It was Damme’s turn to get up and pace. “I’m fifty-three years old. All I know how to do is country lawyering. All the money in these three counties comes from the power companies, so if I blow the whistle I’m out of a career with no possibility of finding another place to practice and damn little chance to learn another trade. I tried to talk these guys—every one of them—out of this deal, but they were strapped too. They all took it, even the one that suspected it wouldn’t work.”
“What happens to you if I blow the whistle?” I said. “The power boys come after you?”
“Probably not. They might not even come after you. They’re white-collar crooks, they do their work with paper. But you’ll have a hell of a time getting the attorney general down into this county.”
“Doesn’t have to be an AG. Oh, one last thing. Did anyone, anyone at all, support Albertson in this scheme?”
“Well, not many knew about it. Wasn’t something you’d brag about. But ole Rodney Barr, he was right supportive of the idea. You’d think it’d be the other way ’round, he only makes real money when the wind gets still or Albertson falls short. You understand it?”
I shook my head and opened the door. “Not yet. Thank you for your insight, Mr. Damme. And your trust.”
“You’re welcome, Mr. Hammersmith.”
I had three messages waiting when I turned my cell phone back on. The first was from Erin. She had seen Tom Brown and wanted to know if it was safe for him to come in. I had no answer to that. As far as I knew, the Santa Rosa sheriff still had his people looking for Tom.
The second message was from Sheriff Garza. They had identified the man with the dynamite. His name was Bransky, and he’d been hanging around Santa Rosa for a month or so, picking up part-time work as he could, mostly out at the wind ranch. The sheriff wanted me to come by the hospital and perform a formal ID to tie Bransky to the truck with the crew cab and the dynamite. The third message said forget the second message. Bransky was dead. Somebody had strangled him in his hospital bed.
I drove around the center of town until I found the sheriff’s office, parked, and went in.
“Thanks for coming in, Mr. Hammersmith, but I told them to leave a message saying it was no longer necessary.”
“Well, Sheriff, since I’m here anyway, want me to do a post-mortem verification?”
“Won’t hurt. Drop by and ID him, leave us a statement putting him in the pickup with the dynamite, confirm you don’t know him, and we’ll file it until we get the person who killed him.”
“Sure, glad to. How’d they get him, by the way? Thought he was under guard.”
“Well, nature called, so the deputy handcuffed Bransky to the bed and went down the hall for four minutes. Four minutes, you believe it?”
I shrugged. “Some guys are faster than others.”
Back outside, I punched in Erin’s number. She answered promptly.
“Good, I was afraid you were in a class,” I said.
“All my students are on a holiday—no school during Thanksgiving week.”
“Thanksgiving? Already?”
“Well I’m glad to see there are some things you don’t notice. Can Tom go home now?”
I told her about Bransky, then went back to Tom’s situation. “Ask him to spend one more day hiding out. Twenty-four hours. I’m hoping this thing can be done by then, and if not, well, we’ll have to send him to Baja California to count birds, I guess. Also might ask him how he got oil on his jeans.”
“What about dinner tonight?”
“I suspect it will be pretty late by the time I get through running around the wind ranch.”
“Perfectly all right, tomorrow’s a holiday. Let me know what time?”
The phone rang before I could get it back in my pocket. It was Professor Lew at the University of New Mexico.
“Hey, Vlad. Got your message. You can send the bat bodies along, and I’ll run a test, but something we just found here says it’s going to be heart failure.”
“Heart failure? Why would they fly through things that scare them to death?”
“More like the heart explodes from the abrupt change in air pressure as they get too close to the fast end of the rotors. Got some fast ones up there?”
“You could say that. Anything that can be done?”
“Working on it. Some tests indicate a frequency—ah, I’ll look it up—no, I’ll send you a few hundred of these little whistles we had built on that freq. Just glue one to a rotor on each turbine and it’ll generate a whistle they don’t like. Works in a lab. We’ll call it a field test. Can you keep records on any changes?”
“Oh boy, can she ever.” I gave him the address for the Lamancha Wind Ranch and he said he’d ship the whistles along. Then I called Albertson and got an appointment for as soon as I could get there.
I went through the contract setup for site leasing step by step for Albertson, holding up a quieting hand when he tried to dispute a point or interrupt. I even drew a flow chart on his conference room whiteboard to show the movement of money among all the participants, jotting down percentages here and there. Albertson finally gave up trying to argue and sat watching, growing paler and more haunted looking with every new aspect of the scheme I added.
I finished and stood watching Albertson.
He looked some more at the chart showing the money generation and flow that now covered the entire board. “How did you get all this so ... so quick?”
“Looked in the right places. Think how much faster the right agencies could unravel it if they just had a starting point, or a valid complaint.”
Albertson shook his head. “No one is going to complain. They’re all satisfied with what they’re getting. Not much, I know, but even water out of a hoofprint looks good to a man dying of thirst. Anyway, soon’s I had things set right for the company, I was going to renegotiate the contracts. Make it right for them.”
“Tom Brown will complain. All you need is one rock to start a landslide.”
“Tom Brown is running away from blowing down six million–dollar turbine towers.”
