The Cat Dancers cr-1 Page 12

  The inside deputy knocked quietly on the study door. “Another visitor, Your Honor,” he announced.

  She said, “Okay,” and then, sotto voce, added, “And one with impeccable timing, I do believe.”

  Cam got up, finished his drink, and patted his clothes to make sure everything had been put back together. She watched him with some amusement. “Should I open the windows?” she asked. She was actually blushing just a little bit.

  “Might meet him at the front door,” Cam suggested, which is what they did. The inside cop went back to the kitchen. They stood in the open doorway as a car drove up. Cam recognized it as a Sheriff’s Office vehicle. He felt a little nervous to be standing silhouetted like that in a lighted doorway, until he saw that the driver was Kenny Cox.

  Annie checked to make sure the deputy couldn’t hear them, and then she said, “If I was looking for a candidate to run a vigilante group-”

  He shushed her as Kenny got out and nodded to the deputy in charge of surveying the grounds. He had materialized at the corner of the house when Kenny arrived.

  “Your Honor,” he said to Annie as we came up the steps. “Boss.” He was in full uniform, complete with hat. “Thought I’d just check by, see if everything was okay.”

  “Great minds think alike,” Cam said.

  “Found any evidence that any of this is necessary?” Annie asked.

  “No, ma’am,” Kenny said, glancing from her face to Cam’s and back to hers again. Cam found himself wondering what the sergeant knew. Kenny was one sharp investigator, and his ability to read body language was better than Cam’s. “Still no signs of Marlor or the two movie stars,” he said. “Everyone’s in mourning.”

  “And we’re looking really hard, are we?” Annie asked.

  “Yes, we are,” Cam said before Kenny could answer. “Finding either one of those guys is still the best way to call off your house arrest.”

  Kenny gave him a look. “Or we could pull our people off right now, Lieutenant,” he said. “If Her Honor here doesn’t believe there’s a threat.”

  Annie rolled her eyes. “Lieutenant Richter, thanks for the update. I’ve got briefs to read. She nodded frostily at Kenny. “Sergeant.”

  She went back into the house and Cam closed the front door. “Let’s take a walk,” he said to Kenny.

  They went out into the grounds surrounding the redbrick Federal-style house, which fell short of being a mansion, but not by much. There were eight beautifully groomed acres of lawns, gardens, and mature trees, and a big swimming pool with a pool house directly behind the main house. The rest of the property was surrounded by a brick wall on three sides and a ten-foot-high chain-link fence across the back, the latter hidden by a dense stand of cedars. There was a service alley running behind the property for garbage trucks. The front drive was rolled gravel, and it continued around one side of the house to a three-car detached garage that was perpendicular to the pool house. The front gates were ornate, wroughtiron panels that were electrically operated from inside the main house or via a dashboard scanner, which was now in the hands of the deputies on duty.

  The outside deputy was dressed in modified SWAT gear, and his orders were to wander around the grounds, settling in for random periods of time in corners and shadows. He had night-vision gear and a MP-5 for business. He’d appeared again briefly when Kenny and Cam walked around from the front drive, but then slipped back into the darkness. There was no moon, but their eyes were adjusting to the darkness.

  “So what the hell do we do next?” Kenny asked. “This shit could go on forever, especially if all the guy really wanted was to ice those two shit-heels. And since he’s done them, this threat to the judge doesn’t make sense.”

  “It makes her life miserable,” Cam said. “If it is Marlor doing this shit, that makes some sense, especially if he can’t bring himself to electrocute a judge.”

  “Depending on which judge, I could,” Kenny said, glancing back toward the house. Cam had been about to tell him what Jaspreet had come up with, but Kenny’s comment brought him up short. At that moment, there was a loud crash out behind the garage, followed by the sounds of a vehicle accelerating down the alley. The crashing continued, as if the vehicle was dragging a couple of metal trash cans behind it, and then the noise stopped. Cam saw a dark shadow move out from along the brick wall and trot back toward the stand of cedars at the back of the property.

