Get Lost

by Robert D Kidera

  “Hold on a second.” I held the ring up to the light and checked the date. Same ring as the skeletal body in the barn that started all of this.

  “Gabe? You still there?”

  “Check that name against the names of former Tammany Hall officials. High level public servants, police officials, judges, New York Port and Transit Authorities—those kinds of guys. And maybe he dies in the early1960s. Say, 1962 or 1963.”

  “Criminal records check too?”

  “Yeah, guess you’d better. Call me back if you find something.”

  I read the inscription on the band one more time, then put it back in my pocket. I gathered up Nellie’s bank records.

  The library had more space for my work. Still, Nellie’s papers covered most of my desktop, leaving just enough room for a glass of whiskey.

  It was five-thirty. Sam and Mr. FBI were due in an hour. I logged in online and read up on Tammany Hall. Mostly, I checked on one of their famous “bought” judges.

  I switched off my monitor half an hour later and downed what remained in my glass. Time for an after-hours phone call to the Bernalillo County Medical Examiner’s office.

  A recording greeted me: “After the beep, please enter or say the extension or the name of the party you wish to reach. Please leave a callback number. Thank you.”

  “Dr. Rachel Holtzmann,” I intoned after a loud beep.

  Her recorded voice asked me to leave a message.

  “Dr. Holtzmann, this is Gabe McKenna. I need to check with you about the first body discovered in my barn. I need to know if—”

  “Hello?” It was the medical investigator herself.

  “Dr. Holtzmann? I didn’t think you’d still be in your office.”

  “With all the bodies you’ve been sending us? Get real.”

  I ignored her complaint. “I have a question about the teeth on the first body they dug up. The guy with the ring.”

  “What teeth? The skeletal remains had none. He probably had full dentures, but wasn’t buried with them.”

  “How long do you think he’s been dead?”

  “No telling for sure. If you push me, I’d say fifty years, give or take a decade.”

  “Thank you so much.” It all fit.

  “Mr. McKenna, what’s this about?” There was more irritation than curiosity in her voice.

  I smiled to myself. “Ask Lieutenant Archuleta in the morning.”

  Onion beeped while I talked with Dr. Holtzmann. I wished her well in her investigation and bid her a quick goodbye.

  “Found something interesting for you, Gabe.”

  “That was fast.”

  “I checked James Frederick Cannon against a historical database of New York City employees and officials. Nothing. No record of anyone by that name associated with the Tammany machine either.”

  “Didn’t think you’d find—”

  “However,” Onion interrupted, “I checked instead for the initials ‘JFC.’ Guess what?”

  I felt a jolt of electricity. We’d both found the same key. “You found Joseph Force Crater.”

  “Fuck it, Gabe, how—”

  “History professor, remember? I’ve been checking everything I could find about Crater.”

  “Find anything?”

  “I did.”

  “So what do you need me for?”

  “To confirm my suppositions. And you have. You and the Bernalillo County medical examiner—”

  “Whaddya talking about?”

  “She reminded me that the skeletal remains didn’t have any teeth.”

  “This is important how?”

  “Joseph Force Crater was a vain, overly fashion-conscious guy. Something of a dandy. His disappearance from the New York scene created a sensation and led to a nationwide manhunt. Big news for months. Turned out there were no dental records on the guy. He bought new dentures every year.”

  “Something to chew on.”

  “Lousy joke. Listen, I need you out here.”

  “Tomorrow soon enough?”

  “That’ll do. Keep a list of your expenses and airfare. I’ll cover it all. Call and let me know when you’re arriving. We’ll meet at the airport.”

  “Roger.”

  “And be ready to travel again as soon as you get here.”

  “We going somewhere?”

  “To help a couple of women in trouble.”

  “A specialty of mine.” I caught a fresh enthusiasm in his voice.

  We hung up. I cleared off the library desk, except for the first bank statement from April of 1942, and the one from November of 1962 showing the final $500 deposit from “JFC.” I selected a few statements from dates in-between as well, enough for Sam and the FBI guy to see the pattern.