“He didn’t do it. Tom is out there just monkey-wrenching around—draining oil out of transformers, messing up locks, tripping breakers—trying to remind you that some people are aware they’re being cheated. But he’s like a kid playing Halloween tricks on the edge of a combat zone. He now knows somebody else is after the towers and he’s just nervous enough to make a complaint, tell what he knows, take the hit for some minor stuff, and get clear.”
“Who’s after the towers then?”
“Whoever killed Bransky, and I’m working on it, but one thing at a time. Let’s finish this problem first.”
“I need the money for a while longer. I need to set up a link to the high-voltage transmission line up north to assure we’ll have a market for wind generated power. It has to be done.”
“Then get a loan for it. Your credit is good unless all this goes into court. You need to get this straightened out before it comes down around your ears. And believe me, it will, with or without a formal complaint.”
“All right, I’ll start moving things to get the subsidiaries out of the picture and write new contracts. Give me a month?”
“With all that’s going on right now, I doubt you’ll get nearly that much time without someone coming to look closer at the operation, but it’s your call. There is one thing I need today.”
Albertson’s head came up and he glared at me. “How much?”
“Not money. I’d like you to call Rodney and tell him that you’re shutting down all of the eight-megawatt towers for security upgrades. You’re doing it starting now, so he should be ready if he needs to come on line.
“But my towers are working fine, and there’s not enough power margin to take them all out of service.”
I continued, “Take just the first eight or nine of the big towers off the grid now, and shut them down. You can put them back up later tonight. Okay? I just want you to tell him you taking the
m all down. He needs to believe that.”
“Why?”
“I want to see what he does with the opportunity.”
“Suppose he does nothing?”
“Then I’m back to looking at others, including you. Oh, I need something else—would you call the maintenance shop and tell them I’ll be by to pick up a couple of tools.”
At the maintenance shop, I explained what was needed and the man there pulled it off the shelf and even carried it out to the pickup for me. I said I’d bring it back the next day and headed into town, this time to the sheriff’s office.
The sheriff’s office was crowded. They had asked everyone at the hospital who was coming on shift or going off at about the time of the murder to show up and talk to a sketch artist. It looked as though everyone had come, doctors, staff, and patients. And each had a different slant on the strangers they had seen.
The sheriff shook his head. “Everyone agrees that there were only four strangers—unknown persons—at the hospital this morning, but we’ve got sketches of fifteen completely different people.”
I nodded. “Eyewitnesses. How many did you interview?”
“Fifteen,” he said.
I looked at my watch and headed for the pickup. At the Lamancha Wind Ranch I drove past the so-called entry gate, waved at the security man on duty there, and drove to where the tall towers began. I parked along the path and began to walk to each of the nine towers whose rotors were not turning. At each I scanned the dust and scrub grass around the tower base, checked the lock pad, and went to the next.
The lock pad on the fifth tower I visited was broken off, smashed free of its bolts. I could see that the internal power wires had been cut, which meant that the solenoid had de-energized and unlocked the tower. Quietly, I opened the door and stepped into the base of the tower. It was roomy, at least ten feet across, and the steel grab bars rising up the inside of its wall were encircled with a strap-metal frame to keep a climber from slipping free. I estimated it was a six-hundred foot rise. I could hear voices bouncing down from the nacelle above in a conversational tone, but couldn’t make out the words. From the smashing and pounding mixed with the voices, I assumed they were practicing sabotage. I stepped out of the tower and softly closed the door again.
I drove the pickup back to the tower, found the borrowed tool, and fired it up. When I finished, I wrote the tower number down on an index card and stuck it in my pocket.
I put the pickup behind another tower, almost a quarter mile away, took a tire iron from the bed, and walked back to the tower under deconstruction and began to beat on its side. As soon as I saw movement in the nacelle above me, I stopped hammering on the tower and trotted to the edge of a shallow ravine nearby.
“Ahoy there!” I shouted. The banging sounds from the nacelle stopped and a long silence followed. I yelled again and waited.
“Yeah, who is it? What you want?”
“Lamancha security force,” I yelled. “Who are you? Nobody’s scheduled to work tonight.”
After a long silence, one answered, “Emergency repair crew.” I could hear one, maybe two men coming down the inside ladder, which was a good choice as there was no outside ladder.
“Bullshit,” I shouted. “No one is logged in and the keypad’s broke on that tower. You do that?” I could see the door handle moving slowly as someone tried to pop the door open. The door didn’t budge. I began to hear someone kicking softly at the door, then harder. It didn’t budge. Finally there was a shot and an alarmed shout. Frustrated, I thought.
“Watch out for those ricochets,” I shouted. “They’re tricky inside round places.” There was silence from the tower.
The sun was almost totally down, and shadows ruled the wind plain as I dropped into the ravine and waited. It wasn’t a long wait, so the two in the bottom must have been very fast in getting back to the open window in the nacelle.
They all opened up together, shooting at the last sound of my voice, at shadows, at the flicker created by blades sweeping through the lights lit throughout the wind ranch to scare off night birds and bats, at anything. I sat with my back against the ravine wall and listened to the slugs hitting dirt and rock.
