The Daily Novel

CHAPTER XXIII

By Tuesday morning, Harlan and Gloria were in total agreement: She would stay with the car, and Harlan would go into the cloverleaf. There had really been no contention. She and Harlan talked through all of the scenarios they could think of and, together, settled on Harlan’s going in and Gloria’s waiting nearby.

Before they left, Craig and Samantha voiced their opinions, mostly in the vein that neither should go at all.

“Dad, don’t you think there’s at least one police officer somewhere who could sit in the hide and wait for the guy?”

“I do,” Harlan said. “In fact, I’m sure there is. Just point him out to me and I’ll turn the duty over to him in a heartbeat. Of course, it would require that the entire chain of command above him also be reasonably intelligent, circumspect, and discreet.”

“What’s going to happen when he shows up?” Samantha asked.

“What?” Harlan asked, caught off guard by the question.

“The guy,” Samantha said. “Operating on the assumption that you are dead on the money with your hunch, the guy is going to show up. Then what? Citizen’s arrest?”

“I plan to spotlight him and catch him on video,” Harlan said, his voice subdued.

“And then what?” Samantha persisted.

“I expect he’ll run, then I’ll use the cell phone to get patrol cars to converge,” Harlan said.

“We don’t really need to catch him,” Gloria explained. “He is caught, it is over, and he’s out of business.”

“And you’re going to do this because…?” Craig persisted.

“Because we want to,” Harlan answered.

“Because it feels right to do it this way,” Gloria added.

“And there’s no harm that can come from it,” Harlan finished.

“Unless, of course, he shoots you,” Craig said.

The discussion ended. They sat down to an early supper together. There was no jug of moonshine, no two-bottle stupid on the table. Craig and Samantha faced a drive back to Cincinnati, and neither Harlan nor Gloria had the urge. It felt a little like they were in training camp, working up to the big day.

Raiding the freezer, Harlan fixed a batch of sandwiches for which he had no name. He thawed already-cooked and -sliced roast beef, slow-cooked some thick-sliced bacon, and deep-fried some breaded oysters. The sandwiches on warmed hoagie rolls were topped with a concoction he called tiger sauce. The sandwiches and thawed, homemade bean soup made up the meal. It was tasty and satisfying.

When it was time to depart, Harlan used one of the scooters to lead the way up the drive and unlock the gate. No one was visible, no cars and no vans. He waved the two off, relocked the gate, and returned to the house.

On Monday, both cell phones were nearly constantly ringing with attempts by the press to get something. There were a few traffic-blocking incidents up at the road — Jack called and filled them in on those.

Gene Snyder called to report that the computer analysis seemed to be bearing fruit. A few possibles had emerged when they ran the first two sets of data, and that had narrowed to two, when they ran the third set. Now they were keying in the additional registration information, from the list of likely motels that Gloria supplied. The work was moving quickly. They had not been able to consolidate the recorded license plate numbers from the Thursday night in Bowling Green. That would probably be finished tomorrow, Tuesday.

“That’s what I’ve got,” Gene said. “You guys have anything to report, anything to add?”

“Do you have anything special laid on for tonight?” Harlan asked. “What pattern we do have says it’ll be tonight.”

“Right. Northeast Ohio and Northwest Pennsylvania,” Gene said. “We’re still working out exactly what we need to say in the bulletin, if there is one. You know that the minute we issue an internal, it will be external in seconds, and we’re still taking a beating about the Bowling Green thing. There’s even talk of some Congressional Committee wanting to call hearings.”

“There goes another chunk of my tax dollars,” Gloria said. “Idiots.”

“Can you just put some kind of ‘watch for this car’ thing?” Harlan asked. “With the two hits you have from the motel data, couldn’t you even supply a tag number?”

“What you’re suggesting is a variation on the ‘person of interest’ label, and you’ve seen what the press does with that one,” Gene replied. “Even as close as we are, we could still lose this guy, and I don’t want to do that.”

“Same here,” both Gloria and Harlan said.

“We will use the network, person to person, with senior guys in Ohio and Pennsylvania, people we know and trust,” Gene said. “Even there it gets tricky. We know the guy has a firearm and has used it. You can’t just tell an officer to watch for a vehicle without also saying the driver may be armed and dangerous.”

