The Sixth Mystery

by Lee Semsen

  “Did you see anything in Mr. Evans’s file that would help me?” said Inch. “Or would you allow me to look at the file myself?”

  “Ordinarily, no,” said Luke. “But in this case – let me tell you a story, although it is not precisely a story. My grandfather – my mother’s father – was known as a great storyteller, and many times my mother told me that I was his spiritual descendant. I could tell you the stories he told me, but they would not help you in your investigation, so I will tell you a little about myself instead. Were you ever in the service, Mr. Inch?”

  “No,” said Inch. “I take it that you were, Mr. Luke?”

  “I spent 30 years in the army because as a youth, I believed that one could no longer make a living telling stories. The army is not a good place for telling stories, either, not the stories my grandfather taught me. But I did what the army wanted me to do and lived as the army wanted me to live, which meant that I followed orders. Everyone knows that in the military, if you want to survive, if you want to get along, you learn to follow orders. In the army, nothing is more important; even children know that from watching television. But there is something else about serving in the army that is almost as important, and that is following rules. In the military, there is a code of conduct, and there are rules that must be followed at all times. Orders exist only where there are no rules, because the army has not found it possible to make rules that fit every situation.

  “Thirty- two years ago, when I left to join the army, none of this – the casino, the hotel – was here. Now we have not only the casino, which makes a great deal of money and keeps our people alive, but we have a museum and cultural institute, which keeps our history alive. If those had been here when I was eighteen years old, perhaps I would not have left. Perhaps I would have studied more so I could have worked in the museum. Now, after 30 years in the military, I am better suited to the job of director of security. I am fortunate, however, that we have our museum and cultural institute because it gives me the opportunity to tell the stories my grandfather told me. I tell them at ceremonial meetings, I tell them to the children, and I tell them to machines so they may be recorded and not forgotten. That is the work I love. I do this job, I work for the casino, to support my family, and because I can do it and do it well. Why do you do your job, Mr. Inch?”

  Like everyone else, Inch had asked himself that question, but he’d rarely gone beyond answering that it was what he’d always done, and that he would keep on doing it as long as it seemed preferable to doing nothing at all. But on this occasion, and to this man, his usual answer would have been inadequate. “I suppose,” he began slowly, “that we all depend on one another to act in certain ways, and that our system of laws helps us to know and understand what those ways ought to be. Because those laws are enforced, we have confidence that we can go about our daily business without undue fear of the actions of other people. If the laws are just, and if they are enforced in a fair and equitable way, then those of us who enforce them support not only the legal order but the moral order as well.” Inch paused, thinking back on what he’d just said, and wondering whether it sounded pedantic or pretentious or both. Maybe it did, he decided, but he believed it, or some version of it, anyway.

  All Luke said in response was “Is that all?”

  Inch stared at him, thinking that he was being ironic. “Well,” Inch said finally, “my father was a policeman, and I respected him and the work he did.”

  “Then you were truer to him than I, in my youth, was to my grandfather. I spent 30 years living under rules and following orders. I often gave orders myself, but they were merely the orders I had to give so the orders of my commanding officer would be carried out. So when I retired from the army and came home and was put in charge of security here at the casino, I discovered that I was poorly prepared for the job. I knew how to give orders, but I didn’t know what orders to give, and there are fewer rules here than in the army, and more need for orders. I had much to learn, and I’m still learning.

  “In the army, a serviceman’s personnel file would never be allowed into the hands of an outsider. It could travel up the chain of command, of course, all the way to the commander in chief, but nowhere else. But this is not the army, and here, I am in a position to make my own rules, and to break them if I think it necessary. So here is Mr. Evans’s file, which the personnel office has told me is confidential like all employee files.” He stood up and handed the folder across the desk. “I won’t go so far as to allow it out of my office, but I will let you read it. It is of more use to you now than it is to me. Please take your time.”

  Inch thanked him and took the file, which was not much thicker than the folder itself. Besides the application form, which, he noticed, was dated the same day as his own interview with the Walla Walla County Commissioners ten years ago, there were two performance reviews, one dated six months after the application; the other a year later. Both were checklists with every item marked either “satisfactory” or “exceeds expectations”; both were signed by Joseph Little Crow; and both had the same “additional comment”: “recommend continuing employment.” Another sheet gave a record of Evans’s salary increases; he’d been paid by the hour and received annual raises, sometimes 50 cents, sometimes 75 cents, and once a full dollar per hour. The one-dollar raise coincided with a “letter of merit” which was also signed by Joseph Little Crow and dated three and a half years ago. Inch read it with curiosity; evidently a man who had lost “a large sum” playing blackjack had become angry and accused the dealer of cheating and threatened him with a knife. Evans had managed to disarm the man and subdue him “without causing injury either to himself or others, and without interrupting the smooth operation of the facility.”

  Inch looked up at Luke, who was waiting for him to finish his examination of the file. “This letter of merit,” Inch said, holding it up. “I assume you’ve read it?”

  “I have,” said Luke.

