However Many More

by Bo Thunboe

  “What did he pay for it?” Jake asked, as he wrote the information into his notebook.

  “Ten thousand.”

  “What could it be?”

  “The man is searching for silver here in Weston, isn’t he?” Coogan said. “Missing silver?”

  “Have you ever heard of this company, WLB Foods?”

  “Nope. I searched, and as far as I can tell no such company exists.”

  “Let me know if you get anything more on that.” Jake finished writing down Coogan’s information, the notebook perched on his knee. These missing assets could be exactly what had triggered Trane. “Let’s get back to your earlier point. Why shouldn’t Trane be happy with how the corporation is protecting his personal assets?”

  “Because more than a dozen creditors are after him. I went into the Nuesces County court database—that’s where he lives in Texas—and he’s in serious trouble. He personally guaranteed some loans to the business and waived his homestead. Which means they can grab his house and other assets once they get judgments against him. He’s up a creek without a paddle.”

  “Isn’t bankruptcy a paddle?”

  “That’s what’s so interesting. He could have filed bankruptcy along with the business and delayed this whole thing, maybe even made some deals for his personal assets. Given him time. That was the obvious move.”

  “And he didn’t take it. So… what’s his plan? Is there some benefit to not filing personal bankruptcy?” Jake tapped his pen on his notebook.

  “Well, by not filing bankruptcy, he has no one supervising him. He hasn’t had to make any statements about his personal assets. And he won’t have to get into it until the collection lawsuits turn into judgments. So far his attorneys are stalling those cases, along with the typical motions a lawyer files when he’s either lost touch with his client or his client has lost touch with reality.”

  “You’re saying Trane is avoiding supervision so he can keep whatever he bought that once belonged to WLB Foods.”

  Coogan smiled. “And maybe so he can be here, in Weston, chasing it.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Jake pulled into the parking lot at Paget County Cleaners, the sun suddenly breaking through the thick overcast grayness to bathe the day in a thin warmth. But the wind whipped that warmth away as soon as he stepped out of the car. He dashed across the asphalt and into the warm humidity of the cleaners. Maybe it was time to start wearing his winter-weight work clothes.

  Levi wore the I found something grin Jake had hoped to see. “Check this out,” he said, waving for Jake to join him behind the counter.

  Jake sat on the stool and settled in. Levi liked to describe his whole hunt before revealing his results. His news was always worth the wait.

  “I started with Google, searching for GWU, which gave me thousands of hits for George Washington University. I then added the word silver, but found people named Silver on staff at the school and references to nearby Silver Spring, Maryland. Did you know the people who live there have a Silver Spring address but it isn’t a town? It’s something called a census-designated place. I’d never heard of that before.”

  Levi delighted in digressions. He would start looking at one thing and something would catch his interest and off he went. That’s why he loved the Internet—he could click from one thing to another and on and on and then hit the back button or look at his history to get back on track.

  “So then I took a step back and decided maybe if I understood who buys and sells silver bars, and how and why, that might help me with this search.”

  Levi launched into an explanation of the silver exchange that matched what the accountant had told Jake earlier. While Levi talked, the occasional customer came in to pick up or drop off cleaning, and Levi would stop mid-sentence to take care of the customer and then start again right where he’d left off.

  “So then I learned about Silver Thursday.”

  Levi paused to help another customer, calling her by name and commiserating with her about their inability to get a stain out of her linen jacket. But Levi was so likable and so obviously disappointed in the result, she didn’t even complain.

  When Levi turned back to Jake he clasped his long-fingered hands between his thighs and smiled as if he was done with his report. Maybe Jake had missed something.

  “And this Silver Thursday was…”

  “An attempt to corner the world-wide market on silver.”

  “That sounds impossible.”

  “It does, right? And now it is impossible.” Levi shook his head. “The SEC wrote a bunch of rules to prevent it from ever happening again. But in the seventies a pair of oil tycoons tried it.”

