Defiled: The Sequel to Nailed Featuring John Tall Wolf (A Ron Ketchum Mystery Book 2) (16 page)

“That doesn’t seem American,” Glynnis complained. “That law you mentioned.”

“Free speech doesn’t mean you get to lie to federal agents,” Tall Wolf said.

“Do you get to lie to me?”

“If necessary, but I wasn’t lying about Title 18. That’s for real.”

Glynnis looked at her two unwelcome guests. Her instinct and training to be courteous contended with her desire to be rid of these pests — and not wind up in a federal prison.

By way of a compromise, she gestured to two arm chairs and said, “Sit.”

The special agent and retired detective did, after they saw Glynnis take a place on a love seat opposite them. They wanted to be sure she wouldn’t be so foolish as to attempt a getaway.

Tall Wolf told her, “You said to me, with Chief Ketchum as a witness, that you wouldn’t know anything about whether Mr. Tibbot entertained overnight guests at his house here in town. I’ve since learned that little if anything escaped your notice about who entered that house. That you would have made it your business to know about anyone who spent the night there.”

Glynnis grimaced, understanding that she’d been ratted out.

“You care to comment, Ms. Crowther?” Keely asked.

“I’m thinking about calling a lawyer.”

Tall Wolf told her, “That’s certainly your right. If he’s smart, he’ll tell you to cooperate with us. You’ll be on the hook for his fee and … you never know how the U.S. attorney will feel about your seeking representation. He might think you’re being a pain in the ass who could use some prison time to gain a better perspective.”

Keely added, “Probably be worse if you get a female U.S. attorney. They’re the real hardasses.”

Glynnis looked from one cop to the other.

“How do I know you’re not lying to me now? That there isn’t anything I can do to help myself?”

“You don’t,” Tall Wolf said. “All you can do is use your best judgment.”

She shook her head. “It isn’t fair that only one side can lie.”

“Tell it to your congressman,” Keely told her.

“All right then.” She looked at Tall Wolf. “I was just trying to do the
right
thing. Keeping a gentleman’s social life private, that’s something that shouldn’t be betrayed even after he’s dead.”

Keely said, “Very noble, if he expires of natural causes. If you’re obstructing justice, cops, prosecutors and judges don’t think too much of that.”

Tall Wolf, took an audio recorder out of his briefcase and turned it on.

He gave the date, time, location and the names of those present.

“Ms. Crowther, please give the names and if possible the addresses and phone numbers of any guests you know of who have spent the night at the Goldstrike, California home of Hale Tibbot.”

Glynnis provided the names, addresses and phone numbers of a dozen women.

From memory. Including the proper spelling of names. Of both the ladies and the streets on which they lived.

Confronted by harsh reality, she’d gotten into the spirit of the moment.

Ron Ketchum had no sooner sat down in Clay Steadman’s office, the door closed and all calls being held, than the mayor told him, “I’m dying.”

The chief looked at the man sitting behind the desk. He didn’t see anything different about him than he’d seen for the last few years. Sure, Clay Steadman was aging, everybody did. But his face was still lean, his hair still full but fading from gray to white. His eyes blazed with blue fire as brightly as ever. His lips had compressed to razor-thin lines. His pugnacious jaw dared you to hit it, knowing you’d make the worst mistake of your life if you ever tried.

“You can’t see it,” the mayor growled, “if that’s what you’re trying to do.”

“I am, and you’re right. I can’t see it. Cancer?”

“Alzheimer’s.”

“Ah, shit.”

“That sums it up all right,” Clay said. “I was told I might have two more productive years left. Then again, a specialist from Sweden told me this morning that maybe it’s no more than one year. Then I go into decline and they might as well put me out in the radish patch for all the use I’ll be to anyone.”

Clay Steadman looked as if he wanted to make someone pay for the fate that had befallen him. The fact that there was no one he could blame only stoked his anger. For the first time since Ron had known the man, he felt uneasy in his presence.

The chief reached for the only threadbare offer of comfort he could think of.

“Is there anything I can do for you?”

The mayor’s smile was all bitter irony.

“As a matter of fact, there is. But I’ll get to that in a minute. It’s time I told you something about Hale Tibbot.”

