by Andy Straka
“Do you remember who the caller was?”
“Chester said his name was Higgins … something like that.”
I looked over at Toronto, who was nodding. “Higgins owns a used-car lot over in South Charleston. He’s the guy who gave the talks at the meetings Chester took me to,” he said.
“What’s the name of the police investigator you talked to?” I asked.
“Nolestar. Deputy Bobby Nolestar.”
“Right. The deputies I gave the shotgun to told me he is the investigator working Chester’s shooting. Have you talked to him since then? Have they told you whether they’ve made any progress in finding out who did it?”
“I haven’t talked to Nolestar, no. Another fellow called here two days ago and said they had a few leads they were pursuing, but that was all. They put a notice on the TV and radio news too, I guess, asking if anyone has information to come forward.”
“Did you get the other man’s name?”
“No. I think he said he was a public information officer, something like that.”
“I’m sorry to have to ask you all these questions, Betty. Especially today.”
“It’s okay, Frank. That’s what I’m hiring you to do, isn’t it? Ask questions.”
“Some of your guests are leaving. I better let you go for now.”
“All right. Where are you going to be staying?”
“I don’t know.” I looked at Toronto and Nicole. “I haven’t gotten that far yet.”
“Well, then, you can stay here. I’ve some extra bedrooms. You and Jake and Miss Nicole too if she wants to.”
“I appreciate it, but—”
“No buts, Frank. Where better to start than right here?”
I couldn’t argue with her logic.
She rose from the chair and pushed it back against the wall. “Well, I expect you investigators will want to be talking things over.”
“Thanks very much, Betty.”
“Thank you. I’ll be down in the dining room if you need me.” She disappeared out the door. The wall vibrated some as her footsteps creaked down the stairs.
“Okay. So what do we do now?” Nicole asked.
“Nicky, listen,” I said. “Someone needs to handle things back in the office for a few days.”
“What? No way, Dad. It sounds like you may need all the help you can get.”
“Now don’t get excited. More than likely, it’ll still turn out to be a matter of tracking down some panicked hunter or poacher. Besides, we’ve got a backlog of computer background checks that’ll probably take you into this weekend.”
“Or I could stay here and help you and work late when I get back to get them done,” she suggested.
“Not if you like to eat and stay in school for your last semester. This is part of the business, Nicky, if you really still want to learn what it’s all about. We’ve got obligations to certain people. Plus someone’s got to make sure Sprite’s taken care of, maybe get her out hunting for a few hours.”
My daughter fixed me with her best withering stare, a trait she’d somehow absorbed organically from her mother.
“I guess …” she finally grumbled.
Sprite was Nicole’s own apprentice bird, a kestrel. Since releasing my hawk, Armistead, I’d trapped another first-year redtail and named her Bingo, but despite my best efforts, she’d seemed more interested in sitting on telephone poles all day than going after game, even at a keen hunting weight. I’d had to let her go.
“Only how am I supposed to get home? It’s two hundred miles and I can’t take your truck.”
She was right.
Jake smiled. “There’s always the V-Rod.”
“Oh no,” I said.
“You mean I could take the Harley?” Nicole’s enthusiasm for the trip seemed to shoot up considerably. She had, after all, gotten her motorcycle license too, this time without informing me. She didn’t own her own bike yet, but Jake had let her borrow his old one for a few weeks.
“Don’t see why not,” Toronto said. “If I need wheels while I’m here, I’m sure Betty’ll let me use Chester’s old Suburban. And I can catch a ride either to Charlottesville or back to my place with you, Frank, when we’re finished out here.”
I stared at both of them. “No way. There’s absolutely no way. With all those trucks on the interstate? That long a distance in the freezing cold? What, are you kidding?”
“But you said you needed me back in the office,” Nicole said.
Seeing I was outnumbered, I went for the flanking maneuver. “We’ll rent you a car.”
“A car?“ she said.
“Wimp,” Toronto said.
I shook my head and sighed. “You’re going to freeze to death, honey.”
“Nah. You just bundle up, right, Nicky?” Toronto flexed his shoulders.
I said nothing, looked out the window again where a white van with brightly colored markings was pulling to the shoulder of the road.
“C’mon, Dad. I’ve ridden Jake’s bike plenty of times before.”
“You better take it easy,” I reminded her.
“Cool,” she said.
“The bike’s in the barn, isn’t it, Jake?”
“Yeah.”
“Head out the back door, Nicky.”
“How come?” She stood up from the bed and peered over my shoulder.
“Because the media’s just decided to show up,” I said.
A minute later, a striking blonde—short in stature but with long hair, heels, and an ankle-length cashmere coat—stepped out of the van and approached the house. She didn’t carry a microphone, but a cameraman climbed out right behind her to shoot some footage. The woman stepped up onto the porch where I was waiting at the door.
“May I help you with something?” I asked.
