“Jean Pollack ha’ yesterday, I’m thinkin’, and Geordie Hamilton t’day. If ye’ve a wee minute I’ll ca’ them fer ye.”
“Yes, please.” Detective Tran waited while Angus pulled out his phone and peered at it. Text messages could be tracked. Voice was safer. He just hoped Geordie was paying attention.
“Can you put it on speaker phone, please?”
He nodded. No flies on this woman. “Geordie? Yer on speaker and I’ve a wee question fer ye from a detective whose lookin’ fer Charlie Monroe. Hae ye seen him t’day?”
“Nae. Not a swatch.”
“Was it you ‘twas tae check on him this day? Did ye go o’er tae his hoose?”
There was a tiny pause. “Auch, was it my turn, then? I’ll go noo.”
Himself looked over at the detective, who nodded.
“Hae ye a key, Geordie?”
“Aye. Is there something ye be wantin’, other than Charlie?”
“Nae, jus’ th’ man hisself.”
“Ask him to wait for me,” she said.
“Geordie, the detective wants ye tae wait fer her.”
“I’ll be oot front.”
“Thank ye!” Himself hung up the phone. “Tha’ reminds me. Charlie an’ Reggie were goin’ fishin’ Friday nicht. But they had tae cancel because Reggie couldna go.”
Detective Tran took out a notepad. “Do you know where?”
Himself nodded. “Loch Lavon.”
“We’ll check that out. Is there anything else you can tell me?”
Himself shook his head.
“All right. Thank you for your help.”
Angus watched the detective get into her car and drive off. He made his way to his own car, got in, and drove over to the Homestead, checking frequently to see if he was being followed. Once inside the shelter, no one could eavesdrop on them. The walls were too thick and the caverns too deep. With the communications net in privacy mode they would be able to talk freely.
* * *
Sunday Afternoon
Caverns beneath the Loch Lonach Homestead
The three of them sat in one of the meeting rooms, steaming cups of coffee in front of them, the remainder of the table covered in notes.
Himself looked over at Charlie. “Jim and Ginny canna leave ‘til Tuesday morn, but we can get ye awa afore that and maybe should.”
Reggie looked dubious. “The plan is for them to drive to the entrance and pick him up there.”
“I’m thinkin’ th’ police may ha’ decided tae follow Miss Ginny. They spoke tae her this morn at th’ hospital.”
“Damn.” Reggie was silent for a full minute. “Okay. Here’s the thing. If the police are actually tracking us, any of us, that implies they think we know where Charlie is, that we’re hiding him, and that we can lead them to him, which means that we have to make sure they can follow any one of us and we lead them exactly nowhere. It also means we have to find a way to get Charlie out of here and to a rendezvous of some sort that won’t attract their attention and isn’t overlooked by any of the electronic devices they have access to, which includes all the traffic and security cameras. What’s more, whatever we come up with will have to be communicated to Jim and Ginny and if any of us go talk to them or phone them or use the e-mail or text systems it can be tracked. The police will have warrants ready as soon as they have enough to convince a judge there’s reason to suspect a conspiracy to obstruct justice.” He drummed his fingers on the table.
“Getting Charlie out just means making sure there’s no surveillance going on at the moment and that could include satellite and helicopters, though I can’t believe anyone thinks he’s worth the kind of money we’re talking about since he’s not a terror threat, just a murderer. There’s no reason to think the feds are interested in him, is there?” Reggie looked from Himself to Charlie, then back. They both shook their heads.
“Okay. So what we have to do is take Charlie out in something that looks like it could not possibly have a human being hidden inside it, especially not one his size. I’ve got just the thing, too. It’s a modified motorcycle. The saddlebags have a very nice hideyhole and, if opened, are full of clothing and sundry other useful camouflage. You won’t be comfortable and there’s a limit to how long you can stay in there, but it’s enough to get you past a cordon. We just have to figure out how far we have to go and in which direction and then we have to identify where to decant you that’s safe to wait and then we have to figure out how to get Jim and Ginny to the right place without alerting the police to the pickup spot. Do you have their route?”
“Aye.” Himself pulled a map from the pile of papers and handed it over. Reggie studied it.
“We need something that’s far enough out of town that it makes a convincing place to stop, but not so far that Charlie can’t be unpretzelized.” He traced the route on the map, then studied the images of the area.
“Here. See this? The super center has a covered area, garden department, probably, and it’s on the back side of the building and it abuts this residential area and the residents obviously don’t like the super center because they’ve planted shrubs all along this edge; close enough so they screen the houses from the store. We can park Charlie in the store and he can get into the car while it’s under the awning.”
Reggie chewed on his lip. “We need to make sure Charlie can’t be seen entering the car or suddenly appearing inside of it. No chance of someone noticing two heads going behind the building and three coming out.”
“I’ve already thought o’ that. Jim wasnae happy aboot using th’ van, but he’ll make do.”
“Okay. How about this? They need to purchase something biggish at the superstore and they will need to have help loading it into the van so they go around to the loading dock and open the doors and the men hoist it inside and during the distraction Charlie slips into the van with his head down and no one the wiser.”