Ron kept his face immobile. He silently prayed he wasn’t about to hear a confession.

Clay said, “Tibbot wanted to do more than put high rise condos and hotels on the shores of Lake Adeline. He had started a very quiet lobbying effort in Sacramento to legalize casino gambling in California. I don’t mean on the scale that the Native Americans do it. I mean like Las Vegas. Open to all potential investors. Like him.”

Ron Ketchum shook his head. “That would be bad.”

“Yes, it would. You can’t have gambling without civic corruption following and you know who would benefit from that.”

“Organized crime,” Ron said.

The mayor nodded. “Most times, I’d say there’d be at least a bare majority of pols in the state assembly who are smart enough to kill any attempt to legalize gambling, but California is so damn deep in debt right now they’re desperate for new revenue. Prop thirty just passed raising sales and income taxes, but it’s supposed to be temporary. Gambling could be seen as the big fix, permanent, with all the pain imposed on the suckers by the suckers.”

Clay shook his head.

He said, “The pols should know they’d be the suckers at the head of the line. They’ll wind up taking money they shouldn’t and go to federal prisons like so many before them. Well, it’s not going to happen here.”

“Because?” Ron asked.

“Because you asked if there was something you can do for me. I’m going to withdraw from the race for office. I want
you
to be Goldstrike’s next mayor.”

“Sergeant Stanley told me I’d find you here,” Abra Benjamin said.

Ron Ketchum had been sitting on a bench staring out at Lake Adeline. He had no idea how long he’d been there. He must have looked sufficiently preoccupied to prevent any casual passerby from intruding on his thoughts.

The special agent from the FBI, however, was neither casual nor a passerby.

She’d come in search of him, with a purpose.

Although Ron had looked up to acknowledge her visually, he’d yet to say a word.

“Are you all right?” Benjamin asked.

“I don’t know yet,” he said.

He might have said sure, but he didn’t want to let lying to the FBI become a habit.

“May I?” she asked, gesturing to a place on the bench next to him.

She sat, perhaps a bit closer than normal.

“If it’s personal, I’m sorry to intrude. If it’s professional, should I know?”

“It’s both,” Ron told her.

“All right. If there’s any part relevant to my responsibilities, will you please tell me?”

Ron had to smile. “You’re really
not
like Francis Horgan.”

“I’ve been trying to tell you that.”

“It’s starting to sink in. I was just speaking with Mayor Steadman.” Ron paused. “Does your complement of good manners include keeping professional confidences?”

“Yes,” Benjamin said. “As long as doing so won’t compromise an eventual criminal investigation or prosecution.”

Ron thought about that, nodded to himself. He’d have to trust the woman, federal agent or not. He had information she should know and the FBI had the resources to look into matters outside his jurisdiction. Presenting her with a complete picture — or nearly so — would help the FBI with its investigation.

“Clay Steadman told me he’s dying.”

Benjamin cocked her head, peering at Ron from a new angle. “Jesus. Really?”

“He says it’s Alzheimer’s. Didn’t look like he was joking. Can’t imagine he was.”

Ron saw that his words had left a stricken expression on Benjamin’s face.

She’d been a fan of Clay’s? No, that wasn’t it. She’d known someone with the disease, had firsthand experience with how bad it could be.

“You know what it means?” he asked her.

She nodded. “My grandfather. A warm, kind, brilliant man. The fall was so … steep.”

“I’m sorry. I knew Alzheimer’s was debilitating. I didn’t know it was fatal.”

Benjamin’s eyes filled with painful memories.

“It is, and it can be a truly awful way to go. My grandfather was confined to his bed. He became incontinent. He had difficulty eating and swallowing. He just seemed to melt away. He lost the ability to speak … but he moaned in such strains of misery it broke my heart.”

Ron gave Benjamin’s hand a gentle squeeze.

And then he tensed, the FBI agent sensing the change immediately.

“What is it?” she asked.

Ron told her, “I can’t see Clay Steadman allowing himself to die like that.”

“Chief, there is no cure. The only alternative is —”

She understood where Ron’s thoughts had taken him.

Clay Steadman would commit suicide while he was still able to do so.

