FIRST STEP MURDER

by H. R. Whidden

Ya, ok we’ll fly, but I’ve got money, I’ll pay, go ahead and book the flight for as soon as possible and reserve the rental car. How about Chinese tonight, I’ll go get it.”

  Faxon went to get dinner and Harper booked their flight out of Logan International Airport and a rental car when they got to Nashville International. Then she went into the closet in the new room and unzipped her hanging bag for her two nice black dresses one was the Versace. Harper filled a smaller bag with jeans, shirts, a couple pair of shoes, and her ball cap. Along with some underwear and her night shirt then went to the bedroom to add Faxon’s Armani suit, and his dress slacks, nice shirt, and jacket then zipped up the hang up bag. She had Faxon’s small duffle bag open and was folding his jeans and shirts when he came in.

  “Hey I’m back,” Faxon said, not seeing Harper when he came in. He set the large bag of take out on the table. “You didn’t tell me what you wanted so I got what you normally order, and a variety of other stuff we can share. The old man commented on how much I was buying, you’d been proud of me I didn’t care about how much it cost.”

  “I got our flight for first thing in the morning, and I rented a car, I asked for a minivan, and I went ahead and booked us a room at the Renaissance Hotel,” Harper said from the bedroom.

  “I heard you say a room, not two rooms?”

  “So we’ve been living together for months and sleeping in the same bed and you wanted your own room? I don’t think so remember it’s a business expense if that makes you feel any better. You shouldn’t need more than four pairs of socks, counting your black dress ones, and I packed you some underwear, jeans, shirts, and put your dress stuff in the garment bag with my dresses.”

  Faxon walked into the room and handed her a beer, he had one in his hand. “Packing for me, really, what does that mean? I mean crap the last person that packed for me was my mom when I went to summer camp.”

  Harper walked over to him and put the arm that wasn’t holding the beer around his neck and kissed him, then whispered in his ear. “I’m not your mother.”

  * * *

  The next morning they got up and drove to the airport and parked in long term parking and checked their bags. Harper got Faxon to go through a drive through for coffee and a breakfast sandwich. They rode in coach, Harper complained about the leg room, and the cute waitress that was flirting with him. The flight wasn’t long and soon they were landing. Down to baggage and then to the rental car bus that would take them to the car rental location. With their stuff in the minivan they drove to the Renaissance Hotel. They stood at the main desk and Harper gave them a credit card, she had asked for an early check in and they went up the elevator to their room.

  Faxon turned on the television and lay back on the bed watching a baseball game. Harper sat on the bed crossed legged and opened up the laptop and found a restaurant to go to for dinner.

  “We can go look for Cartwright Arms tomorrow,” Harper said. “I found where I want to go to dinner tonight.”

  “Don’t tell me I have to dress up?”

  ‘It says casual, but that means you don’t have to wear your suit. Just your slacks and nice shirt, and I’ll wear a dress.” Harper lay back on the bed with him. “This is nice, isn’t it?”

  “Ya, we’re a regular couple on vacation. Is that what you mean? Just remember in this relationship people get killed.”

  “Do you think they would have followed us here,” Harper asked?

  “Probably not, but we have to assume that Ensign Beale knows what we look like, no just walking into Cartwright Arms and having a chat with him. We need to follow him and find out where he lives and maybe do a B&E again. We can get his finger prints from his garbage, and then find a lab here in Nashville that can do the fingerprint analysis.”

  “You’ve got this all figured out,” Harper said. “One day I want to talk about what we’re going to do when this is over. I was serious when I said I wanted to get my private investigators license.”

  “I don’t want to think about that right now. I’d be safer if you went back to riding horses and cussing out prospective clients. And as for figuring out what to do here, well I still don’t know. One thing for sure the prints are gonna match, I just have this feeling.”

  “I’m going to take a shower,” Harper said.

  They got ready and went down to the car. “Where are we going,” he asked?

  “To a restaurant called Margot Café and bar,” Harper used the GPS feature on Faxon’s phone. “1017 Woodland St. they serve American, French, and Italian. It’s near where they call the five points area, historic east Nashville, the website said it’s romantic. I thought we’d have a few beers in the bar before dinner.”

  Harper and Faxon sat at the bar and had two beers before going to a table in the large open dining room. After eating they had desert and then drove around town a little before going back to their room.

  Harper kicked her shoes off at the door and walked into the bathroom. Faxon took off his shirt and slacks and hung them up, he put on a pair of shorts and a tank top t-shirt. When Harper came out of the bathroom she had on her night shirt, and nothing else, she walked up to him and put her arms around his neck and kissed him, she pressed her body against his. She turned and walked to the bed and he went to the bathroom, he brushed his teeth and when he came back out the room was dark.

  The only light was the outside lights of the hotel coming through the crack in the heavy drapes. The covers on the bed were pulled back and Harper sat on the edge of the bed her feet on the floor waiting on him to walk to her. Faxon hesitated. Harper pulled her nightshirt over her head and dropped it to the floor. Neither of them said anything. Even in the dark he could see her perfect body, he walked closer but still a couple feet away.

  “I’m only human Harper. It’s going to be pretty hard for me to sleep beside you like that.”

