Sleuthing at Sweet Springs (The Sleuth Sisters Mysteries Book 4)

by Maggie Pill

  It was hard to believe this was the guy who’d claimed he couldn’t possibly come to the Ugly Bar and play my brother. For the record, at no time had I said he should arrive looking like Easy Rider.

  While I recovered from the costume, Gabe said his next line. “You know you ain’t supposed to be seen in a bar.”

  “I was just telling this guy about the fed over there,” I replied. “I’ll be glad when he goes back to Detroit or wherever.”

  Gabe’s tone grew more irritated. “You ain’t supposed to be drinking in public until your case is settled.” With a glare worthy of an Oscar, he inclined his head at Gager. “And you sure don’t need to blab your business to some bartender.”

  Slurring my words a little, I gestured toward Lars. “He’s not investigating my drunk driving thing. He’s here for—”

  “You don’t want to be part of what he’s here for.” Warming to the role, Gabe glared at me. “Keep talking—you’ll get subpoenaed to testify against those people when they catch them.”

  I flashed Gager a nervous look and he asked, “He’s after two people—that FBI guy?”

  I bit my lip like I’d really screwed up. “Forget what I said, okay?”

  His smile was casual but a little off. “Hey, I’m a bartender. We listen, but we don’t really hear.”

  From the look on Gager’s face as we left, I knew that was a lie. He’d heard, and he was worried.

  Gabe insisted on waiting outside with me, but he shivered like a sapling and yawned loudly every few minutes. Finally Lars and Cramer came out of the bar.

  “How did it go?” I asked.

  Lars chuckled. “The guy practically turned himself inside out trying to hear what we were saying.”

  He turned to Cramer, who added, “When I went to the rest room, he caught me in the hallway and asked if that really was a fed I was talking to.”

  “And you said?”

  “Just what you told me to,” Cramer replied. “That Agent Johannsen is looking into cyber-crimes in the Allport area. I said I was a suspect because of my computer background and my acquaintance with the victim, but I was in the clear now. I made like it was a big relief but told him I couldn’t say anymore, because the investigation is on-going.”

  “Perfect,” I said. “Now you two should go. Lars and I will wait to see where Mr. Gager goes after work, which we hope will be directly to his partner’s house.”

  Though reluctant to leave the scene of the action, the boys headed to their respective pickup trucks. Lars and I scrunched down in the seats of his rental and waited. It was one of those crispy nights when the cold feels like it’s trying to get under your skin, and soon Lars turned on the ignition. Fiddling with the gauges, he warmed his hands in the blower. “Boy, the temperature sure dropped when the sun went down.”

  We talked a little at first, comparing impressions of Gager, but after a while we just waited. I kept shifting in my seat, but Lars seemed used to it. After twenty-eight minutes of silence I asked, “What if he called and told her about this on the phone?”

  “If he’s as paranoid as most cyber-crooks I’ve known, he’ll be convinced the Bureau is listening in.”

  The windows started fogging up, and I turned the dial so the warm air blew on the windshield. As it cleared, we saw Gager with his back to us as he locked the bar’s back door. Crossing the parking lot, he climbed into a light-colored car that had duct tape holding one of the tail-lights together. He’d lit a cigarette as soon as he left the building, so when he got in, he rolled the car window down. The car didn’t want to start, and we heard him swear at it with no originality whatsoever. Either the oaths or the repeated attempts paid off, and the vehicle finally started with a roar and a puff of smoke.

  We’d parked out of reach of the street lamp’s glow. When he turned at the first corner and went north, Lars put the car into gear. It wasn’t difficult to follow, since it was after midnight in Allport. The streets were silent, and there was only one set of tail-lights ahead of us.

  Cramer had given me Gager’s address, but he didn’t head for the trailer park. “We’re two lucky ducks,” I told Lars. “He’s going to go see the woman.”

  Lars played devil’s advocate. “At midnight?”

  “The Burners and the chickens are asleep at ten,” I replied. “That doesn’t mean everyone in Allport is.”

