IMBERADO

                                                 Chapter Two

Travis had just clicked the gate closed at his driveway’s entry, when his Motorola 8500x rang on the passenger’s car seat next to him. He had just returned home from escorting an Argentinian diplomat back to his embassy in D.C. and wasn’t expecting any calls this evening.

“Travis Cody, may I help you?”

“You did that twenty years ago, remember?”

“Levi, what’s up? Don’t you have anything better to do than bug a poor working stiff?”

“I don’t know. Do you know a poor working stiff I can bug? Listen you got time for me to drop by, I need to talk with you some tonight.”

“Sure, come on out, I just got here. I’ll turn on the grill and cut some spuds into French fries. What’s your twenty?”

“I’ll be there in half an hour.”

“Cool, I’ll heat up the deep fryer and we can barbeque the sirloins and deep fry the fries while we sip on a couple of Bud’s, when you get here.”

“Thanks man. On my way.”

At least Levi didn’t sound like it was an emergency and he could use some chill out time with his friend tonight. Time goes by faster now than it used to he thought to himself, as he parked his ’87 Land Rover in the garage behind the house. Then he walked around to the front porch and unlocked his front door. After walking inside and closing the door, he pulled his holstered Beretta from his back and laid it on the island counter in his kitchen.

Damn, it has been twenty years since the first time he met Levi Mueller, during that lull in TET, back in the ‘Nam, he thought to himself. Travis didn’t spend much time reminiscing about those years, or about much in the past, he lived every day as it came. Once in his kitchen he took two sirloins out of the meat crisper, laying them on a platter on the counter top and a dozen Idaho potatoes to cut up into French fry style lengths. Just as he was finishing cutting up the fries, he heard Levi pulling his car up on the gravel driveway outside.

“It’s me. You in the kitchen?”

“Yeah, come on back. Perfect timing, I just got everything ready for the grill.”

“Cool, let’s get the grub started. I could eat a Water Buffalo.”

“You have. Here’s a Bud, don’t drool on yourself.”

Both men walked out onto the deck through the back kitchen slider. Travis plopped the sirloins on the hot grill and the French fries into the deep fryer. Then they took seats at the wooden circular table in the middle of the deck.

“What’s up Levi, you look a little haggard?”

“Yeah, some I guess. We got a newbie in the department a couple of days ago. Seems like a nice guy, but dumb as a box of rocks. Came up to me this morning and said, good morning Sargent Mooler.” At this Travis bust out laughing, almost spraying out some of the beer he had sipped, before his friend could go on. “Then he said happy Rosh Hashanah. What a nitwit.” But with Travis still laughing, Levi had to laugh himself.

Travis got out of his chair to turn the steaks and check on the French fries. “So, what did you tell him?”

“I just said, it’s pronounced just like Miller, not mooler, my father was of German descent and I am not Jewish. I was named for Levi Strauss, you know the blue jeans guy. Then I turned and went on my way.”

“Well you gotta give the kid credit for trying, Levi.”

“Trying smying, hey by the way, I heard some info on Jim’s case.”

“Yeah, what?”

“The crime tech gurus gave a preliminary update to Sheriff Dexter today. It says that the thirty-eight was purchased at a gun show in Richmond six months ago. And get this, they got in touch with the dealer who is from Texas, one of those guys who travels around to big gun shows. He faxed his paperwork to them, a driver’s license, social security card, filled out forms and all. It all says that James Whiteside was the purchaser with no warrants or criminal history, but, the photo id is not Jim. Just like you told Dexter a week ago.”

“What did Dexter say to that?”

“Not much yet, he grumbled a lot. Talked to Coroner James Hardy,who is going to put down suspicious gunshot wound to the head, possible homicide. He won’t put down confirmed homicide because there was residue on Jim’s hand, just as if he had fired the thirty-eight.”

“That doesn’t surprise me. I told him the place looked like it was staged by a cool professional, or at least someone who knew what they were doing. They just didn’t know enough about Jim. Did he say anything else that you can tell me, without divulging something they don’t want the public to know?”

“Not really, they’re trying to get a line on the guy in the photo, but no leads yet.”

“Probably another waste of time. If the photo was good enough to fool the seller, then the guy in the photo will be a dead end too. This guy or guys that did Jim in, they don’t make rookie mistakes.”

“Any idea about a motive yet?”

“Naw, not an inkling.”

Travis got up, and brought the steaks and fries to the table.

“Any ketchup?”