  “I can see that.”

  She reached out and pulled him to her by his elastic waistband, and as soon as he got close enough she put her arms around his waist after lifting his t-shirt and kissed his stomach, then jerked his shorts down to the floor.

  * * *

  The next morning Faxon lay on his side naked in bed with just the white sheet pulled up, he could feel Harpers nude body against his back, she was on her side her right arm around his waist curled up against him. Faxon could feel her lower stomach against his bottom. It was a nice way to wake up. He didn’t move but almost as if she could since he was awake her hand rubbed his lower stomach, she kissed his neck then pulled him over onto his back. Before he could say good morning she kissed him and rolled on top, her knees on either side of his hips and rubbed herself against him, she whispered in his ear. “I’m not done with you yet.”

  * * *

  After they showered together and dressed. They sat at the table in the room and while Harper looked up the address of Cartwright Arms Faxon called Lew.

  “Lew I need a favor.”

  “Is Harper with you?”

  “Yes, but we’re in Nashville, and that’s why I’m calling, we’re looking for Ensign Ronald Beale, thing is I think he knows what we look like but we don’t know what he looks like. I need a picture maybe a driver’s license photo can you hack the Tennessee driver’s license department?”

  “Yea that’s easy enough, will you ask Harper to call me when you two get back in town, you’ll owe me you know?”

  “I’ve always took care of you Lew, sure.”

  “Not as good as Harper takes care of me. I’ll send the image to your phone it shouldn’t take long.”

  “Thanks Lew, we’ll see you when we get back.”

  They got dressed, jeans, and t-shirts, sunglasses, ball caps and Faxon braided Harpers hair. With the gym bag full of investigators stuff they went to check out Cartwright Arms.

  The gun shop parking lot was full of cars. They sat across the street at a quick store. The large metal building had a store front about forty feet across with glass windows. The building was a hundred feet dee
p and the back of the property had a six foot high chain link fence with razor wire at the top. A sign on the fence said video monitored and another sign said bad dogs with a picture of an angry dog showing his teeth.

  Harper and Faxon watched customers come and go pulling up to the front of the building, going in and in a while coming back out. With binoculars they could see there were three men at the counter and countless rifles, shotguns and hand guns on the wall behind them. Glass cabinets were full of boxes of ammo, twice before noon freight trucks drove through the large gates and backed up to a rollup door. Once they unloaded two crates, and the next truck they loaded three crates then the truck left

  “If he’s in there they want close before 4:00 or 5:00, this afternoon,” Faxon said. “Let’s follow that truck and see if we can get a look at where those crates are being shipped.”

  They followed the freight truck around and he made two more deliveries and picked up two more shipments at two different places. Then the driver stopped for lunch, and that was his chance to look at the packing list on the crates from the gun shop.

  “Go in and make sure that driver doesn’t come out before I’m done, the trailer door isn’t locked I just need to get in and look at the packing list on the crates.”

  “Why do I always have to keep the guy from catching you? I can read the packing list,” Harper said.

  “When it’s a woman that we’re trying to keep from coming out to soon then you can do the breaking in.”

  Faxon opened the rollup door of the truck trailer about two feet and he rolled into the trailer. He turned the flashlight on and found the three crates one had the packing list stuck to the side of it. Faxon ripped it open and unfolded the paperwork, three crates containing fifty customized fully automatic AK 47’s with fifty round clips. The order was going to dock 47, inner harbor, Boston Mass. That was the ship the Desert Sun. Faxon put the paperwork back and got out of the truck. He went into the diner and sat in a booth with Harper. They both ordered cheese burgers with fry’s and let the driver go on his way.

  “No one’s checking these loads that are going overseas, and no doubt their shipping illegal guns on the Desert Sun.” Faxon said.

  Back to the store across the street from Cartwright Arms they kept an eye on the shop until closing time and took turns watching people leave. It was Harper that recognized Ensign Ronald Beale get in an old El Camino parked behind the fence and drive north on the highway away from the shop. Faxon followed at a distance, Harper watched with a pair of binoculars. The ex-Marine pulled into a driveway of an old frame home in an older neighborhood, after stopping at a store and buying a twelve pack of beer. They parked down the block and waited.

  “See all the garbage cans along the street,” Faxon said.

  “Yea so tomorrow must be trash day, you think he’ll drag his out to the roadside tonight?”

  “I don’t know but were going to have to come back later after dark and hope even if he doesn’t take it to the curb there’ll still be plenty of trash in the can. There’s likely a beer bottle in it and we can get good prints.”

  They drove around and had dinner at a local restaurant and waited until 10:00 pm before they went back. They parked down the street and Faxon got out and walked up to the house and looked in a side window. The only lights were from the television, Ensign Beale was sitting in a recliner chair asleep with a beer bottle in his hand and at least eight empties on the coffee table in front of him. The garbage can wasn’t out by the road but it was right there beside the house, it looked like it hadn’t been dumped in weeks. Black garbage bags full of trash were stacked up beside it, Faxon picked up two, one in each hand and walked down the driveway around the El Camino and back to the minivan.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Faxon opened the sliding door to the side of the minivan and threw the two bags of garbage in, then slid the door shut and got in the driver’s seat and drove away.