  Gager went up US-23, Allport’s main road, then turned into a residential neighborhood. Lars turned off the headlights. “We can see well enough by the streetlights, and we don’t want him to notice we’re back here.”

  When Gager finally slowed, he turned into a drive where a sign said Windswept Apartments. Knowing the place slightly from a previous case, I directed Lars to pull into a dark corner. “We have to go on foot from here or he’ll see us.”

  “I’ll go on foot. You’ll wait here.” Lars spoke in his FBI voice. We’d talked earlier about whether I could be in on this part, and my arguments had been sound. I knew the area and the people better than Lars did. When women make logical statements, men tend to fall back on a flat, “No.” That’s what Lars had done.

  I didn’t see how he was going to stop me.

  “Wish I’d known there’d be surveillance,” Lars complained as Gager finished a second cigarette before exiting his car. “I could have brought things to make the whole process easier.”

  “Would that have been legal, since this isn’t an FBI case?”

  He sniffed once. “No.”

  “Then we go with what we’ve got,” I said. “Brainpower.”

  One of those parabolic microphones would have been nice, it was true. As it was, we probably wouldn’t hear anything.

  When Gager left his car and headed for the apartments, Lars got out and followed, staying in the shadows.

  As soon as Lars was far enough away, I went after him, also staying out of the lights. When Lars saw I’d followed, his choices would be to let me stay or give up on the mission. I knew him well enough to guess which he’d choose.

  I caught up with him at the front corner of Building C, where Harold Gager was knocking on a door three apartments down. Lars glared, but I wasn’t about to turn around and go back to the car because of a dirty look. With a grimace that said he should have known, he made the universal sign for silence, a finger to his lips. Like I was going to start singing “The Star-spangled Banner” at the top of my voice!

  When Gager knocked a second time, louder and with impatience, the door opened. Lars leaned back, and we strained our ears to hear what was said. Since I was around a corner and behind a large man, I wasn’t in an optimal position for eaves-dropping. I caught only a few words.

  “She’s sleeping. —can’t come in.” It was a female voice, petulant and vaguely familiar.

  Gager rumbled something in a low voice, and the woman made a noise that might have been disagreement. He said something else, and she replied, “—minute. —coat.”

  Lars heard better than I could. “They’re coming outside.”

  “Come on.” I started for the parking lot where Gager had left his car. If they were going to talk outside on a cold night, they’d probably choose to sit in a warm vehicle rather than stand out in the wind. We had to get there first, get out of sight, and pray we could hear what was said.

  I zig-zagged through the shadows with Lars close behind. Seconds later the apartment door closed, and we doubled our pace.

  Gager had left his car between two others. Lars took a crouched position behind one and pointed me toward the other. I hurried into place as two people approached the battered Ford and got in. Gager started the engine, which only took two tries this time, since it had warmed on the way over. The noise it made dashed any hopes I’d had of hearing what they had to say. The thing sounded like a dryer with tennis shoes inside.

  Then the miracle we needed happened: Gager lit yet another cigarette. In seconds the woman rolled down her window, waving a hand to push the smoke outside. “Do you have to burn one every three min
utes?” she said angrily.

  Since I was on her side of the vehicle, I heard her clearly and even smelled the acrid smoke she was complaining about. More than that, I recognized the voice. It was Cramer’s ex-wife, April.

  Without going too deeply into family history, here’s the condensed version. Cramer and April married just out of high school. She quickly grew bored with having a husband who—make that bored with having a husband. She left Cramer for some guy she met on the internet. When that and a few other relationships didn’t work out, April returned to Cramer, who took her back for reasons the rest of us didn’t understand. The last time, when she’d left again to take up residence with a hard-drinking trucker, Cramer had finally summoned the gumption to end it. Despite offers to return and promises to do better, Cramer had filed for divorce, and April no longer had a husband to come home to when she needed a rest.

  The trucker had moved on, and for the last few months April had been tending bar. It occurred to me now that it was probably at the Ugly. I recalled hearing she’d been arrested after a catfight there, but I’d never learned how it turned out.

