by Ken Goddard
The more he thought about that, the less he liked it.
The phone rang three times before a very familiar voice answered in an equally familiar, grumpy manner.
"You never did like getting called out at one-thirty in the morning, did you?"
"What?"
"Without mentioning my name," Henry Lightstone directed carefully, "do you know who this is?"
The wild-card agent could easily visualize his ex-partner snapping wide-awake.
"Yeah, you sound vaguely familiar. What's up?" LaGrange's voice carried a discernible — and dangerous — edge.
"We may have a problem." Lightstone briefly described the sequence of events starting from the confrontation at the restaurant and ending with his purchase of the motorcycle.
"Christ," the ex-homicide detective whispered. "Do they know about it?"
"No, not yet."
"You want me to make contact with them?"
"No, too dangerous. You were the link to the old coot with the genuine Apache Indian hunting charms," Lightstone reminded him. "If everything else connects, we could easily be on a party line right now."
"Yeah, right." Bobby LaGrange fell silent for a few moments. "Shit."
"Exactly," Henry Lightstone responded, knowing what kind of thoughts raced through his ex-partner's mind. "Can you two camp out somewhere?"
A pause.
"Yes."
In the background, Henry Lightstone heard a drawer opening, then the familiar sound of a semiautomatic pistol slide slowly being drawn back.
That's right, buddy, he thought approvingly, Susan's number one, no matter what.
"Then you'd better do it, just to be safe. What about Justin?"
"He's with his… relatives for the rest of the week."
"Can you keep him there?"
"Sure, no problem. What about you?"
"I'm staying put. If I've got a tag, there's no point complicating things at your end."
"Yeah, right," LaGrange acknowledged. "Are you secure?"
Translation: do you want help? Just say so. I'll get Susan tucked away somewhere safe, and then be there with the cavalry ASAP. Lightstone smiled. Good old Bobby. Hell of a partner.
"I'm fine, but I'm out of contact with everyone else right now, so if Larry calls, tell him what's going on, and that I'll connect up with them sometime tomorrow morning."
"Will do. Anything else?" Bobby's question came out a little faster than usual.
In a hurry to get Susan out of there. Good thinking.
"Still got your beeper?"
"Yeah, somewhere. I'll find it."
"Okay, get going. I'll be in touch."
Lightstone was in the process of hanging up the phone when he sensed a presence in the doorway.
He turned around slowly, trying to decide what he could say, and then saw — to his immense relief — what, under any other circumstances, would have absolutely terrified him: a pair of glowing yellow eyes hovering at about waist height.
"Christ, you scared the hell out of me, Sasha," he whispered.
The panther responded with a deep-throated growl that sounded more like a cough.
It occurred to Lightstone that he'd never been alone with the fearsome animal for any significant period of time before, and that the panther might consider his presence in the woman's office an unacceptable transgression.
But then the big cat made another noise that sounded both familiar and demanding.
"What do you want? Something to drink?" Lightstone hazarded a guess.
The panther immediately turned, walked down the hallway, and waited patiently for a disbelieving Henry Lightstone to open the secured door to the restaurant's kitchen.
"We could both get into serious trouble for this," he whispered as the cat proceeded to rub the side of her head against the edge of the commercial refrigerator. "But you don't care, do you?"
Apparently deciding an answer to such a dumb question constituted a waste of a perfectly good growl, the panther sat silently and waited patiently for Lightstone to open the refrigerator, find an already-opened half gallon of milk, and locate a bowl.
He poured about a half pint of milk into the bowl, put it down on the vinyl floor, and stared expectantly at the panther. She stared right back at him, unmoving.
"You want more?"
He poured another half pint or so in the bowl and got exactly the same response.
"Christ, what are you, picky or — ?"
At that moment, it occurred to Henry Lightstone that a hundred-pound panther probably wasn't all that much different from an eight-pound Manx… especially in terms of self-serving attitude.
Accordingly, he opened the refrigerator, rooted around until he found a quart of cream, glared at the panther once more, dumped the milk into the nearby sink, and replaced it with the cream.
He barely managed to get the bowl on the floor before the panther butted him aside and began lapping happily at the cream.
Muttering to himself, Lightstone returned the milk and cream to the refrigerator, noticed a partial loaf of pumpernickel and a plastic-wrapped plate of sliced turkey on one of the upper shelves, and realized he was hungry.
Five minutes later, as he chewed a first large bite of the thickly stacked turkey sandwich, something else occurred to him.
The letter.
It took him another two minutes to find his way past the public rest room to the door of the back room of the tiny post office, which the woman apparently had forgotten to lock.
Fortunately, enough moonlight came in through a skylight to illuminate the area.
Lightstone found two envelopes in box number fifteen, a manila one about an inch thick, and a second plain mailing one — identical, as best he could tell, to the envelope Karla had sold the man with the strange eyes — that felt like it contained a single, folded piece of paper. The addresses on the envelopes, each obviously written by a different individual, were both block-printed. And even more interesting, Lightstone realized, both individuals used the adjacent Dogsfire Inn Post Office Box Number Fourteen as a return address.
