I sat in the guest chair, took out my phone, and called my sister.
“Hi, Mandy, what’s up?”
“Is Rodney there?” she asked.
“Yes. He’s here working on a problem for me.”
“He ought to be in school.”
“He graduated, remember?”
“I mean in college. Smart kid like that. Can he hear us?”
“No. Did you buy him that shirt?”
“What shirt?”
“The one with the taco on it.”
She giggled. “I bought that for me to wear to aerobics. He keeps taking it.”
“Burn it. What do you need, Mandy?”
“I’ve been seeing a guy, an Army Captain assigned to where I work. We’ve been out a few times to the Officer’s Club and out on his boat. A real nice river cruiser. He’s got my phone number, but when I ask for his, he changes the subject.”
“What’s his name? Where’s he live?”
“Jeremy Pugh. Somewhere around here. I don’t know exactly where.”
“I’ll call you back,” I said and clicked off the phone.
I couldn’t blame the guy for liking Amanda. She was in her early thirties, a pretty, single mom with only Rodney to worry about. She got all the beauty genes in our family. She did not, however, get the brainy genes, and she counted on me to solve most of life’s problems.
“Rodney,” I said.
He stopped typing and looked up.
“Look up Captain Jeremy Pugh somewhere in the Metro area, and get me his home number.”
“Is that the prick Mom’s been going out with?”
“That’s the prick.”
After some rapid-fire keystrokes, Rodney read off a phone number.
I keyed the number on my phone and waited. A woman’s voice answered.
“Mrs. Pugh?”
“Yes?” She was a young woman. Not the Captain’s mother, I’d bet.
“Is Captain Pugh there?”
“Why no. He’s at work.”
“Okay. I must have missed him. Is this the Captain’s wife?”
“Yes, this is Bernadine Pugh.”
“Okay, ma’am. Sorry to have troubled you.”
I rang off and called Amanda again.
“He’s married, Mandy.”
Silence. Then, “I was afraid of that. My usual luck. What do I do now? I’m supposed to go out with him again on Friday. Meeting him at the O club.”
“Stand him up. His wife’s name is Bernadine. If he troubles you again, tell him you’ll call her. Or his Commanding Officer. Or me.”
“How’d you find out?”
“Good, solid police work. Comes from years of experience. I looked him up in the phone book and called. His wife answered.”
“Thanks, Stanley.”
I rang off and put the phone on the desk. Rodney looked up.
“What was all that about,” he asked.
“Your Mom. Made another bad choice.”
“The Captain?”
“That’s the one. What’s he like?”
“Average guy. You know.”
“Seem to be the combat type? Like maybe a Ranger? Afghanistan or something?”
“Him? No. What’s Mom going to do?”
“Don’t know.”
“She’ll never learn,” Rodney said.
“She never will,” I said.
He pointed to the laptop. “Okay, Uncle Stanley. Look at this.”
I rolled the chair around to see the screen. It displayed a page with the FBI logo and a street map, crosshairs on the map, and some text in an adjacent box.
“This is where the client’s cell phone is right now,” Rodney said, indicating the crosshairs. “It’s in the Heights just like you said.”
“I wonder if that’s his residence or an office.”
“Wait.”
Rodney clicked and typed. A big picture of the earth displayed. It spun and zoomed in and stopped with an overhead view of a street and some houses. More clicks and the monitor showed the front of the house, a large mansion with a circular, tree-lined driveway.
“Nice place,” I said. “I’ll have to pay a visit to my old drinking buddy Buford.”
“Can I go?” Rodney asked.
“Not dressed like that, you can’t. That’s a gated community. One look at that shirt and hairdo, and the security guard slams the gate down and calls the cops.”
“You don’t look all that spiffy yourself, Uncle Stanley.”
“Yeah, well, I’m going home soon. A nap, shower and shave, and a change of clothes will get me past the guard. I think it would take more of a major overhaul for you. No offense.”
“None taken. I like how I dress.”
“I don’t mind it all that much, but if you want to get on the client side of this business, you have to conform.”
“Some day.”
I pointed at the laptop. “See if you can get into the U.S. Marshals Service witness protection database.”
“Let’s see.”
More clicking and typing.
“There,” he said. “What do you need?”
“Buford Overbee. That would be the witness’s new identity.”
Click, click, tap, tap. “This the guy? I found him in the archives.”
The screen showed front and side mug shots of Buford from about ten years ago accompanied by his description, rap sheet, and notes about his case. The physical description was about right. His hair in the photos was darker with touches of gray, and his name had been Anthony Curro. His street name was “Collector.”
His rap sheet had countless minor offenses: extortion, assault, witness tampering, and the like. No convictions, though. The last charge was the big one. Murder. One dead drug dealer to account for. He had made a deal to roll on his bosses for the feds, and they lowered the charges.
The notes said that they had had an open-and-shut case with possible death penalty implications. But because the victim had been a drug dealer, they pled it down to a charge that drew time served and put Buford in witness protection.
A final notation said that Anthony Curro aka Buford Overbee aka “Collector” was no longer an active case. He had opted out of witness protection about five years ago.
Chapter 5
The northeast quadrant of Delbert Falls was the fashionable part of town. Upscale residences, large houses, even some mansions in the Heights; the town center with the county courthouse, the city police department, and city government buildings; expensive restaurants and hotels; and fashionable shopping malls catering to the more affluent citizenry. I had worked at police headquarters there when I was on the force. The Heights were uptown.
I drove north to the Interstate then a few miles east across the railroad tracks and took the exit for the Heights. A few miles to the north and I was in the Heights. A few more miles and I turned in and stopped at the guarded gate that protected residents of the Tall Oaks subdivision from invasion of the riff-raff.
The gatekeeper was an elderly fellow in a clean, pressed uniform that didn’t fit. The stitched-on name tag said, “Bob.” I wondered whether he was Bob or just wearing Bob’s uniform.
He came out of his guard shack and went behind my car with a clipboard. He looked at my license plate and then at the clipboard.
He came to the driver’s side of the car and asked, “May I help you?”
Why do people always ask that when what they really mean is, “Who the hell are you, and what the fuck are you doing here?”
So I said, “Yes you may. Open the gate.”
Apparently Bob had expected a different answer. He glared at me and looked at my car, a nine year old compact station wagon with faded paint and, if you looked inside, worn upholstery and trash on the seats and floorboards. And if you didn’t look inside too. Bob looked inside.
“What is your business here, sir?”
“Just that, Bob. My business.”
“Who do you wish to see? I’ll call and ask whether you are allowed into the compound.”