan waited a beat. Then she said, “Did they say who the victims were? Of the killings?”

  Albert seemed anxious to share what he knew, warming up to the task of providing data.

  “Said they’d lived there, in North Utica, for a year and a half or so. Said their last name was Simpson,” Albert said. “That sort of thing doesn’t happen much around here.”

  “I imagine not,” said Susan.

  Albert thought for a minute. Then he said, “Did you read, In Cold Blood, that book by Truman Capote? Those murders took place in Kansas. That’s not too far from here.”

  Susan nodded, realizing that Albert wasn’t waiting for a response.

  He plowed ahead. “Same thing, right? A family was killed. Small town, farm area. Hey, maybe it was a copycat…”

  Nope, Susan thought. She said, “Wasn’t that a long time ago?”

  Albert thought. “Well, it was. But someone could have read the book and thought about it…”

  “Maybe you should be a detective,” Susan added.

  Albert nodded enthusiastically. “I already applied to be a prison guard at the penitentiary down in Ft. Madison. They didn’t need me, but they’ve still got my application. And I passed the drug test.”

  “Admirable,” said Susan warmly.