Counterfeit Road

by Kirk Russell

  ‘Now, there is something I’m remembering now. Four or five months before he was killed, Alan decided Jim was pocketing some of the bills he was ferrying. He got very angry about it. Words got exchanged and Jim didn’t like to be threatened. I can tell you that.’

  La Rosa re-entered the conversation.

  ‘Why did you consider killing yourself?’

  ‘A man should only exist as long as he has the will and the stomach to do what needs to be done. Waiting has sapped me. I’m like a hunter succumbing to cold.’

  ‘What is it you’re waiting for?’

  ‘For the right moment and now it’s arriving. Most of us pass without making a difference. I’ll use the example of Inspector Benjamin Tomlinson Raveneau. His career isn’t over but it’s winding down. He’s had a good solve record on the San Francisco Homicide Detail and for many years was the best among his peers. But has he made any real difference? I have to say no. He’ll retire. He’ll get a pension. He’ll do some private work perhaps and he may even go on living in that apartment up on the roof. That’s a little isolated and his girlfriend, I’m told, is more nervous about it, particularly at night, but who wouldn’t be?

  ‘Maybe they’ll marry and settle in closer to her new bar if it catches on, but it’s a difficult city to compete in and chances are her bar will just limp along. The inspector will see a fine goodbye party with the police force, but will the police force or the city be any different for his having been there? I don’t think so and though they’ll use him sporadically after he retires, his utility will decline. His purpose in life will vanish and with it his reason for being. That night I went to that threshold. You have to act to make a difference.’

  La Rosa wasn’t going to let this pass, but Raveneau caught her eye. Raveneau didn’t care if Casey had hired private investigators to look into his life. His look said let that part be, so she asked, ‘Have you ever killed anyone other than in war?’

  ‘I’m going to ask you to leave now. We’re both out of time. I need to think about my plans and you need to drive to make it to your lunch.’

  ‘We can call and tell her we’re running late. We’d like to know more about you.’

  He turned to Raveneau.

  ‘A thing can be justified if you have a higher object and you achieve it, but focus has to stay on the goal, the result. I know you understand that. You flew over here because you have the murder weapon and the sense you’re closing in. But even if it’s true that’s the gun used to kill Alan, and I suppose it’s likely true, you still don’t know what you can do with it, do you? Or are you just hoping things will evolve? I’ve passed the point where I can wait for that evolution.’

  ‘Tell us about the argument between Jim Frank and Alan Krueger,’ Raveneau said.

  ‘Jim was able to walk on and off a flight without any risk of his luggage being checked. He sometimes smuggled money or weapons for AK. He may have stolen counterfeit bills he was carrying from here to the mainland. He was very short of money. He had a fairly large land deal go bad here and lost everything. Ask his ex-wives how much alimony they ever saw. Alan accused him, they argued, and that was the last I saw of Alan, but, of course, I’m not saying Jim had anything to do with killing him.’

  He smiled at la Rosa.

  ‘When you get back I’ll tell you what it feels like to napalm a village and watch some of them try to run while their skin is melting. The kids didn’t get far, but some of those women would get twenty or thirty yards, like a torch moving in the twilight. When I put a gun to my head I think about them, but I don’t feel guilty. I just think about them as part of a balance sheet, an expense. The meaning of our lives is capital we spend and you cannot make a mark on history without inflicting some pain on some people.’

  ‘What are you focused on now?’ Raveneau asked.

  ‘That’s already in motion.’

  ‘Are you going to tell us about that?’ la Rosa asked. ‘We’d really like to know.’

  ‘I’m sure you would.’

  FIFTY-THREE

  ‘What was that about?’ la Rosa asked. ‘Was he threatening us?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Has he talked this way before?’

  ‘Not quite like this, but he can move quickly from threatening to get me fired to asking what I want to drink.’

