Rip cord, p.16
Rip Cord, page 16
*
Steve Wayne called the Bureau in Washington at nine o’clock, their time, on Tuesday morning. Outside his window, he could see faraway clouds on the Pacific horizon.
“Director Ellington’s Office.”
He recognized the voice. “Mrs. Wagner, this is Steve Wayne. I wonder if you could tape a report for me?”
“Oh, Mr. Wayne! The Director’s been — ”
“I don’t have any equipment with me, and I’d sure appreciate a transcription, Mrs. Wagner.”
“Well, uh, just a moment, Mr. Wayne.”
Dull echo of hold.
Ellington came on the line. “Wayne! Where in the hell are you?”
“Good morning, Mr. Director.”
“You going to answer my question?”
“In Los Angeles. I — ”
“I want you here, in my office, as soon as you can get a flight. This afternoon.”
“Mr. Ellington — ”
“No excuses. And you’d better have a good rationale for this rampage you’ve been on.”
“Mr. Ellington — ”
No hold this time. Just the steady dial tone. Dead-ended against the bureaucracy one more time. He might not even make it to Sacramento. How about Nome?
Wayne sat on the edge of his bed for five minutes, his mind broiling, then called room service and ordered coffee, orange juice, pancakes, a manila envelope, and ten dollars’ worth of postage stamps.
He dressed and packed while waiting for breakfast, and when it arrived, sat down at the small table by the window. He could stare at the Pacific while eating and composing. Using Holiday Inn stationery and his copy of his affidavit for the San Luis Obispo Sheriff as a guide, he wrote a concise report for Ellington. He added the visit to Andy’s neighbor that he had forgotten in the affidavit, but he did not provide many details of the earlier investigation in Santa Fe. Simply as a favor, he had checked on the purchaser of a wedding ring.
And when he thought about it, that’s about all he had done. Favors. For a friend. It was done all the time. Why in hell should he feel guilty, as if he were deceiving his superiors?
Why in hell should Ellington be incensed at all? When he was done, he signed and dated the report. Then he took a single sheet of paper, addressed it to Ellington, and wrote two words: “I resign.”
No explanations. No excuses. No bucking the system. He signed and dated that one also.
From his credential folder, he extracted the credential, tossed the worn leather folder in the wastebasket, added the credential to the report and resignation, and slipped it all into the envelope. Standing, he unclipped his holster from his belt and packed the .38 into his suitcase. It would no longer be legal for him to carry it.
The lack of weight on his hip was noticeable. It had been there for eighteen years. The lack of authority in his pocket was a new blank space in his life. Wayne was not certain how he felt. Numb. Somewhat emasculated.
Ironically, somehow freer. Less bureaucratic weight to carry around.
He thought about Gary Poole, wondered if he was still chasing spooks and mounting undercover operations in Latin America for the CIA. Wondered why they had ever been friends.
He went down and checked out, arranging at the same time to have the envelope posted in the overnight mail.
Finis.
That’s all, folks.
Carrying his case out to the Escort, he got in and drove north unhurriedly on the Pacific Coast Highway. There was no urgency requiring a freeway. The highway transformed itself into Sepulveda Boulevard on the other side of Torrance, and Wayne followed that north, crossed through the tunnels under LA International’s runways, and weaved his way into the airport complex. He turned the car into Hertz, confessed the scratched fender, showed them where to find their hubcaps, and paid the bill.
United found him a seat, but he had a wait that lasted him through five cups of coffee and every page of the Los Angeles Times.
Wayne’s Boeing 727 landed at Albuquerque International at 11:15 on Tuesday morning. It was hot and dry and bright. On the other side of the airport, out of Kirtland Air Force Base, several flights of F-15 Eagles took off to practice the delivery of destruction. As they passed over, the sleek fighters appeared incongruous against the dark tan, adobe-style buildings of the airport terminal. A nice study in contrasts, the fat, solid past placed against the slim and speeding shape of progress.
