Walk the Wire

Chapter 32

“That’s the guy,” said Baker.

He, Decker, and Jamison were having coffee the next morning at a café down the street from their hotel. Decker had shown him the picture of Ben Purdy that Robie had sent him.

“You’re sure?”

“Oh, yeah. That’s him. He still around? Haven’t seen him since that night.”

“All the military guys are gone except for the man who runs the place, Colonel Sumter. The rest are private contractors.”

Baker shook his head. “Never liked those guys. They were paid three times what us grunts got and did a quarter of the work we did.” He eyed Decker. “Where’d you get that picture?”

Jamison glanced at her partner. Decker had already told her about the encounter with Robie.

“Just good, old-fashioned police work, Stan,” said Decker, taking his phone with the photo on it back as Jamison hiked her eyebrows at this comment.

“If he’s gone, how are you gonna talk to him?”

“Have to think of a way. Did he say anything else to you? Talk about his family? Friends? Anything that might help us track him down?”

“Well, he said his family was from Montana. Just over the border.”

Decker sat up. “Did he mention a town?”

“No. Just that it was small and rural. I guess most of Montana is rural.” He checked his watch. “I got to get going. I’m normally at work by now, but we had some repairs to make and we don’t start staging for another two hours.”

“Thanks, Stan, see you later.”

“Hey, um, Caroline wanted me to ask if you two wanted to join us for dinner tonight.”

“Dinner?” said Decker. “I don’t—”

But Jamison interjected, “That would be great, Stan.”

Baker grinned. “I’ll email you with the details. You’ll love the restaurant. It’s a pretty special place.”

Before they could comment on this, Baker hurried off.

Decker whirled on Jamison, who put up her hand.

“He’s your brother-in-law.”

“Soon to be ex.”

“Is he your friend? Do you like him?”

“Well, yes. He’s a nice guy, solid as a rock.”

“And didn’t you two just fight off a bunch of guys together?”

“Well, yeah.”

“The point is, he invited us to dinner. We should accept. At the very least we might learn something that could be helpful.”

Decker fingered his coffee, looking uncertain.

“What?” she said.

“If you want the truth, I guess I’m pissed that he seems so happy. Without my sister. I know that’s stupid and petty, but...”

Jamison put a hand on his shoulder. “And it’s also normal to feel that way after something like this happens to a family member. But you have to let it go. It’s his life to live, not yours. Don’t judge him, Decker, just support him. Like you just said, he’s a good guy.”

He refocused and said, “If Purdy’s family lives in Montana just over the border we should be able to find them.”

“It’s a long border, Decker. What about Robie? Could he help?”

“He got us the photo and the name. He did his job. His forte is not running stuff down in a database or interviewing witnesses. We should be able to do that.”

“In a normal case, yes. But this is apparently not a normal case.”

Decker thought about this for a long moment, took out his phone, and punched in a number.

“Who are you calling?” she asked.

“A professional colleague... Hello, Bernie, it’s Amos Decker. Yeah, it has been a long time. Yeah, still doing PI. Look, I’m on a job for a client who’s trying to track a deadbeat dad. Name’s Ben Purdy. He’s in the Air Force, but I think he might be AWOL, so he’s got bigger problems than alimony and child support. We tried to garnish, but the guy’s gone all cash and the military’s not been very helpful. Right, I know. Same old story. Now we got a lead on some of his family being in Montana, near the North Dakota border. I remember you know a guy out that way who was pretty good. Any chance you dial him up and get some intel for me on Purdy and his family? An address for them because I happen to be out that way?” Decker paused and listened. “Yeah, that’s right, that’ll work. Give him my number so you don’t have to be caught in the middle. Right, thanks, Bernie. Beers on me next time and I’ll cover the guy’s hourly.”

He clicked off and looked at Jamison. She stared back at him incredulously.

“You just called in a favor from, what, your private PI boys’ club? I thought that only happened in the movies.”

“Bernie Hoffman used to be a homicide detective in Cincinnati. We got to know and trust each other working some joint cases. About the time I went private so did he. We helped each other back then, too. I remembered he had a really good guy in South Dakota. Bernie will put him on the case and we’ll see what pops. And it’s not a favor. I’m paying the guy.”

When she kept staring at him, he said, “What?”

“Well, you handled that so deftly over the phone. I mean, you weren’t, um...” Her voice trailed off and she looked a little embarrassed.

“I get tongue-tied in social situations, Alex. Put me in the middle of a dinner, or a party or anything like that, I’m not your guy for eloquence or even stringing a few words together. But when it comes to what I do for a living, I don’t have that problem. I thought you would have remembered that from our first few encounters back in Ohio.”

She smiled, shamefaced. “You’re right about that. Okay. So what do you think Purdy meant when he said they were all sitting on a time bomb here?”

“He could have been speaking metaphorically. Or literally.”

“The latter gives me the chills.”

“Robie got the photo by breaking into the military facility.”

A wide-eyed Jamison said, “You didn’t tell me that part. Did he actually say that?”

“He didn’t have to. But it was a close call for the guy, and he strikes me as the sort who can pretty much go where he wants. So the security there must be tough.”

“Well, it is a secret government facility,” said Jamison.

“Yeah, I just wonder what the secret is.”

“What do you mean?”

In response Decker brought up some photos on his phone. “Robie didn’t tell me about these. I guess he thought the photos would speak for themselves, and they sort of do.”

He showed Jamison shots of the men on the gurney being taken to the ambulance, and the man and two women getting off the jet.

“I wonder who they are,” said Jamison. “And I wonder what happened to the men on the gurneys? Sumter said the place was really safe. No accidents.”

“Well, maybe what happened to them was no accident,” replied Decker.