  Just after six. I called Nai’ya. She was expecting me at her brother’s place on Santa Clara Pueblo. That wasn’t going to happen.

  No answer. I let it ring until Felipe’s recorded voice asked me to leave a message.

  “Nai’ya, this is Gabe. Something’s come up that I can’t explain over the phone. Sit tight. I’ll be up there in a day or two. Say hi to Angelina and Matty, and give my thanks to your brother. I love you.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  At 6:30, I opened the door and let Sam Archuleta and Walter Carlson into my home. Sam’s shoulders slouched. His jaw seemed to be stapled to his tie. Must have had another tough day.

  “Come into the library.” I’d set a couple of chairs on either side of my desk. Divide and conquer. “Can I offer you a drink?”

  Sam waved my offer away. “No thanks. I’m working.”

  Carlson checked his watch. “I don’t drink.”

  His gray hair matched the suit. I wondered if the bulges in its sleeves were muscle or just padding. His head was large, his jaw wide and his crew cut flat as an airport runway. Nice scowl, too.

  I looked at the ring on his right hand. A college ring. “Fordham, eh? What year?”

  Carlson’s brows rose as his eyes narrowed. “Class of ’72.” Each word emerged slowly, like gravy through a strainer. He stared at me all the while.

  “I’m Class of ’80, myself.” Maybe here was a way to break the ice. “So you were there for Digger Phelps’s great NCAA team in ’71? Twenty-six and three, weren’t they?”

  Carlson stiffened. “They never should have let that son-of-a-bitch break his contract and leave for Notre Dame.”

  Whoa. He was talking about something that had happened forty-five years ago. This guy knows how to hold a grudge.

  Sam spoke up. “You bring us here to talk about college basketball?”

  I shook him off. “I know you’re both busy. I brought you here to make your lives easier.” I pulled out my bottle of whiskey and a clean glass from the desk drawer. “Do you mind?”

  Neither man moved.

  I poured three fingers worth, took a sip and let it roll around on my tongue for a bit. Carlson checked his watch again.

  “Let me share what I discovered about the bodies in my barn, the murder of Tommy O’Donnell, and the executions of Klein and his muscle boys.” I took another sip. “I believe it’s all tied together, part and parcel of a criminal enterprise that’s been going on for more than fifty years.”

  Carlson leaned forward. “Go on.”

  “The FBI runs a witness protection program—”

  Sam interrupted. “Would you get to the point?”

  “That is my point, Sam. The point at which this all began. Eighty percent of what I’m going to tell you I can verify. The other twenty percent is up to you to check out.”

  The FBI agent glared at Sam. “Is this guy always so full of himself?”

  “Former college professor.”

  Carlson winced and shifted his glare to me.

  “Mr. Carlson, the witness protection program has been useful in securing the kind of testimony that puts criminals behind bars.”

  “So?”

  “So what if I’m the ultimate target of a criminal investigation and I wa
nt to avoid prison? What if there was a group willing to provide the same service you do for government witnesses? A group that promises I won’t see any jail time? A group that promises me a fresh start without any red tape or hassle?”

  “Criminals always think about bolting.” Carlson’s tone indicated he wasn’t impressed so far.

  “Yes, but most of them don’t know how. We’re talking about getting really lost. What if an organization with connections, money and influence, used the federal witness protection program as its model? But instead of protecting witnesses, they provide a service—for a large fee, of course—to help criminal targets disappear instead of facing prosecution?”

  Carlson shook his head. “That would take too much manpower, money and ongoing commitment to pay off. The federal witness protection program costs more than we’ll ever admit. And that’s year after year. Far too expensive for anybody else to afford.”

  I raised a finger and let each of my words resonate. “That’s because you keep your informants alive.”

