Chapter 10


The first reaction that Jake had when he opened the door was to cough. He furiously fanned the air with a squinted face and he had to ask, "what died in there?"

Bob Johnson pushed his way past his new boss and rushed into the room with a single minded determination. He ran right for the window cranks and began to let some fresh air into the corner office. After he got both sets of windows cracked he discovered the slight breeze was disturbing the dust that had settled on the boxes and tarps that were scattered around the room.

Jake built up his courage and stepped into the room. His second reaction was, "I thought you said there was already a desk in here?"

"Um," Bob started peeping under tarps and when he got a smile on his face he pulled back the canvas he was peeping under. It set off a small avalanche of junk but, did indeed display a desk top.

Jake pointed at it, "what the hell is that?"

"It's your desk," Bob replied with a smile. Then he saw what Jake was really pointing at. There was some splattered remains of local wildlife smeared across the top. What was left of the animals body was now deposited in two separate locations. Even Bob had to step back and pinch off his nose. He did comment, "I hope I didn't do that."

"From the looks of those wounds Agent," Jake told him, "I'm kind of hoping you did. Otherwise I'd hate to meet the thing that ripped that in two. What is that anyway, a miniaturized tank?"

Bob was now frantically looking around the room from a broom and dustpan. He was sure that they had left them up here, last year, sometime. As he did he explained, "a lot of the local sea life here has that scaled type of defense. Don't worry though, they're mostly harmless. They don't like the way we taste."

Jake just waved off his agent and decided to give up on seeing his new office. It was on the second floor of the building, at the end of a long hall that came out of the ops center. As near as Jake could tell, not a single room up here, save the actual ops center, had been used in years. Apparently, Jake's new command was really good in the field because it was clear that they didn't ever do anything in an office.

"This is way beyond the capabilities of your average dustpan, Agent," Jake told him. Jake also made sure the door was closed when they were both out of the room. Then he asked the agent with the tie, "where does this Barbara person do her work?"

"Oh," Johnson actually developed a smile. From the look on his face he obviously had expected a much harder question, "well she has a little work station set up down in the room that her and her daughter live in."

Jake pointed down at the floor, "she actually lives here with a kid? On purpose?" Jake did not wait for an answer. He started walking back towards Ops. It might not be tidy but, at least, it was relatively clean. As he walked back down the hall, with Johnson in tow, he had to ask, "so do all you guys live here?"

"Oh hell no," Johnson said with a matter of pride. Jake took that to mean he didn't actually live here. Johnson confirmed it as he explained, "just Barbara and Shannon, her daughter, along with Cal, Danni, and... Oh! Yeah, I guess I should count Chuck."

"Who's Chuck," Jake asked as he finally made it back into the ops center.

"He's our mechanic," Bob explained. "He keeps the helicopters flying and the boats from sinking. Only he lives out at the hanger. He doesn't come down here too much. I don't think him and Barbara get along all that well."

Under his breath, Jake mumbled, "big fucking surprise there."

It did not seem as if Johnson noticed the mumbling, "and of course there's Tony."

"Tippet," Jake added as he turned the corner rail to walk down the staircase.

Johnson hung right on his heels, "yeah. He doesn't actually live here, well not most of the time anyway. He hangs out here enough he might as well." Almost as an after thought, Bob added, "we got plenty of room if you need a place."

"Thanks," Jake said as he walked in the commissary, "I'll get a hotel room." Jake stopped behind Calvin who was sitting next to the computer work station. Jake asked him, "find anything?"

Cal thumped his computer screen and the printer next to it began to whirl to life. Jake could not help but think about the last time he heard a printer make that kind of sound. Then he realized it was never. Cal pulled the paper out of the chute and summed it up for Jake as he read, "just got that file in from KKH Motors. That's the number of possible Vehicle Identification Numbers that could fit what you had."

Jake pointed to the paper, "this is good news. There's only like twenty registrations on here."

"Twenty-three actually and, yeah, that much is the good news," Cal said with a certain tone in his voice that spelled out there was a down side to this. "Turns out that kind of VIN is only for pick up trucks and they only have ten characters instead of fourteen. Those are also all older models. The new ones have a hell of a lot more."

"So," Jake shrugged, "what's the catch?"

"Well they don't have a clue who owns them," Cal said. The dumbfounded look form the new boss told Cal he had best explain, "KKH just makes 'em. They don't sell 'em."

That did nothing to dispel the dumfounded look. Jake huffed and said, "you people don't have something like a DMV on this rock? How do you collect taxes if you don't know who owns what?"

Johnson pointed at the paper and said, "yeah we do but they track plate's and not VIN numbers."

Now Jake growled, "that's got to be the stupidest thing I ever heard. What if…"

Cal nodded and broke in with, "yeah the auto theft lobby on this rock has quite some influence."

"OK," Jake waved his hands around and decided to pursue another angle, "the dealers have to track this stuff. Why don't we call them?"

Cal just shrugged, "I'll give it a try but, remember, older models. We don't even know if the lot that sold it is in business any more."

Johnson perked up, "might as well start with the big ones. They've been in business the longest. There's only three or four of them on the whole island."

Once again, Jake saw a down side despite the fact that Johnson sounded optimistic. Maybe that was the problem? He sounded just a little too much so. Jake asked, "and how many small dealers?"

Cal did not sound as enthused as Johnson when he said, "close to fifty, probably."

Well that made it clear, at least, to Jake it did. He handed the paper back to Cal and said, "well get everybody in here and let's start calling."

Cal dropped the paper on his small desk and then he diplomatically brought up a point by first asking if he could. When he got the go ahead he said, "remember we're not just calling all these dealers. We're asking them to run over twenty something numbers too."

"So?" Jake replied.

"Well," Cal tried being even more diplomatic, "you know they do have other things to do like, um, selling cars maybe? Some of them might not want to cooperate and, even the ones that do… Well, we don't know if we can even trust their records."

Jake was not sure he got the point here. He looked dumbstruck once more and then asked, "how hard can it be to run a few numbers on a computer?"

It was Johnson who pointed out, when it finally occurred to him, "yeah that would be assuming that they even have that. A lot of small businesses here don't use computers. You know we don't have anything like an internet, well, not like what you're used too."

The good news just kept rolling in as Cal brought up something else, "and that's if it was actually sold at a lot in the first place. A lot of the companies around here, rich people, anybody with a fleet of cars, buy directly from KKH, so, even if everybody we talk too cooperates and tells us the truth, which is stretching it, well, we still might not find what we're looking for."

"I don't get this," Jake told his two men. "This morning when I was rolling around in the dirt, your guy, what's his name?"

"Norm," Cal responded.

"Yeah, Norm," Jake went on. "He seemed to think we might have something. Now I don't think I'm that bad at reading people but I distinctly got the impression that the guy kind of new what he was doing."

"Well Deputy," Cal replied, "your people reading skills are right on the money. Norm was a cop here for almost twenty years before he came to work for the CG. He does know his stuff." Before Jake could respond Cal added, "but why he didn't tell you that you were wasting your time is beyond me. He should have known all this right then."

Jake huffed again, "why is it I get the feeling he did."