THE ONLY EASY DAY IS YESTERDAY
"The Journey of Jeremy Keller"
by OldScout
Part 20
Adam drove the rental car up in front of the Jordan house. Just
up the street, the remains of the morning's investigation remained, a
police cruiser was still parked in the driver and the house was sealed
with yellow police tape. A plain brown sedan sat parked in the Jordan
driveway in front of Adam's and Joe's car.
"I don't know how you talked me into this." Adam said as he
parked the rental.
"It's easy, old man, it is hard to find a rental with hand controls
in hick-vills like this, and you know it. Now lets get in there, get what
we came for and get out before anybody gets too suspicious." Joe said as
he grabbed his cane from the back seat.
Before Joe and Adam could make it to the front door, a short
black woman and a state trooper came out to meet them. The woman
was no more than 5 foot tall and very well dressed in a business suit
with slacks. "May I help you gentlemen?"
Joe approached them "I'm Joe Dawson," he said "I'm here
because I heard something happened to my Aunt Ethal." He then
indicated Adam, "and this is a friend of mine, Adam Pierson."
Adam had stopped and leaned on the hood of the car as soon as
the two had come out, he held up the keys to the car. "the chauffeur" he
said.
Agent Ropper and the Trooper introduced themselves and invited
the two men into the house.
Before the two men were all the way in, Agent Ropper spoke up
"May I ask who exactly told you of the shooting?"
Joe and Adam looked around Mrs. Jordan's living room a bit
before answering. "You know," Joe responded "I really can't tell you, one
of my bartenders took the message and didn't get the name of the caller."
"So you just hop on a plane and rush right out here on the say-so
of an anonymous caller?" the Trooper asked.
"Of course not." Joe said "I called the Sheriff's department first
to confirm. Since this is such a close knit community, I just assumed it
was a friend or neighbor who called. They all know that Aunt Ethal and
I were quite close."
As they spoke, Adam had wondered over to the computer sitting
by the front window. "Nice system." He said to no one specific.
"Perhaps you can help us with that." Agent Ropper said. "Our
guess is that she keeps a journal on it, but we can't break the password."
Anita turned on the computer bringing up a simple looking program
with a round symbol in the background and a title banner that said
"Daily Journal, Ethal Jordan."
Anita hadn't let on, but she did recognize the symbol from Mrs.
Jordan's and Peter Gattlin's wrists. She also thought she saw the edges
of it on Dawson's wrist but didn't want to say anything yet.
Joe sat down at the computer "I don't know for sure, but I can try
some passwords she may have used." he lied. He made several attempts
at the password then finally typed in a special password that made the
program wipe its files. There was no obvious sign something was
wrong until the system locked up.
"What's happening?" the Trooper asked.
Anita pushed Joe out of the way and looked at the screen, as she
watched, the computer rebooted itself and came up at the C: prompt.
She typed in a few DOS commands and found the hard drive totally
wiped. "What did you do to this?" she turned toward Dawson as he
hauled himself up on his cane.
"It must have had a fail safe for the number of bad password
attempts." Joe took a few steps away from Agent Ropper. "Now if you
don't mind, I've got work to start to take care of Aunt Ethal."
Anita had had enough, "Just a minute Mr. Dawson, there's still
something I need you to explain." she said approaching him.
"And what might that be Agent Ropper?"
Anita grabbed Joe's left arm and pulled up the sleeve revealing
his watcher tattoo. The symbol was identical to what had been on the
screen. At the same time Anita grabbed Dawson, she pulled a large
semi-automatic hand gun and pointed at Adam.
"Agent Ropper!" the Trooper said pulling his own weapon but
not knowing where to point it "What is the meaning of this?"
"I'd like to know that too." Joe put in.
"This tattoo," Anita said pointing to Joe's arm "is the same as
what was on that computer, and is just like one I saw on Mrs. Jordan
this morning."
"It's meaningless" Joe said, it's like a family crest.
"Really" Anita cocked her gun and turned to Adam "May we see
your arm, sir?"
Adam held up his arm revealing his tattoo.
"This is ridiculous" Joe said "He's a cousin."
Anita laughed "Yea right." She then turned to the Trooper,
"Would you mind searching our tall friend over there?"
The Trooper started to pat down Adam and immediately came up
with a sword hidden under his trench coat. Anita did the same with Joe
but found nothing. Then on a lark, took his cane and pulled on the top.
A long thin sword revealed itself.
Anita was grinning from ear to ear "Gentlemen, why don't we go
into the parlor and have a seat, it seems we have a lot of talking to do."
To be continued.....