Joan Hess - Arly Hanks 10 (21 page)

The bedroom floor was covered with mildewed towels, discarded underwear and jeans, and plates coated with blue and gray fuzz. I tried to open a window, but it was either nailed closed or impossibly warped. I saw a duffel bag in one corner beside a limp, dingy pillow and a blanket. Assuming this was Dylan’s allotted area, I knelt down and dumped out the contents of the bag. I wasn’t anticipating anything more illuminating than socks and boxers, so I was surprised when I found a small spiral-bound notebook.

My elation faded as I flipped through it, finding one blank page after another. I was about to toss it in the bag when I came upon a notation that read: “Ingram MAC 10, #78264.” After pondering this for a moment, I checked to see if there was anything else in the notebook, and then set it aside.

I made sure the duffel bag was empty, then sat back and once again read the cryptic notation. I was still in what Ruby Bee would condemn as an undignified posture when I heard the front door open.

I hate it when that happens.

Before I could scramble to my feet, a man appeared in the doorway. Technically, I’d have to say he loomed, since he was husky enough to fill the space, but he wasn’t snarling or even frowning. He wore a navy blue suit, a white dress shirt, a serious tie, and shiny black shoes. I continued my inventory: dark eyes, mahogany complexion, straight nose, slightly weak chin, and when he smiled, white teeth with a boyish gap in the front. I doubted he was one of Reed’s neighbors.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

I began stuffing socks and shirts back into the duffel bag. “Packing,” I said. “How about you?”

“I was in the neighborhood, so I thought I’d stop by.”

“Give me a break, buddy. Nobody stops by the Airport Arms Apartments unless his arm is twisted so tightly behind his back that he can pat himself on the top of his head.” I stopped, my hand in midair, and stared up at him. “You’re the process server, aren’t you? Reed Rondly’s not here, but I can tell you where he is if you’d like to slap him with a summons. It may not make his day, but it’ll certainly make mine.”

“Where would that be?”

“In Maggody, a little town about twenty miles east of here. Reed’s at the Flamingo Motel. Watch for a sign with a mottled pink bird on the verge of blinking its last.” I put the rest of Dylan’s clothes in the duffel bag, then stood up and brushed cracker crumbs off my knees. “Good luck catching up with him.”

He pointed at the notebook on the floor. “You missed something.”

“So I did.” I scooped up the notebook and tucked it in my pocket. “I didn’t see you when I got here. Were you watching the apartment?”

He nodded. “Before I took my present job, I worked in a private investigator’s office, mostly doing surveillance work.”

I picked up the duffel bag. “I guess I’m ready to go. If you decide to drop by the motel and surprise Reed, be prepared to duck. He’s a racist pig with the temperament to match.”

The man stepped back to allow me to go past him. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

He followed me into the living room. I’d planned to do a quick search of the kitchen and bathroom, but I couldn’t come up with a credible explanation. We continued out to the balcony, and he waited while I locked the door. As we walked down the staircase, I said, “Are you heading for Maggody?”

“Not just yet,” he said, “but you’ll most likely see me again, Chief Hanks.”

“How do you know my name?” I said, almost dropping the duffel bag. “You’re wearing a badge.” On that note, he went around the corner of the apartment building.

I stood by the car for a moment, wondering if I’d just interacted with a spy from a John LeCarré novel. He’d told me virtually nothing except that he’d once worked for a private investigator. My badge identified me as the chief of police, but I’d refused from day one of the “unsuitable job” to wear a name tag. if he’d gotten his information from something in my car, he would have addressed me as “Chief Taco Bell.”

I gave up worrying about him and drove to the sheriff’s department. LaBelle was on the phone, this time talking about her bladder infection. She eyed me coldly, then pointed toward Harve’s office and resumed reciting her symptoms. She sounded especially proud of her urinary tract.

“Any update from McBeen?” I asked Harve as I came through the doorway.

“Not yet.” He held up a plastic bag. “This here’s the slug from the boy’s shoulder. It could have been fired from any hunting rifle from here to the North Pole.” He slumped back and sighed. “McBeen said he’d have a better chance at finding the cause of death if he had the boy’s medical records. We went through his wallet, but all we found was two hundred and thirty-seven dollars. That plastic doohickey where most folks keep their driver’s license and credit cards was empty.”

