Nantucket Five-Spot (19 page)

Ed was nodding, one arm still across his chest, rubbing the stubble on his wide jaw with the other hand, like a chess player contemplating the endgame.

“Well, there was the drug bust.”

Chapter Seventeen

The Identity Thief

Ed had watched the narcotics investigation at Camp Doha from a comfortable distance. It was the best entertainment on base. “It beat playing ping pong at the Marble Palace, that's for sure.”

Twenty miles west of Kuwait City, Doha was built on the site of an old warehouse complex, next door to an electrical plant. Smoke belched out of the four smokestacks—everyone called them the “scud goalposts”—all day, every day. The air stank, but Ed lived in a trailer with air-conditioning. And there was pretty good soft serve. “Just like Dairy Queen.”

Apparently, Ed wasn't the only one dissatisfied with the recreational opportunities on base. Drug use was out of control and the MPs were cracking down. Haden was there in 2003, running the base on forward staff for ARCENT Kuwait, the Army Central Force command. It was like being the mayor of a small city. Drug investigations weren't his job, but Haden had never learned how to delegate, and he was a puritan. There were more than two thousand military personnel and contract workers from five countries at Doha. They needed to be action-ready at all times. The idea that some shockingly large percentage of them were impaired by drugs at any given moment drove him crazy.

“Didn't stop him from getting drunk at the OC every night, though,” Ed laughed. “The officers club, Chief. And that's where he figured it all out. He didn't have to do shit—everything came right to him. Sat down on his lap like a stripper and rubbed its tits in his face. Excuse my French.”

He must have seen me grimace. Words affect me like smells sometimes. Hearing Ed's little turn of phrase there felt like opening the fridge after a five day blackout.

“Can you explain that?” I asked him.

“Well, he was drinking buddies with this hillbilly staff sergeant and I guess some second looie showed up one night when they were in the middle of one of their gab sessions and the sergeant acted a little weird, like he didn't want the guy coming near him. This is how I got the story from Krakauer. The sergeant told him he owed the lieutenant money and he didn't want any shit going down in the OC. But Krakauer saw them together the next day—four days from payday. And they were all pals. Haden played a hunch and had some MPs follow them both. The looie was just a buyer, but they busted the sergeant with seven ounces of weed, two days later. And that was just the tip of the iceberg. That little cracker was building himself an empire out there. But Doha was a small town, just like Nantucket. You can't get away with anything for too long. Too many nosy people. So he went down, but he wouldn't rat anyone out and they never caught his distributor. Something happened, though. There was some scandal that got hushed up. I didn't ask. I was tuning up the carburetors. And believe me, with all the sand on the roads out there, it was a full time job. Ever see a Jeep after a few trips to Great Point, Chief? Kind of like that. Anyway, I didn't know this sergeant too well. His staff car threw a rod, I remember that pissed him off. But I was sticking to beer in those days, so we didn't do any real business. I must have known his name but who fucking remembers? He got a raw deal, though. I heard him shouting at Krakauer in the parking lot one day, that he was getting reamed real good, and Krakauer was telling him to bend over and grab his ankles. Krakauer just kept walking. He was stone cold, man. He didn't want to hear shit from that guy. So anyway, they gave the sergeant a court-martial, shipped him back to the states and he was gone—pow, just like that, like he was never even there. He was a smooth-talking good old boy, that one. Except he didn't sound so smooth, that day in the parking lot. Hey—fuck him if he thought the Army was fair.”

Ed sat back, looked over his shoulder at the two guards, and pinched a little air between his thumb and forefinger to let them know we'd be done soon. The noise spiked. A woman was crying at the other end of the room. It was hot in there, and the fluorescent lighting made everyone look sick.

Ed turned back to me, rubbing his hands on his knees, as if to push off and stand. “I guess that's all, Chief. The court-martial records gotta to be filed somewhere—you can get that little cracker sergeant's name that way. Just poke around. You'll find it.”

We were done. We both stood and I shook his hand.

“Thanks, Ed. This was a big help.”

“Be sure and tell them so, Chief. If I'm a good boy, I get a gold star and an extra cookie at lunch.”

