An Obvious Fact (21 page)

“Cady, please?”

I could hear her rustling a piece of paper. “Does the name Robert J. Nance mean anything to you?”

“Why would Bob Nance put up Kiddo's bail if he wasn't involved?”

“I don't know.”

“He's smart and at the same time dumb enough, with plenty of cash, to front an operation like the one that Stainbrook described.” She sipped her lemonade and watched the traffic two-wheeling by as we sat on the running board of the Pequod again. “So, why don't we go in there and get the chief to look up his buddy Nance and see what he's been up to?”

“Because he's Nance's buddy; so, I'd just as soon Dougherty assisted us with this.”

“You think Nutter is somehow in on it?”

“No, I just think it's an uncomfortable situation with the two of them being so cozy.” I patted the fender of the military vehicle. “Nance bought him this battleship, among other things. I think if we're going to make a run at Nance, then we'd better make sure we've got our ducks in a row.”

“Really.”

“He's just the type to be able to buy or arrange a way to get out of this, and I'm not here just to get the outlaw bikers. If Nance is the money behind this operation, he's not going to
just let it go. If he's using these fabricators to get a prototype together, then he's likely to take it to the next level and become an arms dealer.”

“Internationally?”

“Just because the mainstream government doesn't want the things made doesn't mean there isn't somebody else who wouldn't.”

“Like the CIA?”

“Exactly.”

“So, we need a rundown on Bob Nance to see if there's anything in his background that might connect him to all this before we do anything?”

“Yep.”

“You don't think he's crossed his t's and dotted his i's?”

“I'm beginning to wonder if anybody's ever given him a good, hard look.”

“But this crap's been going on since when, '88 or '89?”

“Yep, with Tichenor killed in '96 and Torres Senior just last year.”

“That's some pretty slow development.”

“Hard to get it done when no reputable manufacturer will touch it with a ten-foot advanced synthetic polymer stick.”

“And your technicians keep ending up dead.” She sighed. “When does the blue knight get off?”

I pulled out my pocket watch. “About five minutes ago.” Almost on cue, the young patrolman crossed the street toward us with a familiar man, his hands cuffed behind his back. “Speak of the devil and associate.”

Dougherty slowed as we stood, bringing Eddy the Viking to a stop with him. “Hey, any news?”

“Some, but we'd rather speak confidentially, if possible.” I glanced at the biker, who was, as usual, pretty well inebriated. “What'd Eddy do now?”

“Tried to get a random woman to show him some body parts, and when she wouldn't, he showed her some of his in hopes of some sort of trade-off.”

I looked down at the man, who continued staring at the sidewalk, giving us the impression that he might charge us with his plastic horns. “Really, Eddy?”

He muttered. “I was set up.”

“How?”

“You should've seen those tits.”

I shook my head and turned to Corbin. “Hey, can we use one of your computers to hook into the National Crime Information Center and do a little research?”

“Sure.”

He disappeared inside, and we waited a few moments before Chief Nutter appeared and started toward Main Street without looking at us.

“Let's go.”

The office reception area was overrun with the hired guns from other counties, towns, and the Highway Patrol. The only quiet place with a computer was Chief Nutter's office to the left. “You mind if we use Nutter Butter's office?”

He glanced up from fingerprinting the Viking. “Go right ahead.”

Once inside, I pulled the chair out and indicated to Vic that she should sit in it. “You're a lot faster on these things than I am.”

“You got that right.” She eased herself into the rolling chair and began working her magic. “This is going to take a while
with just his name. I wonder how many Robert Nances there are in the U.S.?”

I pulled out the borrowed phone. “Cady took a photo of the copy of the bail application, and I think that might have a lot of Nance's pertinent info on it.” I handed her the phone. “I just don't know how to get at it.”

She shook her head and brought the photo onto the screen. “You are so helpless.” She stared at it and began reading the information. “Oh, we can find him with all of this.”

