"And without any other paperwork to back him up, he won't be able to access the funds unless the bank issues him new ones!" Pete's eyes gleamed triumphantly. "That's my girl!"
Unsettled by such a display of brass nerve, everyone avoided meeting each other’s eyes. Sheriff Lacon muttered, "If that don't beat all!" then turned as his deputy came in with Laurel. "How's it going, Brad?"
"I got the APB out, Sheriff. There's no sign yet of Baker or his vehicle."
"I guess he could've taken to the woods, although he'd be stupid to try. Brad, better get onto Payneton, see if they can get us a 'copter. In the meantime," he said, turning to regard Greg, Donna and Weissman, "I think you three had better come down to the office with me."
"Erm… there is one more thing, Sheriff," Martin said, holding his hand up again.
"Yes, Mr.?"
"Grey, Martin Grey. I'm sorry to be the one to point this out, but Bruce could lay his hands on another source of funds."
"He could?" Lacon cocked his head. "Where and how?"
"Canning's Vale." Pete Ashby looked up sharply. Martin nodded to him. "I have reason to believe it's where a large quantity of excellent and very valuable bootleg Scotch is hidden. Bruce now knows where it's located and he could well attempt to recover some bottles to sell."
"And hidden in with that booze could be a small fortune in uninsured Treasury Bonds!" Pete growled. "Shit!" He turned to Lacon. "Sheriff, sorry all to hell, but this becomes a federal priority case as of now. I'd appreciate it if you could get that 'copter up here to the resort, ASAP!"
Lacon shook his head. "Sheesh! This case gets more complex by the minute!" He held up his hands. "Okay, Agent Ashby, you got it."
He and Pete left to make the necessary calls and Martin moved quietly to one side of the hall, followed by Claudia. "Who are you calling?" she asked as he dialed a number on his cell phone.
"Someone I owe a favor to." He smiled. A faint chirp sounded from the phone and he put his finger to his lips. "Doug? I'm calling to ask if you'd like to be in on a hot news story…"
Chapter Fifteen
Doug arrived at the resort long before the helicopter. His presence was reluctantly accepted by the sheriff and barely tolerated by Pete, who was champing at the bit. Martin filled Doug in on everything that had happened so far, and the newspaperman's eyes gleamed.
"Hot damn!" He breathed heavily when Martin had finished and his eyes sparkled. "It isn't Pulitzer material, but it'll do fine!" He grasped Martin's hand and shook it warmly. "Thanks, buddy!"
"You're welcome, Doug. Call it an apology for our deception when we first met."
"Oh, don't worry about that, this is the most fun I've had in years!"
Martin grinned at his enthusiasm. "I'm not sure if the sheriff or Agent Ashby will let you come along for the ride, but I'll see what I can do."
"Ah, don't worry about them either!" Doug grinned. "I'm an expert at getting round the cops."
* * * *
An hour later the police helicopter came clattering up the valley. It touched down on the broad meadow and they all ran out to it. "You'd better get up front with the pilot," Pete shouted in Martin's ear over the roar of the engines. "You're the only one here who's flown over the area."
Martin nodded and clambered in, buckling his harness and connecting the intercom lead under the pilot's direction. Settled in the deep seat he took the maps from his case, being careful not to disturb the broken bottle of Scotch which lay at the bottom, and showed them to the pilot. "This is where we need to go; Canning's Vale."
The pilot studied the map then nodded. Working throttle and collective, he lifted the helicopter and swung it up and across the valley. Within seconds the lake was passing beneath them in a blur of blue and white then they were over the bare trees of the forest.
Martin unlatched his case again and reached in to retrieve the remains of the bottle. Back at their cabin he'd transferred them from his handkerchief to a tough Ziploc bag. Gerry sprang into being, crouching between him and the pilot. "Whoo-ee!" he cried, pressing forward eagerly to watch the land slide by beneath. "Look at this bird go! What is it?"
"Do you think we'll make it in time?" Martin asked the others in the back, ignoring him.