“Yes.” Her calm blue eyes, trained on mine, narrowed a bit when she looked at my mouth. She had a feline grace about her, a short, curvaceous body, and a photoshoot face, drawn, at the moment, with an appropriate expression of sadness. There were no wrinkles around her eyes, of course, and just the right amount of makeup, but what also might have been the faint beginnings of worry lines. I made her for early thirties, experienced. A pro. “I’m sorry to disturb you,” she said. “But I’m looking for a Mr. Frank Pavlicek.”
“You’re talking to him.”
“Oh.” She blinked with surprise. “Well, it’s very nice to meet you, Mr. Pavlicek. My name is Kara Grayson. I’m from KBCX television here in Charleston.”
“Pleasure.”
“One of our local correspondents picked up your name and address from the police scanner earlier this afternoon. I understand you may have run into a little problem today up in the woods?”
I said nothing.
“They said that someone accosted you with a rifle up there where that hunter was shot earlier in the week. Is that correct?”
I still said nothing. The cameraman was taking pictures of the house and the barn.
“I’m working on a piece regarding local extremist organizations and I thought you might care to comment.”
She really did have pretty eyes. Her gaze finally dropped from mine. She seemed a little flustered. Maybe she thought I’d gone brain dead.
“I’m sorry, Ms. Grayson. I don’t give interviews.”
“Really?” She looked back at me. “Why not?”
“Well … I just don’t.”
She looked me over again, especially at my mouth. “You’re a private investigator, aren’t you?”
I smiled and shook my head, though not in response to her question.
“You look like you’ve had a run-in with somebody.”
I just stared at her. At least it was a pleasant experience.
“Listen, Mr. Pavlicek. I’m only trying to do my job here.”
“Listen, Ms. Grayson. These people just buried a husband and a father,” I said.
“Okay. Yes, I know. I’m sorry. But I spoke with a Ms. Estavez at your office back in Charlottesv
ille and she told me you were out here for the funeral.”
“You’re quick on the draw. I’ll give you that.”
She said nothing—finally seemed embarrassed. A good trait, I thought, for a reporter. Provided it was genuine.
She reached inside her coat pocket, pulled out a card, and held it out to me. “Well, maybe we could talk tomorrow. You can reach me at that number. Anytime, day or night.”
I took the card from her. “Don’t hold your breath,” I said.
She gestured to the cameraman to stop shooting film. “Please pass on my apologies to Mr. Carew’s family. I’m very sorry if we’ve upset you in any way,” she said.
She spun around and walked briskly back down the steps and across the lawn to the truck, the cameraman trailing behind her. The door slid open, they disappeared inside, the door closed again, and the van pulled away from the shoulder and drove off.
6
I followed Tony Warnock’s blue Lincoln Navigator to his law office in Dunbar, midway between Nitro and downtown Charleston. The office was a nicely converted storefront with a couple of oversized concrete urns supporting impeccably groomed potted evergreens out front. The names of several other attorneys also graced the doorway, along with a different Charleston address. Though it was late in the day, an eager-eyed receptionist dressed in a conservative gray suit greeted us upon entering.
I had wanted to interview Warnock with Jake and Nicole there the same way we’d talked to Betty Carew, but the lawyer had insisted he wanted to talk to me and me alone and that he could take care of paying me my retainer at the same time.
“Any urgent messages while I was out?” he asked the receptionist.
She shook her head. “Just Mrs. Drunger about the divorce settlement again. And don’t forget, you’re due in court tomorrow morning at nine.”
“Got it. Frank, this is Penny Holt, my do-everything person around here. Penny, this is Frank Pavlicek. He’s a private investigator who’ll be doing some work for us. No calls for the next half hour. I’ve got some things to discuss with Mr. Pavlicek.”
Work for us? I was beginning to get the impression Warnock was out to make me a bought man. At least Ms. Holt didn’t remark on the bruise splotching my face. Probably too professional for that.
“Will you be needing the special-account checkbook, Mr. Warnock?” she asked.
“Yes, please.”
He led me down the carpeted hall and into his office. It was a large room off the back, with the only windows being French doors opening to a small patio. An antique rolltop desk sat squarely against one wall. Next to it was one of those modular workstations with a computer. Several photos of sports teams adorned the walls, some new and some old—Warnock was a Cincinnati Reds and a Bengals fan. In the corner, two chintz chairs framed a small coffee table. Warnock sat in one and I took the other.
“You from Cincinnati?” I asked.
“Originally. Been living and practicing here in the Charleston area though since ‘seventy-two.”
“You must like it here then.”
“It fulfills my needs.” He reached for a box on the table. “Cigar smoker?”
“Never took it up.”
“Ah, don’t blame you. I like a good Macanudo every now and then myself. Mind if I indulge?”
“Be my guest.”
He opened the small wooden box on the table and took his time preparing the cigar and lighting up.
“That’s nice,” he said at last, once he’d had the first couple of puffs. Smoke drifted toward the curtains covering the French doors. I noticed there was a double set and that one was thick and colored a deep red.
“How long had you known Chester?” he asked.
I thought about it for a minute. “Five or six years, I guess. I met him when he first approached Toronto about falconry sponsorship.”
