Wild Fire (38 page)

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

A
t 4:54 P.M., I pulled into the long driveway to Wilma’s B&B. I could see a woman peering through the window of the main house, and it was undoubtedly Wilma, waiting for her UPS lover, and she was probably wondering who the guy was in the van.

I stopped at Pond House, gathered my plastic shopping bags from Scheinthal’s Sporting Goods, got out, knocked on the door, and announced, “It’s your mountain man.”

Kate opened the door, and I went inside. She asked me, “Where did you get that van?”

“Rudy.” I explained, “It’s important to switch vehicles when you’re a fugitive.”

She didn’t comment on that. “How did it go? What’s in those bags?”

“It went well, though Bain still doesn’t have his meds right. Let me show you what I bought.”

I emptied the contents of the two bags on the kitchen table. “Clean socks for me, some extra ammo and magazines for us—”

“Why—?”

“An air horn, and two BearBangers—”

“Two
what
?”

“Scares away the bears,
and
signals that you’re in trouble. Pretty neat, huh?”

“John—”

“Hey, you should have seen this sporting-goods store. I never knew so many things came in camouflage. Here’s an energy bar for you.”

“Did you get anything to eat?”

“I had a granola bar.” Or was that a Ring Ding?

I sat on the kitchen chair and pulled off my shoes, then my socks, which I could see had rug fibers on the soles, and at least one long dark hair, which I hoped belonged to Bain Madox, Kaiser Wilhelm, or Harry Muller. I said, “This is from Madox’s office, and I have a hunch—really a hope—that Harry was sitting in the same chair that I sat in.”

She nodded.

I put the socks in a plastic bag, then took a page from my notebook and wrote a brief description of the time, date, method, and place of collection, signed it, and put it in the bag.

I then took the lint roller out of my pocket, removed the protective paper, peeled off the first layer of sticky paper that was coated with fibers, and explained to Kate, “This was from the foyer carpet.”

I carefully pressed the sticky paper to the inside of the plastic bag and said, “One time, I swiped a murder suspect’s ham sandwich from his kitchen”—I began writing up the lint-paper description and continued—“I got enough DNA to link him to the crime . . . but his lawyer argued that the evidence was improperly obtained—
stolen,
without a warrant—and therefore not admissible, and I had to swear that the suspect
offered
me the half-eaten sandwich . . .” I rolled the bag up and asked Kate, “Do you have any tape?”

“No. But I’ll get some. So, what happened?”

“To what? Oh, the evidence. So, the defense attorney grills me about why the accused would offer me a half-eaten ham sandwich, and I’m on the stand for twenty minutes, explaining how this happened, and why I shoved the sandwich in my pocket instead of eating it.” I smiled at the memory of that testimony. “The judge was impressed with my bullshit, and ruled the ham sandwich as admissible.” I added, “The defense attorney went bonkers and accused me of lying.”

“Well . . . but it was a lie. Wasn’t it?”

“It was a gray area.”

She didn’t comment on that, but asked, “Did they get a conviction?”

“Justice was done.”

I found the hand towel in the bottom of the second bag and said to Kate, “This is from the downstairs pee-pee room, and I used this to wipe some surfaces.” As I wrote a note about the hand towel, I said, “This comes under the category of the ham sandwich. Was I
offered
the hand towel to keep, or did I take it without a search warrant? What would you say?”

“It’s not for me to say. It’s for
you
to say.”

“Right . . .” I wrote on the note and said aloud, “Offered to me by Carl, an employee of the suspect, when he noticed it was . . . what? Stuck in my zipper?”

“You may have to think about that.”

“Right. I’ll finish this later. Okay, so with any luck, some of these hairs and fibers from Custer Hill will match those found on Harry, and similarly, maybe some of Harry’s hair and clothing fibers were left at Custer Hill, and they’ll be mixed in with this stuff.”

Kate had no comment, except to say, “Good job, John.”

“Thank you.” I informed her, “I was a good detective.”

“You still are.”

Shucks
.

She said, “I think we have enough forensic and other evidence now to call Tom Walsh, then get back to New York, ASAP.”

I ignored that suggestion and showed her my new wool socks. “We have another shot at collecting evidence from the lodge.” I asked her, “What kind of socks do you have on?”

