5 - Choker: Ike Schwartz Mystery 5 (20 page)

Chapter 38

Ike sat across from Charlie in the same booth, with the same breakfast before him as he had nearly two weeks previously. The aroma of fried food and coffee filled the air—no change there either. Silverware and china clinked and scraped against the countertop as if nothing had happened during the interim. The plastic bag with Nick Reynolds’ ring, watch, and cell phone lay on the table between them. Charlie fiddled with his butter knife. He hadn’t touched his food. Ike wondered if Charlie ever ate. He’d never seen him do so. He usually talked and then bolted out the door, leaving a perfectly good meal behind. Ike did not have that problem. He blew his nose and attacked his pancakes.
Starve a fever, feed a cold.

“Eat, Charlie. I’m buying, so you at least ought to be polite and eat. Didn’t your mother tell you it’s ungracious to spurn the host’s offerings?”

“I’m buying, and my mother had very little to say about gustatory obligations. Tell me about last night.”

“We went to the site, retrieved Nick, or what was left of him, and recovered those items from the plane. The divers agree that the plane did not have an accident. It was downed deliberately. I doubt there’s much you can get from the phone, but the SIM card may have some photos and messages on it that your technical people can reconstruct. They may help your niece. I don’t know. I expect his parents will want the ring and watch.”

Charlie pulled the bag to him and poked the items through the plastic with his finger. “Your divers were right about the downing. I had an ME work overtime last night. Nick’s back, neck, and arms, were full of bits and pieces of the airplane. It took a hit and blew. It seems incredible that anyone would do that out in the open, and on the Fourth of July.”

“No so odd, Charlie. It was a moonless night and all the folks on the bay had gone ashore because of the fog.”

“Not all. There was that sailboat you gave me the heads-up about.”

“Anything on that?”

“Nothing yet. It’s tricky, sometimes, to convince local police to cooperate with us.”

“Gee, I wonder why.”

Charlie grimaced and swept the bag and its contents into his briefcase. He started to rise as if to leave.

“Sit, Charlie. We are not done here. I want an official release from this mess. I want to arrange for the return of all the junk you’ve dumped on me, except the GPU, of course. It fell overboard, as you recall. And we need to find Bunky Crispins a new boat.”

“What? A new boat? Where did that come from? We can’t buy him a boat.”

Ike blew his nose again, snuffled, and fixed Charlie with an “I’m not taking any crap from you” stare. “He lost
The J. Millard Tawes
because of us—of you. He was a civilian who simply rented his boat to help me look for a missing pilot. His livelihood was taken from him by the bad guys, whoever they are. By the way, who are they? Never mind. I don’t want to know. He never bargained for the loss of his boat. We owe him a new one. Now, you go rooting around in that pile of money you people have squirreled away to fund black operations, and buy him a replacement.”

“But…”

“He’d settle for that nifty black PBR we used last night, but I don’t guess the ATF would be willing to part with it. Anyway, on your way back to the asylum, stop at the marina at Kent Narrows. There are two or three workboats for sale there. Buy him a nice one. Fix it up and paint
The J. Millard Tawes II
on the transom.”

“You’re being very uppity, Mr. Schwartz. You know that?”

“Uppity is my middle name.”

“Actually, it’s not. It’s Abraham, after your dad. And I’ll see what I can do for your waterman. No promises. You’re off the hook, for now, but keep your cell phone on.”

“Not a chance. I am in way over my head as it is. Thank you anyway, but I am going back to my little cottage. Drink lots of eighty-proof cold medicine, and tomorrow I will return to Picketsville for a party and a sleepover. I may spend the weekend. You can go now. Don’t call us, we’ll call you.”

“No, I will mind my manners, and eat this gorgeous heart attack breakfast. Then I will go back to the office and try to explain to a committee of my peers what the hell you were doing in the middle of the night on the Chesapeake Bay, on our dime.”

“Mazel tov.”

“The same to you.”

***

The sun shone hard and hot, causing evaporating rainwater to rise like steam from the pavement. With his newly acquired sense of freedom, Ike made his way toward the boardwalk. He remembered seeing a gift shop with an end-of-season sale sign in the window. He would buy Ruth a present. One turn around the shop, “shoppe” to be accurate, and he realized that its sales prices were still significantly above what he’d pay for the same item back home, not on sale.

