6 - The Eye of the Virgin: Ike Schwartz Mystery 6 (12 page)

Chapter Twenty-four

“Sam, what I want to know is why would anyone bother with a microdot when the Internet is available and, if I understand it correctly, one can send encrypted messages that are practically undecipherable?”

“Can’t answer the first question, but you are right about the possibilities in the second. The levels of encryption are so sophisticated that if you use the technology you can send messages, and they would be nearly locked up tight.”

“Just nearly?”

“Well, you remember the old GIGO formula, garbage in, garbage out? Well, technological advances are like that. Whatever one guy can dream up, eventually another will top. So, if some dude in Pakistan puts a message into heavy encryption, there’s no assurance that some equally sharp guy at NSA won’t be able to unravel it but, and this is the important part, the very fact it
is
in code is a tip-off that it’s probably from someone we’re interested in, the bad guys
du jour,
so to speak.”

“But I thought they could route the messages through multiple servers or whatever they’re called and you’d never know what or who sent it or from where.”

“As I said, what one guy can come up with…Besides, like the encoding, the fact it’s tied up in routing knots is a dead give away. The idea that you may or may never trace it to the source does not mean you can’t go after the message. You follow? Police, fraud investigators, people like that, want to know where it’s from and where it’s going. NSA and the intelligence community want to know what it says. Different priorities.”

Ike scratched his head. The world of satellite communication, electronic surveillance, and even the now ubiquitous Internet hovered outside his willingness to comprehend.

“Then, and more important,” Sam continued, “you have the sender/receiver compatibility issues. For example, if I send a heavily encoded message to you, you would need the same computing power, software, and so on, to un-encode it. That unbreakable coding you’ve heard so much about requires capabilities so sophisticated that it isn’t practical for a receiver, a terrorist on the move, say, to lug around.”

“Okay. So, you’re saying that fancy codes are not all that practical for the average miscreant.”

“More or less, yes. And even if we can’t decipher it, we can always corrupt it.”

“Say what?”

“We could intercept the message as it moves through cyberspace and re-code it in our unbreakable system. The baddies still get the message but now they can’t unravel it. Neat, huh?”

“That still doesn’t tell me why a microdot.”

“As I said, I can’t help you there, Ike. You’ll need a bigger brain than mine to figure that one out. Maybe, it’s about something that even if it’s an out-of-date technique, is simpler, or easier to manage. Or, maybe it has to do with what’s on it. You know, maybe they used old spycraft because it
was
old spycraft. Maybe plans or drawings left over from the sixties or something— a dam, a railroad terminal, floor plan of the capitol, who knows? Have you considered the possibility that the thing is left over from another day and has nothing to do with anything we’re looking for, that the thing was happenstance and coincidental to the rest of the business? Do you know what was on the dot?”

“No clue. Charlie was supposed to call me. Apparently he’s been side-tracked on another matter. I’ll call him tomorrow, if I don’t hear from him sooner. I doubt this is happenstance. The thing was what prompted the break-in.”

“If you say so. Okay, you said you wanted me to poke around in some data bases. What were they and will I risk federal prison if I’m caught?”

“Ah, yes. As to that. You found Sacci in the FBI base. Try to find Zaki this time, but be careful. They’ll be waiting for you. Then, if and when you finish that, hit the site Charlie gave you. By the way, do not be taken in by a phony willingness to accommodate. Unless I miss my guess, it is a back door the Agency keeps open for hackers, snoops, and other intelligence bodies trying to sneak in their backdoor. It’ll be hard enough to get in, but you can bet your boots that all the data in there will be disinformation. You may have to search for another portal. Anyway, if you do find your way in, I want to know about one of their people named Thomas Wainwright. Find out what he was up to, if you can. Charlie hinted he might be in the picture here somehow. If you can get a photo or an image of him, that would be a big help, too.”

“That’s all? You’re sure you don’t want to know what Internet sites the President is logging on to, also?”

“I would, but we’ll save that for one of those rainy days when nobody in our jurisdiction feels criminally inclined.”

“Okay. But it would help if we knew what was on the microdot.”

“I’ll call. Be careful out there in cyberspace. Lots of weird people lurking there.”

“I’m not sure I like being referred to as weird, Ike.”

“I wasn’t talking about you.”

“Unfortunately, you were. All of us who live in the neighborhood have more in common that you might want to think. NSA geeks, FBI geeks, CIA geeks, evil geeks, and geeks like me. We love it.”

Sam retreated to her office to plunge into the inky waters of electronic crime.

The phone rang. Essie wagged the receiver in Ike’s general direction. “It’s for you. It’s Miz Harris. Hey, how you doing there, Miz…um, Doctor Harris. We celebrated your good news here yesterday. We’re pumped. What? Okay, here he is…She says she’s on another line. Ike, so she can’t talk much and she’s tickled pink.”

