3 - Buffalo Mountain: Ike Schwartz Mystery 3

by Frederick Ramsay

  “It’s the weather. Maybe he’s a pussy when it comes to cold.”

  “Take me home, James.”

  “Shut up.”

  ***

  Ike found a Denny’s open along I-81 and pulled off for a break. He needed time to think. He carried Charlie’s secure cell phone in with him and placed it on the table. Denny’s did breakfast. He knew they also served lunches, platters, dinners, and a great variety of menu items, but the only thing worth eating at a Denny’s, Ike believed, was breakfast. While he waited he pulled the phone from its case and read the instructions printed on the inside. The phone appeared to have been borrowed from a SEAL team. Or perhaps it had been issued to them and returned. Either way it was undoubtedly government issue.

  “Well now, it’s been a long time since I seen one of them old timey cell phones,” his waitress said as she placed silverware and a glass of water in front of him. “You get that at a yard sale?”

  “No yard sales in this weather, darlin’.”

  “Well, my daddy had one like that back in the day. Like, he was the first man in our town to have one. It didn’t work so good though. No towers out where we lived. Be right back with your coffee.”

  Ike pushed the phone back into its case and stared out the window. The sun hovered low in the west just above the mountains. The snow had stopped and tomorrow would be cold. He had no idea what he would do with the phone. Give it to Whaite? He, more than Ike, would likely turn up something useful. But it had been issued to him, to Charlie, actually, and was signed for. If it went missing, Charlie would be held responsible.

  Ike did not like the possibilities Kamarov’s death created. Someone killed him and that someone could be one of Charlie’s colleagues, from the presumed black program, or…it occurred to him, even a Russian sent to shut Kamarov down for certain. Where do you begin to sort that out?

  “Say, you’re that sheriff from down to Picketsville. I thought I recognized you. Here’s your coffee. I hope it ain’t too hot. You done had that big robbery with all them pictures and stuff, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, we did. You remembered.”

  “Well shoot, yes. It was on the TV and in the papers—even USA Today had you. I seen you on one of their pages. I get to read the papers the customers leave behind all the time. Never have to buy one. It’s like a perk or something.”

  “Yes, well…” Ike sipped his coffee. It was too hot.

  “So, how’d you catch the bad guys anyway?”

  “Routine police work. You ask questions, poke around, ask more questions, and get lucky.”

  “You don’t have to check their DNA and stuff like that? I watch the TV and that’s how they do it. They never, you know, bang into rooms and such. They sit in this lab-like place and do tests and then go arrest bad guys. And they’re always right. You don’t do that?”

  “Only when we don’t have any other choices. Mostly we ask questions and put people in the right place at the right time. Give me a Grand Slam, bacon crisp, please.”

  “Okay, coming right up. Well, it’s been nice talking to you. The manager’s giving me a look. He don’t like us fraternizing too much with the customers, but seeing as how you are a police, I guess it don’t matter.”

  Routine police work. He’d send Whaite and Sam out again. Starting tomorrow, they’d just have to grind it out.

  Chapter 10

  Colonel Robert Twelvetrees stared at the predicament he had created with his car. It hung halfway in the driveway and halfway in the street, its rear end buried in a low snowbank that he had not seen, a snowbank created by a well-meaning neighbor plowing the street. Successive melting and thawing during the previous day had turned it into nearly solid ice. Now he could go neither forward nor backward and he needed to get to the store. He stood alone in the cold, squinting at the sunlight reflected off the car’s windshield. He’d mislaid his gloves somewhere. Luckily, his neighbors had all left for work or were warm and safe indoors. Had they been outside and nearby, they would have heard some United States Army Cavalry language that would have made a sailor blush.

  He stood with his back to the street and told his battered Buick what he thought of snow, snowplows, and the weather in general. He did not notice the car that stopped a few yards from him. Rose Garroway called out, “Colonel, can we give you a lift anywhere?”

  He spun and squinted in the direction of the voice.

  “Who’s that?” he barked.

  “It’s Rose Garroway from church,” she replied. “Do you need any help?”