***

The file on the case was sealed. It required a sensitive compartmented information security clearance to even look at the cover page. An SCI is an even more restricted rating than Top Secret. I asked the records clerk why a routine drug-related court-martial required such extreme protection. He told me to fill out an SF-86—a National Security Questionnaire—and turn it in to the State Department with all required support documentation. The background check and investigation would probably take at least a year. They were kind of backed up at the moment. But he'd be happy to talk to me when I had my paperwork in order.

I presented the request as a law enforcement priority, implied that I had powerful connections and even threatened him with an obstruction of justice charge if he didn't cooperate.

He didn't cooperate.

He knew I was bluffing and he'd heard it all before. “Refusing access to court documents for angry big shots who try to push me around?” he said to me just before we hung up, “That's the main perk of this job. That and the dental plan.”

There was some forward progress to greet me at the office. Chuck Obremski had e-mailed a few frames from the security camera, identified by the doorman as Tyler Gibson—bulky like an ex-athlete, wide-faced with a bad comb-over, five foot six at most.

No resemblance to my Tyler Gibson, the one who was renting a house off Cliff Road and freaking out at the fireworks. My Tyler Gibson was just over six feet tall with a long bony face and lots of straw blond hair. The urge to drive out there now and arrest him loomed and subsided. I wanted him for much more than identity theft. If I picked him up now, he could raise bail in an hour and be gone. I didn't want him disappearing on me. We were less than a week away from the Pops concert, with the wrong man in jail. We couldn't afford any more mistakes.

Anyway, I wanted the JTTF involved and to convince Tornovitch I was going to need something more solid to show him. I checked my watch. Almost six o'clock in L.A.

I called the building security office in Los Angeles and caught Bo Tanner just as he was clocking out.

“Hey, Chief. Did you get that picture?”

“Yeah, thanks, Bo. Listen, I have a couple of questions, if you have a second.”

“I got all night, son. I'm going home to the History Channel and a Stouffer's lasagna. Both of em can wait.”

I glanced around my office, that shot of Chief Bratton giving me my Police Academy diploma. I was about as far away from Los Angeles as I could get and still be in America. I felt every mile of the distance tonight.

“Chief?”

“Yeah, Bo…sorry. I guess what I wanted to ask was—when was the last time you saw Gibson?”

“Funny you should mention that. We were talking about that a few days ago. He kind fell through the cracks lately. Mike was on duty when Gibson went out for his walk in the canyons, but he was off by the time Gibson got back. Kenny was on duty by then but it was real busy and he didn't recall seeing Gibson come home. Mike would have noticed if he never showed up, but Mike was gone.”

“And when was this? Do you remember the day of the month?”

“Well, I can check—but I'm pretty sure it was late May.”

“So no one has seen him for a month?”

“Well—he travels a lot. Sometimes we don't see him for three months at a time.”

“But doesn't he leave instructions for his mail and his newspaper when he goes away? You have a housekeeping staff. Doesn't their schedule change when he's not around?”

“Hey, we have a lot of tenants in this building, Chief.”

I released a breath and backed off. There was nothing to be gained by pissing off Bo Tanner. I decided to try a different tack.

“You said he walked in the canyons. Is there any special one he ever mentioned to you?”

“Oh sure, we talk about that stuff all the time. He used to go to Temescal and Sullivan sometimes. Now mostly he just goes to Will Rogers—or Rustic Canyon. Apparently you can get in there from the Will Rogers estate. There's a path next to the polo field. He knows those hills inside out. Me, I'd rather sit home with a beer and watch the National Geographic channel. I don't like them rattlesnakes. Oh yeah, he's seen 'em up there. Coyotes, too. Even a mountain lion one time.”

“Thanks, Bo. You've been a big help.”

“I'm sure Gibson'll turn up, Chief. He always does.”

“Well, keep me posted. I'd like to talk to him.”

“Sure thing.”

I called Chuck Obremski on his cell.

“Oh brother,” he said, first thing. “Here it comes.”

“You have a possible 187 in Rustic Canyon. You have to check it out.”

“Rustic Canyon's a big place, K.”

