Gray Mountain: A Novel(86)

“I’m on the road for a few days.”

“Vague enough.”

She drove into Brady just before noon and saw no one suspicious. She parked on the street near the office, and from behind her sunglasses managed to scan the area before going inside. On the one hand, she felt like an idiot; on the other, she half expected to see Bozo lurking behind a tree. And what the hell was he going to do? Stalking her would bore any private eye to death.

The Crump brood was calling. Evidently, Francine had told one of them that she had changed her mind again and planned to meet with Ms. Kofer and make no changes to her existing will. This, of course, fired up the Crumps, and they were burning up the phone lines in an effort to find Ms. Kofer and set her straight, again. No one at the clinic had heard from Francine. Samantha reluctantly took the stack of phone messages from Barb, who offered the unsolicited suggestion that she should call only one, perhaps Jonah, the oldest, and explain that their dear mother had not called the clinic, and insist that they stop harassing the front desk.

She closed her door and called Jonah. He said hello pleasantly enough, then immediately threatened to sue her and get her disbarred if she again messed with “Momma’s will.” She said she hadn’t seen nor heard from Francine in the past twenty-four hours. She had no appointment scheduled with her. Nothing. This calmed him a little, though he was ready to erupt any second.

She said, “Could it be possible that your mother is playing games with you?”

“Momma don’t think like that,” he said.

She politely asked him to call off the dogs, to ask his siblings to stop calling the clinic. He refused, and they finally brokered a deal: if Francine came to the office seeking legal advice, Samantha would ask her to call Jonah and inform him of what she was doing.

She quickly hung up, and two seconds later Barb buzzed her. “It’s the FBI,” she said.

The caller identified himself as Agent Banahan, from the Roanoke office, and said he was looking for a man named Jeff Gray. Samantha admitted to knowing Jeff Gray, and asked the agent how she might go about confirming his identity. Banahan said he would be happy to stop by her office in half an hour or so; he was in the area. She said she would not discuss anything over the phone and agreed to the meeting. Twenty minutes later, he was in the reception area being examined by Barb, who thought he was quite cute and thought of herself as quite the flirt. Banahan was not impressed and took a seat in the small conference room where Samantha and Mattie were waiting with a recorder on the table.

After terse introductions, and a close examination of his credentials by both lawyers, Mattie began by saying, “Jeff Gray is my nephew.”

“We know that,” Banahan said with a smirk, and the women instantly disliked him. “Do you know where he is?”

Mattie looked at Samantha and said, “I don’t. Do you?”

“No.” She wasn’t lying; at that moment she had no idea where Jeff was hiding.

“When did you last speak to him?” he asked, in Samantha’s direction.

Mattie interrupted by saying, “Look, his brother was killed Monday of last week; we buried him on Wednesday, five days before you boys raided his office. Under the terms of his will, Jeff is the executor and I’m the attorney for the executor. So, yes, I’ll be talking a lot to my nephew. What is it you want?”

“We have a lot of questions.”

“Do you have a warrant for his arrest?”

“No.”

“Good, so he is not evading an arrest.”

“That’s right. We just want to talk.”

“Any and all conversations with Jeff Gray will take place right here, at this table. Understood? I will advise him to say nothing outside the presence of Ms. Kofer and me, okay?”

“That’s fine, Ms. Wyatt, so when can we chat with him?”

Mattie relaxed and said, “Well, I’m not sure where he is today. I just tried his cell and it went straight to voice mail.” Samantha shook her head as if she hadn’t spoken to Jeff in weeks. Mattie continued, “We were scheduled to go to court tomorrow to open the estate and start the process of probate, but the judge rescheduled it until next week. So, I don’t know where he is at this moment.”

Samantha asked, “Is this related to the actions the FBI took yesterday when it confiscated files from the office of Donovan Gray?”

Banahan showed her both palms and said, “Isn’t that pretty obvious?”

“Seems like it is. Who are you investigating, now that Donovan Gray is dead?”

“I’m not at liberty to say.”

Mattie asked, “Is Jeff a subject of your investigation?”

“No, not at this time.”

“He’s done nothing wrong,” Mattie said.





28


The damage was inflicted at the Millard Break Mine near Wittsburg, Kentucky, in an attack similar to the others. Firing from a position on the east face of Trace Mountain, a densely wooded ridge five hundred feet above the strip mine, the snipers found their range from about seven hundred yards and had a grand time taking out forty-seven tires, each weighing nine hundred pounds and costing $18,000. The two night watchmen, both heavily armed themselves, told authorities the attack lasted about ten minutes and at times sounded like a war as sniper rifles snapped and echoed across the valley and tires exploded nearby. The first volley hit at 3:05 a.m. All mining machinery was idle; all operators safely at home. One security guard jumped into a truck for some idea of pursuit—he wasn’t sure exactly where he might be headed—but was soon dissuaded when the pickup took fire and had two of its tires blown off. The other security guard ducked into an office trailer to call the law, but was forced to take cover when a burst of gunfire blew out all the windows. These were significant events because they directly endangered human life. In the other attacks, the snipers had been careful not to hurt anyone. They went after machinery, not people. Now, though, they were breaking serious laws. The guards thought there were at least three rifles in play, though, admittedly, it was difficult to tell in the chaos.