Whispers of the Dead (Tom Gabriel #2)

by Tim Ellis

  To whom it may concern,

  We are broke. Last April I was worth $25,000,000. Today I am $24,000 in the red. My body should go to science, my soul to Andrew W Mellon (Secretary to the Treasury), and sympathy to my creditors.

  It was a suicide note signed by JJ Harrison, President of the County Trust Company. He put the letter back in its envelope and returned the envelope to the safe deposit box.

  He picked up a small brown leather embossed notebook that was kept closed with a tie like a shoelace and slid the tie off. Inside the notebook – on every page – were a series of three-letter groupings written in pencil:

  CBG HGT MPT BHU DCA AAU TDB CDT LDF PSV MTD VGT RGN UFC IFA OCM PAH YRF WHD WBP BFT DVT PAG FLM TDV FRD LSB BGW FPJ GAM JDO . . .

  It was obviously a code, but saying what? Did it have anything to do with the bank manager’s disappearance? And why did Roger Harrison keep it in his safe deposit box? He slipped the notebook into the pocket of his shorts.

  All that remained was what appeared to be an original Florida Traffic Crash Report (Highway Safety & Motor Vehicles Crash Report Number: 20964403) in the name of Rosalind Winter aged nineteen. The report had seven pages and described an accident with one unknown male fatality on the night of July 4, 1984.

  How did Roger Harrison obtain an original Traffic Crash Report? And if he had the original, what did the police have on file? Who was Rosalind Winter? The Police Investigator was Sergeant Neville van Dalen. It probably had nothing to do with Harrison’s disappearance, but he was curious about why it was in the safe deposit box. Now what? If he removed the report, then Roger Harrison could simply say it was never in there, that he’d never seen it.

  It couldn’t be that difficult to take a photograph. He pulled out his phone, touched “Menu”, found “Camera” and touched that symbol as well. The camera activated and he could see the report on the table on his phone. It took him a while to find the button to press to actually take a photograph, but eventually he was able to record a copy of each page of the report on his phone.

  He put the report back in the box, closed the lid, slid the box back into its allotted space and turned the key.

  Outside, he handed the key to Fred Byrne.

  ‘Anything that might help?’ Byrne asked him.

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘I’ll show you out.’

  At the front door to the bank Tom said, ‘Thanks for your help, Mr Byrne.’

  ‘I hope you find Roger, Mr Gabriel.’

  He passed the assistant manager one of his new business cards that had Tom Gabriel Investigations on it together with his office and cell numbers. ‘Will you let me know if the security consultants find anything?’

  ‘If I do, it’ll be in the strictest confidence – we don’t want our customers thinking their money isn’t safe with us.’

  ‘Of course.’

  Chapter Six

  He drove back to the St Augustine Police Department on King Street and strolled right in. People nodded at him, they knew who he was. There was a small photograph of him receiving the Medal of Bravery from the Mayor on the wall of decorated police officers. Yes, he’d acquired a few more creases in his face, his skin had lost some of its grip on the muscles and sinews holding his skeleton together, but he was essentially the same Tom Gabriel who had taken early retirement when his wife had died of cancer five years previously.

  ‘Sorry I’m late, Mona. I got tied up at the bank.’

  ‘One of the idle rich now?’

  ‘I always did like your sense of humour. Roger Harrison is the manager at the Harbor Bank.’

  ‘I heard that.’ She passed him copies of the John Doe file, and Roger Harrison’s Missing Person Report. ‘What do you know about this Joseph Fowler?’

  ‘Nothing at all. It was just a name I stumbled across.’

  ‘He’s dead.’

  ‘I expected as much.’

  ‘He was gunned down in Staten Island three weeks ago – one more unsolved murder apparently.’ She handed him a computer print-out. ‘A copy of his rap sheet.’

  ‘Thanks,’ he said, but he didn’t get up.

  ‘Haven’t you got somewhere else you’d rather be?’

  The corner of his mouth curled upwards. ‘I like sitting here with you.’

