Murder at the Bomb Shelter

by Lee Strauss

  With clear reluctance, he turned to Rosa. “I see you found me, Miss Reed.” He yelled over to the man operating the machine, “Take a break, Mike. Thanks.” He laid the gun across his left arm and motioned for Rosa to sit on a wooden bench.

  “Thanks for taking time to speak to me,” Rosa said. “I know you have a busy day.”

  “Yes, well, I didn’t have much choice, did I?” He sat down beside her and leaned the gun against the bench.

  “I am just trying to get to the bottom of this.”

  Walter Gainer snorted in derision and shook his head.

  “I take it there is some friction between you and your father?”

  “That’s an understatement. I don’t agree with all of this in-house investigation nonsense.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “If, as you say, Dieter was murdered, let’s get the police involved. Let’s get all the dirty laundry flying in the wind.” He rubbed his chin and looked away.

  “Dirty laundry?” Rosa probed.

  “Yes, my father is especially good at bringing up people’s faults and condemning them over and over for it.”

  Rosa had the feeling she was about to poke a bear. “Are you referring to yourself and your wife?” She remembered what Janet had told her about her sister-in-law’s alcoholism.

  Walter Gainer snarled. “No doubt Janet has told you all about our troubles. Yes, Patricia has had trouble with the booze in the past, which brought great embarrassment to my father. ‘Tarnished the family name.’ But she’s been on the wagon for years now.”

  “Tell me about the fire in Schofield.”

  He turned to her in surprise and then looked away again. He was quiet for a long moment, and Rosa wondered if he would just ignore her. “Well, I’ll be damned.” He snorted. “You’re good at your job; I’ll give you that.”

  “I talked to Richard Tamblyn, the investigator at Dieter Braun’s insurance office.”

  “Of course you did.” Walter Gainer shook his head again and fell into another bout of silence.

  “I am just following the trails,” Rosa said, hoping to prod him along. “It was bound to come out sooner or later. Someone who is owed money on that project will most likely start asking uncomfortable questions soon.”

  “Heck, I suppose you’re right.” He grabbed the brim of his baseball cap and slapped it on his thigh in anger. “Have you told anyone?”

  “No, but more people in the family know about it than you think. I’m not going to say who, but no one has gone to the police with it.”

  “The project was going all wrong. Way behind schedule, disputes with the workers’ union, supplies not getting shipped properly…the list goes on.”

  “So, you decided to cash in on the insurance.”

  Walter Gainer breathed heavily through his nose. “I was facing bankruptcy and something even worse in this business, a loss of reputation. I have been in the real estate speculation business since the war. I’ve never had any issues until now. And when Dieter found out, I was at his mercy. He threatened, at least a dozen times, that he was going to go to the police. Then he’d call me an hour later to tell me he was going to wait on it. That he had the keys to my future and that maybe, just maybe, if I was a good boy and paid him handsomely, he would destroy the investigative report and put the rubber stamp on the insurance policy. The man was toying with me.” He returned his cap to his head. “Serves me right. Well, I guess I am my father’s son, after all.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Let’s just say that the ghosts in the old man’s closets are a lot older and more sinister.” Walter Gainer grabbed his shotgun and put the butt on his thigh with the barrel pointing up.

  “What are you saying, Mr. Gainer?”

  “People are dead simply because my father wanted it so.” He looked straight at her. “I’d be careful if I were you, Miss Reed. You think you’re working for him, but he’s playing with you.”

  Rosa suppressed the shudder that threatened. She didn’t doubt Walter Gainer’s words and took his warning to heart. Crime families had a way of getting away with murder.

  “Do you mind?” she asked, pointing at the gun.

  “What…you want to try it?”

  “If you’d allow me.”

  “Well, by all means.” He handed her the gun; his mouth turned up in a scornful grin. “This should be entertaining.” He then summoned the boy, Mike, who readied himself at the trap thrower. To Rosa, he said, “The gun is a Remington 870 pump-action and holds five rounds in the magazine.”

  Rosa pumped the gun.