Farther down the boardwalk, an auction house caught his attention. He loved auctions. It would be a nice way to relax and let his breakfast settle. He entered, helped himself to free coffee and Danish, and took a seat at the rear. The item on the block was a Tabriz rug. He liked the colors and the size. He toyed with the notion of bidding on it, hesitated, and a woman with an unlikely up-do bought it before he could act. He considered bidding on several other items. Auctions, as every auctioneer knows, are as addictive as potato chips. Between the first gaveling and the last, otherwise fiscally sane people will, under the influence of a skillful presenter, buy practically anything. Ike, it turned out, was one of those people. By lunchtime he had bid, but lost out, on seven items ranging from a pair of silver candlesticks to a painted Sarouk of dubious vintage. Overall, he felt lucky to have gotten off so easy. Then, just as he was about to leave, he did successfully bid on a one and a half carat, yellow–“canary” the auctioneer called it–diamond in a platinum ring setting. That would put a serious dent in his savings. He’d set out to buy Ruth a present, but this was ridiculous. He tucked the box with the ring in his pocket and left before he ended up buying its matching choker.

He ate lunch in the same booth he had at breakfast. His cell phone, contrary to Charlie’s orders, had been turned off. He powered it up. No missed calls. He speed-dialed Ruth. Perhaps, he thought, he should sound her out on the whole ring business before he sprung his purchase on her.

“I’m in the middle of something here, Ike, so make it quick.” He could hear voices in the background. “What’s up?”

“Just checking on tomorrow, we’re still on for the big hoo-hah for Dillon?”

“Yes. I would have called you if it were off. Is that all you wanted to know?”

“That and I have finished with Charlie, so I can stay the weekend, and I could use your sizes.”

“My what? Sizes?”

“Yes, you know, dress, hat, ring, that sort of thing.”

“I don’t wear hats or jewelry, as you must know by now. I maintain my dress size is a four, but six is closer to the truth, and eight is coming at me fast. Are you going to bring me a present? Forget the clothes. You have terrible taste in women’s wear. I could use a new blender.”

“A blender? What size would that be? And the lady at Victoria’s Secret said I had enviable taste.”

“She would. I gotta go, bubba. Stay safe, and I’ll see you tomorrow. A whole weekend together sounds great. We can go to your little mountain hideaway right after the party.” She clicked off.

“I think I handled that well,” he said.

His waitress, pad in hand, raised an eyebrow. “Sir?”

Chapter 39

Ike flew from Georgetown after lunch on Friday. He’d plotted his flight path to Picketsville, which required him to thread his way past busy airports in and around the Baltimore-Washington corridor and avoid several restricted military areas. Had he been allowed to fly in a straight line, he’d have cut thirty minutes off his transit time. Once clear of urban sprawl, however, Virginia’s green piedmont spread out before him like a giant Christmas garden. He cleared the Blue Ridge and turned southwest, following I-81 to Picketsville. He decided he needed to fly more frequently. He should take Ruth up. Perhaps they could travel to more private places on their weekends together. His euphoria over the joys of aviation slipped away when he hit some rough air south of Harrisonburg and the Reuben sandwich he’d wolfed down before takeoff started talking to him.

Ezra Hooper owned not quite one hundred acres of farmland east of Picketsville. The arable land he leased to a factory farmer from Winchester. The wood lots he kept stocked with game. On weekends, during the various hunting seasons, he had congressmen, industrial movers and shakers, and the bevy of sycophants that usually accompany them flown down for a weekend of hunting, drinking, and deal-making. Ike phoned ahead to inform him he’d need to use his private strip. Eager to do a favor for the police that might someday need to be returned, Ezra agreed, and had had the grass mowed the day previously.

Ike made a bumpy landing on the undulating field and taxied to the barn where Hooper hangared his King Air. Frank Sutherlin waited for him in a patrol car.

“Good to see you, Ike. I didn’t know you knew how to fly.”

“The FAA has a few thoughts on that matter, as well. I learned a few years back. In another life, you could say.”

“Well, as long as you’re in town, I could use some help.”

“Help, as in manpower or help, as in advice?”

“Both, I think, but advice is what I need straightaway. We’re going to raid a kid’s thing out in the park tonight, and I’m afraid there’ll be repercussions from some of their parents.”

“What kind of kid thing? Is this about Blake Fisher’s satanic stuff you were telling me?”

“Yes. See, we are going in there on a suspicion, at best. All we have is a video of the last time they met, and it certainly looks bad, but we don’t have any real reason except we think they’ll probably be up to more of the same. And then there’s Ashley Starkey’s business to account for.” He filled Ike in on the conversation the girl had with Blake Fisher.

“Aside from your weak probable cause position, your problem is what?”

“Well, that’s pretty much it. If we go and all they’re doing is dancing and partying, there will be hell to pay when the parents are called in to pick up the kids.”

“You’re sure they will be doing whatever they do tonight?”