“Sure, right, right. This Toronto fellow, he work for you?”
“Jake works for himself. He and I collaborate from time to time.”
He flashed a toothy grin between puffs. “Collaborate … you make it sound like some sort of academic relationship.”
I shrugged.
“You and he were detectives together in New York, weren’t you?”
“That’s right.”
“Got into a little trouble, from what I understand.”
I smiled. “Some people thought so.”
His turn to say nothing.
“You asked me down here because you said you wanted to see that I was compensated for helping Mrs. Carew.”
“That’s right. That’s right. But there’s something more important I want to talk to you about.”
“And that would be?”
“To begin with … West Virginia.”
“The state?”
“Our sovereign land.” He waved his cigar for a moment as if he were conducting an aria.
“What about it?”
“Ever been over here around Charleston before?”
“A few times to go hunting. Once looking for a skip trace that didn’t pan out.”
“So you don’t know a whole lot about our people or our economy.”
“I don’t know a whole lot about a lot of things, Mr. Warnock. What’s your point?”
“Just that if Betty insists on your looking into Chester’s death, well, I hope you’ll take your time and familiarize yourself with all the local channels before you go off and—”
“Step on anybody’s toes?”
“Exactly. Step on anybody’s toes.”
There was a soft knocking on the door.
“Come in,” the attorney said.
Penny Holt entered carrying a large leather-bound portfolio. “The checkbook you asked for, sir.”
“Thank you, Penny.” She handed it to him and he took it and placed it on the coffee table before him.
“Anything else you need? Something to drink maybe?”
Warnock looked at me, but I shook my head. “No, that’ll be fine for now,” he said.
The assistant excused herself and left the room, closing the door with a soft thud behind her.
“Tell me something, since you’ve lived around here a long time and all. How much do you know about the Stonewall Rangers Brigade?”
“Stonewall Rangers? They’re one of these extremist groups you hear about. You know, blame everything on all the blacks and Hispanics and Jews. But like I said, they have rights.”
“Free speech and all.”
“Yes.”
“Did you know Chester Carew had been to a few of their meetings?”
“Betty told me.”
“Apparently they were after him to play some kind of war games on his land.”
“Huh.”
“May I ask what type of law you practice, counselor? Any area of specialty?”
“No particular specialty. I do all kinds of work, from estates, as you see with Chester and Betty, to corporate work, other types of civil litigation, even some criminal work. It all depends.”
“Depends on what?”
“On who I think is in the right.”
“You aren’t going to try to convince me you’re the last noble lawyer.”
He laughed out loud. “No, no, of course not. A man in your line of work must’ve figured out a long time ago that nobility is usually in the eye of the beholder.”
“Often,” I said. “But not always.”
He said nothing. He set his cigar down in an ashtray and reached over and pulled the large checkbook toward him on the table, flipping it open.
“I see from the door you’ve got a few partners.”
“Right,” he said without looking up. “This is just a satellite office. We do plaintive work, workman’s comp, that sort of thing, for a lot of the factory employees in this area. Makes it more convenient for them. All the partners in the firm rotate through here every six months. Doing my tour.” He whisked an expensive-looking pen from his jacket pocket and began writing.
“You don’t live
in Nitro or Dunbar then?”
“Nope. In the city. South Hills. … What was the spelling of your last name again?”
I gave it to him.
He began to write out the check. “I was thinking a thousand-dollar retainer to start. That ought to cover your initial time and expenses. Sound good to you?”
I nodded.
“You do much work for attorneys?” he asked.
“Some.”
He finished writing and tore the check out and handed it to me. “Good. I know this is a special circumstance, but maybe this will be the start of a mutually beneficial relationship.”
He looked at me expectantly as I took the piece of paper from him. It was one of those oversized checks, the kind that stands out in a crowd. In the upper-left-hand corner were the name of his professional corporation, his own followed by the prerequisite initials, and an image of a flying American flag with a Revolutionary War-era musket leaning below it.
“We’ll see how it goes,” I said. “I do some contract work for another agency but with my own clients I normally earn my keep from case to case.”
“Of course. Best way to handle things. No entanglements.”
“What’s the significance of the flag and the flintlock?” I asked.
“Ah, that. Freedom,” he said. “I’ve always been a big believer in our Constitution. The whole basis of our system of laws.”
“I’ve got no quibble with the Second Amendment crowd.”
“That’s great.”
“As long as it’s not being used as a shield for nefarious activity.”
He held up his hands and smiled. “Nothing nefarious here, I can assure you. I am worried about something with this whole affair of Chester’s shooting, however. I wondered if you were aware of it.”
“What’s that?”
He picked up his cigar again and took another puff, blowing the smoke upward. “It concerns your friend, Mr. Toronto.”
“Jake? There are a lot of people who have to worry about him.”
“Yes, but can he be trusted?”
“I don’t know what you mean, exactly. Jake knows how to handle himself, he used to be my partner, and I’d trust him with my life. In fact, I have.”
“Have you now? You know what kind of business he’s in, what kind of things he does, who he works for?”