“Can ye get Charlie into the store wi’oot th’ cameras noticing him?”
“We can disguise him as one of the workers—cap, vest, work gloves, that sort of thing.”
Himself nodded. “Th’ Gunns live o’er that way. They can tak’ him tae the supercenter and let him slip oot o’ their car intae th’ shadows.”
“I’ll set it up.” Reggie nodded vigorously. “I like it. Now we just need to let Jim know what he needs to do. Will he come to you before he leaves town? Do you have any kind of meeting planned? How about you have him over to dinner? How about you have both of them over and feed them, or you could go to Ginny’s house. No, better they should come to you so you can control the access. I’ve got some nice little toys that will let you know if anyone is listening in. You don’t want to disable them, you understand, just be aware they are there so you don’t say anything you don’t want overheard. Make sure you meet in an inside room with no windows, and no computers. They can turn those webcams on remotely, you know.”
“I didnae know that.”
“True. You can have a cordial farewell dinner conversation and be passing notes at the same time. I’ll write the whole thing up right now so you can take it with you. Once we get Charlie in the car, he’ll need to stay out of sight until we can be reasonably sure the police are no longer following them, which may be over the state line. I’ll get back to you on that.”
The Laird rode up in the elevator, thinking about the creativity and complexity of the new plan. Things could go wrong with something like that. He had to hope that Jim could pull it off, and Monroe, too, otherwise there was no telling what sort of trouble they might get into. He sighed and headed home.
* * *
Chapter 11
Monday Early Morning
Hillcrest Regional Medical Center
Jim set the remainder of his hospital-approved burger aside and picked up his coffee. “Grandfather wants us to dine with him tonight, a sort of last supper before we take off.”
Ginny was poking away at a tuna casserole, picking out bits of unidentified material.
She lifted an eyebrow in his direction. “I’ll look forward to it. I can always trust his cooking.”
Jim laughed. “Who would have thought? He’s really quite good. I suppose it was either learn to feed himself or go hungry.”
Ginny risked another bite of the casserole. “When did your grandmother die?”
“I was fourteen. I think he misses her.”
Ginny nodded. “I remember her. She was always kind to me. She would give me milk and ginger snaps.”
Jim smiled. “She was stern with me. I remember being scolded for bringing wildlife into the house.”
“What kind of wildlife?”
“Garter snakes and horny toads and an assortment of insects.”
“Not those horrible big roaches?!”
“No. Beetles. Also fireflies and grasshoppers.”
Ginny shook her head at him. “Boys!”
He leaned toward her. “You can’t tell me you didn’t catch fireflies. I won’t believe you.”
She smiled. “I did, but I didn’t bring them into the house. I just chased them around the yard, trapping them in my hands, then letting them go.”
Jim had a sudden vision of Ginny at age five, eyes alight as she watched the firefly’s glow escape between her fingers. He was still smiling at the image when she spoke again.
“Detective Tran was waiting for me when I got out of work yesterday morning.”
Jim came back to the present with a thud. “Detective Tran?”
“She wanted to know if I’d seen Charlie.”
“What did you tell her?”
“The truth.”
Jim’s brow furrowed. “All of it?”
She dimpled. “No. She very obligingly asked me nothing I could not answer honestly. I did see Charlie, on Friday, at his house, and at the ceilidh. Has she approached you?”
Jim shook his head. “No. Come to think of it, I haven’t seen him either. Where was he on Saturday?”
Ginny shook her head. “I have no idea, thank goodness.” She caught his eye. “But I think I can guess who does.”
Jim’s eyebrows rose. “And we’ve been summoned to dinner.”
* * *
Monday Afternoon
Police Substation
Detective Tran sat at her desk on Monday afternoon, a small frown on her face. The office was old, even by Dallas standards, and had seen battle somewhere along the way; there were scars on the linoleum tile. They did not bother her.
She had arranged the room to suit her needs. The whiteboards on the wall hung in perfect alignment, both to plumb and to one another. Markers lay in the same location in each of the trays. The papers on the desk were sorted and labeled and did not move in the breeze from the central heating.
So far, the only viable suspect was Charles Monroe, and he was proving hard to pin down. A background check had revealed that he, Monroe, had trained as a Navy Special Warfare Operator. He’d served a total of eight years, then left with an honorable discharge, giving family medical issues as a reason. His SEAL training had included using a knife to kill quickly and silently in exactly this manner, but there was no physical evidence to tie Monroe to this death.
She set down the report, rose, and walked over to the first of the three whiteboards. This one was the calendar.
The time line was unclear. The coroner hadn’t been able to do better than ‘killed two or three days before he was found’. His blood alcohol level indicated he was quite seriously drunk at the time of his demise, but no one remembered seeing him either in a bar or one of the local liquor stores prior to that time.
Without knowing where the homicide occurred, it was hard to narrow down the geographic search area. They had started in the more heavily Hispanic areas of town and sent in officers who both spoke the language and understood the culture, but had discovered nothing useful.
Most likely the victim had gone into hiding when he escaped police custody last November. That hadn’t been one of Detective Tran’s cases so she was having to catch up.
