6 - The Eye of the Virgin: Ike Schwartz Mystery 6

by Frederick Ramsay

  “What’s the other man’s name?”

  “Brown, but that can’t be right. He didn’t look like no Brown I ever seen.”

  “Exactly what do Browns look like?”

  “I don’t know, but this guy looked like he came from Iraq or one of them places. Say, do you think he was a terrorist? Maybe there’s a reward.”

  “Don’t hold your breath. So, Kolb and Brown were in this one. That means Sacci and…who, were in the one next door.”

  “Right. He said his name was Paul Wentz, but I don’t think he was a—”

  “A Wentz? Because he didn’t look like any Wentz you’d ever seen?”

  “Exactly. He coulda’ been another one of them. Is that why you’re here? Are there terrorists loose around here? Buster Hawkins said they were talking about that up at the diner, how they can get at the water supply and bring down the whole town. I didn’t pay him no mind at the time. You know Buster, but holy cow. I guess we got ourselves a problem after all.”

  “No terrorists, Harvey, four guys, probably bad guys. One of them managed to get himself killed by one of the others and therefore, you have a crime scene, not an international plot. I’m taping off these two rooms and calling it in. Evidence Technicians will be here soon. You leave them and these two rooms alone ’til you hear from me. You got it?”

  “You mean CSI will be here? Wait ’til I tell Dottie. She’ll be stoked.”

  “You call no one except me, you got it?” Harvey nodded his agreement but the idea of making a picnic out of this new-found notoriety lurked in his eyes. “I mean it, Harvey, you don’t want me talking to the judge about another problem in your motel, right?”

  Harvey grunted his acceptance and wandered back to his office, ash tray, and magazines.

  Ike stepped carefully into the rooms, careful to touch nothing. In the second room there were stains on the shabby carpet that could be blood. He thought he smelled the residue of cordite, impossible after a week, of course. He spun three hundred and sixty degrees memorizing the room and its contents. The beds were unmade, the bathrooms cluttered with towels thrown on the floor, that is, except in the second room, the one with the stains. There were no towels in it at all. Ike shut the doors of both rooms and walked back to the office.

  Harvey had resumed his place behind the counter, a fresh bottle on it, and a new cigarette dangled from his lips. He swiveled around.

  “Now what?”

  “Your trash, Harvey. I see you have a dumpster out back. When was the last time you had a pick-up?”

  Harvey looked confused, fiddled with his cigarette, and tapped ashes in the general direction of the tray. He missed. “I don’t use that service no more. Times are hard. I generally let her fill and then I get one of the locals with a pickup to empty it and haul it to the county landfill.”

  “Am I correct in assuming you haven’t emptied that thing since sometime last week?”

  “Well, yeah, I guess. See—”

  “Things have been slow, I know. Good. Leave it alone as well. Until we can check out where all your towels went, it’s part of the crime scene as well.”

  “Towels? What towels? Someone stole my towels? Damn, I’m sending them a bill. I got their credit card number right here and—”

  “You have a what? You have a credit card number? I’ll need that, too, and thank you Harvey, you just made my day.”

  Some law enforcement units were blessed with the latest in hi-tech equipment, elaborate computer links to national and international agencies, and personnel. Other, smaller and more poorly endowed departments, require outside help, even Providential.

  This day Picketsville, that is to say, Ike, was plain blessed.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Charlie called as Ike walked in the door. Essie handed him a stack of pink call-back slips, and Sam started talking to him, fourteen to the dozen.

  “Whoa. Stop, give me a break. I’ll take those slips, Essie. You sure you edited out the crap?” She nodded. “And Sam, I need to talk to our friend in the Puzzle Palace first. Then you and I can chat. Where’s Karl, by the way?”

  “He’s been called back to D.C. He couldn’t convince them he needed time here. Anyway, this is about the…what did you call them?”

  “Never mind. Sorry about Karl, but Charlie first.” He waved her into a chair and picked up the phone.

