Death of a Bankster

by David Bishop

  Before leaving, Maddie stuck her head in Lieutenant Harrison’s office. “Sir, Crawford had no life insurance with any insurer licensed to do business in Arizona.”

  He raised his eyebrows and shrugged. “Dark Thursday, Sergeant. That’s it.”

  Maddie nodded and walked off. Back in her office she called Paige Crawford to arrange a time tomorrow morning when they could meet. Maddie needed to prepare the widow that homicide might be shutting it down Thursday night absent proof her husband was not just dead, but dead by foul means.

  * * *

  When the storefront door opened, Maddie said, “The Phoenix Suns thank you,” into a silent phone she had held so as to appear to be finishing a call.

  “I’m Carlos Montoya,” the man entering said. “I was told you got two season tickets for me for the rest of the Suns’ season? I wanna get ‘em.”

  “You won a drawing. Yes. I’m glad you got here.” You have no idea how glad. “At four, the rules would have required we draw another name.”

  “Okay. Lemme have ‘em.”

  Maddie came out from behind the long table she had stood behind when she hung up from her make-believe call and slid her backside onto the table in front of Montoya. “Sue, you got those tickets? This is Mr. Montoya.”

  Sue came over with an envelope with the Phoenix Suns logo on the front. “Have you confirmed this is Mr. Montoya?”

  “Oh, no. Thanks for reminding me. We need some picture ID, Mr. Montoya. Your driver’s license will do it just fine.”

  “Why you need that?” Montoya asked. His hands drawn into easy fists.

  “Anyone could come in here and claim they are Carlos Montoya. We mentioned your having won the tickets to several people while we were trying to find you. Gotta be sure, we need picture ID. No other way.”

  Montoya reached into his back pocket and took out and opened his wallet.

  “I need it out of your wallet, sir. I need to make a copy.” When Montoya hesitated again, Sue added, “After that, the Suns girls will come from behind that curtain,” she pointed. “We’ll take a picture of them crowded around you in their cheerleading outfits, handing you the tickets. Publicity, you know. That’s our game. It’s why we’re doing this season ticket promo.”

  Gonzales, the uniformed officer who had been represented as the cameraman stepped closer. He put his camera on the table.

  Montoya handed the license to Sue, who looked at it and said, “That’s good enough. It’s definitely you, no doubt.” When Montoya reached forward to take back his license, Sue slapped a handcuff over his wrist. “You’re under arrest, Carlos Montoya, for suspicion of murder.” Gonzales grabbed Montoya’s other forearm and brought it around behind him to finish cuffing him. Sue read the suspect his rights.

  By five, Maddie and Sue had Montoya booked and he had called his attorney who agreed to get there at four-thirty. Maddie and Sue used the time to drive to the Suns’ real publicity office to thank them and return the paraphernalia they had used to stage the sting. When they got back to the station, the suspect’s attorney had arrived so they went through that dance, then she reported to Adam Harrison.

  “Lieutenant, the Suns suspect, as he has become known, is booked on murder-one. His attorney has met with him. He squawked a bit about our method of capturing his client, but I could see he was trying hard not to laugh at his client’s gullibility, not to mention his stupidity at keeping the victim’s credit card at his house along with the victim’s underwear. We have two witnesses who have positively identified him, his fingerprints at the scene, and the other hard evidence you already know about. The D.A.’s got it. It’s a slam dunk.”

  * * *

  Wednesday morning, Paige Crawford called Maddie to move their meeting from ten to eleven-fifteen, claiming Carla Roth had given her a sleeping pill late last night which had made her oversleep and left her groggy. She needed more time to get herself together.

  A hot dry wind was tossing Maddie’s hair this way and that when she and Sue left the station to drive to the Crawford home. The hot desert breeze was more like a tic on the corner of a mean mouth, than a real breeze, at least down low. Higher up, the tall palm trees on Central Avenue, reaching for the sky like giant giraffes, were swishing back and forth like tails on nervous cats. She had always marveled that more of them didn’t just snap off. They did sometimes, but it was rare. Survival instincts apparently applied even to tall palms. Thinking of survival, she now only had today and tomorrow to prove that someone had snapped off survival instincts for Sam Crawford.