  “Careful now,” Walter Gainer said. “You follow the pigeon with the barrel and shoot while still in the arc. Breathe steady; there will be quite a kick and—”

  Rosa shouted, “Pull!”

  The disk flew into the air. Rosa followed it with the barrel and pulled the trigger. A loud boom filled the sky as the disk disintegrated.

  “Well, I’ll be…” Walter Gainer stared at the sky as if still looking for the disk. “Where d’you learn to shoot like that?”

  “Fox hunting is an English pastime, but I prefer shooting inanimate objects.” To Mike, she shouted, “Pull!”

  The disk flew again and after another loud boom, was destroyed in an instant.

  Rosa pumped the gun again, and the spent cartridge flew onto the ground. “You know what I think?” she said. “I think it could have been a crime of passion. Perhaps you went up to the cabin, hoping to dissuade Dieter Braun. Pull!”

  The clay disk soared into the air. Rosa squeezed the trigger—hitting the mark, shattering the disk, and watching clay bits fall to the ground.

  “There was an argument, and Mr. Braun wouldn’t listen to reason.” Rosa pumped the shotgun again. “He was working on his Land Rover. You lost your temper and hit him with the claw end of that hammer. Pull!” After the target was once again obliterated, Rosa lowered the gun.

  The two stood looking at each other.

  “What were you doing last Tuesday night?” Rosa asked, finally.

  “Well, Miss Reed, or should I say, Miss Annie Oakley, that is some shooting there. I’m impressed.” He nodded appreciatively.

  He walked over to take the gun from her hands, but Rosa took one step back, the barrel pointed at the ground, though she knew the magazine was now empty.

  “What were you doing last Tuesday night?” she repeated.

  “You are a crack shot, Miss Reed, but you missed the target on your little murder theory, I’m afraid. My alibi is weak; I will admit that. I was at home with Patricia. I went to bed around nine thirty after watching our favorite TV show.

  Rosa sighed. “Let me guess; Name That Tune.”

  He looked at her in surprise. “That’s right. Are you a fan?”

  “I have never seen it, I’m afraid.”

  “It’s an addicting program if you’re a music lover. ‘Goodnight, Irene’ won a young lady forty dollars. Patricia stayed up until eleven reading. Now you can spin your wheels trying to prove I killed Dieter, but if I were you, I would be talking to that Mexican detective. He is closer to solving this than you are—” He held out his hand for the gun. “—by a long shot.”

  16

  The next morning, after a breakfast of waffles and poached eggs, Rosa headed straight for the Santa Bonita Police station. The last thing she wanted to do was see Miguel, especially after that awkward meet up at the restaurant.

  However, if there were any truth to what Walter Gainer had told her, she would be wasting her time and effort chasing down the line of investigation that assumed his guilt. It would involve checking out his alibi thoroughly and perhaps finding a way to obtain fingerprints from him to see if they matched any found on the hammer. Or she could try to get him to confess by making him think she had physical evidence or an eyewitness. But before she did that, she needed to find out where the police investigation was at, as uncomfortable as that would be.

  Rosa knew the way to Miguel’s office and didn’
t even stop to talk to reception. She found both Miguel and Detective Sanchez standing in front of a large chalkboard that had been wheeled into Miguel’s office. They were staring at circles and lines written in chalk with the names of certain Gainer family members. There were also other names, and names of businesses she didn’t recognize.

  Detective Sanchez, as always, looked like he had just gotten out of bed after having slept in his clothes. He wore the same rumpled white shirt and tie Rosa had seen him wear numerous times. She wondered if the cigarette that perpetually hung from his mouth was the same one she had seen him with weeks ago. Maybe he didn’t smoke but left it perched on his mouth unlit because it matched the rest of his ensemble.

  He and Miguel both turned to look at her in surprise as she walked in through the opened door.

  “Well, come right in, why doncha,” Detective Sanchez said, dark eyebrows raised.

  “This is a surprise,” Miguel remarked. He looked unfairly cool and collected in his summer suit and tie.

  “Sorry, gentlemen.” Rosa offered a smile, hoping the way Miguel still affected her didn’t show on her face. “I was just in the neighborhood.”