  “Does this happen often?”

  “You mean the threat?” said Luke. “Such things occur perhaps three or four times a year. That would make them relatively rare, considering that our daily attendance averages close to a thousand.”

  “I was also wondering about the letter itself,” said Inch.

  “That is even less common,” said Luke. “I’ve written only two of them myself, and my understanding is that Joe Little Crow was even more reluctant to praise people on paper.”

  “Do you know anything about this incident other than what the letter says?” said Inch. “The name of the customer who was involved, for instance?”

  Luke shook his head. “The usual procedure is to take the customer’s name and, if possible, a picture, and tell him that he is no longer welcome at the casino. For some reason Joe didn’t do that, or if he did, he didn’t enter the date correctly.”

  “Would the tribal police have a record of the incident?”

  “Not necessarily,” said Luke, “unless the customer was a tribal member. I doubt that he was; most of us know that the casino is here to make money, not to encourage the spending of it. Then we have the problem of jurisdiction. When someone from outside is involved, we call the Umatilla County sheriff’s office if we want to make an arrest or file a charge. I doubt that Joe would have done that, but I’ll check with the tribal police if you wish.”

  Inch said that he would appreciate that, and Luke picked up the telephone. Inch went back to reading Evans’s personnel file. He had saved the job application for last, and now it was the only thing left, a single sheet printed on both sides. Evans had filled it out in blue ink, in small, precise handwriting – not because there’d been any need to write small; he’d left most of the blanks half-empty. But the application was complete, as far as it went. Evans had graduated from high school in Moses Lake and earned a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice at Washington State University. He’d listed his former employer as the County of Walla Walla and given his term of employment as 22 years and four months. U
nder “nature of work,” he’d simply written “law enforcement,” and under “number of persons supervised,” “one.” In the space that asked “may we contact this employer?” he’d said, “I would prefer that you did not.” If he’d held any jobs previous to his position as sheriff, he hadn’t bothered to list them. Thirty years ago the application might have asked his age and marital status, but it didn’t, and Evans hadn’t volunteered the information. There were three lines for personal references, and Evans had entered names and addresses in two of them. Neither lived in Walla Walla or anywhere else within 100 miles, and neither included a telephone number. But in the space following “name of relative or other person to call in case of emergency,” Evans had given a name and a number with a 509 area code, which meant that the individual, whose name was Stacy Reed, had lived in eastern Washington.

  Inch asked Luke, who had finished his call, if he’d read Mr. Evans’s application.

  “Of course,” said Luke. “But not until yesterday.”

  “Would you say that it’s typical?” said Inch.

  “We have a few retired lawmen working here,” said Luke. “Most of our applicants, however, are young men just out of high school. Football players seem to think that their background qualifies them for security work. Size is an advantage, naturally.”

  “I suppose it is,” said Inch, “but that wasn’t what I meant. Mr. Evans gave so little information about his work history that I’m amazed his application was considered.”

  “Joe Little Crow favored older applicants,” said Luke. “He felt he could trust men who were near his own age. I like to give younger people a chance, especially those whose opportunities are limited in other respects.”

  “If I received an application from someone who was not working, who listed only one previous job and preferred that his former employer not be questioned about his performance in that job, I would be suspicious,” said Inch.

  “Perhaps Mr. Evans talked to Joe and explained why he answered as he did, and convinced him that he would make a satisfactory employee.”

  “So Mr. Little Crow sometimes bent the rules, too,” said Inch.

  “Mr. Little Crow made his own rules,” said Luke. “My conversation with the tribal police chief was interesting, if you’d care to hear about it.”

  “I would,” said Inch.

  “They do have the name of the man who made the threat against the dealer, and a photograph of him also, but that is not the interesting part. Another customer accused the same dealer of cheating a few months later. This customer didn’t make any threats, but instead took his complaint to the floor manager who, after referring the customer to her supervisor, decided to pay particular attention to the dealer’s behavior when he thought no one was watching. Nothing untoward happened for several weeks, and then one day she saw him palm an ace, and the next day, a pair of tens. We discovered that the dealer was not only cheating the customers but the casino, too, by pocketing chips and giving them to his wife to redeem.”

  “That is interesting,” said Inch, although he doubted that it was relevant. “One thing Evans did include on his application was an emergency number. Did you try calling it?”

  “The first day Mr. Evans missed his shift, his supervisor telephoned his home, but Mr. Evans did not answer. The second day, his supervisor reported Mr. Evans’s absence to me, and I tried the emergency number and found that it was disconnected. Then Mr. Tamiroff drove up to Mr. Evans’s house and found him dead in his living room.”

  “Did Mr. Tamiroff volunteer to do this?” said Inch.

  “He asked to go, and I gave him permission,” said Luke. “Mr. Tamiroff and Mr. Evans worked the same shift. He knew Mr. Evans better than I did.”

  “I spoke with Mr. Tamiroff yesterday,” said Inch, “and he didn’t seem to know Mr. Evans very well.”

