TCE

Mark Bolt had been with the Bureau just one year but the quality of his reports filtering back to Washington had brought him to the notice of the Director. On the eve of Special Agent Bolt’s transfer to DC the Bureau Chief telephoned him personally.

Bolt tried to maintain a respectful tone but he knew he was in for disappointment. The San Antonio field office was deemed a punishment detail where agents were sent to be toughened up, and it was particularly hard on agents who were married.

When it came it was every bit as bad as he thought it would be. Bolt’s transfer to Washington to work on counter-espionage was put on hold until he solved a simple homicide smack in the middle of the country. The Director took this one personally, and so, natch, the FBI did as well.

“You’ll be coordinating with Special Agent in Charge Claude Colson on this one,” he said. “Do you know him?”

Bolt could only answer that he knew Colson was the SAC at a division of the Bureau known only as DECON, but none of his associates knew what the initials meant.

“In Claude’s pretty little head,” the Chief said with a nervous chuckle, “DECON stands for Domestic Enemies Containment, Observation, and Neutralization. But to me, you, the other agents and most important of all, Congress, Colson heads up the Special Projects section.”

“I understand sir,” said Bolt. “But what if, by some misfortune, my work runs at cross-purposes to those of SAiC Colson? Which case takes precedence?”

“You have the upper hand. You are to mesh with Colson where practical but your reports go directly to DC. Also you will have the complete cooperation of the local law enforcement community, such as it is. Not even Colson has that. But bear in mind Headwater is a small town at the ragged edge of nowhere. You will be shocked to find it lacking in most basic amenities.”

The Director wrapped up with a few more details, saying Agent Bolt this and Agent Bolt that. In twenty years Mark Bolt would draw close enough to the Chief that he would just be called ‘Bolt’ but he’d never be on a first-name basis like ‘Claude’ and that would suit him fine.

Bolt did win one important concession. He received permission to draw a Bureau sedan so his wife could proceed to DC as originally planned while he took his own car north through most of Texas and three other states to fix this burr under the Director’s saddle.

One summer head up the Big Muddy to St. Louis and hang a left. Now you’re on the Missouri, the longest river in North America. Go upriver past Sioux City, Iowa and hang a left again on the Niobrara River. Head west until you’re walking in a dry river bed. You missed it. Back up. The New River is a shorter tributary of the Niobrara, yet it has a year-round flow despite winding across the most arid grasslands of the high plains. Bison used to reliably congregate at the edge of the New River to drink, and the hunters of the People knew it. But Headwater has nothing for tourists, even when it wasn’t wartime and there were tourists to be had. The view from the top of Green Dome was out over miles of nothing. If you were from out of town you were probably there to get hitched and your extended family put you up.

Special Agent Bolt drove to the strip of land where Hoover told him the FBI had dropped a trailer. It was unoccupied. Bolt let himself in using a spare key he had obtained from the Wichita field office. The kitchen was still a kitchen, but the living room was a workspace. He checked the trailer’s two bedrooms and saw they contained two cots apiece. So the trailer could sleep four agents. Before anyone else arrived he shat, showered, and shaved to make himself presentable once again after two days and two nights on the road.

When he was finished Bolt was still alone in the trailer, so he helped himself to files stacked on the desks. One of them, with brittle yellowed paper that Bolt instinctively handled with great care, was a report on the final days of Fort Price. The report contained pages from the commanding officer’s journal and testimony of the six surviving soldiers, including one officer who said he saw something quite remarkable.

Mark Bolt stopped reading the Fort Price file when he heard the sound of a vehicle’s tires crunching up to the FBI trailer. Bolt already met Claude Colson at the handshaking ceremony the previous year when the Chief inspected his graduating class but this fellow wasn’t he. When the agent came in Bolt thought the man looked more movie gangster than g-man, investigatee more than investigator, and somewhat later he learned he was one of the very few liberal Democrats to be accepted into the Bureau. “Are you William Mark Bolt?” the newcomer asked.

