by Kyle Mills
“Hi, I’m Mark Beamon from the FBI and this is my associate, Laura Vilechi.” There was no need to flash his credentials, the man behind the counter recognized him as soon as he said his name.
“Wow, nice to meet you, Mr. Beamon. I’ve seen you on television.” He nodded a greeting to Laura. “What brings you to my store?”
“This is your place?” Beamon asked, carefully examining a luxurious blond wig on a white Styrofoam head.
“Yes, sir.”
Beamon nodded and wandered off to look around.
Seeing that Beamon was beginning to lose interest in this investigative avenue, Laura decided to start questioning the shopkeeper without him. “We thought you might have some information that we need.”
“Sure, anything I can do to help.”
She smiled engagingly and sat down in an antique barbers chair in the center of the room. “What we’re looking for is a man approximately five foot eight or less, thin, between thirty-five and forty-five, who might have come in here about two months ago and purchased, at the least, a long gray wig and beard and a long brown wig and beard, as well as makeup to perhaps make his features look different and darken his skin. He probably wouldn’t have known much about using the stuff—might have asked for some advice …”
The man leaned against the counter behind him, a thoughtful look on his face.
“Is this about the CDFS?”
She nodded.
“Does he have short dark hair—kind of a crew cut?”
“Maybe, we’re not sure.”
“Yeah, I remember a guy like that. Wanted only the best. Must have spent a small fortune.”
Beamon, who until a minute ago had seemed completely oblivious to the conversation, was suddenly at the man’s side.
“Excuse me, Mr… .”
“Reason. But call me Chris.”
“Chris. You say you might remember this guy?”
“Yeah, sure. He kind of stuck in my mind, you know. Most of my business is kinda regular—so it’s pretty unusual for a guy I’ve never seen to come in and make a big purchase like that. He also didn’t really seem like the acting type.”
“Did you ask him what he was going to use it for?” Laura asked.
Reasor thought for a moment. “Now that you mention it, I don’t think I did. He wasn’t really very friendly—hard to warm up to. He was in here a long time, too—didn’t know the first thing about makeup.”
“Chris, would you mind coming back to D.C. with us for the evening? We’ll be happy to put you up in a nice hotel and compensate you for the time your shop’s closed. I’d like to have you get together with one of our sketch artists.”
“Hell, yes, I’ll go. Those CDFS guys are crazy. Let me go grab my coat.”
Beamon watched the store owner hurry to the back of the store. When he was out of sight, Beamon turned and gave Laura a hard spin in the barber chair. She gripped the handles tightly and laughed. “Looks like we might just save your butt after all, Mark.”
Alejandro Perez hurried through the plush gardens surrounding Luis Colombar’s estate, nodding to the guards as he passed them. Spring was fully upon them, and the cool evenings had turned sticky. The sun had just set on the horizon and its light was bouncing off the humid air with a spectacular effect. The sunset, combined with the quiet beauty of the garden this time of year, cast a false peace. Perez knew better.
He left the well-tended brick walkway, turning onto a narrow dirt trail. Through the trees he could see the glimmering lights of a greenhouse in the distance.
He stepped through its door, quickly closing it behind him so as not to release the warm air into the quickly cooling Colombian night. He felt his brow break out in a sweat from a combination of the heat and Colombar’s tone when he had summoned him.
“Alejandro. I’m over here.”
Perez caught a glimpse of his boss behind a table covered with tall and colorful flowers. He walked quickly across the wet concrete, noticing a strange and foul odor that gained strength as he approached the table. He wondered why Colombar would keep flowers that smelled so noxious, even if they were beautiful to look at. “I came as quickly as I could, Luis,” he said, trying to look slightly out of breath.
“I suppose you haven’t yet seen the package that I received today.” Colombar wasn’t looking at him, but was concentrating on the bright pink bulb in front of him.
“What package?”
Colombar gestured toward the back of the greenhouse with his shears. Perez looked at him strangely, then set off in the direction his boss had pointed. On a table in the back, next to a group of half-full sacks of fertilizer and soil, sat a box with a Federal Express sticker on the top. The tape had been torn off, but the flaps were closed. The odor continued to grow.
Perez reached out and pulled back the flaps. He gasped, the smell of the rotting head choking him. He pushed the flaps closed and stumbled backward, bumping into Colombar, who had crept up silently behind him.
“Read the card,” he invited, pointing back to the box.
Perez swallowed hard, and moving forward, reopened the box. There was a blood-smeared envelope lying across the head’s mouth. One yellow eye stared up at him as he snatched it and retreated to the other side of the greenhouse.
NEVER SEND A SPIC TO DO A MAN’S WORK, YOU DICKLESS FOOL.
SINCERELY,
JOHN
“I hoped that you might translate the note for me, Alejandro. As you know, my English is less than perfect.”
Perez considered softening the language a bit, but thought better of it. Colombar’s English was undoubtedly good enough to have read the note. The question was why Colombar wanted to hear it from his mouth?
He translated the note verbatim.
Colombar leaned against an empty table, motionless except for his right hand that twirled his shears ominously. “Do you know who that was?”