  Luke smiled briefly. “But I did not know him at all.”

  Chapter 2

  After writing down the names and addresses of Evans’s personal references and the name and defunct telephone number of his emergency contact, Inch thanked Mr. Luke and left the casino. A mile north and a mile east took him to the tribal administration building, where a young and very efficient officer provided him with the name and photograph of the man who had threatened the blackjack dealer three years ago, as well as the name and last known address of the dealer. Armed with this information, Inch made the 60-minute drive back to Walla Walla under midday skies that were no brighter than they’d been four hours earlier. He arrived at the office just in time to see his deputy, James Driscoll, finishing his lunch, which Driscoll preferred to eat at his desk. After waiting for Inch to say something, which he didn’t, Driscoll asked him hesitantly if he’d had any luck.

  “I have five names, Driscoll, not counting the director of casino security and one of his men. I don’t know if any of them are lucky or not.” Inch explained who they were and how they were connected to Evans.

  “Nothing more recent, sir?” said Driscoll, and when Inch didn’t answer, he added, “Shall I see if I can find current addresses? Or check the National Crime Information Center?”

  “If I say no,” said Inch, “you’ll do it, anyway, during your hours off when you should be helping your wife or playing with your son. So I may as well say yes.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “But the person I’d most like to talk to is the former deputy sheriff,” Inch said, “the man who resigned when Evans did.”

  “I understand, sir,” said Driscoll. “If you want to know anything about the sheriff, just ask the deputy.”

  “What do you mean by that, Driscoll?”

  “You don’t need to worry, sir. Your secrets are safe with me.”

  “I’m relieved to hear it,” said Inch. “Mr. Evans’s secrets are safe with his deputy, too, at least for the time being, since we don’t know his name.”

  “Her name, sir. Mr. Evans’s deputy was a woman.”

  Identifying the former deputy had been the easiest thing in the world, Driscoll said; all he’d had to do was search the Union-Bulletin archives for occurrences of “deputy sheriff.” He’d been pleased to see that his own name had appeared in the newspaper 35 times. That of the former deputy had been mentioned on only six occasions, but after all (Driscoll said), she’d left the job ten years ago when the Union-Bulletin database was “not so robust.”

  Inch waited until Driscoll had finished his explanation and then asked him if, in all his diligence, he’d remembered to write down the deputy’s name. Driscoll replied that of course he had; her name was Jody Stark. That led to Driscoll’s describing a series of additional searches, the first of which brought up a wedding announcement for Jody Stark and Richard Graham, which was followed by a search for “Jody Graham,” which yielded a legal notice concerning a petition for dissolution of marriage; and finally a brief article dated the previous February reporting an attempted robbery at the Baker Boyer Bank that had been thwarted by the intervention of Ms. Graham, who was employed by the bank as a security officer.

  Inch had done his banking at the Baker Boyer Bank as long as he’d lived in Walla Walla. For all he knew, he’d seen Jody Graham dozens of times. And the bank was located only three blocks from Inch’s office. Maybe, he thought, it was time for a walk.

  She was standing by the wall some 20 feet to the left of the entrance surveying the activity in the bank lobby. She didn’t look at Inch as he walked in, or if she did, she’d looked away before he caught sight of her. As soon as he started walking toward her, however, she turned to face him and held his eyes until he stood in front of her.

  “Ms. Graham?” Inch said. “I’m Sheriff Abraham Inch.”

  “I know who you are,” she said in a voice best described as “not unfriendly.” “You’re the man I’d be working for if I hadn’t quit my job ten years ago.”

  “So I understand,” said Inch. He couldn’t recall ever noticing her. There was nothing unusual about her appearance – average height and weigh
t, brown hair, regular features, age somewhere between 25 and 40 – nothing but the uniform, which wouldn’t be conspicuous in a bank. So much for his powers of observation.

  “I’ll bet I know why you’re here, too,” she said. “You want to talk about Charlie Evans.”

  “That’s right,” Inch said. He was feeling at a disadvantage, as if he were the only one in the room who wasn’t in on the joke, and the feeling wasn’t eased when she added, “And I’ll bet I know what you’re thinking, too: that you’ve been in this bank hundreds of times and never realized that the woman standing over by the wall used to work in your office.”

  “I may have been thinking something of the sort,” said Inch. “Do you also know in advance the questions I intend to ask?” Inch smiled to show that he meant it lightly; that it was just banter.

  “I think I do,” she said, “but it’s your job now, isn’t it? And I ought to let you do it.”

  “Either way,” said Inch, “but I shouldn’t take too much of your time while you’re on duty. Maybe you could come to the office later today or tomorrow.”

  “I never go near the office,” she said. “Too painful. We can talk here as long as you don’t stand in front of me and block my view.”

  Inch apologized and quickly moved to the side. She laughed and said, “I was kidding. You’re not so massive that I can’t see around you. But why don’t you help me scan the room for potential wrongdoers? Two uniforms would be twice the deterrent, and when they see that the sheriff is here, they might just walk over and give themselves up.”