She didn’t reply to my question, and instead asked me, “Are you serious about that dinner invitation?”

“I am.” I put the lint roller back in my pocket. “How many times does a murder suspect invite you to dinner?”

“Well, the Borgias used to do it all the time.”

“Yeah? They were . . . ? Gambino family. Right?”

“No, they were Italian nobility who used to poison their dinner guests.”

“Really? And the guests kept coming? That’s pretty stupid.”

“Point made.”

She unwrapped the energy bar, and I asked her, “Do you want me to take a bite to see if it’s poisoned?”

“No, but if you’re hungry, I’ll share this with you.”

“I’m saving my appetite for dinner.”

“I’m not going there.”

“Sweetheart, he specifically invited you.”

“And you’re not going either.” She said to me, “Tell me what you and Madox talked about.”

“Okay, but first, call Wilma.”

“Why?”

“Tell her you’ll get her laptop back to her before six-thirty, and ask her for a roll of tape.”

“Okay.” She moved to the desk, and I walked barefoot to the couch, not wanting to taint my new socks with Wilma’s B&B.

Kate picked up the phone, and I said to her, “Also, ask Wilma to call you immediately if your husband drives by in the white Hyundai.”

I thought Kate would tell me I was an infantile idiot, but she smiled and said, “Okay.” She had an odd sense of humor.

Kate called and got Wilma on the phone and thanked her for the laptop and promised to return it before 6:30. Then Kate said, “Could I impose on you for two more favors? I need a roll of tape—masking tape or duct tape. I’m happy to pay you for it. Thank you. Oh, and if you see my husband drive by in the white Hyundai, could you call me immediately?” Kate smiled as Wilma said something. Kate explained, “It’s just a friend, but . . . well . . . yes—”

“Tell her you need enough tape for your wrists and ankles, and see if she has whipped cream.”

“Hold on, please—” She covered the phone and, suppressing a laugh, said to me, “John—”

“And call us if any other vehicle is headed for Pond House.”

Kate looked at me again, nodded, and said to Wilma, “My husband may be driving another vehicle. So, if you see
any
vehicle coming toward Pond House—yes, thank you.”

Kate hung up and said to me, “Wilma suggests that my friend move his van, and reminded me that there’s a back door off the porch.”

We both got a good chuckle out of that, which is what we needed. Kate said, “As if I don’t know how to get rid of a guy out the back door.”

“Hey.”

She smiled, then said, seriously, “I guess Wilma is now our lookout.”

“She’s motivated.”

Kate nodded. “Sometimes, you think good.”

“
I’m
motivated.”

Anyway, we belatedly hugged and kissed, then Kate informed me, “I booked us a flight to LaGuardia from Syracuse at eight-thirty A.M. tomorrow. That was the first available flight I could get.”

I didn’t want to argue about that at this point. “I hope you didn’t use your credit card.”

“They weren’t taking checks over the phone.”

“Well, when you get to the airport, tell Liam Griffith I said hello.”

“John, they can’t get credit-card information that fast . . . well . . . we can drive to Toronto tonight. There are lots of flights to New York and Newark from Toronto.”

“We are
not
crossing an international border.” I asked, “Okay, how’d you make out?”

She opened her notebook on the desk. “All right. First, as I said, I couldn’t reach Major Schaeffer. I called twice and left messages that I’d call him again. But I don’t think he wants to talk to
me
. You may have better luck.”

“I’ll call him later.” I lay on the couch and said, “There was no visible stakeout team at McCuen Pond Road.”

“Maybe they were concealed.”

“Maybe. But maybe Schaeffer pulled the plug on us.”

“But you went in anyway.”

“I carved a note on a birch tree.”

She continued, “I went through the flight manifests, airline reservation sheets, and car rental agreements. There were no startling names that popped out, except Paul Dunn and Edward Wolffer. And, of course, Mikhail Putyov.” She glanced at her notes and continued, “There were a few other names that
sounded
familiar, but maybe that’s because I’m reading into these names.” She added, “For instance, James Hawkins. Does that sound familiar to you? And don’t tell me he played third base for the Yankees.”

“Okay, he didn’t. Hawkins. Did you Google him?”

“I did. There
is
a James Hawkins on the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Air Force General. But I can’t tell if this is the same guy.”

