Back | Next
Contents

Chapter 65

Glibspet charged out into the lobby, almost running into Mindenhall, who was coming in from a routine divorce surveillance. Something he had gotten considerably less picky about, Glibspet thought.

"Come on, Craig," he said grabbing Mindenhall's arm and spinning him back towards the door.

"Whoa! What's the deal, Dom? I've got some film to develop."

Glibspet hustled him outside, and locked the door behind them. "Never mind that," he said. "We're going driving—we've got to be on the Outer Banks by eight!"

"You're joking." Mindenhall said. When he looked over at Glibspet and realized the devil wasn't joking, he shook his head. "That's really pushing it. There're some little towns and two-lane roads between here and there, and it's an awfully long way." He looked at Glibspet's Lincoln and his Volvo. "Maybe we could take a plane?"

"Don't sweat it," Glibspet said. "A plane wouldn't get us there any faster. I'm driving." Of course, he could be there in an instant if he needed to be, but he'd decided early on that when they got to this point, he wanted to have Craig along.

"It's your license," Craig muttered as they burned rubber out of the parking lot.

They took I-40 east, and I-95 north, never averaging less than eighty-five. Glibspet noted with amusement the point at which Craig stopped flinching, and simply closed his eyes and tightened his seat belt. They left the interstate at Rocky Mount and headed east again, hitting Roanoke Island and Manteo in record time. "You can open your eyes now, Craig," Glibspet told him as they came off the bridge from the mainland.

Mindenhall did so, cautiously, then pried his hand from the armrest. There were deep indentations in it. "Jesus, Dom," he said vehemently, "don't ever do that to me again! It can't be that important."

Glibspet flinched at the oath. It was heartfelt, which gave it some power. Apparently, he still had a lot of work to do on Craig. "Don't bet the store on that," he said mildly.

Glibspet followed Samuels's directions and they soon came to a collection of warehouses on the waterfront of Albemarle Sound.

"Nice view," Mindenhall observed, looking out over the water. "But do you want to fill me in now, Dom?" He touched Glibspet's hand. "We're supposed to be working together," he said and Glibspet knew that he meant on more than the case.

There was a tumbledown shack at the water's edge, set deep in an overgrown lot at the end of an almost completely overgrown driveway. Glibspet eased the Lincoln down the path until the scrub and trees blocked the view from the road. "There's going to be a certain party here at eight, Craig," he told Mindenhall, "and we wouldn't want her to get lonely."

"Who?" Mindenhall asked, looking left towards the almost obscured industrial area. "The Rheabeth person we located?"

"That's the one," Glibspet confirmed. "But she's not Rheabeth Samuels. Rheabeth Samuels was just a convenient birth certificate to start building on." He reached under the seat and pulled out a pair of binoculars. "I tracked her down from your info. We've got undercover police on their way out here for our protection, and you wouldn't believe what all else. She wasn't involved in high-tech anything. That was all a front for a massive gun-running and dope operation. We're here to meet with her. We're going to be heroes, my love."

Mindenhall said, "I thought this was the sort of thing police did all by themselves, without help from people like us."

"I have friends on the force," Glibspet told him. That, at least, was true.

"But I still think we shouldn't be involved in trying to bust open a drug operation."

"Do you know how many people die in eighteen-wheeler accidents each year, Craig?" he asked.

Mindenhall shook his head. "No," he said. "A lot, I suppose."

Glibspet peered through the glasses. The warehouse area stuck out further into the sound than the shack. He could see fairly clearly a man and woman walk into the open hatch of what appeared to be a beached submarine. "No," he said, "I checked." (He hadn't, of course.) "It's not very many at all. Semi drivers are pros, and they watch out for cars better than cars watch out for each other. Don't you think it's a little peculiar that the victim of an accident like that would get her identity stolen? One very unlikely thing happening to someone is a coincidence. Two is a plan."

Mindenhall swallowed. "You're saying the original Rheabeth's death wasn't an accident," he stated.

Glibspet shrugged. "Occam's razor, Craig," he said. "This is one ruthless woman here." He paused. "Have you been keeping up target practice like I asked?"

"You know I hate guns, Dom," Craig said.

Glibspet wasn't about to let him off the hook. "That's not what I asked," he said pointedly.

"Yes. I have."

Nothing further was happening at the site. The woman he'd seen might have been Samuels or might not have been. He knew for sure that she'd be there at eight. He put down the glasses. "Good," he said, "I've got a little firepower in the trunk. I hope we don't need it."

"Firepower?" Craig said incredulously. "Dom, let's leave this to the cops."

"Samuels has agreed to meet with us. Just us. Nobody has been able to get past her goons, but I did. I used an old cover of mine that just paid off big-time. We break this case, it's worth millions to us." He looked at his watch and put the binoculars back in the case. "We have about half an hour before we're supposed to go in. Let's get ready."

Mindenhall glanced down at the floorboard, and suddenly froze. "My God, what is that?" He pointed down at a pink mass of sinew and gristle that lay next to his left foot.

Glibspet picked up the remains of the pigfoot and eyed the mess with studied disgust. "Well," he said. "That's the last time I get my car washed there!"

 

Back | Next
Framed