P Deutermann - Spider mountain

So I did, and Hide and Seek Investigations, LLC stood up a month later, with a condition of employment being that you were an ex-cop who had retired in good standing with your department. Coming from me, that was something of a dark joke among the guys, but what the hell: I knew I hadn’t done anything wrong. I justified the ex-cop criterion because of some semimysterious security requirements of the courts. That of course was BS, but it kept the professional job-discrimination Nazis off our backs. I made it a rule that everyone working there had to approve any new hires. Any cop who makes it to retirement has both an established professional reputation and people who know him and will vouch for him-or not, as the case might be.

There were now six of us, with the other five doing most of the work while I dealt with the larger management issues, such as making the office coffee and handling the mail. We had an office on the second floor of a bail bondsman company in downtown Triboro. It was pretty Spartan, but it had the advantage of being near Washington Street so the guys could still hit the sheriff’s office and city cops’ watering holes for lunch and afterward. Two of the “guys” were women, both of whom had been street cops with the sheriff’s office. Both of them had gone through the trauma of having husbands go astray. They now did a flourishing business of predivorce reconnaissance work for suspicious wives, and they loved their work. We loved their after-action reports.

Like Horace, Tony Martinelli had joined us from the MCAT when it was broken up after the cat dancers case. None of us worked full-time, and the money from the contracts went proportionally to the people who put in the most hours. Most of them were filling up 401(k)s, and I took a dollar a year and the biggest office, a massive corner suite twelve feet square and overlooking a culturally intriguing back alley. With more cops finding out about our little operation, I knew we’d soon need more office space, something I’d have to attend to when I got back from helping Mary Ellen Goode. But all in all, none of us took our second “career” very seriously, and I the least of all.

I gave Tony a list of the things I needed and asked him to overnight it all to the lodge. I also asked him to see if he could find out what the street term “florist” meant in contemporary druggie circles. Then I retrieved Carrie Santangelo’s card, called her, and asked her for the GPS coordinates of Grinny Creigh’s cabin.

“I can get you those,” she said. “Should I ask why you want them?”

“Probably not,” I said. “I’m about to exercise one of the privileges of not being a cop anymore. Think deniability.”

“Deniability’s good,” she said. “Hang on and I’ll get you the coordinates. And if you’re going to go do some recon, make sure you file a flight plan.”

“With whom-Carrigan County?”

“If it were me, I’d tell Baby Greenberg. You really ice some guy with your bare hands?”

For God’s sakes, I thought, did anyone not know about it?

I put a call in to Baby Greenberg. The agents had motel rooms down the road in Murphy, and he called me back in thirty minutes. I explained what I wanted to do.

“Been nice knowing you,” the agent said.

“Can’t be that bad,” I said. “And it seems I’m stuck here for the weekend anyway.”

“Yeah, I heard.”

I sighed. “The guy was alive when I left. I think it’s all bullshit. He just wants me in custody in Robbins County.”

“So you’re gonna what? Waltz over there and solve the man’s problem for him?”

“He’s gotta catch me first, and I’m not going anywhere near Rocky Falls.”

“The closest we’ve been able to get to Grinny Creigh’s place is twenty-four thousand miles-that’s where the satellite cameras live.”

“Anybody ever try just driving up there? I mean, if you think they’re going to give you guys some shit, go get a few dozen marshals to go with you.”

“The problem is that we have no grounds for one of our usual home invasions. And no supervisor is willing to put his agents at risk of an anonymous bullet through the windshield just for a face-to-face meeting with this woman.”

“But if they shot at you, then you can bring a crowd.”

“If who shot at us? And from what crag? That’s the problem. I can’t feature Grinny Creigh taking a muzzle loader down from the mantel and opening fire on a car full of feds. But there are some guys up there who would make a wager out of it. None of us wants to die on the off chance that we can score a bust. Your theory’s good up the point of who volunteers to be the casus belli. It’s that simple.”

“Where the hell are Elliot Ness and the Untouchables when you need them?”

“We’ve been modernized,” he said. “Director’s a lawyer.”

“Then maybe my way is the best way, Special Agent. Somebody shoots at me, I’m going to shoot back. Or I may even shoot first. Give the black hats a taste of their own tactics.”

“I officially didn’t hear that,” Greenberg said. “Call me if you get back.”

“Why don’t you come along?” I asked, not entirely in jest.

“Because I’m chicken, that’s why,” Baby said.

On Saturday morning, I found myself working harder than I’d expected, paddling a large aluminum canoe across Crown Lake. The shepherds were onboard, curled up one in front and one behind me among all the gear. I’d left a note back in the cabin in case Sheriff Hayes came looking for me. It said simply that I was going camping for the weekend and would be back Monday midday. I’d toyed with the idea of telling Mary Ellen Goode, but then decided against it. However reluctantly, I knew it was time to begin separating myself from her life, which was a pity, because I really did like her. But if she did not have the internal fortitude to cope with the kinds of things that seemed to erupt in my wake from time to time, Ranger Bob might yet prove his theory about persistence.

The lake was gorgeous, and I now understood its name. It was an impoundment for the TVA, as were some of the other big lakes in western North Carolina, which meant it wandered around the hills and mountains for many miles following the course of a long-drowned river. There were even some islands, the tops of submerged hills, still covered with trees. The Park Service map showed where the long-lost roads and villages had been submerged back in the thirties and forties when the dams were built to send electricity to the power-ravenous atomic bomb project at Oak Ridge.

I’d arranged for Moses Walsh to drive me, the boat, and my gear to one of the overlooks on the national park side of Crown Lake, and to retrieve me again Monday at noon. I’d told him to wait an additional two hours if I was late, but not to worry about declaring me missing if I didn’t show up. I did ask Tony back in Triboro to alert Sheriff Hayes’s office if I hadn’t called in by Monday at 8:00 P.M.

Mose had offered to guide until I’d told him I was going into Robbins County. “You’re retired,” he said. “You don’t do death-wish stuff once you’ve closed out of the Job.”

“I’m just going for a little look-see,” I told him. “The real cops are all wrapped around the axle with probable cause, warrants, etc. You were in homicide-you know how it is.”

He’d grinned at me as he realized I’d checked him out. “There’s a reason we have all that constitutional stuff in place,” he’d said.

“Right, of course there is.”

“No, I’m talking the selfish reason: By jumping through all the hoops, you make sure the excitement is going to be worth the risk. I don’t believe you appreciate the danger, my friend.”

I’d thanked him for his concern and admitted that he was probably right, but the truth was, I often didn’t appreciate the danger, if only because danger seemed to grow in the telling of it.