I said, “We appreciate anything you can tell us.”
“You’ve heard the rumor about the secret terrorist cell, Tools of Satan, being the target and not the clinic?”
“Is anybody taking that seriously?” I asked.
“It’s hard to discount anything in a catastrophe of this magnitude and complexity.”
“It’s from the Internet,” I said. “Who believes anything on there?”
“No one with a modicum of sense, but the idea won’t go away. It keeps picking up steam. I’ve been running around for hours trying to find a shred of evidence. Haven’t gotten any yet.”
I asked, “What do you know about Ken McCutcheon?”
Thieme said, “I’ve got five people to interview this afternoon so I’ll make this quick. You might think of ditching your guard.”
“You need to tell us why,” Scott said.
“I knew him in Bosnia five years ago. He was practically just a kid. He was not using the name McCutcheon. Yesterday, I saw him in the background in one of the stories about your truck being blown up. Rumors in Bosnia said he was connected with the militia movements here.”
“What proof do you have for that?” Scott asked.
“Enough for me. Not enough for a jury. I assumed he was still hiring himself out around the world someplace. I hear there’s a big market in Russia for skulking, sneaking, and assassinating. To be sure of my memory and my observation, I tried to contact some folks I knew in Bosnia. He was using the name Forandi in Bosnia. This guy can be extremely dangerous. How did you come to hire him?”
Scott explained.
“And that’s it?” Thieme said. “You believed that?”
“They’re good friends. They trusted him. He’s been fantastic. I’ve had zero trouble since I hired him.”
“He couldn’t stop the phone calls,” I said.
Thieme said, “I know somebody who’s a specialist in militia groups. The cops don’t like to admit it, but they’ve asked him to come to town. He’s the best. He’s a friend of mine. He’ll be able to give you more information. I’ll talk to him for you so he’ll expect your call.”
Scott asked, “Would McCutcheon have the nerve to set himself up in a legitimate business if he was a member of one of these groups? Someone would eventually find out, wouldn’t they?”
“Don’t militia group people have real jobs?” Thieme asked, and then answered his own question. “Of course they do. Somebody’s got to pay the bills.”
I said, “I thought they just lived off the land and wrote bad checks.”
Scott said, “You’re saying he might be a danger?”
“I’m reasonably certain this is the right guy. I only saw him for a few seconds on one report. I haven’t heard of any gay-supportive militia groups so I think he’d be a danger to you. Gay people are generally on their dislike lists. None of this, however, is my main story, yet. It’s something I’m keeping in mind. I’ve got other leads to track first.”
I asked, “Could we talk to your Bosnia sources?”
“A young reporter who now lives in this country made a pass at Forandi/McCutcheon in Bosnia. He beat the hell out of the reporter. Homophobia sucks.” Thieme wrote down a name and number and handed it to me. The name Toby Ratshinski meant nothing to me. The area code was 212, New York.
“Use my name,” Thieme said. “He’ll talk to you.” He also gave us the name of his expert on militia groups and the hotel where he was staying.
“What if McCutcheon isn’t the guy you think he is?”
“Can you guys afford to take that chance?”
“He’s waiting for us downstairs. Would you come take a look?”
“I can take a discreet glance.”
On the way down in the elevator I asked, “Have you ever heard of Susan Clancey, a woman who performs late-term abortions? She was supposedly coming to town.”
“I never heard of her, but that isn’t odd. I mostly do stories with international connections if I’m not actually over-seas covering something. I’m in this country less than a full month a year.”
I asked, “What do you do in an investigation like this?”
“Try to sort through the bull slung around at the official press conferences. Try to develop my own contacts. Try to do a little poking around on my own. Try to do a lot of basic legwork. A lot of modern reporting is telling the camera the obvious. Mostly I’ll give updates to the network that there has been no progress. After a week or so I move on to the next international crisis. Are you saying this Dr. Clancey is someone I should be investigating?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Lots of violence has happened when she’s gone to other towns.”
On the ground floor, McCutcheon noticed us, but didn’t come over. Thieme chatted with us about the weather as he surreptitiously examined McCutcheon. At last, he shook his head. “I think it’s him. In Bosnia the guy I’m talking about had dyed-black hair.”
Scott said, “I find it hard to believe he was disguising himself with just a dye job.”
“Why disguise himself at all?” I asked.
Thieme shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m just giving information. His hair was dyed that odd way they do now. Just the stuff on the top of the head. I’ve never understood that. It’s a trend started by people I never want to have to interview.”
“But it might not be him?” I asked.
“Sorry. You’ll need to talk to my source. This guy could be the brother of the guy I’m thinking of or not him at all. Put me on a witness stand and I couldn’t be sure. In my opinion, it probably is him.”
16
Thieme left.
Scott asked, “Do I fire McCutcheon?”
“Yes,” I replied immediately.
“You’re getting ahead of any facts that we have. Remember, he hasn’t proved a danger to us yet. And what do we do for protection if I do fire him?”
“There’s other firms. If he’s who Thieme says he is, he’s a danger to us.”