  * * *

  When Maddie rang the doorbell at the front of the Crawford home, the door opened in the hand of an older, reedy woman nicely dressed in expensive black slacks, open-toed tan pumps, and a beige top with a modest cowl neckline. Her earrings, necklace, and bracelet were all copper embedded with small turquoise stones. She introduced herself as Barbara Davis, Paige’s mother. After a few minutes Paige joined them wearing an outfit similar to her mother’s, only featuring gold and dark brown. She wore a watch and her wedding ring, no earrings or other jewelry.

  They all sat in the family room just off the kitchen. Barbara Davis, a woman who looked young to be the mother of Paige Crawford, motioned Maddie and Sue toward two copper colored leather chairs while she and Paige sat on a matching two-cushion couch. The walls were adorned with art by Bev Doolittle. The coffee table in the center of the sitting area held a carafe of coffee, a pitcher of iced tea, a plate of crackers and some slices of cheddar and pepper jack cheeses. The place held the visual enticement of a social gathering, amidst the emotional trapping of a wake.

  Paige Crawford made a simple hand gesture to indicate Maddie and Sue should help themselves to the refreshments, then asked, “Sergeant Richards, have you found my husband’s body?”

  Maddie looked down as she poured a glass of iced tea, and then sat forward, her knees apart as though they were a couple in the midst of an argument. She looked straight into Paige’s eyes and answered. “No. We have a working acceptance of his murder. But his body was taken by persons unknown and could be anywhere. I’m sorry to say it so straight out, but you asked directly so I assumed you wanted a forthright answer.”

  “How could this have happened, Sergeant?” Barbara Davis asked. “I mean a man’s … body can’t just up and vanish.”

  Sue answered Ms. Davis. “Literally speaking, that’s true. Still, Phoenix, Arizona, the world, for that matter, is a big place. We knew nothing of this until the fourth days after the occurrence. In those four days, your son-in-law could have been taken anywhere. We hope to find answers, but it’s simply unrealistic for you to expect them this afternoon.”

  Paige leaned forward and put two crackers and some cheese on her plate before pushing the tray closer to Maddie and Sue. “I do understand that,” Paige said, “but this is all … so hard. One day he is here. Then he is dead. Then his body disappears. Then I learn the FBI agents were imposters.” Paige stiffened. Her eyes shut tightly, her delicate lashes long and perfectly colored. She ran her hands down the legs of her black slacks and crossed her legs at the ankles. Then she looked up. “I’m sorry. My life didn’t prepare me for … such things.”

  Maddie nodded, but neither she nor Sue said anything. Then Maddie spoke. “Mrs. Crawford, I’m sorry we can’t offer more. For now, the department is treating your husband’s disappearance as a murder.”

  “I’d like you to explain what you mean by, ‘for now.’ I saw my husband shot dead. Carla Roth witnessed it as well. You have our formal statements. What the hell does, ‘for now,’ mean?”

  “It means we have no body, two witnesses, and evidence that only confirms your husband lost a fair amount of blood on the floor in your foray. There is no evidence and no witnesses which take us further.”

  “You mean you don’t believe us? Do you imagine that Carla and I had some nefarious plan to murder my husband and cover it with this story?”

  “It is not a matter of believing or not believing you. It is
our opinion that you are telling the truth. It is that belief which brings us here this morning, and keeps us handling this within homicide where cases without bodies are rare indeed. Still, our Lieutenant has authorized us to work this as a homicide only until close-of-business tomorrow, Thursday.”

  “Then what?” Paige Crawford asked. Her words floated to Maddie on a wave of anger diluted by confusion.

  “Friday morning, with no change by then, I will contact our Missing Person’s department and arrange for you to meet with them.”

