“Maybe there’s a warrant out on him. Of course, that’s
· . . five years ago. I don’t know. Depends on how bad the bureau wanted to talk to him. It’s worth a try. We’ll see what’s outstanding from that period.” He jotted a note to himself. Then he put down the pencil and shook his head.
“This could be anything,” he said. “He could have worked in a government office that was robbed or something like that
· . . I mean He shrugged hopelessly. “We conceivably would interview seventy-five, one hundred people in a situation like that.”
“I figure this way,” Keegan said. “Whatever it was, he had a little time to make his run before the G-men got there. I mean, this guy disappeared from someplace where he was probably known by the locals. He had to move fast before the feds got there and still not look suspicious. So I’m guessing it was probably a small town, possibly in the Midwest somewhere, a place it would have taken your people an hour or two to get to.”
“Maybe he was just real cautious,” Dryman offered.
“That still doesn’t narrow down the categories,” Kirbo answered. “I’ll tell you what. Why don’t we start from the beginning. All these files have a cover sheet—the agent in charge always makes a report, kind of a summary of the case, and they are pretty complete. The director doesn’t react well to sloppy work. That cover sheet is backed up by all the testimony gathered in the investigation. If Mr. X was so nervous he took a powder, my guess is that he was either witness to something or knew somebody involved in some kind of criminal activity. I doubt that he would just run like that unless he was sure the bureau would turn up his identity problem. So, first round, let’s narrow it down. We’re looking for a missing witness or person involved in a federal crime in a small Midwest town.”
“I say we start the first week in March and check the cover sheets
They worked long hours, rarely leaving the file room before ten or eleven P.M. In the first week they waded through more than three hundred folders and dozens of old warrants and had set aside two dozen cases involving missing witnesses, suspects or fugitives. Most of those case folders involved known criminals who had “turned rabbit,” as Kirbo put it, because they were either involved in the crimes themselves or were wanted for something else. But they had to be checked out. Keegan pulled every file which, for any reason, involved missing people. The pile to be rechecked grew higher and higher.
The cases were as simple as a stolen car and as complex as a scam to embezzle hundreds of thousands of dollars from a regional office of the Department of the Interior. There were missing husbands, wives, sons and daughters sprinkled among the cases. Most were runaways peripherally involved in another crime and all quickly discarded because of age, sex or because they could easily be traced back ten or fifteen years by friends or family members.
They flew to Akron, Ohio, and Buffalo, both wild goose chases.
As one pile got smaller, the other grew. They started making phone calls, checking out the stories of what they called “maybes.” People couldn’t remember things. The amateur investigators heard a lot of rumors and gossip. Nothing struck a chord.
They flew to Pittsburgh and chased another wild goose. Dryman loved the trips. He occasionally swooped down to five hundred feet to “check out the sunbathers” or did a sudden slow roll or loop to break the monotony of a long trip. Sometimes he sang cowboy songs at the top of his lungs in his Boston accent. Flying anywhere with H.P. was never dull.
“Hey, Boss, are you ever gonna tell me what the hell this is all about?” Dryman asked as they returned from another abortive trip to Illinois.
“I doubt it.”
“Why?”
“It’s classified ‘secret.’
“Are you kidding? I got a top secret clearance. Hell, I’m checked out on the Norden bombsight. You can’t get any more secret than that.”
“You can if it’s
Keegan laughed. H.P. did a sudden snap roll that almost broke his neck.
Vanessa sighed with satisfaction and slid off Keegan, lying beside him and rubbing his chest with the palm of her hand, her left leg still stretched across his waist. He turned to her, drawing her in tight, his hands caressing her back. The only escape Keegan and Dryman had from the monotony of their daily drudgery were weekends in New York where Dryman could blow off steam and Keegan could spend time with Vanessa.
“Christ, you feel good,” he whispered.
“Thank you.”
“No,” he said. “Thank
“I don’t mean just the lovemaking.”
“For what, then?”
“Letting me come back into your life. That night, six months ago, I was terrified. I just knew you were going to run me off.”
“I could never have run you off, Vannie. Hell, we were friends long before we were lovers.”
Keegan was a man reborn, fired by two passions: Vanessa and the quest for the Nazi specter nobody else really believed existed. Before Jenny’s death, he had been a man obsessed by a consuming love, a love that had become an open wound. His feelings of culpability and remorse were confused by anger and malice. But her death had released him from his self-imposed bondage of guilt and his wrath was now directed at 27. For the first time in years he had a sense of purpose.
“You saved my life, Vannie. My God, I had stopped laughing before you came back in my life.”
She tucked her head down beside his and whispered, “Oh, how I adore you, Kee.”
