If You Can't Trust Your Uncle Sam is a mystery novel. When murder erupts in a Washington, D.C. suburb, Wrin Veersil is hired to solve the questions of who did it and why. With her assistant, former Marine Claude Newhouse, Wrin sets to work and ties the case back to a nasty situation in southern Oregon created by the machinations of the federal government. Suspects include angry farmers and assorted bureaucrats. Wrin Veersil is 26 1/2 inches tall, which is sometimes inconvenient, but her diminutive height is unrelated to her stature as a working investigator. Wrin is smart, tough, and tenacious.
Cover photo of Mt. Shasta and Tule Lake by Lon J. Overacker, www.capturingtime.com
By Barbara J. Olexer. Soft cover, large print. ISBN 0-9722740-3-0. 5 1/2 X 8 1/2 inches. 196 pages. $17.95.
Scroll down to read a sample chapter.
Comments and Critiques
"I enjoyed reading the manuscript...I found the fact that you incorporated items that we use to assist us in our day to day living quite admirable..."
Barbara Spiegel, Long Time Member, Little People of America
"...a very unique mystery novel which takes place on both the east and west coasts. Its uniqueness stems from a variety of things. First, the character of Wrin Veersil is truly distinctive in that she is the height of a toddler, yet is an adult. She must ride in a child safety seat while in a vehicle, her clothes and shoes are custom made, but still, she is a formidable crime fighter who can handle a gun and hide in places no full-sized adult can....Olexer did a marvelous job at making Wrin real for the reader...."
Elyse Thibodeaux, The Examiner's SETX Entertainment Guide, Beaumont, Texas
Chapter 5
Back at the hotel in Washington, Claude set the suitcases down in the sitting room and I unpacked the laptop. I got up on the desk chair to make some notes of our talk with Special Agent Stillingfleet. Claude unpacked my ladder and then dropped to the floor and began doing pushups. After a hundred or so, he switched to handstand pushups. I watched for about a minute then connected the laptop to the data port. I weeded out all the spam and trash and read the new e-mails. I was answering one when Claude stood up and flopped onto the couch.
"What now?" he asked. "Are we going to take on the CIA to get a talk with McFadden?"
"No." I laughed. "I think I'll leave the CIA alone. Those spooks scare me."
Claude snorted. "I've never seen anything yet that scared you."
"No? That just shows what a good actress I am."
We had talked on the train and concluded that whatever Fuller's story was, Special Agents Stillingfleet and Decker had no clue. Decker knew it wasn't suicide but had no idea what the motive for murder might be; Stillingfleet didn't even know that much. It was apparent that we were not going to get at the truth from the D.C. end.
"Get us a couple of seats on a west-bound plane tomorrow morning, will you, Claude? And let Jaymie Pettit know well be there tomorrow night for an indefinite stay."
"What time do you want to leave?"
"Early afternoon. That'll give us time to nose around a little here first."
"What's the nearest airport? Klamath Falls?"
"There is an airport at Klamath Falls but I don't think any of the major transcontinental lines use it. I think we'll be better off to go into Medford and rent a car for the final leg."
"There must be a connector flight between Medford and Klamath Falls."
"Probably. But I'd just as soon drive as fly, once we get that close. You don't mind driving, do you?"
"Not at all. I'll reserve a car while I'm at it."
"Good. Better get a four-wheel drive pickup, if they have one. We may need to get pretty far off the pavement."
"Great. I'm about sick of all this civilization. Makes me feel hemmed in."
"Yeah. Me, too."
Claude went into his room to phone and I made some notes on my conversation with Stillingfleet. Claude came back and waited until I finished.
"I couldn't get a four-wheel drive; the best I could do is an SUV or a mini van. I reserved the SUV. It cost 75 bucks to change destinations on our return tickets. Each."
I nodded.
"When you're finished there," Claude continued, "leave it on and I'll write up my talk with Decker."
"All right."
A few minutes later, I clicked on the save button and closed the file. I slid down from the chair and Claude took over the laptop. He began to push buttons and I went to sit on the couch with the latest Jim Chee mystery. He was writing up his notes when I nodded off. Coming awake when the book slipped out of my hands, I shot a look at Claude. He was grinning at me and I checked quickly to make sure I hadn't drooled all over myself. I hadn't so that didn't account for his grin. I wondered uneasily if Id been snoring -- how embarrassing -- but I was too tired and sleepy to worry about it.
I decided to have a room service dinner and go to bed early. Claude offered to stay in, too, but I sent him out for dinner. He made sure that my door and the living room hall doors were locked and the chains were in place, then he locked the connecting door between the sitting room and his bedroom.