Lacon nodded. "I reckon so. Brad Williams reported a sighting of Baker's vehicle an hour ago, up on the freeway about ten miles from here. It looks like he was heading east into that general area. I've looked at the map, there's a lot of heavy tree cover between the nearest track and Canning's Vale. He won't hike across that in ten minutes!"
"It should take us fifteen to reach it," the pilot put in.
"Yeah, that figures at this speed!" Gerry enthused. "What kind of altitude can you get out of her, feller?" he asked the pilot.
The pilot flew blithely on, unaware of the interest from his ghostly fellow aviator.
Martin hid a smile. "Agent Ashby?" he called, turning in his seat to look back. "How did you come to know about the bonds?"
Pete looked from Martin to Doug then shrugged. "I guess my cover's well and truly blown, so it doesn't matter if I tell you."
"Told ya he was a Fed," Gerry said smugly, tearing his gaze away from the view to wink at Martin. In the back, Claudia stifled a giggle.
Oblivious, Pete spoke on. "It's my job in the Treasury Department to deal with cold cases; those on which work was suspended due to lack of progress for some reason. These cases can date back decades, but sometimes new information comes to light which helps us solve them.
"One came up about a year back, a case involving several high-denomination Treasury Bonds which had been stolen in a bank heist in Detroit in 1928. Back then, they were uninsured. That means even today the Treasury would have to pay out the money to whoever presented the bonds, without a hope of regaining any of the money."
"Not something any government finds pleasant!" Martin observed.
"Exactly. An old file was turned up two years back, which contained an interview with a hoodlum called Jack 'The Spratt' Goodman. Goodman was a fixer, had connections all over the country. The Feds at the time thought he would lead them to where the bonds were along with those who'd pulled the heist. Nothing doing. Goodman cited the Fifth and got clear away to Canada—or so he thought.
"The Feds got in touch with the Mounties, and the Redcoats set their own guys to work. There's an attachment from them in the file, detailing what happened after that."
Doug grinned. "The Mounties got their man?"
Pete gave him a hard look and the journalist held up his hands in mock apology. "Yeah, they did, so it happens," he said. "They found several misdemeanors he had to answer to on their own files, mostly committed in and around Windsor, Ontario. Trouble is they didn't recover the bonds.
"That's where things would have stayed, if it hadn't been for the arrest of one John Gottlieb, of Gordon County, New York State."
Martin craned round in his seat to stare at the agent. "John Gottlieb? The farmer's son?"
"Yeah, Martin. Goodman went to ground in Canada. I reckon he kept on the move. Hell, the guy was rich; he could afford to buy silence, even from the Canucks. But the Canadian cops caught up with him when he broke cover a year later. It was up near the Niagara Bridge border crossing to Buffalo; he was on his way back to the US. Gottlieb was with him. The boy ran and made it back across the border but our guys arrested him. The Canadians thought Goodman might have passed him the bonds but our guys found nothing—except a receipt for a large amount of Scotch whiskey."
"Ah!"
"Yeah. At this point he was suspected of being part of a bootlegger operation run by Goodman and a tail was put on him. Gottlieb was followed to his home, the family farm which used to stand back where the resort is now. Nothing happened for months; John Gottlieb just got on with his work around the farm and kept his nose clean.
"The time came when the tail had to be called off. Then, as now, there just weren't enough guys to cover all the work. As luck would have it, on the agent's last day Gottlie
b was contacted by a guy from out of town. The agent managed to overhear what was going down."
"Speaking of which," the pilot cut in, "we need to think about where to set down now."
"How the hell are you gonna do that?" Gerry complained. "Isn't nowhere down there I'd put down!"
Martin looked out through the canopy. They were coming up on Canning's Vale. "If I remember rightly," he said, "there's a clear area just before you reach that north-south ridgeline."
"I see it," the pilot replied. "Let's check it out."
