Stiff Arm Steal

by A. J. Stewart

  Chapter Forty-Two

  IT TOOK A couple minutes to get to the Ferguson residence. Where we stopped the pavement was moist but not drenched, like they'd seen a spring shower rather than a tropical downpour. That was South Florida weather. Forty percent chance of rain meant, “Oh, there’ll be rain all right, but it’s forty percent chance that it lands on you."

  The Ferguson home didn't appear to need the rain. The house was a small wood siding job. Maybe two bedrooms, half that number of bathrooms. The front yard was Arizona low maintenance. Red colored rocks and succulents. I tried not to read too much into it, but it looked like the garden of someone who had given up.

  We walked across the paving stones to the front door. I knocked, for no other reason than I wanted to be the one Mrs. Ferguson saw when she opened the door.

  "Mr. Jones," she said.

  She looked better. Not great, but better. She had done her hair. Not professionally, I suspected, but that wasn't my area of expertise. She wore makeup, not a lot, but it gave her face color and definition. While she might not have been the life of the party, she didn't look quite so sad. She stepped aside and let us in. We waited and she led us through to a small living room.

  “Can I offer you coffee? Iced tea?"

  "Iced tea," I said.

  "Sweetener?"

  "No, thank you, ma'am."

  Danielle shook her head and smiled politely at the offer. Mrs. Ferguson went to the kitchen. I surveyed the room. The living room bled into the kitchen. Seventies dated with an eat-in table. Three doors off the living room. Four if I counted the front door. The others were two bedrooms and in between a bathroom. That left a door unaccounted for. I looked around again and found it when Mrs. Ferguson closed the fridge after retrieving the iced tea. I saw a door with a window that led out to a laundry room and I assumed, onto the backyard. It was a modest but decent home. Not large but sufficient for a family of three. Now one.

  Mrs. Ferguson returned with the tea.

  "I wanted to update you," I said.

  Mrs. Ferguson nodded and sat.

  "It seems from the activity we've uncovered that your husband went home. To Belle Glade. There's no activity after that. The lack of activity is a concern."

  "Why?"

  “Because it suggests either he doesn't want to be found, or he has caused himself harm."

  She nodded. “If he's left where would he go?"

  "I'm afraid I don't know. As I say, he went to Belle Glade, but a check of motel registers didn't turn anything up. Now he may have moved on, or he may still be there. Our call around was thorough but not conclusive. Some motels don't cooperate."

  "Why?"

  "Privacy. At this point we have no basis for a warrant."

  "But he's missing."

  "Unfortunately, the law would suggest he is just gone, rather than missing."

  She thought for a moment, looking distantly at the coffee table between us. I sipped my tea.

  "Will he come back?"

  "I don't know. I wish I could tell you more."

  "I can't live like this," she said, tearing up. "Not knowing if I can move on without him. Or if one day he'll just turn up out of the blue."

  "There's not much more we can do right now. I suggest you call your bank and put an alert on your account and credit card. If it gets used they will call you. If it's him, it might tell us where he's gone."

  "All right."

  “But he may not use the card again."

  "Then we'll know nothing."

  "Right. So either way you need to think about your circumstances."

  "What do you mean?"

  "You need to decide how you want to live your life, Mrs. Ferguson. You can choose to assume he's never coming back and take steps accordingly."

  "What if he does come back?"

  "Pardon me for saying so, ma'am, but you're not happy. I'd go as far as to say you may be suffering from some form of depression. You've been like this for a long time. Maybe your husband was the same and decided his only way out was to run. I don't know. But I know that you have a choice. A choice to get some medical help, some support. And a choice to move on with your life without your husband in it. He can always come back to West Palm, but that doesn't mean you have to accept him back into your life if that will make you sad."

  She stared at the coffee table for a long time. Then she looked up, towards the front window and blinked. As if she'd just noticed it was daytime.

  "We weren't always like this, you know. We used to be happy."

  Danielle and I both nodded.