Bolt, who had been sitting ramrod straight in his chair, now stood ramrod straight on his feet and extended his hand. ‘Just Mark Bolt, please.’ And the newcomer remarked on their mutual good fortune, as he was Bill Sloane, and two Williams would have been confusing.

Sloane approached the desk to see what Bolt had been reading, amused by Mark’s body language which seemed to dare him to say something derogatory about the presumption. “Ah yes, Cowboys and Indians,” he said when he saw the material a bit closer. “How far did you get?”

“The Indians dropped a couple cows,” Bolt replied, “and the Cowboys dropped a couple Indians. If you hadn’t shown up, Bill, I’m sure I would have plowed my way through to the part where the US Army lost their fort. A lifetime ago. Is this one of Colson’s special projects?”

“DECON,” Sloane said. “Domestic Enemies Containment, Observation, and Neutralization. I’m sure the Director told you this was Special Projects but my advice to you is to play along with Special Agent in Charge Colson on this. At least until you break the murder case.”

Bolt silently absorbed this and nodded once, clearly accepting the advice. He donned his overcoat and said, “Where is Colson, by the way? I’ve only just arrived from the San Antonio office and the Director gave me almost nothing in the way of a briefing before I departed.”

“Colson is waiting for you at what qualifies for a hospital in this tiny hamlet,” Sloane said. “It’s practically a one-room log cabin. He’s with Dr. Ian Trochmann. I’ll take you there, but I won’t be staying. I’m still looking for a fugitive, one Jael Zinter.”

As Bill Sloane drove Mark Bolt to the hospital to take over the murder investigation he pointed at the mountain to the right. “Green Dome is one of the five highest points in the state but to look at it it’s nothing much, is it. That’s where the Indians retreated when the cowboys started shooting.”

“And over there,” Special Agent Bolt said, pointing left over the dashboard, “must be the north bank of the river where the cowboys managed to get their herd. What happened next? You got me wondering how the Army lost a fort and why Colson gives a damn about all this.”

Sloane shrugged, because the report was incomplete and he truly didn’t know. “It’s just a little brother to Custer’s Last Stand. One thing that really strikes me about the Indian wars was how the Indians gave as well as they got. They could shoot their arrows faster than we could reload our rifles. We only beat them with starvation.”

“Starvation, breechloaders, and the fact that they weren’t really as bloodthirsty as people make them out to be. Counting coup was the wartime equivalent of touch football. They went to war like we go to baseball games.”

They arrived at Headwater’s only hospital where they saw a plump nurse in her fifties wheeling out a shivering boy with bandaged stumps where his feet should have been. She was followed by Deputies Bill and Bob wheeling out one boy apiece, each one with identical injuries.

Special Agent Bill Sloane led Bolt up the walkway and made the first introductions. “Bolt, this is nurse Ella Fader, and in the wheelchair is young Scott Hilling. Ella, this is FBI Special Agent Mark Bolt.”

Bolt couldn’t help grinning at her name. She shook her head to warn him off. Sloane introduced Deputy Bob Lurz pushing Johnny Sunkel, and Deputy Bill Holsinger pushing Larry Porter. Bolt wondered aloud why they were being rolled out to see the snow.

Deputy Bob said, “Special Agent in Charge Claude Colson was of the mind they needed fresh air for about an hour.”

Bolt remarked on the similarity of their injuries.

Sloane said, “The Indians around here used to believe if they could make a captive scream his shade would be their servant in the afterlife. Some still remember. Not quite the touch football you mentioned earlier. There was a young Indian fellow in this little clinic a few days ago who was flogged.”

“Flogged.”

“Goes by the name of Gabriel Shybear. I think these three boys did it, and I think Gabriel’s friends worked them over with knives as payback. But nobody is talking. Nobody wants to name names.”