“He was walking with me to your truck the other night. He could have been killed. If he’s a danger, I don’t see him connected to the people trying to attack us. I’m going to go with my gut feeling. Whatever McCutcheon’s story is, he’s been faithful to me. Why would he be, if he’s out to do me or you harm?”
“I don’t know.”
“Until we get specific knowledge, I’m sticking with him.”
I had no plausible arguments to refute Scott’s logic. We used the pay phone in the lobby to try to call Thieme’s contact in New York. We got an answering machine. I decided not to leave a message.
“You know,” I said before we strolled over to McCutcheon, “if he’s out to get us, having him around means he knows our every move.”
Scott put his hand on my arm to stop me. “I’m kind of tired of this semi-cloak-and-dagger crap. I know you’re just out of the hospital, but this is getting to be a bit much. You don’t like him. That is not criminal. I remember your reasons for disapproving of him. ‘He’s too pretty to have his own agency.’ That logic sucks a hell of a lot more than the reasons I used to hire him.”
“That was more a joke than anything.”
“I wasn’t laughing. Your comments were dismissive and condescending. You don’t make shallow judgments based on looks. That’s not the kind of person you are. Why’d you do it this time?”
I hate it when he’s insightful, reasonable, and right. “I admit I was too flip, but you were too hasty.”
“Maybe” was all the admission he gave.
“My gut feeling says he’s a rat. Your gut feeling says he’s okay. I hope you’re right. I’ll agree to a truce about him until we know more. Okay?”
Scott agreed.
We stood across the lobby from McCutcheon. He nodded at us. “What now?” Scott asked.
“We could try Pulver,” I said.
We called, but he couldn’t meet us for several hours. Next, we called Jack Wolf, Kearn’s contact in the fire department. He agreed to
meet us at Ann Sather’s restaurant on Belmont.
When we arrived, we asked for a seat in the farthest room from the sidewalk. We huddled in a corner hidden from most observers in the restaurant. We asked McCutcheon to sit farther up front. Every few moments Scott peeked around the corner to see if Wolf had arrived.
In the meantime the waitress plunked a plate of confections on our table. These included the famed cinnamon rolls.
I began to wonder if McCutcheon himself wasn’t a magnet. Maybe he wasn’t a specific danger, but if someone was single-minded enough to follow us around, then maybe they were able to recognize and remember our guards. Being a crazed killer didn’t inherently imply stupidity, although it probably helps.
Scott recognized Wolf when he walked in and waved him over. Wolf sat down and ordered coffee. “You guys doing better?” His voice was a soft rumble.
I shrugged. “The doctor says I’m fine.”
He turned to Scott. “You?”
“I’m having trouble sleeping at night.”
“You look like hell.”
The coffee arrived. Wolf grasped his with two large hands and took a deep gulp. He grabbed a roll and took a huge bite.
Scott asked, “How do you get over the horrors that you see?”
Wolf chewed, swallowed, sipped coffee, and then said, “At first, you never think you will. Then later you wonder how you ever became immune. If you think about the process of going from terror to insensitivity, or if you dwell on the fact that there will always be another horror, then you quit and get out. You realize if you didn’t become immune, you’d probably go crazy. If you stay, you remember that you’re saving lives, that you’re a respected member of the community, that your job can make a real difference to real people in dramatic, concrete ways. Give it time.” He gulped more coffee.
I said, “You wanted to see us.”
“Yep.”
“Why?”
He pointed at Scott. “I saw you that night working at the site. I also saw you in the news coverage.” Wolf nodded at me. “I heard you were hurt in the explosion. Kearn told me you were trying to find out who was making threats against you, and maybe trying to find out who did the bombing.”
“Do you think the two are connected?” I asked.
“I don’t think so. The bomber was most likely making a political statement. Maybe he or she is a very nasty killer covering their tracks, but would they need this much destruction to get at one person? And if it was to get at one person, there is no proof that one person is you.”
I said, “For a murderer it would also be an almost sure way of never getting caught. Who would suspect a nonterrorist group?”
“Mostly we’re investigating the threats against us,” Scott said. “I’ve also hired Borini and Faslo.”
“Aren’t they notoriously homophobic?” Wolf asked.
“Nobody ever mentioned it to me,” Scott said.
“Haven’t there been articles about them in the local papers?” Wolf asked. “I read about them being sued for firing somebody because they were gay.”
“I’m out of town a lot,” Scott said. “I must’ve missed it.”
“It was several summers ago,” I said. “You might have been on the road with the team.”
Wolf added, “It didn’t make big headlines.”
“You’re gay?” I asked.
“That’s one of the reasons I want to help. I admire what Scott has done. I’m willing to do what I can to help you guys out.”
“What do you know?” I asked.
“It was definitely a fuel-oil-and-fertilizer bomb like the one in Oklahoma City. It was in a semitrailer truck. Fortunately, a lot of the force blew out of the back of the truck. There’s still a crater, but the main force blew itself out both sides of the alley.”
“I was working near the alley but at the other end of the block and in the basement.”
“You were lucky.”
“I know.” I shuddered. “Have they found enough pieces of the truck to be able to get any hard data about it?”
