Chapter 11: Bait

Hobo and the Proper Villain were a common sight in the Crossroads. And they usually drew smiles with the PV riding along on Hobo’s back.

Pilar or Walker, often both of them, took Hobo out almost every day. But even when she wasn’t along, her presence is felt. I was walking through the Wrigley lobby one afternoon and I heard Pilar speaking firmly to Scout and shy little Wally Maypole, “Remember, it’s Hobo’s walk, not yours. It’s a dog walk, not a people walk.”

Both men nodded dutifully.

“Let him take his time — he loves to smell everything along the way.”

More nodding.

Pilar spotted me and smiled, “Hobo’s sense of smell is 10,000 times stronger than ours. If he learns the smell of someone’s urine, he could detect a single drop in a swimming pool.”

I found myself nodding too. I stroked Hobo the way Pilar had taught us — from the back of his neck to his tail. Long, caressing strokes that he lapped up. Strokes that said ‘I love you.’

Hobo had already proven himself when he attacked Greta Gunther in our loft. That day she had a gun pointed at Pilar’s head. When Pilar asked for a favor, an FBI favor, Sandra Fleming didn’t hesitate.

It was back when Vanessa and Cathal had rescued me from Dixie Wexler. When he was still in custody. Sandra allowed me to take Hobo to the same interrogation room where Wexler would later capture Constance Grayson.

Pilar had instructed me, “Let Hobo smell Wexler for as long as he wants.”

“Okay, honey.”

“He’ll memorize that fucker. Hobo has over two hundred million scent receptors. Every part of Wexler’s body smells different. Hobo will know him a block away. In the dark.”

Wexler was his usual impassive self. His attorney started to object but Wexler shrugged him off. He just didn’t care. The attorney sat quietly, resigned. He had a thousand-yard stare that suggested his doctor had told him therapy was no longer an option.

I had done a little reading on dogs, on borders specifically. To Hobo, Wexler wasn’t a single smell like perspiration or bad breath. Rather it was thousands of individual scents — hair, underarms, crotch, ears, breath, rectum, feet...

When Wexler was being escorted into the room by two armed guards, I pointed at him and told Hobo, “Bad man. Bad, bad, bad man.”

Frustrated by the lack of progress — neither Dixie Wexler nor Karl Huffstedder had been seen for over a month — I tuned to something I could solve. My sister’s problem. Autumn’s problem.

I had to leverage it out of her, but eventually I got her talking. I understood. Sympathized.

Autumn was two years older than I am and had always been boy-crazy. Not that I hadn’t enjoyed my share over the years — I certainly had. But for me they were more for fun, for physical enjoyment. For companionship, for giggles.

Autumn ... well, she had deep-seated needs, emotional needs, to be tied to a man. Two unsuccessful marriages hadn’t cured her. I wouldn’t say she was trying to find Daddy in every guy she met. Okay, I would say it. Glib psychology, but that was me — Ms. Facile.

I finally wormed an embarrassed admission out of her over drinks at BEAR’s on Broadway. My family had enjoyed a lot of pleasant meals there and I knew Autumn would feel comfortable.

I did my thrice-a-week Kegel exercises religiously. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings. I’d been doing them for ... how many years? Middle school. It’s important to strengthen the pelvic floor. One never knows, do one?

Back a few years, back when Walker had started becoming aware of women, of sex, I answered all of his questions. With no father around, he relied on me for ... almost everything.

Judging from his reaction to our Kegel-conversation, perhaps I should have been less ... detailed. Less rhapsodic about the benefits. To me, to the guys.

But what’s that saying — torment is a terrible thing to waste.

The problem with Kiryas Square was that I couldn’t really go snooping my way around the town. I might be able to pass, visually, for Hasidic, but once I opened my mouth ... My Yiddish is pretty much limited to “Oy.” I was even less fluent in Romanian.

But Kiryas Square was where the envelope-address was. The Horowitz Street building that looked like a small school. According to Professor Google.

So why did Matt have Mr. K dress me like I lived there? Because he knew better than to try to keep me away. He’d rather let me participate as part of a team than have me try to hero myself into the dark unknown. Possibly dark, we didn’t really know that much yet.

I’d asked questions about guns and diamonds in the Diamond District. Left Rachael Adams cards with whoever would talk with me. Met a 10-year old boy in Queens. Who led me into a Polish Catholic Church where someone behind a priest screen said, “Kiryas Square, New Jersey.” K S.

The little boy left me an index card with a phone number. That number led to the man in Allentown who pointed me to a specific address in K S.

Not much sleuthing on my part, more stumbling around a foreign landscape talking with people from another culture. Alice in Wonderland.

Except. The diamonds for guns rumors had originated with my search for Dixie Wexler. That particular whisper included Neo-Nazi camps, some of which Wexler had visited as an emissary for the Meriwethers. For whom he may or may not still be working.

In a way, two completely different sources — haters and Hasidim— might possibly be intertwined. If diamonds were becoming the new racist currency ... well, that could certainly tie into the Hassidic community.