  Sam reached into his coat pocket. I pulled an ashtray from the center drawer and slid it over to him. He lit up, took a long drag and looked back at me. “So you’re saying this group promises to give their clients safety and anonymity to avoid prosecution for their crimes—”

  “And then kills them after their ‘clients’ have disappeared. And paid a hefty up-front fee, of course.” I took a sip of my whiskey. “Afterward, they use varying degrees of ‘persuasion’ to gain control of their clients’ assets, probably with the help of confederates. Lawyers, bankers,” I paused. “Maybe even cops and government officials.”

  Carlson looked at the glass in my hand. “I assume that’s not your first drink of the day, Professor.” He glanced at his watch a third time, and stood.

  “Hang on a minute, Carlson.” Sam raised a palm to his FBI counterpart. “Let’s hear him out. Gabe can be screwy, but he has helped me in the past.”

  “Thanks.” I put my glass on the desk and looked at the two of them in turn. “What you said about the expense of such an enterprise is true. So I asked myself: who, or what group could possibly pull off something of that magnitude?”

  Carlson folded his hands in his lap and gave out with a sigh. “Okay. I’m listening.”

  I took Nellie’s ring from my pocket and flashed it at them. I placed it on the desktop. “A group like the Sons of Tammany, better known as Tammany Hall. A national network. Politically connected. Protected. And with vast financial resources.”

  Carlson shook his head again. “You’re seventy years too late. Tammany Hall lost its power in the decades after World War II. I ought to know. My grandfather was part of the organization.”

  I swallowed and then caught myself. “Then you know they lost their political clout and connections. But powerful men don’t just fade away. They diversify. Explore new avenues of influence and wealth.”

  It was Sam’s turn to sound skeptical. “How do you figure that?”

  “Think back a bit,” I said. “How did organized crime make most of its money during the ’20s and ’30s?”

  Sam blew out a lungful of smoke. “Illegal booze. Everybody knows that.”

  “In 1933, Prohibition gets repealed. The end of organized crime?” I looked at Carlson and back at Sam.

  He waved his cigarette in the air. “Of course not. The families turned to extortion, heroin, human trafficking, gambling, prostitution, protection—”

  “Exactly. They diversified.”

  “So you’re suggesting that Tammany, or at least certain former members, turned to other criminal enterprises.” Carlson was with me now.

  “It’s well documented that Carmine DiSapio, the last Tammany boss with any real power, had ties to mobsters like Frank Costello.”

  “True. But nothing was ever actionable.” Carlson pointed to my bottle. “I’ll take that drink.”

  I looked at Sam.

  He nodded. “What the hell.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  We drank, and I shared what Onion, Sloppy and I had discovered, that Angelo Zappeli and Brian Livingstone had faced criminal charges. That they’d both withdrawn significant amounts of money and liquefied assets.

  “Sam, remember the rings worn by Klein, Queens D.A. Milner and the first body in my barn?”

  “What about them?”

  I held up Nellie’s ring. “Some of the pieces are falling into place.”

  Sam shifted in his seat and shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t see it.”

  I spread out Nellie’s bank records. “My own great-aunt may have been part of this.”

  “You don’t say.” Carlson cracked his first smile of the evening.

  “The first body. That’s the key. And Nellie is the thread that ties past and present together.”

  “Hit me again.” Sam wiggled his glass until I refilled it.

  “The first sign something was wrong was when my P.I. friend found out two of the guys buried in the barn disappeared after Nellie moved into this house.”

  Carlson took out a small spiral notebook and a pen.

  I stood by my desk, drink in hand, and told Sam and Carlson about Nellie’s bank records and the payments from someone listed as “JFC.”

  “And who would that be?” Carlson put the notebook down like this was a waste of his time.

  “Joseph Force Crater, The Missingest Man in New York.”

  “Judge Crater?” Carlson laughed out loud. “Not a chance. That guy was murdered in 1930.”

  “That’s what Tammany Hall wanted the world to think,” I said. “His orchestrated disappearance became the model for a scheme they launched decades later.”

  As the clock in the corner rang seven times, I motioned to the bottle on my desk and pointed to my guests in turn. Carlson shook me off.