  Kenny had his weapon out and Cam drew his. They crouched down behind a large boxwood hedge. Behind them, the lights in the main kitchen flicked off, leaving only a yellow glow coming from the French doors that led from the central hallway out to the pool area. Cam knew that the two deputies should be in radio contact. Annie should be in her study, which was in the front of the house. Since he and Kenny weren’t up on the tactical net, they needed to stay put.

  “We need to stay between the alley and the house,” Kenny said softly, echoing Cam’s thoughts. “Let the deputies figure out what the hell’s-”

  Something whacked solidly into a tree about fifteen feet away from where they were crouching, followed instantly by the boom of a high-powered rifle from out in front of the house.

  “Son of a bitch!” Kenny growled as the sound of second vehicle roaring down the front street became audible. “We’ve been suckered.”

  They both stood up and ran back around the swimming pool, heading toward those French doors. A battery of motion-detector spotlights came on as they approached, momentarily blinding them both.

  “On the back door,” Kenny yelled as they double-timed up the wide back steps. “Sergeant Cox and Lieutenant Richter, coming in!”

  “Roger that,” came the deputy’s voice from inside the house. The central hallway lights were off now, but the front portico lights were still on, so they could see inside the house. The deputy joined them as they came in, his weapon out in a two-hand grip.

  “Where’s the judge?” Cam asked.

  “She was in the library when it started,” the deputy said. “Fucking thing sounded like an elephant gun.”

  They walked quickly down the central hallway to the library doors, which were still shut. Cam knocked once and called out Annie’s name.

  “Can I get up now?” she asked.

  Cam pushed through the double doors. Annie was crouching down on the floor behind her desk. The front drapes were still drawn, but there was a pile of broken glass spilling out onto the carpet underneath the heavy curtains. An antique mirror hanging slightly above head height on the back wall had a large starred hole right through the middle. Cam walked over and helped her up. She was putting on a brave face, but the grip on his hand indicated otherwise. He steered her toward one of the big upholstered chairs as Kenny got on the phone to Central Dispatch. Annie squeaked at something behind him, and he turned and saw that the outside deputy was standing in the doorway. He had his NVG headset pushed up on his forehead, but the black outfit, Kevlar vest, and the MP-5 submachine gun had its effect. He’d been running, based on the way he was puffing.

  “One vehicle dragged some trash cans down the alley and then took off,” he reported. “There was a second vehicle with the shooter at the front gates.”

  Cam could hear Kenny organizing a quick stop-andsearch operation in the neighborhood, but he suspected they were too late. Both of the vehicles had had plenty of time to disappear into one of the many side streets in the area and get clear before the cops could converge.

  “Looks like he knew where to shoot, too,” Cam said, looking at the mirror. “What’s behind that wall?”

  “Pantry and storage area for the kitchen,” the cop assigned to house duty said.

  “See what we’ve got,” Cam told him. Then he turned to the other deputy. “You get back outside and make sure there isn’t a second shooter setting up on the house while we’re all standing inside here with our thumbs up.”

  The deputy disappeared in the direction of the front door. Kenny hung up.

  “They’ve got units working
a grid,” he said, but the look on his face showed that he, too, thought it was too late. Annie announced that she needed a drink. Cam fixed her a splash in a lowball glass from the bar. “What was that outside deputy doing inside the house?” Kenny asked.

  “Fucking up,” Cam said. He heard some vehicles screech to a stop out by the front gates. “Why don’t you go organize all that,” Cam said to Kenny. “You’ll need one of the deputies to open those gates.” Kenny nodded, pulled out his pocket tape recorder, and left the room. Cam knelt down by Annie’s chair once he’d gone.

  “Sorry about that, Your Honor,” he said. “Looks like we’re not just imagining things here.”

  Annie had finished the scotch in one go, and now her cheeks were flushed. “Look at that trajectory, Cam,” she said, her voice trembling. “They knew where the desk was.”

  “They certainly knew where the study was,” he said, nodding. “But those drapes had been drawn since-”

  “I work after dinner every night except Friday and Saturday,” she said. “Guess who absolutely would know that?”

