by S. D. Tooley
“Do you know who called him?” Jake asked.
“No,” Sam lied. Setting her plate in the sink, she added, “If you were half as good of detectives as you two claim to be you would have noticed something interesting on the videotape. You keep focusing on my being where I shouldn’t have been rather than focusing on Preston having something he shouldn’t have.”
“If you mean the pin, we already noticed it,” Frank replied. “They may be close, but we don’t know for sure if it connects Preston with the deceased.”
“I held it in my hand. The same visions were there as when I touched King Tut in the lab.” She looked into their skeptical faces. “I know this sounds crazy to you. But all I can tell you is what I sensed.”
Jake walked over to the counter. “What exactly did you… sense
… when you touched King Tut?”
Sam explained the vision of lightning bolt shapes, the smell of gun powder, screams of battle. The men were silent for a while.
“Why don’t we stick with what we know right now. The pin that a presumed murder victim held is the same as a pin owned by our state representative,” Jake said.
“Weelll, let’s not exclude everything,” Frank said slowly.
“Finally, someone with flexibility,” Sam whispered, loud enough for them to hear.
“I prefer logic,” Jake clarified.
Sam jabbed her fists onto her hips. “Let’s try this for logic — Preston had something to do with King Tut’s murder. And once we get an I.D. on the victim, I’ll shove the logic right down your throat.”
Chapter 17
Sam circled Skip Foley’s desk impatiently. He looked up from his phone conversation and signaled that he would be another minute. Skip had been the print technician at Headquarters for the past fifteen years. During his first month on the force, he had tried to break up a fight in a local bar, only to take a bullet in the leg. It shattered his knee cap and left one leg two inches shy of the other. He refused to go on disability. Instead, he trained with the FBI and became one of the best print technicians in the state.
Skip hung up the phone and swiveled his chair around to the computer. Jake and Frank leaned over his shoulder. Sam continued to pace.
“It’s a positive match?” Sam asked.
“Absolutely.” Skip punched the keys on the computer and pointed to the screen. “Who’s the primary?”
Frank jerked a thumb toward Jake. “He always gets the good ones.”
“No. I always get the unsolvable ones.”
“No case is unsolvable,” Sam said simply.
“Military records?” Frank asked eyeing the report coming off of the printer.
Sam ripped off the printout. “Harvey Wilson, born July 10, 1930, in Huntsville, Alabama. African American. Father, James, a postal worker. Mother, Ruby, a homemaker. Let’s see,” she ran her eyes down the form, “joined the Army out of high school, stationed in Hawaii.”
“Not a bad assignment,” Skip commented.
“He was part of the Twenty-fifth Infantry Division dispatched to Korea in June of 1951,” Sam continued. “Last assignment was to delay the advance of North Korean troops in
Mushima Valley.” Sam read the rest in silence, then looked up. “He was reported AWOL August 13, 1951.”
Chapter 18
“AWOL?” Frank repeated, as if his mind had been in a fog during the ride back to Precinct Six.
Sam cranked the windows open in her office. Tossing a handful of sunflower seeds on the sill, she clicked her tongue, then called out in a language the two men didn’t understand. Immediately, two mourning doves flew over, looked up at her and started pecking at the seeds.
“You’re going to have a windowsill full of bird shit,” Jake pointed out as he sat down and draped his long legs over Sam’s desk, crossed just above the tennis shoes. He pulled out a notepad and started writing.
“Where are you going to start?” Sam asked.
“Try to locate a relative,” Jake replied. “The father died twenty-five years ago. The mother died ten years ago. There’s a sister, Matilda, who lives in D.C. Frank, I need you to make out a list of the men in his division, his commanding officer. Hopefully, someone is still alive. See if anyone remembers him.”
“That’s a long time to hide out,” Sam said, eyeing Jake’s tennis shoes as she sat down. “Do you mind?” He slid them off the desk.
“If I were a guy with the threat of prosecution if the military caught up with me,” Frank started, “I would avoid stepping foot back home. I’d probably…”
“Stay in Korea,” Jake said.
