by Dave Daren
I checked my watch, then walked around the corner of the building and dialed Belle’s cell phone number. She had been quick to assure me that there would be service and I should call if I had anything I wanted to discuss with her. I wasn’t sure how long it would take her to drive to Bridgeport, or if her friend would even be able to help, but I wanted to talk to her about the best way to find the file.
“This must be Hunter Morgan,” she said when she answered. “You’re the only person I know at the moment with a New York City area code.”
“It’s me,” I agreed. “I talked to the Sheriff, and at the moment, they don’t have anything about the fire or the accident. But there’s a new wrinkle in the land sale.”
“Oh, dear,” she replied.
“The file’s missing,” I said. “Hup’s file, along with all the paperwork he’d completed. The clerks say he had everything ready to go, but if we don’t find it, they won’t be able to complete the deal until after the next election. And I’m guessing that won’t happen in the next two days.”
“Sadly, that sounds true,” Belle replied. “Is that the cut off for the agreement with Bam?”
“It is,” I replied. “If we don’t sign before the deadline, Bam keeps the deposit and the company has to make a new offer for the property.”
“I don’t know how much money your company paid Bam,” Belle replied, “but judging by Bam’s reaction after the deal was offered, I’d say it was rather large.”
“It was,” I sighed. “And Campania Olio isn’t some global conglomerate that can afford to lose that much money. They’ll take a hit if the deal isn’t done.”
“Are you sure they took the file and didn’t destroy it?” Belle asked.
“I think so,” I replied. “I think the clerks would have told me or the Sheriff if they had found the remnants of a burnt file in the office. No, someone wanted that file and the information that was in it. If that’s true, then the file might still be intact.”
“And I might know why,” Belle said a moment later. “My friend’s been working on this all night, but he’s turned up something. Seems our friend Mr. Crenshaw didn’t have much of a trail before he arrived at the Commune about a year ago.”
“We already knew that,” I pointed out.
“Yes, but what we didn’t find was his online handle,” she said.
“He has one?” I asked in surprise.
We’d perused environmental sites and various boards, but other than references to Crenshaw posted by other people, we hadn’t been able to find him anywhere.
“My friend had to visit the underside of the web,” Belle explained.
“You mean the dark web?” I asked with a chuckle.
“Well, nothing that illegal,” she replied. “It’s not the Silk Road or such. Maybe the gray web? Anyway, we found a handle for Crenshaw.”
“That’s good,” I answered.
“And here’s the thing,” she said. “Crenshaw only started using the handle about a year ago, when he arrived at the Commune. Before that, he was pretty much offline.”
“Huh,” I muttered as I tried to guess why Crenshaw had decided to risk being online.
“But my friend wasn’t done,” Belle continued. “He found the original owner of the handle.”
“The original owner?” I asked.
“The name first appears in several chat rooms in the 1990s,” she said. “Mostly gamer stuff. Pretty boring. Back then, the owner was a kid named Warren Palombo. He spent a lot of time in the chat rooms during high school, but things cooled off when he went to college. Disappeared completely when he joined the Navy.”
“Not a big surprise,” I replied though I could tell she was leading to something. “Most people develop new online identities.”
“Yes, but Mr. Palombo left the Navy after two tours and decided to continue his education,” she replied. “At Quantico.”
“I knew it,” I muttered as I considered this bomb dropping. “I knew he was feeding the Feds information. I just didn’t think he was a full-fledged agent.”
“He got a plumb assignment out of Quantico,” the gray-haired attorney said. “Probably because of his years in the Navy.”
“Let me guess,” I sighed. “New York City?”
“Indeed,” she agreed. “Practically unheard of for new graduates, but there you go. Now, we were able to find traces of him in New York City up until about a year and half ago. Then Palombo doesn’t appear in any more FBI reports, and a few months later, Crenshaw is moving onto the Commune.”
“So what did Crenshaw work in New York?” I asked. “RICO?”
“Domestic terrorism,” Belle replied.
“So they were investigating the environmentalists as domestic terrorists,” I mused.
“That was the plan, I think,” she agreed. “But I suspect they were disappointed when they finally got their man inside.”
“I wonder why he’s still here then?” I asked.
“The commune may be peaceful, but there are other groups out there that are not,” Belle said. “Palombo or Crenshaw or whatever you want to call him probably has contact with some of those other groups.”
“It must have been a godsend to the New York office when they found out Salvatore was interested in the property,” I replied. “What they didn’t know was that Salvatore was starting a legitimate business.”
“It might explain why someone took the file,” Belle pointed out. “If someone back in New York wanted to see it.”
“So just take pictures,” I said.
Belle and I were both silent for a moment as we tried to work through the puzzle.
“So Palombo is inserted as Crenshaw,” Belle said. “My guess is there’s a real Crenshaw out there, possibly under arrest somewhere or whisked away in the witness protection program after he gave them a few names. Crenshaw was probably just paranoid enough to believe that some of those he’d turned in would want to come for him. But because Crenshaw stayed out of the limelight, very few people in the environmental movement knew what he looked like.”