Guns? That was a more tenuous theory. From an ultra-Orthodox Jewish perspective. No question the racists were continually up-armoring. But the Hasidim ... I just didn’t know.

I met with my friend, Sergeant Louise Finch. Now with SOS, the Special Operations Squad tasked with stamping out the upscale burglary ring plaguing many of Kansas City’s wealthy enclaves.

I said, “I have an idea.”

She smiled across her desk at me. Well, beside her desk, actually. Across is where one of her partners would be sitting were he there. Louise said, “I’m all ears.”

“Those fourteen burglaries — not the two with the moving vans — had one intriguing thing in common.”

“You’ve always liked the word ‘intriguing.’ Even back when you were a rook.”

It was true, sometimes I looked for complicated solutions to simple problems. Most perps weren’t criminal geniuses. That was why they were crooks.

I said, “Each of the fourteen couples used valet parking.”

Louise was suddenly still. Her eyes looking somewhere far off. I knew what she was thinking. A valet attendant had solitary access to a car. House keys were often on the same ring as car keys. The glovebox might contain personal info, like the home address.

She shook her head, smiled ruefully, “It was under our noses the whole time. No, not the whole time, but after five or six incidents we should have tumbled.”

Louise frowned, “But the Intercontinental uses hotel valets. The Plaza restaurants use Lanier Parking in all those garages.”

I nodded, my thought process too. “I think there’s one guy behind all of it. Doesn’t matter who owns the parking concession — he just had to buy individual valets.”

Louise sighed, “The valet makes a call. No, probably someone is already in the garage. Takes the house keys, the address and...”

“There they go.”

Louise looked off into the distance again, “The team had to be flexible. If there were kids at home, a babysitter.”

“A good alarm system turned on.”

“Yeah, to have gotten away with it this many times, they probably passed up more houses than they hit. Good work Winter. Again.”

“Can I tell Red?” Lonnigan, AAA, my client.

“No. Not yet. He’d send his investigators in. And they’re pretty good. But we’d be stumbling all over each other. I’ll bait the trap, I know just the undercover team to do it.”

“Good.”

She smiled at me, “Tell you what, I’ll call Red. Tell him you gave us a promising lead. And that I’ll bring him into the loop if it pans out.”

“Thank you. Wanna hear my moving van theory?”

“You are your father’s girl.”

“I think it could be the same guy. Head of the operation. If I were he, I’d find a bent travel agent. Maybe more than one.”

I called Matt, “I wish I knew more about the relationship between Wexler and the Meriwethers. Hoffstatter too.”

“So do I.”

He paused, thinking. “Once I heard Senator Wainwright describe Wexler as the Meriwether’s secular bishop. A public face, a public voice to the true believers.”


“The true haters.”

“Yeah. But if the rumors are true, if he’s also a contract killer, the Silent Magellan ... well, we just don’t know what that means as far as the Meriwethers are concerned.”

“I’d like to put a few more bullets in their fucking Hummers. Wouldn’t need Emile this time.”

“You are kidding? Right? Winter?”

“Yeah. I guess.”

Battle called me. That is, Commander James Battleford Lightfoot. “I talked to a friend at the Pentagon.”

Matt had told me Battle had consulted there at one time. A certain building ring, which meant top brass. But his ‘friend’ could be a secretary or a general. Or anyone in between. Whoever it was ... well, it’d be a DoD perspective I didn’t have.

I asked Battle, “Did they think I’m nuts?”

“At first. A little bit. But then she made a couple of calls to Ft. Meade, to Cyber Command. They didn’t confirm anything, but...”

“They left her hanging.”

“Which means it’s possible.”

“Yes. And she also picked up a rumor about a rumor...”

Which meant it was time for me to quit being so fucking coy and talk with Matt. He’d know what to do. Even if it meant committing me. Vanessa better have visiting privileges.

Autumn’s cheeks were bright red. Her neck too. “Daddy can’t...”

I nodded, “Know.”

“Winter, this is...”

“Embarrassing.”

My older sister looked away from me, out into the BEAR dining room. Around the room, down at the tablecloth.

“You remember Sol Ainsworth?”

“I do.” Vanessa and I had had an uncomfortable dinner with him. A double date, at Autumn’s insistence. “He may be the one.”

Always looking for ‘the one’. Sad, but maybe a lot of people out there are on a similar mission.

I guess the best thing about Sol was that he had money. Icky money, but plenty of it. He was close to 50, large. Hard fat, not blubbery. Totally bald. With icy cold gray eyes.

Sol had made his first serious money in direct mail. Junk mail, but junk mail paid off back then. When done right. And Sol had done it right. Charitable come-ons, political mailings, auto dealership offerings good enough to actually lure people into a showroom.

Sol was an early adaptor — he saw the digital revolution ahead of most people. And that was where he made his real jack — spam. The digital version of direct mail caught the regulators off guard. New technology, people new to the Internet ... well, Sol and his ilk cleaned up.

Then when various government agencies started cracking down, Sol targeted a new audience — poor people. Payday loans.

