Holly’s intercom rang. “Put Mr. Crisp into interview two,” she said. She hung up and watched as Harry was led down the hallway.
At eleven-thirty, her intercom rang again. “Yes?”
“A Mr. Mosely to see you.”
“Put him in interview one,” she said. Now she got her first look at Mosely. He was just as big as Jackson had said, and just as ugly. She let him wait ten minutes, then stood up. “Come on, Daisy,” she said, “let’s you and I interview Cracker Mosely.” She picked up a file folder, put the dog on a leash and walked down the hallway toward the interview rooms. She opened the door of number two. Harry Crisp was sitting quietly at the two-way mirror, looking at Mosely. “The volume control is right there, Harry.”
“Got it,” Crisp replied. “He’s mean-looking, isn’t he?”
“You bet.”
“I’ll shoot him through the glass if he gives you a hard time.”
“I don’t think that will be necessary,” Holly said. She opened the door to interview room one and was nearly dragged off her feet by Daisy, who had her front paws on the table, trying to reach Mosely. “Daisy! Back off! Back off!”
It was the first time that Daisy had not obeyed her instantly. It took her the better part of a minute to get the dog calmed down. When she was satisfied that the dog was completely under her control again, she unhooked the leash and took a seat.
Mosely was staring at the dog, fear on his face. “Put him back on the leash,” he said. “I don’t want to have to kill that dog.”
“Tell you the truth, Cracker, my money would be on the dog, and I’d give long odds.”
Daisy made a rumbling noise in her throat, imitating Holly’s tone.
“Stay, Daisy. Guard!”
Daisy moved from a prone to a sitting position, staring intently at Mosely.
Holly was intrigued by Daisy’s reaction to Mosely, but she didn’t make a point of it. “Let’s have the licenses,” she said, without further ado.
Mosely shoved an envelope across the table.
Holly opened it and examined the two pieces of paper; the gun license had been laminated. “Good,” she said, looking up at Mosely and smiling a little. “Now all I have to decide is whether to send you back to prison.”
Mosely’s jaw dropped. “Barney said that wasn’t an issue.”
“Gee, I don’t know where Barney got that idea,” Holly said. “As far as I’m concerned you’re all mine, if I want you.”
“I don’t get it,” Mosely said. “I applied for the licenses, and they were issued.”
“Yeah,” Holly said, opening her file folder, “I have copies of your applications right here. Both of them ask the question, ‘Have you ever been convicted of any crime?’ And your answer, on both applications, was no.”
“That’s what I was told to put,” Mosely said.
“Told by whom?”
Mosely looked away. “A friend advised me.”
“Well, Cracker, when Barney advised you to lie on your application, he advised you to commit a felony.”
“What?”
Holly shoved the gun application across the desk. “Look right down at the bottom there. It says, ‘I swear, under penalty of perjury, that all the statements I have made in this application are true.’ Perjury is a serious crime, Cracker; it’ll get you five years, easy. And of course, when you perjured yourself, you violated your parole. And you’ve still got, what, ten, twelve years left on your sentence?”
Mosely’s mouth was working. “I want a lawyer,” he said.
“Nah, you don’t want a lawyer, Cracker. I haven’t read you your rights yet, and you were a cop long enough to know that until I read you your rights, whatever you tell me doesn’t count.”
“What do you want?” Cracker demanded.
“Ah,” Holly said. “Now you’re getting the picture.”
CHAPTER
45
Holly sat and waited, staring at Mosely. Daisy made the noise in her throat again, as if urging him to speak. Mosely looked back and forth between Holly and Daisy.
“Tell me,” he said. “Tell me what you want to know.”
“Everything,” Holly replied.
“Everything? What do you mean, everything?”
“Tell me what you do for a living, Cracker.”
“I’m a security guard. Well, I was, until today.”
“And what did you guard?”
“Palmetto Gardens. It wasn’t a big deal. I just kept out intruders, except we didn’t really have any.”
“How long you been doing this work, Cracker?” she asked.
“Nearly a year.”
“What kind of training did you have?”
“Not much. Barney just told me what to do.”
“And what did he tell you to do?”
“To guard the place—you know, gate duty, patrol duty.”
“When you were on patrol, what did you patrol?”
“The whole place.”
“Give me a rundown on your typical day patrolling,” she said.
“Well, I’d go on shift, say the morning shift. I’d drive around to each house, go up the driveway. Sometimes I’d get out of the car and walk the property. I’d drive to the clubhouse and take a walk around, checking out things.”
“What about the special buildings?”
“What do you mean, special?”
“How about the building with all the antennas?”
“Oh, we didn’t go out there. They have their own security.”
“What are they protecting?”
“What do you mean?”
“What goes on there that they need their own security?”
“I don’t know, really. The place is called the com center, so I assume it’s for communications.”
“Communications with whom?”
“Jesus, I don’t know. They don’t tell me that stuff.”
“Who is Barney’s boss?”
“The general manager, Mr. Diego, I guess.”
“What’s his first name?”
“I don’t know. Barney just calls him Diego.”
“What does he look like?”
“About forty-five, I’d guess; five-ten, a hundred and seventy-five, black hair going gray, has a mustache. He’s Mexican or something, has a light accent.”
“I want to know his first name, Cracker.”
“Wait a minute, let me think. That’s his first name, Diego. His last name is something like…Romeo.”
“A Spanish name?”
“Yeah.”
“Come on, think.”
“I’m trying. It’s Ramos, or Ramero, or something like that. Ramirez! That’s it, Ramirez.”
“Diego Ramirez—good boy, Cracker. Now who else works for Ramirez?”
“Well, everybody—the club manager, the shop managers, the people in the accounting office, the maintenance manager, the airport manager—they all report to him.”
“Where is the accounting office located?”
“It’s in the village, next door to the security station.”
“And who runs that?”
“A woman named Miriam something…uh, like Talbot.”
“Is that it, Talbot?”
“Yeah, I think so.”
“Description?”
“Late thirties, early forties, five-six, a hundred and forty, mousy hair, not pretty.”
“What kind of vehicles are driven by the staff?”
“Security drives white Range Rovers, maintenance drives Ford vans and pickups, all white, with the green palmetto thing on the doors.”
“Where are they serviced?”
“In town. We take them to Westover Motors when they need something.”
“Any vehicles there now?”
“I’m taking Barney’s Range Rover in when I leave here.”
“What for?”
“Regular service. We get it back tomorrow. Barney’s a stickler for regular maintenance.”