P Deutermann - The Cat Dancers

“Why didn’t you just arrest him? Bring him in? Get him a shrink or something?”

“Per your instructions, Sheriff, I can’t arrest anybody. Besides, I didn’t necessarily disagree with his plans.”

The sheriff gave him an exasperated look but then nodded slowly. “And he admitted to doing the two shitheads but denied the bombing?”

“And I believed him. If I were on the stand right now, I could say that it was a dying man’s testimony. He had no reason to lie.”

“And he thought cops were the ones who gave him the lead to those guys?”

“Yes, sir, but he wouldn’t reveal where the e-mail came from. Said he didn’t know and didn’t care.” He told the sheriff about Marlor’s comment regarding the cat dancers.

“What in the hell is that all about?”

“I have no idea, but I think that’s my next step. Get out of Dodge for a while and go see what I can find. You’ll have to decide what to do about Marlor.”

The sheriff sighed, finished his coffee, and got up to put the cup in the sink. “Man,” he said.

“I also told Jay-Kay Bawa, that computer consultant,” Cam said. “She may or may not feed back to the feds.”

The sheriff came back to the kitchen table and sat down. “They haven’t said a word since ATF took over the bombing investigation,” the sheriff said. “Not even the random evidentiary question.”

“If I go out to the western counties, shouldn’t I be back in full status?” Cam asked. “I could end up needing local backup.”

“If those guys were cops, and from out of the county, who could you trust out there?” the sheriff asked. “Plus, if I put you back in full status, everyone here would know as soon as the first little old lady in payroll said something.”

“Do the paperwork. Put it in your safe. Give me back my creds and my tin. If someone calls in, say the right thing. I’ve got my own weapons.”

The sheriff smiled. “Feeling naked, aren’t you?” he said. “Been a cop your whole working life. You let Marlor kill himself because you weren’t sure of what you were without the badge and the ID.”

“Maybe,” Cam said somewhat defensively. “But I also thought that what he said he was going to do made sense. It seemed like… justice.”

The sheriff shook his head. “Justice is what the system metes out,” he said. “Marlor admitted to kidnap and murder. It’s not up to us to say how that plays out. It’s up to us to bring him in and let him face trial.” He frowned. “In a way, your letting him do that is not a whole lot different from the cop-if it was a cop-who told Marlor where those mopes were.”

Cam felt his face flushing. “Well then, Sheriff,” he said, “if that’s how you feel, good luck with your problems-all of them. I think I’ll go take that world cruise now.”

The sheriff waved his hand. “Don’t get your knickers in a knot,” he said. “You know that technically, legally, I’m right. Morally, personally, well… I don’t know what I would have done with that poor bastard under the same circumstances. I know what I’d preach about it. But…”

Cam waited. The sheriff was well and truly stuck. Normally, he would have been running to the feds or at least to the SBI with this problem. The feds weren’t an option, not as long as they were keeping him at arm’s length until they were satisfied that the Manceford County Sheriff’s Office was squeaky-clean. But in the meantime, he was probably the only asset the sheriff could put in play, especially outside the county.

“All right,” the sheriff said. “You hit the road for points west. I’ll get Surry County to retrieve Marlor’s body. See what you can find out about the dancing cats or whatever it was Marlor was babbling about. Call me at home, tell me where you land, I’ll FedEx your stuff. I’ll do the paperwork myself tomorrow morning.”

Cam nodded. “And I’ll use Jay-Kay Bawa as a conduit if I need information from the various LE databases,” he said. He hesitated. “I still think you should go see McLain, tell him what you’re doing.”

“He won’t return my calls,” the sheriff said.

“Call him again. Say you want a meet-on your turf-or he can watch the evening news and get your message that way. The feds hate that.”

The sheriff gave him an appraising look. “Damn, Lieutenant, you’re getting slippery in your old age. Tell me this: You still trust Kenny Cox?”

Cam was surprised, but he nodded. “I’m ninety-nine percent sure he isn’t part of this. He’s too smart to get into vigilante work.”

“Ninety-nine?”

Cam thought about it. He couldn’t quite define what his reservation was. “Kenny screwed up, got burned by Judge Bellamy, hated her, and made no bones about it. Everybody knows that. Plus, he thought that electric chair was positively wonderful. Plus…”

“Yeah?”

“Kenny’s one of those cops who live for the edge. He likes being a cop and he likes chasing the bad guys. It’s his whole life. That’s why I don’t think he’d jeopardize any of that by doing vigilante stuff.”

“Unless he was getting a little jaded, maybe?”

Cam shrugged. “I don’t know. We all get bored occasionally. Kenny could get that way. I just don’t believe he’d act on it. Probably why he spends all his off-duty time chasing women. He can get as much or as little excitement as he wants.”

“Okay, because I think I need an inside man as well as an outside man. I want to fold him into what you’re doing. I’ll also talk to McLain. If he has anything on any of my people, he’ll have to show me.”

“You want me to go through Kenny?”

“No, I want you to come to me, exclusively. But if I need to move assets in your direction, I’ll use Kenny. In the meantime, write me up a statement on what happened tonight. Mail it to me at my home address. You taking those dogs with you?”

“Absolutely,” Cam said.

“Great idea,” the sheriff said. “No question about whose side they’re on.”

Finding White Eye Mitchell turned out to be easy. Cam drove out to Pineville, county seat for Carrigan County, and rented a cabin. He used his personal credit card to pay for it, so Jaspreet and her tigers would know where he was. He took one day just to settle in and tried some trout fishing, which gave the sheriff time to send his credentials and badge. The following day, he checked in with the Carrigan County Sheriff’s Office and told them he was looking for Mitchell. The man was known locally as one of the backcountry guides who took clients out into the Smokies. One sergeant said that Mitchell was in his late sixties, maybe older, possibly part Indian, part who knew what, but not someone they considered a problem. They’d even used him a couple of times to help search for missing hikers. That said, no one in the Sheriff’s Office could tell him how or where to find the man. He supposedly lived up on the edge of the park, but beyond that, no data. They suggested a tour of the roadside gin mills in Carrigan and perhaps Cherokee County and in the towns up on the margins of the Indian reservation. “Just ask around,” the sergeant recommended. “Eventually, the word will get to him, and more than likely he’ll find you.”

Cam piled the shepherds into the truck late that afternoon and dutifully made said rounds, bought more barely touched beers than he had in a long while, and struck out across the board. Only one bartender said he recognized the name, and none of the locals had seen Mitchell for a long time, especially now that fall had arrived and with it the end of the heavy tourist season. Cam told everyone he talked to that he was staying in the Blue Valley cabins off Route 16, that there was no trouble, and that he only wanted to talk to Mitchell. He got back to the cabin just before 11:00 P.M., brought in some firewood from the front porch for the woodstove, let the dogs run around for ten minutes, brought them back in, and hit the sack. The other cabins appeared to be empty, which was no surprise, given the season and the altitude.