“Oh, there you are Bolt,” SAIC Claude Colson said when they went inside. Bolt remembered his oblong face and searing gaze from last year at Quantico when he inspected the graduating class 15 with the Director.

The sheriff was also there and Bill Sloane made the introduction, “Special Agent Mark Bolt, this is Sheriff Roy Sternbach.”

Mark decided to hit the ground running. As he shook Roy’s hand he looked at his watch and said, “Sheriff, it’s quarter of four and I am now assuming responsibility for this investigation. The Bureau expects your full cooperation and pulling rank is never my preference.”

“Special Agent Bolt, this department will make every effort to aid with your investigation. But I have to wonder, why start with this case? A few years ago there was another murder over the state line. My father reported it up to the Bureau but he was told to handle it locally.”

Bolt said, “I don’t know the particulars of your father’s case. In this one the deceased is already involved in a DECON investigation by Special Agent in Charge Colson, and whoever perpetrated the crime left her body across three states. That action deliberately antagonized the Director.”

Colson appeared pleased by Bolt’s can-do attitude and that he didn’t need to be reminded of his preferred term for the Special Projects section. He suspected Sloane was instrumental there. Sheriff Roy introduced another man, still wearing scrubs, as Dr. Wahkan.

And still another man was donning scrubs. He was introduced as Dr. Ian Trochmann, part of Colson’s DECON project, preparing to perform the autopsy all over again for the federal side of the house. Roy didn’t think there’d be much of the girl left after that.

Dr. Wahkan raised a bloody gloved hand and said, “You’ll understand if I don’t shake your hand, Agent Bolt.”

Colson said, “Dr. Wahkan has completed what is no doubt a thorough autopsy but that makes both him and the Sheriff, privy to information that I consider sensitive.”

Bolt was puzzled. “What do you mean, sir? What did he find?”

Dr. Wahkan removed his gloves in a careful, clever way that avoided any contact with his skin and started to remove his overgarment, knowing that he was finished. He began, ‘The deceased was a Caucasian female. The deceased is known from her appearance to be one Ariel Anne Zinter of Headwater, seventeen years of age, high school student and a vocalist in the church choir. Fingerprints were taken. The deceased has been dead for approximately eighteen hours with little evident decay as she was discovered outdoors in sub-freezing weather. I counted thirteen deep knife wounds to the chest. Six of these wounds pierced the heart and were the proximate cause of death. The actual cause of death was exsanguination, or in layman’s terms, the deceased bled out. The size of each wound suggests something larger than a pocket knife but smaller than a hunting knife.”

“Please get to the good part, Doctor,” said Colson, visibly agitated.

“The external genitalia of the decedent consists of a flexible muscular ring rather than folds of skin, suggesting a birth defect of some sort. Otherwise, the interior reproductive organs appear to be normal.”

“Doctor, you’re forgetting the elephant in the room,” said Colson. “And this elephant has tusks.”

Dr. Wahkan sighed and got to it. ‘Protruding through the scalp at the back of the head of the deceased are two white structures of keratin and bone that curve over the top of the head in a semicircle and narrow to points over the forehead. As skin tumors they are remarkably well-formed and appear to be benign.”

“That is the sensitive information,’ Colson said. “Nurse Fader is not to know, even the deputies are not to know.”

Colson regretted that Sheriff Sternbach, who was present at Wahkan’s autopsy, couldn’t be sliced out of the loop like the deputies and the nurse had been. He said, “Have you ever seen the like before, Doctor Wahkan?”

Wahkan said, “Last May this girl’s mother brought her to me. Her brother Jael came in too. In Jael the horns were already as you see here, but on Ariel the skin was not broken. She had two bumps on the back of her head.”

“What did you tell them, Doc?” Colson asked. ‘That it was just a tick bite? Did you even take X-rays? We both know you did not. That leads me to believe you have seen this halo structure before, perhaps many times before. Doctor Wahkan, is that, in fact, the case?”