  “My car’s stuck in this dad-burned snowbank. I can’t get her loose and I need to get to the store.”

  “Come with us and when we get back, T.J. will help dig you out.”

  “Who’s T.J.?”

  “My nephew. Hop in.”

  The colonel hesitated. He did not like being helped and he especially did not like being helped by women. But he had no choice. He made his way to the car and climbed in next to a woman he took to be Minnie.

  “Buckle up,” T.J. directed. “Can’t move until everyone’s buckled up.”

  Colonel Bob struggled with the rear seat belt. Grunting and mumbling under his breath, he finally got himself secure and the car moved on. T.J. sounded like an old master sergeant he had in Korea. He could only see the back of his head and that only dimly. He rubbed his eyes to clear them. It did not help. He was having a particularly bad eye day.

  They stopped at a grocery store just off the Covington Road, not the one he usually patronized. He preferred the market a bit closer to the highway. He knew his way around that one, and the clerks knew him and what he liked. If he wanted an inch-thick filet mignon—filly mig-nons he called them—they would cut it for him specially.

  In this store, he did not know where to find anything. He bumped into a cart and made his way tentatively down a side aisle, nearly knocking several cans of pumpkin pie filling on the floor before he got himself centered. He knew he needed a plan. This new store would not give up its secrets easily. Coffee, steak and potatoes, and a few cans of vegetables would hold him, he figured. His eyes should be better tomorrow and then he’d unstick the car and get the rest.

  He picked up a can and peered at the label. He held it close to his face. He knew it was green, but peas, beans, or spinach? He moved uncertainly down the aisle searching for familiar labels and boxes, dropping likely candidates into the cart. When his nose told him he had reached coffee, he grabbed a bag and peered intently at it. He covered one eye with his left hand. The brand name swam into view. It was not one he recognized.

  Rose Garroway wheeled her cart up beside him.

  “Colonel, are you all right?” the concern in her voice evident.

  “It’s these glasses of mine,” he grumbled. “I must need a new prescription. Can’t see a thing today.” He held the bag of coffee near his nose and studied the label.

  “T.J.,” Rose called, “see if you can give the Colonel a hand here. His glasses aren’t working.”

  “I can help,” T.J. said and took the handle of the cart. “What do you need, Mister Colonel Bob?”

  “Just tell me what this label says.”

  “Fol…ger’s High Mountain de…caffeine…ated coffee, thirteen oh zee…”

  Bob turned to look more closely at the boy. Blurred as his vision was, he saw the broad forehead and wide-set eyes.

  “You can read okay, T.J.?”

  “Oh, yes, I am the best reader in my class.”

  “You are, are you? Well, if this don’t beat the witches. The Halt and the Blind. All we need now is the Lame and we’ll have a complete set.”

  “A complete set of what?”

  “It’s from the Bible, boy. Never mind.”

  “Okay. What else do we need there, Mister Colonel Bob?”

  “Well, son, you can take us to the bananas. Do you like bananas?”

  “Yes, sir, I do.”

  They finished shopping. Colonel Bob explained to T.J. that oh zee meant ounces and el bee
ess meant pounds. For reasons he could not understand but he guessed some fancy-pants psychologist could, he had taken a liking to the boy. By the time they met Rose and her sister at the front of the store they were as chummy as two ice fishermen in a small hut on a frozen lake in Minnesota.

  ***

  “So, T.J., you think we can get this buggy dug out?” Colonel Bob asked. His vision had cleared up a bit. He knew it would not last, that the blurriness would return soon. The doctor had said macular degeneration. He knew enough about that to know he would be blind in a matter of months, a year at the outside. He looked at his stranded car and wondered if it made any sense to dig it out. He could barely drive it now. And without the car, he would be alone, isolated, unable to get to the store, or anywhere. His heart sank.

  “Yes sir, Mister Colonel Bob, we can get her out.”

  “T.J., drop one or the other of those titles, will you? Either no colonel or no mister.”

  “Okay, which one?”

