P Deutermann - The Cat Dancers

“But you don’t think so.”

“No, I don’t. He had nothing left to live for, and he seemed determined.”

She was nodding as he said that. “He must have had some help,” she said.

“Obviously. Somebody steered him to those two guys. He admitted that. And he sent a reply, telling whoever had contacted him where that chair was.”

“Which by now they’ve done away with?”

“Not necessarily,” he said, remembering all those approving comments of the cops who had watched the videos.

“And this is not a double standard here?” she asked. “It’s okay for Marlor, with police help, to have killed the two robbers, but not okay for someone else, possibly police, to have killed the judge?”

“All these questions,” Cam said, throwing her own words back at her. “Yes, it’s a double standard. Annie Bellamy was a valuable human being. The two mutts were not. Plus, that account is squared: Marlor did what he had to do, and now he’s dead, too.” He paused for a second. “I seem to remember you talking about heads on stakes in the public square?”

She colored slightly and then nodded. “Yes, I did say that. And I have no problem with what Marlor did. I just wanted to be sure you are firm in your convictions, Just Cam. Because if you uncover the police who are doing this, it will be a war. No time for second thoughts then. Especially if they find out what you’re doing before you are finished doing it.”

Cam stared down at the floor for a moment. He knew he’d crossed a significant bridge when he’d let Marlor do himself in. “Yeah, I understand that. How about you? You still want to get involved in this? It could be as dangerous for you as for me.”

“It sounds like an interesting challenge,” she said with a shrug. “Besides, I’m an excitement junkie.”

He laughed. “Remember those words,” he said. “Now, I’d like to see if you can find my new truck.”

She gave him a blank look and he explained how he had purchased a new truck. “Every cop on the force knows my old Merc. Not as many knew my old pickup truck, which I suspect is now speaking Spanish. I want to know if my little deception worked.”

She picked up the window remote and darkened the windows. Then she picked up a second remote and pointed it at what looked like a blank wallpapered section of the living room’s interior wall. Two panels drew back and exposed a square forty-eight-inch flat-screen display. The faces of two Bengal tigers were drifting around the screen in a screensaver motion. She spoke a single command in a language Cam didn’t recognize. The tigers growled in unison, disappeared, and were replaced with an organizational chart of the North Carolina government. A bright cursor was blinking on the governor’s box. She gave more voice commands, which moved the cursor down to the Department of Motor Vehicles, and then the screen was replaced with a single box. She spoke a series of words, which caused numbers to appear in the box, and then the screen blinked and a database page that allowed one to search listings for registered drivers appeared. She spoke individual letters that spelled out Cam’s full name, and two vehicles came up, along with his North Carolina driver’s license.

“How do you happen to have that password?” Cam asked.

“The Bureau gave me one for the last project. It allows access to all state databases.”

“They just hand that out to contractors?”

“No, they hand it out for specific case projects. The password is retired when the contract expires. But: the numbers are generated from a sequential list of numbers allocated to the Charlotte field office. I have that list. My machines simply pick a number that hasn’t been issued yet, like the last one I used, plus a few hundred digits down the list. Are those your old vehicles?”

“Yeah, my old pickup truck is still in the system as being registered to me,” he said.

“And the new truck?”

“Should be registered to a Cam Bichter, with a B.”

She made a computer search for that name, but no hits came up. “When did you buy the truck?”

“A few days ago,” he said.

“Then the paper hasn’t moved through the system,” she said. “But none of this will work for very long. The system uses VIN numbers. Eventually, transactions will come up and then there will be a VIN mismatch.”

Cam felt his face redden. He should have known it wouldn’t work. She piled on a little more.

“The other problem will be insurance. Your new truck is insured, yes?”

“Right. Of course.”

“Then your insurance company must report that fact to the State DMV database. It’s the only proof of insurance that the system will recognize these days. Insurance is VIN number-specific. That will blow your cover immediately, assuming someone’s actually looking.”

“Shit, forgot about that,” Cam said.

“Almost every aspect of your life is interlinked these days,” she said, causing the screen to fade by issuing another voice command. “Banking, buying or selling anything, medical insurance, life insurance, credit records, and anything you do on-line-all are visible to competent eyes.”

“So if I wanted to mislead someone…”

“You might mail a credit card to some Mexican resort,” she said. “One of those solicitations that comes in the mail? Put a five-hundred-dollar limit on it and hope someone steals it and uses it. As soon as he does, you’re in Mexico.”

“That simple?”

“No, not to law enforcement,” she said, brightening the windows again. “Law enforcement would check to see if there was a corroborating airline ticket, hotel reservation, or a rental car-things like that-to support your supposed travel. If you really want to dissemble, it has to be seamless.”

“Marlor took out a big wad of cash. He didn’t want to confuse; he simply wanted to operate off the grid.”

“To the right watchers, taking out the big lump of cash in the absence of, say, a purchase of some kind pretty much signals that that’s what you’re going to do,” she said. “Even you reached that conclusion about Marlor immediately.”

Cam nodded. “The sheriff wants me to see if there’s an organized death squad operating in the Manceford County Sheriff’s Office,” he said. “He also wants to know if cops were connected to what happened to Annie. But I don’t think I can do anything on the bombing case without bumping up against the federal investigation.”

“I would agree,” she replied. “They are tracing back on the explosive and trying to solve the question of the timer. They will generate a suspects list and try to connect them to the bomb or its components. And they will pursue the police angle as well, I think. They will look into any disciplinary judgments against police, and then examine the individual police officers for motive.”

“Exactly what I would do,” Cam said, thinking of Kenny Cox. “And then I’d start interviewing-in depth. Assume they’re there, and assume they’re organized. Rattle cages.”

“Yes,” she said. “But if you start doing any of that, the Bureau will detect it. That would be a problem.”

“How about we work it from a different direction, then,” he said. “Let’s look at criminals. People like Flash and K-Dog who did crimes but didn’t take much of a fall for them. Criminal defendants who went through Bellamy’s court, who either walked or waltzed. Who then maybe got dead.”

She smiled. “Now you are postulating search criteria,” she said. “How far back?”

“Five years? Ten? Hell, I don’t know. Pick a window. Maybe start with all the court records on criminal cases in Bellamy’s court. Then build a disposition record for each of them. Some will be in jail. Some will be free. Some will be dead. See if there’s a pattern to the dead ones.”