“What? What is it? Don’t touch anything—it’s all evidence. This is a crime scene,” the officer, a sergeant, advised.
Nick shook his head. “This could be important. Do you have any gloves?”
The officer didn’t. “Forensics will when they get here. Why? What’s up?”
Nick had his nose about three inches from the watch, peering at it from all sides. “I can’t be sure, but I think this might be a watch Robert sold last week to a collector in San Francisco.” He thought for a few moments. “I wonder what it’s doing here out on the counter? It’s worth a quarter mil if it’s the same watch—worth as much as all the watches in the safe combined…” He drifted off. What was going on?
“Step away from it; let’s wait for the detectives and crime scene people to get here, okay?” The cop had no idea what Nick was going on about, but he did understand a quarter million dollars, and didn’t want anything disappearing.
At the mention of detectives Tess came out of her trance. She fumbled in her pocket, pulled out a card, picked her phone up from where Nick had left it, and dialed a number.
“Detective Stanford.”
“He…Hello, Detective? It’s Tess, from Red Cap? Hello?”
Ron’s mental gears shifted as he heard her voice. She sounded hurt, or panicked, or scared. Had the killer tried to get her?
“Yes, Tess. I’m here. What’s wrong?”
“They—I think you need to come here…Somebody killed my father…” Her voice cracked on the last word and she started crying again.
Killed her father? What was she talking about?
“Tess? Hello? Where are you? Right now? What’s the address? Are the police there?”
“I’m…I’m sorry, detective. I loved him so much…”
“I understand, Tess. Where are you? Is there someone else I can talk to? A policeman?” he asked.
She stared at the phone, dazed. Held it out to the closest cop.
He held it to his ear. “Hello?”
“Hi. This is Detective Ron Stanford, Homicide. Who am I speaking with?” Ron asked.
“Sergeant Wallace, Midtown North,” the officer responded.
“Sergeant Wallace, what’s your situation?”
“I’m not sure. Two 187’s. One’s pretty messed up, and the other looks like he was stuffed. We’re at a watch shop on 47th. Seemed like a robbery at first, but I don’t know…the kid who works here says one of the watches lying out is worth 250 G’s.”
“What’s the address? The girl is a potential witness in two of my cases,” Ron said. But technically that wasn’t true, now was it? Why are you getting involved there, Ron, old boy? Anything to do with green eyes?
The officer gave him the address and Ron signed off. The cop handed Tess her phone. “No more calls for now, okay?”
She absently nodded, sobbing in silence.
~ ~ ~
Ron flagged down a cab and gave the driver the address. He couldn’t really do anything—he hadn’t been put on the case…but it wouldn’t kill him to swing by and check it out, would it? He had to head back up that way anyway. His main office was Midtown South, and this was only a few short blocks away.
Well, actually about twelve blocks.
It couldn’t hurt to poke his nose in. The sergeant had sounded troubled by the robbery scenario, so maybe there was more to this than met the eye. Who knew, maybe he would ultimately be called in anyway…
The taxi arrived at the shop; he handed the cabbie some bills and jumped out. Crime scene tape draped the door, three police cars and a crime scene van sat in front, and two unmarked cars idled onto the curb.
He flashed his badge and went inside. The lead homicide detective was Barry Childen, an investigator he’d worked with back in the day. Barry’s partner Darren was nosing around in the small workroom.
“Hey, Barry. Hey, Darren,” Ron said.
“Ron, what brings you to see us? This is a little off the ‘psycho patrol’ path,” Barry said.
“The girl’s part of an ongoing investigation. What happened here?”
“First glance, it’s a robbery, but I dunno. The security tape’s missing, there’s a watch on the counter worth a fortune, and the guard is deader than a wooden Indian, but no sign of what killed him. This stinks, is what I think,” Barry said.
“Who’s working forensics?” Ron asked.
“Tom O’Connelly.” That wasn’t such a lucky break. Tom was a prick, really anal-retentive, and held a grudge. Ron and he had butted heads before.