After considering his reply, Doctor Wahkan said, “If I answer one way, I’m lying to a federal agent, which is a crime. And if I answer another way, I’m breaking doctor-patient confidentiality. So you will understand my position when I don’t speak of this to you at all.”

“You should be more worried about losing your license to practice medicine after failing to help me shut down what could very well be an infectious outbreak.”

“Special Agent Colson,” growled Wahkan, “if you truly believed the girl was contagious you wouldn’t even be in the same building with her body.”

To this Claude had nothing more to say. Dr. Trochmann flashed a raised eyebrow and wry smile at Colson, as if to say, He’s got you.

“Excuse me, sir,” said Bolt, “but do you think this girl’s bone cyst or whatever it is will have any bearing on the murder investigation?”

“This bone cyst and how the girl got it is part of a DECON investigation in Headwater. Her murder complicates things somewhat. It becomes a Bureau case too, but we’re not currently set up to carry it out. I put in a call to the Director, and here you are. But there is a young man with the same symptoms. I presume he’s still alive and hiding somewhere in this very, very small town. So, Special Agent Sloane, I thank you for fetching Special Agent Bolt, but you know what, and you know when.”

“I do indeed, sir,” said Sloane. He put on his gray fedora, tipping it to the sheriff, the two doctors, and Bolt as he made his farewell. Before he left he turned to Colson and asked, “And the people freezing outside, sir, shall I send them back in?”

“Not now,” Colson replied, and he made a small gesture to Trochmann. The DECON doctor took up an electric reciprocating saw and began to separate Kim’s head from her body, heedless of the storm of blood and gristle that he unleashed and the loud objections of Wahkan.

Sheriff Sternbach found a sudden need to be outside and Sloane followed him. On the way out they heard Dr. Wahkan say, “Agent Colson, my prayer is that you find whatever you are looking for quickly, and never again return to Headwater. Not even uncivilized men treat their dead in this manner.”

Sheriff Sternbach heard Special Agent Mark Bolt’s stomach growl and guessed the man might not have eaten since breakfast. He invited Bolt to dine out.

Bolt heartily agreed, so long as the sheriff remembered not to talk about the case in the restaurant. That gave Roy very little time to bring Bolt up to speed. He decided on Bea’s Chicken Inn only five blocks east of the hospital. Headwater wasn’t a large town. Roy took him over in the half-ton truck and along the way Bolt invited him to spill out what he had uncovered up to that point.

Roy said, “We have what is very likely the murder weapon, and it has fingerprints. We have many photographs of the scene with tire and boot marks in snow.” Then he pointed out of the windscreen to the left. “That house coming up is the home of the deceased. I made contact with her twin sister there, one Robyn Hurst, who was not a resident of Headwater until recently. She already knew Ariel was dead and described the murder weapon to a tee. I didn’t bring her in because I knew this was going to be the Bureau’s case from the gitgo. And some of the other things she said were plum crazy.”

“After we eat I want to visit a judge. I want you to get a warrant to arrest Robyn Hurst. Let’s see how crazy she is then.”

Bea’s Chicken Inn was kitty-corner to Robyn’s house. When Roy pulled into the parking lot he gave Bolt one more item from the case. “I wanted to let you know we have a lead on the owner of the murder weapon. My deputies are set to move tomorrow unless you call it off.”

“Why would I do that?”

“The source of the lead was the aforementioned Robyn Zinter. But the lead is too good to risk passing up.”

“Do you think she’s indulging in misdirection, sheriff?”

“I can’t figure her out at all. She expresses zero sorrow for her sister. None. If I understood her correctly, Agent Bolt, this Robyn is not choked up over her sister’s death because she thinks she’s somehow a copy of her sister from just before she was murdered. She’s intelligent and sweet but half the things that come out of her mouth make no sense at all.”