Wayne retrieved his Firebird Trans Am from the lot, followed the access road out to University Boulevard, and joined Interstate 25 after a traverse over Cemetery Boulevard. Cemetery seemed particularly appropriate. Prelunch traffic was light, and he reached his Candelaria turnoff in ten minutes.
Wayne did not expect to find Cece home at that time of day, but he also did not expect to find the apartment so empty. Inside the door was a cardboard box of his personal items from the office. Leaning against the wall were the four paintings of the old Navajo men. Displaced once again.
He tossed his bag in the bedroom and wandered through the rooms, and the more he did not see, the more disheartened he became. The little things — accessories, pictures, her plaque from the New Mexico Advertising Association — were still there, but quite a few of Cece’s clothes were gone. It also explained why she had not been picking up the phone since Sunday.
The agency told him she was out when he called. No, they thought she would not be back today. Her phone number? They gave him his own. He almost phoned Rodriguez, but then decided to leave the woman alone. The acting sheriff would be busy enough with the election.
*
On Wednesday morning, Del Blessing wore his best summer, western-cut suit and ate breakfast at the Village Inn with Aaron Clark and Humphrey Moore while they waited for the results of the recount. Blessing had scrambled eggs while Clark and Moore each dug into spicy Mexican omelets.
Blessing was not hungry and pushed his eggs away, nibbling on one piece of bacon. He poured coffee from the insulated pot while Clark, as county GOP chairman, got up to make yet another call.
“I hate the waiting,” Blessing said. “Last night was hell.”
“You should have been a reporter instead of a lawyer,” Moore, the old newspaper man said. “You learn patience. Some do, anyway.”
Clark appeared in the doorway from the vestibule, his face grim, and they both watched him thread his way through the tables. Clark’s dismal face gave Blessing hope.
“Well?” Blessing asked.
Clark sat down and poured himself fresh coffee, being deliberately slow. “It’s ironic.”
“What’s ironic, damn it?”
“You lost your council seat by seventeen votes.”
Blessing’s spirit soared.
“You won this one by seventeen votes. Congratulations!”
Delwin Blessing felt faint.
*
“I took the rest of the day off,” Rodriguez said. “It’ll be the last time I can order myself on leave. Hell, next Monday, when Blessing takes office, I might not even have a job.”
“He’s got to give you something like patrol or investigation captain,” Hayman said.
Keith Boyles said, “I’d like to have him try to fire you, Luisa. Jesus, I’d have a field day with the SOB. Female and Hispanic, not to mention election loser. ‘Discriminatory, arbitrary, and capricious’ is a phrase I can use well in front of a judge.”
The four of them sat around a big old oak table in Hayman’s dining room, and Wayne could see Anne Hayman through the kitchen door, talking to someone on the phone. Big platters of sandwiches and chips and dips, along with four cans of Coors, adorned the table. It was a comfortable room in a big old house on the east side of town. Navajo rug hanging on one wall. A prized Georgia O’Keeffe was centered above the sideboard.
Luisa Rodriguez wore an off-white full skirt and a pale blue blouse. Her dark, shining hair was blow-dried and seemed to have more body in it than it did under a deputy’s Stetson. Except for the sour downcast of her lips, she did not look like someone who had lost an election.
She did not look hard enough to be a cop.
Then again, he was not a cop, anymore, either. He was not anything. And yet, he did not feel out of place in the group. These were people who halfway liked him, he thought.
Wayne had just arrived after Hayman’s telephone invitation at ten o’clock.
“I’m disappointed as hell,” Wayne told her. Then he said to Boyles, “Congratulations, Keith.”
Boyles tipped a can at him in thanks.
Hayman took a long drink from his tall can, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “You’re only disappointed? I’m mad as hell. I’ve lost all faith in the discernment of the general public.”
“It’s a big town, Jerry,” Boyles said. “But it’s still an old-fashioned town in a lot of ways. I think Lu ran into some resistance from people who couldn’t see a woman as sheriff. Plain and simple, like that. Many of the voters didn’t show any real feeling for either the competency or the politics. One thing, though, Blessing sure didn’t get a mandate.”
