“Yeah, my old pickup truck is still in the system as being registered to me,” he said.
“And the new truck?”
“Should be registered to a Cam Bichter, with a B.”
She made a computer search for that name, but no hits came up. “When did you buy the truck?”
“A few days ago,” he said.
“Then the paper hasn’t moved through the system,” she said. “But none of this will work for very long. The system uses VIN numbers. Eventually, transactions will come up and then there will be a VIN mismatch.”
Cam felt his face redden. He should have known it wouldn’t work. She piled on a little more.
“The other problem will be insurance. Your new truck is insured, yes?”
“Right. Of course.”
“Then your insurance company must report that fact to the State DMV database. It’s the only proof of insurance that the system will recognize these days. Insurance is VIN number-specific. That will blow your cover immediately, assuming someone’s actually looking.”
“Shit, forgot about that,” Cam said.
“Almost every aspect of your life is interlinked these days,” she said, causing the screen to fade by issuing another voice command. “Banking, buying or selling anything, medical insurance, life insurance, credit records, and anything you do on-line-all are visible to competent eyes.”
“So if I wanted to mislead someone…”
“You might mail a credit card to some Mexican resort,” she said. “One of those solicitations that comes in the mail? Put a five-hundred-dollar limit on it and hope someone steals it and uses it. As soon as he does, you’re in Mexico.”
“That simple?”
“No, not to law enforcement,” she said, brightening the windows again. “Law enforcement would check to see if there was a corroborating airline ticket, hotel reservation, or a rental car-things like that-to support your supposed travel. If you really want to dissemble, it has to be seamless.”
“Marlor took out a big wad of cash. He didn’t want to confuse; he simply wanted to operate off the grid.”
“To the right watchers, taking out the big lump of cash in the absence of, say, a purchase of some kind pretty much signals that that’s what you’re going to do,” she said. “Even you reached that conclusion about Marlor immediately.”
Cam nodded. “The sheriff wants me to see if there’s an organized death squad operating in the Manceford County Sheriff’s Office,” he said. “He also wants to know if cops were connected to what happened to Annie. But I don’t think I can do anything on the bombing case without bumping up against the federal investigation.”
“I would agree,” she replied. “They are tracing back on the explosive and trying to solve the question of the timer. They will generate a suspects list and try to connect them to the bomb or its components. And they will pursue the police angle as well, I think. They will look into any disciplinary judgments against police, and then examine the individual police officers for motive.”
“Exactly what I would do,” Cam said, thinking of Kenny Cox. “And then I’d start interviewing-in depth. Assume they’re there, and assume they’re organized. Rattle cages.”
“Yes,” she said. “But if you start doing any of that, the Bureau will detect it. That would be a problem.”
“How about we work it from a different direction, then,” he said. “Let’s look at criminals. People like Flash and K-Dog who did crimes but didn’t take much of a fall for them. Criminal defendants who went through Bellamy’s court, who either walked or waltzed. Who then maybe got dead.”
She smiled. “Now you are postulating search criteria,” she said. “How far back?”
“Five years? Ten? Hell, I don’t know. Pick a window. Maybe start with all the court records on criminal cases in Bellamy’s court. Then build a disposition record for each of them. Some will be in jail. Some will be free. Some will be dead. See if there’s a pattern to the dead ones.”
She sat down and picked up what Cam thought was a magazine, except this one had a screen. She was using a fingernail as a stylus to write on the screen as he talked. “And then,” he continued, “see if we can tie in arresting officers, or testifying officers. Find out who did the investigation of each case.”
“Are we looking at large numbers of names here?” she asked.
“No,” he said. “Each field office has only three, maybe four detectives. Sergeants. The same names will keep coming up. We’ll need a way to tie them together.”
“That’s what my tigers do, Just Cam,” she said. “They look for relationships. It’s usually a matter of entering enough data.”
“Can you do all that remotely? Without having to go the courthouse?”
“If the documents have been stored electronically, yes. The sheriff can get me access. If things are on paper records, it will require a hand search.”
“I know all of our daily records have to go on computer,” Cam said. “Hopefully, the court has the same requirements. In the meantime
…”
“Yes, what will you be doing?”
“I’m going to be looking into something called a ‘cat dancer.’” He told her what Marlor had told him. He mentioned the name White Eye Mitchell and said that he was going to start out at the Cherokee Indian reservation in the southwestern part of the state. He saw a glimmer of recognition in her eyes.
“I know that area,” she said.
“The night rallies?”
She smiled. “Those are just urban legends.”
“Sure they are,” he said. “Probably like cat dancers, whatever the hell they are.”
She stood up. “Call me tonight.”
“On my home phone or my cell?”
She smiled patronizingly at him. “You might as well give all that up, Just Cam. Use whatever phone you want to. You simply don’t know enough to deceive effectively.”
“Swell,” he said.
34
As soon as Cam reentered Manceford County, he picked up a tail. From what he could see in the rearview mirror, it was a Sheriff’s Office cruiser, not Highway Patrol. He checked his speed, which was about ten miles over the limit, but other vehicles had been passing him until the cruiser showed up. He could see a crowd of cars beginning to bunch up behind the police car. Finally, after about three minutes, as he approached an exit ramp, the cruiser closed in and flashed its headlights. Cam dutifully put on his own turn signal and pulled off on the exit ramp. There was a BP gas station immediately to the right and he pulled the pickup truck into the station and then drove around back. The fact that the deputy had not used his light bar should mean that he just wanted to talk.
The cruiser pulled up alongside, nose-to-tail, and Cam ran the window down. He recognized the deputy as one of the sergeants from the High Point field office. The officer said good morning and passed a pager over to Cam.
“How’d you make the truck?” Cam asked. “I just bought it.”
“Yeah, I know. One of our new guys moonlights down at that dealership. Said you’d come in and gotten you a new truck. Red one-fifty with dealer tags. Sheriff’s secretary said you’d be coming back from Charlotte right about now and to give you that pager. Have a great day, Lieutenant.”
Cam grinned as the cruiser pulled off and headed back to raise hell with interstate traffic. It was still a small town. And Jay-Kay had been entirely correct. He set the pager for vibrate instead of ring and put it in his pocket. Then he followed the cruiser back down onto the interstate. So all of his efforts to pretend he’d left town had been for nothing. And how had the sheriff’s secretary known he’d be northbound on I-85, headed toward Triboro? Because Jay-Kay had probably called the sheriff and requested some access, that’s how. But if a lowly probationer knew he was still driving around the county, then whoever was working with that night visitor from another county could also know that. Hell with it, he thought. I’ll head home, get some stuff, and then head west to the reservation. Then I won’t have to pretend that I’ve left town.