“He worked at the same garage as Reed. Aren’t they supposed to have his Social Security number?”

“Supposed to, yeah. The guy that owns the place said the kid kept stalling, and then quit on Thursday. They settled up out of the cash register.”

I told Harve what little I’d learned about Dylan, most of it based on the befuddled speculation of the militia. “Frankly,” I admitted, “I’m not sure if any of it’s true, including the truck being parked in town. It is peculiar that he didn’t have any identification with him, though. You’d think the FBI or the ATF could have produced fake documents for an undercover agent.” I took the notebook out of my pocket, opened it to the single entry, and tossed it on the desk. “I found this in Dylan’s bag. See what you make of it.”

Harve whistled softly. “An Ingram MAC ten is a right serious automatic pistol, and the rest of it looks like the serial number. I’ll follow up on it.”

“I wish you’d follow up on getting information from the feds,” I muttered. “There’s an FBI office here, but all I got was a recorded message telling me to call during regular business hours. A guy at the Little Rock office gave me a number in DC. The guy there was as helpful as a chunk of asphalt. I had the same reaction from the ATF. It’s possible you or the county prosecutor can get something out of them.”

“I know ol’ Tinker Tonnato, the local FBI agent. I guess he figures the terrorists are gonna have to twiddle their thumbs while he gets in some weekend hunting. I’ll call him first thing Monday morning.”

“Even if Dylan had a medical condition, whoever fired the rifle is still looking at a charge of first degree murder.” I picked up the plastic bag and studied the misshapen lump of steel. “You sure you and Les got all their weapons?”

“Yeah,” Harve said as he reached for a cigar. “All the fellows staying at the camp had handguns and the Rondly boy had a rifle, but they kept them locked in their vehicles. Earl Buchanon told me that Pitts was the only one to come back to the pasture, and that was to use the phone in that ridiculous looking tank of his. The only other weapon any of them had in their possession was the flare gun that Rondly used to signal there was an emergency.”

Noxious smoke was drifting toward me, so I put down the plastic bag and stood up. “How did the press conference go? Did you win any votes?”

“I told ‘em we’re doing everything we can short of assigning a deputy to every house set off by itself. A couple of the reporters had the same idea you did. At least I could tell them we’d already eliminated anything the homeowners might have had in common. My best guess is the perps are watching the houses somehow.”

“From the woods?” I said dryly. “They sit in trees and train binoculars on the back door on the chance the owners are going to come out carrying luggage? What are the odds they’d get lucky six times in the last month? And think about Mayfly, Harve. They waited two or three days before they broke in, which means they were pretty damn confident that Mrs. Coben and her daughter would be gone for more than a day.”

“Did either of them tell anybody?”

“Mrs. Coben said she mentioned their trip to a couple of people who live out that way. Heidi had broken up with her boyfriend a couple of weeks earlier, and she was holed up at home, sulking and refusing to talk to anybody. Katherine Avenued may have told people, but Heidi described her as being so shy she rarely smiled or spoke to anybody. Katherine’s neighbors at the apartment house had never done more than say hello to her on the sidewalk, and her classmates and co-workers said the same thing. Besides, Mayfly is at least twenty miles away from the other houses that were burglarized.”

“I know,” Harve said, “but there has to be something, damn it! We can’t blame it on a full moon, since that doesn’t happen six times a month.”

I told Harve I’d keep him posted, then drove back to Maggody, hoping I’d be in time to see Reed Rondly’s reaction when the process server knocked on the door.

Not much had changed in my absence. Mrs. Jim Bob’s Cadillac was still parked in front of the Assembly Hall, and Ruby Bee’s Bar & Grill was still closed. Les had been relieved by an unfamiliar deputy who introduced himself as Corporal Batson and assured me that although there’d been some movement between units, no one had left the motel parking lot. A car, presumably Barry Kirklin’s, was parked next to Reed’s truck. Estelle’s station wagon was still gone. I was warning Batson about the process server when Sterling came out of #5.

“I have been waiting for you for more than two hours,” he said. “That lame-brained deputy refuses to allow us to do something about dinner. Kayleen called the barroom, but no one answered. Prisoners of war are treated better than this, Chief Hanks. The Fifth Amendment clearly prohibits the deprivation of liberty without due process of law.”