“Oh sure, and hey, bring the Heinz 57 with you too. I’ll grab us a couple of fresh Bud’s”

After dinner Travis and Levi continued to sit on the deck enjoying the evening air. They sat there for over an hour, not saying one word to each other, just listening. Then Levi stood up and told his friend goodnight and thanked him for letting him come over to chill.

A few days later, on Saturday, around noon Sheriff Dexter pulled his department Bronco up to Travis Cody’s gate, it was closed. William Dexter had been in law enforcement most of his adult life and that life had taught him to observe details. He had never been to Cody’s place before and he had not called ahead this time.

The gate was made of heavy steel pipe hung on even larger steel posts, on the left one he saw a key pad mounted at about the height of a car window. He noticed that the gate was solar powered and the solar panel was mounted on top of that same post. A couple of yards behind the gate were two No Trespassing signs attached to trees on either side of the gravel driveway. There was no speaker to activate and call the house for entry, nor could he see any evidence of a camera mounted anywhere. Travis Cody must really like his privacy when he was home, he thought.

Dexter got out of his vehicle and closed the door, locking it as he did. Then he walked to the gate and climbed over it. He didn’t have a phone number for Cody and had hoped he would just find the man at home on a Saturday, it had not entered his thoughts that the place would be locked up like this. He couldn’t see the house from here, the driveway curved around through the trees and headed slightly uphill, next time he would talk to Mueller about how to get in touch with Cody first.

The walk up the driveway wasn’t quiet on the gravel, but he wasn’t trying to sneak up on a suspect either. When he could finally see Cody’s house, he was slightly amused, he wasn’t expecting it to be a log cabin style house, but then he didn’t know what he thought it might be either. Once he got closer, he could see more details about the exterior of the house and it was not your ordinary log cabin construction. Other than the beefy logs used on the outer walls he didn’t see one other framing member out of wood. The roof was metal (like many are in the rural areas), but the posts and framing supporting the porch roof were all painted steel and the porch and steps were concrete, not planking. The metal roof was almost entirely covered with large solar panels. Once he was on the porch he saw that the windows were metal framed as well, not wood cased as normal. The windows had that mirror type film covering the glass on the inside, the kind that someone inside could see out, but those outside could not see in. Even the front door appeared to be heavy steel. Rustically attractive but steel, not wood. He thought to himself, this place just might not burn down in a fire as he knocked on the door and yelled out who he was.

After a few knocks and no one answering the door, Dexter decided to walk around to the back of the house. When he rounded the left side, he could see there was a two-car garage attached to the back built exactly like the rest of the house and a large stone fireplace before you reached the garage and it had one of those steel roll-up doors. Once around the garage there was a deck, built just like the front porch. As he looked at the roof it was much like the front, except there were panels in the middle that were the kind for solar heating water. Wow, the Sheriff thought, you could stay here for a long time even if the power was out everywhere else in the county.

Several feet away from the back corner there was a large satellite dish and directly parallel to the garage but twenty feet away was another building, only this one was large rock masonry with a similar roof. There were steel louvered doors on this building and as Sheriff Dexter listened, he thought he heard a distinct humming sound. About then he heard what he thought was a rifle shot and spun around while drawing out his service revolver. No one was there when he stopped ready to defend himself, damn he thought, I am getting jittery, I’ve been on this job too long. He holstered his pistol and walked back to the front of the house. Dexter wrote a short note letting Cody know he had stopped by to talk and asked if he would call and set up a time they could meet. Just as he was walking away toward the driveway through the trees he heard a loud voice behind him and stopped to turn and see who it was.

“You know Sheriff, if I hadn’t recognized your uniform, I might have thought I was being burglarized. Now if I was like a lot of people in this area, I might have been firing shots instead of yelling, so you would know I was here.” Travis had a broad smile across his face as he said this in jest.

“Damn Cody, first I hear shots not too far away and then here you are carrying that rifle. Hey, is that an Accuracy L96, you are carrying?”

“You have a good knowledge of fire arms, Sheriff. Yes, it is, that was me you heard. If you had been here longer, you would have heard me fire several times, I was target shooting at the back of my property”

“That’s a fine weapon and expensive, Cody. I have never known anyone who actually owned one.”

“I told you when we were at Jim’s house, he and I both liked shooting and guns. So what do I owe this visit?”

“I wondered if I could talk to you about the investigation. Some information has come to me that is troubling and I would like your take on it.”

“Sure, come on back let’s go out on the back deck, can I get you a Bud or are you on duty?”

“I’ll take the beer gladly.”

