The Cat Dancers

23

“Well?”the sheriff said.

“Somebody who looked like Marlor, in a truck that looked like Marlor’s truck, and with two pieces of Marlor’s ID, cashed one of his checks for five hundred bucks at a drive-up window today.”

“Or put another way,” the sheriff said, “James Marlor cashed a check this morning.”

Cam reminded him about the thirty-five grand he’d taken out before he vanished. The sheriff asked if there’d been any big debts paid off-like the mortgage-with that money. Cam said no. The sheriff swore when he saw the hole in his argument.

“The neighbor lady taking care of his house had the checkbook and her signature on the account card,” Cam said. “I’m going to ask her to see if there are any checks missing.”

“What will that prove, even if there are?” Bobby Lee asked. “Marlor could have taken one or two with him.”

That was certainly true. It was Cam’s turn to swear. Another damned dead end, but he was still going to ask the question.

“Okay,” the sheriff said. “I’ll call McLain on the secure videoconference line. Might as well clear the air.”

“He’s in Washington, according to the Charlotte office.”

“Surely they have secure comms facilities in Washington,” Bobby Lee said. “But I’m still not convinced that we’ve got some wrong cops here. You getting all the assets you need to find these three guys?”

Cam nodded, then told him what they were doing, which was mostly spinning their wheels.

“I’m going to ask for some help from the state on this chair thing,” the sheriff said. “In the meantime, no more meetings with that Indian woman. We don’t know who she’s really working for, and that always makes me uneasy.”

“Last night, she was going solo, I think,” Cam said. “She still wants someone’s head for what happened to her uncle.”

“Not for money, then?”

“Negative. She was pro bono with the Bureau, and she didn’t come near asking me for money to help out. I think it’s personal.”

“Personal’s not professional, by definition,” he said. “Keep the investigation in the official loop for now. I’ll let you know what I get from SBI.”

Cam thanked him and went back to his office. Going to North Carolina’s State Bureau of Investigation might be a good move. The SBI existed to provide state-level assets to local law; all a sheriff had to do was ask. North Carolina’s SBI agents were good people; Cam’s guess was that Bobby Lee might also broach this other problem with their Internal Affairs experts.

In the meantime, his people were supposedly all in motion finding their three targets. But if this was a vigilante problem, some of them might be just going through the motions. Especially one.

With a great deal of reluctance, he kept coming back to sergeant Kenny Cox. Kenny was eight years his junior, and, as his deputy, the logical choice to take over MCAT whenever Cam hung up his gun belt. He was originally from southern Virginia, raised in a farming family, and had a degree in criminology from a junior college. He’d served in the army and had achieved the Ranger designation before transferring to the Provost Marshal Corps. He’d done one and a half hitches and then gotten out, for reasons never clearly explained in the time Cam had known him. He suspected it had something to do with Kenny’s growing impatience at having to take orders from shavetails with zero military police experience but with plenty of instant authority over him.

He’d ended up in Triboro in pursuit of a young lady, or so he’d said, and that aspect of his nature hadn’t changed one bit. He was reportedly a world-class skirt-chaser, but disarmingly up-front about it, and the women to whom he paid attention seemed to sense that and go with it. Cam had once asked him if he was ever going to get married and settle down, and he’d asked Cam to name one good reason to do that. Cam told him for the comfort of his old age, and Kenny allowed as to how old age wasn’t something he was going to plan for. His parents had both died in their late fifties from lung cancer. Kenny was a smoker himself and positively defiant about it whenever the subject of smoking and health came up. He once said that one of the advantages of being a cop was that there was a ready-made solution to the problem of a long-term wasting illness.

He affected a cowboy attitude, but he was actually a highly competent detective who embraced technology in the pursuit of bad guys. He was also a natural leader. Some of that had to do with his imposing size, but he had a force of personality that tended to put him out front anytime something got going. He’d been involved in three shooting incidents during his career, all cleared as righteous. That was higher than average in the Manceford County Sheriff’s Office, but not unheard of, especially for someone who was SWAT-qualified. There’d been an equal number of incidents in which Kenny personally had talked a barricade subject down, and one where the subject had given it up the moment he saw Kenny, in full SWAT gear, step into the house and look at him.

