by Joel Goldman
“Had he talked about what he was going to do to earn a living?”
“Nothing more specific than look for a job even though there aren’t any jobs.”
“I guess Frank was really up against it,” I said.
“I suppose so.”
“That can make a man do things he never imagined.”
“He did. He killed his wife and tried to kill me.”
Chapter Twelve
“What else do you hear from the police?”
“Detective Carter was here a couple of hours ago with a search warrant for all of Frank’s files. He even took my computer.”
“What about your other clients? Aren’t their records on there too?”
“That’s what I told him. All my stuff is supposed to be confidential.”
“What did Carter say?”
“Hire a lawyer and take it up with the judge.”
“Are you going to do that?”
“I don’t have the time. Frank Crenshaw and Nick Staley are like a lot of my clients. They’re small-business people who don’t have time to pay all their bills, file their quarterly reports, do their payrolls, and run their businesses. My mom knew that so she did that for a bunch of them, and they all expect me to do the same. So I’m more interested in making sure that gets done on time than going to court. I’ll tell my clients that the police are looking at their records and they can hire a lawyer to do something about it if they want to, but none of them will because they can’t afford it.”
“How are you going to do that without your computer?”
“I back everything up at the end of the day to an online server. I’ll pick up another PC and download my stuff. That will put me a day behind, but I’ll catch up.”
“I heard one of the detectives at the restaurant say that the gun Frank used to shoot Marie was stolen from a gun show last month. Any idea how Frank got a hold of a stolen gun?”
“No. This can be a rough part of town. A lot of people own guns and carry them.”
“The detective also said that Frank stole a car when he was a teenager. Did you know that?”
“That was before I was born. What’s that got to do with anything?”
“Since he was a convicted felon, he couldn’t buy a gun. Who would you talk to around here if you wanted to buy a gun without a background check?”
She crunched her forehead. “And why do you think I would know something like that?”
I shrugged. “You’re third generation down here, which means you know a lot of people and a lot of their secrets. You don’t have to be a crook to know crooks. You just have to pay attention. And, this being a rough part of town, not everyone who wants a gun can get one on the up-and-up like you and your Grandma Lilly.”
She straightened in her chair, her cheeks turning rose. “This may be a rough part of town and my grandmother and mother may have taught me to take care of myself, but that doesn’t mean we’re either criminals or know criminals because I’m not one and I don’t know anyone who is.”
“I know a little bit about Northeast, and I’d know where to look.”
“Where?”
“I’d start with a drug dealer and move up the chain, asking without pushing because those people don’t like to be pushed, but drugs and guns go together like pancakes and syrup.”
“So why ask me if you already know who to ask?”
“Because I don’t know any drug dealers down here.”
She folded her arms across her middle. “But you assume that I do? Why? Because I’m young? Because I have a lip ring and red dye in my hair? Does that make me a freak in your eyes?”
She did remind me of Wendy, the way she didn’t back down when I tried to pigeonhole her, throwing my stereotypes in my face.
“A lot of people your age do drugs, and if they don’t, they know someone who does and someone else who deals. I’m not attacking you. I’m trying to help you.”
“I haven’t asked for your help, and I don’t need it.”
“You will if this doesn’t go away. Maybe Frank had something going on the side to try and pay the bills, something he couldn’t put on his books or tell you about. While you’re in the bathroom, he tells Marie, and she freaks out. That’s when she jumped out of her chair and said she’d rather lose it all.”
“That’s hard for me to believe,” Roni said. “Frank played it straight on his taxes. He wouldn’t take any chances on an audit, and Marie was the kind of person who if she found a dollar on the ground would spend the rest of the day looking for whoever dropped it and if she couldn’t find them, she’d give the dollar to the church.”
“Anything in Frank’s financial records that doesn’t match up to his normal business activity, something he could have been doing to cover his nut?”
She shook her head. “I’ve been over all of that with Detective Carter. If Frank was trying to launder money through his scrap business or cover up something else, I sure didn’t see it. I’m telling you, his business was ready for last rites. There wasn’t enough cash to wipe your nose, let alone launder.”
“Would you have seen it?”
Roni straightened and squared her shoulders. “I know what I’m doing, if that’s what you mean.”
She was cooperating with the police, and she wasn’t hiring a lawyer. That’s what innocent people did. Naïve people did the same thing, as did arrogant crooks that were certain they were too smart to be caught. She may be naïve, but she wasn’t arrogant. That left innocent. I tossed Simon’s CD on her desk.
“That’s what I mean. I’d like you to take a look at the financials on that disc. Let me know if you find anything that doesn’t fit.”
“Who wants to know?”
“Simon Alexander. He runs a private investigation company called Alexander Investigations. The woman I was with yesterday, Lucy Trent, she’s his partner. I do odd jobs for them. Simon is looking for someone who can decipher dollars. I told him he should give you a shot.”
She picked up the disc, turning it over in her hand, her eyes lighting up. “What am I looking for?”
“Simon wouldn’t tell me.”
“Why not?”
“Because he was afraid I’d tell you to make it easier on you.”
“Would you have?”