  “Okay, Charlie, you have my complete attention. What can you tell me?”

  “Remember I said I thought the microdot was bigger than normal, if there is a normal for this stuff.”

  “Yes, and I said it might have been an extremely old one.”

  “You did, and you were wrong. So was I.”

  “A rare confession from you, Charlie.”

  “Don’t start. This is serious.”

  “Okay, sorry. Go on.”

  “I was wrong because I said it was a microdot. It isn’t. It looks like one but it’s something dicier.”

  “Are you going to tell me? Better yet, do I want to know?”

  “You might want to know, but I can’t say anything now. Here’s the immediate problem. It’s a micro chip, a piece of miniature electronic business, not micro-photography, that’s been embedded in a small disc. That’s why we mislabeled it. It’s a look-alike.”

  “Not a microdot.”

  “No, and because of that, you can’t use the bogus ones I brought you earlier. If the guys looking for this stuff are even slightly sophisticated, they’ll know right away they’ve been had. I can fix you up with a better substitute but it will take some time. We have to find a similar chip and write to it. The properties people may have what we need. They may not. The techs here say this one is Chinese and different. How different, I can’t say or even if the people who’re after it will know either. Can you buy me a day?”

  Ike scratched his head. “I can. I’ll put a car outside Dakis’ house twenty-four-seven. That will hold them off for a while. I’ll let it out that we’re closing the investigation tomorrow and that should bring them back into play right after that—that is if they’re still local and listening.”

  “Good. We’ll ship you a dummy chip by helicopter ASAP.”

  “I’m impressed. This must be pretty hot for the agency to pony up for a chopper.”

  “It is. Okay, I need to talk to Sam, your hacker and—”

  “She’s right here. I’ll put you on speaker phone. Okay, go.”

  “Ah, Ms. Ryder, you are to be congratulated. The security boys in the basement said you got into the back door faster than anyone, set a possible record, in fact. The gang in the anti-hacking division put your name up on their bulletin board. Not everyone gets that sort of recognition.”

  “You knew I hacked in?” Sam looked chagrined.

  “Oh, yes, but don’t let that get you down, They were impressed at the way you worked and, in fact, it was all they could do to keep you from breaking in deeper. You know we have the ‘hacker room’ for people like you and not nice people who want to steal our stuff. Most are satisfied to take what we give them. It’s very useful for us that way and we get to meet some interesting people. Except in rare cases, yours being one, hardly anyone attempts to go farther.”

  “I thought I did, go in farther, I mean.”

  “Did you, indeed? Why do you say that?”

  “Well, Ike asked me to poke around and dig up anything you might have on Sacci/Zaki, and some other things.” Sam squinted her eyes at Ike, seeking advice as to how much she should tell Charlie. He nodded. “So I went into your personnel files looking for Thomas Wainwright.”

  “You didn’t.”

  “Yes, sir, I did. Got him, too.”

  Charlie fell silent. Ike thought he heard paper being shuffled in the background.

  “I’m listening,” he said finally.

  “I managed to find his personnel file, I think. It had a number but I don’t remember that part. I read it, took some notes and—”

>   “You didn’t download it, I hope.”

  “No, sir, I didn’t, but I could have. I did retrieve a picture of him though.”

  “That’s it?”

  Sam thought, scrunched up her face, an expression Ike recognized as her “liar’s face” and said, “Yep, that’s it.”

  “Okay, good. Don’t go there again, you hear? It could be dangerous for you and…you listening, Ike? You keep her out of our files. I mean it.”

  “I hear you, Charlie. Now, what are you not telling me?”

  “You have everything I can share at the moment.”

  Ike stared at the phone and scowled. It was not like Charlie to be circumspect. Something was up. Maybe Sam knew.

  “Okay, we’re done here. Hurry that chip along, will you? I want to close this thing and get back to the real business of sheriffing.”

  “Breaking up teenage keggers in the woods?”

  “That and setting up speed traps. The town needs budgetary relief, and I need to make some new friends. Goodbye, Charlie.”

