What's Left is Right: Book two of The Detective Bill Ross Crime Series

by Irving Munro

  After a nice lunch of borscht, latkes and cheese blintz, they said their goodbyes to the Goldmans and headed over to the Woodlands to have coffee with Yolanda and Julian Hernandez. Yolanda and Julian had also attended the burial ceremony of Mike Muguara and his family in Oklahoma, so Tommy and Bill had thanked them for their help when they met up with them at the ceremony, but Bill felt that it would have been rude of them not to at least stop by for a coffee since they were already in Houston.

  “So now where are you taking me?” said Tommy as they pulled out of the Hernandez’ driveway.

  “Okay, I guess I should tell you now, we’re off to Boston. I have two tickets for the playoff game between the New England Patriots and the Indianapolis Colts. I know you hate the Patriots, but I also have another reason why I want to make the trip to Boston, so I thought we would make a weekend of it and take in the game,”

  ~

  The United flight touched down at Logan Airport on time at 9:30 p.m. Eastern and they grabbed a cab to their hotel. After check-in and a quick nightcap in the bar they went off to bed.

  ~

  Bootsy Brogan’s pub still smelled like a mixture of disinfectant and wood polish. Kathleen from Waterford was in her normal place behind the bar when Bill and Tommy walked in just before noon on Saturday morning.

  Joe Nichol was seated at his normal place at the far corner of the bar, and he barely lifted his head when Bill and Tommy pulled up a stool next to him.

  “All right?” said Bill, staring straight ahead.

  “Just fine, and you?” replied Joe with barely a glance in Bill’s direction.

  “This is my son, Tommy Ross.”

  “Aye, I know who he is, you awe right son?” said Joe Nichol; no handshake. just an acknowledgement of Tommy’s presence.

  Bill ordered Joe another Guinness, one for himself and one for Tommy. Kathleen delivered the dark rich beer to them. They each stared at the three pints as they settled, anticipating the enjoyment that lay ahead when they had that first fully satisfying mouthful of the rich ale.

  After a couple of mouthfuls of beer enjoyed in the silence of the moment, Bill launched right in to what he had to say.

  “So it all turned out as you planned, Joe. You set us up and used us!

  You suspected that if you had tried to follow the trail to the killers of Mike Muguara, you could have ended up dead just like him.

  “You took the backup hard drive from Mike’s storage unit before we got to it first. You used a custom program to clean the laptop. You put the crumpled piece of paper in the back of the desk knowing full well that we would find it and track down what lay behind the cryptic clues that you left for us.

  “You tracked our progress, and when you called me the night before the assassinations. I had thought that you were calling from Boston, when in actual fact you were already in Austin, where you had set up for the assassinations the following day.

  “After the hits, you popped the hard drive in a shipping box addressed to me and had the courier pick it up at the front desk of the Hilton, where you were staying under the name Jimmy Martinelli. Yes, I checked the guest register.

  “The only thing I haven’t figured out is how you managed to carry out the three hits. I timed how long it might take you to get from the place where we found the rifle at the courthouse to the holding cell building. It’s possible to do it but it’s a push and there was no room for error or you would have missed the chance to take out Pepe and Jimmy.”

  Bill Ross paused, took another mouthful of beer and waited for Joe Nichol’s response. It took a few minutes and was short and to the point.

  “You have a great mind, Bill Ross. Wish I had thought of doing all of that, it might have been fun!”

  “I didn’t expect you to admit it, Joe, but perhaps someday you might tell me how you did it and got the timing just right. I made this trip in the hope that you might tell me, but with the clear expectation that probably you would not. I do have another task I want to accomplish while I’m here with you, however.”

  Bill reached down and pulled something from the backpack he had brought with him. He put the bottle of The Glenmorangie Pride ‘78 on the bar in front of them.

  “Now, that’s possibly the best single malt that money can buy. I was hoping that you, Tommy and I might spend the rest of the day consuming the contents and toasting the life of fallen comrades. I have cleared it in advance with the owners of this fine establishment.”

