“Or,” Greenberg said, “we set off to take a perfectly innocent hike in said national park. How were we to know we’d strayed out of the park and into Rob-bins County? We rested under some rocks while we tried to decide where we were. Saw some shit. Left. Got chased by guys with guns and a pack of mad dogs. Defended ourselves, from them and the damned wild pig. One of the bullets fired at us hit a rock and started a brush fire, not a forest fire, and we had to escape by boat. Don’t know who was doing all the shooting, or who that woman was who smothered that kid in front of the sheriff, but somebody should really look into that.”
I looked at him. “Who would believe that bullshit?”
Greenberg squinted at me through a blue cloud. “What are you saying? We’re just going to forget this all happened?”
“Hell, no. We just have to pick the right person to tell, that’s all.”
We both said the name at the same time: Carrie Santangelo of the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation.
I looked at my watch. “It’s Sunday. No, it’s Monday morning. Let’s get some sleep, call her later this morning. See what she makes of all this.”
He nodded, rubbing his thighs.
“Told you down was harder,” I said, trying manfully not to rub my own quivering thigh muscles. “You really okay going to state law with this?”
“Keep your friends close and your enemies closer,” he said.
Over in a corner Frick still had her leg. I’d tried to take it away, but she’d given me one of those “I caught this leg fair and square and I am not going to turn aloose of it, friend” shepherd looks. I decided to go get some scotch after all.
“I know it’s four in the morning,” I said. “I need a drink. How ‘bout you?”
“Thought you’d never ask,” he said. “Down was a bastard.”
6
In the event, Special Agent Carrie Santangelo did not make it up to Marionburg until late Monday afternoon. Greenberg went back to his motel over on the Tennessee side after returning Mose’s gear. I heard via the grapevine in town that there had been a brush fire over in the Crown Lake area, and that a Robbins County fire truck and bulldozer team had been needed to contain it. The cause of the blaze was unknown, but careless four-wheelers were suspected. I had checked in with the Carrigan County Sheriff’s Office before going to dinner to see if anything was scheduled for the next day, but they had had no word back from Robbins County on the supposed fight victim or any warrants. They’d told me to check in again later.
Carrie had returned my call first thing Monday morning and said she could be up there by one or two. She arrived at the lodge at five thirty instead, having been delayed by the usual Monday morning crises in Raleigh. I called Greenberg over, went out for beer, and ordered in pizza, and then we debriefed her on our exciting excursion to Robbins County.
“How much of this have you told your bosses in the DEA?” she asked Greenberg immediately. He said he hadn’t reported anything. Yet.
“And you?” she asked me. “Have you talked to Sheriff Hayes?”
I shook my head. The sheriff had been unavailable all day, and my status as a potential manslaughter suspect had apparently lost a lot of traction.
She popped the top off another beer and sat back in her chair. She was wearing a dark business pantsuit and looked older than when I had first met her, but still entirely streetable. Older is a relative term.
“Sheriff Hayes reported the business of the fight at the Creigh cabin to SBI headquarters,” she said. “But less to indict you than to report the unorthodox way M. C. Mingo was handling it.”
“Fireproofing himself?” Greenberg, the bureaucrat, asked.
She nodded. “As you know, we have standard procedures for dealing with incidents like this between county jurisdictions. Mingo’s off the reservation on this one, so reporting to SBI was a smart move.”
She turned back to me. “Hayes did tell you to stick around?”
“He did, but so far, nothing seems to be happening. What about our little adventure? What will SBI do with that?”
“Beats the hell out of me,” she said with a bright smile. “But that’s why my boss gets paid the big bucks. You guys sure that was Mingo standing there when she crumpled the kid?”
We both nodded.
“We can’t exactly take this before a judge,” I pointed out.
“But surely you can fold what we’ve told you into any ongoing investigation of Robbins County, right?” Greenberg asked.
She gave him a cool interagency look. “Assuming there is such an investigation,” she said.
“Oh, c’mon, Carrie,” I said. “This guy Mingo the governor’s long-lost illegitimate brother or something? What’s the big reluctance in Raleigh to just going in there and kicking over the anthill?”
Carrie appeared to choose her words carefully. “Because some senior people in the SBI think that the meth business is a cover for something a lot worse.”
We looked at her expectantly, but she shook her head. “I can’t tell you any more than that right now.”
We groaned in unison.
“Look: Let me make some phone calls. In the meantime, don’t tell anyone what happened up there this weekend.”
“What if Mingo delivers up a corpus delicti between now and the meantime?” I asked.
“Call me if that happens. You do not want to be taken into custody in Rob-bins County.”
“Then I should get out of Carrigan County,” I protested. “If there’s going to be an extradition hearing, I’d want that to be held back in Triboro, not here.”
“Let me make my phone calls,” she repeated. “I’ll get back to you tonight.”
After she left, Greenberg asked if me we could make some coffee.
“This is not the SBI I know and love,” I said, as I fixed up a percolator. “When it comes to local sheriff’s operations, they’re usually more of a consulting organization. This definitely sounds like they’re running an op of their own.”
“Well, I’m not comfortable keeping my office out of the loop,” he said. “Her boss calls my boss, catches him off base with this story, he’s gonna want to know why I didn’t brief him first.”
“No longer having a boss, I don’t have that problem. On the other hand, I’m all alone out here, so I may talk to Sheriff Bobby Lee Baggett back in Triboro.”
“She told us not to talk to anyone.”
“I don’t work for her,” I said.
Greenberg nodded. “Me neither,” he said.
My phone rang at ten thirty that night. Greenberg had gone back to his motel a few hours ago to make his own calls, and I had talked to Bobby Lee, who’d suggested that I get the hell out of there as soon as possible, as in tonight. He’d pointed out that Sheriff Hayes had no evidentiary basis for holding me, I hadn’t been charged or even arrested, and I could always drive back if they did produce a corpus, but this time with shyster in tow. Or, if I elected to turn myself in to the Manceford County Sheriff’s Office back in Triboro, I could force an extradition hearing, which would be conducted back on my turf and not in Robbins County, where the magistrate was reportedly yet another Creigh.
After hearing about the events of the past few days and now this SBI mystery, Bobby Lee had been even more emphatic. “You did what your friend asked you to do,” he’d said. “Now get out of there while you still can. Let the alphabets play their games.”
It had all sounded perfectly reasonable to me. On the other hand, I was curious now, and decided to wait for Carrie Santangelo to call back. I had heard that curiosity killed the cat, but, of course, I wasn’t a cat.
Carrie was on the line when I picked up. “You’re a licensed PI now, correct?” she began.