“I can’t wait to meet her,” he said. “But first, Bea’s Chicken Inn, you say? Did you know I haven’t had a bite since early this morning in Witchita?”

“Then you’re in luck, Agent Bolt, homestyle fried chicken is Bea’s forte. I wanted to put Headwater’s best foot forward.”

“When they went inside and were seated in a booth Roy remarked that the place was much less busy that it used to be on weeknights. “Coal mining was the mainstay of the town and that’s drying up.”

Bolt said, “I heard wartime meat rationing will start in a month or two.”

Roy nodded. “Places like this won’t close up, but they’ll have to collect ration cards from customers and put them all together to get resupplied. I suppose it’ll be even less crowded then.” He shrugged. “Tell me about yourself, Agent Bolt. Why did you choose the FBI?”

“I have a law degree,’ Bolt said, ‘and I was leaning toward the intersection of business and government, but the war intervened. In wartime our country becomes, temporarily, a military dictatorship with all hands on deck. So as with your coal miners here my work dried up.”

“Your education was not criminal law?”

“Well, make no mistake, Sheriff Sternbach, I was immersed in criminal law at Quantico. But the crimes that draw my attention aren’t the kind that happen in towns like Headwater. I want to go after spies.”

The waitress came to take their order, and both men, knowing they would later visit a judge at his own home after working hours, refrained from ordering wine. She took the menus but left the two silver half-dollar coins that had been on the table when the men were seated.

“The people who ate at this table before us were from the Red Wing of the Church,” Roy said confidently.

“How do you know?”

He gestured at the two coins. “Those half-dollars. 1942. The mint mark should be D for Denver, but they’ll both be O because the die was worn and nobody caught it in time.

Mark Bolt looked at both coins and confirmed that Roy’s guess was true. “How strange. But what’s the connection to the Red Wing?”

“There’s a fellow I know here who runs a pawn shop, he brought these to my attention. Normally a mint mark of O would make these collectible. This fellow looked into it and found out the Denver Mint had struck about a hundred of these flawed fifty-cent pieces before their quality control spotted the problem and halted the run. But there are many more than a hundred of them circulating here in Headwater. Everywhere you go in Headwater you’ll see them, always from the Red Wing, usually retirees living on social security, this old fellow gets a tube for his radio at the hardware store and leaves some half-dollars, that old lady gets her hair done and leaves another stack.”

“Do you think somebody in Headwater is actually counterfeiting coins?”

“If they are, Agent Bolt, I really don’t see how they would profit by it. If you melt a silver half-dollar down all you get is a half-dollar’s worth of raw silver bullion.

“But Pawn Shop Man says the little O under ‘In God We Trust’ makes it collectible.”

“Sure, if there was only a hundred of them. There’s probably a hundred thousand of them now and they’re breeding. I chalk it down to one of the many unexplained things about this town.”

“There’s more?”

“There’s much more, Agent Bolt, as you’ll find out after we eat and the judge eats and Robyn eats and we go visit them. Take the New River for one. It’s the only creek in the tri-state area that flows year-round from its source. Geologists cannot explain it. The hill is named Green Dome, but nobody knows what makes it so green.”

“And there seems to be an outbreak of giantism in this town,” said Bolt.

“You’ve seen that, huh? You saw Ariel’s body lying down, but wait until you see Robyn standing up. She’ll tower over you. And there’s men in Headwater taller still.”

The waitress arrived with their food. The sheriff withheld his reply until after they were served. Then he said, “My guess is Special Agent in Charge Colson is running that particular mystery to ground. But I don’t want to break your rule and talk about active cases while we’re eating.”

They stopped conversing and ate while Mark Bolt expressed his appreciation for the food with grunts and eyebrow gestures. After a time Roy asked, “How many spies have you caught, Agent Bolt?”

