A Good Ear

Many years ago I took some advanced training in music and discovered I had a naturally good ear for it. Occasionally this ability comes in handy.

When the man who called me on 9/13/07 and said he was an FBI agent but couldn’t decide which office he was from—he first said “Milwaukee” and then said “Oh, sorry, I meant San Antonio”--was talking, I immediately noticed his unusual and distinctive high-pitched voice. During my conversation with him, I became even more alarmed when he tried to convince me to sell my property and leave town and then started quizzing me about whether I’d ever gone to the DEA with information about local drug trafficking we’d observed and uncovered. At that point I realized he’d never even given me his name, and I ended the conversation as quickly as possible.

After I got off the phone from this call, I was so suspicious and frightened that I immediately began contacting both the San Antonio FBI office and, later after I’d had no response from them, the DOJ, asking them to either confirm or investigate the call and caller. Eventually, I received only a strange letter from the DOJ refusing to either confirm or deny that the caller was in fact an FBI agent, but I continued to remember the man’s distinctive voice and felt sure I’d recognize it if I ever heard it again.

Recently I did. I’d made an appointment with the local dealer to have routine servicing done on my vehicle, and I drove over, parked outside, entered the side door of the showroom, checked in my vehicle with the service manager (who’s one of the owners), and sat down in the waiting area. A few minutes later, a gray-haired man I didn’t know walked in greeted the service manager (but did not check in a vehicle as far as I could tell), and then proceeded to walk very slowly directly in front of me, which was odd. The man passed me and then proceeded to cross the rest of the showroom and sit down in a chair in front of the sales manager’s desk (also one of the owners). The two of them then started what turned into a lengthy and loud conversation about politics (mainly how much they hated President Obama). As they talked, I could scarcely believe my ears—I immediately recognized the stranger’s distinctive high-pitched voice as my suspicious caller of 2 years ago.

My suspicions seemed to be confirmed when the sales manager called the stranger “Jim”, since I’d always believed my caller was a former Secret Service agent and DHS consultant named Jim Ferrier who was from Wisconsin. Earlier in 2007, my lawyer at the time had provided me with a letter (but no report) from Mr. Ferrier stating he would be willing to testify in court as an expert witness that the fraudulent trust document forming the basis of the case was not manipulated, which I knew for a fact to be untrue. Mr. Ferrier was the only person I knew of from Wisconsin, and he had quit the case abruptly when I pointed out to my attorney that my ex-husband had a WI checking account, that there was a prominent local realtor named Ferrier who had a local maiden name (probably Ferrier’s wife, by her age), and that there was a speech therapist at the local hospital who was also named Ferrier (their son?).

The two men were soon joined by the female office manager of the dealership, who came out of her office, pulled up a chair, and joined the men in talking loudly. This office manager happens to be the sister of a local police investigator who had just returned from a trip to Quantico, VA with his partner after being asked to present a local unsolved homicide case to FBI profilers there. (This case involved local police officers arriving on the scene extremely quickly and originally ruling the death accidental until a M.E. ruled it a homicide.)

The three of them continued to talk loudly for the rest of the time I was there, and I believe the stranger left right after I did. It’s also important to note that another of the owners of this dealership (all brothers) was the mayor of our city at the time my husband left—and at the same time that the brakes on my vehicle kept suddenly failing and the dealership could not seem to fix them despite repeated attempts over a 6-month period. I believe the former mayor joined the conversation group at some point, but I got busy with my own business and lost track of the group while checking out and preparing to leave.

As I said before, sometimes my good musical ear comes in handy. Now I know what my suspicious caller looks like as well as sounds like, which means I’ll be able to identify him every time he sits down near me at high school football games, my children’s music concerts, etc. as other local law enforcement officers and associates of my ex-husband and his family routinely do to harass me. (You can bet I’ll be logging each of these events in my logbook of incidents, too.)