About twenty minutes later, he rapped on the connecting door and announced that he was going. I shouted okay and heard his door close. After I ordered dinner, I rolled my ladder over to the hall door to be in readiness for the waiter. Sitting on the couch, I thought about the events of the past couple of days. Murder arising out of corruption is commonplace. People will actually kill to preserve their reputations as upright, law-abiding members of the community. I've often remarked on the capacity of homo sapiens for self-delusion. Everyone in a person's circle of family, friends, and community may know that he or she is guilty of this or that moral lapse but it's astonishing how often murder results from a threat to state it publicly. Alternatively, murder sometimes results when the person's community doesn't know and is about to be told. Sometimes murder is the result of a perceived inequitable division of the spoils. Either the leader thinks someone is holding out or a minion thinks he's been cheated. And sometimes murder results when something is about to put an end to a lucrative collusion of rogues.
This last is what I suspected led to the murder of Special Agent Fuller and his family. The problem with that was the professional style of the killings. I couldn't imagine that any of the farmers or bureaucrats involved would resort to hiring a hit man. Or that any of them would even know how to set about it, if they wanted to. Besides, why wait until he left Tulelake and had time to write his report and file it? And why only Fuller? Why not the other agents who were there investigating?
There was a knock at the door and as I climbed up my ladder to peer through the peep hole, a man's voice announced that he was the room service waiter. Verifying visually that a uniformed man with a laden tray stood outside my door, I unhooked the chain, opened the door, and climbed down to move the ladder out of the way. I hadn't seen this waiter before so he had to stare and try to hide his confusion at being confronted with a baby-sized woman. I told him to set the tray on the desk and he lifted the stainless steel cover to show me that he had brought what I had ordered. I signed for it, added an adequate tip, and locked the door behind him, fastening the chain again.
Dinner for an adult American is a mountain of food for me. I'd ordered a Cobb Salad and a slice of raspberry cheesecake and most of it was still on the plates when I finished. Although I'm the height of a human toddler, my metabolism is not that of a growing child and it takes very little to keep me going.
I read for a little while after dinner and then decided to go to bed. I was deeply asleep when the unmistakable sound of a key in the lock of Claude's communicating door woke me. I'm not one of those who immediately awakens to full alertness, it always takes me a few seconds to orient myself. At first, of course, I assumed it was Claude opening the door. I discarded that at once, knowing without having to think it through that Claude would announce himself before using the key. That being so, there was only one other meaning to that key and it wasn't the maid bringing a mint for my pillow.
I slid to the floor and went silently across the carpet to the open door to the sitting room. I hadn't left any lights on and there was none in my bedroom so all I could see was a sort of moving density in the dark room. It was very indistinct but it was shorter than Claude and not as broad. It was moving almost silently across the floor to the desk. A tiny light flashed on and played over the surface of the desk, catching my laptop and the room service tray in its beam. The man -- I assumed it to be a man -- turned in a full circle, skimming the light around the room. The light turned in my direction and began to move toward me.
My only hope was to hide. Whoever wanted me for whatever reason, I was sure I didn't care to go. The thought of hiding under one of the bed pillows flashed into my mind but, although I could curl up under one of them and be hidden, it was too obvious. Besides, there wasn't time to climb up. I had to hide instantly. The bathroom. I moved as fast as I could and pulled a couple of bath towels off the shelf at the end of the tub where I'd put them in order to have them handy. There was another over the side of the tub where I'd left it and I grabbed it as I went by. I sat on the floor in the corner made by the enclosed double sink and the wall and pulled one of the towels over me, then the other two, being careful to make them look rumpled, as if casually thrown down. I curled up and burrowed under them, making myself as small as I could and hoping that I was fully covered.
I couldn't hear anything and I dared not peek out because the man might shine his light on me at any moment and the slightest movement would be fatal. Probably literally fatal. I tried to stay calm and to estimate the time but I found it very difficult. The voice caught me by such surprise that I must have started violently and disturbed my terrycloth burrow but it came from my bedroom so no harm was done.
"You might as well come on out," a man's voice called.
It sounded like the crack of doom to me but it probably wasn't audible beyond the suite.
"I know you're here, Wrin, come on out so we can talk. That's all I want, just to talk."
Yeah, right.
"You'll have to come out sometime. I'll just wait."
So will I, I thought. I tried to assess my position. How had the man got the key to Claude's room and the connecting door? The keys to the corridor doors were the electronic kind that took an oblong of magnetized plastic to open. The keys to the connecting doors were the old-fashioned metal type. This intruder evidently had both. And since Claude couldn't get in without waking me if I'd connected the chain across his doorway, I hadn't connected it.