There were three vehicular homicides on his record (in addition to the one that killed Mr. Monroe’s family), two in Houston and one in San Antonio. In each case, the offender had done time in the county jail, then been deported back to Mexico, only to surface again in Texas when he killed someone else. In each case, he’d had a blood alcohol level well above the legal limit, and no driver’s license.
Two of the incidents had been side swipes on the highway. In one of those the deceased’s vehicle had spun out, then flipped over, crushing the occupant. In the other, the vehicle went off the overpass and landed on the highway below. The third incident was a grandmother struck while waiting for assistance on the side of the road.
In the two side swipes, the other drivers had been speeding and there was some discussion about who was actually at fault. The grandmother was another matter. She’d been inside the car, with her flashers on when he rear-ended her. The impact had snapped her neck.
The collision that killed the Monroe family was similar. It was one of those days when the Texas sky opened up and dropped an astounding amount of water in an even more astounding amount of time. Visibility had been close to zero. Evidence from the scene indicated Mrs. Monroe had pulled over to the right hand side of the road, turned on the flashers, and prepared to wait it out.
The car had been struck from behind and knocked off the roadway into a normally dry culvert. It rolled, landing on its roof, smashing the front and back windshields and two of the four side windows. Someone saw the wreck and called 9-1-1. By the time the police got there, ten minutes later, the culvert was full of water. All three bodies were found still strapped in their seats. All three were pronounced dead at the scene, and the autopsies showed impact injuries and water in their lungs.
Detective Tran had looked closely at the survivors from the other three known incidents. All had motive, but none had the training required to wield a knife in that particular way. There could be other victims, of course. If the drunk driver had done the same in Mexico, he might have powerful enemies on both sides of the border.
Detective Tran eyed her calendar. The culprit was last seen in Dallas on the day he missed the deportation bus. That day was marked in purple on the calendar, as was the day his body had been found, and the time frame within which he probably died.
Her brow furrowed. Many people could have done the killing, but not many could have arranged to dispose of the body in that spectacular manner.
A more experienced murderer would have left the body where it fell. The fact that it was moved indicated a strong need to do so. The place it was found seemed to implicate the Scots. It was their ship and their people. But they had seemed genuinely shocked at the discovery.
Detective Tran approved the tight-knit Scottish clan structure, and the deference shown by the young to their elders. It mirrored her own upbringing. Furthermore, when she researched the Up-Helly-Aa, she found another connection. Fire festivals were a tradition in both cultures.
The Scots had been instructed by the Laird to cooperate, and there was no reason to think they had not answered every question completely and truthfully. She had several witnesses willing to swear Charles Monroe was not involved in building the Viking ship. He had done so in the past, but not this year. They had been discreet, but the consensus was that the death of his family had resulted in his taking to drink, and that the liquor had incapacitated him. He had not been seen on the grounds at any time during the construction, or while moving the vessel to the water in preparation for the burning, or during the ceremony and subsequent celebration.
But that did not cover every possibility. She would very much like to ask Mr. Monroe where he was during those crucial hours between the completion of the building and the destruction of the ship. Unfortunately, no one had seen Charles Monroe since he left the Cooperative Hall on Friday night. Detective Tran picked up the green marker and made a note on the calendar, then moved to the second board.
The body in the
boat had been identified from DNA collected at the times of his multiple arrests. There was no trace evidence to lead them to the scene of the killing. What the fire hadn’t destroyed (and it had taken all of the victim’s clothing and most of his skin), the water had washed away, or the fish had gotten to. All they had was the autopsy.
The circumstances of Mr. Monroe’s skill set and his connection to the Scots made him a ‘person of interest’, but neither exonerated nor condemned him. Detective Tran made a new note, in red this time, indicating that Mr. Monroe’s whereabouts were unknown for more than a week surrounding the presumed time of death.
She’d done some discreet digging. He’d lost his job in late November. Everyone was terribly sympathetic, but he was not showing up for work, and when he did he was often drunk. They couldn’t have that. They were sorry. They hadn’t seen him in two months.
He had dropped out of school at about the same time. He’d been studying communications technology, and making good grades. The school had provided attendance records, and interviews with his teachers had produced regretful reports of a promising future lost.
The Scots had been more useful. He was one of theirs and they’d been keeping an eye on him, before as well as after that incident in the park. A rather careless eye, as it turned out. There had been no formal arrangement until a week after the ship burning, the day he’d been released from the hospital. After that, they’d had someone assigned to him.
But they had dropped the ball and let him go off fishing on his own. Not on purpose. A witness had been found who had overheard a conversation between Angus Mackenzie and Charles Monroe, discussing the need to cancel the fishing trip since his companion was unable to go, which corroborated what the Laird had told her. Apparently Mr. Monroe had decided to go anyway.
The Sheriff’s Office had found the drifting boat, and one of his shoes, and his pole, a fish still attached, but no body. They had sent divers down and dredged the bottom without results. Most bodies that went missing in Texas lakes were found inside cars, trapped and drowned, but all the lake bottoms had refuse in them, and much of it could catch and hold a man. He could still be down there. It was just that the accident was so convenient.
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