“Right.” Sam picked up her pen and started doodling, drawing lightning-bolt shapes as she thought back to the pin in Preston’s safe. “The pin has stayed out of the papers, right?”
Frank glanced over his shoulder and saw Murphy walking down the aisle. It didn’t matter that the door was closed. Murphy walked in without knocking.
“So.” Murphy rubbed his hands together. “I hear we I.D.’d the fossil.” He said it as if he personally had something to do with it.
Sam eyed him suspiciously, then turned her notepad over. “Yes,” she replied.
“I read Benny’s preliminary report. Asphyxiation. Horrible way to go.” This time he let his eyes rest on Sam, “What’s with the pin that was omitted from Benny’s report?”
“We’re still looking into it,” Sam replied. “It could be a key piece to identifying who he might have been in contact with.”
“Looks like you have your hands full with this one. Trying to retrace this guy’s steps after all this time should keep you busy for a while.”
Sam forced a smile. “Which is why I need as much uninterrupted time as possible.” Murphy took the hint and left. Sam flipped her notepad over again and stared at the drawings. “I’m personally going to handle finding out how Preston is connected to Harvey Wilson.”
“So, you’re really going to go through with this,” Alex said. He and Abby sat in the shadows on the patio enjoying a glass of iced tea.
Alex’s dark eyes were framed in sharp, angular features. His strong body had been toned by judo, a sport he had learned years ago during his two years in the Army. Enlisting had saved him a trip to reform school for siphoning gasoline.
“It is tradition. As Sam’s mother it is only right that I choose her husband.”
Alex shook his head in disbelief. “She should marry Lakota. Besides, I have watched them, listened to them when I’ve worked around the yard. They hate each other. You can see it in their eyes,” he argued.
“I know I saw him in my vision. Besides, when they are together, all I see are sparks. They are attracted to each other.”
“Sparks,” Alex muttered. “They are sparks generated by a lot of friction.”
Abby raised her hand to silence him. “We will let the spirits decide. You must prepare the sweat lodge. We need large rocks, they hold more heat. And sage. It is important we have a lot of sage.”
“I have plenty of sage.”
They heard the slamming of car doors from the side drive by the garage followed by loud voices. They watched as Jake trailed Sam up the steps and across the patio.
“Act with your head this time, dammit,” Jake yelled. “I don’t know how you ever made sergeant. It sure couldn’t have been from common sense.”
Sam slid the screen open and rushed inside with Jake close behind. “All I want to do is take another look at the pin. Is that so wrong?”
“He has a surveillance camera,” Jake added as he slammed the screen shut behind him.
“I can get around it.”
Once inside, the arguing continued, although the voices seemed more muffled. Alex shifted his gaze from the house to Abby and said in a dry, humorless voice, “I think we need more sage.”
Chapter 19
By the next morning, the identification of the body in concrete had made the front page of every major newspaper, and the one living relative had been notified.
&
nbsp; “Are you sure I can’t get you any coffee?” Carl Underer asked.
The elderly woman lifted her eyeglasses to wipe her eyes. She looked well preserved for her seventy years.
She smiled through her tears. “He was such a bright boy, Harvey was. And always smiling.” Her face lit up as she spoke of her brother. “That’s why we nicknamed him Happy, Hap for short.” Her bottom lip trembled, the tears fell freely.
Carl walked around his desk and wrapped a consoling arm around Matilda Banks’ shoulder. She patted his hand as though he were the one who needed consoling. Mattie had worked for the FBI for thirty years in their Housekeeping Department. She had outlived her husband. Her one and only child, a daughter, had died of leukemia at the age of two. Other than memories, all she had left of Hap was in the shoe box sitting in her lap.
Carl propped himself against the edge of his desk next to Mattie. The morning sun sliced through the blinds, spraying lines of striped sunlight across Mattie’s face.
“Do you need help with the funeral arrangements? I’m not sure when they will release the body.”