Either this man had disabled Claude, possibly killed him, and taken the keys from him or he had stolen them from the hotel desk clerk. I abandoned that line of thought because if Claude had been neutralized, not only was I bereft of a dear friend but also of a valued employee. Not to mention that my situation became pretty much hopeless. I could hear some sounds of the man searching, the opening of closet doors, the slamming shut of cabinet doors. I knew, too, that he would look under and behind the furniture and luggage.
I considered whether I could get to my cell phone and lock myself in the bathroom to use it. Where had I left my purse? Where had I left my walking stick? How much noise could the intruder afford to make in getting through a locked door? If he simply kicked it in, would that be enough to bring the hotel security staff? Even if it would bring them, would it bring them in time?
I hadn't seen a weapon but that didn't mean that the guy didn't have one. Quite possibly he was armed and prepared to use whatever force he deemed necessary for his purpose, whatever that was. If this was the shooter from the Fuller case...I decided against finishing that sentence. If Claude had not been disabled in order to procure the keys, and he came blithely through his door, would he be able to react in time to stop this man? I decided that I couldn't chance it. I couldn't let Claude walk into a trap. Very slowly and cautiously, I peeked out from under my cocoon of toweling.
I was alone in the bathroom but there was a light in the sitting room. It wasn't very bright and from the direction, it must be the desk lamp that he'd turned on. That wouldn't necessarily alert Claude, he would merely think I'd been unable to sleep and was reading or playing Free Cell on the laptop. Very cautiously I crept across the floor to where I could see out the door. My purse was on the floor between the bedstand and the bed, where I usually put it in hotel rooms. The bed would cover me for most of the journey but I would be exposed for six or eight feet. I couldn't remember where I'd put my stick but I'd have to trust to luck that I could get it.
With infinite caution I crept toward the bathroom door using my toes and forearms. The polished stone floor was cold but that was the least of my worries. At the door I looked carefully for what seemed like a long time and listened for any movement the man might make. There was nothing. I inched onto the bedroom carpet and crept toward the bed. I could go a little faster on the carpet as it would absorb the minute sounds of my progress. Suddenly, there was a blast of noise from the sitting room that nearly gave me heart failure and sent me scuttling under the bed just as fast as I could go. A man talking, fast and loud, then the sound of gunfire. I realized it was the TV as the man turned the volume down and my heartbeat returned to something like normal. That solved the problem of keeping quiet for me.
The bed had been torn apart. The pillows and comforter were on the floor and the blanket was pulled back over the foot of the bed. Much to my relief, my stick was on the floor in front of the bedstand and my purse was on top of the bedstand. I crawled out from under the bed, got to my feet, and retrieved both purse and stick. I walked to the bathroom and on over to my corner. It had been my intention to lock the bathroom door and call Claude and tell him about the intruder, trusting that he would get here before the man could dig me out. With the TV on, I decided to send an SOS signal instead. I took the cell phone out of my purse and put the purse and stick on the floor behind me. Then I covered my legs with the towels. Not that I would have any warning with the TV on, I couldn't hear any movements the man made any more than he could hear me. Still, I felt a tad more secure and after I sent the SOS I would huddle down under the towels again.
It was too dark to see the keypad on the cell phone so I dialed Claude's number by touch. I let it ring once, then pressed the button to disengage, pressed the redial button, let it ring once, then disengaged. I repeated it and waited about two minutes, then started over. I lost count of the times I sent the SOS but was still sending when there was a knock on my bedroom door. The TV was instantly silenced.
"Hey, Wrin," Claude called through the door. "Open up. Let me in."
It was the most beautiful sound I'd ever heard. At the same time, it worried me something fierce. I couldn't be sure that he'd received my messages. He might have lost his key and be walking into trouble without a warning.
He banged on the door and called again. I could hear the man coming from the sitting room. I scurried over to the bathroom door and listened to him unlock the door. I positioned myself behind him and to one side. As he opened the door, I screamed as loudly as I could.
"Look out, Claude! There's a man here!"
I needn't have worried or wasted my breath. As soon as the door began to move, Claude hurtled through it, ramming his head into the man's stomach. Evidently it wasn't a solid hit because, while the man went down, he still had breath enough to jump back up and fight. I scrambled back to the phone on the bedstand and called the hotel operator, demanding that security be instantly dispatched to my suite. Then I went to the bathroom and got my stick and turned on my bedroom lights.