  ‘You ought to call Coe and ask for help finding out more about him. He knew Krueger. Krueger is tied into the counterfeit notes and the counterfeit money ties into the Secret Service/FBI investigation. The Feds will help us on this, don’t you think?’

  ‘They will and I’ll call him when we get down to the beach.’

  ‘Why are we going back there?’

  ‘Before we make the drive to Ito’s gallery, I want to see if Matt Frank is still at Hapuna.’

  When they didn’t spot Frank’s pickup in the beach lot, Raveneau said, ‘Let’s pick up the can he was drinking from. I saw him put it down on top of a garbage can. But we need something to put it in.’

  ‘I’ve got a plastic bag in my purse and I’ll go get the can while you call Coe. I know where to look for it.’

  Coe picked up on the first ring and asked, ‘Have you met with him?’

  ‘We left his house fifteen minutes ago. We’re on our way to interview a woman on the other end of the island and then we want to meet with him again. He’s nervous and agitated.’

  ‘You checked in with our satellite office?’

  ‘Yeah, they said call if we need backup. We’ll give them a call but what can you do to help us find out more about Casey?’

  ‘I’ll do what I can. I’ll call you.’

  The can was still there. La Rosa had it with her as she walked back. By the time she reached the car he was off the phone. They drove south skirting Hilo and then the long grade on the road up to Volcanoes National Park. The gallery was set back among trees. They parked in a gravel lot across from an outdoor garden where it looked like pieces of sculpture were for sale. Inside the gallery were paintings and photographs. Many depicted scenes from the park up the road.

  Raveneau spotted a woman in the back with a customer and couldn’t be certain it was her, but it looked like it was. She became aware of them but she was still in conversation with her customer. As they waited, Raveneau studied a black and white photograph of a small group of men at the edge of Kilauea Crater taken perhaps a hundred years ago. The starkness of the crater and the small figures of the men at the edge of it said something he couldn’t quite put a name to.

  Then from behind him a voice said, ‘I like that photograph very much myself. In a scene that is so stark you realize what is fragile. Are you looking for a particular artist?’

  ‘We have an appointment with Aolani Ito.’

  ‘That’s me.’

  It turned out Ito knew Thomas Casey as an islander whose family through a corporation had wrested control of a large block of ranchland and an even larger former sugar plantation in the interior. She believed Casey to be very wealthy and heard the money came from timber, coal, and land long before Casey was born.

  ‘I didn’t like him,’ she said. ‘He thought Jim wanted me there because I was pretty and young and it was all about sexual pleasure. He thought I was there to get away from my family and have a place to live for free and play at being an artist. He came on to me once and his way of doing that was to remind me that the land and the house and Jim being there was because of his generosity. But he inherited it all. He got Captain Jim into the land deal where he lost all his money.’

  ‘What about politics?’ la Rosa asked.

  ‘I didn’t listen to that. When they drank the things they said were all crazy. They would talk about killing like you would talk about picking fruit, as if it was normal to make plans and then kill your enemies. Even Captain Jim was that way but I didn’t listen too closely to any of that.’

  Raveneau had divided the photos in half. One stack was face down. He showed her a photo of Krueger.

  ‘Do you r
ecognize this man?’

  ‘Of course, that’s Alan. He and Captain Jim were good friends until they had an argument and I don’t really know what it was about, but it was Alan who was angry first. He was a gentle man. He was funny and kind and sort of sad. He was a government agent of some sort and there were other men that came with him sometimes. They also worked for the government. There were two of them. One in particular who came around more and several times on his own. He was careful not to talk too much around me. But he was nice.’

  ‘Would you look through the photos and tell me who you recognize?’

  ‘Sure.’

  Raveneau handed her the partial stack printed from Matt Frank’s Facebook photos. She had barely looked through ten before she said, ‘These are from little Matt. He was so cute with the camera around his neck all the time. He saw a professional photographer and copied the movements. He was very serious and made everybody laugh, but look at these. He was good.’

  She touched another photo.