Ike picked up. “Yes, ma’am, this is friendly Sheriff Schwartz here to serve. Do you have a problem that requires police presence, and when did you start saying things like
tickled pink
?”

“Since I met your loyal, but rural staff, Schwartz. When in Rome speak Latin, or in the case of fair Picketsville, speak redneck. Listen, I have another call on hold and I’m swamped. So we’re off, if you catch my drift. I can’t do anything more with you this week, sorry. However, there’s a cocktail reception for retiring faculty Friday evening. I thought you could come to it, with me, and we could, you know…”

“Know? Know what?”

“Sheesh. I thought I’d sort of flash the rock around, answer the inevitable questions, and that would get the ball rolling on the, you know, the…you know.”

“The word you’re having such a hard time getting your tongue around is
engagement
. I doubt seriously that anyone on the faculty of yours has not already heard about it in grisly detail.”

“I find
grisly
a bit over the top even for you, Bunky. And how would they?”

“Ingenuousness does not become you, ma’am—Agnes, of course.”

“Oh, yeah. Agnes would have told at least—”

“Everyone who came into your office, the cafeteria, her canasta club, you name it.”

“She doesn’t play canasta.”

“You’re sure? She strikes me as a canasta person, Extreme Hand and Foot. Quilting bee, then. Has she been to quilt camp lately?”

“I don’t know, probably; and don’t call me ma’am. Makes me sound like dried-up old spinster schoolmarm.”

“You are a schoolmarm, if you must know, but definitely not dried-up.”

“Okay, enough. You come to the do, wear your dark suit, and get a haircut. You look like Cousin Itt with that mop in your eyes.”

“Suit, haircut, shower, shave, a dab of Hugo Boss, the works. I’ll even get the car washed. What time?”

“Seven-thirty. It should be over by nine and then we can take off for the A-frame.”

“I like it. Not the suit and cocktail part, but the get-away to the A-frame.”

“Okay, and this time try to play nice with the faculty. They have fragile egos and succumb to a bad case of the heebie-jeebies when you insist on destroying their carefully constructed preconceptions.”

“I’ll be good. I’ll only beat up the bullies and leave the junior faculty alone.”

“Thank you, I think. Seven-thirty, Friday, haircut, suit, bye.”

Chapter Twenty-five

Ike parked in Lee Henry’s driveway. He’d discovered her in his first year as sheriff. Besides giving the best haircut in the area, she remained a fount of gossip, news, and stories. He depended on her to keep him both groomed and informed. A new, hand-lettered sign hung on the door that led to the part of her house she’d set aside for her salon business.

“What’s up with ‘Moving to a New Location,’ Lee?”

“Well, ain’t you the observant one. You like my sign?”

“I don’t know. It depends on where you’re planning on relocating. If it’s out of the area, I may have to hold you on some charge. Don’t plan on losing you.”

“What charge would that be? And would it involve a strip search? I might give you a discount for that.”

“Promises, promises. Where’re you going? We’ll settle on searches later, but a word of warning, new state law says I have to have a person of the same sex do the search, so unless you’re holding out on me, someone else would be doing it.”

“Shoot, that wouldn’t be no fun. Sit down and let me see what you’ve done to your head since the last time you come in.”

Ike eased into the chair. The place reeked of wet hair, an odor not quite masked by the combined over-scents of hair spray, shampoo, and something chemical that Ike assumed had to do with perms, or coloring, or both. He knew better than to ask.

“You still haven’t told me where you’re going. Do I need to worry?”

“Lord, no. I’m moving up, not out. See with the economy in the dumpster, I figure it’s time to take advantage of cheap real estate, and people needing some help.”

“Okay. So, what does that have to do with relocating? You buying a new house from a desperate real estate agent?”

“No, nothing like that. See, there’s a storefront on Main Street that’s empty. It used to be a coffee shop. Before that, it was a craft store, and before that, it was a pretzel and cookie store. You know which one I mean?”

“Yes. It’s down the street from the office. You moving there?”

“I’m buying it. There’s an apartment over it where I can live. I’ll sell this house when the market’s right, rent it ’til then. My kids is all grown and gone. I’m single, more or less, and I need to move on, you know?”

“But a salon? You said it, the economy is flat. How are you going to make it work?”

“That’s the good part. See, there’s a bunch of women in the area that, like, is needing extra money. They’re hairdressers and all and some of them work, like me, out of their houses, and some ain’t worked for a while but need the extra money now. I’ll fix up the store with maybe five chairs, like this one you’re sitting in, and rent’em to them gals. They don’t have to, you know, work in their house, lay out a bunch of money they ain’t got to start up, and can maybe get some walk-in business on top, and all like that. It’s a win-win.”