The covert agent momentarily considered opening both envelopes, but then immediately rejected the idea. Tampering with US mail was a fairly serious felony, and he well knew that the probable-cause information he possessed was circumstantial at best — and certainly far less than any federal judge would require to issue a search warrant for a subject's private mail. Meaning that any leads he might obtain as a result of opening and reading those letters would inevitably fall under the "fruit-of-the-poisoned-tree" rule.
In all, three very good reasons to put both envelopes right back where he found them.
Lightstone started to do exactly that, but then noticed an assortment of letters and flyers in box thirteen. A quick check confirmed that mail had been accumulating there for several days.
Smiling maliciously, he put the thick envelope back into box fifteen, but slipped the thin envelope — the one he was almost certain the man with the cold gray eyes had addressed and sealed — into the middle of the mail stack in box thirteen.
Then he hurried to the nearby counter, pulled a sheet of paper and an envelope out of the supply stacks, picked up one of the available US government pens, block-printed five words, folded the paper and placed it into the envelope, block-printed the appropriate P.O. Box Fourteen and P.O. Box Fifteen addresses on it, tore a first-class stamp off one of the available sheets, put the appropriate change in the stamp tray, and was looking around for a cancellation stamp and ink pad when he heard footsteps.
Lightstone quickly tossed the envelope upside down into box fifteen and was heading for the door when he heard a voice outside.
"Henry?"
He barely had time to duck behind the counter before the door opened and the light came on.
He sensed Karla moving toward him, then heard a loud yowl that also caught her attention.
"Sasha?"
Another yowl, this time louder.
"What did I do,
forget to lock up out here, and forget to feed you, too?"
If anything, the third yowl sounded even more insistent and demanding.
"Is that right? So what did you do with your buddy? Stash him up in the tree house?"
Henry waited until the sensuous young woman stepped back into the hallway and began walking toward the restaurant kitchen. As she did, he quickly and quietly stood up, slipped around the partially opened door and into the darkened hallway, and cautiously nudged the public bathroom door open. Then he lunged for the urinal, hit the flush lever, ran some water over his hands in the sink, wiped them with a paper towel, and hurried out into the hallway and around the corner..
"There you are!" Karla yelled as she stepped into view.
Lightstone froze, his eyes wide-open in surprise.
"Christ Almighty, that's a good way to give a guy a heart attack!" he complained as he stared down at the enticing body that was barely concealed by the thin cotton nightgown.
"Good. You deserve one."
"Oh yeah? How come?"
"I thought you might try to sneak out on me, which is about what I can expect from men these days. But then I find out you're even more devious."
"You call taking a leak in a portion of a house not inhabited by a bathroom-door-shredding panther devious?" Lightstone tried, uncertain of how much of his movements Karla had actually seen.
"No, this is what I call devious." She slapped the partially-eaten turkey sandwich into his hand.
"Oh, that. Well, uh, I can explain that," he began hesitantly.
"Go ahead. Explain to me why you only made one, and then didn't bother to wake me up to share it?"
"Well, uh, you looked tired." He looked down at the sandwich and then blinked. "Hey, wait a minute, I only took one bite out of this."
"I was tired, and I still am, but I'm also hungry." She gracefully led the way into the kitchen. "You ought to be grateful I only took the one bite and gave it back. And speaking of lucky," she added as she turned on the lights, "I'm amazed you found your way through this maze in the dark."
"I had help." Lightstone glanced meaningfully at the panther.
"So I see." Karla nodded as she watched the panther stare back at Lightstone, and then emit a much softer, protesting yowl.
"She complains a lot, too," he added.
"Life's tough when the men in your life won't cooperate."
Lightstone's brow wrinkled in confusion. "What do you mean by that?"
"She likes you."
"Yeah, so?"
"I mean she likes you. As in a lot."
Henry Lightstone blinked.
"You're kidding."
"I don't think so."
"You mean…?"
"Uh-huh."
"But I'm… I mean, she's…"
"Nobody ever accused us females of being smart or practical in our relationships, Henry. However," she added thoughtfully as she glanced down at the sandwich in his hand, "we can be distracted."
Taking advantage of the thoroughly stunned expression on Henry Lightstone's face, Karla snatched the sandwich out of his hand, took another large bite, handed it back, went into the refrigerator for a gallon jug of water and a half gallon of milk, and then noticed the bowl on the floor.
"I see she conned you into letting her into the kitchen."
"Uh, yeah, as a matter of fact, she did," Lightstone admitted. "Is that a problem?"
"Only if the county health inspectors find out." She smiled. "Grab that bowl, hang on to these, and we'll get her out of here."
She handed him the jugs of water and milk, got the sliced turkey and pumpernickel from the refrigerator, and picked up two empty glasses. Then she led him into a private employee's lounge consisting of a wooden table, two chairs, and an ancient refrigerator.
Kneeling, she poured about a quart of the chilled water into the bottom of a large stainless-steel bowl, then nodded in satisfaction when the panther quickly thrust her muzzle into the bowl and began lapping away.
"What?" the woman asked when the stunned expression on Henry Lightstone's face shifted to one of total disbelief.