“Take the standard walking route from Casale Drive. You can walk down in there from the fire road. It was his last known twenty, Chuck. As far as anyone can tell me, he went walking there and he never came back. A week later someone else is using his name, standing in my office complaining about parking tickets, and planting a bug on my phone. You're the one who always told me ‘Check the time lines. Chronology is everything. A crime is a story and stories happen in order'.”

“You remember that?”

“I wrote it down.”

“I bet you did. Fuck! Asshole cut me off. I'm on the 405, trying to get home for dinner. I knew I should have gone over Coldwater. Fucking traffic.”

“The time line makes sense, Chuck.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“So you'll do it?”

“Yeah, but your name is nowhere on this. If it's real, I'm taking the credit. I need some notches in my belt. Our closed murder stats are in the toilet this year.”

“Call me when you know something. And thanks.”

“Mention it.”

He broke the connection. A second later my phone rang again: Elaine Bailey.

“You're too late Chief. That house was snapped up two days ago.”

It took me a second. Of course—the envelope house. Everybody lives in their own world, and Elaine's world was real estate. That might help me now. “Don't worry. We'll find something else. Listen, Elaine, do you remember the name of that client from Los Angeles? The one you mentioned to me, who creeped you out?”

“I checked my files that day, after we talked.”

“So…”

“I think it was—Gibbons? No, Gibson. That's it—Tyler Gibson. Are you going to arrest him?”

“No, no, no—just curious.”

I promised her we'd take another house hunting excursion and disconnected the call.

My shouted “Yes!” echoed in the empty room. I knew his name and Elaine knew his address. I jumped to my feet, feeling the old adrenaline rush. I had been ninety-nine percent sure. Now I was a hundred percent sure and that tiny little one percent makes all the difference in the world.

All I needed was iron clad proof and an old-fashioned Chuck Obremski time line that made sense. I had a lot of homework to do. It was late, and I still hadn't eaten dinner. The excitement ebbed and exhaustion seeped in to take its place. I decided to drive into town. I parked on the apron in front of the old station house, a convenient perk until the town found something else to do with the building. Sheriff Bob Bulmer's official Ford Explorer with the fancy new rims—he had bought them as a gesture of amused defiance when people complained he was wasting his departmental budget—was already there, carelessly skewed sideways, taking up two spaces. Technically he wasn't allowed to park here, but Bob loved pushing the boundaries. He wasn't worth bothering with, and he knew it.

Climbing out of my car I realized that I missed the human contact and the sense of community we had when the cop shop stood in the heart of downtown, and you could step out into the lively summer streets any time you wanted and take their pulse.

The pulse was racing at ten o'clock—teen-agers putting off going home, couples returning from dinner, buskers on Main Street. A juggler had attracted a crowd, and further along a kid was playing the violin. Stores were open and people were shopping. They were relentless, they'd shop around the clock if you let them. How many t-shirts and bad paintings could you buy? The town had been built on whaling money. It survived on people's need to dispose of their disposable income.

A long jumbled line at the Juice Bar filled the sidewalk, spilled over into Broad Street and turned the corner up South Water. I never quite figured out the appeal of the Juice Bar. The only thing I liked there was the watermelon juice. But it was the only place in town to buy ice cream and monopoly capitalism ruled on Nantucket.

“Chief!”

I scanned the line and picked out Debbie Garrison and her mother. Joanne was a small woman, only a few inches taller than Debbie, with a perfect athletic body and severely-cut short brown hair. Her wide brown eyes and thin lips were pinched together, closing in on a sharp little nose. She looked like a scary doll—Harried Mom Barbie. This had been a tough time for Joanne. The secrets were out between Debbie and Billy Delavane, much to her chagrin. Debbie had dragged her mom to the station and they'd both been waiting when we let Billy out of detention.

“She threw her arms around me and shouted, ‘Daddy, Daddy, Daddy!'” Billy had told me, later. “I figured the cat was out of the bag at that point.”

Joanne grabbed Debbie's arm now, as the little girl started toward me.

“Debbie! Stay out of the street! It's—oh, hi Chief Kennis.”