He reduced speed and altitude. The helicopter descended and clattered over the trees as the pilot searched the terrain ahead and to either side. Finally he nodded. "It looks good. Going in…"
Martin glanced back at the others and saw both Pete and Lacon had drawn and checked their pistols. To an Englishman unused to any public display of weapons it was an unnerving sight. Claudia was looking pale but she managed a smile for him. It was only then that it dawned on him the mission could be dangerous.
Gerry crouched, agog at the way the aircraft lost speed and dropped, all under firm control. "Oh, man! Wish I had one o' these!" he murmured reverently.
The helicopter skids touched ground and before anyone could speak Pete had tumbled out one side, to take up an alert crouching position by the side of the 'copter, his gun up and ready as he searched the tree line for targets. Lacon followed suit a bare second later on the other side. Doug gave Martin a wry look then followed, ducking under the downwash from the rotor blades.
Nothing showed itself. No bullets were fired. Martin unplugged and unbuckled, then left the helicopter as the pilot throttled back on the engines. "I've seen too many Vietnam War movies!" he shouted to Claudia over the noise of the engines and the rushing of the down-draught from the rotors as he helped her down.
"I know what you mean!" she shouted back, glancing at the armed men. "So have they, I think. I'm no cotton candy-ass around guns but this is the real deal!"
As they all moved clear of the helicopter, Sheriff Lacon's radio crackled. "Go ahead, Brad," he said into the mike. He looked thoughtful as the message came into his earpiece, then he looked at the others. "Brad's found Baker's vehicle."
"Where?" Pete asked.
"Parked up at the beginning of the trail that passes near here. Brad says there's another truck there with a small flat-bed trailer. The engine's still warm."
"Are there any markings on the truck?"
"Civilian Pennsylvanian plates, is all. Brad's running a check on them now."
"As far as we know, Baker's working alone," Pete mused. "It's possible he may have an accomplice."
Martin had been studying the map whilst they were talking. He shook his head. "It's a long way from the trail to here, and he'll have to pass through some heavy woodland. I don't believe Bruce will get here soon."
"We can't take anything for granted, Mr. Grey," Lacon warned. "We'd better keep our eyes open, people."
* * * *
They left the pilot with the machine, took a bearing on the Vale and set off through the damp and dripping trees with Sheriff Lacon on point. The thaw had set in and the ground was spongy underfoot from the saturated leaves of the recent fall. Wildlife there was in plenty, and Martin saw two deer leap away through the woods. He and Claudia walked with Pete and Doug, with Gerry bringing up the rear.
"So, Agent Ashby; you'd just reached the point where John Gottlieb met the man from out of town. Won't you go on?" Martin asked.
Pete shrugged. "Sure. They were planning to fly in bootleg whiskey one night, using a place up in these hills. Thanks to you, we now know their rendezvous was to be Canning's Vale. From there, Gottlieb was to guide a truck loaded with the whiskey to the highway, destination New York City and all those speakeasies."
"That was the plan," Gerry sighed, kicking at a stone as he walked beside Martin. His foot passed through it.
"The agent followed the guy back to the city then reported in. Another tail was set on the Gottlieb boy; a second operation was set up to tail the new player. It hadn't been in place for more than a day before everything went to pieces."
"What happened?" Doug asked, keeping pace alongside.
Pete seemed beyond caring about the journalist. He merely shrugged. "The new guy was positively ID'd as one Chuck Hoyt, one of Goodman's merry band. Our guys were feeling real pleased at finding the connection, when Hoyt rained on the parade by getting himself snatched off the street by another bunch of hoodlums. By the time the Feds found him he was dead. A day later they got the message through from Gainesville. The Gottlieb boy had shaken his tail and vanished, never to be seen again.
"By then they'd got a lead on the gang who'd killed Hoyt. They were a small-time bunch of hustlers called the Minotti gang."
"Ah, of course!" Martin cried. "Joe, Cutie-Boy, and Ellis!"
"Holy cow!" Doug exclaimed.
Gerry snarled. "Bastards!"
Claudia grimaced. "Yeah!"
Pete's head swung from one to the other of them like a spectator at a doubles tennis match. "I take it you've all heard of them?"
