Don't Take Any Wooden Nickels (35 page)

“I don’t want to hurt you…” I said, leaning back again to look at him.

“Shhh,” he replied, putting a finger against my lips. “We’ll just take this as it comes. I told you, I don’t have any expectations. And we’ve got all the time in the world.”

“Do you realize,” I whispered, “that you’re the first man I’ve even held hands with since my husband passed away?”

He nodded.

“You made it very clear that you don’t date, Callie. But I’m honored that you’re giving me a chance. I want us to have a chance.”

Before I could reply, there was a knock at the front door.

Kirby excused himself and went to answer it while I attempted to pull myself together. Did the pounding of my heart show on my face?

I was just smoothing out my hair when Kirby came back, a strange expression in his eyes.

“What is it?” I asked.

He stepped farther into the room, and behind him came Mr. Buchman, the wig off but the coat still on.

Behind him came Hank Hawkins, the gun in his hand pointed firmly at the small of Mr. Buchman’s back.

Thirty-Nine

“Over to the couch,” Hank said, motioning with the gun as Sal barked furiously. “All of you.”

I scooted down to one end and commanded Sal to be quiet. She obeyed but remained alert, a soft growl rumbling from her throat. Kirby sat next to me and a pale-looking and exhausted Mr. Buchman sat next to him. I felt so bad for poor Mr. Buchman. He didn’t need this kind of trouble!

Once they were seated, I realized that another man was with Hank. Instead of a gun, though, he held out a wallet which sported a badge.

“Special Agent Jeffrey Litman, INS,” he said. I studied his face, remembering that he was the suited man who had hovered around the fringes of the police investigation the night we found Eddie Ray’s body. With his slender face and hook nose, he was the one the lieutenant had deferred to, the one I had assumed was with the DA’s office.

“INS?” I asked.

Hank lowered his gun and tucked it in at his waistband.

“Immigration and Naturalization Service. And I’m Special Agent Hank Quinn.”

“I thought your name was Hank Hawkins.”

“That’s my cover,” he said, “which you very nearly have blown.”

I exhaled slowly, closing my eyes. They were with the Immigration Bureau! Suddenly, it felt as if a great weight was sliding from my shoulders. We weren’t alone in this. The government was already on the job.

I leaned forward to pull Sal onto my lap, and I stroked her reassuringly as I spoke.

“Wait a minute,” I said to Hank. “I thought you were from Kawshek. I thought you were a local.”

“I’ve spent over a year here,” he said angrily, “building my cover, learning the ropes, fitting in. Then you show up with your big mouth and your rinky-dink investigation and threaten to ruin everything.”

I thought back to the night I had first seen him, the night people were gathered in the parking lot of the Kawshek General Store and Wendy Lentil told me that Hank was “kinda new here,” but that he seemed like “a good fella.” He looked so much like a waterman that it hadn’t sunk in he wasn’t a Kawshek native born and bred.

“I’m so confused,” I said. “Who was driving the Pontiac van tonight, the one that followed me to Kawshek?”

“I was,” Litman said. “Once you got out of your car, I radioed Hank and he followed you on foot.”

“So who tailed Mr. Buchman in my car to Alexandria?”

“Again, I did,” Litman said. “And a big waste of time it was, too. Thanks a lot.”

I felt a blush creep across my face. I guess the whole decoy thing had been a bit much.

“Meanwhile, our surveillance team tells us you took yourself a little boat ride tonight,” Hank said to me. He looked angry, and I didn’t blame him. Obviously, I had wormed my way right into the middle of something major. No wonder Barbara Hightower had called me and tried to warn me off. She must have known the INS was involved.

“Please, have a seat,” Kirby said suddenly to the two men. “Would anyone like some coffee?”

“That would be good,” Agent Litman said. “Black, please.”

Kirby went to his desk, lifted the phone, and spoke softly to a maid.

“It goes without saying,” Hank began as soon as Kirby returned to the couch, “that your little investigation has crossed over into our big investigation. Guess who’s going to back off now? You are.”