  ‘I remember this man. He did things for them. He wanted to be like them and they told him stories. He was in the Air Force, I think, but something happened to his eyes and he couldn’t fly any more.’

  ‘Do you remember his name?’

  ‘I’m embarrassed I don’t. He came around to the parties. He was like a hanger-on. When they ran out of beer or rum they would send him to town.’

  She slowly shuffled through the stack and Raveneau saw the younger woman in the hollows of her cheeks. Her eyes were lined, her features less distinct now, but she was still beautiful.

  ‘Are you looking for the two younger men you talked about?’

  ‘I am, but I’m not seeing them. One of them was careful not to let Matt photograph him. The other one didn’t seem to care but I don’t see him either.’

  ‘But they both came with Krueger?’

  ‘That’s what I remember, but I don’t know if it’s right. I associate them with Alan. They were sort of detached though and one came by more than the other, and then the other didn’t come by at all any more. They weren’t from the island.’

  ‘What were their names?’

  ‘Hmmm . . . I’m terrible at names.’

  ‘Was Alan called AK?’

  ‘Only by Jim, it was a joke about a gun. It was some joke between them that went back to the war in Vietnam. They were all in that together. Thomas was the serious one. He was the most damaged by whatever he did in the war. Jim had done things too he regretted and tried different ways to make them go away.’

  ‘The younger men in these photos weren’t in the Vietnam War.’

  She looked up at him, dark eyes studying him. ‘You’re very interested in them,’ she said. ‘Why?’

  ‘I’m fishing. I’m looking for connections.’

  ‘Where is Matt now?’

  ‘He lives with Casey on the ranch and calls him Uncle Casey.’

  ‘So he didn’t get away. I’m sorry to hear that.’

  ‘He’s talking about moving. He’s got a business he’s working on.’

  ‘Will you give him my card and ask him to call me?’

  ‘Yes.’

  She handed Raveneau a card and went slowly through all of the photos again, this time keeping many of her thoughts to herself. When she laid the photos down Raveneau told her about the videotape.

  ‘Would you be willing to watch it?’

  ‘How long is it?’

  ‘A couple of minutes but very graphic.’

  La Rosa touched his arm and Raveneau handed her the car keys. Ito was talking again as la Rosa returned with the laptop.

  ‘Everybody, except me, called him Captain or Captain Frank. He was meant to be in a uniform, but also to be barefoot. He was not afraid to be who he was. I learned a lot from him. People said, he is your father’s age. He’s too old for you, but for me it was lucky I met him. He taught me how to live without fear.’

  Ito turned quiet as la Rosa booted up the laptop.

  ‘Will I be able to forget this video later?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Then I want to sit quiet for a few minutes.’

  Raveneau and la Rosa didn’t talk. Raveneau opened the tray and laid the CD in. He turned to her and she nodded. Then with something close to happiness in recognizing an old friend she said, ‘That looks like Alan but it’s not a very good video.’

  ‘No, it’s not good quality, but watch the man with him and I can freeze the screen at any point.’

  As Krueger was shot she bowed her head, gasped, and wept. She didn’t watch the rest and then was quiet and didn’t say anything for several minutes. La Rosa started to fold down the computer screen to shutdown the laptop. Raveneau quietly reached and stopped her. He could tell. He knew. When Ito spoke again it was without looking up.

  ‘I have to watch again.’

  ‘You see something?’

  ‘I think so, in how he walks.’

  Both the shooter and Krueger continued toward the pylons and as she leaned toward the screen and studied the man she said, ‘His last name was Gray or something like that. Colin was his first name, Colin Gray, only I’m not sure that Gray is right. He was one of the two younger men who I think came first with Krueger.’

  ‘Is he the one who came around more or less?’

  ‘More, and you should ask the one who was in the Air Force who was also my age and whose name I can’t remember. He knew him, too.’

  ‘Shay.’

  ‘Yes, that’s right, Shay. So you really are a detective.’

  She tried to smile but was too shaken.