"They came up in my own research," Martin replied.
"I got a copy of their file from the New York City archives," Claudia said. "The archivist there e-mailed it to us."
"I know, Miss Mackenzie," Pete said dryly. "I had their files flagged as being relevant to my case. Anyone pulls the files, I get told who and when." He gave her a sour smile. "I admit I was kind of curious when you showed up back at the resort, so I checked you out the first chance I got."
"What?" Claudia stopped dead and glared at him. "Did you also go through my baggage?" she asked through gritted teeth.
"Yep, it was me," he admitted, brazen-faced. He nodded to Martin, who was listening with open annoyance. "I searched your baggage too, Martin, after you started asking around about the aircraft. There was a chance you were using the ghost research to cover an interest in the bonds. We're trained to be careful when searching a suspect's property. Guess I succeeded in your case; you never noticed."
"That's a bit bloody cheeky!"
"Yeah, I agree." He shrugged. "But I'm a guv'mint man; that makes it officially 'bloody cheeky.'"
He turned back to Claudia. "Miss Mackenzie, I'm sorry all to hell, but I am a federal officer. If I have just cause, I can make a search."
"Not without a warrant!" she snapped.
"I know, but things were moving right along, there wasn't time to get one. Like I said, I'm sorry."
"I suppose there was no harm done," Martin muttered, giving Pete a hard look. "But I think it's pretty high-handed, all the same."
"So, Martin, what did you learn about the Minotti gang from the file?" Doug asked to break the awkward silence that fell after this exchange.
Martin grimaced. "They were an ugly bunch. Joe and Jack's parents were typical first-generation Italian immigrants; hard-working, religious, honest. Their boys turned out completely different. Jack was the youngest by three years. It seems he looked up to his older brother, who thought himself quite the man.
"Joe was in trouble from an early age. At first it was minor stuff, like shoplifting and petty theft. When he graduated onto more serious crime, Jack tagged along.
"When Joe was eighteen he was charged with the statutory rape of a minor, a girl of thirteen. The case was dropped when the girl withdrew her accusation." He shrugged. "Read into that what you will. From then on the Minottis got involved in all kinds of crime and began to make a bad name for themselves.
"Before long they had attracted another member, a guy named Ezra Ellis. He and Joe were two of a kind. There was a nasty streak of cruelty running through both of them. They were suspected of torturing a jeweler to get the combination of his safe. No charges were brought, as the man died of his injuries and they both had alibis."
"Ugh!" Claudia shuddered. "It's an awful thing to say of anyone, but from the sound of them I'm glad they're dead!"
Doug grinned. "They bit off more than they c
ould chew with this bootlegging job. Their ugly career came to an abrupt end when they got into that shoot-out with the Feds at Mel's Diner."
"Yeah!" Gerry grinned, punching the air.
"Yeah, that's right." Pete looked sour at having his story hijacked but he recovered. "I'm not sure, but I think the FBI was only authorized to carry guns in the 1930's. Maybe up to then they were issued on a per-case basis; whatever. But with the deaths of the Minotti Gang, the trail went cold. And that's where things stayed, until I got the file of the missing bonds.
"It took me a while to follow the trail, leading through old police and FBI reports until I had a clear idea of events. Then I got to thinking; what if the Minotti gang had already been up to the rendezvous set by Hoyt and Gottlieb? Could they have persuaded Gottlieb to work for them then used his pop's farm to hide the bonds until the coast was clear?
"A lot of these upstate farms had a still hidden away somewhere. Old Man Gottlieb was never officially suspected of moon-shining, yet there's nothing to say he wasn't brewing illegal hooch. If he was a moon-shiner, the bootleggers may have known of it and used it against him to get the cooperation of his boy. A place that could effectively hide a still from the law could sure hide a packet of bonds."
"But if they did do all that you surmise, then it was possible the bonds were lost when the farm was demolished to make way for the resort," Martin pointed out.
Mr. Grey and the Spirit from the Sky Page 21