“Probably.”
“To save me?”
“Something like that. Simon told me to let you save yourself.”
She smiled and nodded. “Cool. I think I like him better than I like you.”
“I don’t blame you.” I handed her a business card. “My home, cell, and office numbers are on the card. Call me when you figure it out.”
Chapter Thirteen
I’m at my best in the morning. I shake less, think more clearly, and get more done. I usually exercise in the afternoon, figuring that the better shape I’m in, the better I can shake off the shakes, though my workouts are a double-edged sword, triggering the tics even as they harden me against them. Evenings are an adventure—sometimes easy; other times a pounding combination of tremors and fog, my head feeling as if an invisible hand is squeezing my brain, trying to wring the last drops out of a soggy sponge.
I’ve seen a lot of smart doctors, but none of them can tell me what causes tics. That only seems fair because they don’t know how to cure it either. The upside is that they assure me it won’t kill me and it won’t turn into something worse that will, and that counts for a lot.
I’ve tried the drugs that work for some people. One knocked the bottom out of my blood pressure while the other knocked me for a loop. Neither one worked. The heavier pharmaceutical artillery warns of side effects like Parkinson’s syndrome, so the only drug I take is chocolate. Joy insisted I try neurofeedback, biofeedback, meditation, acupuncture, Rolfing, and subtle energy therapy, none of which helped, but it made her feel better and left me straddling life between taking it easy and taking as much as I can take.
That said, most people don’t know there’s anything wrong with me. I don�
��t shake, rattle, and roll all the time or most of the time. When I’m with the uninitiated and my neck and head rear back for a direct shot at the heavens or I break out into a speech-throttling stutter, I explain that I have a movement disorder and leave it at that unless they ask for details I’m happy to provide. I’d rather people understand than speculate, but I don’t want to bore them with the details.
It was midafternoon when I got off the bus in Brookside, the long, jostling ride the last straw in a day that didn’t fit my tic-management routine. I grabbed hold of a NO PARKING sign, my knees buckling, my chin locked on my chest, my eyes shut tight as I corkscrewed toward the sidewalk, people skirting me, leaving me blessedly alone. The spasm passed, and I pulled myself up, took a deep breath, and walked home, wobbly at first, finding my legs, my head clear by the time I walked in the door and Roxie and Ruby jumped me.
There is only one thing better than a puppy, and that’s two puppies, even when they are no longer puppies. Roxie is white with a faint honey streak down her back you can see only on the day she’s groomed. Ruby’s coat is amber except for her white socks and chest. She’s the dominant sister, though Roxie is smarter, scratching at the door so that we’ll open it so that Ruby will go outside and she can steal the toy they were fighting over. They greet me like a liberator every time I come home, a few minutes on the floor with them climbing in and out of my lap, licking my ears, and nipping at my nose the perfect tonic.
“They’re glad to see you,” Joy said.
I was sitting on the faded oriental rug in the living den, a room whose hybrid name made up for what our house lacked in space, one room serving as two, the dogs flanking me, their front paws on my thighs. They’d met me at the door, sliding across the hardwood floor, attacking my knees until I surrendered.
Joy stood in the doorway to the kitchen, a dish towel over one shoulder. She’d lost her hair to chemo, but it had grown back, a thin, white downy layer. She called it low maintenance, claimed it was every woman’s dream. She was sickly thin, her clothes hanging off bony shoulders, and straight-line hips. The difference makers were the way her eyes glowed, the ease of her smile, and the sure way she carried herself, the combination saying that she’d taken her turn in the barrel and was determined to live as well and as long as she could. It was enough for her, and it was enough for me.
“Who can blame them?”
“Don’t kid yourself. They do that for everyone that comes in the door except they don’t get so excited that they pee when they see you.”
“Familiarity breeds continence.”
Joy rolled her eyes. “Save it for the revival of Urinetown. How’s that girl, Roni Chase?”
When I was at the FBI, I didn’t talk with Joy about my cases because our investigations were confidential and because I thought I was protecting her from things that would only make her worry. It wasn’t until after our divorce that I realized that the wall I’d built to keep her safe had kept us apart. I may have been slow to learn, but I was educable. I followed her into the kitchen and told her about my day, my visit with Roni, the old man on the bus, and the gang bangers.
“So, is Roni going to be okay?”
I shrugged. “Hard to tell. Depends on what happens. Quincy Carter won’t leave it alone. If he can tie Frank Crenshaw to the robbery of the gun dealer, some of that could splash back on Roni since she kept his books.”
“I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about the shooting. Is she going to be okay with that?”
That was Joy, more interested in people than problems, a lesson she says she learned the hard way. Fix yourself first and worry about the rest later.
“I think she’s strong enough to handle it. She went to the hospital to see Crenshaw, but the cops wouldn’t let her near him. She’ll probably feel better once she sees him up and around, even if he’s wearing a jail jumpsuit.”
She nodded, opened the refrigerator, the door hiding her face but not the catch in her throat. “That thing with the boys on the bus. I wish you wouldn’t do that.”
“I’m sorry. It just happened.”
“All the same.”