  Cam just looked at her. “Every cop who’s been on duty here?”

  She nodded. “These guys seem so friendly, courteous. Concerned, even. I can’t imagine…”

  “They do a log every night. The log says where you are at all times. ‘Had dinner in the kitchen. Went for a swim. Went to the library to work. Went to bed at ten.’ Anyone who saw the log would know the pattern.”

  “But the house plan? Who would know the house layout well enough to put a shot through closed drapes, right over my head? I felt that thing, Cam.”

  Cam could hear the inside deputy coming back down the hall, so he stood up.

  “Lieutenant?” the cop said, indicating he had something to show him. Annie, unwilling to be left alone in the library, went with them. They walked to the kitchen and then to the pantry area. Cam had his own tape recorder out now, ready to make notes. The round had blown the sheetrock off the interior pantry wall, gone through a box of dry cereal, which was now all over the floor, and then punched through the opposite wall and right through the outside brickwork. Cam remembered that solid whacking sound in the tree. He took the deputy to the back door and pointed at the tree. “Tell CSI to climb that tree-the round’s in there,” he said. The deputy stared at him. “I heard it hit, okay?” Cam said. “About twelve, fifteen feet up the trunk.”

  They looked around for a few more minutes, trying to spot any other damage, and then finally heard more voices out front as Kenny brought in some crime-scene people. Cam told Annie that one of them would take her statement. She gave him a worried look but then reassembled her brave face and went with the growing crowd of cops back to the study area, her judicial aura reestablishing itself. Cam wished he could hold her for a moment, just to reassure her, but they both had to act their parts right now. Cam thought it was a good time to get out of there, let the techs do their work. He also badly needed some time to think.

  22

  Cam met with Bobby Lee Baggett at 7:30 the next morning.

  “Our ballistics lab identified the bullet,” the sheriff said. “Would you believe point-four-six-five-caliber? Basically, a big-game rifle. Maybe an H and H,” he added.

  “If it’s an H and H, it’s a very expensive rifle,” Cam added. He’d seen one of the Holland amp; Holland Company’s express rifles get appraised for sixty thousand dollars on the Antiques Roadshow, and it hadn’t been in mint condition.

  “That’s right,” the sheriff said.” So we’re probably not talking some local asshole just out of the joint with a grudge against the judge, not if he’s using a big-game rifle.”

  “Unless he stole it,” Cam pointed out.

  “Well, that gives us a starting point, then, doesn’t it?” the sheriff said, looking at Cam, who guessed the MCAT was going to own this one, too. “Dealers, people who sell that caliber ammo, and, of course, anyone who’s reported one stolen in the past five years.”

  “And we should talk to the ATF,” Cam said, making some notes.

  They kicked it around for another ten minutes and then gave it up. While the sheriff took a phone call, Cam determined from Bobby Lee’s desk calendar that he was free for lunch. When the sheriff saw Cam standing behind his desk, he looked pointedly at his watch and raised his eyebrows. Cam peeled off the Post-it he’d written on and handed it to him. The note said “Meet me in the Marriott Hotel parking garage at 12:30.” The sheriff started to say something, but Cam pointed to the ceiling and shook his head. The sheriff blinked, frowned, but then nodded.

  They met on the top deck of the parking garage, the sheriff in his personal cruiser, which was parked next to Cam’s antique Merc. Cam got out and climbed into the cruiser.

  “WTF, Lieutenant?” Bobby Lee asked without preamble.

  “I have reasons to believe three things,” Cam said. “First, that this electric chair thing is real; second, that it’s not James Marlor doing it; and, third, I think it’s possible that we have us a vigilante squad going right here in the Manceford County Sheriff’s Office.”

  “Great God!” the sheriff said, visibly shocked.