  "We had fun. In college. Like everyone else. Our whole lives ahead of us. Then college finished and he didn't win a prize and he pretended it didn't hurt for a while. And then he just gave up. Took a job selling cars. He couldn't have sold gold bars. His heart wasn't in it."

  "What prize didn't your husband win?”

  "I can't remember now. It was a long time ago. He got moody just thinking about it. He'd go into his den and come back all dark inside. So we learned to never speak of it."

  "What was the prize for?"

  She looked at me. "Football," she said. "Sandy was a quarterback in college."

  I looked at Danielle. Her chin had dropped.

  "Your husband got sad after not winning a prize for college football?"

  "I know. It sounds insane."

  "Ma'am, where is your husband's den?" I looked at the doors leading off the living room. I couldn't account for a den.

  "It's outside. In the backyard. It's more shed, really. But he set it up like a den.”

  "What does he have in there?" said Danielle.

  "I don't know. It's locked. I never go in. I always told him to vacuum it himself. I suppose he never did."

  "Can we see the den, Mrs. Ferguson?" I said.

  She led us out through the kitchen, into a long, thin room that housed a washing machine and a dryer. The country-style door let out into a decent sized backyard. The grass was well tended but in need of a mow. A lonely rope hung from a tree branch. I suspected that there had once been a tire tied to the bottom of it. A small shed stood at the rear of the yard, under the shade of an old palm. It was the kind of shed you buy as a kit at one of the big box hardware stores but it had been mounted properly on a concrete slab. The outside had once been a deep green and still was under its small eaves. The rest was the color of key limes. The door had a combination padlock on it.

  “You have bolt cutters in the car?" I said to Danielle.

  She shook her head.

  "Mrs. Ferguson?"

  "If we did, they'd be in here." She nodded at the shed.

  "Okay." I looked at the lock. It was stainless steel and had a black dial on the front face, where a combination would be entered.

  I turned back to Mrs. Ferguson. "You have a soda can?"

  She led me back into the kitchen and retrieved a soda can from a bin under the sink. Canada Dry ginger ale.

  "Some kitchen shears?"

  She pulled a hefty pair of scissors out from a sheaf that was attached to the side of the fridge by magnets. I cut the top off the can, then cut a section of the aluminum, about the size of a business card.

  "What are you doing?" said Danielle.

  "You didn't see this," I said.

  I cut notches in the aluminum so the piece resembled a fat letter M. Then I folded the top down and the sides up leaving a pointed section in the middle. It resembled a fist giving the bird. I walked back out to the shed. I held the padlock and wrapped the aluminum around the shackle. Then I worked the finger part down into the hole the shackle was bolted into. I twisted the aluminum shim around the shackle to the inside, back and forth. It took about fifteen seconds then the lock popped open.

  Danielle frowned. "Private detective school?"

  "YouTube," I said.

  I took the padlock off and looked at Mrs. Ferguson. She nodded, so I opened the door. The windows had been painted so the interior of the shed was as black as tar. I fumbled alo
ng the wall for a light switch, found one, and flicked it on.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  THE INSIDE OF the shed was a shrine. A shrine to the Heisman trophy. Along one wall hung pictures of every Heisman winner. The first winner, the one man gang, Jay Berwanger. Tom Harmon of Michigan. Ernie Davis and Roger Staubach were there. Two pictures of Archie Griffin, resplendent in sideburns and Buckeye red, the only man to win the Heisman twice. Reggie Bush was there, despite losing his award in a payments scandal. And newer, digital prints of Palmer and Bradford and Cam Newton and RG3. There was a desk against the sidewall, covered in newspaper clippings and old magazines. Above the desk was a corkboard on which there were clippings. Cut out articles and photographs of Heisman winners and their post Heisman lives. As businessmen and restaurateurs and politicians and media personalities. A clipping from the Palm Beach Post, BJ Baker smiling his broad grin, chin out, stomach in. Heisman in silhouette in the background, as distinctive as the Statue of Liberty to football fans across the nation. An article on Orlando Washington upon his selling of Orlando's to a national food services company, and moving into a new independent living estate. Their celebrity tenant.