For some reason -- and I’ve never heard a logical explanation as to why -- Kansas City became a center for creating sucker lists. Working class people, living on the paycheck-to-paycheck edge, often had cash flow problems. A lost job, medical expense, car breakdown ... it happened.

And those sleezeoids out there with money to loan ... well, they were finally getting the legal attention they deserved. They’d been setting up loan packages that were designed to fail. Terms that many contract signers couldn’t meet. As they fell behind, the payments barely covered the interest charges. Some lenders even issued more loans to the poor mopes without their being aware of it. The vicious cycle became more vicious.

May they fry in Hades.

Autumn didn’t see any of this. She saw a confident man. Self-assured. Wealthy. She saw security. Daddy.

Still looking down at the tablecloth, Autumn reached into her purse, slid a Number 10 envelope across to me. I brought it down to my lap, briefly flipped through the contents. No surprise.

Eight nude Polaroids of Autumn. With a hopeful smile on her face. Posed explicitly, gynecologically. I smothered my sigh.

“There are more?”

Head nod, still looking down.

“Has he shown them to anyone else?”

Nod.

“Would you like me to retrieve them?”

Nod.

Rifle practice, for Matt and me, was about a 90-minute drive south and west from Georgetown. It was in rural Virginia, private property — meadows, a small lake. And a portion of a larger forest full of different kinds of oak — white, scarlet, black — plus a mix of red maple and table mountain pine. Pretty.

There was a thick berm with targets in front of it on the far side of the pond. That provided a range of around 100 yards across the water. Then moving back, the distance expanded to about 500 yards. It wasn’t like in my Kansas City shooting range where I could push a button and attach fresh targets. Here ... well, there were some paper targets, mostly shredded. But what Matt and I aimed at were white-painted rocks. From a couple of feet high to man-sized.

It was a Tuesday; Matt had called ahead and we were cleared to shoot. His custom Echols and my custom Huntington. The cartridges, at once deadly and exquisite-looking, gleamed in the dappled sunlight, fifty to a carton.

Matt nodded at them, “Hand-loaded, by me. Annealed at the neck; the case mouths are chamfered and the primers seated to a consistent depth. I weighed the powder charges precisely. The bullets sit a specific distance from the leade of your barrel’s rifling.”

“English please.”

“Consistency.”

“Oh.”

“Accuracy.”

“Okay.”

He handed me an index card that listed my muzzle velocity and the drop at specified distances. We’d zero at 100 yards and move back in 50-yard increments.

This was my third practice session; Matt said I wasn’t a natural, but I had potential.

We each had sand-filled bags to use as stability-rests.

Lying prone, I pressed the cartridge down until it clicked under the frame rails of the action. The bolt went forward and down like silk — the parts painstakingly fitted and polished.

I concentrated on my breathing — there — a natural respiratory pause. At the right moment, I continued the trigger press until the sear was released — sending the firing pin toward the primer in the base of the round. Setting off the chain of tiny events that sent the bullet spiraling forward.

The recoil was significant, but the design of the fiberglass stock mitigated some of the impact.

Matt put down his Swarovski binoculars and smiled, “Chest.”

“It’s only a hundred yards.”

“Chest.”

We took turns, moving backwards in tandem as the sun passed overhead and was now in our eyes. I checked each distance on my range finder; my data card told me the appropriate elevation changes. Which I made with the dial on top of the Huntington scope. I also factored in the wind, using the scope’s reticle.

At each distance, I dialed the elevation back to zero, returned the empty brass to the vacant slots in the box of hand-loads. Then repeated my pre-shot routine, trying to get it to be as automatic as possible. Like Matt.

He said, “A good day. You’re improving.”

He stored our gear back in the trunk of his Audi. I spread our picnic lunch on a grass-stained quilt. Not its first rodeo with Matt. I didn’t ask.

As I poured a generic red from the tap on the box, I said, “Matt, I’ve been thinking about this ... whole thing. Guns, the Hasidim. Wexler and Hoffstatter of course.”

“And?”

“I have a sort of off-the-wall idea.”

He smiled, “What Ash would call oblique.”

Vanessa: “What do you call three lesbians in a closet?”

Walker & Pilar, “What?”

“A licker cabinet.”

I had called Sarah Meriwether three times in the past two months. She took my call each time; each time she denied that Wexler was still working for them. I didn’t mention Karl Hoffstatter — that guy was need-to-know. Matt knew he was still active among the Nazis; we didn’t know if Meriwether did.

In any case, Hoffstatter was just as invisible as Wexler. We didn’t know if they were working together. Or independently. Or even working.

Hoffstatter had taken the Mildred Hawkins computers and the cash that Matt had paid the forger, Bones. Which had been Matt’s plan all along. Hoffstatter had spread the word that I — Mildred Hawkins — was looking for Wexler.

And, someone working for Matt, looking like, pretending to be, Hawkins, was flitting in and out of areas surrounding those seven Nazi compounds. Asking about Wexler, then immediately disappearing before a white-supremacist team could nab her.

Was that helping? Was anyone fooled? Was I any safer? No way to know. But it was a precaution, a misdirection, that might pay off. Might not, but Matt thought it worth the effort. So I did too.