  Only then did Joe Nichol turn his head and look Bill Ross straight in the eye. There were tears running down his cheeks when he said, “Now, that would be my honor, Bill Ross.”

  They broke the seal on the ‘78, undid the cap and threw it in the trash. Kathleen and Sean O’Driscoll appeared with crystal glasses that were kept behind the bar for special occasions. Three full measures of the golden elixir were poured.

  “To fallen comrades!” said Bill.

  The glasses were raised and they each closed their eyes as the whisky warmed them with each swallow.

  They shared the contents of the bottle as planned, and by mid-afternoon a three-piece Irish band arrived to prepare for the regular night’s festivities. Bill walked over to the young men and asked them to play a tune. The two fiddles and the Irish bodhran stood in readiness for Bill to lead them off. Tommy knew what was coming as he had heard his dad sing “The Parting Glass” many times. The song was written in Scotland in the early 1600s by an unknown hand and was sung in Scotland and Ireland at the end of an evening or at funerals before Auld Lang Syne, written by Robert Burns, took its place.

  Of all the money that e’er I spent

  I’ve spent it in good company

  And all the harm that ever I did

  Alas it was to none but me

  And all I’ve done for want of wit

  To memory now I can’t recall

  So lift to me the parting glass

  Good night and joy be with you all

  If I had money enough to spend

  And Leisure to sit awhile

  There is a fair maid in town

  That sorely has my heart beguiled

  Her rosy cheeks and ruby lips

  I own she has my heart enthralled

  So fill to me the parting glass

  Good night and joy be with you all

  Oh, all the comrades that e’er I had

  They’re sorry for my going away

  And all the sweethearts that e’er I had

  They’d wish me one more day to stay

  But since it falls unto my lot

  That I should rise and you should not

  I’ll gently rise and softly call

  Good night and joy be with you all

  By the time they all had reached the third and final verse, every single person in the bar was on their feet, holding their beverage of choice high into the air and blasting out the lyrics like their lives depended on it. It was an appropriate tribute. Aye, that it was.

  ~

  When they had regained their composure and the band had received their customary beverages in thanks for their efforts, Joe turned to Bill and slurred, “So what are you plans for tomorrow, Bill, after you and Tommy sober up?”

  “Oh, I have two tickets to the Patriots playoff game at Gillette Stadium.”

  “I’m going to the game myself. I have a friend who has one of those fancy sky boxes. I do some work for him from time to time. Let me make a call and see if it would be okay for you and Tommy to get into the box with me.”

  Joe left to make the call and returned a few minutes later.

  “Everything is set. He would be happy for you both to be his guests in his box. Give me your tickets and I’ll get Sean to sell them in the bar later today.”

  ~

  Sunday morning was painful. They both struggled with intense hangovers. They ate a late breakfast, and after a quick nap headed out to meet Joe outside Gillette Stadium. He was standing in the parking lot waiting for them.

  “Every
thing good?” asked Joe as they headed in through the concierge lobby of the stadium to the main elevator to the skybox area. A very well-dressed young lady handed them a glass of champagne as they exited the elevator.

  The box was huge, and with Joe leading them they headed in the direction of two men who stood with their backs to them, surveying the field below.

  “Robert, I’d like to introduce my two friends I talked to you about yesterday.”

  Tommy Ross almost dropped his glass of champagne!

  Robert Kraft, the owner of the New England Patriots and the chairman of the Kraft Group, stood in front of him, and by his side his son Jonathan, president of the New England Patriots.

  “Glad you could both could join us,” said Robert Kraft. “Please help yourself to whatever you need and enjoy the game!”

  “You have very interesting friends, Joe,” laughed Bill as they headed in the direction of the sumptuous buffet.

  ~

  They were on the United Airlines flight back to Houston the following day.

  “When did you know that it was Joe Nichol who carried out the assassinations dad?”