Perez answered quietly, trying to hide his nervousness. “I can only assume that it is one of the men that you sent after John Hobart.”
“Our little plan didn’t work very well, did it?” Colombar observed.
Our little plan?
Perez mopped the sweat from his forehead, thinking before answering. He decided against correcting his boss’s faulty memory. “I guess not.”
It seemed to be what Colombar wanted to hear. He turned and went back to working on the sick bulb. “I want you to go find this John Hobart. When you do, call me, and I will take care of the arrangements.”
Perez winced. “Luis, this is just the reaction our Mr. Hobart was trying to provoke. We must inform the FBI. They are much better equipped to find him than I am. Especially now that he knows we’re looking.”
“No,” Colombar replied calmly. “You’ll go and find him. I want to hold this man’s eyes in my hand.”
Perez shuffled uncomfortably. He had seen Colombar in this mood only twice in the years he had known him. The cartel leader’s levels of rage went from shouting in his practiced European Spanish, to screaming in the Spanish of his youth, to killing people with his bare hands, to dead calm. Dead calm was the worst. That’s when he had someone pick you and your family up for a long, slow appointment with death.
“I’ll leave immediately, Luis. Should we inform the others of this development?”
“No.”
30
Near Baltimore, Maryland,
March 8
The Reverend Simon Blake watched his wife over his pool cue as she walked across the spacious basement. She was carrying a silver tray with a single mug on it.
“I was making hot chocolate for the kids and thought you might like some,” she said, setting the mug on a long table behind a leather sofa.
Blake eyed her sadly, wondering how his actions would affect her. Things were out of control, and for the first time in his life, he wasn’t sure what he was going to do. Gods voice had been silenced.
“Thanks, honey,” he said, missing the side pocket with the two ball.
“Are you having fun?”
The pool table had been a gift from her and the kids for his birthday. Erica had read somewhere that pool was an especially therapeutic and relaxing pastime. He could feel her eyes on him, and made an effort to look happier and more energetic than he felt.
“Sure am. I’m starting to get pretty good, too.” The statement was accentuated with another miss. He was having trouble concentrating on anything these days.
She nodded, and padded silently out of the room. As he watched her go, he felt tears well up in his eyes.
His plan hadn’t worked. In retrospect, it had been a stupid and desperate move. The man he had informed on was dead, as was his killer. And John Hobart was still a shadowy figure perched at the edge of every news report. Why hadn’t he just told the FBI Hobart was behind it? He had asked himself that question a hundred times a day since Nelson’s death. In the end, he discovered that the answer wasn’t complicated. Fear. He had always been afraid of John Hobart—his cold demeanor, the eyes devoid of passion and morality. That twinge of fear had been a small price to pay to have Hobart’s ruthless efficiency behind the workings of the church. But now control had shifted. Hobart was clearly in charge. Unhampered by Blake’s values and religious sensibilities, he had no limitations.
Blake leaned his cue against the table and reached for the hot chocolate. Steam rose around the whipped cream piled on top. He sipped the hot fluid loudly, knowing he would regret it later. These past few months he had suffered from a constant sense of anxiety. It was an indescribable sensation—as if he was always on the verge of hyperventilating. As if something dreadful waited for him just around the next corner. Sugar and caffeine were definitely contraindicated.
He was nestled into the sofa, finishing his drink, when his cellular phone rang. It was always with him, used to transact business that his parishioners might not fully understand.
“Hello?”
“Hello, Reverend.”
Blake’s breath caught in his chest. Hobart.
“What can I do for you?”
“I know it was you.”
“What are you talking about, John. I fired you months ago. What are you doing calling me at my home?”
He had devised this plan over the past week. There was no real evidence connecting him with the CDFS. He had never really been involved, beyond letting Hobart drain some insignificant dollars from the church’s accounts.
There was silence on the other end of the phone. Blake waited anxiously to see if his plan had worked.
“If you want out, Reverend—fine. But you better stay out. If the Bureau gets another tip, I’m coming for your family.”
Blake’s jaw dropped.
“I’ll make you watch while I cut them to pieces. And if I’m caught, I’ll have someone else do it for me. Do you understand?”
Blake’s mind churned uselessly, words not able to escape his throat. How could he have put his family in the middle of something like this?
“Do you understand?” Hobart’s voice repeated. There was no hint of annoyance or threat in his voice. It was cold and matter-of-fact.
“Yes.”
“That’s good, Reverend. Good-bye.”
The phone clicked, but Blake didn’t move. When the dial tone started, he put the phone on the table next to him and wept.
Fifty miles away, John Hobart flipped on his computer Things were going to have to be wound up pretty quickly. He still had the number to the church’s computer, and the passwords necessary to access all of its accounts. It looked like he was going to have to get out of Dodge, but there was no reason to take off without a little extra pocket money.
“Reverend Blake? There’s a man here to see you. He says it’s urgent,” Blake’s secretary said quietly.
“Does he have an appointment?” Blake asked, peering at the calendar at the top of his desk. It was blank.
She stepped through the door and closed it quietly behind her. “No sir, but he’s from the FBI.”