  “He looked like he drank the whole damn twelve-pack he was passed out in a reclining chair with a beer still in his hand and the television on. Seems like most of these guys have some kind of dependency problem, maybe from being in the service, that’s the way he controls them. He takes advantage of his rank, power, and money to get them to do what he wants.”

  “You sound like you know this is our guy,” Harper said.

  “He’s our guy I’ve got that gut feeling again. I could see the tattoo on his arm from the window. Tomorrow we’ll find an independent lab and have the fingerprint analysis done.”

  The next morning they were up early and Harper found what they were looking for on the internet. It was a lab that the Nashville Police Department used for its independent analysis to back up their own lab in court trials.

  In the parking lot of the hotel they opened the garbage bags and with surgical gloves on they separated the most obvious items with fingerprints. He held up some of the beer bottles and finger prints were easily seen. Harper found an old milk jug that Ronald Beale held and he must have had something on his hand, he left thumb and four finger prints. With what they had separated from the rest of the garbage they went to the lab.

  “We shouldn’t have any problem getting plenty of usable prints off this stuff Mr. Bennett,” said the manager of the lab. “Your comparative sample says it’s from the Boston Police department, what kind of case does this involve if you don’t mind me asking?”

  “It’s a murder case,” Faxon said.

  “Is the suspect a Nashville citizen? You know that’s across state lines.”

  “I’m aware of that, if the samples match I want it documented that the prints came from refuse, that’s totally legal, and I want your report sent to the Boston Police Department in care of Detective John Walker, and the Boston office for the FBI. But I want to know the results first.”

  “I should be able to have the analyses for you in an hour if you want to hang around, there’s a waiting room and some coffee.”

  “Yea, thanks,” Faxon said.

  Harper was unusually quiet, they went into the waiting room and he poured them both a cup of coffee. “What’s wrong? I can see you’re worried. I told you this is our guy, trust me.”

  “I just realized you’ve committed us to turning this guy over to the FBI for transport back to Boston.”

  “Yea, Harper that’s the way we have to do it.”

  “No, it’s not. We could get this guy and take him back ourselves. What I want to know is who gave the order to kill my parents. I want to know who’s behind this. As important as this guy is he’s only important in the since that he can give us the name of the person in charge.”

  “And who says he’d tell us anything Harper. At least with the FBI and Police, the State Attorney can give him a deal to talk.”

  “Are you saying we couldn’t get him to talk? I’ve seen shows about waterboarding. We could take this guy somewhere and make him talk,” she said.

  “No Harper, that wouldn’t be right. We could kill the guy, that would make us no better than them. Those other guys we were chasing died because they chose to, not because we murdered them. Remember how you felt when you saw that guy squirming around on that rebar before he died. Could you kill someone for the information you want? If you did that Harper it would change you. No we’ve got to do it this way. It’s not worth our future.”

  “Ok, but this guy better give us what we need Faxon.”

  In an hour the lab manager had confirmed the prints that came from the bottom of the elevator door and the prints taken from the legally obtained items were from the same person, a ten point match. The report was sent to the Boston office of the FBI and the Boston police department. Faxon called John and told him the report was on its way. John told them that the FBI had been brought up to date on all the evidence on all the connected deaths and murders related to the retired men of the Echo Company. The tattoos, the shooter, the men at the dock, Faxon’s report of the shipment of arms going to the Saudi registered ship the Desert Sun. Harper
wanted to do things her way, and get directly to the man that had given the order to kill her parents. Faxon tried to explain that this was going to start a landslide of shit that would bury the man at the top.

  They enjoyed their intimacy for the next two days. Staying in bed till late every morning, holding hands when they were out and public kisses when they were close, they met the two agents at the airport and took them to Cartwright Arms. For the agents it was a turnaround flight, they had enough time to arrest their man and go back to the airport. Harper and Faxon had booked a flight back on the same plane, and they were packed and ready to go.

  They followed the two agents into the front of the store and one of them asked to see Ronald Beale. Faxon thought the guy might try to run but he walked into the front room without a worry in the world. They informed him he was under arrest and read him his rights. With cuffs on Beale sat in the back in-between the two agents. He refused to talk or answer any questions no matter how many times asked, Harper got angrier.

  It was a quiet flight back to Boston. Harper obviously thought it was a bad decision to turn Ronald Beale over without them getting the name of the man in charge. Their romance stopped as soon as they got back to the small apartment. Harper went to bed without giving Faxon a kiss or even saying good night. The next morning she wanted to go to the station and talk to John, she was up and ready when Faxon got up, there was no breakfast ready. At the station the desk Sargent waved them by.

  “Well, have you interrogated Beale,” Harper asked as soon as she walked into Detective Walker’s office.

  “He hasn’t said a word, and he’s lawyered up,” John said. “The DA says it’s strictly a circumstantial evidence case.”

  Harper looked at Faxon and walked out of the office without saying a word. He stayed behind and went over all the evidence that the DA was going to present. John assured him that the Feds were after the marine group and were investigating the Saudi national.