“Hey,” I replied, “I’m sorry if we messed anything up for you people. But we couldn’t possibly have known what was really going on. I’m thrilled you’re already involved, trust me, but we don’t deserve this attitude from you. We were well within the
bounds of our own investigation. It’s just unfortunate the way things played out.”

Hank seemed to listen to my little speech, and when I was finished he stood and crossed to the fireplace.

“All right, fine,” he snapped. “Right now I’m just trying to sort out what’s been done and what hasn’t. You’ll excuse me if I’m a little miffed that Agent Litman here just wasted five hours following a cross-dressing butler to Alexandria for a box of donuts.”

I stifled a smile and turned to Mr. Buchman.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

He nodded.

“I’m sorry, Callie,” Mr. Buchman said. “I guess the wig slipped while I was waiting for my order. Agent Litman stopped me when I came back to the car with the donuts. He made me follow him back to his office in Barrington. I had to tell him everything I knew.”

“That’s okay,” I said. “Considering what we discovered tonight, this is actually a wonderful development.”

He looked relieved.

“So what’s going on out on Manno Island?” I asked Hank. “Obviously, they’re smuggling immigrants.”

“Oh, no,” he said. “You first. Tell me about your investigation.”

“Well, considering you were in my home without a warrant,” I said, “why don’t you tell me what you were able to figure out about my investigation on your own?”

“What?”
Agent Litman asked, sitting forward.

Hank ran a hand through his hair, and I found my eye drawn to the scar on his chin. It was funny, but now that I knew he was one of the good guys, I could see what everyone was talking about when they said he was a “gentle” person. His very size made him appear threatening, of course, but in the parlor by the light of the fireplace he looked like nothing so much as a giant teddy bear, just as Shayna had said.

“May I speak with you in the hall?” Hank said to me.

I nodded and walked out, curious as to what would happen next.

“Look,” he told me softly once we were alone, “you’re an investigator, you know how it works. I was in a hurry. I was desperate. Here we are about to take down a major operation after a lengthy investigation—and then suddenly you pop into the mix, threatening to blow it all up in our faces. I needed to know who you were, why you were there. I did what I had to do. Just like sometimes you do things you have to do.”

“Was Litman in my house, too?”

“No, he’s strictly a by-the-book kind of guy. And this could get me in a lot of trouble.”

“What are you offering to keep me quiet?” I asked.

“What do you want?”

“Shayna released from all charges.”

“I’m afraid I can’t do that.”

“You can pay a visit to the DA,” I said. “At the very least, show him there’s more to this situation than meets the eye.”

“The DA is marginally aware of our presence here,” he said. “Beyond that, I’m powerless.”

“Can you talk with Shayna’s lawyer, at least tell him?”

“Again, no. I’m sorry, but there’s nothing I can do to help her. The scope of our investigation is just too great to take such a risk.”

“Come on, Hank,” I said. “You dated Shayna yourself! You know she’s innocent.”

“Yeah, I feel sure that she is. And I would do something about it if I could, but right now I can’t. That’s just how things are.”

I stared at him, wondering if he was being completely truthful. Shayna had broken up with him, after all. Maybe there were some sour grapes here. Maybe he was paying her back by letting her fry.

“If you can’t help Shayna, then why should I keep quiet about you breaking into my house?” I asked.

Hank shrugged, looking desperate.

“I don’t know, Callie. Maybe just to be nice? Maybe so I could owe you one?”

We glared at each other for a moment.

“Look,” he pleaded. “Believe it or not, I have strong feelings for Shayna. We didn’t date all that long, and I know it wasn’t exactly mutual, but I really liked her. I still do. Don’t you think this mess she’s in now is killing me?”

“Then do something about it.”

“I can’t! My hands are tied.”

I exhaled slowly.

“You saw those immigrants out on Manno Island,” Hank added softly. “Do you really want to do something that might jeopardize the apprehension of the criminals responsible for that?”