“But he’ll take it as one,” Hayman said.
Boyles had shed his suit coat and large perspiration stains circled his armpits. He still wore his vest and was the only one with a tie in place. Wayne was in jeans and a sport shirt. The non-requirement to wear a tie was almost as confusing to him as was the absence of a weapon on his belt.
“You can’t go anywhere without getting your name in the paper, can you, Steve?” Boyles asked. “I’m damned glad to see you, by the way. Alive, and all that.”
“Thanks.”
Boyles reached for another sandwich. “What’s the story behind the story?”
Wayne related the details of his snooping around San Luis Obispo, Santa Maria, and Newport Beach. He skimmed over the confrontation with Pyle.
“Cece’s okay?” Hayman asked him.
“She was a bit shaken, but I think she’ll come out of it all right.” Wayne based the statement on faith. He had not been able to find her anywhere.
“Both Andy and this Howard Pyle owned skydiving centers?” Rodriguez asked.
“That’s right.”
“Franchises?”
“No. They were independently owned.”
“I have a bit of a downer for you, Steve,” the exacting sheriff said.
“Just what I need.”
“None of the shoes owned by Howard Pyle matched the shoe prints we got from the barn. The size doesn’t match, either. Pyle wore size twelve, and the ones in the barn are both size ten.”
“Damn it. That means we’ve got at least three perps. Pyle and the two in the barn.”
“Yeah, and something more confusing,” Rodriguez added. “The sheriff’s department investigators from San Luis Obispo found a Piper Cherokee registered to Howard Pyle at the Santa Maria Airport.”
“That’s confusing?”
“The Piper has never been in Santa Fe, as far as the records here show. And the plane’s log supports that.”
“Okay. It was a long shot,” Wayne said.
“We also checked out Pyle’s name, Steve, in case he rented an airplane. No one named Pyle parked an aircraft overnight at Santa Fe. I got a list, though, of every transient aircraft on the ground for April third to the tenth and for April seventeenth to the twenty-first. There are a lot of them.”
“Good. However, you must have a ‘but.’ ”
“But,” she said, nodding, “they found a scalpel in the plane in Santa Maria.”
“They’re shipping it to me, to see if I can find any matches with the wounds on the victims,” Hayman said.
It took only a couple seconds for Wayne to hash it over in his mind. “Pyle has the scalpel, but Pyle was apparently not on the scene.”
The DA grinned at him. “How’s that for a puzzler?”
“Sounds to me,” Wayne said, “as if someone was taking advantage of an opportunity. Since Pyle was done for, anyway, drop the evidence on him. Maybe the dumb New Mexico cops will close the case.”
“That’s the way I’ve been thinking, amigo,” Rodriguez said. “And I don’t like having anyone think I’m stupid.”
“You have the computer printout with you, Luisa?” Wayne asked.
“I’ve got one of them. Hold on.” Rodriguez went out to her car and came back with six sheets of paper stapled together. “It’s a bit thinner now. This is the 235-name roster I told you about.”
Wayne scanned the names. Andropoulous and Pyle had stars next to their names. The rest of them did not mean much. It was just a roster of people who had served in the same company in Vietnam during the same period as the two dead men, a period which now spanned fourteen months with the overlap in Andy’s and Pyle’s tours of duty. Some of them were probably dead, a result of the war or of civilian tragedy in postwar years. Each name had a rank and an address derived from the Pentagon or Screamin’ Eagles list. A few had telephone numbers which might or might not be accurate. Among the A, B, C, and D names, many phone numbers had been written in longhand by someone from the sheriff’s office or the DA’s office attempting to call them. There were a lot of gaps. Modem technology could not keep up with transient people.
“What did you learn about Andropoulous and Pyle?” Wayne asked.
“Their two-oh-one files indicate exemplary military service. Andy was a buck sergeant and Pyle a spec four. Eight or nine decorations apiece. Bronze Star and Silver Star for Andy. Two Bronzes for Pyle.”
Pyle had told Dazi the truth, there.
“Any detail for the citations?”
