The Voxlightner Scandal

by Don Travis

  “Not a bad idea. Might also shake Wick up a little.”

  “Paul can write an article for the Journal about an attempted hit in Las Vegas with an Albuquerque connection.”

  “Do it.”

  PAUL WAS delighted with the idea and sat down at his computer immediately. In a few minutes he brought me the first draft of his article. After accommodating some of the suggestions I made, he wrote a piece leading with the headline “Near Fatal Attack on Las Vegas, Nevada Man with Albuquerque Connections.” The body of the article went on to say Abner R. Brown, formerly of Albuquerque, was stabbed in an alley near the Mission Center Albertsons where he was the manager. Brown had recently been questioned regarding a money order he sold that connects to the Voxlightner precious metals scam of 2003 and 2004.

  There were another hundred or so words to the column, but those few said everything I wanted. Paul emailed a copy to Gene so he could alert the LVPD when the Journal checked the facts of the story. Thereafter Paul sent the article to his contact at the newspaper.

  “That oughta earn me some change,” he said with satisfaction. Then he frowned. “I-I’ll follow up on it tomorrow morning.”

  It hadn’t occurred to me Paul would be paid for his efforts, but that is the way it is in the journalistic world.

  THE MORNING was already hot, but I opened the windows to savor the aroma of roses my mother had planted all around the perimeter of the house. The sensation was pleasant yet off-putting. I missed my folks like crazy in moments like this.

  Paul was already up and running by the time I headed to the office. Hazel took my copy of Wick’s subscription list and set about trying to track down the two trusts I suspected represented Rider and Herrera.

  This left me free to phone some of the people I hadn’t assigned to Paul. He intended to make his contacts in person. I was satisfied with a telephone interview with three friends of mine far down the list in the $10,000 level. The result was mixed. Two had regular interaction with Wick and were invited to invest while either on the golf course or at a civic meeting. The third heard about the investment opportunity from a friend and contacted Wick to pledge his money. Nothing out of the ordinary about any of them.

  Charlie came in from interviewing a prospective hire on another case, gave his recorder to Hazel for transcription, and joined me in my office.

  “You asked me to look into the two cases of arson. AFD hasn’t gotten far. Gasoline was the accelerant in both cases, Belhaven’s garage and your house. Lieutenant Johnson found nothing to pursue in the garage fire, but he pinned down the vehicle used in your firebombing to a blue 2010 Toyota RAV4.”

  “That’s pretty specific.”

  “They found it abandoned not a mile from your house. Stolen the same afternoon from a retiree who lives in the neighborhood.”

  “Any forensic evidence?” I asked.

  “No fingerprints. A few stray hairs, but the owner lends it to his nephews from time to time, so who knows where that will lead?”

  “Any damage to the vehicle?”

  Charlie’s glasses reflected light as he shook his head. “Reeked with gasoline, but otherwise, no.”

  “So dead end.”

  “Likely. The vehicle was abandoned in the alley behind a strip mall, and nobody reports seeing anything suspicious.”

  “Cameras?” I asked.

  “Not in the alley, but in the parking lot. Lieutenant Johnson’s getting me a copy of the tapes. Maybe we can spot a suspicious driver picking up a car in the lot.”

  “Don’t hold your breath. He’d have to be a known arsonist or someone involved in the case to be classified as suspicious. Besides, would you park your getaway car in a mall where you know it’ll be surveilled, or on a quiet side street?”

  “Where the neighbors will know immediately it doesn’t belong,” he finished my thought for me.

  “True. Six of one, half dozen of the other.”

  “They already talked to both the mall tenants and the neighborhood. Nothing so far.”

  “Okay. The video’s worth a shot, I guess.”

  “You want to bring me up to date?” Charlie asked.

  I gave him a brief post. When I stopped talking, Charlie looked thoughtful for a moment. “This attempt on Brown in Vegas might be enough to get a wiretap on Wick’s phones. Do you want me to approach Lieutenant Enriquez?”

