Chapter 13
“The lady’s name is Nora Gibbs, officer,” the rental car manager said.
“She showed a California driver’s license and paid with a Visa card.
She called that day to have the rental car picked up because she didn’t feel well enough to drive.
We had a few of those during the pandemic, and sometimes when something is going around, we still do.
The Visa was good, and the car was in perfect shape, so as far as we’re concerned, she remains a good customer.
Believe me, we’d much rather pick up a car than have a customer get in an accident or something. ”
“Well, thanks,” said Officer Fenton. “I’m glad. We had this lady park an out-of-state car in the center of our business district, and it was still there twelve hours later. We thought we’d better find out if something happened to her, you know?”
“Oh, I understand,” the manager said. “It’s pretty busy around here, and we didn’t have anybody to send to get it for a while. Uh, if that’s all you needed, I’ve got a few people lining up for a car.”
“Sure,” said Officer Fenton. “Thanks for your help.” He barely got the words out before the phone went dead.
Fenton said to his partner, Campbell, “Interesting. Her name is Nora Gibbs, but she used a different name to sign in at the public defenders’ office, and she showed a California license to rent the car. ”
“That’s odd,” Campbell said. “But a lot of women use their maiden name at work and their husband’s name the rest of the time. She also might have been on a job for her boss, and signed in with the boss’s name to identify what her business was.”
“I don’t know,” Fenton said. “Those things are possible, sure. But sometimes you just get a feeling. You know, she walked around to a couple of places, and there aren’t any pictures on the security cameras that really show what she looks like.
Every single one is a big pair of sunglasses and a hat.
She only took it off for a little while, when she was facing away from the camera, then put it back on. ”
Campbell stared out the window at the street. “I’m starting to wonder if we could be developing some federal troubles.”
“What kind of federal troubles?”
“I don’t know. But this is the kind of thing that happens just before a hundred FBI agents show up and start loading your filing cabinets and computers into trucks. Strangers show up in your town looking like they’re lost and in no hurry to be found.”
Fenton shrugged. “It could happen, I suppose. But let them come. We’re honest, the DA is honest, and as far as I know, even the mayor and city council haven’t taken any bribes. In order to get bribed, I think they’d have to do something, and they barely breathe.”
“Sure we’re honest, but the feds have got thousands of investigators on their payroll, so they’ve got to find stuff for them to investigate, and it’s got to be as far from Washington as possible.”
“I only hope this doesn’t have something to do with my brother’s murder.”
“Amen,” Campbell said, but he thought, how the hell can it not?
A teenage Indian who claimed she was fighting off a rape by a twenty-six-year-old, and then a woman from a national Indian organization just happens to show up at the public defenders’ office?
Well, he had brought it up. That was about all he could do without destroying an eighteen-year friendship with his partner.
Either it would give Dave Fenton’s mind the little jolt it needed to realize there was something wrong with the whole theory of what had happened, or it wouldn’t.