She shook her head no. “I would never ask you for anything, Mr. Underer. I know you are a busy man. But…” She started to cry again. The shoe box fell off her lap spilling its contents on the dark blue carpeting.
Carl picked up the letters, all with the same handwriting, all with an APO return address. Mattie motioned with her hand for him to keep them.
“I want you to read them,” Mattie said. “I never believed the Army when they said he deserted. The Army was his life.” Her eyes pleaded, her hand gripped his wrist. Holding back sobs, she cried, “Would you help me? Find out what happened to my brother.”
The files from storage sat on the FBI security director’s desk. Carl pulled off his horn-rimmed glasses, ran his hand through his thinning gray hair, and rubbed his eyes.
Chasen Heights was a long way from D.C. But if his memory served him correctly — he found the file he was looking for and picked up the phone. When his assistant answered, Carl said, “Book me on a late afternoon flight to Chicago. Reserve a car at the airport and a hotel suite in Chasen Heights.”
Carl hung up the phone and opened the file folder. The name on the folder read Jake Mitchell.
Chapter 20
“You read all these letters?” Jake asked Carl as he fanned through the envelopes on the conference table.
“On the flight over.” Carl poured two cups of coffee and handed one to Jake.
The suite on the top floor of the Suisse Hotel had a wall of glass overlooking Lake Michigan. Decorated in contemporary European with fine lines and tiny flowers in the furniture, drapes, and wallpaper, the suite screamed expensive from every fiber.
“Hope I didn’t pull you from that nice warm bed of yours.” Carl grabbed reports from his briefcase and slid them across the table.
“Midnight?” Jake laughed. “I can’t remember the last time I got to bed by midnight.” He leaned back and studied his former boss. Professional and detail-oriented were two words that had described Carl when Jake first met him twelve years ago and the words still fit. Every category of backup material had its own folder labeled in bold lettering. Jake noticed the folders were even alphabetized in Carl’s briefcase.
“Do you have any connections in the Pentagon to get us Hap’s military records?” Jake asked.
Carl smiled. “Did better than that. I have all the original depositions from the guys in the Twenty-fifth Infantry Division including the commanding officers.”
“You’ve saved me a lot of footwork. Thanks.” Jake studied the list of names. “Was this your war?”
“Please,” Carl laughed, “I’m not that old. But I’ve read a lot about it and I had an uncle who was right on the front line.”
Jake took a sip of coffee and winced. “It’s a little too late for coffee. Do you have anything that foams?” He walked over to the bar and retrieved a beer. “What did your uncle say?” Jake returned to the conference table.
“Well, it wasn’t a pretty sight,” Carl replied. “According to what I remember Uncle Paul saying, approximately eight or nine thousand POWs or MIAs are still unaccounted for. Over thirty-four thousand men were reported missing the first week of the war, and that was from the Republic of Korea Army. Our troops were poorly trained and physically unfit. They threw these troops in so quick they didn’t even have time to unclog their machine guns or set their sights.”
“Sounds more like a suicide mission,” Jake said. He gestured toward the stack of letters. “What was the gist of Hap Wilson’s letters?”
Setting his horn-rimmed glasses on the table, Carl said, “When he talks about the Army it’s like listening to a kid talk about football. He mentions nicknames of some of the guys in his unit. Basically, he was proud, patriotic, for god and country, that sort of thing.” He studied the coffee ring in his cup and told Jake about the bond between Mattie and her brother.
“That lady,” Carl continued, “would dust my pictures and framed awards. She thought cleaning the office of the FBI security director was the most important job in the world. She would have coffee ready, leave home baked goodies on a paper plate. Everyone loved her.”
“Confirmed bachelors bring out maternal instincts in many women.” Jake thought about Abby and smiled.
“Tell me about Sergeant Casey,” Carl said.
Jake took another long swallow of beer. “She has a great Indian lady for a housekeeper and cook. And Sam’s hell-bent on proving that State Representative Preston Hilliard had something to do with Hap Wilson’s death.”