"Let me guess. She conned you out of the milk, didn't she?"
"Uh, well…"
"Don't tell me. You gave her cream?"
Lightstone nodded glumly.
Karla closed her eyes and sighed. "Henry, do you have any idea what can happen when you feed a cat milk or cream?"
"I vaguely recall my grandmother saying it wasn't a good idea," Lightstone volunteered tentatively. "Will she be all right?"
"You mean Sasha? Oh, she'll be fine. You may not be, though, after you get done cleaning up."
"That bad?"
"A panther with the runs is an impressive sight, my friend. So much so, I strongly suggest you cross your fingers and pray to whatever gods you think might take an interest in your problem."
"Seems to me that sort of problem would probably rate pretty low on the old deity-response list."
"If I were a god, that's certainly the way I'd see it," the sensuous young woman admitted agreeably as she filled the two glasses with milk. "But then, too, I always thought you XYs were too damned gullible for your own good… especially when it comes to double-Xs."
She opened the ancient refrigerator, took out a large butcher-paper-wrapped package, unwrapped its contents, deftly hacked the hindquarters of a good-sized deer in several chunks with an ominously sharp cleaver, and dropped them into the large stainless-steel feeding pan next to the panther's water bowl.
"That's an interesting perspective," Lightstone commented as he watched the panther tear into the hide-covered meat with her teeth and claws.
"Don't ever forget what she is, Henry. A hundred-pound panther with very deep-seated predatory instincts," Karla reminded him very seriously. "And speaking of self-preservation," she added, looking down at the significantly reduced stack of turkey slices, "it's a good thing you left some of this for me, or you'd have to fight both of us for what's left of that sandwich."
"I think I'll stick to fighting the human XYs, if it's all the same to you two," Lightstone replied, eyeing the temporarily distracted panther uneasily.
"Good idea. You'll probably live a lot longer." Karla quickly built herself a sandwich just as thick as Lightstone's, then tossed the remaining scraps of meat into the panther's bowl.
"As long as we're on that topic," Lightstone ventured as they sat down at the table and started in on their sandwiches, "you got any suggestions about how I should deal with my problem?"
"By 'my problem,' I assume you refer to the common male fantasy of having two adoring females on your hands at one time, both of whom happen to live in the same house… as opposed to her problem, of course?" Lightstone could see a glitter of pure amusement in the young woman's eyes.
"Uh, no, that's not exactly what I meant."
"Well, Henry my friend" — Karla handed him the last two bites of her sandwich — "as one of the interested parties, I'm not sure I'm the best person to advise you on how to handle your 'problem.' However," she added, "I would say that I'm probably the best person around here to advise you on what you shouldn't do."
"Which is?" Lightstone asked warily.
The woman glanced fondly down at her pet snapping the deer femur like a toothpick with her powerful jaws, "you really shouldn't go wandering around with Sasha at night all by yourself anymore. Unless, of course, you take along a nice big picnic basket full of deer meat and turkey sandwiches."
"A picnic basket?"
"Like I said," she added with an ambiguous smile as she picked up her glass of cold milk, "we can be distracted."
Chapter Thirty
First Sergeant Aran Wintersole met with his team at an all-night coffee shop some ten miles distant from the Gopher's Hole, where Wildlife Special Agents Mark LiBrandi and Gus Donato of Charlie Team had finished their Thursday evening shift of bar-hopping.
"Did you send the photos?" he asked the team's communications specialist after the waitress had
departed.
The young female soldier nodded her head solemnly. In a public restaurant, surrounded by civilians who might easily overhear any scrap of conversation, they automatically dropped the use of military demeanor and team-member designations.
"I had the negs processed and printed in Ashland, four-by-five color, and dropped them off at the post office at" — she hesitated briefly as she translated the military time — "a little after seven this evening. I included the primary subjects and the secondary’s. Figured the Colonel might want to see who these people have been contacting. The package should go out in the…" she paused only briefly this time, "… 8:00 A.M. pickup."
"Did you include the ones of the subjects at the drop point, including that character with the truck?"
"Yes."
"Good. We need verification, and I'm tired of waiting for those profiles." Wintersole nodded approvingly, then looked at the other team members. "How did it go this evening?"
"One thing for sure, those two at the Gopher's Hole were definitely trolling," one-five reported.
"For what?" Wintersole leaned forward expectantly.
"That I don't know," the civvies-dressed soldier admitted, "but the one time I talked with them, it was pretty obvious they wanted the conversation to work its way around to the local militant groups."
"They ever ask anything directly?"
"Never." One-five shrugged. "Just my impression."
"I agree with John," one-six added. "They brought up — or responded to — just about every related topic: right-wing politics, fundamentalist religion, guns, the federal government, you name it."
"So what do they want?" Wintersole addressed the entire group.
"Wilbur Boggs, for one thing," the communications specialist volunteered softly.
That brought Wintersole's head up in surprise.
"Are you sure?"
The communications specialist nodded. "David and I" — she nodded toward the injured member of the team — "managed to get close enough to dangle one of the pickup mikes over the back of their booth."