She closed the fridge, crossed her arms, and leaned against the counter, biting her lower lip. I put my hands on her shoulders, and we leaned into each other. I rested my face against her neck as a flurry of tremors bent me at the knees. She gripped my arms, and when the shakes passed, I whispered in her ear.
“Okay.”
Chapter Fourteen
Simon called as we were finishing the dinner dishes. I followed the dogs outside, letting them take me for a walk.
“The gun dealer’s name was Eldon Fowler,” he said. “He was hit for a hundred and six assault rifles and fifty-one or fifty-two handguns, depending on who you talk to.”
“Who did you talk to?”
“County sheriff’s deputy who was first on the scene and Fowler’s wife.”
“What about ATF? Wouldn’t they be running an investigation like this?”
“They are running it. They just aren’t talking about it. The sheriff’s deputy said it was one for the books. Fowler hit a deer. They figure he was going fifty miles an hour, which is a hell of a speed for a narrow gravel road in the woods, especially pulling a trailer full of guns at night in the rain.”
“Was he drunk?”
“He’d had a couple of beers with his buddies at the gun show, but he tested legal. Anyway, the deer smashes through the window, a big-assed buck, and spears Fowler in the chest with his antlers.”
“Christ! That’s a helluva way to die.”
“Only it didn’t kill him. He had a heart attack.”
“What happened to the deer?” I asked.
“That’s when things get really interesting. Someone put a bullet in the deer’s brain.”
“Fowler?”
“Don’t think so. The bullet they took out of the deer was a .44 Magnum. Fowler’s wife said he was carrying a Glock 22 .40-caliber pistol, but the sheriff’s crime scene people didn’t find it. She said he also kept a Browning shotgun on the rack in his pickup, but they didn’t find it either. Thieves must have taken both guns.”
“Sounds like the thieves were following him and one of them took pity on the deer.”
“That’s what the deputy said. I talked to Fowler’s wife, and she told me that Fowler had called her when he was leaving the gun show in Topeka. He told her that someone had stolen a Ruger .44 Magnum Redhawk from him during the show. Said it was his favorite gun. The sheriff’s deputy found Fowler’s inventory sheet for the guns he took to the show. Fowler had checked off what he sold and what he was bringing home. The Redhawk wasn’t checked off.”
“That’s why they don’t know whether the thieves stole fifty-one or fifty-two handguns,” I said.
“Right. And there’s one other thing. Highway Patrol got a call from someone an hour before Fowler’s wife found his body. Caller said he and his wife had passed a crazy man in a pickup truck that was pointing a shotgun out the driver’s window as they passed him on Highway 24. Fowler’s wife said he always took that highway. There was a hole in the passenger door of Fowler’s truck. The deputy told me it looked as if someone had fired a shotgun at point-blank range. Doesn’t make sense.”
“Part of it does. The thieves were on him at the gun show, at least one of them cocky enough to shoplift the Redhawk. Fowler realizes his favorite gun is missing and gets antsy, figuring they may be after the rest of his inventory. He thinks he’s being followed when he points the shotgun out the window. The driver who called the Highway Patrol, what was he driving?”
“I didn’t ask.”
“Well, ask. The thieves may have been driving something similar, and that’s what spooked Fowler. And that means Fowler thought he’d seen the thieves and what they were driving.”
“I can buy that, but it doesn’t explain Fowler’s passenger door,” Simon said.
“Who knows what was going on inside Fowler’s pickup? Guy is in a panic, maybe already havi
ng a heart attack. He’s got the shotgun off the rack. He’s pointing it out the window and pulls it back when he sees who’s in the other vehicle. A loaded shotgun is harder to handle than a cell phone while you’re driving and scared shitless. It’s a wonder he didn’t blow a hole in himself. What are those guns worth?”
“Retail, the handguns would go for an average of four to five hundred and the assault rifles from eight hundred to a grand, same for the shotgun. Makes the lot worth around a hundred and fifty thousand,” Simon said.
“Less if you’re fencing them one at a time.”
“Maybe more if you’re selling them as a lot to a motivated buyer.”
“Such as?” I asked.
“Cartels in Mexico. Drugs are a big business down there, and a handful of gangs and cartels are fighting each other and the government over it. They all need guns, and they’re getting some of them from the U.S.”
“How?”
“They have affiliates in this country. The American gangs steal the guns and smuggle them to Mexico,” he explained.
“I saw a kid on the bus today inked up with symbols of Nuestra Familia. Is that one of the cartels?”
“Yeah, along with Gran Familia Mexicana and the Cholos and some others. Is that what you wanted to know, or do you want me to keep digging?”
“I’ll settle for that for now. Take the rest of the day off.”
Frank Crenshaw was a charter member of the Upright Citizens Brigade. Worked hard, paid his taxes on time, and tried to protect his wife from bad news. I understood how someone like that, who’d played by the rules, could break under the pressure of losing everything, how in a mad moment, he could go crazy and kill his wife. It was the kind of sad crime that was committed countless times all across the world. But, how, I wondered, did a guy like that end up with a stolen gun? That was hard to do.