  Funny thing about Charlie. In social situations addressing my old riding partner as “Gene” was no problem, but when it came to police business, Gene became “the lieutenant.” So was Charlie built; so would he remain.

  “Please do.”

  Hazel stuck her head in the door. “BJ! Pick up line one. Something’s happened to Paul.”

  I lunged for the phone. “Hello!”

  “Dammit, Vince, he ruined my Charger!”

  “Who ruined it, and are you all right?”

  “Busted wing, maybe. But my car’s totaled. Ow!”

  “Where are you?”

  “Intersection of Copper and San Mateo. Some joker T-boned me. EMTs are here.”

  I heard another voice in the background.

  “Okay, okay! They tell me I gotta hang up so they can look at my shoulder.”

  “I’ll pick you up—”

  “Gotta get an X-ray…. UNM Emergency.”

  Normally Paul called me on my cell, but he’d punched the office number on his phone. That told me he was shaken, but how badly was he hurt?

  IT REQUIRED all my powers of persuasion to get Hazel to stay behind and man the telephones, but I escaped the office and climbed into my Impala alone. I tore out of the parking lot in the grip of a panic I’d not known before and raced east on Lomas Boulevard to the hospital in the University of New Mexico area.

  I arrived in time to watch Paul shrug off the EMTs who wanted to take him inside in a wheelchair. But he was no match for the steely-eyed blonde nurse who ordered him into the chair and wheeled him inside. He was able to tell me he was okay before they whisked him through a pair of double doors barred to me.

  Taking a seat in the waiting area, I silently joined half a hundred others to nurse my grief and fears and anxieties. Only a couple of giggling children and three noisy teenagers in the far corner managed to live their lives as they normally did. The rest of us batted glum back and forth across the room.

  When I called Hazel to tell her what little I knew, she peppered me with half a dozen unanswerable questions before I convinced her I knew nothing at this point except he was mobile and moving under his own power.

  I closed the call and resumed staring at a worn spot on the tile floor and remembering things: pulling a suffocating gag out of Paul’s mouth after rescuing him from a kidnapping designed to put pressure on me, harboring doubts about his motives when others suggested he was playing me for a sucker, and my utter joy when they were proved wrong. I recalled pleasant morning breakfasts, romantic dinners, competition on the golf course and in the swimming pool. And Pedro. Wonderful nights of watching Pedro prowl as his owner made mad, passionate love to me. Paul. My rock. My Adonis. Despite myself my mind slipped to the unknown something I sensed between us.

  Filled to the gullet with waiting, I approached the desk and asked about his condition.

  “Are you a family member?”

  I saw red as I stared at her, but my rage disappeared as quickly as it flared. She was merely following orders. It wasn’t her fault society didn’t recognize our relationship. “His uncle. B. J. Vinson.”

  She disappeared for a moment and then returned to tell me his dislocated shoulder was being treated as we spoke. She directed me through swinging doors to a small waiting room in the treatment area. As I settled in for another wait, the sound of his baritone voicing expletives from behind a nearby curtained alcove heartened me more than I could describe.

  A few minutes later he appeared, bare-chested with his left shoulder swaddled in elastic bandages, his arm pinned to his side.

  “Vince!” he exclaimed. “What did they do
with my Charger?”

  “Forget the car. What about you?”

  “Dislocated shoulder.”

  “Didn’t know they bound a dislocated shoulder. Thought they put it back in place and sent you home.”

  He cooperated as a nurse put his right arm through the sleeve of his shirt and drew the garment over his disabled shoulder.

  “Hello, Mr. Vinson.” A doctor I knew slightly appeared and answered my question. “Immobilizing and sheathing’s standard treatment these days. The X-ray showed no break, but I want him to wear the shoulder support for a week and then see his own doctor for follow-up.”

  “Vince,” Paul interrupted impatiently. “The car. My laptop and all my notes are in the Charger. We gotta get them.”

  “Okay, settle down. I’ll take care of it. But right now we’re going to get you home.”

