“Yeah, during the late winter. Made both the paper and TV. Some kind of revenge thing.”
“How’s the media covering this one?”
“Nothing yet. Not a peep. Local news seems to shut down during the weekend. Actually, I didn’t turn the TV on this morning, and there’s nothing in the paper. I imagine the sheriff’s department does a regular press briefing. I’ll watch the local news tonight.”
“I’m going to say it again. This would be a good time to say sayonara to all those pines and lakes you’ve been telling me about and get back to civilization. Let the local heat figure it out. Look at the facts. First, you’re breaking the law. You’ve observed a murder and not brought that information to the police. Second, Sabotny now knows that someone is watching him.”
“And I’ll say it again, too. He doesn’t know who I am. I’m invisible.”
“Are you? How invisible? You live in a little village. You’re new. In spite of all your precautions, people notice.”
“Like who?”
“There’s the mailman.”
“I get my mail in Traverse City or electronically,” she answered.
“Yeah, but the mailman drives by. He needs something for his brain to chew on as he covers his route. He notices the house is occupied. He sees you getting in the car. He wonders why you don’t get mail. He mentions it to his favorite waitress in town. She works at that cafe you go to; she recognizes you, and that night she tells her boyfriend…. Want me to go on? How about the UPS and Fedex drivers, the garbage man, the cop on the road patrol? How about the bag boy at the grocery who also sees what kind of car you climb into when he’s out collecting carts? How about the guys who upgraded your security system?”
“We hired a downstate company,” she countered.
“What if they farmed out some of the work to a local contractor?”
“Well, I don’t think so,” Mackenzie replied.
“Yeah, but you don’t know for sure. You don’t know anything for sure. I’m saying, you may not be seeing any of these folks, but some of them are seeing you. And now that Sabotny is tipped off, he’s trying to figure out who is watching him. Is it one of his neighbors? Someone with a view of his house?”
“Dozens of people have the same view I do.”
“And are all those houses occupied?”
“Well, no. Not during the winter.”
“So, he scans the environment and says to his old friend, the mailman, ‘Hey Herb, anyone new living along the shore on West Bay or up there on the hill?’ And Herb says something like, ‘No one permanent I’m delivering to.’ So Sabotny asks, ‘You haven’t heard about anyone new, maybe a woman in one of those expensive lakefront properties?’ And Herb thinks for a moment or two and says, ‘Well my brother-in-law put a dish on one of those trophy houses for some single woman. Says she must have big bucks.’”
“Ken Lee, that’s all just fantasy. You have a great imagination.”
“Yeah, that’s fantasy, but that’s the way things go down. Sabotny’s probably got a network of friends among the locals. Right now he’s looking in every direction. For Sabotny, this is a life-or-death situation. He’s on full alert. You’ve been so totally fixated on him, you haven’t seen anyone else, but lots of people have seen you.”
“So what do you think I should do?”
“You know what I think. You reject that straight up. So I want you to go on full alert. Make sure your security system is working and always turned on. Keep weapons within easy reach when you’re at home. Any time you leave the house, go fully armed. Don’t be surprised if someone tries to run you off the road. Watch out for a car jacking. Carry that satellite uplink on you at all times so I know where you are. Hit the panic button if you’re in trouble.”
“How can I go to yoga?”
“You know the answer.”
“So now I’m a captive?”
“The game totally changed Saturday night. Maybe it isn’t a checkmate, but it’s close. You’re going to have to figure out how to escape.”
“What would you do?”
“Exactly what I’ve been saying over and over. Pull you, and put three big, ugly ex-Seals in your place. Figure out a way to put some heat on Sabotny. Get him to do something desperate and stupid, then figure out how to get justice for your brother.”
44
Simone walked into Ray’s office, the end of her leash in her mouth, the remainder dragging behind. Sue followed, armed with a folder and her ubiquitous coffee mug. Ray spent several moments attending to Simone, collecting enthusiastic kisses as he scratched the ears of the wiggling terrier.
“How did your weekend work out?”
“We sort of had dates around the edges of my work. He took me out for dinner Saturday, then we went to a movie. I don’t think I made it past the opening credits. Sunday morning I took him for a forced walk across the top of Sleeping Bear before I went back to the Moarse place.”
“It was raining cats and dogs all morning,” said Ray.
“Yup, but he didn’t complain too much. And I made him a special dinner Sunday night.”
“Yes?”
“Stuff you taught me. Salmon with a caper sauce. I cooked the fish on the grill just like you do. And I served salad with a baguette that I resuscitated with a few minutes in the oven. I had a good bottle of Vouvray chilled, and topped the meal off with thimbleberry jam on Ben & Jerry’s vanilla, sort of an up-north touch.”
“The jam or the Ben….”
“Here, check this out,” said Sue, sliding a plastic bag containing a rectangular object the size of a cigarette pack in his direction.
“What is it?” He held the bag up to his face and inspected the device, olive drab in color with a hard plastic exterior.
“It’s the phantom phone,” said Sue.
“Really? I’ve never seen anything like this before.”
“Neither have I. But I verified that it’s the source of the 911 signal.” She put her finger on the bag. “Notice there are two buttons on the front. You have to push them in sequence to turn the thing on, the small one first and the large one next. It looks as if it was designed so it couldn’t be accidentally activated.”
“Where did you find it?”
“Behind a pile of firewood next to the sauna.”
“Why would anyone go to all that trouble to have a device like this fabricated when old cell phones are a dime a dozen?”
“My question, exactly,” said Sue. “I sent photos to a guy I’ve taken workshops from at the Bureau. I asked the same question.”
“Any response?”
“Well, yes, I also phoned. I wanted to make sure he still remembered me. So, Nigel, that’s the guy, English sounding name, but I don’t think he is, or at least he doesn’t sound like it, said that’s a new one on him, and he’s a specialist in this kind of exotic stuff. He wants me to send it on to him when we’re done so he can have a look. His speculation is that someone built a super 911 phone with quality components to make sure it did what was needed. He said it probably has an excellent GPS function and a high output cell signal. He really liked the two button arrangement.”
“Any prints?”
“No, and I didn’t expect any, either.”
“We’ve talked about this already, but what’s going on here?” asked Ray.
“Seems pretty clear that the person who put the phone in place was either watching Moarse or the perp who did him.”
“Or perhaps, both,” said Ray.
“There’s that.”
“Did this Nigel have any idea about the source? Maybe we could trace it to the person that way.”
“He said this kind of device comes out of boutique shops, ones that build specialty equipment for corporate security. They do one-offs and small production runs. He said you won’t find this on the Internet. Someone probably dropped a few K or more to get a product with this kind of functionality.” Sue looked across at Ray. “And I take it no one has come forward looking for their non-phone?”