  "Look at this," said Danielle.

  I turned and stepped to the other sidewall. Danielle was looking at a trophy cabinet. Not dissimilar from one I had seen at BJ Baker's house. There were three tiers. The bottom two were all trophies in the name of Sandy Ferguson. Middle school. High school. College. Mostly football, but some baseball and one for high school basketball. A very successful career. The top tier of the cabinet was vacant. A small lamp shone down on the space, accentuating its emptiness.

  "Room for a Heisman?" said Danielle.

  I just raised my eyebrows. I had moved on. Next to the cabinet was a map of the United States. On it were map pins, pushed into cities across the country. A lot in California, the Northeast and the South. Miami, West Palm, Tampa. Gainesville and Tallahassee. Atlanta and Tuscaloosa and Dallas. A thicket around New York. Chicago and Cincinnati. Seattle and San Francisco and Los Angeles. Some of the pins had been circled with a marker. West Palm Beach, Palm Beach, Tampa, Gainesville in Florida. Atlanta, Georgia. Auburn, Alabama. Columbus, Ohio. South Bend, Indiana.

  "Why these places?"

  "Heisman locations. Those he could find. Some private, some colleges. Gainesville is University of Florida. The pin in Alabama looks like Auburn. Columbus is Ohio State. South Bend, Indiana. Take your pick. University of Notre Dame or the College Football Hall of Fame. Heisman nirvana."

  "What about the others?"

  "Players. Where they live now as opposed to where they played or where they came from."

  "I can't believe it," Danielle said. "Ferguson is our guy?"

  "What did Sandy do?" said Mrs. Ferguson. I’d forgotten she was even in the shed.

  Danielle turned her. "Mr. Ferguson is now a suspect in a series of home invasion burglaries."

  "Just because he has some newspaper clippings?" She bit at her fingernails.

  "Ma'am, he has newspaper clippings of the victims."

  She picked at her fingers. The sadness returned to her face.

  "Mrs. Ferguson, this doesn't change anything,” I said. “This is simply a symptom of your husband’s sadness. You still need to take care of you."

  She nodded slowly. "Will he go to jail?"

  "If he did this, yes he might."

  "Will they help him in jail? With his illness, I mean?"

  "I hope so." It was all I could offer. Prisons didn't tend to do much for one's mental stability.

  We stepped out of the shed.

  "You'd better call it in," I said.

  Danielle strode off through the house. I walked across the garden with Mrs. Ferguson.

  “I guess now I know," she said.

  I didn't say anything. We walked up the back steps and into the kitchen.

  "When you're okay to do it, I want you to come into my office. Lizzy will take you downstairs to meet with a friend of mine. A lawyer."

  "You think Sandy will need a lawyer?"

  "I do, but this lawyer is not for him. It's for you. You need to get your papers in order. Finances, that sort of thing. If you choose down the road to move on without your husband, this guy will be able to help you."

  "You mean divorce.”

  "Yes," I said.

  But this guy's specialty wasn't divorce. I was thinking of a man on the run. I was thinking of depression. I was thinking about life insurance. And a lawyer whose specialty was estate management.

  Mrs. Ferguson picked at her fingers again. "It's a lot to take in."

  "Yes. Now the sheriff’s office will be sending some people to look at the shed. They will also look at things in the house. Do you have someone who can come and sit with you?"

  She shook her head. "No." Her eyes were tired but she seemed beyond tears.

  "Okay. I'm going to call Lizzy. She'll come and help you through it. I'll also call another friend of mine. She's a doctor. She'll come and talk to you later tonight."

  "A psychiatrist?"

  "She's a psychologist. But mostly she's just a good listener."

  "Okay."

  “And when this is done, perhaps you should visit your son. He's at college?"

  "Yes. U Dub."

  "Washington. Good school."

  "I think he chose it because Seattle was as far away as he could get from here."

  I put my hand on her shoulder. "I know that feeling. Doesn't mean he doesn't miss his mother."