Carl straighten up at the mention of Preston’s name. “What on earth would make her tie Representative Hilliard to Hap Wilson?”
Jake handed Carl a picture saying, “This is what Hap Wilson was holding.”
Carl stared at the picture, put his glasses back on and studied it closer. He was silent for a while, then asked, “Any prints?”
“No, we couldn’t lift any.”
Carl put the picture down. “What does this have to do with Preston?”
“Sergeant Casey found an identical pin in Preston’s safe.”
Chapter 21
A dull rhythm jarred Sam awake. Staring at the ceiling, she willed her body to move which was always a chore before nine in the morning. In her sleep, it seemed as if the dull sounds were the exercise equipment calling for her to make one of her too infrequent visits to the pain room. Her feet slowly hit the floor. She struggled into her sweat shorts and top and trudged downstairs.
“Aw, jeezus.” Sam pounded the door jamb at the entrance to her gym where Frank and Jake in sweat-soaked gym clothes were working out. “Six in the morning and I get to put up with you two.”
Jake climbed off the rowing machine sporting a five o’clock stubble and a look of pain on his face. “God, do you always look this bad in the morning?” Frank gave a half-hearted wave from the stair-stepper.
She stared them down with contempt. Sheet marks lined her face. Her hair was making a desperate attempt to unleash itself from the fabric tie. Jake met her in the doorway, gave a nod toward the room and said, “A lot of dust on those machines.” He brushed by her and headed out to the backyard for a jog.
The sun was peeking over the trees. The dew on the wet grass stained Jake’s tennis shoes as he made his way to an asphalt path past the gazebo.
He followed along a six-foot-high wrought-iron fence in which ivy had been allowed to crawl through and over. Sculptured multi-tiered gardens had been designed using perennials in increasing heights. A maze of trees blocked his view of the house.
His mind kept replaying his meeting with Carl. He wondered why Carl wouldn’t just have his Chicago office handle the investigation. He may have a soft spot for Mattie, but surely, Carl must have better things to do back in D.C.
As Jake turned the corner he noticed a small, ranch-style home which he assumed was the gate house. He didn’t stop. Not too far from the house was a timber-framed structure covere
d with heavy blankets.
One hundred feet beyond the structure he came to an abrupt stop. Standing before him was a thirty-foot-tall tipi. Jake touched the hide skin that had been tanned to a silky finish, then ducked his head and entered. Tall lodgepole pines supported the cone-shaped structure. There were enough tall trees around that only a pilot would be able to detect the tipi.
Hides covered all seven-hundred square feet of ground except for the center where charred remains of wood lay. Bowls and what looked like cooking pots and utensils hung by ropes nailed to the large timbers that stretched up toward the peak.
Jake slowly backed out and continued his run. His mind returned to Carl. Jake had gotten the distinct impression that Carl had seen the lightning bolt pin before. Jake saw a glimmer of recognition in Carl’s eyes. All Carl said when Jake had pressed him was, “I’ll look into it.” Then Carl asked him to keep an eye on Sam and to report back if anything new develops.
The well-manicured lawn was beginning to blend into taller rye grass. Off to the right was a vegetable garden. Past a field of what looked like hay the lawn narrowed to just a few yards wide.
Jake slowed to a walk and then stopped to take a few deep breaths. The air was filled with the sounds of nature. What lay ahead looked like it had been left to grow thick and natural. Creeping phlox meandered through the rye grass and over the rocks surrounding a sizable pond.
It was there, sitting on the rocks by the side of the pond that Jake saw him. The mahogany-skinned face was stoic and weathered. A red and white bandanna was wrapped around his forehead and tied just above his gray ponytail. The body under the blue denim shirt seemed firm and muscular. His neck and wrists were adorned with coral and turquoise jewelry.
Jake watched the Indian gently apply a salve and then wrap the foot of a squirrel while talking softly to it in a language Jake didn’t understand. In the back acres of Sam’s property Jake felt he had been thrown into another world.