  “Ya, right,” Sanchez chuckled. “And we were just about to head to the spa for pedicures.” He laughed at his joke and looked at Miguel with a wink. Miguel had a noncommittal smile on his face as if he appreciated the sarcasm but didn’t find it as funny as Sanchez did.

  Rosa plowed on. “I spoke to Walter Gainer yesterday. He mentioned something that made me think that perhaps we should share some information.”

  “Well, that’s a switch,” Miguel said. “Last time I saw you, you seemed pretty determined not to collaborate.”

  “Yes, I’m sorry,” Rosa said, feeling remorse about it. “There were, and still are, reasons for that. Perhaps I can explain that to you after the case is solved but for now…” She let out a breath and sat down on a chair. “I want to ask you how you are doing with the investigation of Dieter Braun’s murder.”

  Sanchez and Miguel shared a look. Miguel hesitated and then said, “All right, Rosa, I guess we can trust you. You did direct us to the murder weapon, which we appreciate.”

  Rosa offered a tight smile.

  “How about we tell you,” Sanchez started, “and then you tell us what you got.” He looked at Miguel, who lifted his chin in agreement.

  “Fair enough,” Rosa said.

  Miguel smiled crookedly. “We got nothing.”

  Rosa’s mouth dropped open. “What?”

  “We’ve gotten nowhere on the case, and Delvecchio is busting our butts about it too. But the Gainer family has shut us out. They aren’t telling us anything. Instead, they cover for each other and shut doors in our faces. We have no real leads. We’re about to shake that tree again at Dieter Braun’s office. Last time we tried, we got nowhere.”

  Rosa stared at the floor. Is Walter Gainer trying to throw me off his trail by sending me on a wild goose chase with the police? It seems like a rather weak effort if he is. He must know that one conversation with Miguel would reveal his decoy. She looked up at the chalkboard. “What is this?”

  “This is an older investigation we started on Orville Gainer six months ago in conjunction with a special FBI task force,” Miguel said. “We were hoping that it would somehow give up a clue that tied to the murder of Dieter Braun.”

  Rosa stood and walked to the board. “What kind of investigation?”

  “Oh no,” Sanchez said, lifting a thick palm. “You give us something first.”

  Actually, they hadn’t given her anything, but Rosa played along. “I haven’t gotten anywhere either.” She stared at the board. Could this old case be what Walter Gainer had been referring to?

  “Someone hit Dieter over the head with the claw end of a hammer,” Rosa said to recap, “and then dragged his body into the bomb shelter—”

  “And the angle of the wound,” Miguel said, cutting in, “the way the shelf fell, the contents strewn about the room, the tobacco, the blood in the vehicle, the spark plug wrench beside the battery—”

  Rosa finished. “—Staging the body to make it look like an accident.”

  “And used the recent earthquake as a cover-up,” Miguel said.

  “The killer was strong enough to carry a full-grown man down that ladder,” Rosa added, “most likely a man.”

  Miguel nodded. “Agreed. If he were pushed, there would be postmortem lesions.”

  Rosa tapped on Miguel’s desk. “Colin Monahan has a shaky alibi that you can check out if you want. I’ll make sure to give you those details before I leave, but in his case, there’s no motive that I know of. Other than that, I would take Leo Romano, Frank Monahan, and for the time being, Walter Gainer, off the suspect list. The first two have bulletproof alibis that would be difficult to fake.”

  Rosa waited a moment while Miguel took notes, then continued. “The family members love the TV show Name That Tune. Sidney Gainer and his fiancée were supposedly watching, together with Orville Gainer. Walter claimed to be watching the same show with his wife, Patricia. They like to think their knowledge of the episode proves their innocence, but it only means they talked to someone who had seen it.”

  “And?” Miguel prompted.

  “They all have motives, but—”

  “But you’re not going to tell us what they are,” Miguel said.

  “You’re going to have to trust me,” Rosa returned. “Were you able to get fingerprints at the scene?”

