Problems in the Ponderosas Ch. 03

We ate without talking more than a few words. The lobster tail was full of flavor, with just that touch of sweetness that you get from fresh lobster. The steak could have melted in my mouth. Everything was exactly perfect. Even the steamed asparagus was good.

Val broke the silence. "Bobby, how can we get more information? How can we find out more about Terry Gardner, enough to know if we can trust him?"

"That's what I've been wondering all week. There's one person whose opinions I trust, and who might help us out on this."

"Wait," I said. Let me write down a name first." I took out a business card and wrote on the back of it, then passed it to Val. She peeked at it and chuckled. I said to Bobby, "All right, now who is your caped crusader?"

"Harry Peters. Surprised?" I passed her the card and turned it over so she could see that I had written the same name. "Well, then we're on the same page. When I see Harry I'll tell him about our conversation and give him this card. That ought to give him a chuckle."

Over coffee we talked about various lightweight topics and shared a few laughs. As we left we thanked Bobby for the dinner and for addressing our concerns, and she promised to keep us up to speed on her inquiries.

AND NOW FOR AN ITEM OF OLD BUSINESS

Our lives had been too full to let us dwell on past mysteries, but the mention of Harry Peters had reminded us that we never did hear any more about the little radioactive box that was dug up out in the woods. It never would have been found if we hadn't won Clyde's confidence so he'd lead us out there, and while our contribution was peripheral to the case, there wouldn't have been any case without us. So we were curious, and Val made a call to Hank, one of the detectives who accompanied us when we followed Clyde into the woods. The call did nothing to satisfy her curiosity, and actually left her feeling slighted.

"Ken, Hank sounded sort of, I don't know, guarded when I called him. It was as if he had somebody listening to what he was saying. He wanted to know why I was asking, and then he said that he didn't know anything more about it, and it was out of his hands now that the energy people were handling it. Then he said to say hi to you, and he hung up. I wonder why he sounded so, oh, strange."

"Must be something going on that people are worried about. Things that make Geiger counters take off like that aren't supposed to be buried out in the woods. In fact, they're not supposed to be anywhere out in the open. They're supposed to be in laboratories behind locked doors."

"So I guess we'll never know what it was all about. How bizarre. One minute we're right there in the center of the search, looking at the thing, feeling proud that we helped find it, and then we're shut out on the doorstep of some government agency and we can't even find out what the thing is called, or what makes it important."

"Well, we're lucky that we have a lot going on every day to keep us busy, so we don't need the mystery box for excitement."

"I guess you're right, but I still feel that something that was important to us has been, oh, taken away from us without even a 'pardon me.' And we don't even know why."

All that happened on a Tuesday afternoon. On Wednesday evening, we were just cleaning up the kitchen after supper when my cell phone rang. I answered and heard the voice of Hank, the detective who had left Val dangling in midair.

"Ken, can you and Val meet me for a beer? I'll be at Jimmy's Pub, on Baker street, in the rear booth. Say eight?"

"Sure. We'll be there."

Jimmy's looked like the sort of dive that your mother made you promise you'd never walk into. As I stepped out of the pickup I was glad to feel the weight in the pocket of my leather jacket, where I carry what I called a Saint Christopher Medal, of the 38 Special variety. I knew Val had a lump under the baggy sweatshirt she wore, a 9mm lump.

I opened the door of the pub and led the way. To get to the booths in the back we had to pass by the bar, along a narrow walking space between the barstools and the wall, and the way was partially choked with people standing, chatting, drinking, and generally taking up space. As I started into the confined passage, a man who had been leaning against the wall took a step forward and turned to face me, blocking our way about six feet ahead. I turned my head halfway over my right shoulder and asked, "Ready?" In reply I got a poke in my back from Val, and instead of walking up to the human obstacle I ran at him full speed with my arms across my chest and my elbows high, like a blocking back.