  Oil tycoons. “The Bunkers?”

  “Exactly. Do you already know the story?”

  “No. Tell me.” Jake’s own excitement was building with Levi’s. Cole worked for Bunker, and Bunker traded in silver—and Jake didn’t believe in coincidences.

  Levi explained how the oil-rich Texas brothers, Huntley William Bunker and Robert Henry Bunker, started buying silver as a hedge against the devaluing dollar during the oil crisis. They bought silver because at the time it was illegal for a private citizen to own gold. They paid with cash, with credit, in a consortium with some Arabs, and on margin. They started buying at $1.50 an ounce and drove the price up to $40 an ounce. Eventually, on Silver Thursday, their margin orders were called and the fragile structure they created collapsed.

  “It was a Texas-sized plan and a Texas-sized failure!” Levi smiled his biggest smile. “And one of the most interesting things about the Bunkers was they took physical possession of a bunch of the silver they bought.”

  “Explain.” Jake’s phone buzzed, and he snuck a peek at a text from Callie: Call Me!!

  Not too long ago a text like that had come after dark—meaning she wanted to get together. He put the phone away.

  “Investors usually just hold the contracts. But the Bunkers wanted the actual metal because they didn’t believe in the dollar. They took possession of tons of it.” Levi’s eyes were alight.

  “How much are we talking about?”

  “Such things are normally private, but it made the news twice. In 1973 they took possession of forty million ounces and in 1976 another twenty million ounces. They sent the forty million by plane to Switzerland for storage.”

  “Forty million ounces by plane? What’s that in pounds, like two or three million?”

  “At sixteen ounces to the pound it would be 2.5 million pounds, or 1,250 tons. But silver is traded in troy ounces, which are heavier: approximately 480 grains versus 437.5 grains. About ten percent heavier. So the total weight is closer to 1,400 tons.”

  “Sounds ridiculous.” Jake shook his head. “Texas-size is right.”

  “And here’s the part you were interested in. The name of the Bunker company that actually owned the silver was Great Western United.”

  The GWU mint mark belonged to the Bunkers. Jake’s pulse kicked up. It was definitely the Texans. “Does this company exist anymore?”

  “I don’t think so.” Levi gestured toward the computer. “I found nothing on it. And the brothers and all their companies filed for bankruptcy. An amazingly generous law designed to give people a fresh start. Bankruptcy law is designed to encourage risk-taking, which has led to many of the fantastic technology advancements that we’d otherwise never have seen. Did you know that—”

  “So what happened to the sixty million ounces the brothers took possession of?”

  “The press didn’t cover that, but it was probably turned over to the silver exchange, COMEX, after Silver Thursday to cover the margin call. Or maybe given up in the bankruptcy.”

  “When was Silver Thursday?”

  Levi clicked his mouse a few times and pulled up a Wikipedia page on the event. “March 27, 1980.”

  “Levi, this is grea
t stuff.”

  Levi beamed, his hands caressing his keyboard.

  Jake took a couple of minutes to write what Levi had told him in his notebook. As he did a question came to him, but before he could ask it his phone buzzed with another text. Grady: Trane is now at Weston Historical Society looking through maps and plats.

  Still more research. Clearly Trane didn’t know exactly where the silver was.

  “Levi, what happened to the silver bars when COMEX got them?”

  “They would have gone back to the exchange warehouse where they would sit as people bought and sold the contracts representing them, until somebody else took possession of them. Big investors don’t take possession.”

  “Who does?”

  “Small investors, sometimes. More often people who actually use the silver—silversmiths, jewelers, electronics companies, medical device companies. But only the investor leaves them as bars.”

  “Did a company called WLB come up in your research?

  “Sure. GWU was a division of a Bunker company called WLB Foods, Inc.”

  “Did any of Bunker’s silver go missing?”

  “Missing?” Levi lit up at the idea. “Not that I saw.”