Claude, meanwhile, was rolling around on the sitting room floor with the intruder, trying to subdue him or keep from being subdued, I couldn't be sure which. I scooted around the mass of flailing arms and legs. I'd seen something flying through the air, evidently dislodged from the man's hand when Claude tackled him. It glinted like metal and I wanted it before anyone in authority could claim it. I found it just inside the sitting room where it had fallen; it was a pistol, one of the big, large caliber ones. I'm not too much up on firearms myself, Claude being the firm's resident expert on them. I kicked it under the armoire that contained the TV and turned back to see how Claude was doing. Maybe I could get in a telling swipe with the brass head of my walking stick. After all, I owed that bozo something for what he'd put me through that night.
Security, in the shape of a middle-aged man in a dark suit, strode through the door.
"What's going on here?" he demanded.
Not getting an answer, he grasped Claude, who happened to be uppermost, by the shoulder and yanked hard enough to pull him off balance. The intruder jumped to his feet and ran out the door before Claude could shake Security off. As soon as he got loose, Claude hared off after the intruder and Security took off after Claude. I went out in the hall and told the people who were standing there in various sleeping costumes that everything was all right, Security was taking care of a small problem. Then I went inside, leaving the door open, and waited, standing near the door.
Presently, Claude and Security came back into the sitting room, Claude complaining bitterly. I climbed up on one of the easy chairs and Claude flopped on the couch. Security sat on the front edge of the other easy chair, hunched forward.
"Well," he said reasonably, "how was I to know? I ask you. I'm sorry but I don't see how I could have known."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Claude said. "Okay. You didn't know. All the same, the guy got away."
"I ask you, ma'am," Security said, appealing to me. "All I knew was the switchboard got a call to send Security up immediately. I get here and two men are fighting. I break it up. That's what I do, I'm a security officer in a prestigious hotel, I'm not a policeman or a private dick. Now and then guests get in fights and I break them up. How was I to know that one of these guys was a burglar?"
"You didn't," I said. "There's no way you could have known."
Claude started to say something but I quelled him with a look.
"There's no sense in blaming you for what you couldn't help," I said.
Claude snorted but didn't speak.
"Did you get a good enough look at the man to identify him? Is he a guest here?"
Security frowned. "Naturally, I don't know all the guests by sight. That would be an impossibility."
"Have you seen him hanging around?"
"We don't allow people to hang around," he said with dignity. "That wouldn't do at all. We have some very important people staying here from time to time. Celebrities, politicians, heads of state. The Queen of the Netherlands, the President of Mexico, the Rolling Stones, Ron and Nancy Reagan before he was president, people like that. Not that all our guests aren't important," he added diplomatically, if belatedly.
"Maybe he's a taxi driver who uses your taxi stand," I suggested.
"I doubt it," Security said, shaking his head. "I see what you're getting at, ma'am, but people like that don't come into the hotel."
I saw that he had his mind made up and nothing I could say was going to make him even consider broadening it.
"Was anything taken, ma'am?"
I looked around the sitting room. My diamond sunburst, the only really expensive jewelry I had with me, was once more in the safe deposit box downstairs, as was my little pearl brooch. My laptop was there on the desk, as I'd left it. The only difference I could see in the room were several empty beer cans on the dinner tray on the desk and some empty chips and nuts bags. The guy had really made himself at home and I resented it.
"No, just some beer and snacks," I said.
"Well, Ill go and call the cops," Security said.
I glanced at Claude and he shook his head.
"I don't think that's necessary," I said. "Nothing was taken and no one was hurt."
It took about ten minutes to convince Security that it would not be in his best interests or the best interests of the hotel to bring the cops in. After all, what could they do? I asked him to find out how the man had got a key to the suite and let me know and we finally ushered him out into the hall.
"How the devil did he get in, Wrin?" Claude asked as soon as the door was closed behind Security.
"He had a key, Claude. A key to your bedroom and to the connecting door."
"Impossible, I still have mine."
Claude fished his electronic key out of his shirt pocket and the metal key out of his pants pocket.
"Try the electronic key in the lock. I'll bet it doesn't work."
Claude threw me an impatient glance, decided to humor me, and went to try the key. I slid down from my chair and picked up my stick. I must have been wearing a self-satisfied smirk when I opened the door a minute later because he glowered at me.
"All right, explain it to me. What the hell is going on around here?"
"If you ask for a second key to these electronic locks, they reprogram the lock so the first key doesn't work. I have no idea what the process is but evidently it is more or less automatic when the new key is issued. Obviously, our recent visitor managed to get access to the key-issuing device and to the communicating door keys."
"I see," Claude said, sitting down on the couch. "Simple when you know how."
I went over to the TV armoire and got down on my hands and knees, poking under it with my stick.
"Now what?" Claude came over and hunkered down beside me.
I raked the gun out and it lay on the carpet winking coyly in the lamplight.
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