Val, meanwhile, had flattened herself against the wall and was sidling along, close to me but leaving me room to swing an elbow around without hitting her in the head. The guy who had decided to block our way was looking right at me with a look of shock, and his expression didn't change until my left elbow flattened his nose against his face. He dropped like a rock and I pushed him aside with my foot as I hurried past. His departure from the walkway left a space between bodies, and I stepped into it and spread out my elbows. I shoved a man on my left back against the bar, wedged between two stools, and shoved a man on my right back against the wall. I took two steps slowly and deliberately, and felt Val's shoulder against the middle of my back. From there it was just one plodding step after another, clearing people out of the way with both hands. At some point I felt a quick movement against my back, as Val did something that produced a sharp cry of pain from over against the wall. And then we were in the clear, proceeding without further challenges to the back booth where Hank had been watching the show. He stood up, with a handshake for me and a hug for Val. "Good work, you two. Ken, I was going to walk up there and help you clear the way for Val, but then I could see your head going forward and bodies bouncing out of your way. There are two guys still on the floor, and some of our friends in uniform will be coming to haul them away.

"You can see the kind of a place this is. Nobody'd ever expect national security to be discussed in here. Maybe somebody putting a contract out on a spouse, or lining up side men for a bank job, or fixing the point spread on a basketball game, but nothing more than that. It's just the perfect spot for us.

"Val, I'm sorry I couldn't talk yesterday. I can understand why you'd be curious about what our friend Clyde dug up out there. I'm here to tell you the story, but it's long and complicated, so sip your beer and make yourselves comfortable.

"It began in a research lab in a university. A researcher there, a graduate student, was working on a project that used a radioactive substance to irradiate some stuff. The radioactive substance was special, somehow, not just some run of the mill hot stuff, and very valuable as a result. I got the impression that to replace it would take years, so if you needed the stuff and you could steal it, you'd be years ahead in whatever your project was. The grad student was approached by some foreign outfit that would pay a lot of money if he could steal it for them. That's the end of act one.

"Act two begins with the grad student stealing the radioactive substance. He timed the theft so that the loss wouldn't be discovered for a couple of weeks, which was the next time that his project was scheduled to use it. Until then it was supposed to be locked up securely. Knowing that all hell would break loose when it wasn't there, he took it way out into the woods and buried it, writing down the instructions for how to find the hiding place. He was alone on this trip to the woods, so only he knew how to find the thing.

"Act three. Before the theft was discovered, the grad student went to meet the foreign buyer, but he was afraid that he'd be captured and tortured until he told the foreign guy where to find it, and then murdered. So he hired a bodyguard. This was a career criminal with a resume that included armed robbery, assaults of various types, and a murder charge that was dropped for lack of evidence. His name was Gregory Riley. You both met him, and Val, you saved the state of New Mexico a lot of money. They were going to put him on trial for something or other if they could ever find him. Riley went to the meet with the grad student, who negotiated a deal that would let him retire in luxury.

"Act four. Riley agrees to accompany the grad student out to the woods to dig up the radioactive package. He sees the grad student referring to his written directions and decides that he can play that game, too. So he murders the grad student, stashes his body in the woods, and takes the directions. But he doesn't find anything that looks to him like a recent burial of anything. Now Riley's a big city guy. He knows the streets. He decides he needs somebody who knows the woods, so he recruits Clyde. What he plans to do is get Clyde to help him search and dig the hole, and then he'll kill Clyde and make off with the package. But even with Riley reading the directions and Clyde reading the clues on the ground, they can't find the right spot. So for the second time Riley aborts his recovery mission, and he's getting pretty frustrated.

"Act five starts when Riley has another meeting with the foreign buyer. He explains that the grad student has dropped out of the deal and the foreign guy will have to deal with Riley from then on. He wants two things. First, the price is doubled. Second, he needs to be able to detect radioactivity to find the right place to dig. The foreign guy agrees to supply a Geiger counter, and later has one delivered to Riley. Now Riley and Clyde head out into the woods again. What Riley doesn't realize is that he has to get pretty close to the right location before the Geiger counter will do him much good. The undisturbed, packed earth with a fair moisture content is pretty good at blocking the radiation, while the loose dirt that was dumped on top of the package lets a stream of radiation through, like a beam going straight up. So we end act five with the two of them out there, Riley going nuts with his Geiger counter and Clyde waiting to be told where to dig.