  “My sense was that something didn’t quite fit beginning at the storage locker that Mike rented in Houston. Claudette had told me that Mike was manic about data protection, keeping everything on an external hard drive and not even trusting the Cloud.”

  “We found the laptop in the storage locker but no hard drive, and then we found a piece of paper stuck at the back of the desk. A piece of paper! Why would someone so paranoid about data security write stuff down on paper? Didn’t make any sense. It was too perfect, just like the sign next to the burning cross. Someone was deliberately trying to manipulate us; in this case it was for good reasons.”

  “If he left us this clue on paper, why did he do that? Why not just leave the hard drive? I concluded that there was stuff on the drive he didn’t want us to see, well, not right away. He wanted us to concentrate on the list of cryptic clues, but why?”

  “When the hard drive arrived by courier after the assassinations, the pieces began to fit. The person who had sent us the drive had either extracted the surveillance files from a single hard drive that Mike used, or there was more than one drive. Either way, this person had taken the hard drive from the storage unit because in the video that he left with Bob Corbin, Mike told us that the hard drive was in the storage locker. Other than Mike, who knew about the storage locker? Joe Nichol of course!”

  “I concluded that Joe had a plan. He wanted us to concentrate on finding out for sure who had killed Mike Muguara. The drug and human trafficking business was secondary to him and he didn’t want us to be distracted by the surveillance videos of Colinas Verde Ranch. He wanted us to focus on who killed Mike because he had planned all along that he would kill the person or persons responsible.”

  “It was when I thought about the sequence of events that it all fit. The phone call to my house the night before the assassinations that I thought wrongly had been made from Boston. Then the killings, followed immediately by the delivery of the hard drive, that’s when I knew that Joe was behind this. When I checked the guest register at the hotel and found the name Jimmy Martinelli, I knew then for sure.”

  “I checked and double-checked the timing of the shootings. That’s the part that still doesn’t quite fit. He could have done both, but the timing would have had to be perfect, He would have needed a motorcycle.”

  “I ran the sequence of events myself, and Joe is fitter than me so my guess is that he would have been a bit faster. I knelt in the place in the parking garage next to the courthouse where I speculated he had knelt to shoot Garrison McMullen. I simulated the shooting, got up and ran down the stairs to the motorcycle that I rented for the test. I chose the same day and time as the original shootings to try to get the most accurate traffic conditions, and I rode the bike to where he had set up for the second shooting. I had about four minutes to catch my breath, steady myself and take the shots.”

  “Joe didn’t know precisely when Pepe and Jimmy would be led out of the holding cell to the waiting van for transfer. He speculated that they would move them, but he didn’t know for sure.”

  “No, he didn’t do both shootings. He needed a second shooter, someone he trusted and someone who would be already set up in place to take them out if they were transferred. If they weren’t transferred he had a plan B; don’t know what that was, but he would never have let them live. Rather he or his accomplice would have got to them somehow. some way.”

  “But shouldn’t we arrest Joe Nichol then?” said Tommy.

  “Your call, son. My opinion is that justice was served. I am not in favor of vigilante actions, but I can see it from Joe’s point of view. Garrison McMullen had so much power and influence that it was likely that he would buy himself enough time that he could live out his life and die from natural causes before any execution could take place. Joe was not going to allow that to happen. We would also have had a tough time convicting him and we would have needed to find the other shooter. No, I’m okay with it. You have to decide if you are.”

  Bill then closed his eyes and slept for the remainder of the flight back to Houston.

  Chapter 39: Sheep have feelings

  Qantas flight 108 left LAX right on time for its 16-hour flight to Melbourne and had leveled off at its cruising altitude of 32,000 feet. The female flight attendant was delivering the first round of drinks and seasoned travelers were settling down for the long flight.

  It was Billy Williams’ first trip to Australia, and the young computer software salesman was super excited. He was seated in the combined first and business class section in seat F5 and was fiddling with all the gadgets in the sleeper seat cubical, operating the various seat controls and making the seat go up and down.