  Cam took him through it. He told him about his meeting with Jaspreet and her take on the difficulty of getting access to the judicial network from outside the system. He mentioned how odd it was that someone would go down into one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in Triboro at midnight with a submachine gun full of blanks, which, by the way, were pretty hard to come by except in a police or military organization, which used them all the time for training. Cam told him even Judge Bellamy was wondering how someone would know precisely where she would be at that time of night-which room, where her desk was-especially since the drapes were drawn. He said there was a bunch of cops pissed off at her about those two mopes walking away like that. Then he explained how Jaspreet had alluded to suspicions at the Charlotte field office that Manceford County cops might be the real faces behind the chair. Finally, he said he thought it unlikely that Marlor had been able to enlist an accomplice to go shoot at the judge’s house if he was indeed in deep hiding.

  The sheriff closed his eyes and hung his head when Cam had finished. A big shiny SUV came grinding up the ramp. They were both in uniform, and the driver gave them a curious glance as he went past.

  “Evidence?” the sheriff asked finally.

  “Very damned little,” Cam said. “We might get some evidence if we try to track the network intrusion from the inside instead of from the outside.”

  “But we’d have to use cops to do it,” he said. “Our cops.”

  “Then let’s get some federal help. Just say that our people have drawn a blank, and let the outsiders look from the inside.”

  “If there is a vigilante group, they’d rumble that in a heartbeat.”

  “Then they might back the hell off and quit. Maybe we can’t do anything about the first two, but I’d sure like to prevent a third.”

  Bobby Lee looked Cam right in the eye. “Whom do you suspect?”

  Cam shook his head. He had some thoughts, but he wasn’t willing to name them yet.

  Bobby Lee swore. “I’ve worked for nearly ten years to build the most professional, the most competent sheriff’s office in the state. We were the first in the state to be accredited. We’ve won every major award in law enforcement. We have the best toys, the best lab, the best command and control systems. And now you want me to believe we’ve got cops killing suspects?”

  His voice never rose, which meant that he was truly furious. Bobby Lee had never been a screamer. The angrier he was about something, the quieter he usually got. “You don’t believe it,” Cam said.

  “No, I do not,” he said. “I don’t want to, and I don’t anyway. There has to be another explanation. And I have to tell you, Lieutenant, that at this point, my instincts are to get someone else to handle this case. Except that you are, or ought to be, the best guy I’ve got for this.” He paused to take a deep breath and exhale. “You never heard
me say this, but for once in my career as sheriff of Manceford County, I don’t know what the hell to do.”

  Back-off time, Cam thought. “We’ll keep working it, then,” he said. “We’ll keep looking for Marlor and the two stooges. We’ll keep a guard on the judge until I don’t know when.”

  The sheriff stared out the window and started to drum his fingers on the window frame.

  “I think you should call McLain,” Cam said. “I want to get straight with him about what Jaspreet was saying. I want to hear it from him if he thinks we’re involved.”

  “If the Feebs really think that, they’d never tell one of us.”

  “Then it’s worth asking the question. A stone wall would be a pretty good indicator.”

  More finger drumming. “And maybe you should go down there to the Charlotte field office. Meet face-to-face,” Cam told him.

  “You mean no phones,” Bobby Lee said.

  Cam exhaled. “It’s new territory for me, too, Sheriff,” he said. “But, yes, that’s why we’re meeting up here in this parking deck.” His beeper went off and he pulled it out. There was a text message: “Marlor on the grid.” Cam told the sheriff, whose relief was visible.

  “I’ll go see what this is about,” Cam said. “But I still think you should contact McLain. Ask for a meet.”

  Bobby Lee pointed at Cam’s beeper with his chin. “Go work that,” he said. “Then come see me. I’ll decide then.”

  Kenny was talking to Horace and Purdy when Cam got back to the office. “Where’d he surface?” Cam asked.

  Kenny brought over an e-mail from the manager at Marlor’s bank. James Marlor had cashed a check for five hundred dollars at a drive-up window in downtown Winston. The teller there had called to confirm with Marlor’s branch that the account could cover the check, and then she had given him the five hundred.

  “I went over there and reviewed the security video of the drive-up. White Ford pickup truck, the right vintage, and the guy inside was big enough to be Marlor.”

  “No face shot?”