Blake’s expression didn’t change. The adrenaline that had been coursing through him for the past two months had finally dried up. He didn’t care what happened anymore. He just wanted release from the pressure.
“Please show him in.”
“Reverend Blake, I’m sorry to disturb you without an appointment, but it is an urgent matter.”
Blake took the agent’s hand. It was cool and dry. “Don’t think anything of it.” He pointed toward the conference table in the corner of the office.
The FBI must be paying pretty well, Blake thought, watching the sheen of the man’s expensive suit as he walked toward the table. The watch on his wrist looked like a Rolex.
“I am special agent Alejandro Martinez,” the man said, flashing his credentials. His speech had more than a hint of accent. It reminded Blake of Ricardo Montalban in Fantasy Island.
“What can I do for you, Agent Martinez?”
“I believe that a man named John Hobart once worked for you. I’d be interested in any information that you could provide me on him. Especially in regards to his whereabouts.”
The last of his adrenaline was squeezed out into his bloodstream at the mention of Hobart’s name. “I really have no idea where he is, I haven’t seen him in some time. Have you tried his home? I can get my secretary to get you the address.”
“We’ve been by his home, yes. It would appear that he hasn’t been there in quite a while.” Martinez smiled engagingly. “And I already took the liberty of asking your secretary to copy Mr. Hobart’s personnel file.”
Blake shrugged noncommittally. “May I ask you why you’re looking for John?”
“I apologize, but I am not at liberty to say,” he answered gravely. “But it is a matter of the utmost importance, I assure you. I would also like to stress how important it is that you do not mention my visit here.”
“Of course. Sorry I can’t be of more help, but as you probably know, John’s employment here was terminated a couple of months ago.”
“Yes, we were aware of that.” The agent pulled out a small notebook from his jacket pocket. “If you have a couple of minutes, I would like to ask you a few general questions about Mr. Hobart. Things that might make it easier for us to locate him.”
Blake adjusted to a slightly more comfortable position in the chair.
“Sure, go ahead.”
31
Washington, D.C.,
March 9
Mark Beamon nimbly sidestepped a young man with a box-filled handcart and walked through the door to SIOC.
The place was a mess. The conference table had been pushed against the wall, and a stack of large cardboard boxes had taken its place as the focal point of the room. Around the boxes were endless piles of car registrations, each with a copy of a driver’s license attached with a paper clip.
Laura saw him come in and strode over with a wide grin. “We’re just getting rid of some of the low priority stuff. It’s getting hard to move in here.”
Beamon nodded in agreement. “So you’ve got registrations to every red Cherokee in Maryland?”
“Actually, we have registrations for every Cherokee, period. Maryland doesn’t put the color on the registration. Laura beamed. She was in her element now. As much as Beamon hated details, she loved them.
“How many?”
“Let’s see …” She chewed the end of her pen thoughtfully. “I think it ended up being almost seven thousand.”
Beamon let out a long breath. Thank God she was here to sort through all this crap.
“So where are we?” he asked through a yawn.
“We started investigating our top thirty this morning.”
The suspects were being prioritized by matching the pictures, height, and weight on the license with the descriptions obtained by eyewitnesses, and the rather vague drawing obtained from the costume store shopkeeper.
“Already?” Mark replied “Now how the hell did you manage to go through seven thousand documents that fast?”<
br />
“Only about fifteen hundred, actually. We started with the red ones.”
“But you said that the color wasn’t on the registration.”
“It’s not, but the VIN numbers have color information in them. We got Chrysler to cross-reference for us.”
He bowed deeply at the waist, almost dropping his old trench coat. “As always, my dear, your efficiency leaves me speechless.”
She smiled. “The thirty in process are over there if you want to take a look.” She pointed to a blackboard that was covered with neat rows of driver’s licenses. In the top right-hand corner of the board was the artist’s sketch of their suspect.
“Why not? Let’s grab a couple of cups of coffee and take a look.”
Beamon looked ruefully at the nearly empty coffee pot, and glanced back over his shoulder. “Who drank all the coffee and didn’t make more?”
The agents in the room suddenly got busier, redoubling their efforts on whatever they were working on.
“So what have you been doing all morning?” Laura asked. It was almost ten o’clock.
Beamon made a face like he had just bitten into a lemon. “You know that senator whose son died from bad coke a couple of weeks ago?”
“James Mirth?”
Beamon nodded. “I just spent the morning with him. He wanted me to come by personally and tell him why I hadn’t caught the people who murdered his son yet.”
“Oh,” Laura said sympathetically. “And how did that go?”
“Shitty. Now let’s see what you’ve got.” He headed for the blackboard, patting his pockets for his reading glasses. Tom Sherman gave him a wave from the corner of the room, where he was talking quietly into a phone.
“Here they are,” Laura said, gesturing to thirty color copies of driver’s license pictures taped onto the blackboard. Each had a name and brief description of the subject next to it. The description at this point consisted of little more than basic driver’s license information. Finding his glasses, Beamon began inspecting each picture, starting at the top left. Somewhere into the fourth row, his face went blank for a moment.