"And now we come to act six, which starts when you two go into the woods to have your picnic. You know how that went, so I don't have to tell you."

I'd been taking little shallow breaths as the story unwound, and at the end of act six I let out a big sigh. "So that's how the story ends, with Clyde wounded and Riley dead. That's quite a tale."

Val agreed. "And now, at last, it's all over. Just think, it got us started on our police career. All that's left now is for us to live happily ever after, right?"

Hank took a deep breath. "I'd like to agree, but in fact it's not over. We thought it was, but the feds have told us otherwise, and that's what had things so tense at our office that I couldn't talk with you yesterday."

"But what else is there? The crime is solved, all the perps are accounted for, and the feds have the stuff. How could there be more?"

"This is where the story gets mysterious. What I told you so far is well established. The original foreign buyer was a known spy, who was being closely monitored all the time. The feds probably knew what he ate for breakfast. So when he first contacted our grad student, they knew all about it. He was arrested, and all the rest of the grad student's dealings were with an undercover federal agent. That's where we got most of the story. The rest was put together from remarks by Clyde, plus plain old detective work, fitting the pieces of the puzzle together until they made a picture. So it's not just some yarn that we've made up out of thin air.

"When the feds got the radioactive box back to their lab, they put it into storage until they could check it out thoroughly. It represented a solved crime, it wasn't needed for evidence in any court trial, and they didn't need to use it right then, so it sat. Then last week they got it out. At that point, nobody had opened the box since they picked it up off the ground in the woods. It had been properly identified and the normal paperwork was executed, no slipups anywhere. The chain of custody was airtight. The box was still sealed up, and the dirt was still on it from being buried. Got the picture? It was a totally known object."

"Is there a 'but' coming up?" asked Val.

"Yes, and the 'but' is a beaut! In the lab they examined the box with a lot of tests, even before they opened it up. And even without looking inside they detected that it was the wrong stuff! It was radioactive, all right, and the strength of the radiation was what it should be, but it was the wrong element or compound or whatever. I don't know much about this stuff, but the radiation was the wrong flavor. The wrong Greek letters, you know, alpha and beta and gamma and all that. So even with the box still sealed up, they got all their own experts in there and they agreed that it was wrong, and to cover their asses they got independent consultants to check it out and they agreed. Right now, all they've found out is what the stuff actually is, and they're trying to establish a trail to show where it came from and where it's been, because they have no idea where the wrong stuff came from or where the right stuff went. Trying to establish a trail has been very frustrating, because they don't have enough information. So everybody is frustrated and frantic.

"I told you that these federal Department of Energy guys are pretty good to work with. A little eccentric, totally dedicated, and so brilliant that they could probably finish every sentence that you were about to say. They take nothing for granted, but once a thing is established as fact they don't waste time second guessing, they just leap to the next issue. Well, they can laugh, too. To simplify our conversations with them, they started to call the radioactive substance that was supposed to be in the package, 'the real McCoy.' Then somebody said the other stuff, that was dug up in to the woods, must be 'Hatfield' as in the feud between the Hatfields and McCoys back in the eighteen hundreds.

"They've put together several scenarios that might explain what happened. The one they call Scenario A is that the switch was made when McCoy was still in federal custody. Somebody took it and put Hatfield in its place, so that when they shipped something to the university lab, it was already Hatfield. Several series of experiments have been performed with the stuff, and some of the results could be interpreted to mean that it was really McCoy, but they're inconclusive, so this scenario is kept on the table as being possible. It doesn't tell us who made the switch, where Hatfield came from, or how they got McCoy out of federal custody. Security at the DOE is very tight, making the probability of this scenario very low.

"Scenario B has the switch being made while the stuff was in transit. There seem to be so many ways that this could have happened that this one is my personal favorite.