“Well . . . if he went to the Custer Hill Club, it probably is. Did he rent a car?”

“No. He arrived from Boston on Saturday, at nine twenty-five A.M., and departed on the twelve forty-five P.M. flight back to Boston on Sunday, connecting to Washington.”

“Okay . . . if he went to Custer Hill, he was probably picked up by the van.” I added, “It’s interesting that Madox didn’t send his corporate jets for any of these VIPs. But I guess he and they probably didn’t want that direct connection between them. And that’s always a little suspicious.”

Kate replied, “Often, it’s just a matter of government officials not accepting costly gifts or favors from rich people. It’s an ethical issue.”

“That’s even more suspicious.” I said, “So, Madox may also have had a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at his gathering. Air Force general.”

“I wonder if these guests knew Harry was there, and what happened to him . . .”

I couldn’t imagine that people like that would be complicit in a murder. On the other hand, if the stakes were high enough, anything was possible. “What else on the airport info?”

“That’s it. As for the dozens of other names, we’ll need a team to work that list to see who these people are, and what, if any, connection any of them might have to Bain Madox.”

I said, “I hope our colleagues are already working on that. But we’ll never know the results.”

She didn’t comment on that and said instead, “Then, I went online and Googled Mr. Bain Madox, and there’s surprisingly little on him.”

“That’s not so surprising.”

“I guess not. Most of what I found were corporate facts—his position as CEO and principal shareholder of Global Oil Corporation. And not much on that. Also, very little in the way of biography, almost nothing personal—no mention of his ex-wife or children—only a half-dozen quotes from published sources, and not a single unpublished quote or comment from anyone.”

“Apparently, he’s able to get blogs and other third-party information deleted.”

“Apparently.” She glanced at her notes and went on, “The only thing vaguely interesting is that about fifty percent of his oil and gas holdings, and half his tanker fleet, are owned by unnamed interests in the Middle East.”

I thought about that, and what Madox had just said about his Iraqi oil-minister buddy during my chat with him. This meant that, like most Western oil executives, he had to kiss some ass in Sandland. But since Bain Madox did not seem like the ass-kissing type, he might be planning a way to eliminate his partners, forever and ever. Maybe that’s what this was about.

Kate continued, “I then went online and researched ELF.” She informed me, “There’s not much more than what John Nasseff told us, except that the Russians use their ELF system differently than we do.”

“Right. They have more letters in their alphabet.” I yawned and listened to my stomach growl.

“There’s another difference.” She looked at her notes again. “Listen to this—the U.S., as we discovered, sends ELF messages to the nuclear sub fleet as a bell ringer, but the Russians, during times of heightened tensions, send a
continuous
message to their nuclear submarines that, in effect, says, ‘All is well.’ When the positive message stops, that means there’s a new, urgent message on the way, and if that message doesn’t arrive within the time it would take for an ELF signal to reach the submarines, then the silence is taken to mean the ELF station has been destroyed, and the subs are then authorized to launch against their predesignated targets in the U.S., or China, or wherever.”

“Jeez, I hope they’re paying their electric bills on time.”

“Me, too.” Kate continued, “This is why our ELF receiver in Greenland was able to home in on the Russian ELF signal on the Kola Peninsula—because they were using this continuous ‘All is well’ signal during a period of heightened tensions, which, according to this article,
we
precipitated in order to get the Russians to switch to their continuous-message system, which, in turn, enabled us to find their ELF transmitter on the Kola Peninsula.”

“Wow. Aren’t we clever? And talk about nuclear brinkmanship. Aren’t we glad the Cold War is over?”

“Yes. But this got me thinking that Madox, who had once obtained American ELF codes, may have obtained the Russian ELF codes.” She informed me, “According to this article—written by a Swede, incidentally—Russian encryption software is not as sophisticated or impenetrable as ours, so it could be that Madox has changed his ELF frequency to the frequency used by the Russians, and he’s going to try to send false signals to the Russian sub fleet to nuke . . . China, or the Mideast, or whoever he doesn’t like these days.”

I thought about that. “I guess if the Russian codes are easier to penetrate than ours, that’s a possibility.” I added, “Same Custer Hill ELF transmitter, different nuclear submarines. Any more interesting ELF stuff?”