Getting out of the truck, I stretched my legs from the long drive and breathed in the night air filled with the smell of hay and horses. I walked up onto the wood porch and knocked on the beautiful solid oak door. From somewhere inside the house, I heard a deep, throaty bark; the kind that indicates something big and nasty lurked on the other side of the door. I smiled to myself. For all the technology in the world today, one of the best security systems was still a large dog. When the door opened, a huge bullmastiff charged through it to see who was making all the racket outside. As soon as the dog saw and smelled me, his menacing growl turned to a playful, but throaty, woof, to greet an old friend.
I loved the old dog, but bullmastiffs had a nasty tendency to drool, and this one had long strings of drool hanging out each side of its mouth. So even if they didn’t bite you, they slobbered on you.
I grabbed the 110-pound dog by his large, thick neck and shook him back and forth. “Blackie! How are you, boy?”
Blackie made a deep rumbling sound from somewhere in his throat that indicated he enjoyed seeing me again, too. He put one enormous paw out as if he wanted me to shake it and tilted his head to one side in a playful way to encourage me to rub his ears.
“Nick! Good to see you, boy!” said the Old Man from the other side of the door. “Come on in! Let me get you a towel and wipe some of that spit off your hands.”
“Good to see you, too, Old Man. How’s it going?” I said as I walked into the house, followed by a very happy Blackie. That dog’s tail alone could knock holes in a wall.
“You know I’m not one to complain,” the Old Man said as threw me a towel. “Come on in. You want a beer or coffee or something?”
“Coffee would be great, thanks.”
I followed the Old Man into the comfortable country kitchen. The timber frame house had huge rooms, lots of wood, lots of windows, and vaulted ceilings. Not quite a log home, but very rustic, warm, and just about what you’d expect out in the country. I pulled out one of the chairs at the kitchen island and sat down, with Blackie alongside pushing his nose up and down on my leg, indicating he wanted me to rub some part of his body, which I willingly obliged and rubbed his ears.
As the Old Man poured coffee into a huge mug, I said, “You’re looking good for an old guy. Been on a diet or what?”
The Old Man chuckled. “Not exactly. It’s all the work around this place. Man, it never seems to end. I guess I’m not used to having to do everything for myself. It’s hell getting old. My back hurts from doing so many chores. I’m supposed to be retired, you know? What’s with that? But what the hell. You have to do something with your life, right?”
He went quiet for a moment, during which time I assumed his thoughts turn to his wife of thirty-seven years. Jenny passed a couple of years ago just after they retired and moved into this place. At sixty-three years old, he still looked fit, with a bit of a paunch, but not too bad. Still had all his hair, though it was significantly grayer and a bit longer than it was just a year ago, which was the last time I’d seen him.
The Old Man put the past aside for the time being. “What’s going on that has you out at night driving down here to see me, in the middle of February?”
“Got a problem up at The Headlands power plant,” I said as I sipped the hot, black coffee. “You been watching the news?”
“Hell no! I’m retired remember? I do enjoy watching reruns of The West Wing, though. Best show ever made. I have all eight seasons on disc, you know. Hey, want me to fix you something to eat and we could watch some? Won’t take but a minute to rustle something up.”
I enjoyed the banter but didn’t have time for this. I also knew better than to believe the Old Man didn’t know what was going on in the world outside his little piece of heaven. He was still well connected, and I suspected that he knew much more than he was letting on right now.
“So, you don’t know what’s going on, eh?” I said, tongue-in-cheek.
He looked at me with a slight smile. “I didn’t say that. I just said I don’t watch the news. Too depressing. The stock market’s going down again and that just pisses me off. Not to mention, it’s taking food out of Blackie’s mouth. And you know how cranky he can get if he doesn’t eat something regularly.”
Blackie was lying on the floor between the two of us, a bit of drool coming out of his mouth, over huge lips the color of licorice, just happy to be in the same room with us as we talked.
Getting back to the business at hand, I said, “I’ve been up there for a few days doing a security evaluation for the plant.”
“Good for you. Always good to be gainfully employed,” he said as he pulled out a chair next to me.
“Yeah, but there are some unusual things going on. A woman washed up on the beach. Seems she was an employee at the plant.”
The Old Man looked at me without blinking his eyes. “Yeah, I heard something about that.”
I had a suspicion he knew. “What you probably didn’t know is that there’s a credible threat against the plant.”
“So? I imagine they get threats all the time. Why does this one have your panties in a wad?”
The Old Man enjoyed picking on me every chance he got. “In this particular case, they’ve got a mole on the inside.”
The Old Man’s smile vanished. He leaned back, folded his arms, and said nothing. He knew that threats come and go, but an insider meant someone was serious. “I assume the fact that you know all this means something is about to happen,” he said.
“So, I’ve got your attention now?” I couldn’t resist giving him a ration of shit for his glib remarks earlier. As I drank the hot coffee I gave him a rundown of the last couple of days, including the dead woman, my run-in at the bar, seeing Jansen, and the threat assessment.
When I was done talking, he asked, “Who knew you were going up there?”
“What are you suggesting?” I asked, leaning forward a bit.
“Well, the timing is odd if you think about it. Just after you do your look-see, run a drill, and write a report, a threat is made against the station. Either the timing is just a weird coincidence, or someone was waiting for you to do what they couldn’t do. And I don’t believe in coincidences quite that much.”
That made sense to me, too. I didn’t like the implications but saw that the Old Man made a reasonable observation.
“The only people who knew I was going up there were plant staff — VP, a few guys in security, maybe operations.”
“And didn’t you say that Prichard said the perimeter gates and locks didn’t look messed with?”
“Yeah, and he seemed to know that right away.”
“So whoever killed the woman and pushed her in the drink had knowledge of the security system. They also had to have a key to get through the gates. When you put it all together, this looks like a well-choreographed situation. Much more than an amateur job.”
I sat back and finished off my coffee. I’d been up a long time already, but I wasn’t feeling sleepy in the least. “That was my read, too,” I said.
“So what do you need from me if you have all this figured out already?”
“Hey, I’m a long way from having it all figured out. But it’s my problem now. Jeff Prichard, the VP, asked me to get involved. I told him I’d help out but on the down low. The FBI and the sheriff have the lead, or will soon enough, seeing as how there’s a credible threat out there — and you know how anal those guys can be.”
The Old Man nodded his head. “Yeah, I’ve had some dealings with the FBI before.” He looked at me and asked, “Got any assets in place yet?”