He was something of a legend among the younger single guys in the sheriff’s office, but not because he went around telling tall tales. In fact, he took the opposite approach, letting other people tell the tall tales and then just grinning innocently about it. Cam happened to know that he wasn’t much of a boozer and that he was a master of discretion when it came to his love life. Once in awhile, the MCAT crew would retire to one of the cop bars in the area, and Kenny was always the first to leave, usually hinting that he had some sweet young thing waiting. Maybe that was all true, or maybe it was just Kenny’s way of keeping the legend alive. The one and only time Cam had seen him really drunk was after one of his deer-hunting buddies had been killed in a SWAT operation. Kenny hadn’t been on the run that day, but the guy who’d shot his friend was a three-time loser who’d been let out on bond by none other than Annie Bellamy, as a matter of fact, once again because of a procedural screwup.

The county cops had gathered down at Frank’s Place, a bar and grill favored by the Manceford County deputies over on the western edge of town. Cam had found Kenny drinking alone in a corner booth, and despite some warning looks from some of the other guys as he approached, Cam joined him. Kenny had been drinking Jack Daniel’s and had more than his load on, to the point where Frank had already picked up Kenny’s keys. Anyway, that was the first time Cam heard Kenny really unload on the subject of lawyers, judges, the criminal justice system, and the simplest cure to the problem of rising crime-namely, regular doses of twelve-gauge justice, preferably delivered from a darkened cruiser late at night.

Cam knew Kenny was drunk, sad, and furious all at the same time, but this was a side of his deputy he’d never seen. Kenny’s face and voice revealed a potential for homicidal violence that was entirely consistent with both his size and aggressive nature but not with his being a supposedly mature and professionally seasoned cop. The booze overload finally propelled him out into the back parking lot for some purgative relief, after which Cam ran him home. Kenny had sat in the right front seat of the Mero, his head hanging out the window. Kenny lived alone on an old farm place on the banks of the Deep River, southwest of town, and they’d spent the remainder of the night drinking coffee and solving the problems of the world. By the time Cam left at dawn, the Kenny he knew was back and the murderous red-eyed monster who’d wanted to soak every single one of those wet-brained, creeping Jesus, Communist do-gooder, robe-swishing, gavelwielding sons and daughters of diseased whores in vats of battery acid had slouched reluctantly back into its lair.

Cam had entertained some similar sentiments from time to time. He’d once toyed with the idea of getting a law degree to improve his resume, so he went over to UNC and took the L-SAT exam, which he failed miserably. He made an appointment with one of the law professors and asked what had happened. “Simple,” the professor had said when he looked at Cam’s test report. “You don’t think like a lawyer; you think like a human.” The test was rigged to allow the applicant to find either the just solution or the legal solution. Cam had gone for justice every time, which meant that he would never make it through law school. “The test did you a favor, young man,” the professor said.

And that had been Cam’s problem with lawyers ever since: They examined criminal incidents from the perspective of the law, as they were supposed to. They applied their abundant intelligence, a body of complex ancient law, elaborate procedure, and the nicest sense of professional ethics to people who were hatched out on the margins of civilized society, hadn’t the first idea of right and wrong, and whose total intelligence manifested itself in cunning. The lawyers were never present when the cops caught these things, often still awash in the blood and gore of their victims, a sticky knife in one hand and blood lust glowing in their beady little eyes even as they were trying to figure out how to get out of the corner they were in yet again. That was when every cop out there, at one time or another, looked around for a club.

Senior cops would tell junior cops just to put it away, saying that they didn’t want to get down there in the blood gutters with the animals. But the truth was, the longer one was in the cop business, the more one realized that the stinking killer cuffed in the backseat was going to get hosed down, cleaned up, and dressed in the first clean clothes he’d ever seen. Then he’d be taken into the cathedrals of The Law to appear before all its high priests, with a fair chance of getting away with whatever heinous crimes he’d committed, depending not on what the little monster had done but on how good or inept the opposing lawyers were when they eventually played their intellectual game.

So, what to do next? His personal style would be simply to ask Kenny if he was running a vigilante squad, but that obviously wasn’t on, given the notoriety of this case. Internet service providers around the world had embargoed the original execution scene postings, but enough people had downloaded the video clips to keep the thing very much alive in all sorts of chat rooms. Assertions by police and other authorities that the execution scenes weren’t real rang increasingly hollow each day the two minimart heroes remained missing, and it was only a matter of time before one of the big news organizations ran a special, putting the videos together with the shooting at Annie’s house. Cam could still hear that voice from the crypt saying, “That’s two.”

The sheriff’s secretary called and asked that he come down to the secure communications room for a video teleconference. Steven Klein was already there when Cam arrived, and Bobby Lee came in a moment after Cam did. They took their places in front of the camera bank, and then Bobby Lee explained to Steven what he was going to talk to the FBI about. Steven was appropriately horrified, as this was the first he was hearing about it.