“Are you suggesting that I arrest you? It’s okay with me.”

“On Monday morning I shall place a call to the lieutenant governor to make a formal complaint. Now, what do you propose to do in order that we receive a decent meal?”

“I’ll send the lame-brained deputy over to the supermarket to get some roots and berries. If you all promise to behave, you can have a picnic out here in your tank. Half the town could probably squeeze into the back seat. How much did this thing cost?”

“That’s none of your business,” he said, then closed his door.

I asked Batson to go across the road to purchase sandwiches and soft drinks, then sat on the hood of my car and tried to envision what had taken place on Cotter’s Ridge earlier in the day. None of the current residents of the Flamingo seemed to have an adequate motive to take a shot at Dylan. Sterling, Barry, and Jake suspected Dylan had been a federal agent, but they weren’t firmly convinced. Reed and Kayleen were skeptical, at best. And none of them had been carrying a rifle.

Perhaps Harve’s first assessment was right, I told myself, and the incident had been nothing more than a coincidence of cosmic dimensions. The burglaries could be that, too, although it was hard to ignore the parallels in all six of them. My eyes drifted to the window window of #3 as I remembered what Kayleen had said about Maurice’s murder. They’d been awakened by the sound of breaking glass.

I slid off the hood and walked across the lot to knock on her door. When she opened it, I said, “May I come in? I need to ask you something.”

Barry and Reed had taken refuge in her room until they could get into their unit. Reed was stretched out on the bed, muddy boots and all, with a beer balanced on his belly. Barry was seated by a table, where it looked as though he and Kayleen were in the midst of a card game.

“Did you find out what killed Dylan?” asked Kayleen. “Was it a heart attack?”

“We don’t know yet,” I said, “and most likely won’t for a day or two. I realize this is a sensitive subject, but I want to ask you about the night Maurice was killed.”

“Poor old Mo,” drawled Reed, lifting his head to take a gulp of beer.

Kayleen sat down at the table. “Why, Arly? It couldn’t possibly have anything to do with what happened today.”

Barry leaned forward to squeeze her hand. “I don’t see how it could, but it won’t hurt to answer a few questions.”

“I suppose not,” she said unhappily.

Feeling a bit like an employee of the Spanish Inquisition, I said, “I’m sure you’re aware that Elsie Buchanon’s house was burglarized last week. There have been some other burglaries, too, and I’m trying to find a link.”

“Like what?”

“For starters, were you and Maurice supposed to have been away on a trip when the breakin took place?”

She thought for a long moment. “Maurice had suggested going to a gun show somewhere-Kansas City, I think-but we didn’t like the looks of the weather.” She swallowed several times and her eyes filled with tears. “If we’d decided to go, Maurice would still be alive, wouldn’t he? It was my doing, since I was the one who was afraid the roads might turn icy.”

Reed belched. “That don’t mean Mo’d be around these days. He was old as the hills, and so gimpy he could barely get around. Every meeting we had, all he’d do is complain about his damn prostrate or whatever it was.”

“Shut up!” snapped Barry.

I touched Kayleen’s shoulder. “Did you or your husband tell anyone that you were going to Kansas City? A neighbor, maybe, or a storekeeper?”

“I didn’t,” she said, “and I don’t think Maurice did, although I can’t be sure. He did a lot of business over the telephone. If someone had wanted to make an appointment, he might have mentioned the possibility of a trip. Do you think the burglars broke in because they believed the house was empty?”

I nodded. “That’s the only thing we’ve come up with thus far. I guess I’d better call the sheriff’s department over in Chowden County. We might be able to exchange some information and figure figure out if the same perps simply moved their operation to Stump County.”

Barry began to gather up the cards. “Any idea when we can get in our room?”

“Did any of your training include a course in picking locks?” I asked. “Or were you too busy learning how to survive on pizza and beer?”

He gave me a level look. “Anyone with a credit card could get past these locks. Want me to demonstrate?”

Before I could answer, there was a knock on the door. I admitted Corporal Batson, who was carrying several sacks from the SuperSaver.

“Hope ham ‘n cheese is okay with everybody,” he said apologetically. He handed me a bill. “I said you’d drop by and settle up. You can probably get the sheriff to reimburse you. It may take a while, though. Our budget’s so tight we can’t afford to fix the microwave in the break room.”