Abra Benjamin clasped her hands on her lap, adopting a more professional and defensive posture. She said, “I’m very sorry to hear about Mayor Steadman’s illness, but as far as you know would he have any other reason to consider ending his own life?”

There were, of course, wrongdoers who would prefer a quick end to life to living out their days in prison.

“Now, you’re starting to sound like Horgan,” Ron told her.

“I’m sorry,” Benjamin said, not sounding at all penitent. “But you must have seen enough on the job to know how things can go. Someone puts himself in a corner, he might choose to go out on his own terms. Maybe even commit suicide by cop.”

Ron sighed and nodded. “You’re right, but that’s not the case here. What the mayor told me was Hale Tibbot was laying the foundation to lobby the legislature in Sacramento to legalize casino gambling in California, beyond those run by Native Americans. The mayor thinks Tibbot meant to make Goldstrike this state’s answer to Reno.”

A grin of amazement appeared on Benjamin’s face. “What, Tibbot thought he was Bugsy Siegel or something?”

“More likely the something,” Ron said. “Clay said he couldn’t find any connections between Tibbot and organized crime. The mayor’s assumption was that Tibbot thought he could pull off his coup and keep all the money for himself.”

Benjamin shook her head. “It doesn’t work like that.”

Ron agreed. “As Hale Tibbot soon found out. What Clay also thinks is there are lots of legitimate companies with gaming interests in Nevada who wouldn’t appreciate having wholesale competition from the people next door in California.”

Benjamin sat back against the bench and stared out at Lake Adeline.

“Whew. It might be the mob who killed Tibbot or it might be corporate America.”

“There’s more,” Ron said. “Something I thought of.”

The special agent gave him a sidelong look. “Yeah?”

“What if killing Tibbot hadn’t been enough? What if hostile competitors thought they had to take out Goldstrike, too? Show any location in California that was considering gaming as a new path to prosperity that there would be serious risks involved. Say having a dirty bomb go off in the middle of town.”

Benjamin bobbed her head. She could see the possibilities, horrifying as they were.

Gangsters and CEOs waging war inside the country.

She told Ron, “I’m glad you shared. This investigation has grown way beyond the scope of a small police department.”

“Yeah,” Ron said.

“Are you going to tell John Tall Wolf about this?”

“Yeah.”

“Thanks for being honest. So is Clay Steadman going to stay in office until he can’t manage any more?”

“No. He says he wants to make two more movies while he’s still able, one of them based on my father’s life.”

Benjamin nodded. “He should go for it then. So who’s going to replace him?”

“He wants me to do it,” Ron said.

The chief saw the special agent give him a look that said all sorts of new calculations were taking place in her mind. But all she said was, “Big shoes to fill.”

“Yeah, you think?”

Abra Benjamin changed the subject, taking stapled sheets of paper from her briefcase. “Here’s my list of the people who live within a fifty-mile radius of Goldstrike and own GMC Terrains or Chevy Tahoes, blue or green, within the last two model years.”

The vehicle Brant Sutherland thought he saw the morning he and his dad found the bomb.

Ron said, “Sorry, but I forgot to compile my list. Must have had something else on my mind.”

“No worries. I think I covered all the databases.”

Benjamin got to her feet, saw the chief had more thinking to do right where he was.

She offered an unsolicited opinion. “I’ve always thought a cop should think twice before going into politics.”

Ron offered a joyless smile and told her, “I’m way past twice.”

John Tall Wolf and Keely Powell had just finished their interview with Glynnis Crowther and returned to Keely’s car when Tall Wolf received a text message. He read it, thought about it and handed his BlackBerry to his unofficial new partner.

She smiled at him and said, “I was starting to wonder if there were limits to what you’ll share.”

“Of course, there are,” Tall Wolf said. “But I define them, not some rule book.”

“You’re independently wealthy?”

“Rich in spirit. Plus I own my house, and I save more than I spend.”

“You’re also modest.”

“That, too.”

Keely looked at the message on the BlackBerry. Read it a second time and handed the device back to its owner.

“Now, that’s interesting. I’m sure Ron will want to know.”

“Yeah.”