“None so far,” Mark admitted. “I’ve only been with the Bureau for one year. Half of ’42 was spent at the Academy and in DC, and for the rest of the year I was in Texas in hot field offices doing little more than interviewing references people had listed when they applied for government jobs. Hardly the exciting life of a g-man that I envisioned.”

“How’s the pay?”

“About sixty a week.”

“Not shabby at all, Special Agent Bolt.”

“What is shabby is having to pick up and move every few months. My wife and I were in the middle of another move to DC so I could catch spies like I wanted, but I got diverted here.”

“How long have you been married?”

“Just four years, Sheriff Sternbach. The Director moves agents around for no better reason than to ‘toughen them up’ as he puts it, and he will never understand the toll it takes on the families of those agents. But somehow my beautiful girl still puts up with me.”

Scissors, paper, rock, two out of three times, and Deputy Bob Lurz had to be the one to climb into the garbage truck at the place where 6th made a little jog north and 7th took its place. Alfred Shoenherr lived on N Street and 6th. Deputy Bill Holsinger drove down to L and 7th.

The fellow driving the truck and the fellow dumping the cans were duly deputized. At O street Bob was told that Alfred Shoenherr was making a last minute addition of a grocery bag to the can already out on the street. Two more pickups and Bob had this grocery bag in his hands.

“Jesus Christ, Bob, you reek!” gasped Bill when his partner piled into the truck with the evidence.

“All in the line of duty. Look what we got.” He let Bill peek inside at a wooden knife block. The handles were the same as the murder weapon. One blade was missing.

“So it’s Alfred Shoenherr for sure,” said Deputy Bill. “I’m with the sheriff on this one. When the perpetrators make catching them this easy it’s no fun at all.”

“There should be nothing fun about any of this, Bill,” his partner admonished. “Ariel Zinter is dead.”

At the sheriff’s station the deputies, Roy Sternbach, and even Special Agent Mark Bolt donned gloves before the knife holder was removed from the grocery bag. Photographs were taken. One blade was removed and photographed next to the tagged murder weapon for comparison. The knife handles were not identical, but that was to be expected in a hand-crafted set. Everything was dusted for fingerprints and photographed as well. Bolt began to interrogate the deputies as though he were some pricey city lawyer Shoenherr might retain.

“Are you sure this came from Mr. Shoenherr’s house, Deputy?”

“I counted four stops after I got in the truck. There are three houses between the Shoenherr place and where I crawled inside.”

“But did you actually see that you were in front of his house?”

“No, Agent Bolt. I was inside the garbage truck.”

Deputy Bill shook his head when Bolt glanced at him. He had also been well out of sight. “But the driver of the garbage truck and the pick-up man both said they saw Alfred Shoenherr throw this bag in his trash can just before they picked it up,” he said.

When Agent Bolt absorbed all this he looked simultaneously pleased and troubled. “Sheriff Sternbach, I’m pleasantly surprised by what you’ve managed to get so far, but I wonder if you do see the glaring hole in our case?”

Sternbach nodded. “I do, Special Agent Bolt.”

“I can give you their names if you wish, Agent Bolt,” said Bill “The trash men were deputized for this operation just like the Sheriff told us to do. That gives them legal standing. ”

“It also gives them elevated responsibility, Bill,” said Roy, “and I hope you explained that to them when you swore them in.”

Deputy Bob said, “If it’s any help, right after the Shoenherr stop the guy driving the truck immediately took me around the corner and three blocks away to meet up with Bill out of sight. They knew what we were after. This bag came from the Shoenherr house, no doubt about it.”

That made Bolt relax a bit. He said, “I think we’re ready to see Judge Porter. We might have just enough now to fingerprint both Mr. and Mrs. Shoenherr.”

Sheriff Sternbach approached a large cork board to look at photographs pinned thereupon. “And if his boots and tires match what we posted here, Special Agent Bolt, then we will have a little bit more than just enough.”

Bolt nodded with obvious pleasure. The case was only starting but so far it was moving very rapidly, much to his satisfaction.