I stared at the monitor for a while, trying to think of another option. I could send a fax to the number on some pretext and hope someone responded. I couldn’t think of a good pretext, though. Maybe I should just be honest, send a fax with our company letterhead and try for intimidating. When people are intimidated by investigators they generally clam up rather than provide information. I studied the fax number again and then went to a different database. If nothing else, I could find out what cities matched the area code. I entered the three digits into the search engine, and it fed me an immediate match. The area code belonged to a portion of South Carolina that included Myrtle Beach.
“Hey, Joseph,” I said. He grunted in response. “When Weston told Sortigan to check out the Russians, he asked her to fax the information to him long distance. I can’t find a match on the phone number, but I checked on the area code, and guess what city it includes?”
“Myrtle Beach.”
I glared at him. “Do you have to be so damn clever? I was hoping to make a dramatic announcement.”
He leaned over to look at the computer screen. “That’s interesting, though. Maybe Cody didn’t lie about the plate being stolen there after all.”
“What would Weston have been doing in Myrtle Beach just a few days before he was killed?”
“Does he know anyone there?”
“Not that I’m aware of.”
Joe looked at the monitor and rubbed his jaw idly. “Call John and ask him.”
I picked up the phone and called John Weston. He answered on the second ring, and when I gave my name he said, “Yes, what is it?” with an expectant eagerness that made me want to sink lower in the chair. The days had seemed to go by quickly for Joe and me, but they were clearly passing with agonizing slowness for John Weston.
I explained that we were making some progress on the case, but I said we wouldn’t discuss details until we’d corroborated theories with facts. He did some grumbling about that, but I held my ground. The last thing I wanted was to tell the poor man we thought his son had been an extortionist who’d pissed off the Russian mob. I had a bad feeling we’d have to tell him that sooner or later, but I wasn’t about to rush into it until we were sure that was the case.
“We’ve turned up some connections to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina,” I told him. “It looks like Wayne went down there shortly before his death. We were wondering if you knew of any friends or acquaintances he had there?”
“He went to South Carolina?” Weston said. “Well, he never said anything about that to me. Are you sure?”
“Did he have any friends or acquaintances there?” I repeated patiently. I doubted Wayne Weston had been sharing many things with his father, but apparently the idea came as a surprise to the old man.
“Well, sure,” John Weston said. “Randy Hartwick. I told you about him already.”
“You did?”
“It’s all in the damned notebook,” he snapped. “That’s why I spent all that time writing everything down, so you’d have the information in front of you and you wouldn’t have to waste time calling me with every damn question that came up.”
I grabbed the notebook and flipped through it quickly. There was Randy Hartwick, listed under the “Friends” category. He was Wayne Weston’s old Marine Corps buddy, but in the notebook it said he lived in Florida.
“I see his name here,” I said, “but it says he lives in Florida.”
“It’s Myrtle Beach,” Weston said irritably, probably more upset with his own mistake than with my comment. “All those damn beach-town tourist-trap shitholes are the same to me.”
“Understandable. Have you heard anything from Mr. Hartwick recently?”
“No. I called and left a message with him about the funeral, because… well, because it just didn’t seem right to put Wayne in the ground without Randy there. I never heard back from him, though.” He said it carefully, like he was trying to keep any trace of bitterness from his voice, but he didn’t completely succeed.
“I see. Did Mr. Hartwick and your son remain close after their Marine days?”
“Very close. Wayne went on fishing trips with him every year. Wayne told me that-outside of family, of course-the only man alive he trusted completely was Randy Hartwick. He said he’d trust his life to that son of a bitch in a heartbeat, no hesitation, no regrets. That’s how it has to be in combat, you know. You have to have that loyalty.”
“Yes, sir,” I said, not anxious to hear another of John Weston’s loyalty speeches. He should have stayed in the military. He’d have made a hell of a general. “In the notebook, you wrote that Mr. Hartwick worked for a resort hotel. Do you know what he did there?”
“He had the security contract for one of those big hotels. You know, he installed alarms and cameras, provided guards, all that crap. It was one of those fancy resorts.”
“Do you remember the name?”
“Shit.” He grunted, and the line was silent for a while as he thought about it. “Golden Palms, maybe? No, that’s not it. Not the Palms. Dammit. What the hell was the name of it? Golden Beaches, Golden Palms. Something like that.”
“I’ll check it out and see if I can find anything close,” I said.
“Good.”
“Well, that’s all I had to ask you, sir. I’m going to try to track Mr. Hartwick down now. We’ll be in touch soon.”
“I hope so,” he said, the words barely audible, the typical gruffness and command absent from his voice. “I hope so.”
I hung up and looked at Joe. “I’ve got our Myrtle Beach connection.”
“Who is it?”
“Randy Hartwick,” I said. “He served in Wayne Weston’s Force Recon battalion. Apparently, they were together from boot camp at Twenty-nine Palms all the way through Recon training and then went into the same unit. That’s what it says in the notebook, at least. On the phone, John Weston told me Hartwick was the only man his son truly trusted. Said Wayne would have put his life in the man’s hands without hesitation.”
Joe listened with interest. “And Weston visited Hartwick just before he died,” he said.
“Possibly. We don’t know that for sure, but it’s likely. John Weston said Hartwick was the head of security for a resort in Myrtle Beach. He hasn’t heard anything from Hartwick, even though he called to tell him what had happened and to ask him to attend the funeral.”
“You think the guy in the Oldsmobile was Hartwick?”
“Could be.”
“So what’s he doing up here pretending to be a cop?”
“According to John Weston, there was some pretty fierce loyalty between his son and Randy Hartwick. Maybe Hartwick came up here to find out who killed his buddy, or maybe to find out what happened to the wife and daughter.”
“He comes up here to investigate that, but he doesn’t bother to contact John Weston while he’s in town? He doesn’t even show up for the funeral?”
I closed the notebook and tossed it onto the desk. “That bothered me, too.”
“Look for the hotel,” Joe said. “I want to move on this guy fast. If he’s the man who has been talking to the neighbors and watching the Russians, he might have a whole lot of answers.”
I returned my attention to the computer and did a few simple keyword searches for “Myrtle Beach,” “hotel,” and “Golden.” It didn’t take me more than five minutes to find a match. The Golden Breakers Resort in Myrtle Beach boasted a five-star rating, luxurious suites, a rooftop restaurant, hot tubs, pools, an exercise room, a sauna, and even a 422-foot “Lazy River” for children to float down. I located the phone number for the resort and called it.
“Hi,” I said when a friendly clerk answered, “I was just about to fax something to you, but I lost the number. Could you give it to me?”