“How do you think you could lose him now?” Gloria asked.

“Literally, all we have is a real good case for opportunity and means,” Gene explained. “Literally, that’s it. What we don’t have is anything that ties him directly to any of the victims. Now, we are confident that a good crime scene unit will be able to find stuff in the house and in the car. If you knew that and it was you who were in jeopardy, what would you do?”

“I suppose I could have an unfortunate fire,” Harlan said. “I guess the car could be in the garage when the fire broke out.”

“Right,” Gene said. “With all of the evidence up in smoke, we would have nothing. We’d be sure, no doubt, that it was him, but that doesn’t count for much.”

“So, we all have to be careful not to trigger a fire,” Gloria said.

“Which brings me right back to the idea of a bulletin or even a back-channels alert,” Gene said. “I don’t think it is a good idea. My focus is on putting this guy out of business before the next one. This one is, for all intents and purposes, history.”

“Can you ask for license plate numbers to be noted without stirring up too much fuss?” Harlan asked.

“Yeah, I can do that,” Gene said. “If it strikes gold, it will be another plus on the opportunity argument. That’s what I’ll do. Starting this evening, do you think?”

“I guess you have to, based on our information,” Harlan said.

“But, you don’t think it’ll be tonight?” Gene probed.

“Just a hunch with absolutely no science,” Harlan said, “I think it’ll be tomorrow.”

“Right,” Gene said. “The other thing I need to lay on quietly is a Tuesday morning sweep of the cloverleafs. How many, do you think?” Gene was pushing and he knew it.

“Ten or twelve, maybe,” Harlan answered.

“Can you do that without alerting the press?” Gloria asked.

“Probably not,” Gene answered. “Maybe I should postpone the sweep until Wednesday.”

“It’s not like it’ll matter if it’s Wednesday,” Harlan said. “Probably less likely to trigger a fire.”

“Will you all be around tomorrow?” Gene asked.

“You can always get us on the phone,” Harlan answered, or, rather, didn’t answer.

“Okay, and thanks for all the work you’ve done,” Gene said. “When this is wrapped up, there are some folks who want to meet you two. Good bye.”

It had been so long since Harlan and Gloria had prepared for a one-night trip, using the Blazer instead of the RV, that they didn’t know where to start or what to do. Harlan sat down and put together a priority list. It included the video camera with a new stick, fully charged battery, spare battery, chargers for the phones and the camera, hands-free earpieces for the phones, and the big lantern, the one that looked like an automobile headlight mounted atop a battery case. When all of those were assembled in one place, he brought out his Kermit chair. It was disassembled and in the cloth carrying tube.

Gloria sorted through the various thermoses and picked two, one for her in the car and one for Harlan in the cloverleaf. She wouldn’t need extra-warm clothing but Harlan would. He would have the silk underwear, the longjohns, his Gortex riding suit, thermal boots, and a balaclava helmet. When they had all of that assembled, they stopped.

“What else?” Gloria asked.

“A flashlight for you in the car?” Harlan asked.

“Already there.”

“Other than a toothbrush, I guess we’re ready,” Harlan said.

“Want to go?” Gloria asked.

“I’m ready. I’ll start checking the locks and alarms,” Harlan said, and headed outdoors to check on his kitchen. Gloria placed all of the gear on the table into a tote bag and walked it down the hall to the garage door. She loaded the back seat of the Blazer and returned to the kitchen, checking for anything left behind. Harlan was coming down from the kitchen, and Gloria checked the locks on the windows. When everything was set, they left through the garage door, Gloria driving.

Gloria was not comfortable driving the big RV, so Harlan shouldered all of the driving duty when they traveled. Driving the Blazer, Gloria took over. Driving easily, they still faced a solid seven hours on the road, putting them in the vicinity of the cloverleaf by three.