  Hazel alerted Gene to the collision, and he reached me by cell while I was settling Paul, a bit woozy from painkillers, on the sofa in the den.

  “How is he?”

  “Dislocated shoulder. He’ll be okay. What happened?” I asked.

  “Patrolman who answered the call said Paul was headed south on San Mateo by the Walgreens on Copper. Dodge Caravan came out of Copper and hit him amidships. T-boned him. Paul’s lucky he wasn’t hurt worse.”

  “The other driver?”

  “Gone. Disappeared. The van was stolen this morning. It wasn’t an accident. My guess is the Caravan followed him until the driver knew where Paul was headed and got around him to set up the ambush.”

  “Damn! The Charger?”

  “Hauled off to the yard,” Gene said. “It’s total scrap.”

  “Paul’s computer and notebooks were in the car. Probably his backpack too.”

  “The bad guy didn’t get away with them. Patrolman on the scene has all Paul’s personal effects. He’s delivering them to me. What was Paul doing?”

  “Face-to-face interviews with five of the investors in Wick’s Westside scheme.”

  “Somebody didn’t like that. This was your second warning, BJ.”

  “And there won’t be a third one.”

  Gene cleared his throat. “Charlie got hold of me about a wiretap this morning. My people are doing the paperwork. Takes a ton of it, you know. I’ll keep you posted.”

  I THOUGHT I was a bad patient, but Paul had me beat by a mile. Even though I could tell he was shaken up inside more than he let on, he wouldn’t stay in bed or on the couch. He’d lie down until he thought of something he needed to do and hop up to go do it. He actually wanted to go shopping for a replacement for the Charger, but I put a stop to it.

  “Vince, I’m afoot. I’ve got no wheels.”

  “You’re not going anywhere in the next day or so. You don’t need wheels.”

  He turned grumpy but gave up on the idea of visiting a car dealer. Even so he went to the room we use as an office and called his insurance agent. Thankful he was venting his frustration on someone other than me, I heated a bowl of his excellent green chili chicken stew and took it to him. By that time he was car-shopping online.

  A few minutes later, I heard a holler from the home office. “Look, Vince! Here’s one just like mine. This is the one I want. You hear me? We need to get down to the Dodge place before it’s gone.”

  “No way. Have you even talked to your bank about the wreck?”

  “Oh yeah. The bank. No, but I talked to the insurance company. Will they pay the bank or me?”

  “They’ll pay the bank. The bank will give you the excess over the loan payoff.”

  “So I’ll have to finance the new car just like from scratch?”

  “That’s the way it works.”

  “Okay. Better call the banker.”

  “Eat the stew before it gets cold,” I admonished as I left the room.

  Chapter 16

  I STAYED home the next morning with my restless patient. Gene called to say he had Paul’s personal effects from the wrecked Charger and took the opportunity to bring me up to date on the accident investigation. The patrolman and a supervising sergeant questioned everyone at the accident scene, but Albuquerque was like everywhere else. Accidents, fistfights, and arguments collect a crowd. Although most of the spectators arrived after the collision took place, the officers found two individuals who heard the crash and responded to offer help. Both of the good Samaritans concentrated more on getting Paul out of his wrecked car than on the second vehicle, other than to notice there was no driver in the Caravan.

  One of the Walgreens employees claimed he saw a man walking with a limp down the sidewalk to the west, but the clerk was more interested in the accident itself. Upon questioning he recalled a man—no bigger or smaller than most men—with a baseball cap, bill pulled low over his face, hobbling down the street. Young? Old? Young, he thought but wasn’t sure. He hadn’t paid that much attention.

  After hearing what Gene had to say, I agreed it was a staged crash, intended to either injure or kill Paul. Wick Pillsner was a six two, two hundred pound, fifty-five-year-old man built like the jock he once was, so if he was behind the incident, he must be hiring local muscle to do his dirty work. A sudden rage blurred my vision and set my heart to pounding. If the bastard wanted to send a message, he should have delivered it to me. He wasn’t going to get away with it. He’d just made the biggest mistake of his life. Before he attacked Paul, this was an assignment like a hundred others. Now it was personal.

