Wolffe chuckled and said, “What about you?”
“You have the location of the RV folks who found the car?”
He nodded, and I said, “That’s where Jennifer and I are headed.”
Chapter 15
Jennifer and I had taken the first plane we could find to Nevada, hunting down Mosby and Elizabeth Ellington. Using the contact information they’d left with the Panguitch sheriff’s department and our DHS cover, we’d given them a call and found out that they’d decided to spend a few days on the Vegas Strip.
They were staying at an RV park attached to the Circus Circus casino, so I’d coordinated to meet them right there directly after landing in Vegas.
The flight connections from DC had been a little bit of a hassle, but getting the rental car had been smooth, and the GPS was saying we were less than five minutes away. We continued north on Las Vegas Boulevard, watching the people along the sidewalk like visitors at a zoo.
Stuck behind a slow-moving truck with a billboard advertising something that involved a G-string and nipple pasties, Jennifer said, “Nothing from Knuckles?”
“Nope. He’s made it to Utah and talked to the sheriff’s deputies, but they had nothing new. They confirmed that Marley’s vehicle was forced off the road due to the damage it sustained, but the investigators still don’t have anything concrete. They’re looking at a biker gang called the Nomads, but they don’t operate around Panguitch. At least they haven’t in the past. Honestly, that whole theory is a huge stretch. Why would a one-percenter biker gang want to bust out an Arab terrorist? And how would they even begin to get the information to do so?”
“But if it was a specific hit on the sheriff, it would make more sense. Maybe the Ghost just managed to run while they were executing Marley. Maybe when they found him in handcuffs, they just told him to go.”
“Yeah, maybe, but I can’t see them planning to kill a law enforcement officer in cold blood and leaving any witnesses. For all they knew, the Ghost was just a guy in thirty-day confinement for a DUI who would run straight to the nearest badge because he wanted no part of a murder. Especially the murder of a sheriff.”
She nodded her head, having no answer to that. A few seconds later, she said, “Have they talked to the sheriff’s wife yet?”
“No. They’re on the way to see the family next.”
She sighed and said, “Glad that’s not our job.”
“Me too. It sucks that he went to war with the Rangers for years only to get killed by some shithead in our own country.”
She reached over and squeezed my hand and I said nothing for a moment, thinking about Marley and his “retirement” job helping out the Taskforce. Thinking about the Ghost. The terrorist I’d put in his backyard.
She saw my face and said, “This isn’t our fault. It might not have anything to do with the Ghost.”
I ground my teeth and said, “Either way, when I find out who killed Marley, I’m going to plant them in the ground.”
She let go of my hand and said, “That’s not the agreement with the Oversight Council. We don’t do any law enforcement with respect to Bob Marley. We’re after the Ghost, period. Anything we find related to Marley’s death, we turn over to the FBI for them to handle.”
I said nothing. She waited a bit, then said, “Right?”
I nodded, grunting out, “Sure, sure. I get it.”
She didn’t look convinced, but said nothing.
We reached the north end of the Strip, the fancy casinos in the rearview mirror, the Circus Circus building rising up about two blocks away.
I’d stayed there about fifteen years ago, mainly because it was cheap, and I had vowed that no amount of savings was worth that punishment again. It had been pretty threadbare then, and I couldn’t imagine what itwas like now. One thing was for sure, I wouldn’t be eating any seafood at their buffet.
Mosby Ellington had given us the keypad entry to the RV lot on the north side, and we pulled into the gate. Calling it an “RV lot” was stretching it a bit, as it was nothing more than a large pad of pavement surrounded by a chain-link fence. From what I could see, outside of the hookups for the RVs, the only amenities were a fenced-off area with Astroturf for the pets, the fake grass covered with piles of turds, and a square concrete pool filled with tepid water that looked more like something you’d see for alligators at a Florida reptile show.
We drove through looking for the slot number Mosby had given us, and found it near the back. I could see two people in lawn chairs underneath a rolled-out veranda, the man shielding his eyes as we approached.
I parked and got out, saying, “Mosby Ellington?”
He stood up, saying, “It’s about time. We’ve been sitting here all day waiting on you guys.”
Jennifer said, “Sorry about that. It was hard getting an early flight out of DC, even with the time change.”
He was an older guy with a receding hairline speckled in gray, but he was thick in the chest, with rough hands. I was pretty sure he could handle himself in a bar fight and probably had a time or two.