  ‘Well, as much as the feeling’s mutual, I have things to do.’

  ‘There is one last thing you can do for me.’

  ‘You do know that I don’t work for you, don’t you?’

  ‘I pay my taxes. You work for me all right.’

  ‘The very last thing.’

  ‘Log into the Highway Safety & Motor Vehicles database and type in this crash report number: 20964403.’

  ‘No such report. It says here it was cancelled.’

  ‘Interesting.’ His forehead resembled a piece of corrugated iron. ‘I’ve just seen the original report. It was dated July 4, 1984. Can you . . . ?’

  ‘I thought that was the last thing.’

  ‘One last thing led to another last thing – what can I say?’

  ‘I’m going to have you thrown out after this if you don’t leave under your own steam.’

  ‘Put the name Rosalind Winter into the National Driver Register.’

  ‘She’s here.’

  ‘Got an address?’

  She wrote down the address and passed it to him. ‘Mixing with the rich and famous now?’

  He looked at the address she’d written down: 250 North Forest Dune Drive. ‘So it would seem.’ The houses there were worth in excess of a million-five. He stood up. ‘I’m going now.’

  ‘Don’t come back for a very long time. Your meatballs and spaghetti weren’t worth what I gave you.’

  ‘I’ll try something different next time, but maybe you’ll think this is worth it: Your mother says “Hi”, and that the next man you meet will be worth it.’

  ‘Worth what?’

  He shrugged.

  ‘Your messages suck, and tell my mother to keep her nose out of my relationships.’

  ‘What relationships?’

  She picked up the phone. ‘I’m calling that patrol officer who looks like the Hulk.’

  He smiled. ‘See you soon, Mona.’

  ***

  As arranged Rae was waiting for him in Zero’s Diner.

  ‘I’ve been sitting here for twenty minutes.’

  ‘I hope you’ve put that time to good use?’

  ‘You could have called.’

  ‘Then I’d have been twenty-one minutes late.’

  ‘I hope it was worth it?’

  ‘You tell me.’ He passed her the John Doe file.

  ‘Great.’

  The waitress came up. ‘You folks ordering?’

  ‘Just coffee for me, please,’ he said.

  She filled up a mug and left.

  The gold chain, knife and key clattered on the table.

  People turned to stare.

  ‘The paperboy helped himself to the knife,’ Rae said. ‘The key was on the chain as well.’

  ‘Off a dead body?’

  ‘Boys will be boys.’

  ‘Mmmm.’ He picked up the knife, caressed it and pulled the blade out. ‘I can see how this might tempt a boy.’

  ‘I thought that as well. Do you think I should tell Mona?’

  ‘Are you trying to get the boy into trouble?’

  ‘I expected you to tell me to turn him in.’

  ‘I’m not a police officer anymore.’

  ‘So, we’re not telling Mona about the left luggage key?’

  ‘You made that decision all on your own last night.’ He stood up. ‘We should get moving.’

  ‘Okay.’

  Outside, he turned left and she turned right.

  ‘We could go in my car,’ Rae said.

  ‘I’d like to get there in one piece,’ he said with a laugh. ‘We’ll go in mine.’

  He knew exactly where the ME’s office was, and headed out of town along the Dixie Highway.

&
nbsp; She was quiet as she rifled through the John Doe file and then said, ‘Have you read it?’

  ‘Not had time.’

  ‘This is what it says:

  He’s a white Caucasian male aged between 40–45. In excellent physical condition – apart from being dead, of course. He was 180 centimetres (5 ft 11 in) tall, with hazel eyes, fair to ginger-coloured hair, slightly grey around the temples, with broad shoulders and a narrow waist, hands and nails that show no signs of manual labour, size 9 feet and the big and little toes meet in a wedge shape, like those of a dancer or someone who wore shoes with pointed toes; and pronounced high calf muscles such as a ballet dancer, which may be a dominant genetic trait, and is also characteristic of many middle and long-distance runners.

