The decoy

Chapt 8

            He then left the new computer in his original room and took his own laptop into the room he rented for Steven Clarke and closed the adjoining doors. All of his things were left in his own room. If anyone broke in they would assume Sebastian was still in the original room.

He left for Flagstaff.

            At 12:45 Jessie Vail arrived to find Sebastian sitting on a brown leather chair in the front entrance of the Arrow Leaf County Club. She was ten minutes late and he had arrived nearly an hour early.

            He wore the same jacket and slacks that he had purchased earlier in the week and he felt underdressed. Places that wrapped themselves in elegance and affluence, like Arrow Leaf still had the effect of making Sebastian feel out of place. The old saying, "Were you born in a barn?" had a special significance to him. He was never completely comfortable around wealth and the Arrow Leaf reeked of it.

            Jessie Vail however strolled in like the place belonged to her. She had long ago shed any of her childhood poverty and was more than comfortable cavorting with the successful. As she walked in she contributed to the atmosphere of unwelcoming privilege.

            They ate lunch in the manor room where Jessie was unable to add anything more to the evidence. She hoped that the men that her husband's friends at the club might know something.

A waiter brought a silver tray with a selection of desserts. Jessie just had coffee but Sebastian ate two helpings and then Jessie took Sebastian to a small bar that looked out onto the golf course and introduced him to Tim Black, Richard Shore and Dane Mansel. According to Jessie, Paul didn't spend a lot of time at the club but when he did these were the men he tended to spend time with. She told the guys to talk and she left to shoot nine holes.

            These guys spent even more time at the club than Jessie did. Although the Arrow Leaf was like their second home they didn't have the air of elegance that Jessie did and Sebastian found himself more at ease with this meeting.

            Even though the impression was all frat house, these guys came from the wealthiest families in town. Black, Shore and Mansel had that arrogance that comes from dating the prettiest girl at school, getting a sports car on your sixteenth birthday and going to the finest colleges that money could buy. They had been given the best of everything from birth and they were respected throughout the community. They had been used to the subservience of teachers, cleaning ladies and their father's employees but Sebastian knew that they would bend easily if he needed to apply pressure.

            "So you're an FBI agent?" Shore said. He was a big guy with a square head full of bushy brown hair. He was about forty but he liked to sport the same unkempt style he did when he was chasing girls in college.

            "Something like that," Sebastian answered. "I wonder if we can all introduce ourselves then you can give me an idea what you do here and how long you've known Paul."

            Shore took control again.

            "We've all been friends from high school, same with Jessie. Paul and Jessie were one of those popular couples when we were kids. They're good people.

The group of us all left for college but Paul stayed back to start his business. Jessie went away like the rest of us but she never dated anyone else. You know the high school sweetheart thing."

            Tim Black interrupted his friend. He was a big guy as well, over six feet and carrying an extra fifty pounds on his bulky frame. He had a round face and he was balding. His cheeks were red and his breathing was strained. Just sitting there sucking back beer and a burger seemed to be an effort. Probably thought he could still do the same things he did when he was a lineman on the high school football team.