He had me there. I thought of those women standing against the fence, their ribs poking through their soaked shirts. I didn’t know much about human smuggling, but I did know those people were suffering.

Finally, I let out a frustrated sigh before turning and walking back into the study with Hank following behind. As we entered, Agent Litman was eyeing us suspiciously.

“Was Agent Quinn in your home without a warrant?” he asked.

“Well, sir,” I replied, “I truly never got a good look at the man, so I can’t be sure. But I think I was mistaken. I think the man who broke into my home was much bigger than him.” I smiled at my own joke, as I doubted it was physically possible for a person to be much bigger than him.

“Now may we hear the details of your investigation?” Hank asked, more nicely this time.

As succinctly as I could, I recounted the steps I had taken to try to uncover the true murderer of Eddie Ray Higgins. I explained about the wooden nickel, the GPS club, the man I saw with the machine gun. I didn’t have to provide much detail about our activities tonight, since we had been observed by their surveillance the whole time we were observing the island.

“And have you solved your case?” Hank asked.

“Not yet,” I replied. “But from all that’s going on, I feel certain that Eddie Ray was killed by these smugglers. I just don’t have the proof yet.”

Hank looked at Litman and then shook his head.

“You could’ve frozen to death in that water, you know,” he said. “Not to mention getting blown up by their machine guns or hacked to death by the boat motor.”

“That’s what I’ve been telling her,” Kirby said, placing his hand on mine.

His public display of affection bothered me, and after a beat I casually extricated my hand from his grasp.

“Now tell us what you can about your investigation,” I said. “I think we deserve to know a little, at least.”

Hank looked at Litman, and he nodded.

“As you guessed, Manno Island is being used as a processing station for illegal immigrants coming to the U.S. from China,” Hank said.

“Are they always transported in containers?”

“They’re brought here in lots of ways, but yes, that’s one way. They put the people in a container and then load the container on a ship, surrounded by similar containers that are full of legally imported goods. Those people you saw on the island tonight came all the way from Suriname to Norfolk in that ten by twenty box. Eighteen of them, in that one little box.”

“No wonder it smelled so bad,” I said.

“Suriname?” Kirby asked. “In South America?”

“Yeah, it’s one of their standard routes to the U.S.,” Litman said. “Illegal immigrants come into America from nearly every direction, but this is the route we’ve been assigned to. We’re very close to making some arrests.”

“What’s Russell Lynch’s involvement?” I asked.

“He picks up the containers in Norfolk and brings them to Manno,” Hank said. “He’s convinced himself that what he’s doing isn’t all that bad, but the truth is, he’s just another cog in a big,
nasty machine of snakeheads. He’ll go down with the rest of them.”

“Snakeheads?”

“That’s what we call Chinese human smugglers. Manno Island is part of a series of stops where the people being smuggled are taken and hidden as they wait for the next step on their journey.”

“What’s their ultimate destination?” Kirby asked.

“From here? The immigrants will be under the control of other snakeheads in DC, Philly, and finally New York City. The snakeheads have to get these people to Chinatown where they can blend in. Then the immigrants will go to work to pay for their lovely trip to America.”

“Don’t they pay before they leave China?” I asked.

“Just a small deposit. Once they get here, the real work begins. The price is usually fifty, sixty, seventy thousand dollars. With a thousand-dollar deposit up front, you do the math. They’ll be slaves in sweatshops or restaurants or brothels for years just to make up the difference—if they ever do.”

“Wow.”

“Sometimes the money they can’t raise is extracted from relatives and previous immigrants. Essentially, the ones being smuggled in are held hostage. They’re beaten, raped, starved—whatever it takes to get their loved ones to pay the money.”

“That’s horrible.”

“Make no mistake, Ms. Webber, this is a terrible, evil business. The profits for some smuggling rings can run into the billions
per year.
They’re not going to let you or me or the Department of Immigration and Naturalization stop them if they can help it.”