Read Under Suspicion - The Legend of D.B. Cooper Page 102

Alan was pacing back and forth in the motel room waiting for the call from the Seattle DEA office. It had been an hour since Chet left, and Alan was able to cool his temper. No one had ever got in his way or made him as mad as Harper had. Not even Cranston. He was determined to make Harper pay and not just a little bit. Alan was set on making it hurt bad. As he paced, his diabolical mind was busy plotting the demise of his enemy.

  Remembering what Chet had showed him on the computer, Alan started up the machine and searched the picture file. An evil smile came over his face as he found it. Chet had taken a picture of Harper on the porch, yesterday, and it had been loaded onto the hard drive.

  “Let’s see now,” Alan said to himself as he tried to remember what Chet had done to the picture of the disgruntled worker. Oh yeah, first I have to isolate the head, he thought as he moved the mouse around and punched some keys. Alan stretched the face horizontally to make his lips purse. He then played with the contrast a little to make his skin look dirty. Then he brightened the whites of Harper’s eyes to make it appear as if he was staring at you from the picture.

  “There, perfect!” Alan said with delight. The changes were slight, but just enough to give the audience the visual impression that Alan wanted to portray. In front of Alan’s eyes was the picture of a law enforcement officer gone bad, made complete with a soiled uniform and tarnished badge tainted by his many sins. The picture made Alan laugh with pleasure as he hit the print button.

  At that instant, the phone rang and he reached for it. “This is Bradley.”

  “Bradley, this is Rodriguez,” said the voice on the line. “I’ve got the report on your man, but it’s not very exciting.”

  “What does it say?”

  “Let’s see here,” she said as she paged through it. “He was born and raised there in Lewis County…spent some time in Vietnam…got elected Sheriff in 1970 and has been there ever since.”

  Bradley felt disappointed as he thought for a moment. “What did he do in Vietnam?” He could hear the sound of paper rustling as Rodriguez paged through the report.

  “Here it is…hmm, impressive,” she remarked as she read it. “Purple heart and silver star. He was part of an Army Airborne unit for a few years, then did a stretch as a consultant at the US Embassy in Saigon.”

  “Army Airborne? Aren’t those the guys who jump out of airplanes?” Bradley asked.

  “Yeah, so?”

  Bradley’s eyes lit up as he saw the possible connection. “So he knows how to parachute just like D.B. Cooper did.”

  “That doesn’t mean anything,” Rodriguez remarked. “Thousands of vets have the same training Harper has. You can’t go around accusing—” Bradley could hear that Rodriguez was interrupted on the other side. “Hold it a second, Bradley.”

  Alan’s mind was busy calculating and planning how he’d use this tasty bit of information. Let’s see now. Harper was here during the Cooper hijacking and has parachute experience. I wonder if—

  “Bradley! It’s him!” Rodriguez yelled across the line. “I just received the fingerprint check from Harper’s military record. They match the ones from the coffee cup exactly. Harper’s your man!”

  Bradley’s jaw dropped open, and he was astonished as it was revealed to him. “Harper was the man with the truck and trailer?”

  “But why would the Sheriff kill Henderson?” Rodriguez asked, curiously. “That doesn’t make sense.”

  Bradley’s eyes lit up with excitement. “Of course! Why didn’t I see this before?”

  “What? See what?”

  “Angela, if you were going to start a sophisticated drug operation in a small community, who is the first person you’d bribe?” Alan asked, calmly.

  “I don’t know. The judge I suppose.”

  “No! The judge can only help you after you’ve been caught,” Bradley exclaimed. “The Sheriff is the ideal person to have in your operation. He’s the first person in the County who’d find out if a Federal investigation were going on. He can also move freely within and adversely affect an investigation without being noticed. He’s one of the few people in the County who would not be under suspicion. That’s why he’s been interfering with me all along. He had something to hide!”

  “Do you think that somehow he found out you were going down there then he got out to Henderson’s to close up shop?”

  “Exactly. It’s the only viable explanation,” Bradley replied. “Now fax me that report, I’m in a hurry.” Alan hung up the phone.

  Moments later, the fax machine hummed, beeped, and emitted an eerie green glow as it slowly spit out the report.

  Bradley couldn’t believe his luck as he put on his sports coat then lifted the report from the tray. “This is working out better than I expected,” he said to himself. “Not only can I pin the Henderson killing on him, but I’m going to pass him off as D.B. Cooper as well!” Bradley lifted his head in the air and laughed heartily. “Forget the Governor’s mansion. They’ll elect me president of this whole damn country for this one!”

  Alan grabbed the now defiled picture of Harper and was elated. It was exactly the image of a drug smuggling Sheriff gone bad, and now D.B. Cooper felon that he’d wanted to portray Harper as. “It’ll be as easy as shooting fish in a barrel,” he said out loud.

  Harper was a part of the drug smuggling ring, he was sure of it. Like Henderson and Schaffer, Harper would be too smart to have anything incriminating around, Bradley knew. That’s why Alan had to make sure it was an airtight case.

  Bradley looked around the room and located his black tote bag. Inside, he found the last third of the opium brick. All he needed to do was find Harper, plant the opium in his Blazer, then report his story on the evening news. In front of the whole world, Alan would conduct a search and find the drugs.

  An evil grin stretched across his face as he stuffed the drugs, report, and picture into the bag then closed it up. He rushed out the door, and saw that Chet wasn’t back yet. After examining his watch, he saw that it was only an hour until the prime time evening news started. Figuring that Chet was with his camera crew, Alan decided to call him from the road. With that, he ran to his Corvette and jumped in. A moment later, the Corvette roared to life. The tires smoked and screamed as the car shot onto the highway then down the road.