“Yes, that’s confirmed. I had my brother, Henry, you remember him…”

“Who could forget the walking bill board?”

“Yeah. Those tattoos of his are pretty defining, for sure. Anyway, I had him ask around and it checks out. Tonight’s the night.”

“What did the video show, exactly?”

Frank described the scene they’d watched from the downloaded material Sam had prepared.

“It sounds to me like you need to get out there and break that business up, Frank. Never mind what the parents may or may not say. That is not good, clean fun by anybody’s standard. It needs shutting down. You do it. If there is any flak from the parents, have them talk to me. Say you’re working under my direction, or something.”

“Ike, don’t get me wrong. It’s not that I don’t want the responsibility, it’s just that local policing is still new to me. On the Highway Patrol we didn’t do much of this kind of thing.”

“I know, Frank, and even though you grew up in Picketsville and you’re local, you’ve been away and so you’re still new, sort of. Trust me. It will be fine.”

“You’re okay with this, then?”

“Protect and serve, Frank. It can’t always be about legal niceties. These kids may be on the edge of something bad. Or they may not. Prudence says protect first, apologize later if necessary. That’s what local cops do. It’s one of the benefits of small town living. Everybody knows everybody and we share responsibility for each other in ways city folks cannot understand. That’s why they think we’re hicks.”

“Right. Okay, you want to help?”

“No can do. I am booked for the evening and most of the weekend. Tell me how it turns out, but for all practical purposes, I’m still on vacation.”

***

Ike caught a lift with one of his deputies to the Callend University campus and made his way down the pathway to the president’s house. He’d had too many high-calorie breakfasts at the Crossroads Diner in the past three years, and he’d unable to wedge into his tuxedo. His only suit, however, was dark navy blue and with a white shirt and a subdued tie, he managed to look more or less presentable. A flunky in a brocade waistcoat ushered him in the door. Ruth waved to him from across the room. As Armand Dillon was not a supporter anyone wanted to disappoint, the president’s residence had been decorated for the occasion. Fresh flowers in autumnal hues crowded every nook and cranny of the living room, dining room, center hallway, and parlor. Waiters in black tie circulated the rooms with trays of hors d’oeuvres and glasses of wine: red and white, and probably expensive. That was not something Ike would know for he frequently, and truthfully, confessed he had no palate. He ordered a gin and tonic. The waiter, for a brief moment, seemed about to say something, but changed his mind. Ike had become accustomed to the questioning looks from wait-persons, bartenders, and other drink purveyors who believed that gin and tonic, like white shoes, was not acceptable after Labor Day. He didn’t care; he knew what he liked and had decided long ago that he had earned the right to be contrary.

Ruth brought Dillon over to him.

“Mr. Dillon asked for you especially, Ike. Try to behave,” she said and walked away to greet another guest.

“She’s a winner, Sheriff. When are you planning on making an honest woman of her?”

“As usual, your subtlety is lost on me, sir. Just what is it you want to know?”

Dillon laughed and took Ike by the elbow. “I think you ought to lasso that heifer before someone else puts his brand on her, that’s all.”

“A word of warning, Armand, don’t ever let Ruth hear you refer to her, or any other woman, as a cow, young or old. As much as she depends on you for all sorts of things, she can be positively sulfuric about sexist allusions. They may even cause her to become homicidal. Second, she is not the sort to worry over much about the honesty, as you so delicately put it, of her relationships.”

“So I hear. Nevertheless, when?”

Ike shrugged and shook his head. “It’s a matter under study.”

“Okay, I get it. It’s none of my business. How’s your dad?”

“Not his usual self lately, I’m afraid. My mother died last winter and he’s not quite recovered. He’s over there.” Ike pointed out Abe Schwartz, who, on any other evening, would be working the room like a candidate for office or an insurance salesman. Tonight, he stood staring at a dingy oil portrait of a DIP, deceased important person, probably one of the beneficent Callends.

“I’ll go jolly him up a little.” Dillon made his way to the elder Schwartz. Within two minutes he had Abe laughing and pointing a finger at Ike.

“Now, what are you two old birds up to?” he muttered.

Ike’s cell phone vibrated in his pocket. He made a face and retrieved it. Charlie.

“Charlie, I am at a very nice party, having a cocktail, and being charming to Ruth’s friends and a few of her enemies. Don’t bother me.”

“Ike, charming is not in your toolbox. Anyway, we have a problem.”

“Not we, we do not have a problem, Charlie. You. You have the problem.”

“Listen, Ike, this is serious. It’s about the cell phone you recovered.”

“I assume you mean Nick Reynolds’ cell phone. What about it? Surely it doesn’t still work.”

“It had a picture.”