  For a minute the room was awash in silence, dense, hard silence. A second minute passed before Barbara Davis broke the lock of tension by setting her coffee cup in its saucer, none too gently. “Isn’t it unusual to have a detective team of two women?”

  “Traditionally, perhaps,” Maddie said to answer Paige’s mother. “A few years ago that could not have happened, but things are changing in today’s department.” She didn’t say that Sue, who had come in third in the department’s unofficial arm wrestling championship held impromptu at one of the cop bars, could likely lick most of the men who might have become Maddie’s partner, or that Sue held a brown belt in Karate. Still, despite her physicality, Sue Martin was a very attractive woman, divorced like Maddie, but without children.

  “So,” Paige began, “just what needs to happen to get you what you need by tomorrow night?”

  Maddie reached out to refill her iced tea, and Sue’s after she extended her glass toward Maddie. “The big objectives remain the same: find either your husband’s body or the two who posed as FBI agents.”

  “Could they be real FBI agents?” Paige asked. “Isn’t that possible?”

  “No ma’am. We checked with the local and national offices of the FBI. There are no agents by those names and no FBI case involving your husband. We need to find the imposters, as well as the man who impersonated our medical examiner. Concurrently, we will be trying to locate your husband’s body, and the elusive motive for his murder.”

  “You have released my home back to me so I take it your evidence techs, whatever you call them, are through. What did they find?”

  “Unfortunately, nothing that helps much more than confirming some things. They found no fingerprints beyond people we were able to identify, folks who move in your circles. By the way, Ms. Davis, thank you for giving Bill Molitor your prints the other day so we could add yours to Paige’s and Sam’s. Please pass on our thanks to Carla Roth who gave us her prints as well. We got Sam’s from his time in the military.”

  Paige’s mother spoke next. “I’m sorry, weren’t the prints of the FBI imposters found? I mean, they should help you find those men which in turn could lead to the support you need to stay on the case.”

  “That would be nice, Ms. Davis,” Sue Martin said. “However, Carla Roth told us they both, acting as FBI agents would, wore protective latex gloves.”

  “So, no prints.” Ms. Davis said, before leaning back in her chair more from despair than for comfort.

  “That’s correct, ma’am.”

  Then Paige leaned forward, her eyebrows raised. “When they first got here, Agent Powell, well the man claiming to be Agent Powell had his hand on the front doorknob. Carla had closed the door just before they came in. He and this Agent Withers, the woman, were not wearing those gloves then.”

  “No ma’am,” Sue said. “However, by the time our tech team got here five days after the event, that doorknob had been used by you and others multiple times. There were no recoverable prints from them on the knob or the door itself. It’s likely these guys wiped down wherever they had touched without gloves. From the description of the events of that evening, I’d say they had this well planned.”

  Maddie took back over. “Molitor’s team did find clear blood traces to confirm your husband had lost a significant amount of blood recently in your foyer, right where you stated your husband fell. However, I should add, while we confirmed that blood was the same type as your husband’s, we have not conclusively established that the blood was specifically your husband’s. We expect that to be achieved soon, maybe today. They got DNA from the blood residuals on the floor and are matching it against DNA from trace elements Molitor’s team found here in your home. In real life, this DNA matching takes a bit more time than in the movies.”

  “Trace elements?”

  “Things like hairs from his brush in your bathroom. Earwax on a cue tip found in the bath waste basket. Stuff like that. Those tests are currently being run. We expect these tests will conclusively prove that the blood is your husband’s.”

  “But, still, even that won’t prove Sam is dead, is that right?” Barbara Davis asked.

  “Correct. But we are relying on the eyewitness reports, including Carla Roth who reported she confirmed that Mr. Crawford was dead. Carla Roth is a nurse and has checked this kind of thing many times. She would know.”

  “If she’s telling the truth, right?” Ms. Davis asked, again drilling into the issue of the veracity of the witnesses. “We always come back to that. That’s really the point, isn’t it? The point you made earlier about the truthfulness of my daughter and Ms. Roth, or the lack thereof.”