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission had just let its federal colleague know that the container holding the dirty bomb that Ron Ketchum found was so well made and secure that had it fallen into Lake Adeline, absent the explosion of the C-4 attached to it, it might have sat on the bottom of the lake indefinitely — far longer than the Cobalt-60 payload’s half-life of five point two seven years — without leaking. Past that point, the Cobalt-60 would have represented no ecological danger.

The NRC said it wanted to examine the bomb’s detonator. It was investigating the best way to retrieve it from the lake, and would make a special request for funds to expedite whatever process was deemed the most likely to succeed. English translation: Don’t hold your breath.

“You think the bomb was a hoax?” Keely asked.

Tall Wolf said, “Maybe it did just what it was intended to do.”

“And that would be?”

“To get everyone in town to think of what
might
have happened.”

Ron Ketchum had more thinking to do, but he’d returned to his office to do it. School was out for the summer, but people still had to go to work. So they put their kids in day-camps, among other things, and campers in Goldstrike took frequent trips to the lakefront. He’d spent ten minutes shaking the hands of a group of kids who looked like they couldn’t be more than …

Eight years old. Right there in the middle of them was Brant Sutherland, who must have told all his friends about his adventures. And the part the chief of police had played in
saving
the town. All the boys in the group and several girls told him they wanted to become police officers. Ron said that would be a good thing to do, but there were several other careers to consider, too.

The three camp counselors, college kids watching the younger ones, also shook his hand.

All the while Ron had been mentally kicking himself, because he was thinking he probably could get a lot of votes if he decided to run for mayor. With Clay’s support —

He’d decided it was time to go inside, before any more well-wishers happened by and brought out political instincts he never knew he had and now wished to suppress. No sooner had he stepped inside than Sergeant Stanley handed him a sheet of paper and said, “Nikos Sideris, courtesy of LAPD.”

Ron looked at the mugshots he’d requested. Both police departments had used electronic transmission equipment of sufficient quality to render sharp images. Further reproduction would result in very little loss of definition.

“Please express my gratitude to LAPD,” Ron said.

“Already done, sir.”

“Please send a copy to my father, at the mayor’s house, for his review.”

“I took the liberty,” Sergeant Stanley said. “Mr. Ketchum told me the mug shots are just how he remembers Nikos Sideris, and the man he saw here in town bears a striking resemblance to Sideris.”

Ron knew his job would be much harder without Caz Stanley, but there were times when the sergeant’s efficiency was almost annoying.

“Do you know what the mayor had to say to me, Sarge?”

“No, sir.”

That was good, Ron thought.

“I do have one other item for your attention, Chief. Dr. Dahlgren put a rush on the blood tests.”

Ron accepted the second sheet of paper Sergeant Stanley extended to him.

The blood on the red arrow he’d found, and two others found by patrol officers, had all been rendered with Hale Tibbot’s blood and a commercially available fixative. But Dr. Dahlgren estimated the “artwork” had required less than the six pints of blood missing from the victim. The medical examiner’s opinion was the killer must have either disposed of the remainder or still possessed it.

That would seem to cover the possibilities, Ron thought.

Maybe, though, he ought to check the art galleries in town.

See if an unknown artist was working in a new medium: Type O-negative.

“Sarge,” the chief said, “let’s get copies of Nikos Sideris’ mugshots out to the troops and all the relevant people in the hospitality industry. If we can find the guy my father saw, I want him brought in for questioning.”

Sergeant Stanley started to say something. Probably, “Already done,” Ron thought.

But he stopped his first impulse and said, “Yes, sir.”

Knowing it wouldn’t be a good idea to remind the chief too frequently that most things could get done without his input. Still, there was a measure of comfort for Ron to take in his subordinate’s extraordinary efficiency. Should he decide to leave his job, run for mayor and win, Caz Stanley would see to it that the new man, or woman, taking his place would get off to a good start, and wouldn’t ever have to sweat the small stuff.

But would Ron
want
to be mayor?

The short answer was no.

The longer answer was, it depended on who else might fill the job. Hale Tibbot had said he would have fired Ron. Someone else might feel the same. Another person might want him to stay but could be too meddlesome to tolerate. On the other hand, if he were the mayor, he could make sure the new chief would be someone who was up to the job.