“Well, it’s more of a possibility that we’re exploring,” Bobby Lee said. “Lieutenant Richter here gives it better legs than I do right now, but since he’s had indications the Bureau people in Charlotte think we have a problem, I’m on with special agent McLain in”-he glanced at his watch-“three minutes. He’ll be speaking from Washington, apparently. Lieutenant, fill Mr. Klein in, please.”

Cam went through it with Steven, who just sat there and listened. He was an inveterate note-taker, and the fact that he wasn’t writing any of this down showed that he knew how explosive it was.

“That’s all so circumstantial,” he said when Cam was finished.

“This whole mess is circumstantial,” Cam said. “The Bureau’s public position remains that there’s no physical evidence that the Internet executions are real. But that big-game rifle at Judge Bellamy’s house, that was real.”

Steven shook his head. “We have plenty of nut jobs right here in the Triad who might want to do that. How do you tie this shooting to the chair thing?”

Cam started to explain, but then the video circuit came up and they saw Special Agent McLain materialize on the forty-eight-inch main display screen. The red lights on all three face cameras came on, and the technician who established the link announced over the speakers that the connection was secure and that he was isolating the room.

“Gentlemen,” McLain said, looking a little stiff in his suit and tie. The camera shooting him focused on the top third of his body, so if there was anyone else in the room, they weren’t able to tell. It being the Bureau, they were probably taping everything.

The sheriff introduced Steven and Cam in case McLain had forgotten their names, then got right to it. “Mr. McLain, we’re hearing that the Charlotte field office thinks there might be a vigilante problem here in the Manceford County Sheriffs Office,” he said almost pleasantly. “Naturally, that disturbs me, so I thought I’d clear the air, one way or another.”

“May I ask where you got that, Sheriff?” McLain asked. Bobby Lee looked over at Cam expectantly.

“I had dinner the other night with your computer consultant, Jaspreet Kaur Bawa,” Cam said. “She voiced the opinion that, contrary to published Bureau opinion, you all felt the execution videos were real, and that because of the way the threat was sent to Judge Bellamy, someone inside our system either sent it or provided the access. This was before the shooting incident at Judge Bellamy’s house.”

“Whoa,” McLain said. “What shooting incident?”

Bobby Lee got an annoyed look on his face. “I assumed that had been reported to your field office,” he said.

“I’m on temporary duty in Washington, Sheriff,” McLain said. “It may have been reported. What happened?”

The sheriff gave him the essential elements. McLain nodded when the sheriff was finished. “I think Ms. Bawa overheard a conversation,” he said, “rather than an official statement of Bureau policy. People are of two opinions on the execution videos, as I suspect they are in your shop, Sheriff. The policy, on the other hand, is that without physical evidence, the Bureau will not proceed.”

“Okay,” Bobby Lee said calmly. “What’s behind all the conversation, then?”

“Our computer-lab types talked to your Computer Crimes people,” he said. “To get a system description on your security hierarchy. Ms. Bawa was part of that discussion. The consensus was that your system is reasonably effective, so logic would dictate that the E-mail came from inside the system. Actually, based on the password setup, probably from another judge. In our opinion.”

“In your opinion,” Bobby Lee prompted.

McLain shrugged. “One could argue it wasn’t much of a threat,” he said. “And if judges want to snipe at judges, that’s their prerogative. No crime, for one thing, and judge-to-judge communications are privileged. That’s why we didn’t share our opinions. Any signs of the two purported execution victims, by the way?”

“Nope,” Bobby Lee said. “Nor any sign of our prime suspect, James Marlor, either.”

What about the check? Cam thought, but then decided to keep his yap shut for a change.

“Well, that’s a pisser,” McLain said. “I happen to be in the ‘Maybe it’s real’ camp, but I must reiterate-we won’t get into it until there’s physical evidence of a crime. Bodies, I’m talking about. And even then, we might not take it on. Washington headquarters has a point: We spin up on this one and we’ll create a cottage industry of Webheads generating drama for our investigatory pleasure. Did you say you have that judge under police protection?”

“That’s right.”

“Well, I’d suggest that’s where you need to start, Sheriff. Make the assumption that it was cops doing that, or not-that’s your call, of course. You said you flooded the area with patrol units right after the shooting. Canvass the neighborhood-see if there were cop cars out there before the shooting. Like that.”

“Believe it or not, we’re already doing that,” Bobby Lee said somewhat heatedly.

“No offense intended, Sheriff,” McLain said, but Cam noticed he wasn’t smiling. “Your office has the highest reputation. But the hard part is that initial assumption. As I remember from my visit there, your rank-and-file people were really pissed when that judge let those subjects go. If you’re nervous about lighting that fuse, maybe get the SBI into it?”