  Ike hung up and swiveled to face Sam. “All right, Sam, what didn’t you tell Charlie and what didn’t he tell me?”

  “Well,” Sam rifled through a sheaf of papers she held in her hand, “I have his picture.”

  “So you said.”

  “And, this is the screwy part. Didn’t you say Wainwright was tasked to Homeland Security?”

  “That’s what Charlie said, yes.”

  “Not so. It didn’t make any sense at first, his assignment, that is. It was, like, in code. So I searched around…remember, I didn’t dare stay too long, and I found a key, a coding key, you know what the numbers stood for. I could see, for example he’d been assigned to the Near East in the past, Egypt, and so on. The last assignment code meant Mossad. Does that make any sense to you?”

  “It might and it might not. I’ll have to think about that for a while. I have a simpler, safer task for you to do. I have some credit card numbers. See if you can find out to whom they belong and anything else you can turn up. And, whatever you do, don’t mess with the CIA’s database. At least not for a while.”

  “Right. I’m on it.”

  Sam scurried from the room. Ike studied the picture of Tommy Wainwright. “I wonder,” he said and placed the picture next to Franco Sacci’s. “Do you two know each other?”

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Charlie Garland dropped the phone into its cradle and tapped his foot on the side of his desk. The varnish had been worn away from the spot from years of similar tapping, and there was a noticeable dent in the desk’s surface where a portion of the institutional desk’s oak veneer had been worn away. He reviewed what Ike and Sam Ryder told him. He’d heard the small, very small, quaver in her voice when she denied knowing anything more. She was lying. What had she found? Ike had good people. And loyal as well. She’d tell Ike and Ike, in turn, would tell him. Maybe. He might hold out for a favor. What to do?

  He could tell the Director. And as much as the Director admired Ike, he wouldn’t hesitate to send a squad of interrogators down to Picketsville and extract Ryder. Then, Ike would go off like a new bomb and there’d be hell to pay. He’d need a better strategy. A clerk knocked and entered to drop off a file he’d asked for. Wainwright’s as it happened. The clerk seemed very young to work here, he thought, and she left a scent behind. Lilac, but not the lilac his maiden aunt used to wear. It reminded him of Francine…that was long time ago. Can’t go there, need to focus. He picked up the phone again this time to call his contact at the NSA. Alternatives. Life was about the correct selection of alternatives.

  He liked that. He would write it down.

  Life is about the correct selection of alternatives.

  ***

  Ike set up twenty-four-seven surveillance on Louis Dakis’ house, making it clear that the cruiser should be parked out front and in plain sight. Then he called Frank and told him about the license plate number that the Phelpses might have for him. He asked him to call on them, get the number, and trace it if possible.

  If Sam was able to put a name to the credit cards, and Frank to the plate, with any luck he’d have a name or names soon. Names and a direction to go.

  His next call was to an old contact in the Mossad. He didn’t know if the contact was any good any more, and even if it were whether Shmuel would or could answer his questions. Worth a try. If Wainwright wandered into their territory, Shmuel’s friends would know. An answering machine took the call. He expected that. The time difference would have his old friend at home and asleep. That is, if Shmuel ever slept. Ike had his doubts. He hesitated a moment and finally asked Shmuel to call him back and left a cell phone number. He scooped up the two pictures and headed back to the Dogwood Motel. Things were beginning to get interesting.

  Harvey was in exactly the same place he’d left him two hours earlier. Only the pile of ashes in the ashtray was deeper and three more empties cluttered the counter. Ike noted the evidence techs had arrived and were busy in the two rooms at the far end of the motel. He would check with them later.

  “Harvey, I have another picture for you to eyeball.” He slid the photo of Wainwright across the counter.

  “That’s him. That’s the guy with the funny name, you know—wait a minute, I’ll get it.”

  “Kolb, you said.”

  “Yes, Kolb, that’s the guy. Tough sumavagun. At least that’s what I thought. You know he had them hard flinty eyes like you see on the bad guys on the TV. Not much of a picture, though.”