“I’m sure if you could find pictures to compare the two, you’d find that there were enough similarities that no one would doubt Palombo,” I remarked. “Not unless it was someone who had met the real Crenshaw.”
“So they sent him somewhere Crenshaw was known only by name,” Belle added. “But still close enough for him to be able to make reports to his office.”
“I wonder if his mission changed,” I replied.
“What makes you say that?” she asked.
“I found a microphone in the mine,” I said. “A high quality one like the Feds would have. It was pretty evident that someone was using it as a meeting spot and recording what was being said.”
“You think it was Crenshaw,” she said.
“The question is, who was he recording?” I asked. “Lila said Crenshaw met with the Sheriff, and not at the commune like Watkins did. Maybe Crenshaw and the Sheriff were using that as their meeting place until Bam had his falling out with Hup.”
“So does the Sheriff know about Crenshaw being a Fed?” Belle wondered.
“I think he does,” I said. “He’s told me twice now that he can’t tell me who revealed the buyer’s identity because of an ongoing investigation. So let’s say Crenshaw has been feeding information to the Sheriff while he’s been here. What’s Crenshaw been getting out of the deal?”
“A reason to stay here,” Belle suggested after a moment. “Think about it, Crenshaw arrives but discovers that the people on the commune are basically harmless. No domestic terrorists in sight.”
“That should be a good thing,” I pointed.
“Unless Hup and the Sheriff made the same offer to Crenshaw,” Belle said. “New leader in town, they probably figured they could hit him up for some cold hard cash as well.”
“Only they don’t know they’re talking to an agent,” I replied.
“At some point, he must have told them who he was,” she remarked.
“And then what?” I asked. “Did he ask to be cut in?”
“And if he did, he wouldn’t want to leave,” she replied. “He’d want to stay. So he and the Sheriff exchange information. He fills in the Sheriff on the Mafia don looking to buy the mine while the Sheriff tells him about what?”
I thought back over my own conversations with the Sheriff. He was cold and calculating, and learning that Crenshaw was an undercover agent wouldn’t have phased him. If Crenshaw hadn’t been interested in his own cut, I’m sure the leader would have had his own accident at some point. So maybe Crenshaw had played along just to gather dirt on the Sheriff and Hup, which explained the mic in the mine and the Sheriff’s expression when he heard about it.
But something still wasn’t right with that picture. I had a feeling that Crenshaw had wanted in, and whatever recordings he might have made were probably to protect his own back. Belle was right, though, and Crenshaw would have to give his handlers enough to keep him in Folsom. So the Sheriff was probably supplying information about whatever domestic terrorist groups were in the area while Crenshaw proved his worth to Hup’s gang by feeding them information about FBI investigations that might strike too close to home.
And then the Febbos had come along to mess up Crenshaw’s little operation. Word must have come down from New York that the Febbo deal should be quashed. It really didn’t matter why. I could think of a few dozen city, state, and federal agents who would be happy to shut down Salvatore’s purchase just so they could cause trouble for the family.
Crenshaw must have passed along the order to Hup and Shifty, both of whom would have told Bam that the new deal for the mine wouldn’t go through. Only Bam rebelled and decided he was tired of taking instructions from his one-time pals and he really wanted to be done with the mine.
Was that when Crenshaw had told Hup and Shifty that the company was tied to the Mafia? Probably. And Hup and Shifty had agreed that a Mafia operation was not what the town needed. At least, not until Salvatore had made his offer, and Hup and Shifty had decided it was too good a deal to leave on the table. So Hup and Shifty decided the deal could go through, for the right price, which left Crenshaw in trouble with his bosses and facing the possibility of a recall to explain what had gone wrong.
“It’s Crenshaw,” Belle and I said at the same time.
“And he still has the file because someone in New York wants it,” I said. “They probably think they can use it as evidence. Or, if worse comes to worse, they can wave it in Salvatore’s face and tell him they shut down his plans.”
“Then we can still get it back,” Belle said with a note of excitement.
“I can,” I corrected. “I can head out to the farm and find Crenshaw before the Sheriff does.”
“I’m surprised Shifty hasn’t already turned the place upside down,” Belle replied.
“He can’t do anything to Eliot on the commune,” I pointed out. “He’ll have to wait until our friendly neighborhood FBI spy leaves the property.”
“Right,” Belle noted.
“And Crenshaw’s had enough time to find all the hiding spots out there,” I added. “The Sheriff knows that.”
“Hmmm,” Belle mused.
“I’ve got to find Lila,” I said. “She knows all the hiding places as well.”
“Just be careful,” the gray-haired attorney warned. “If he is a Federal agent, he’ll have a gun. And I would guess that he won’t be afraid to use it at this point.”
Belle was right about that, I realized. If Crenshaw had been a part of Hup’s scheme, then the agent’s private retirement account was about to be shut down. The real question, then, was how far would Crenshaw go to protect his shady income. I had a feeling that if he had to kill a mob lawyer and a tree hugger to keep the money flowing in, he wouldn’t think twice about putting a bullet into me and Lila.
“We’ll be careful,” I assured Belle. “Just get back here as soon as you can. I have a feeling that things are about to get nasty.”