  I calmed my racing pulse and settled my jangled nerves as Gene brought me up to date on the wiretap we’d discussed. He was having trouble finding a judge to issue a warrant but got permission for a pen register and tap and trace. He could see any number dialed from the phone and any number that called the phone, but he couldn’t listen in on conversations. Not ideal but better than nothing.

  Upon closing Gene’s call, I sat in the den and thought things through. The driver of the Caravan was—as Paul called it—without wheels after the wreck. Anyone who deliberately crashed his vehicle needed a second party nearby to pick him up. Or he’d take a bus. Central, a block to the south, was a major bus artery. This didn’t wash. He had no assurance he wouldn’t be at least slightly injured in the crash. He could have called a taxi, but that was impractical for the same reason. I put aside completely the idea he would walk wherever he was heading. Even if he wasn’t injured, he was bound to be shaken after such a crash. Staging a T-bone took skill if someone intended to walk away under his own power. I examined each option and settled on the idea a confederate picked him up.

  Gene’s pen register and tap and trace might be more valuable than I’d first considered it. The wind quickly spilled from that sail when I realized Wick probably used an unregistered cell phone to set up the attempt.

  Later in the evening, after figuring the painkillers and a little distance from the event might make Paul less excitable, I questioned him about the crash. He gave me a tired grin.

  “You figure I’ve settled down enough now?”

  “Something like that. I don’t think you realize how badly you were shaken.”

  “Probably not. You know, it’s the old ‘take a bullet for the team and plunge right back into the fray’ syndrome.”

  “Walk me through the incident.”

  “Hasn’t Gene already done—”

  “From the cop’s point of view. I want yours. For example, did you notice anyone following you?”

  He paused to think before answering. “Nope. I was just going along minding my own business.”

  “Did you notice the Caravan pass you?”

  “Yeah. Think so. I was in the right-hand lane anticipating turning west on Central. Several cars passed on the inside. Van might have been one of them… from a few blocks back.”

  “Did you see the driver?”

  He shook his head before wincing and touching his bum shoulder.

  “Your neck sore?” I asked.

  “Everything’s sore. Didn’t notice any of the drivers.”

  “How
about when he came out of Copper to slam you?”

  About the car crash, Paul knew less than I did. He’d caught a mere glimpse of the Caravan as it barreled out of Copper to plow into the passenger’s side of Paul’s Charger. Paul was thrown right, restrained by the seat belt, and then slammed against the driver’s side door. He claimed he hadn’t lost consciousness but was disoriented by the crash. If the van had T-boned the Charger from the other side, Paul might not have survived. Fortunately the other driver didn’t want to chance traffic blocking his attack. A shiver ran down my back at the thought of what might have been.

  “You had five names on your list to check. How far did you get?” I asked.

  “Just two. I was headed for the third name when the accident… uh, the attack happened. I hit Sarah Thackerson and Spencer Spears first, since they’re just four blocks down the street.”

  “Both of them still working at the Belhaven house?” I asked.

  “Yep. They claimed they recently decided to invest in Wick’s project. They already knew about their inheritance and overheard Harrison and Melanie talking about the Rio Puerco project one day. That is, Sarah did. She did some looking into the prospects and decided it was a good place to put part of her money. She claims Spencer went along for the ride. There’s some bad blood between those two. But I guess he didn’t object to ping-ponging off her tip in order to make a buck.”

  “Makes you wonder why she told him.” I thought over my question and then answered it. “Maybe she didn’t. Maybe he overheard her or saw her notes or something. Or maybe she tried to bury the hatchet.”

  Paul gave a wry smile. “Between Belhaven’s girlfriend and his boyfriend? Who’d have thunk it? The way they bitch-talk one another, makes you wonder. Way I figure it, each thought he or she was worth more to Pierce than the other. Think Sarah was more pissed than Spencer was. Just about everyone knew about her relationship with Pierce. His came as sort of a surprise.”