“I’m on the investigating team helping to find stuff in the debris. What we’ve found has been fairly ordinary so far.”
“Then why are we here?” I asked.
“A couple of gay guys on the department were talking. We get together once a week to talk and play some poker. We’re not a club or anything, and we don’t meet in public. It’s very discreet. We aren’t political. A couple of them heard some of the investigators talking about you guys at the site.”
“What’d they say?”
“That the ‘faggots being involved’ made this complicated. The Chicago cops that they overheard were planning to do background checks on you guys to see if there was anything suspicious about you.”
I said, “And we just happened to park our explosive-filled truck in this alley, and we accidentally almost killed one of us?”
“This wouldn’t be the first time the bombers killed one of their own.”
“Sounds far-fetched,” I said.
“Homophobia can make people pretty blind,” Wolf said.
This obscure warning was all he knew. I began to suspect he’d traded his bit of knowledge for a chance to do some celebrity jock-sniffing.
Afterward, outside the restaurant, Scott said, “He didn’t know shit.”
I said, “It’s time to see Pulver.” The tac-team officer had agreed to meet with us in a coffee shop on Milwaukee Avenue just north of Belmont. “We’ve also got to resolve the McCutcheon issue. I think we should fire him. It might even be safer not having anything to do with Pulver.”
“And then we get no inside information and no protection,” Scott said.
“Unless the two of them are in on something together.”
“I think you’re starting to go off the deep end with this paranoia.”
“Going off the deep end is one of the important charms of being paranoid.”
Scott frowned.
I continued, “Let’s just tell McCutcheon the problem. Why make it a big secret? What do we have to hide from him?”
“You can’t just tell your security guard you think he might be in a conspiracy against you.”
“Sure I can. Why not? What do we lose?”
Scott began another protest, but my mind was made up. I felt no need to hide my suspicions. Nor was I going to start lying to save McCutcheon’s feelings or his job as Scott’s security guard. I walked over to McCutcheon. “We’ve been warned that you might be homophobic and a danger to us. I can’t think of a way to get rid of you, and Scott won’t fire you. We want to talk to Pulver without you, but we’re not sure how to do that. Scott still wants you as security guard.”
“Who told you to be suspicious of me?”
Avoiding a direct answer, I said, “We heard you beat up a gay guy who came on to you in Bosnia.”
“Which version of that story did you get?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“There are generally three versions. The heart of all of them is I beat somebody up. One, after I let an army sergeant screw me, I beat him up in a psychotic homophobic reaction. Another, I let a reporter screw me and crushed his skull for the same reason I smashed the sergeant. The third, that I tried to give a blow job to a reporter and he threatened to out me, and I killed him to stop him.”
I said, “So many stories must mean there’s plausibility involved somewhere.”
“I doubt if the truth would convince you.”
“We’ve been given a number of someone to call.”
“Call them.”
“What is the real story?” Scott asked.
McCutcheon said, “I won’t work at cross-purposes with you. Obviously, someone has convinced you that I’m a threat. I still want to help you be safe. If you’re going to continue investigating, you’re going to be in more danger, not less.” His handsome face was creased in a worried frown. “I told Clay that I would vouch for both of you. I’ll make sure he will continue to talk to you and
give you information.”
Scott said, “I don’t think you’re a threat.”
“I do,” I added immediately.
McCutcheon said, “No matter. You need to feel safe. I don’t make you feel that way. I don’t see a point in forcing you to change that opinion. I’m going to bow out of your lives. At the same time, you should have some kind of protection. I can recommend another firm, or if you don’t trust me to do that, you can check any other contacts you may have. If you want, I’ll hang around until you can find someone else. Or if you want me to walk out right now, I will. It is up to you guys.” He looked from one to the other of us.
Scott said, “Give us a minute, would you?”
We moved up the street in front of a currency exchange.
Scott said, “We’re in over our heads on this one. We’re disagreeing over something pretty fundamental. I don’t want to fight over this. I’m afraid our disagreement is going to get in the way of what is best for us.”
Scott’s calm and reasonableness in a crisis could drive a saint nuts. It’s also one of the many reasons I love him.
He continued, “You’re only hours out of a hospital. I think we need to step back for a minute and think. We’re both emotionally vulnerable because of what we’ve been through. You’re angry about what happened to yourself and to your friend. That certainly justifies self-righteous anger. Does it justify spewing it out at every turn? Maybe you’ll direct it at someone disposed to be on our side, and they’ll be turned off instead of motivated to help.”
I couldn’t deny the sensibleness of his reasoning. “I don’t want to give up trying to find things out.”
“Okay, but can we pause right now, just for a minute? There’s no immediate danger this second. We need to think and plan.”
I drew a deep breath and leaned back against the building.
Scott said, “First of all, I’d say McCutcheon’s reaction is pretty much exactly what I would like someone I trust to say at a moment like this.”
“Yeah, it was.”
“I want to keep him. There isn’t going to be a way to be sure we can trust him until we do a lot more checking. Remember, I tried to do that when we hired him.”
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