  She smiled. I called Lizzy to come over and Ron to get working on some background. The deputies arrived and Danielle took them out the back. When Lizzy arrived I sat her down with Mrs. Ferguson. Then Danielle and I headed back to our offices.

  Chapter Forty-Four

  RON WAS SITTING at my desk when I strode into the office. He had my computer up and was working it with the concentration generally reserved for an Apollo launch.

  “Our missing car salesman, eh?" he said.

  "You just gotta keep pulling threads until the dress falls apart. That's what Lenny used to say."

  "Lenny would've used scissors."

  "So what do you know?"

  Ron stopped and looked at me. "You aren’t going to believe this guy."

  I sat in one of the visitor’s chairs. "Tell me."

  “You said he was sad?"

  "I'd say he was clinically depressed and untreated for twenty years. Why?"

  "He did play college football. Quarterback. Big Ten conference so I don't recall him. But the stats look good. He could play."

  "So what happened?"

  Ron looked at the screen then back to me. "He became a finalist for the Heisman, that's what."

  "But didn't win."

  "Twice."

  "Twice?" I said.

  "Junior and senior years he came in second. Both years."

  "Ouch."

  "Senior year by forty votes."

  "Double ouch."

  "Yeah, and get this. There are six voting regions, right? He won four of the six, but lost the trophy by forty votes."

  "Okay. So that bites. But let's face it; it's not the end of the world. Peyton Manning was a two-time finalist. He came second in ’97 to Charles Woodson. It didn't seem to hurt him. So what happened to Ferguson?"

  "Two things," said Ron. "One, if what you say is true, he was suffering from a depression that was just looking for an excuse to burst out. And two, Peyton Manning got drafted number one and became an instant squillionaire a few months after missing out on the Heisman. It would've cushioned the blow somewhat."

  "Did Sandy Ferguson nominate for the draft?"

  "Yes and no."

  "Go on."

  Ron clicked a key and changed screens. "Seems he was due to participate in drills at the NFL scouting combine. He didn't show."

  "Didn't show?"

  "Two days, no one knew where he was. Says here he claimed to have had bronchitis. Not too many people bought that. But apparently he got a se
cond chance at his college pro day. Six teams turned up to see him work out."

  "And?"

  "No show again. Everybody put him in the too hard basket. Everybody passed."

  "So he goes from there to selling cars in Belle Glade,” I said.

  "And the knot in his gut just grew every year."

  I looked over Ron’s shoulder through the window. The clouds looked less threatening but didn't seem interested in leaving.

  "So we know who he is. We more or less know why he's doing what he's doing," said Ron. "So what's next?"

  “Not what, where," I said. "I think Gainesville. University of Florida looks like the candidate."

  "You tell Rollie?"

  I laughed. "Yeah. He wasn't interested."

  "What is that guy's problem? He was first choice QB when you were at Miami; you were his backup. If anything, you should hate him."

  "Yeah."

  "Do you hate him?" Ron smiled.

  "I don't care about him. He was, is, a competitive guy. He never understood that it didn't make you less of a competitor to acknowledge when someone was better than you. And he was better than me. At quarterbacking, anyway. He couldn't throw a curveball to save himself."

  "He still pissed about the Brady thing?"

  "Yeah, but he's assistant AD at a decent program now. And he's going to get in the way. I can feel it."

  "So what do you want to do?"

  "Wait to hear from Danielle. They've got something to work with now."

  Chapter Forty-Five

  RON AND I waited, got bored, and headed to Longboard Kelly's. It was late and the chance of getting anything useful before morning was slim. The clouds were breaking and the patio at Longboard's was resplendent in colored party lights. Muriel threw us each a towel and we wandered around the patio wiping the water off the seats while she poured us a couple of beers. We got back to the patio bar, wiped our own seats and threw the towels in the small sink behind the bar. Ron lifted his beer and winked at Muriel.

  "On the house, I assume."

  "Ha," she laughed. He swept his hand across the view of the patio we had just toweled off.