As she worked, I glanced around Nutter's office, taking in the photos and plaques that you accumulate over decades in law enforcement, and thought about how the stuff on his walls looked a lot like the stuff on mine, although a lot of mine was left over from Lucian Connally.

“Okay, nothing till '97 when he was charged by a federal grand jury in California for conspiring to defraud the IRS and tax evasion that had to do with money owed for the two previous years. His wife was also charged.”

“He said they were divorced, and she'd gotten three houses out of him.”

Vic continued reading from the computer screen. “I can see how there was trouble in paradise. He sold a business in California, then didn't report it, and then tried to conceal the two years of monetary installments by filing false tax returns.” She looked up at me. “It looks like he might have gotten his daughter to do it, too.”

“Uh-oh.”

“And then the whole happy family concealed the assets by opening a foreign bank account in a Caribbean island, using purported trusts. Over the next year or so he deposited more
than six million into the account, but then they got divorced and I'm betting she dropped a dime on his ass.”

I rested my face in my hands. “Then what?”

“He sold his business, probably in an attempt to pay off some of the taxes and accrued penalties.” She looked up. “I mean, this guy was going to the big stony lonesome—Club Fed.”

Leaving my face in my hands, I spoke through my fingers. “What was the name of his business?”

She scanned the screen. “Doesn't say.”

“Which California grand jury address?”

“Oakland.”

“Near Silicon Valley.”

She nodded and took in a deep breath. “Home of Special Materials, who first came up with the formula for this particular ASP.”

“Then what?”

Her tarnished gold eyes went back to the screen. “The next mention is when he wired the remainder of the proceeds to a law firm in Dearborn Heights, Michigan, but then he instructed them to wire 3.7 million to an account in, of all places . . .” She looked at me. “Scottsdale, Arizona.”

“Home of Dust Devil Development and the dumpster where Tichenor was found the year before.”

“Holy shit.”

“It's all circumstantial.”

“Are you fucking kidding?”

“Do me a favor? I'm curious about the Detroit connection, so type his name in along with Detroit and see what comes up.”

“Nothing—no . . . wait. There's a picture of him, much
younger, winning some kind of prize or award as an alumnus of the University of Michigan back in the seventies.” She turned the screen so that I could see. “Isn't that him?”

“Yep. Put in automobile industry.”

She tapped a few more keys. “Here he is again. He worked for GM for most of his early career.”

“And was involved in engine and acoustical tile development?”

She nodded. “Yeah. And exhaust systems.”

“Stainbrook mentioned that the first time they stumbled across this stuff was when they were developing polymer exhaust valves that were supposed to be as strong as steel.”

“Shit. I'm betting he was in on developing it first.”

“Yep, or at least got it started.”

She slumped back in Nutter's chair. “Why wouldn't you just patent this stuff and sell it to the government for bags of money. I mean, the CIA wanted it.”

“Just from the small amount we've gleaned from this, I don't think Nance has a very good opinion of the federal government, especially as a business partner.”

“So, he gets Tichenor to advance the polymer further and then gets rid of him when he hands it over to research and development.”

“Torres.”

“And then when he's got a workable material, he gets rid of him.”

“Or somebody does.”

“C'mon, Walt, the guy is Professor Moriarty—he's leaving bodies around like the Black Plague.”

“Well, by getting in bed with the Tre Tre Nomads via
Delshay and Bodaway, he's certainly been introduced to the criminal element.”

“Introduced?” She touched up the lipstick at the corner of her perfect mouth with the tip of a pinkie and stared at the computer screen. “Hell, they're fucking engaged.”

• • •

“So, what have we got?”

My undersheriff leaned against the front counter of the office, the three of us enjoying the brief lull. “Well, it's complex.”

Corbin nodded and chewed his sandwich. “I figured.”

I leaned on the other side of the patrolman and came clean. “It's looking more and more like Nutter's friend Bob Nance may be involved in all of this.”

“Nance involved with Kiddo?”

“I think it's all connected to the investigation the ATF has been working on and why Agent Post was murdered.”

“What's the deal?”