  Now here she was with Harold Gager. I was dying to hear what they were saying. Though Lars made frantic gestures of discouragement, I got down on my hands and knees and crawled toward the passenger-side window.

  Gager was doing most of the talking, and I caught the end of a sentence. “—that’s what the old broad said.”

  Old broad? Really?

  “They don’t know who it is,” April said. “They’re fishing.”

  “Well, if the FBI is fishing in Allport, I’m going to be someplace else.”

  She huffed in disgust. “You’re just going to take off? Quit your job and—”

  “My job?” Gager interrupted, raising his voice. “You call pouring drinks and cleaning up vomit in the bathrooms a job?”

  “Yeah, yeah, I know. You should be in law enforcement.” Her tone was disdainful. “You got all jacked out of shape because Neuencamp didn’t pick you for the good guys’ team. It was kind of fun giving him a hard time, but now we have to stop. How hard is that to figure out?”

  “You don’t get it. Everything you do on the internet leaves a mark, and with the resources the FBI’s got, they’ll find me.” He paused, apparently aware his problems didn’t move her. “The same with phone calls. They’ve probably got your voice stored digitally. If they dig into who I’ve been with, they’ll get to you sooner or later.”

  “Oh.” Disdain left her voice. “What do we do?”

  “I told you. I go someplace else.”

  “What about me?”

  “You can come if you want.”

  She thought about that. “My mom’s here, and all my friends.”

  “Yeah.” He didn’t care much one way or the other.

  “Sir, could you step out of the car, please?”

  Three of the four of us made noises of surprise. April let out a little squeak, Gager said the word you’d expect a sleaze like him to say in such a situation, and I gasped like a landed flounder. Listening closely, I hadn’t seen Lars leave his hiding place and approach the driver’s side window.

  Without giving Gager time to think about what to do next Lars ordered, “Step out of the car, now.”

  Gager started to obey, moving slowly as if petrified with fear. I stood, craning my neck to see what was happening at the front of the car. Lars unlatched the door and took a step back. Gager put one foot on the ground, still moving in extreme slo-mo. When the dome light came on, I saw something under the steering column that didn’t belong there. Gager’s right hand moved toward it.

  “Gun, Lars!”

  As I spoke, Gager pulled the pistol out of its holster, at the same time pushing the car door toward Lars in an attempt to knock him off balance. Raising the pistol with his right hand, Gager tried to launch himself out of the car.

  In one smooth movement, Lars reached in and took the gun as easily as if he were relieving a toddler of a lollipop. At the same time, he smashed the car door onto Gager’s leg, making him roar with pain. Before I was quite sure what had happened, Lars held the gun loosely in one hand as Gager groaned, “My leg! My leg!”

  “Amateurs want to go around armed,” Lars said calmly, “but they don’t put in the work it takes to learn how to handle guns.”

  April had started crying the moment she saw the pistol, but I put a hand on her arm. “Shut up,” I ordered. “You’re in a lot of trouble, so do what Agent Johannsen says.”

  In order to avoid residents who might have heard the noise we’d made, Lars ordered Gager and April to precede us to his rental car. If anyone in the apartments looked out a window, he’d merely have seen two couples crossing the parking area. When we reached the car, April and I took the back seat and Lars and Gager got in front.

  It took a while to get the story out of them. There was a lot of blaming each other, but we got the basics. Gager blamed Rory for not giving him a job with the Allport PD. April had been angry with him since her arrest in August. They’d met through their jobs at the Ugly, discovered each other’s secret desire to punish the chief, and cooked up the scheme, believing they wouldn’t get caught because they’d been so clever about it.

  “I can’t believe you’d do this, April,” I scolded.

  “He treated me like I was fourteen,” she insisted. “He said really mean things to me with Cramer standing right there!”

  “If you didn’t act like a child, maybe he wouldn’t have treated you like one,” I responded. Lars shot me a glance, indicating he’d handle the situation.

