The Taking of Libbie, SD (Mac McKenzie #7)

“What do you mean ‘got out of town’?”

“We found the Imposter’s rental in the lot at Lake Mataya. That’s a park about seven miles outside of Libbie on White Buffalo Road, lots of trees, picnic tables—people sometimes use it as a kind of rendezvous. Which was what I first thought when I found the car, that he went off with someone and spent the night, if you know what I mean. Except he never came back for the car. Later, I checked with the Pioneer Hotel. Turned out the Imposter left Tuesday night, left about 9:00 p.m.—that was ten days ago. He was carrying one of those personal computer bags. Sharren Nuffer called after him as he headed for the door. Just to say hi, she said. The Imposter, he waved at her and said, ‘It’s been a slice,’ and walked out. When we checked his room, we found that his bags and clothes were still there, but nothing that could identify him. That’s when I put a call in to Jon Kampa, who owns the bank. Turned out that the Imposter had electronically transferred all of the cash in his account to a bank in the Caymans at about midnight.”

“His account?”

“An account with First Integrity State Bank of Libbie. That’s what the city and the other investors poured their money into.”

“That doesn’t make sense to me.”

“Maybe if you had been here to tell everyone how dumb they were—”

“No, no, that’s not it,” I said. “I meant that him abandoning his clothes and just taking off suggests panic. It suggests that he had learned that someone was onto him and it was time to leave. If that were true, though, why park his car at the lake where it would be easily found? Why not drive to Rapid City? There are plenty of attractions, tourists, plenty of places where he could park a car and walk away—the car might not be discovered for days. That would have bought him more time to make his getaway. Why take the risk of being seen in Libbie with his shill?”

“Perhaps the shill didn’t trust him. Perhaps he wanted to be there when the Imposter made the transfer. Perhaps it was fixed so that the Imposter couldn’t make the transfer without the shill being there.”

“Do you still have his possessions, what he left in the hotel?”

“In the back. Do you want to take a look?”

When he said “in the back,” the chief meant in the room next to his small office. The Imposter’s belongings had been packed away into his own suitcases, which we opened on top of a cafeteria-style table. There was nothing there that couldn’t be easily replaced: razor, toothbrush, hairbrush, gel—plenty of stuff that could be matched to his DNA if it came to that—and lots of clothes, most of it fairly new. What shocked me was that all of the pants and shirt measurements were the same as mine—waist, inseam, sleeve length, collar. We seemed to prefer the same colors and manufacturers, too. If you hung it all in my closet, I probably wouldn’t have known the difference. There was even a pair of black Florsheim slip-on dress shoes that retailed for about a hundred bucks that were identical to a pair I owned, down to the 10? size.

“Damn,” I said.

“What?” the chief said.

“Nothing.”

I carefully examined every item, but it soon became apparent that the Imposter knew what he was doing. There was nothing unique in the suitcase, nothing that could be traced, nothing that could be used to help identify the owner.

“Do you think he’s done this sort of thing before?” I said.

“My experience, a guy doesn’t wake up one morning and decide to be an asshole. He works his way up to it.”

“You think he has a record?”

“Yep.”

“Do you have his fingerprints?”

“Yep. Sent them off to the FBI last week, ran ’em through their automated fingerprint ID system. Nothing yet.”

“If they don’t have a match in a couple of hours, you’re probably not going to get one.”

“I figured, so I sent them to the South Dakota Division of Criminal Investigation, too.”

“Let me guess. They didn’t get a hit, either.”

“Not yet.”

“Don’t hold your breath.”

For a moment, the chief looked as if he actually had been keeping it in and decided not to bother anymore.

“What about his car?” I said.

“A rental, like I said. I went through it three, four times before we had it towed back to the rental agency. Nothing. Not a gas station receipt. Not even a cigarette butt in the ashtray.”

Oh, well, my inner voice said. No one said it was going to be easy.

“I don’t suppose any longtime residents have left in the past week or so,” I said. “Or announced that they were leaving.”

“Nary a one.”

“Would you know for sure?”

“There isn’t much of a transient population. People move out—there’s been a lot of that these past few years. Not many people have been moving in. Everybody knows everybody. If you’re right, your accomplice is still here.”

“With your permission, I’ll be hanging around for a few days.”