“I’ve got that in motion, too,” the sheriff said. That was quick, Cam thought.

“Look, I’ve got a meeting,” McLain said. “Anything else to talk about?”

“Nope,” the sheriff said. “Thanks for your time. Good-bye.” He hit a button on the table before McLain could say anything and the connection was broken abruptly. The screens went dark.

“Arrogant sumbitch,” Bobby Lee grumbled.

Steven disagreed. “No, they’re just staying at arm’s length,” he said. “Bureaucratically, that’s the smart thing to do right now, and in that outfit, Washington sets the policy, not the field offices.”

“But that doesn’t mean Charlotte’s not working it,” Cam interjected.

“Explain that,” the sheriff said, a suspicious look on his face. His jaw was set, which meant he was still angry at McLain.

Cam leaned forward. “He didn’t react when I said his consultant had been talking out of school. I’m thinking he sent her to put us on notice. He knew I’d bring that back to you. As in ‘Officially, this electric chair thing is your problem, but we’re watching your local yahoo asses.’”

“What about that ‘judge-to-judge’ business?” Steven asked. “That bothers me more than their speculations on the chair thing.”

“Based on what Computer Crimes told me, it could just as easily be someone with access to another judge’s computer,” Cam said. “Not necessarily one of the celestial beings themselves. Once it goes over the Internet, they can trace back to an address, but not to whose fingers were on the keyboard.”

“But isn’t that just their point?” Klein asked. “That message to the judge wasn’t on the Internet in the sky. It was on the in tra net. The judicial intranet.”

“Whatever,” Cam said. “But I think he had one good point: Let’s focus on who’s behind the shooting, where we do have some tangible evidence of a crime. That might be more productive than this endless search for Marlor, Simmonds, and Butts.”

“Not so fast,” the sheriff said. “It might be productive, but it can also be very dee-structive. I don’t want to start any wildfires in the Manceford County Sheriff’s Office based on one dinner conversation, Lieutenant, and that with a civilian consultant, I might add, who works for a federal agency.”

“She called me, Sheriff,” Cam said.

“Okay,” the sheriff said. “Enough of this shit. Lieutenant, you keep MCAT looking for Flash Gordon and his pal. And for James Marlor. I’ll think about this other business. I do not want you to start any internal investigations, disrupt the whole damned Sheriff’s Office, until I’ve had time to think it through and talk in detail with SBI. Steven, you and I need to talk.”

That was a clear signal for Cam to go away, so he did. He went back to the office, which was empty. He called Marlor’s neighbor but only reached her answering machine. He asked her to see if all the checks were accounted for, especially one numbered 2499. That number sounded like the last check in a series. Then he took advantage of the fact that the rest of the crew were out of the office and called the field ops center and asked for the dispatch supervisor. He asked her to generate a list containing the names of every deputy who’d been signed out to a cruiser at the time of the shooting incident, and the call number of each cruiser. Being a cop, she asked what was going on, and, mindful of Bobby Lee’s warning about starting shit, Cam told her the MCAT needed to recanvass the neighborhood where the incident occurred. She said she’d send it by e-mail.

The next call would be cutting closer to the line, but he decided to go ahead anyway. He called the district office’s three garages, and spoke to the maintenance supervisors. He asked each of them to generate another list, this one indicating by call number any cruisers that had been in for maintenance during the last twenty-four hours. The supervisors were all civilian employees, so none of them asked any questions and all three promised him their lists in the next hour, again by E-mail. Then, using his own computer, he printed out a list of all the vehicles owned and operated by the Sheriff’s Office. He crossed off the special-use vehicles-such as the war wagon for the SWAT teams and the mobile-lab vans-and counted up all the cop cars.

With this list and the ones he’d requested, he would have the numbers of every cruiser in the Manceford County Sheriff’s Office that had been available for street duty at the time of the incident. He could subtract the assigned cruisers and the ones in for maintenance from the master list. That should leave only half a dozen vehicles. He could then go check to see where they were that night, and who’d been using them. He knew it was possible that street deputies could be involved in something like this, but it would more likely involve senior people, sergeants at least.

He heard voices out in the main MCAT office, so he put away what he was doing and locked his desk. It gave him a strange feeling to be looking inside the Sheriff’s Office for criminal activity, but the more he thought about it, the more he had the feeling that it needed to be done. Especially since one of his own people might be involved. He knew he had to be very careful-Bobby Lee kept his finger on the pulse of the entire Sheriff’s Office better than anyone he knew. The sheriff had to be looking at him, too.