  Jake was sure it had. The so-called “missing assets” of WLB Foods. Trane’s purchase of those missing assets connected the man to the Bunkers, and through them to the silver.

  And through the silver, to Henry.

  Jake clapped Levi on his knobby shoulder. “Thank you very much, my friend.”

  As Jake headed out to the car, he was wearing his own broad smile. Just like that, he’d connected both Cole and Trane to Henry’s silver.

  He got the car’s heater pumping and texted Coogan the news about WLB Foods and GWU. He was about to call Callie when a thought about Cole stopped him. Cole was here chasing the silver. He had put out his feeler years ago, because he knew—for a fact—the silver was here. Or at least, he knew it had been here. Then Henry sold the little bar to Griffin, and Cole knew the silver was still here. That’s when he moved to town. He wanted the big bars and thought he might be able to get them. Then Griffin told Cole a thousand-ounce bar had turned up. Even if Griffin hadn’t said who found it, Cole would have suspected Henry, and he would have sensed that his window for getting the silver before Henry went public with his discovery was closing. The clock ticking. He had to act fast, and he was prepared to do so; he had moved here expecting that he would have to.

  Cole was definitely a suspect. Cole and Trane. It was one of the two.

  The heater was making the car steamy. He turned it back down and returned Callie’s call.

  “That alibi is complete bullshit, Jake. I’m about to surprise the ex Mrs. Fox here at her house with what I know so far.”

  “What did you find out?” Jake rubbed an ear that was suddenly burning with shame. He’d know Lynn for forty years; he should have been able to detect that she was lying. And why had she lied to him? One of these Texans had killed Henry for the silver, not Lynn, or even Bowen.

  “First, I interviewed her co-workers at the country club, and there was nothing between her and Bowen. Lynn has been banging some banker from Wheaton. Second, I talked to Bowen’s neighbors. I figured with his boy away at college and his wife traveling for work he might have a lady friend over to the house. But nothing. Nada. Occasionally has a buddy over to watch the game or something, but that’s it. And third, none of Lynn Fox’s neighbors have ever seen a man over here other than Henry and then you, yesterday.”

  “So why did Lynn lie about the alibi? She didn’t kill Henry—it was one of these Texans. I’m closing in on the complete backstory on the silver right now.”

  “Her lie was probably about the silver, too,” Callie said. “I’ll break her and let you know what she’s after.”

  Jake didn’t tell Callie to go easy; Lynn had earned what she had coming. “Thanks for the update.”

  “After that I have a meeting with The Great Hallagan and his client.”

  “Good luck.”

  “You too, partner.”

  Partner. The word strummed a longing in Jake for what they’d had between them until he got greedy and asked for more than Callie had been willing to give him. Maybe he should let it go. Maybe, in time…

  He gritted his teeth and pushed the thought away. He had a murder to avenge.

  He decided to visit the storage facility. Jake doubted the silver had ever been there, or that the facility would know even if it had, but they could tell him who had rented the unit. That name might open things up, unless Henry had grabbed a random file for proof he owned the bars.

  But random was not how Henry did things.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Jake cut through the Brookdale neighborhood, caught Ogden Avenue near the entrance to Weston Self Storage, and arrived there within five minutes. Weston had annexed so much land over the years that addresses within town could be as much as ten miles apart, but every place and person he’d visited in his search for Henry’s killer fit within a three-mile circle. The anomaly saved a lot of time.

  Weston Self Storage’s main building was a blocky three-story structure—brick, stucco, and glass with an odd minty green highlight—with an awning built of steel girders, painted in the same funny green, over the entrance. Long single-story concrete block buildings guarded the outer perimeter with roll-up steel doors facing inward, and a gate on rollers and controlled by a keypad barred entry to the yard.

  Jake pulled his copy of the bill of sale from his blazer pocket and headed inside.

  The door opened into a linoleum-floored room with a row of plastic chairs against the far wall and a pyramid of cardboard boxes in one corner. A window cut into the back wall held a counter with a coffee mug full of pens, and on the glass hung a plastic-coated chart showing the storage unit sizes and rental prices.