  ‘How sure are you, Aolani?’

  She reached and rested her hand over his. He felt the warmth of her palm as she said, ‘It’s the walk.’ She stared at the screen. ‘I am sure. That’s him.’

  FIFTY-FOUR

  Coe called as they rose out of Hilo on the Saddle Road. Raveneau put him on speaker phone. The reception wasn’t great, but they could hear.

  ‘We’ve got an agent along the highway outside the property. He’ll move in when you do. How long before you get there?’

  ‘At least three hours. We’ve got another stop to make.’

  ‘Where’s that?’

  ‘Bradshaw Air Base.’

  ‘Does he know you’re coming?’

  ‘His commander does and we’ve got something else. Elizabeth will tell you. She just got off the phone with the state police here.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘Matt Frank shot and killed an intruder last year, a man who entered Casey’s house through an unlocked door at night. He was unarmed. Frank claimed the man started to attack him and he shot him in self defense. One bullet went through his palm and into his jaw. The state police believe he had his hands up, but the shooting was ruled self defense.’

  ‘Self defense is what you’ll get if you come into my house in the middle of the night,’ Coe said, showing a different side.

  ‘Point is,’ Raveneau said, ‘we don’t know about him. The agents should be aware. I’m pretty sure he debated taking a shot at me the first time I was here.’

  ‘I’ll get the word to them. Call when you leave the air base.’

  ‘You got it.’

  As Raveneau ended the call he said, ‘I’m thinking there’s something wrong with this whole Glock story.’

  ‘Ballistics matched.’

  ‘Right, but did Casey know the gun was coming to us?’

  ‘Why would he want us to have the gun?’

  ‘I don’t know why; I can’t think of a reason why.’

  After a quiet, la Rosa asked, ‘What are we going to do with the coconut water can?’

  ‘Overnight it home and ask the Feds to expedite DNA.’

  ‘That’s pushing it.’

  ‘I know.’

  After a pause she changed the subject and asked, ‘Is that Bradshaw Air Base coming up on the left?’

  ‘Yeah, and this is the little park on the right where I was when he drove out.’


  As they turned in at the gate at Bradshaw Army Air Field Raveneau did as the lieutenant colonel running the base instructed him. He showed his ID and gave his name, nothing more, and the guard didn’t ask any questions. He said, ‘Welcome to Camp Pohakuloa,’ and then directed them to the old Quonset where Shay was sequestered.

  ‘Where’s the air field?’ la Rosa asked, and Raveneau pointed out the airstrip.

  ‘That’s it?’

  ‘They’re not about flying here. They test artillery and do live fire exercises. That Lava Road you found for me is on the other side of the base outside the fence. It’s for tanks. He’s in this Quonset hut right up here, third one down. The lieutenant colonel said he’d be here. We’re about ten minutes late. I’m going to apologize and then show the lieutenant colonel the photo enhancement comparison the FBI did.’

  When they got out of the car the air smelled of dust and the sulphureous pungent smell Raveneau associated with lava rock. Inside the Quonset hut it was cooler and dark. Somewhere further down and outside the building an air conditioning compressor hummed and vibrated. Shay was in a room alone. He sat at a chair at a table waiting with his hands resting on his thighs. He looked anxious and confused.

  ‘Are those the photos?’ the lieutenant colonel asked.

  Raveneau handed them to him and watched him read the FBI notes and then look at the profile comparisons. When he looked up he said, ‘He was arrested yesterday shortly after we talked. He’s had no communication with anyone since but seven phone calls this morning.’

  Raveneau was ready for that and handed the lieutenant colonel a piece of paper with the cell numbers as well as business and landline numbers for Tom Casey and Matt Frank. The lieutenant colonel compared that to his list of seven and nodded. He handed both lists back to Raveneau and Raveneau saw that the photo enhancements which were by no means definitive and the phone numbers matching the cells of Tom Casey and Matt Frank had swayed him.