  “Drop the mister. Now, how about I back up a little—see if it can move.”

  “No, don’t back up.”

  “Why not? The front is on solid ice. Back is the only way she’ll go.”

  “No back up, Colonel Bob. Let me dig out the front.”

  Colonel Bob walked to the rear of the car to explain to T.J. why backwards was preferable to forwards. The blurred image of his mailbox swam into view. It hung at a thirty-degree angle off dead center, snug against his rear bumper. Back would have flattened it.

  “Oh, I see,” he said. “Listen, T.J., I’m going to get my mail out of that box and go inside. Here are the car keys. You dig it out and park it in the driveway. Then come in. We’ll figure out what I owe you. Oh, and if you see my gloves anywhere, bring them in, too.”

  “Okay, Colonel Bob,” T.J. said and slid the shovel under a pile of ice and snow.

  Inside, the colonel could make out the fire flickering on the grate. Its warmth cheered him a bit. He always left the television on when he went out. He had an idea that anyone thinking about breaking in would assume that there must be someone home if the TV was on. He did not watch much television anymore except the news. He mostly listened. News programs were talking heads and he could hear them. If he turned his head sideways and looked at a spot a few feet to the left of the screen he could make out faces on it. Occasionally he managed to watch an old movie, one he had seen many times before so that the images were familiar and he did not miss the focus.

  Colonel Bob snapped off the television and turned his attention to the fistful of mail. It consisted of a stack of Christmas cards the senders of which he probably would not be able to identify, bills with sums he could not read without his magnifying glass, and a letter from the Department of Motor Vehicles. He retrieved his glass. This would not be good news. He read and reread the letter. Then, a decision made, picked up the phone, and carefully punched in the number on its oversized buttons.

  ***

  Nearly an hour had passed when T.J. pushed through the kitchen door. Colonel Bob waved in the general direction of a packet of cocoa mix on the table and the steaming tea kettle. T.J. blew on his hands and sat momentarily unsure what Colonel Bob wanted him to do.

  “Colonel Bob, I found these gloves in the snow. They must be yours because mine are not this color.”

  “Thank you. They’re mine. T.J., I want to make you a proposition.”

  “Make me a proposition?”

  “A deal, an offer. I just talked to Miz Garroway, and she said it would be fine. She said you are one heck of a driver and handy. She hopes you will be living over her garage in a month or so, and helping her and your great aunt Minnie. But she can’t pay you anything. I need a driver and a helping hand right now. This is a letter I received from the Department of Motor Vehicles. It says I have to take a retest to renew my driver’s license. I’ll never pass. I can’t see any better’n a bat. I want to hire you to drive me around, help around the house and so on. What do you say?”

  “Aunt Rose said it’s okay?”

  “Yep, starting right now. She said I should pay you half and the rest is to go into an account she will set up for you at the bank. That suit you?”

  “Yes, sir, Colonel Bob.”

  T.J. let his considerable forehead fall into a frown.

  “Aunt Rose is who she is. You are Colonel Bob, and I’m just T.J. Shouldn’t I be something T.J.?”

  Colonel Robert Twelvetrees, once a very young soldier in the ranks with George S. Patton himself, a graduate of the Citadel, and decorated combat veteran of several wars, gazed at a boy who would never be any of those things and saluted.

  “Thomas Harkins,” he announced solemnly, “by the power invested in me as a colonel in the United States Army, I hereby promote you to the rank of master sergeant. From now on you will be Sergeant T.J. This is a field promotion, you understand, and subject to subsequent approval by CICUSA, that’s commander in chief of the United States Army. The paperwork may take some time. I’ve got some old stripes around here somewhere.”

  “Sergeant T.J.” the new non-com said, his face beaming. “Yes, sir, Colonel Bob.”

  Chapter 11

  Sam swallowed her irritation at being left out of the loop or whatever Whaite and Ike had going. She felt like a fool. Something big had happened and she was being treated like some airhead prom queen instead of a colleague. When Whaite arrived she gave him a grunt for a greeting. He smiled, waved to everybody else in the office, and took her by the elbow. “Boss’ office. He wants to see us. Actually he wants to see you.”