  When he looked across the aisle, the guy in seat A5 was grinning at him.

  “Having fun, mate?” he sniggered.

  He wore a black tee shirt with “Keep Austin Weird” across the front, an old faded baseball cap, blue jeans and flip-flops. This was in stark contrast to Billy’s GQ outfit of Ralph Lauren Polo and khakis.

  “Sorry about that, my first flight to Australia!” replied Billy.

  “Are you going down to Australia for vacation?” asked the salesman, trying to make polite conversation.

  “No, mate, I live there!”

  “You live in Melbourne?”

  “No, I live in a little place called Ballarat, it’s about seventy miles from Melbourne.”

  “You were in California over Christmas and New Year, then?” continued the software salesman, the adrenalin from the excitement of the flight pumping through his system and causing his mouth to spout forth meaningless cryptic conversation.

  “Trip of a lifetime, mate, hunting in Texas with my buddy Joe and then a few weeks watching the babes work out on Venice Beach. Magic!”

  “I’ve never been hunting. Did you shoot anything?”

  “Bagged a couple, mate. The folks there did a really good job of flushing them out for us, so it was like shooting fish in a barrel.”

  “So what do you do in Ballarat, then?”

  “Bit of this, bit of that, you know. I take folks on tours of the sheep shearing and around the old Ballarat Bitter brewery that closed down a few years ago. They still run tours. Great beer, Ballarat Bitter, now owned by Carlton, helps them with product balance, I guess, as the other stuff they brew is like rat’s piss!”

  “I didn’t get your name, by the way. My name is Billy Williams, and you are?”

  “My name’s Carl. Carl Conrad.”

  “Well, good to meet you, Carl. Hey, Carl, do you know the best place is to have sex with a sheep…”

  Billy was about to continue on with the only sheep joke he knew when in an instant Carl Conrad was up out of his seat and in his face.

  “No sheep jokes! You hear me, no sheep jokes! Sheep have feelings! I hate sheep jokes!”

  Not a lot was said between them for the
rest of the journey. The Airbus A380-800 cruising en route to Melbourne with its 600 passengers, including a young software salesman and a tired ex-Special-Forces sniper and Spirit Rider.

  Post Script

  I hope you enjoyed the book. It was total fiction, of course, but the settings for the story are real.

  The cities of Cedar Park, Lago Vista, Leander and Round Rock are about 90 minutes northwest of Austin. There is a Point Venture area by Lake Travis, and Whispering Hollow is a private gated park for the exclusive use of the residents of Point Venture. There’s a small golf course in the area, nine holes only and no grill.

  The area I chose for the location of the Colinas Verde Ranch is actually a national park. Big Bend National Park has national significance as the largest protected area of Chihuahua Desert topography and ecology in the United States.

  The town of Ballarat is a real place and is located 70 miles from Melbourne. I spent a lot of time in Australia on business and I drove to Ballarat one day, visited the sheep-shearing demonstration and drank Ballarat Bitter - great beer.

  My wife and I lived in Germany for a couple of years in the small town of Wiesloch in the Rheine-Neckar region. It was a short rail journey to Heidelberg. We love the city. Like Bill Ross, we stayed in the Crown Plaza Hotel, walked along Hauptstrasse and visited the Christmas market in old town. We also would walk across the bridge over the river Neckar to Neuenheim on a Saturday morning to visit the farmers market, drink coffee and eat croissants.

  Most of the research for this book I did online. Wikipedia is a great source of information. I accessed the Comanche Nation website www.comanchenation.com and also obtained lots of historical information on the early days of the formation of Texas from the Texas State Historical Association website www.tshaonline.org.

  Finally, a friend of mine was kind enough to buy me a copy of Empire of the Summer Moon by S. C. Gwynne on the rise and fall of the Comanche Nation. The content of the book helped me immensely - Thank you, Rich!