"C has to be that the switch was made at the university, early in its string of experiments. Some of the experimental data can be interpreted to show that the first tests were made using McCoy, and later tests used Hatfield. Some of the tests are relatively insensitive to the radioactive source, while others should show different results depending on which source was used. The data from the latest tests, made by the grad student who was killed by Riley, are still being reduced, but might indicate that the switch had already been made and he was actually using Hatfield. So there is some reason to keep C as an active investigation.

"D says that the stuff in the lab was McCoy all through the entire series of tests. Then some unknown person stole it and put Hatfield in its place, after the last tests but before our grad student stole it. We have no reason to believe or disbelieve this scenario.

"E says that our grad student stole McCoy and buried it, but we found the wrong place to dig, and dug up Hatfield by mistake. It does not offer any explanation of how Hatfield happened to be there, but it does offer the possibility that McCoy is still buried out there somewhere. If we find McCoy in the woods, it pretty much proves this scenario, although it would leave a lot of questions unanswered.

"F says that our grad student stole McCoy, but made a switch and buried Hatfield. This doesn't make any sense to me, and it offers no reasonable explanation why he would even bother to bury Hatfield at all.

"Then we come to G, which says that under the noses of dozens of witnesses of proven character, somebody in the search party that included you two, Clyde, Bruce, me, and the police lab techs, made the switch. This is so improbable that it seems completely ridiculous, but it's still on the table, and all of us, even Harry Peters and Captain Winston, are being actively investigated right now by the FBI."

Talk about a conversation stopper! This ranked right up there with the proverbial turd in the punchbowl. Val was the first to recover enough to say anything. "Now I'm sorry that I even called you to ask about the case. If they're watching us, you're in trouble for sticking your neck out to meet with us, and we are too, for asking about it to start with. Honest, Hank we never dreamed we'd be getting you in trouble. Or ourselves, either."

It was Hank's turn to take a deep breath. "Look, it's really all right. After you called me, I had to tell the FBI agent who's planted in our office. They had the phone tapped anyway, so it was better to tell him everything I knew about the call than to force him to spends hours trying to figure it out and piss him off in the process. They know about this meeting, in fact they set it up. They've got the whole thing recorded, audio and video. I knew you were innocent so meeting like this couldn't do you any harm, and you're being investigated anyway, right along with the rest of us. Incidentally, you were supposed to be frisked coming in, but it didn't work out all that well. That guy whose nose you smashed all over his face, Ken, is really a bad guy who got what he deserved, but the one you kicked in the balls, Val, is on loan from the FBI office in Wichita. It'll be a while before he'll sing baritone again. Maybe I should've warned him. Everybody who was at the academy with you two has spread the word about how fast and deadly you can be, but apparently nobody told him."

I had to smile at that. I'd taken my licks from her in practice. But there was something I had to get off my chest. "Look, Hank, here's what I'd like to do, and maybe you can help make it happen. I don't want to put the FBI through the routine of getting a search warrant, and then have a dozen agents with FBI in big letters across their backs, acting suspicious while they try to find evidence against us. We're totally innocent of any crimes, even a parking ticket, and we've got nothing to hide. I'd like to meet with your head FBI agent and give him written permission to search our house, grounds, cars, even our lockers at work, for evidence related to this investigation. In return, I'd ask that the searching be done by people in plain clothes, maybe in the guise of housecleaning and lawn maintenance or some such thing, simply to keep the neighbors out of it. They can take Val's car and my truck to wherever they want to look at them, even take them apart if necessary, as long as they return them to us in as good shape as they found them. I'd like them to supply us some other wheels to use in the meantime. What I'm trying to say, I guess, is that we hate to be under suspicion, resent it even, and yet we're willing to bend over backward to cooperate with the agents who have to investigate us. Naturally, we'd like to be out from under this cloud as soon as we can, but besides that, we'd like to make the FBI's job easy so they can spend their manpower on leads that will help solve this case."