  “This had better be good.”

  “Oh, it will. You’re going to love it. At least at first, then when you see the work ahead, you may want to change your mind.”

  ***

  Ike sat with his back to the glass panels that formed most of the wall that separated him from the world. His mind wandered over possibilities. He stared at Charlie’s secure cell phone and drummed his fingers. He jumped when Whaite rapped on his door, setting the glass panels rattling.

  “You ready for us, Ike?”

  He waved his two deputies in and asked them to sit. Whaite knew the general outline of the problem. What he had to say primarily concerned Sam. He spent the next fifteen minutes filling her in on the details. Sam listened at first with a frown on her face, then a look of amazement.

  “I still don’t see how this…Kamarov is connected to you. I know you were CIA but what has that got to do with this man?”

  “It’s enough to know that I left the Agency because my wife’s death was part of a cover-up in the Agency. Kamerov apparently found out the general outlines and tried to tell me, I think. He disappeared and we supposed he’d been eliminated. We were wrong.”

  “So now he’s part of a…what did you call it…a black program?”

  “He was part of a black program. The question is whose?”

  The three sat quietly, each absorbed in his or her thoughts.

  Sam shifted around in her chair. “So what do we do now?”

  “That’s the question, isn’t it? There’s an enormous amount of work ahead of us but I’m not sure we can do it.”

  “Why not?”

  “Sam, I have to ask you something and it’s personal.”

  “This is about Karl, isn’t it?”

  “More or less. Where is he now?”

  “Oh my God. He’s been reassigned. I thought he’d been assigned to another witness protection program dropout, but this could be Kamarov, couldn’t it?”

  “He’s part of a group looking for someone?”

  “I’m not sure now. I thought so. I mean, that’s what I heard.”

  Essie Falco at her desk and some clerk from the Town Council were the only occupants of the adjoining room. Whaite stood and closed Ike’s door, anyway. “Better safe than sorry. If it’s our man, it means the program is FBI.”

  “Back to Karl. Sam, what happens if we confirm the black operation is the Bureau’s? You will be working against th
em and not in a nice way. Can you do that?”

  “You mean could I pursue whatever measures I’m called on to do even if it means compromising or putting Karl at risk?”

  “In a nutshell—yes.”

  “Oh my. I’ve only known him for a couple of months but I thought this weekend he would…”

  Ike waited. His heart went out to her. She was bright and quick and loyal. He had a feeling that her relationship with Karl Hedrick could be the first really serious one she’d ever had. At the same time her dream of becoming a law enforcement officer was at stake as well. Ike sighed, afraid he would be the one to break her heart. She swallowed. “If it’s about murder and my job is to find that out, then Karl will have to understand. If he doesn’t, I guess he’s not the person I think he is.”

  “You don’t have to do this, Sam. I can take you off this case and find something else.”

  “I’m in.”

  “Okay. Here’s what we do next.”

  ***

  An hour later the three separated. Whaite headed to Floyd County to track down Donnie Oldham and Steve Bolt. Somewhere in the county someone knew what had happened to Kamarov/Harris. The smart odds were not on Bolt or Oldham, but you had to start somewhere. Ike explained how the secure phone worked. Whaite looked at its bulk and declined.

  “Look, I’ll just use the normal one to call you, Ike. The town ordinance probably doesn’t carry down there and even if it does, who’s going to know?” Ike nodded and Whaite slipped out the door.

  “Okay, Sam, now you understand why I didn’t want you on the internet or poking around in law enforcement databases. The minute you started, whoever is behind this would disappear into thin air. We’d never find out what happened.”

  “We’re good. The only possible hit is with the driver’s licensing people and, worst case, they think they were hit by a hacker.”

  “Sam, what can you do with that system of yours?”

  “It depends on what you have in mind. But if you’re asking, can I go deep into programs and sites—yes, I can.”

  “How deep?”

  “Pretty nearly anywhere. I have the latest and the best software. In a way, we are a black program ourselves.”