“Not much as I recall. Something like outstanding and selfless action at Chu Lai on such and such a date.”
“Have you looked for a commanding officer?”
“No.”
Wayne ran his fingernail down the column of ranks. There was one captain.
“Peter G. Conrad. He’s the only captain, and he must have been the company CO.”
“What’s his present status?” Boyles asked.
“Civilian, I guess. Lists an address and phone number in Pocatello, Idaho. I assume the data is from the Screamin’ Eagles.”
“We can try to run him to ground,” Rodriguez said. “By all rights, he should have been at the top of the list.”
“I don’t know Blessing,” Wayne said, “but I get the feeling from all of you that he’s not going to jump right into this.”
“He won’t want to get his hands dirty,” Hayman said. “Unless Janet gets right on his ass, I don’t think he’ll push too hard. If he’s smart, which I won’t vouch for, he’ll make Luisa chief of the investigative division and leave the case to her.”
“We’re not going to know anything about that until Monday, if then,” Rodriguez said.
Boyles chewed his lip. “There’s still a couple of perplexing problems.”
“Like motive?” Wayne asked.
“A good start.”
“Like why bring Andy and Andrea here to knock them off?”
“Even better.”
Hayman said, “What if there was just a problem within the group? Even if it’s just a group of three. Say between Pyle and Andropoulous, and they had it out?”
Wayne told him, “Jerry, you said the perpetrator was after information. Indicating something more than a feud.”
“True,” Hayman admitted. “Keep in mind, however, that, once or twice in my life, I’ve been wrong.”
Wayne mused for a moment. “Let’s come back to the geographical problem. Andy, Andrea, and two more people, males, were in the Santa Fe area for some purpose. On or about the eighth of April. Is there some way we can check out what else was going on at that time?”
“I’ll have my office do a search,” Boyles offered. “We’re looking for any activities in that period that are out of the norm, right?”
“Yes. Something that might have made the newspaper, for instance.”
“Okay. I’ll start my people on it in the morning.”
“Jerry, would you mind a long-distance call on your phone?” Wayne asked Hayman.
“I’ll send the bill to the DA.”
Wayne went into the kitchen. Anne had gone outside onto the patio and was chatting with a woman Wayne did not know. He flipped though the computer listing to the Cs and called the phone number in Pocatello. A monotone recording told him the number had been changed, but also gave him the new number. He dialed that one, and when a woman answered, asked for Peter Conrad.
“He’s at the office.”
“Could I have the phone number, please?”
He had to go through a receptionist advertising Conrad Insurance Agency before he reached Peter Conrad.
“Mr. Conrad, my name is Steven Wayne.”
“The name rings a bell.”
“I’m afraid it was in the news last weekend.”
“Ah, yes! You’re with the FBI.”
Wayne did not deny it.
“There was something out in California involving Pilo.”
“Pilo?”
“That was Pyle’s nickname. Claimed he was a pilot before he was drafted, I think, and they shortened it from there. Those people did funny things with names.”
“You remember him, then?”
“Sure, after I saw the name in the paper, though I didn’t think he’d end up like he did. He was a hell of a soldier. I decorated him twice, I think.”
“I wonder if you’d remember the names of any men he was closely associated with?”
“We’re talking twenty years ago, Mr. Wayne. There were one hundred and eighty people in the company at any one time, and they kept shifting on me. They died, they got shot up, they rotated home, and they were replaced.”
“I understand.”
“And during that period, I think it was difficult for most of them to get too close to each other. You never knew when a buddy was going to be wasted. Getting too close was too hard emotionally. And beyond the formality that came with being their commander, it was the same with me. I knew a lot of my people by name, but I didn’t get buddy-buddy with them. Especially at the platoon level.”
“How about Pyle’s platoon leader? Remember him?”
“Well, hold on ... Be ... Ba ... Barker? No, he was the Fourth Platoon. Must have been Taylor. I think that’s right. Frank or Fred ... Frederick Taylor. Oh, hell, yes. First Platoon.” There was a change in Conrad’s tone.
