His face got white.
“We recovered the twenty grand Overbee already paid the blackmailer. Next time the blackmailer signs on, he’ll be a lot poorer.”
Vitole started looking around as if he needed to check something. He took a gulp of his beer.
I continued. “It’s a short jump from the account to its owner. If the blackmailer persists in his extortion, we will make that jump and turn our records over to the feds.”
I watched for his reaction to that. His face turned red.
“If that doesn’t bring it to a stop,” I said, “Mr. Overbee and his business associates will make a personal call on the blackmailer. In fact, that’s what he wanted to do right off the bat, but I talked him out of it. I think we can safely say that whoever it is, he’s still walking around thanks to my intervention.”
You wouldn’t expect a retired U.S. Marshal to be that easily intimidated, but Vitole looked like he was about to crap his shorts.
Now for the clincher. “If this doesn’t go down right, if the blackmailer puts any more of a squeeze on, the shit hits the fan.”
I paused to let the indirect threat sink in. Vitole bit his lower lip and ran his hand across his mouth like a junkie needing a fix. His eyes darted from side to side, and he squirmed on the sofa.
“Why do you think I’d know who it is?” he asked.
“Witness protection is a small team. It’s got to be one of your former colleagues, probably also retired like yourself. Nobody else has access to the files to know who to target. So, try to pass the word along. And we can bring this matter to a peaceful close.”
I said a polite goodbye, went out to my car, and called Buford.
“I think he’s convinced,” I said.
“He better be.”
“But if not, I’ve got leverage. He’s fooling around with his neighbor’s wife. I’ll e-mail you the evidence when I get back to the office.”
I drove around the block and parked between Vitole’s house and the Sproles’s so I could watch both. At about six o’clock, Vitole’s wife came home from wherever she had spent the day and parked her Toyota next to his Buick. I took a couple pictures of her going from the car to the house. Not a pretty woman, she was overweight with gray hair and looked to be in her late fifties or early sixties. She went in the house.
A short time later, a car pulled into the Sproles residence. A man got out and went into the house. He was middle-aged and looked like the couch potato type. I got more pictures. Then I headed back to the office.
Chapter 7
I always have trouble finding my cell phone when it rings in the car and I’m driving. I’ve usually tossed it on the passenger’s seat because I can’t hear it in my pocket over the sound of the engine. Then it gets lost among the other trash on the seat. Old fast food bags, scribbled notes and directions on bar napkins from months before, gas receipts, my GPS, and the like. By the time I find the cell phone, the caller has given up.
This time I found it only because I had just used it to call Vitole. Amanda was calling.
“What’s up, sis?”
She was crying.
“Stanley, I don’t know what to do.”
That was her usual complaint when she couldn’t figure something out. “About what?” I asked.
“About Jeremy.”
“Who’s that?”
“The Army Captain I’ve been going out with.”
“Oh, yeah. Captain Jeremy. Didn’t you dump him?”
“I tried. He won’t accept it. He keeps calling, and today he hung around my office all morning. I’m afraid I’ll lose my job. The last thing he said was that he’d come to my house this evening.”
“Did you tell him you’d call his wife?”
“He said he didn’t care. She’s going to leave him anyway.”
“Did you say you’d report him to his Commanding Officer?”
“He doesn’t care about that either. He has his twenty years in and is about to retire.”
Twenty in and still a Captain. This guy must be a real piece of work.
“What do I do?” she asked.
“Well, given that he’s about to split up with his wife, might you still want to see him?”
“No, Stanley. I saw his ugly side today. He didn’t take it too well when I told him I had a private investigator looking into him and found out he was married. He scared me.”
“Did he touch you?”
“He followed me down the hall, cornered me outside the ladies room, yelled at me, and pushed me so hard I sat on the floor.”
That got my slow burn going. It takes a lot, but messing with my family is one of the ways.
“When do you expect him?” I asked.
“Tonight some time after supper.”
“Okay. To start, let’s post Rodney there wearing his taco shirt. I’ll explain to him. If that doesn’t discourage the Captain, I’ll take over. Don’t worry. I’ll be parked around the corner from your place. What’s he look like?”
“Sandy hair. Fortyish. Crew cut. Glasses. Average size. Kind of cute.”
Younger than me and probably in better shape. Hell, my grandmother’s in better shape, and she’s been dead for ten years. I’d need an edge, an equalizer. Time to get old Roscoe out of the safe.
Yeah, that’s right, I named my .38 Roscoe. They don’t pay me for my imagination.
I drove to my office building and climbed the stairs. It was late afternoon. I stopped at Willa’s desk, tossed Buford’s envelope there, and went into my office. She gave out with a war whoop when she opened the package.
Rodney was already back from the Cheap Peeper Emporium. He was at my desk again.
“When you gonna get me my own desk,” he asked.
“Where would we put it? In the men’s room?”
“In here. There’s room.”
“No, there’s not.”
I turned on the Nikon and paged through the images to the ones with Vitole and Marsha Sproles.
“Download these pictures to your laptop and e-mail them to Buford Overbee.”
He got out a cable to connect the camera to the laptop.
“Did you find out anything about the Sproles family?” I asked.
“Not much. They moved into the neighborhood a couple years ago. I couldn’t find where they came from.”
“One other thing unrelated. See if you can hack into the Army computers and find out what you can about Captain Pugh. Do it in the outer office. I need some privacy.”
He took the camera, cable, and laptop and left.
“Close the door,” I said.
I got my pistol out of the safe and checked the cylinder. Six cartridges. I don’t know why I checked. I’d loaded it when I first got it several years ago and had never fired it. But old habits and all that.
I took my private detective’s gold shield from my wallet and pinned it to the holster. From a distance it looked just like a Delbert Falls detective’s shield, which was why I had ordered this particular model from the Internet badge and uniform store. Thirty bucks and authentic-looking. But its golden shine notwithstanding, it signified nothing more than to impress gullible clients and people you want to question. Flash it, and people open up. For all the clout it gave me, I could have gotten it from a Cracker Jack box. And saved the thirty bucks.
I clipped the holster to my belt in front just under my jacket. Then I called Rodney back in.
“The Captain is coming to your mom’s house tonight,” I said. “I want you there. When he comes to the door, speed dial my cell and leave your phone on the table next to the door. I want to hear everything that goes down.”
“What happens if he gets rough, Uncle Stanley?”
“I won’t be far away. Be as nasal, whiny, and obnoxious as you can be. In other words, be yourself. If he does get rough, make sure I hear it.”
Rodney nodded.