The drive was easy. The roads were nearly empty as they cut across Indiana into Ohio. They had no way of knowing that they passed within a mile of Jerry’s house. They decided to use the route that would take them to the top of Ohio and into Pennsylvania before dropping down on I-79 toward Pittsburgh. They reached the target cloverleaf and drove the complete set of circles, then exited to check out the road they had spotted on the aerial. Around the bend and out of sight on the Interstate, they did find a lane that led to a field. It would be easy to back the Blazer in and out of sight. This was one of the times that Gloria was glad she had prevailed in choosing the deep blue paint for the car. At night, it was doubtful that a passing car would even notice her. A white paint job, Harlan’s preference, would have stood out like a sore thumb.

The returned to the Interstate and retraced their steps to the exit with a Motel 6 sign showing above the tree tops. They checked in for one night. They didn’t want it for sleeping, but it would be easier for Harlan to get into his thermal layers and make his one, last pit stop in the privacy of the room. First they found a place to eat and relaxed as much as possible. By eight, they were back in the room, thermoses filled with fresh coffee. Harlan stripped down and built his thermal suit, starting with the silk underwear. In less than ten minutes, he was ready to go and needed to go. Inside temperatures and thermal suiting were not a good match.

They agreed not to worry about phone bills and to use the hands-free earpieces to be in constant contact. In case contact was dropped, Harlan set his ringer to completely off and set up auto answer. That way, Gloria could always reestablish contact without making a noise at just the wrong time.

At nine, Gloria pulled the Blazer off on the inside shoulder of the cloverleaf, all the way at the bottom. Harlan had surmised that carrying the body uphill, when downhill was possible, is not the sort of thing the guy would do. So he entered at the bottom. Gloria followed him into the area and helped him scan and pick the likely dump spot. Then they looked around for the best possible place for Harlan to hide.

Harlan assembled his Kermit chair by feel, in the dark. He set it next to the chosen tree and moved it around to get it level. He was set up with the tree on his right side. He put the video camera, the flashlight and the thermos on the ground where his hand would naturally settle on them when he sat.

“Gloria,” he said, softly but not whispering, “back away and try to see me.” He sat and pulled the balaclava down over his face and adjusted the eyeholes. His hand rested comfortably on his equipment.

He heard the sound of Gloria moving backward through the brush.

“Hell, I can’t see you at all. Once you pulled that thing over your face, you disappeared. I didn’t even need to back away.”

“Time check,” Harlan said.

“It’s nine-fifteen,” Gloria answered, her face lighted by the glow of her cell phone. Harlan’s phone was tucked inside the suit for just that reason.

“Time to make our phone calls and for you to go set up,” Harlan said.

Gloria punched a speed dial into her phone and waited for Bobbie to answer.

“Hey, Bobbie, it’s Gloria,” she said. “Guess where I am.” She listened for a moment and handed the phone to Harlan. “She wants to talk to you.”

“Evening, Bobbie,” Harlan said. Then he was quiet for a moment. “Bobbie, the most dangerous part of the whole thing was driving here on the Interstate. I am confident that nothing violent is going to happen.” Another pause. “Will you sleep with your phone next to your ear? Good. As soon as either something or nothing happens, we’ll call you. If you have to call us for any reason, call Gloria’s line. She’ll be able to answer. I won’t. Okay. Bye.”

“Now, Betty,” Gloria said, taking the phone back and keying the speed dial. She handed the phone over to Harlan.

“Betty, it’s Harlan,” he said. “No, nothing’s happened. Gloria and I are at the cloverleaf. I have my camouflage all set and Gloria is about to abandon me. I expect our guy to show around two.” A pause. “We spoke to Gene yesterday. He knows the general area but, no, we didn’t tell him the exact location and we didn’t say we would be here. Now, do you want a call from us if and when something happens?”

“Okay, then,” Harlan said, “only good news. If you have to reach us, call Gloria’s line. Betty, we really do think this is it and you know we couldn’t have got here without you. Thanks from both of us.”

“That’s it,” Harlan said, handing the phone back to Gloria. “You need to get going. When you get set up, call me, and we’ll make sure that works.”

Gloria didn’t say anything. She stepped over and hugged him, turned, and walked away. Harlan stayed standing. There would be enough sitting to come, and he didn’t want to stiffen up more than necessary. It was going to be a long wait.