  Also, he has ears that are possessed by only 1–2% of the Caucasian population – the upper hollow (cymba) is larger than the lower hollow (cavum), and it’s possible that any relatives may have this feature.

  When the police found the body his left arm was in a straight position and the right arm was bent double. An unlit cigarette was behind his right ear and a half-smoked cigarette was hanging from his mouth and had burnt the right side of the collar of his coat. In his pockets he had a narrow aluminum comb, a half-empty packet of Juicy Fruit chewing gum, a packet of Lucky Strike cigarettes with seven cigarettes inside and a green throw-away lighter.

  He was dressed in expensive clothing: consisting of a white shirt, red and blue tie, brown suit, socks and shoes and a grey and brown double-breasted coat. All labels on his clothes were missing, and he had no hat or wallet. He was clean-shaven and carried no forms of identification. His teeth and fingerprints do not match the records of any known person on national or international databases, even though he had a rare genetic dental disorder called anodontia, which is the absence of all primary teeth.

  ‘You already knew all of that.’

  ‘I know. The people I questioned yesterday confirmed the body’s position, the cigarettes, and what he was wearing. The police seem to have tried everything they could to identify him.’

  ‘Did they? The government can easily make people disappear. So, do you have anything for me?’

  ‘Oh yes – the addresses and telephone number. You’re going to have to become a technologically advanced person, you know. If you’d have had a tablet, and knew how to work it, I could simply have sent everything to you. Instead, I had to use ancient implements to write the details down.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘All the addresses seem like client addresses except one – the rooftop car park at the Riverside Shopping Centre downtown.’

  ‘He stopped off to do some shopping?’

  ‘Maybe he did, maybe he didn’t. I took a look at “Street View”, and there are security cameras overlooking that car park.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And nothing. You’ll have to go and ask someone if you can take a look at the security footage. The problem, of course, is that because you didn’t take me with you yesterday, you have no idea when or what time he went to that car park, or for that matter any of the other addresses. We need to go back to the house, so that I can connect my tablet to the satnav and download all of the information.’

  Maybe Mona was right – maybe being a PI was a young man’s game. Maybe the world had passed him by and he should just go back to being retired. ‘I thought you . . . ?’

  ‘You thought wrong. I know some stuff, but I’m not a hacker.’

  He sighed. ‘I said I’d call at the house this afternoon and keep Barbara Harrison in the loop – you can download the information then.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘What about the telephone number?’

  ‘Number 52 Pizarro Road. It’s up for sale and currently standing empty. The old woman who used to live there – Blanche Rainey – died just over a month ago.’

  ‘Relatives?’

  ‘Not as far as I can see. The sale is being handled by Stokes Realty, and guess what?’

  ‘Stokes Realty are clients of Harbor Bank?’

  ‘You already knew?’

  ‘I didn’t, but thanks anyway.’ He passed her his phone. ‘I took some photographs.’

  She clutched her chest. ‘I’m having a heart attack.’

  ‘Very funny,’ he said without a flicker of humour on his face. ‘It’s a traffic crash report that I need printing off.’

  She found the photographs on his phone. ‘Okay, I’ve sent them to my email address.’ She used her tablet to access her account and downloaded the report. ‘Next time I’m near a printer, I’ll print it off for you. Who’s Rosalind Winter?’

  ‘No idea.’

  ‘Why have you taken photographs of her crash report from 1984?’

  ‘No idea.’

  She began tapping the screen of her tablet. ‘Rosalind Winter is the granddaughter of Clarence Winter.’ She looked at him.

  ‘Means nothing to me.’

  ‘He started a trucking company in the 1950s and called it “Winter Trucking” . . .’

  ‘Original.’

  ‘A bit like “Tom Gabriel Investigations”.’

  ‘You’re on fire this morning.’

  ‘I am, aren’t I? Anyway, Clarence Winter made a stack of money. He had a son, who had a daughter – Rosalind – who inherited the business.’

  ‘What happened to the son.’

