P Deutermann - The Cat Dancers

She sat down and picked up what Cam thought was a magazine, except this one had a screen. She was using a fingernail as a stylus to write on the screen as he talked. “And then,” he continued, “see if we can tie in arresting officers, or testifying officers. Find out who did the investigation of each case.”

“Are we looking at large numbers of names here?” she asked.

“No,” he said. “Each field office has only three, maybe four detectives. Sergeants. The same names will keep coming up. We’ll need a way to tie them together.”

“That’s what my tigers do, Just Cam,” she said. “They look for relationships. It’s usually a matter of entering enough data.”

“Can you do all that remotely? Without having to go the courthouse?”

“If the documents have been stored electronically, yes. The sheriff can get me access. If things are on paper records, it will require a hand search.”

“I know all of our daily records have to go on computer,” Cam said. “Hopefully, the court has the same requirements. In the meantime

…”

“Yes, what will you be doing?”

“I’m going to be looking into something called a ‘cat dancer.’” He told her what Marlor had told him. He mentioned the name White Eye Mitchell and said that he was going to start out at the Cherokee Indian reservation in the southwestern part of the state. He saw a glimmer of recognition in her eyes.

“I know that area,” she said.

“The night rallies?”

She smiled. “Those are just urban legends.”

“Sure they are,” he said. “Probably like cat dancers, whatever the hell they are.”

She stood up. “Call me tonight.”

“On my home phone or my cell?”

She smiled patronizingly at him. “You might as well give all that up, Just Cam. Use whatever phone you want to. You simply don’t know enough to deceive effectively.”

“Swell,” he said.

As soon as Cam reentered Manceford County, he picked up a tail. From what he could see in the rearview mirror, it was a Sheriff’s Office cruiser, not Highway Patrol. He checked his speed, which was about ten miles over the limit, but other vehicles had been passing him until the cruiser showed up. He could see a crowd of cars beginning to bunch up behind the police car. Finally, after about three minutes, as he approached an exit ramp, the cruiser closed in and flashed its headlights. Cam dutifully put on his own turn signal and pulled off on the exit ramp. There was a BP gas station immediately to the right and he pulled the pickup truck into the station and then drove around back. The fact that the deputy had not used his light bar should mean that he just wanted to talk.

The cruiser pulled up alongside, nose-to-tail, and Cam ran the window down. He recognized the deputy as one of the sergeants from the High Point field office. The officer said good morning and passed a pager over to Cam.

“How’d you make the truck?” Cam asked. “I just bought it.”

“Yeah, I know. One of our new guys moonlights down at that dealership. Said you’d come in and gotten you a new truck. Red one-fifty with dealer tags. Sheriff’s secretary said you’d be coming back from Charlotte right about now and to give you that pager. Have a great day, Lieutenant.”

Cam grinned as the cruiser pulled off and headed back to raise hell with interstate traffic. It was still a small town. And Jay-Kay had been entirely correct. He set the pager for vibrate instead of ring and put it in his pocket. Then he followed the cruiser back down onto the interstate. So all of his efforts to pretend he’d left town had been for nothing. And how had the sheriff’s secretary known he’d be northbound on I-85, headed toward Triboro? Because Jay-Kay had probably called the sheriff and requested some access, that’s how. But if a lowly probationer knew he was still driving around the county, then whoever was working with that night visitor from another county could also know that. Hell with it, he thought. I’ll head home, get some stuff, and then head west to the reservation. Then I won’t have to pretend that I’ve left town.

As he turned onto the westbound ramp of interstate 40, the pager vibrated in his pocket. He pulled it out. The little window read “Tilly’s 10.” Cam was surprised. Tilly’s was a biker bar at the edge of the truck warehouse district on the outskirts of Triboro. It had a rough reputation and had been the scene of many public disturbance calls and even a few knifings and shootings. The only reason the sheriff let it stay open was that it was a great place to pick up parole violators. Bobby Lee’s theory was to give the pond scum a place to congregate, and then the cops would know where they were. But Tilly’s was no place for a discreet meeting, as the sheriff was known there on sight, and Cam himself would be spotted pretty quickly. On the other hand, it was not a place that cops hung around unless they went in force looking for a specific bad guy. So, Tilly’s?

He was tempted to call in and suggest someplace else, but the sheriff had been specific about no phones and no e-mail. Okay, he’d go down there tonight and then try to talk Bobby Lee into going somewhere else. In the meantime, he’d spend the day packing up for his trip to western Carolina.

At 9:45, Cam drove past the biker dive. It was an ugly windowless steel building with a single red neon sign announcing the name of the owner. Tilly Hogg weighed 285 and sported a greasy black ponytail and beard, a massive paunch, and forearms like tattooed hams. He’d adopted the name Tilly because it provoked insults and then fights, and he liked to fight. His real name was Raymond, and he’d fight over that, too. There was a dirt parking lot on three sides of the building and a Dumpster row out back. The lot was treeless and surrounded by ten-foot-high chain-link fencing with angled-out barbed wire on top. The only way in or out was through two chain-link gates manned by a couple of shavedhead mammoths decked out in the obligatory studs, chains, and black leather. There was a herd of Harley hogs parked nose-out around the building, while the rest of the lot contained some muscle cars, pickup trucks, and even two heavily chromed semitractors. White spotlights shone out from the roof over the parking lot, making it almost impossible to see much of anything in the compound from the street. A forceful stream of bar smoke rose out of single ventilator cowl up on the roof, and Cam could hear the thump of a heavy-metal bass as he drove past. The two gate goons didn’t even look in his direction. To them, he looked like any other truck driver headed down into the warehouse area to pick up his next over-the-road gig.

When the local cops wanted to sift through the garbage at Tilly’s, they’d bring a SWAT team or two, surround the compound, roust the gate guards, and put chains through all the Harleys’ wheels. Then one team would loose a pack of K-9 shepherds through the back door, while another would mace whatever came spilling out the front door. Cam had brought Frick along for his meeting tonight, and she sat attentively in the backseat, looking hard at the bar as they drove past. He’d put her spiked collar on, mostly for effect. Frack had gone ballistic when he realized he was getting left behind. Cam had had to crate him up just to get out of the house, but when it came down to it, Frick was the fighter.

Cam was wearing jeans, his steel-tipped SWAT boots, and a sweatshirt under an unzipped windbreaker. The Peacemaker hung down from a left-hand shoulder holster with six in the holes instead of the usual five. He had a double-barreled over and under. 38-caliber Derringer in his right sock and a twelve-inch-long shiny black canister of pepper spray canister sitting on the seat by his right thigh. From five feet away, it looked like a Maglite.