  “As unlikely as that is, yes,” Maddie said. “It is a loose end we must tie off. In homicide we’ve seen many things that have caused us to always remain skeptical until the facts are independently corroborated by unrelated sources. Yes, ma’am. That’s the part we currently lack, corroboration from unrelated sources.”

  “Yours is nasty business, Sergeant.”

  “It is. No doubt. Look, we … the department believes this went down exactly as you have represented. We are proceeding in accord. Still, we must remain open to all the possibilities, no matter how remote.”

  “I don’t like the doubting of what we have said. Not one bit. But I guess I understand, sort of. Still, no one wants to be assumed a liar, even as a remote possibility.” Then Paige looked upward and pursed her lips, a deep slow breath followed.

  “What?” Maddie asked. “Have you thought of something?”

  “If you need more, about the blood I mean. Sam donated blood. We both did. About two weeks ago. Give me a moment.” Paige left the room and returned in little over a minute. “Here it is. I had a copy in our health file.”

  Sue took it and read it. “I’ll follow up on this. Let’s hope they still have the blood in the blood bank. We may need a warrant, but, if so, I can alert them it’s on the way. They may cooperate on your say so. I’ll let you know. We may not even need it. As I mentioned, they are comparing what was obtained on the tile floor with the trace evidence from here in your home. We’ll take this donation information with us, but I really expect we will soon have confirmation the blood is your husband’s.”

  Barbara Davis refilled her coffee and Paige’s. “But, as you’ve explained, even that will not be sufficient to keep this a homicide case.”

  Maddie said, “I’m afraid that’s so. The core question remains. Who could be interested enough in your son-in-law to put his home under surveillance, to commit murder, to steal his body after they had killed him, and then gain access to his home to take his computer, smart phone, and search his desk and other possessions. Concurrent with that question is who would have the resources to do these things?”

  “Can you hazard any guesses at this point?”

  “No, Ms. Davis. It’s too early for guesses.”

  “I’m sorry,” Paige said, “but it’s not too early for guesses. We have only until tomorrow night. Then you label us as kooks and hand us off to missing persons.”

  “I would have said it more gently,” Mrs. Crawford, “but that’s the bottom line.”

  “Well, Sergeant Richards,” Ms. Davis retorted while picking up a cracker and a piece of cheese. “I can make an educated guess.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “These were not street thugs and this was neither a random murder nor a violent burglary. This was a sophisticated effort by people capable of and prepared to present t
hemselves as FBI agents. Fake FBI cards were printed. A van was in waiting with someone prepped to play the role of a medical examiner. Then they had the poise to take control of my daughter’s home, easing her out so they could search. This was all done using guile. These people were pros. Mafia? Ours or a foreign government? Those would be my guesses.”

  “We’ll take a look at both those possibilities, ma’am,” Sue Martin answered while Maddie nodded.

  * * *

  Outside, Maddie said to Sue, “Did you notice how Ms. Davis took control of a large part of the conversation.”

  “I had the same read,” Sue said. “So, what comes next?”

  “This is the one-week anniversary of my son’s first report card with all A’s. How ‘bout we celebrate. Lunch is on me.”

  After ordering a late lunch at In N’ Out Burger they settled into a booth. “Man, the birds were going crazy outside my window just before dawn.”

  “Looking for mates,” Sue said.

  “Or a morning quickie before their day got started. Curtis and I, back in the days before we split, used to start a morning like that at least once a week. Well, we did until he started carrying on with an old high school girlfriend.”

  “You still miss ‘im?”

  “Not so much anymore. But, yeah, in bed, you know. Not just the sex, the company, the not being alone. I’ve considered starting to sleep with Prince Valium, but he’d undoubtedly end up being as bad for me as Curtis. That’s about the only place and time I think about that man any longer.”

  “You think the boys have any idea how much us girls talk about doing it?”

  Maddie laughed. “As for me, in this my second round of single years, I want every man who looks at me to get a stiffy. But keep his distance until I pick the ones I want to have take the job.”