  “Here’s what can happen,” he told Gager in a business-like tone. “I can arrest you for cyber-crimes and assaulting a federal officer with what’s probably an illegal weapon, along with whatever else I think of on the way to the police station. You’ll go to jail tonight, and I doubt you’ll see the outside of a cell for a decade or so.”

  Gager started to protest, but Lars gave him a smack on the shoulder with the heel of his hand. “Listen to me, jerk-face! You can go to jail, like I said, or, you can leave Allport—in fact, leave the state of Michigan. I’m willing to give you one chance. Get a new start somewhere, and don’t break any laws.” He held the gun up, by the trigger guard. “No more toys. I intend to put your name into our national database. If you get anything worse than a parking ticket, you will suffer the full penalty for what you’ve done here plus whatever you’re guilty of somewhere else.”

  “That ain’t right—” Gager began, but Lars interrupted.

  “What’s not right, dirt-bag, is trying to ruin the name of a decent man who did nothing to you.”

  Gager shut up then, which showed at least an iota of common sense.

  As April listened to Gager’s choices, fear showed on her face. She was a pretty girl—woman—but her attractiveness was fading fast. Too many days of too much alcohol made her face look bloated. She looked hard-eyed and cold-hearted, the opposite of what an adult woman wants unless she’s the villainess in a Bond movie.

  April’s gaze turned to me. She knew who I was, and I guessed she was trying to figure out how to turn the situation to her advantage.

  The method she chose was laughable. “Aunt Retta—”

  “Don’t go there,” I ordered. “You lost any respect I might have had for you the first time you ditched your husband to become the life of some drunken loser’s party.”

  Her lip trembled, but I didn’t believe it for a minute. “What are we going to do with this one, Agent Johannsen?”

  “Same deal, you think?”

  Whimpering, April put out a pleading hand. “I’m not like Harold. I can’t spend my life moving from place to place.”

  “No, just from man to man,” I commented.

  “All right,” Lars said. “I’ll offer you a different deal. You stay in town, but you call the city offices and the state police post tomorrow and explain that this whole thing was a bad joke. Apologize and promise it will never happen again.”


  As she thought about it, her jaw jutted stubbornly. Lars went on. “It’s time you grew up and stopped blaming other people for your problems.” He glanced at me, and I thought humor glinted in his eye, though it was too dark to tell. “Ms. Stilson here will let me know when you’ve done as ordered. When I hear from her, I’ll move your file to the FBI’s inactive section.”

  “You can do that?”

  “Ma’am, we’re the FBI. We do whatever we want.” Now there was definitely humor in the glance he shot at me, but his tone and that manly jaw of his were firm.

  They agreed to Lars’ terms, Gager angrily, April with a flirty smile that said she hoped to make him like her a little. Without reacting to either, Lars dismissed them. April walked away from Gager as if she’d never met him, hurrying across the windy parking lot to her apartment. Gager started his noisy vehicle one more time and sped away with a defiant squeal of tires. When they were out of sight, I climbed out of the back seat and got in front. Putting the car into gear, Lars started for my house.

  “Do you think they’ll do as you said?” I asked.

  “Mostly, yeah,” he replied. “Gager will always be a small-time hood, so I will enter him in the database. Most geeks, your nephew, for example, hack because they can, not because they want to hurt anybody. The fact that Gager used the computer to attack Rory and his habit of carrying a gun make him more dangerous. If his name comes up again, we’ll know he’s a bad apple. As for the girl, we might have scared her straight, but as selfish as she is, it’s hard to predict how she’ll view herself in the morning.” He looked at me. “I guess you know her pretty well?”

  I sighed. “Once upon a time, April was Cramer’s wife.”

  When I told Lars their history, he whistled softly. “Why do decent men pick losers then keep making excuses for them?”

  “It isn’t only men.” I chewed on my lip for a second. “I have to tell Cramer about this, and since I’m flying to Madison tomorrow, it has to be soon. She might call him with some made-up story.”