Of course, this was West Virginia, so strange and unpredictable were probably more accurate than nasty, but I didn’t yet appreciate that.
Chapter 14
I drove back towards Belle’s house as I alternated between speeding along so I could pick up Lila and get out to the commune quickly and slowing down to scan the pedestrians for any sign of the brown-haired environmentalist and Chester the Great Dane. I finally spotted the pair a short distance away from Belle’s house, and though Chester seemed chipper enough, Lila looked despondent. It was easy to see that she hadn’t had much luck discovering who had started the fire, and I felt a twinge of guilt at having to break the news of Crenshaw’s real identity to her.
I pulled onto the curb and parked the truck, then stepped out of the cab to watch the pair walk towards me. Lila broke out into a sunny smile when she saw me while Chester woofed in disapproval. Lila rubbed his ears to reassure him, then started to jog along the road. For Chester, it was little more than a gentle lope, and I wondered how on Earth Belle managed to exercise the giant dog whenever she took him out.
“Hey,” Lila greeted as she stopped by the truck.
“Hey,” I replied. “Listen, can you put Chester back inside? I need your help finding something that I think is at the commune.”
“Oh, sure,” Lila agreed though I could see the confusion in her eyes.
“I’ll explain in the truck,” I promised.
Lila nodded and tugged on the big dog’s leash. He remained stock still long enough to give me a strong look of disapproval, then slowly followed Lila towards the side door. She unlocked the door, disappeared inside for several minutes, then reappeared without Chester. She locked the door and trotted back to the truck with another large smile on her face as I held the passenger door open for her.
“Thanks,” she said in a cheerful voice as she slid onto the seat.
The environmentalist was apparently so happy to be helping with something that she didn’t even ask what we were going to do at the commune when we first set off. She opened the window and stuck her head outside just enough to send her long brown tresses flowing in the wind.
“Won’t your hair get tangled?” I teased.
“It’s fine,” she replied. “No one at the commune will care, and my brush is still there anyway. So why are we going there?”
I hesitated, uncertain how to explain my suspicions to the young woman. She pulled her head back in the cab and gave me an inquisitive look, though her attempt to look serious was somewhat ruined by the frazzled appearance of her hair.
“What do you know about Eliot Crenshaw?” I asked.
“Not much,” she said with a shrug. “He’s worked with several other groups.”
“How did he end up here?” I pressed.
Lila squinted and stared out the windshield for several minutes. I thought she had decided not to answer when she finally huffed and shrugged again.
“He turned up one day,” she said. “A few months after Tracey left. He said he’d heard from some of the protest leaders that Tracey had gone to Canada to be with her family and he wanted to help us close the last mines.”
“Was it well known that Tracey had left?” I asked.
Another long pause, and this time Lila rubbed at the freckles on her nose while she tried to remember.
“I guess so,” she said. “It wasn’t a big secret. Her son was graduating from college, and he had written to invite her to the ceremony. After she said she would be there, they started writing more and he finally asked her to move closer to him. She said yes to that as well. We had a big farewell party for her and people from all over came to say goodbye.”
“Was Eliot at the party?”
“No,” she said without hesitation. “I would have remembered if he was. He looks so sour all the time it’s hard not to see him.”
“So Tracey left and a few months later Crenshaw turned up,” I mused. “Uninvited but offering to help.”
“That’s about it,�
�� she agreed. “Now you get to tell me why you’re asking.”
“Belle and I have been trying to learn more about him,” I admitted. “We thought it was strange that there was so little information about him, and no pictures. And even though he’s considered a leader in the environmental movement, he doesn’t seem to have developed any strong ties to one group until he joined the commune. Before that, he was almost a ghost, unknown except to only a few fellow environmentalists.”
“Well,” Lila said with a frown. “A lot of people are like that. They’re worried that the government is watching them.”
And now for the hard part, I thought.
“Then why settle at the farm?” I asked.
“He’s getting older,” she suggested.
“Does he really strike you as someone who would be worried about getting old?” I asked.
Lila shook her head, and the crease in her forehead deepened as she tried to gauge where I was heading with my questions.
“We found the online account he uses to talk to other groups,” I said.
“Um, okay,” she murmured.
“And we traced its history,” I continued. “The kid who created it years ago joined the Navy after college and then the FBI.”
“So?” she said defensively. “You said that was years ago. Eliot could just be using it to… to… because it was available.”
“Maybe,” I said. “But I tend to think he started using it precisely because he hasn’t used it in years so no one will tie it to him unless they do a deep search.”
“So Eliot works for the FBI?” she chortled. “All these years?”
“No, not all these years,” I replied. “There was a stretch where he vanished for several months, right after a crackdown on an antifa rally. I would guess he was picked up, either at the rally or soon after that. The FBI convinced him to enter witness protection, or just stashed him somewhere, and they put their guy in. It was easy enough to do since almost no one knows what Crenshaw looks like and he spent most of his time on the west coast. The odds of him meeting someone he knew, or that Crenshaw was supposed to know, here in West Virginia must have seemed infinitesimally small.”