Walking through the living room, following Travis, Sheriff Dexter took notice of the interior. There was a large fireplace right where he expected, from his walk around the house but it was deeper than most and all stone except the firebrick box inside that you would expect. The living room was country comfortable, not expensively furnished nor did it have any amenities of a woman’s touch. The kitchen was large with a breakfast area and large island in the middle surrounded by counters with cabinets above and below. The fridge was one of those oversized ones, like you see in restaurants more than someone’s home and an upright freezer on the other wall. The built-in range was electric and had a double oven, there was even a grill in the middle of the four burner range-top.

“You must like to cook, Mr. Cody.”

“Might as well like what is a necessity, Sheriff. You know you can always call me Travis, like everyone else does. That is if you are comfortable with that?”

“Travis it is then, and thanks.”

“Come on. Let’s sit out on the deck.” Travis said as he started walking through the slider.

After they had both sat in two of the chairs around the round table and had sips of the beer, Sheriff Dexter spoke first. “You were right about the pistol at Congressman Whiteside’s, the investigators found it had been purchased at a gun show in Richmond six months ago. The records showed it was purchased by Whiteside, but the documents the seller faxed us had a picture ID that definitely was not the Congressman.” Dexter took another sip of the beer and then continued. “Late yesterday I got word on the ID and it doesn’t go down well either.”

“Why is that?”

“The guy in the photo died in 1983. He was a Marine, one of those listed as killed in the Barracks bombing in Beirut. So what is a guy who looks like a dead Marine, doing buying a gun, using a bogus ID of a Virginia Congressman, six months before that same Congressman dies in apparent suicide?”

“A very good question. You are sure of the information, I suppose?”

“Very sure, double checked and verified. Now you knew Whiteside, at least better than I do. Can you tell me anything that makes sense of any of this?”

“Sheriff, ever since Jim went into politics his life, his whole life, even before entered politics, was open to public and private scrutiny. I doubt, I know more than many others do. But in the last five years since I met him and especially the last three since his daughter died, I don’t know of one reason why he would commit suicide or be murdered.” Travis took a sip of beer and continued. “I know he grieved over Felicity’s death and he still missed his wife, but by now I think even you, at least suspect he was murdered.”

“You are right, I do suspect it, hell I am sure he was. But all I have is, some guy fraudulently bought the gun that killed him six months before he was shot, in his own house with no forced entry, no witnesses and GSR on his own hands from the weapon that killed him and no one else’s fingerprints on the gun with only one round spent from the cylinder, that being the one that killed him. And, no traces of anything from the autopsy.” Dexter thought for just a moment then added. ”What I do have are two unsolved cold cases, both tied with the deceased and now what looks like a murder, faked to look like a suicide with no evidence or leads left to follow. The only other people I have linked with either of the last two, are a picture of a dead Marine who died five years before the last victim and a PI living in my county.”

“Are you trying to say that I am a suspect in any of this?”

“No, I am saying I hate cold cases, I don’t get paid to have cold cases on the books. I have been in law enforcement most of my adult life. Hell all of it, after I mustered out of the Army, when I returned home from Korea. Now as much as everyone who knows me, knows I don’t like PI’s, the reason I don’t is because they usually muck up investigations, ruin evidence or even get rid of evidence on occasion. But I don’t put you in that category, everything I have ever heard about you, tells me you are the exception. I talked to your ex-captain in Dallas, he told me that if he had ten like you, he could clean up the drug problem there. But right now, you are the only live asset I have and I need help from you to help me make sense out of this. This was just another rural county fifteen years ago, since then we have the richer continually moving out here, like the Congressman. I am a Republican in what was a Republican area. Now I have a mostly newly seated Democrat county board of supervisors, and a Democrat for Governor. I hate politics, but I have to live with it to keep having my job. Now I have a Congressman from my district dead and if I don’t have some answers fast, there will be hell to pay.”

“I see your point. I will help you in any way I can. But right now I don’t have anything for you. There is only one thought I have to offer, follow the one thing you know isn’t right. Look deeper into the dead Marine. See if you can get any information on him, units service record, place of birth, anything. Unless this guy is a ghost and I don’t mean like Casper and Wendy, he is still the best lead you have. But I wouldn’t let the press know that you believe Jim’s death was anything other than a suicide.”

“Why?”

“Anyone that went to these lengths to have him killed, and be so good at making it look like suicide, has a lot to lose. There is no reason to give them warning that you are looking into any other options.”

“You’re probably right and it would keep the heat off me and the department, if we let it continue to look like the evidence pointed to suicide.”

“Exactly.”