  Jake pushed the doorbell screwed to the counter, and a muffled buzz sounded somewhere deep in the building. The space behind the counter held a pair of desks butted together, each with its own computer and clusters of photos and knick-knacks. A printer sat on a file cabinet against the wall.

  He pushed the button again, and this time someone shouted, “Coming!”

  A minute later a young woman popped through the doorway in the back. “Hey, Jake.” She smiled.

  Jake smiled back while he scoured his memory for the name to go with the familiar face. “Wendy!” She cut his hair. Seeing her out of context had stumped him for a second. “I forgot you work here too. Your parents own it, right?”

  “I help out when I can. I get a lot of homework done when things are slow.” She pointed at a textbook open on one of the desks, and he remembered she was also working on her bachelor’s degree in nutrition. “Today is not one of those days.”

  She came to the counter, curly red hair bouncing with her walk. “Do you need to rent a unit?” She stretched an arm to the chart. “Here are the sizes and the costs. The small ones are inside this building and climate-controlled between fifty and eighty degrees. The big ones are outside and are not.”

  “Actually, I’m here on police business.” He laid the bill of sale from Henry’s file on the counter and slid it across to her. “I need to know who rented this unit and what was in it when it was auctioned off.”

  She scooped up the paper and looked it over. “Auctioned it off back in May. Oh, Henry. He’s a good guy. Some of them are jerks.”

  “You knew Henry Fox?”

  “Sure. He’s in and out of here all the time. And he’s bought a bunch of units.”

  “He ever have another guy with him? Big guy. About the same age.”

  “Not that I remember.”

  “Mr. Fox was murdered Tuesday night.”

  Her face paled. “That was Henry?” She looked down at Henry’s name on the paper, and her hands started shaking. “You think it had somethin
g to do with this?”

  “Right now I’m just gathering information to understand what Mr. Fox was working on.”

  “I remember this unit, actually. I watch the auctions. I’d like to bid, but can’t because I work here. He got it cheap because most guys won’t take a flyer on unlabeled boxes. Worried they might contain medical records or old tax returns. Or books, like these did.”

  Jake pulled out his notebook. “How do you know these boxes were full of books?”

  “I went out there when Henry loaded his truck, and he opened a couple. There were also eight or ten black garbage bags stuffed with soft stuff. He tore one open. Flannel shirts and like that.”

  “How heavy were the boxes? Twenty pounds? Fifty pounds?”

  “Henry didn’t have any trouble with them and he’s an older guy, you know. And not very big. Doubt they’d have been even thirty pounds.” She pointed at the box pyramid behind Jake. “They were like those medium-size boxes there. In the middle. Not that big and not heavy-duty enough for real weight.”

  “Can you tell me who rented the unit?”

  “That’s private. I mean… I’m not supposed to.” She crossed her arms, then uncrossed them and clenched her hands into fists. “This is for Henry, right?”

  “It is. But I can ask a judge to issue a search warrant if you prefer.” It would take an hour, but giving him the information in response to a court order would protect her from any customer complaints.

  “Well, let me take a look.” She took the paper over to a computer and clicked away for a few seconds. “Here it is.” She clicked the mouse a couple more times, and the printer issued a high-pitched whine and spit two sheets into her waiting hand. She brought them to the counter and laid them out side by side.

  “I think I can tell you without getting in trouble. This page here shows the original rental.” She tapped the page on Jake’s left. “This one shows who’d been paying the bill at the end.” She tapped the other page.

  “Two different people?”

  “Yep.” She slid the left page forward. It was an imaged copy of a form agreement with the renter’s information written in by hand, but everything was clear and legible. A two-hundred-square-foot exterior unit was rented by Lucy Bristol and Lawrence Bristol of 1112 West Jackson, Weston. The original “Rent Paid” was $4,000.