  Sam pointed to his already empty glass. “Who’s this Judge Crater?” he said as I poured.

  “A playboy New York judge during the Roaring Twenties. A loyal good timer. Owed his seat on the bench to Tammany Hall. One of their judges, as they used to say. Called before a grand jury in 1930. His testimony could have exposed the crimes of his Tammany overlords.”

  “Let me guess,” Sam said. “He took out a large sum of money and disappeared.”

  “While his innocent wife conveniently vacationed in Maine. A nationwide manhunt ensued. But nobody ever found Judge Crater.”

  “He was killed,” Carlson said.

  “No,” I insisted. “He disappeared from New York, fled to New Mexico and became James Frederick Cannon. He never testified. And Tammany’s secrets remained safe.”

  Carlson eyes narrowed. “That doesn’t tie him into anything that’s happening now.”

  I sat down at the desk. “Let me walk you through it. At one point Carter-now-Cannon and Nellie met and fell in love. He confided his past to her. Maybe by then he was legit, had a new life in Albuquerque as Cannon. More likely he went into business with Klein Associates.”

  “You’re saying this is where the other bodies come in?” Sam sloshed some of his drink on the floor.

  “My guess is when Tammany lost its political power and connections in the ’50s, Crater-now-Cannon and Klein, went to the bosses with an idea: help troubled people of means disappear the way Tammany helped Crater disappear two decades before. Charge them a ‘disappearance fee’ and spirit them off to New Mexico. Maneuver to gain access to their assets, then have them killed and their bodies buried in the barn behind Nellie’s house.”

  Carlson leaned forward. “You’re suggesting a private sector criminal protection program that later kills its clients for their money?”

  “Only carefully targeted clients. That’s the story Tommy O’Donnell was pursuing for the New York Daily News. It’s why he was out in New Mexico and why he happened to be in Klein’s office when he got killed.”

  Sam put his glass down on the floor next to his chair. “But Klein was in Santa Fe. We checked on that.”

  “The murder in his office w
as a screw-up. It wasn’t supposed to happen. Klein messed up. He also messed up trying to kill me after I returned from New York.”

  “What?” Carlson looked up from his notebook. “I wasn’t told anything about that.”

  Sam raised both hands in a peace-making gesture. “I’ll fill you in later.”

  I continued, “Klein became a liability to his bosses. So he stopped a bullet with his head on a road to Colorado.”

  Carlson put his notebook back in his breast pocket and paced to the bay window. “It’s rough, but I’ll admit it’s not implausible.” He turned to leave. “Thanks, McKenna. We’ll take it from here. You did some decent leg work.”

  “Just one thing,” I said.

  “What’s that?” Sam’s glassy stare searched for me from across the desk.

  “I’ve just told you all I know. I want a favor in return.”

  The FBI man stopped just short of the door. “Out with it.”

  “I want the cops and the Feds to leave me alone for the next forty-eight hours. No tails.” I looked at Carlson. “No taps. Stay out of my way. After that, do whatever you want.”

  He walked back to my desk. “While you do what?”

  “That’s my business. My personal business.”

  Sam spread his arms, palms up. “Gabe, I’m trying to conduct ongoing investigations into your secretary’s disappearance and into your daughter’s.”

  Carlson turned to me, his eyes wider than they’d been all evening. “Your daughter’s?”

  “Like I said, this is personal. Go ahead with your investigations. Just leave me be, okay?”

  Neither of them spoke. I closed the bottle and returned it to the lower desk drawer. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I still have things to do tonight. Thank you both for your time and attention.”

  “Professor,” Carlson said as I escorted him to the door, “I’m not making you any promises. None.”

  “I didn’t expect you would. But I’ve given you enough to keep the Bureau busy, don’t you think? I’ll pass along any relevant information my friends and I uncover.”

  He grunted across the threshold into the cool evening air.

  “Gabe…” Sam reeled past me without another word.