  ‘Robert Winter married Catherine Fitzsimmons, and they had three children – Ronald, Mitchell and Rosalind. It seems there was a falling out. Robert and his family were cut off without a cent, but Rosalind appears to have stayed with her grandfather.’

  ‘Unusual.’

  Rae nodded.

  ‘She’s forty-nine years old now, unmarried and a recluse. No one’s seen her in public for years. The latest picture I can find of her is from when she was twenty-nine.’ She showed him.

  ‘Good looking. What about her grandfather?’

  ‘Clarence Winter died in 2003. Neither the son nor the grandchildren attended the funeral.’

  ‘Where’s the son?’

  ‘No idea. Hey, this would make a good story.’

  ‘You can’t use the crash report.’

  ‘Oh! Why not?’

  ‘I photographed it without permission.’

  ‘You’ve gone over to the dark side, haven’t you?’

  ‘The dark side of what?’

  Rae shook her head. ‘Never mind.’

  He slid the leather-bound embossed notebook out of the pocket of his cargo shorts and passed it to her.

  ‘What’s this?’

  ‘Do you want me to tell you, or would you prefer to open it and take a look?’

  She slid the tie off and rifled through the pages. ‘Mmmm!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘They look like airport codes.’

  ‘Do they?’

  ‘Don’t tell me you don’t even know what an airport code is?’

  ‘Well?’

  She spoke as she tapped on the screen of her tablet. ‘Every airport in the world has been allocated a three-letter code by the International Air Transport Association (IATA), which is used for airline timetables, reservations and baggage tags.’ She picked a three-letter code at random from a page of the notebook. ‘This one – RGN – is Yangon International Airport in Yangon, Burma . . .’

  ‘How did they get RGN from Yangon?’

  ‘Because Yangon used to be called Rangoon.’

  ‘Oh!’

  ‘And this one – CBG – is Cambridge Airport in England.’

  ‘Maybe you just got lucky with those two.’

  She checked one full page. ‘No, they’re all airport codes.’

  ‘Okay. Now what?’

  She screwed her face up. ‘Now what? What are you asking me “Now what” for?’

  ‘I thought you might have some idea what they meant?’

  ‘I’ve just told you – they’re airport codes.’

  ‘Yes, but someone wouldn’t fill a notebook with airport codes
just because they liked airport codes.’

  ‘Maybe he’s an airport code collector. Maybe he writes an airport code in the book after he travels through each airport. Maybe he has a whole collection of baggage tags, and this notebook is the record of what he’s got.’

  ‘He’s a bank manager.’

  ‘Well, the obvious answer is that they’re a code.’

  ‘A code for what?’

  ‘I’m beginning to regret teaming up with you.’

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘Because I’m doing all the work, and . . .’

  ‘You’re doing all the work?’

  ‘That’s what I said.’

  ‘I see.’ He began to slow down. ‘If that’s the case I’ll let you out here and you can carry on researching your story without me.’

  ‘Are you trying to get us both killed?’

  ‘Who’s doing all the work?’

  ‘I am.’

  He leaned across her and gripped the door handle. ‘I’m not allowed to stop on this road, but I’ll slow down enough so that you can make a jump for it. I expect you’ll break a few bones . . .’

  ‘You are.’

  He sat back up and pressed his foot on the accelerator. ‘I’m doing the investigative part, and you’re doing the technological part – that’s what we agreed.’

  ‘Okay. You wouldn’t really have made me jump, would you?’

  ‘Damned right. So, what type of code do you think we’ve got there?’

  ‘I don’t believe you.’

  He waited.

  ‘It could be straightforward. One of the letters in each group might form the letter of a word such as . . . No, that doesn’t work . . . ‘ She tried making a word. ‘There are too many consonants and not enough vowels.’

  ‘What about . . . ?’

  She shook her head. ‘No.’

  ‘No, what?’

  ‘It’s too complicated. The three-letter codes could represent anything. Sometimes, we’re gonna come across stuff that neither of us knows anything about, and this is one of those times. Remember when you found that computer code last time?’