“Well, it’ll make my trips to get a haircut easier.”

“I ain’t cutting your hair, handsome, I’m styling it. There’s a difference.”

“I’m a guy, Lee. For men that’s a difference without a distinction.”

“If you say so. Just don’t let your Honey hear you say that. Say, I hear you and the beautiful lady president has got yourself engaged.”

“We have.”

“All the single ladies for miles around just went into mourning, Ike. You done broke a lot of hearts.”

Ike exhaled. He daren’t shake his head. Lee’s scissors could be lethal. She rubbed his shoulders and slipped the black plastic sheet on his lap and around his neck. “Hey, your muscles feel like rocks, Ike. You under a bunch of stress?”

“I’m a cop. Of course I’m stressed.”

“Listen, I’m going to have me a massage person in the new place. You know, therapeutic, Swedish, and like that. No hanky-panky though, no ‘happy endings.’ You should sign up for one. It’d do you some good.”

“I’ll think about it. Who’s the masseuse? Do I know her?”

“What makes you think it’s a her?”

“I can’t see you working with a man under foot. That’s why.”

“Well, you got that part right. You know Georgie Tice’s wife?”

“Marge? She’s the masseuse?”

“Yep. Her kids is all pretty much grown up, too, and she’s at loose ends. And I’m thinking things ain’t too smooth at Georgie’s bank either, so she got herself certified and licensed.”

“Marge Tice. Well, well, I may have to take you up on one if only to see Marge again.”

“You do that.”

Blake Fisher walked in and took a seat in one of two plastic chairs.

“Afternoon, Rev. How’re you and your new missus gettin’ on?”

“Can’t complain, Ms. Henry, yourself?”

“Just dandy. No prospect of any little Revs any time soon?”

Blake flushed and reached for a year-old magazine.

“Okay, so did you-all hear about the old guy who goes to the doctor and is told he’s got twenty-four hours to live?”

“Nope. Is this a true story?”

“‘Course it is. Only kind I tell. Only I have to clean it up a bit for the Rev.”

“No need,” Blake said.

“Yeah, well, I ain’t used to talking a certain way in front of preachers. So that’s it. Okay, so this old guy, his name is Irving, goes to the doctor and the doctor says, ‘Irving, you got twenty-four hours to live.’ So, Irving comes home from the doctor and tells his wife what the doctor has told him, that he has only twenty-four hours to live. On account of this, he asks his wife for, you know…”

“Sex? I’m not going to be embarrassed by this, am I?”

“Shoot, that’ll be the day. Cover your ears, Rev.” Blake only grinned. “Yes, sex. So, naturally, she agrees and they make love. About six hours later, he goes to his wife and says, ‘Honey, you know I have only eighteen hours to live now. Could we please do it one more time?’ Well, she says, ‘okay,’ and they do it again. Then later on, when they go to bed, he looks at his watch and realizes that he now has only eight hours left. He touches his wife’s shoulder and asks, ‘Honey, please…one more time before I die.’ She says, ‘Of course, dear,’ and they make love for the third time. After this, see, the wife falls asleep.

“But old Irving is thinking about how his time on earth is running out on him and he tosses and turns, until he’s down to, like, four hours. Then he wakes up the wife. ‘Honey, I have only four more hours. Do you think we could…?’ So, the wife sits up and says, ‘Listen Irving, I have to get up in the morning, you don’t.’”

Ike and Blake laughed with Lee, who clearly enjoyed the story more than they did.

“Speaking of dead guys, what do you hear about the one we got from the urgent care center?”

“I cut the hair of Jessica Phelps. You could say she is up-tight about what she and her husband saw that night. Says she’s afraid the killers will come and get her. She’s thinking of asking to be put in the witness protection program.”

“That’s idiotic. She watches too much television. As near as we can determine, she couldn’t identify them if they lived next door to her.”

“Yeah. Well, here’s a tip. You might want to pull her in again. She didn’t tell you everything.”

“You think?”

“I know. She told me that she and her husband might have got part of a license number.”

“Thanks. Anything else?”

“Nope, sorry.”

Blake looked up from his magazine. “Well, if you believe anything Buster Hawkins says—”

Lee interrupted “Which I don’t. He’s about the biggest liar in the county, except for my ex, of course.”

“Yes. Well, he told Mrs. Craddock, that’d be the younger one that lives out on the highway, that he was sitting on the stoop of his house smoking. His wife doesn’t let him light up in the house apparently, and he said he heard a shot in the motel next door to him.”

Ike sat up. “That would be the Dogwood Motel?”

“That’s the one. And he had the day right, too, but you know how he likes attention.”

“Maybe. But it’s worth a look. Thanks. So, when do you move, Lee?”

“Maybe next week, week after that. Depends on how quick I can get all the stuff together and the remodeling finished.”