“Plastic guns.” Vic went on to explain, adding Nance's industrial background as the last piece of the puzzle.

“But now we have to come up with some kind of concrete evidence that connects Kiddo to Nance. Henry and I did a little snooping in Billy ThE's shop, but there was nothing advanced enough to indicate that he was doing anything out of the ordinary, other than modifying bikes to carry either samples of the plastic or prototypes of the guns themselves.” I stepped away from the counter and turned to look at Corbin. “Does Nance have any other properties around here where they might have a facility large enough to produce the ASPs?”

Having lost his appetite, he set his sandwich down. “I have no idea.”

“I assume we'd have to go down to Sundance to go through the records and find out where all his real estate holdings are.”

“Yeah, I guess.” He thought about it. “Wait, you're looking for some sort of connection between Kiddo and Nance, right?”

“Yep.”

“Well, Eddy worked for Kiddo for about two years before Billy ThE fired him this last winter.”

Vic was incredulous. “Our Eddy—the drunk Viking?”

“Yeah.”

“Go get him.”

We could hear Dougherty's keys jangling as he disappeared into the back holding cells where the lawless awaited transport to the Crook County jail in Sundance.

Vic walked over with her head down, speaking softly as she chewed a nail. “I am having trouble thinking of a less reliable informant.”

“Me, too.”

Dougherty returned with Eddy and sat him on a chair, his Viking helmet a little askew. It looked like Corbin had woken him up. A little goggle-eyed, he glanced at my undersheriff. “Is she going to show me her tits?”

“Probably not.” I placed my hands on my knees and bent down to look him in the eyes. “Hey, Eddy?”

“Yeah?”

“You worked for Billy ThE Kiddo for a few years, right?”

“Yeah.” He belched. “He's a prick.”

I glanced at the others. “Yep, we kind of got that.”

Still quite drunk, his eyes wobbled around the room. “Fired me. Said I didn't know shit. I told him—”

“Eddy.” I reached out and took his chin to try to hold his attention. “Do you remember if Kiddo had another shop that he worked in?”

“Prick.”

“The Chop Shop, Billy's place; was there another one?”

“No.”

“You're sure?”

“Yeah.”

“What about a guy by the name of Bob Nance—did Billy ThE ever have any dealings with Nance?”

“The rich prick?”

I tried to keep from laughing. “Could be.”

“Asshole lives on a golf course. Has a jet that we went for a ride in. Went all the way to Daytona. . . . Fast, man.”

“So, what did Kiddo do with Nance?”

“Stuff, man. He did stuff.”

I grabbed his chin again. “Did Billy ThE work for Nance, and if he did, where? Did you ever go to his house?”

He pulled loose and flapped his hands in an attempt to keep mine away. “Yeah, man. I did a couple of times, and then we went to that bunker thing of his.”

I stood, glancing at the others and then back down at him. “What bunker thing?”

“The hut, man. That half-round thing that sticks up out of the ground.”

“A Quonset hut?”

“Yeah—I mean, that's what it started as.”

“Where?”

He threw a thumb over his shoulder, gesturing toward who knows where. “On that road.”

“What road?”

He gestured in another direction this time. “To the airport—the airport road.”

“In Rapid City?”

“No, man. Here.”

I turned to look at Dougherty. “Hulett, with a population of under four hundred people, has an airport?”

• • •

“It's the only airport in Crook County—took ten years to get it built.”

Driving past the clubhouse, we headed south along the ridge where Vic had won the skeet event. “The only way to get to the airport is this road through the golf course?”

“Yeah.”

“Convenient for Nance.”

Vic slowed the Challenger and stopped at the precipice where we could see the 5,500-foot runway angling southwest to our right about a mile.

Corbin pointed toward a branch road that led north around a ridge. “That's the only other road, so it must be up there.”

“Vic, park at that pull-off and we'll hike. I don't see any reason to advertise.” She did as I said, and as we all piled out, I glanced at Dougherty. “Do you have any binoculars with you?”