  “Thanks, Harvey. You’ve been most helpful.”

  “When are those people going to be done with my rooms? I gotta business to run here.”

  “Harvey, those rooms stood empty and not cleaned for nearly a week. What are the chances you’re going to need them anytime soon.”

  “Shoot, you never know. A bus could pull in here any minute and then where’d I be?”

  “Again, what are the chances? You want busses to stop. See if you can persuade the AAA to star your motel. Before you do that, you might want to fix up this place first. God only knows what the Health Department would say about your plumbing. In the meantime, relax. They’ll be done when they’re done. If I’m right, you have a murder scene here, Harvey, so get used to the inconvenience.”

  Ike phoned Sam. “Sam, another thing, did you happen to pull our friend’s fingerprints when you were snooping?”

  “I wasn’t snooping, I was following orders.”

  Ike chuckled. “You’re a quick study, Sam. You stick with that when the goon squad from the CIA arrives, if it does. But you haven’t answered my question.”

  “Am I in trouble if I did?”

  “Not with me, but maybe with the Agency. Did you?”

  “Get a set of prints? Um…well, I did. I don’t know why but with everything all mixed up around the shooting and the breaking and entering, well, I guess I thought why not.”

  “You’ve got good instincts, Sam. I’m going to miss you.”

  “Miss me? You know something I don’t?”

  “No, but Karl and you can’t keep going on this way forever. One of you will have to bolt and I’m guessing it’ll be you.”

  “I love my job.”

  “I know. And you’re good at it, but…listen, put the fingerprints in a folder and bury them where nobody will think to look.”

  “You think someone will come after them?”

  “Maybe. Then, tell you what, you have files and whatnot downloaded on your hard drive, right? Leave it there. If they know you have the file they’ll want it. It would be best to let them find it, but first, make a copy on one of those stick whatchacallems and hide that.”

  “USB Flash drive.”

  “That’s the thing. And stay way away from the CIA.”

  “You already told me that.”

  “This time it’s for emphasis.” He hung up and sauntered down the row of rooms to the crime scene tape. He nodded at the l
ead tech and waved to Henry Sutherlin, who had an internship with them before entering the academy and ET school.

  “What have you found for me?” he asked.

  “Well, you called it, Sheriff. We have blood trace in one room. Not much, but enough to sample and type. It appears that an attempt was made to clean it up, but either they were in a hurry, were careless, or plain didn’t give a hoot. It’s still early. If this room was ever cleaned, it sure wasn’t lately, so fingerprints are all over it, dozens, some of them too old to lift. Is this a murder room?”

  “It is.”

  “Yeah, so the other room wasn’t wiped down either and we have a lot of prints in there, as well, maybe too many. We’ll process them and shoot over what we find.”

  “I have some prints I’d like you to match if you can, the victim and one other set.”

  “Sure send them over. We’ll have a look-see.”

  “How about the dumpster?”

  “Godawful mess. Found some towels and a torn shirt. Let you know about them, too.”

  Ike watched for a few more minutes and then headed back to his office. He should have some new information by now.

  ***

  Sam watched as her computer screen flashed. Files appeared and disappeared. Its cursor swept back and forth busily opening and closing files. It would have been a normal afternoon except her hands were not touching the key board. She had a hacker. The tables had been turned and she was the hackee. Cool. She pushed the on-off switch repeatedly but the intruder somehow overrode it and kept searching. Finally, whoever was at the other end of this operation found what it/he/she was looking for—the data she’d gleaned from the CIA—and opened it. There was a brief pause and then, in less than a second, the file was deleted. It continued to search then paused again, and inspected the computer’s logger, the record of her most recent actions. Sam held her breath. It passed on, sampled her back-up files and then the screen went blank and the machine shut down with a whir and a click.

  “Wow,” she muttered. “Those guys are good.” She clutched the flash drive in her hand. “But you have to get up early in the morning to nail this nerd.”