  “Yes,” Sanchez said. “From the ladder, the door handles of the Land Rover and on the shelf—and they weren’t Dieter Braun’s. They don’t match anyone in our records, no surprise there. We also got some prints from the murder weapon.”

  “Well, that’s something,” Rosa said hopefully.

  “Sure, but the problem is getting fingerprints from any of the Gainers without their consent. None of them have police records. The old trick of bringing them for questioning one by one and getting them to touch a coffee cup probably won’t work because, by law, they can have a lawyer present. Any good attorney will be watching like a hawk for stuff like that.”

  “Okay, here’s the scoop.” Miguel leaned against the edge of his desk and folded his arms. “We’ve been investigating Orville Gainer, and certain members of his family, for fraud since February. We think they’re involved in a Ponzi scheme.”

  “It’s a type of money fraud,” Rosa said, letting the men know she understood.

  “It’s similar to a pyramid scheme, but with a twist,” Sanchez said as he sat in Miguel’s office chair and put his feet up on the desk.

  “Hey!” Miguel spread his hand out before him in exasperation.

  “Oh, sorry.” Sanchez took his feet off the desk.

  Miguel looked at Rosa and shook his head, “No manners at all. The man is uncouth.”

  “Ooh, nice word,” Sanchez quipped.

  “Anyway, my rather unrefined partner here is correct,” Miguel said, after giving Sanchez another irritated look. “A pyramid scheme is network marketing. Each segment of the pyramid gets a small piece of the money pie while the rest gets forwarded to the top players. The thing collapses when the base of the pyramid gets too big, and not enough people are joining it to sustain it.”

  Rosa took over from Miguel, “A Ponzi scheme is based on the principle of robbing one person to pay the other. The earlier investors get what was promised them, usually a very high-interest return, but the man in the middle gets more and more money as new investors are enticed by the news that the investment is working as promised. The lure of very high returns is too hard to pass up.”

  She smiled at the detectives. “My mother met Mr. Ponzi in person when she lived in Boston.”

  “How intriguing,” Miguel said.

  “What do these people think they are investing in?” Rosa asked, still staring at the board.

  “A real estate investment company called Saffron Investment Corporation, which turns out to be an inactive company set up by Or
ville Gainer, basically a vehicle for various financial maneuvers, especially ones he wants to keep off the radar of the IRS.” Miguel pointed to a circle on the chalkboard with the letters ‘SIC’ written on it.

  “He’s telling investors that their money is being used to renovate and build large apartment complexes and commercial buildings in Asia. The explanation for the high returns, usually up to twenty percent in a year, is that building materials and labor costs are much lower, and that buyer interest from the West is huge. There are even one or two construction sites in Thailand, but that represents only a fraction of what has been claimed by SIC.

  “In the meantime, we have watched Orville Gainer’s assets grow almost exponentially. He has private properties in Barbados, Switzerland, Cabo San Lucas, and even an estate near Panama City, along with several bank accounts in the Cayman Islands. He owns cars, yachts…you name it. But most of it is kept in other countries. He even made a bid to buy into a famous Hollywood studio, but it didn’t go through.”

  Rosa sat back down and considered the implications.

  “As I mentioned, we have been monitoring this for almost half a year,” Sanchez added. “We always suspected Orville Gainer was the head of this ring along with two, possibly three other main players. Recently, we have come to suspect one of Gainer’s grandsons, Sidney Gainer, is involved.”

  “We nearly have enough evidence to arrest him,” Miguel said, “but it’s Orville Gainer that we want to bring down. If we arrest Sidney, we’re afraid Orville will bolt. With his connections around the globe, well, it would be hard to go after him once he left the country.”

  Sanchez scratched his chest absentmindedly as he looked at the board. “So, we are biding our time.”

  “How do you think this Ponzi scheme relates to Dieter Braun?” Rosa asked.

  “We haven’t figured that part yet,” Sanchez said. “It’s more or less a hunch.”

  Miguel pushed off his desk, shooed Sanchez out of his chair, and took his seat. “If Dieter caught on to the scheme, it would give Orville Gainer a big fat motive to kill him.”