thousand. The truckers have a grand for fuel, which leaves the other thousand. I’ll take ten percent. So I get a hundred dollars, and the truckers get nine. Make sense?”
“I guess. Doesn’t seem like anybody makes much.”
“It’s not a big money maker. But it’s a huge risk for me.”
“How so?”
He dropped his chair legs to the ground. “I’m like a bank. I pay the truckers their money up front so they can buy the fuel and make their mortgage or their insurance payment, or whatever, then I wait to get paid by the company in Colorado. Sometimes it takes a month or so for the money to come in.”
“So how do you stay afloat? Make a living?”
“Lots of trucks.” He grinned. “There’s one and a half million on the road at any given time. A portion are doing jobs for me.”
“How many?”
“Well, we have access to lots of independent contractors—folks with their own rigs. Sixty to seventy of them, maybe. And a few trucking companies. They’ll have thirty to forty drivers we can use. Not all at the same time, of course, but whenever we’ve got work.”
“You said they work for other brokers, too.”
“Sure. We have to share drivers sometimes.”
“So you’re competing with other brokers?”
“I guess. But competing for truckers isn’t the problem. It’s the customers that could be the sticky part.”
“How do you work that out?”
He shrugged. “Sort of an unspoken agreement. You stay away from my customers, I’ll stay away from yours.”
“And your customers—how do you get them? Advertising? Connections?” Casey waved her hand over Evan’s photos. “These trucks are carrying all kinds of stuff—not any one particular thing.”
“Customers come from word of mouth, mostly. I just had a guy call me today, said his buddy used Southwest Trucking, and recommended us. It’s all about trust, really. A guy in Idaho calls me, I can’t exactly see his eyes and shake his hand. Sometimes we use a signed contract, but most of the time…” He held out his hands. “We take people at their word that we’ll do the job and they’ll pay us.”
“Seems…old-fashioned.”
He grinned. “You don’t trust people?”
Casey looked away. “So what do these pictures show? What do you see?”
“If you don’t trust people, how come you’re here with Davey? You didn’t know him before yesterday. And you met me fifteen minutes ago.”
“I know. I guess sometimes you just…” She took a deep breath through her nose and let it out.
Davey tapped one of the photos. “So what do you see, Tom?”
Tom hesitated, but turned to his father-in-law. “Can’t tell you right off. Nothing here looks wrong, except maybe this one picture showing this guy handing a package to the other guy. Nothing illegal about that, though, unless whatever’s in the package is illegal.”
Casey looked at the photo, with Owen Dixon handing Hank Nance an envelope. “What could they be doing?”
“That’s crooked?” Tom gave a short laugh. “Any number of things. I haven’t heard anything about these folks, so I don’t have anything to go on.”
“Examples?”
“Smuggling. Stolen goods. Drugs. Illegal Immigrants. Who knows? Unless you can get something on these guys there’s no telling
Casey went quiet, staring down at the photos. “Do you know any of these truckers?”
Tom scanned their faces. “With all of those one and a half million trucks it would be…wait. This guy.” He pointed at the one Bailey’s dad had roomed with. “He looks familiar.”
“Pat Parnell. He’s from around here. Wichita.”
“Well, that’s probably it, then. More than likely I’ve dealt with him at some point, but not recently. Just a sec.” He went to his desk and typed something into his computer. “Yup. Did some jobs for me several years ago, but dropped off my radar after that.”
“What about this guy?” She showed him another one of the pictures. “Name’s Mick Halveston. Had a bad accident a while back. Killed a family when his truck flipped under an overpass.”
Tom winced. “I remember that. Never worked with him, though. I knew a broker that did.”
“He say anything about him?”
“Just that he was glad Halveston wasn’t driving for him when the accident happened.”
“And the rest of these?”
He punched in Hank Nance, John Simones, and Sandy Greene. Greene had driven for Tom several years ago, but he’d never dealt with either of the other two.
“What about the names on these manifests? We don’t have photos of these guys. Any of them sound familiar?”
He glanced over them, but shook his head. “Don’t know any. Now, that doesn’t mean they’ve never driven for me, because I can’t remember everybody, but I really don’t think so.” He keyed in their names, just in case, but none of them showed up in his driver history.
“Another question.” Casey tapped the paper. “Can you think of any reason a trucker would drive under a different name?”
He grinned. “Legally?”
“Let’s say not.”
“Then there would be lots of reasons.”
“Like?”
“If under your real name your license was suspended, you have a medical condition that prevents you from driving, you’ve had a DUI, you’re wanted by the cops…what kind of thing are you looking for?”
“Reasons these guys,” she tapped the photos, “would actually be these guys.” She tapped the stack of manifests.
“Any of those things I mentioned.” He shrugged. “Fake IDs are easy to get. You can buy a license over the Internet these days.”
“Really?”
“Might not be the greatest fakes, but they’d get past most people.”
Casey wondered how much they cost. A fake license could solve her own problems. She’d no longer have to worry about the cops or Pegasus or even her brother tracking her down. How could she get one without anyone knowing where the money from her account ended up?
Tom was still talking. “Wish I could help more.”
She shook herself. “Maybe you can. Do you have a database on your computer where you could look up any trucker you want?”
“Nope. There is such a thing, but you have to purchase it.”
“You know anybody who has one?”
“I could ask around.”
“That would be great. But…can you do it without giving too many details?”
“I can try.” He studied her face. “You look scared, Casey. What do
Casey shook her head. “I don’t know. But it’s something bad. Something worth killing for. And I really don’t want you to get in these guys’ sightlines.”
He swallowed, and glanced at Davey. “Thanks a lot, Dad.”
Davey shrugged. “When you know something’s the right thing to do, Tom, you gotta do it. You know that.”
Tom nodded, and stood up, extending his hand once again to Casey. “Here’s to doing the right thing.”
Casey clasped his hand, praying with all her might she hadn’t just brought Tom Haab an early visit from Death.