Five minutes after the shooting stopped, it occurred to one of them that they were still trapped. “Hey! You!” I waited quietly. After another five minutes or so all three were yelling.
“Bransky up there?” I yelled.
“Why you want Bransky? He ain’t here.”
“I was just on the phone with the local law and he’s wanted for attempted murder. How do I know he isn’t up there?”
They had a short conference. “We’ll give you our names and then you can let us out.”
“Like I’d believe someone who shot at me. Throw down your wallets and I’ll check your ID.”
They had another, longer, conference. “Open the door and we’ll show you our ID.”
“Okay, that’s it. I’m calling the SWAT team, they can deal with you. Now I’m hearing you guys may be murder suspects too. Bransky’s dead.”
I heard three wallet-sized thumps on the ground, and three voices. “We didn’t kill Bransky. He was one of us.”
“But we know who did—”
“Deal! I’ll do a deal ...”
I took the wallets and walked away. Back at the pickup I called Sheriff Garza. “Victor Morales, Juan Perez, and Ivan Semilov. That’s the rest of the sabotage crew involved with bombing towers and whatever else. They’re in fear of being charged right now, so they’ll give up the murderer, if you can sort out their stories.”
“You have these men? I have to remind you, much as I hate to, that you have no arrest powers in this county. Where are you, we’ll send a team right now.”
“I don’t have them, but I know where they are, and they’re not going anywhere, so you can take your time. May I suggest that you check in on Rodney and see if he knows them?”
“Funny thing, that had occurred to me too. Just about to go over there—you gonna drop by later?”
“Probably.”
I saw the light in Albertson’s office as I went through the gate, so I turned around and went in.
“You can start the eight-megawatt beasts back up and put them to work,” I told him. “Except for, uh, eight dash lima whiskey hotel zero zero nine. Got it?”
“Did you get him, then?”
“I have every reason to believe that Sheriff Garza will have him, and his helpers, in custody before midnight.”
“I, uh, have been thinking about those contracts we were talking about.”
“Yes?”
“Well, I don’t see why, uh, we should wait to get that set right. Can you reach Tom Brown?”
“I know someone who can.”
“Well, if you can get him, I’d like to review his contract. Even tomorrow would be all right, even if it is Thanksgiving. In fact, you tell him he’s invited to eat with me and my family. I know he’s got no family left in the area. We’d like for him to come. Can you tell him that?”
“I’ll do that. Congratulations on your choice.”
“Yeah, well, I did have some encouragement.”
Back on the way to Santa Rosa, I called Erin and got no answer, so I left all the information for Tom with her answering service. In a half hour or so I pulled over and parked in a visitor’s slot at the sheriff’s office.
The sheriff’s receptionist insisted that I take a seat and a cup of coffee instead of wandering off looking for the sheriff, so I sat in a vinyl chair, flipped through Southwest Lawman, and tried to spill the coffee into the plastic potted plant slow enough so it wouldn’t leak through before I left. In an hour and the last of the lawmen magazines, Sheriff Garza came in, a tight little smile on his face.
“Got him, did you?” I said.
“Yep. Oh, Vlad, why didn’t you come on back and watch the lineup?”
I looked at the receptionist, who ignored me, as she had for the past hour.
The sheriff followed my gaze, g
runted, and said, “Come on in,” and we went into his private office.
“We picked him up at that peaker power plant he runs. He was so surprised to see all of us that he almost gave it up right there. Then when we told him about the three men you have, he started telling the arresting officer he didn’t intend to do it. He was just protecting his investment. We flat ran out of tape getting it all down again and again. And you know, the guy does walk like a sandpiper.”
“Good work, Sheriff. Foresee any problems making it stick?”
“Nope, just gotta pick up and interrogate the last three guys he hired to do the dirty work. Where are they, by the way?”
“Damn, I forgot. Look, well, the thing is, uh, hmmm.”
“What? You know where they are?”
“Yeah, meant to tell you earlier. They’re out at the wind ranch, in tower number, uh, here, this one.” I handed over the crumpled index card. “It should be the only fan not turning.”
The sheriff jumped to his feet and grabbed his hat.
“Ah, Sheriff, unless they’ve got six hundred feet of rope in their pocket, they’re not going anywhere. I welded the door shut. And they’ve all got guns, but I think they’re out of ammunition.” Then I dumped their wallets on his desk. “ID,” I said.
The sheriff dropped back into his chair. “Well, if you ain’t the damndest thing ever walked in here. Let me get you a television interview when they get here—”
“Sheriff, I pay people to keep me off those things. No, thanks.”
“Let me do something for you—what you need?”
I stood, “Not a thing, Sheriff, not a thing. Maybe someday, if I get a speeding ticket around here ...”
“Well, you jus’ call. Anytime.” He stuck out his hand and we shook.
The phone rang just as I was getting back in the truck.
“Hi, Erin here. I conveyed your information to Tom and he’s going home to get ready for Thanksgiving. Now, what have you been doing—tilting more windmills?”
“Please. It’s tilting at windmills, and I won. Tell you about it tomorrow?”
Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine 01/01/11 Page 24