“Great.” Ron walked over to Tess, who was holding a tissue, crying. He felt something move in his chest.
“How are you holding up?” he asked her.
“I—Thanks for coming. I’m okay…no, I’m really not okay…not okay at all…” He could see she was in shock. He smiled at her, or rather grimaced, and moved toward the back room; he stuck his head in and took in the corpse, the wheelchair. He walked back and talked to Barry.
“Are you going to get them out of here after you take their statements?” Protocol was to clear civilians from a crime scene as soon as possible, so as not to contaminate it more than necessary.
“Yeah, but it’s so frigging hot out I thought I’d give them a break for now. They were already in here, so their prints are already all over everything. Hey—check out the guard, tell me what you think,” Barry said.
Barry led Ron over to where a man in a lab coat was studying Jerome quizzically.
“Hello, Tom,” Ron said.
Tom greeted him with thinly veiled animosity. “Well hello, Detective Stanford. To what do we owe this pleasure?”
“I was in the neighborhood. What’s the story on our friend here?”
“Weird one. I can’t wait to see the tox report. He appears to have been instantaneously paralyzed. Cause of death is unknown, but my guess based on the cyanosis is suffocation—his lungs stopped working.” Tom scratched his head. “Never seen anything like it.”
Ron peered closely at Jerome’s face, and then studied his neck. “Here’s your method of administration, I’ll bet,” he said.
Tom moved closer. “What? What did you find?”
“Puncture, right next to the Adam’s apple. Hard to make out, but that’s definitely a needle stick.” Barry and the two officers approached to see what Ron had found.
Tom took out a magnifying glass to examine the area. “Hmmm…well what do you know? You may be right.” He looked at Ron. “How did you spot that?”
“I learned it in the Girl Scouts.” The officers laughed.
Ron had seen enough. This wasn’t his kind of deal, although it did appear someone had tortured Tess’s dad. That was extreme for a robbery, as did the paralyzing agent used on the guard. He was glad it wasn’t his case.
Ron’s attention drifted to Nick, who was arguing with one of the uniforms. Ron interrupted.
“What’s the problem?” he asked.
“I need a pair of gloves so I can look at that watch. It may be important,” Nick said.
Ron pulled his latex gloves from his pocket. “Be my guest.”
Nick slipped them on and picked up the Patek to study it. He stopped, angled it toward the light. “Yup. Thought so. It’s the same one; you can see a hairline scratch it had when we bought it.” He set it back on the counter. “Mr. Gideon sold this to a collector in San Francisco last week, along with three other rare pieces. Maybe you can figure out what it’s doing here.”
Nick pulled the gloves off and handed them back to Ron.
Ron approached Tess—who was no longer crying, but was still dazed—and spoke to her, softly.
“I’m so sorry for your loss, Tess. This is horrible, you should have never had to see it. No one should. But these guys are the best. They’ll figure out what happened and get whoever did this. Hold on to my number, and call me if you need anything.”
Tess nodded absently. “Thanks for coming, Detective.” She looked like she was going to start crying again any second.
>
“Sorry I can’t do more,” he said, and then walked outside with Barry.
“You’ve got a problem, Barry. This is like a black ops hit. I’d run the dad’s background, see if there’s any government in his past. This feels covert or military, you know?” Ron said.
“I was thinking the same thing. He or they were after more than whatever got taken from the safe. Information. And the surveillance video’s gone. The only sloppy part is leaving the watch, and we don’t even know if it’s connected.” Barry shook his head. “I have a bad feeling about this, Ron. Spooky. Not the usual stabbing over a dime bag.”
“Thanks for letting me butt in. Call me if you need someone to bounce ideas off,” Ron said.
“Roger that.”
Chapter 13
The police eventually herded Tess and Nick to the sidewalk while the police worked inside. They were standing in an area cordoned off with yellow tape, and a small group of curious pedestrians was gathered around, rubbernecking. A bald head popped out of the crowd, and a voice called Tess’ name. She looked up, and there was Stan. She ran over and hugged him and started crying again.
“Daddy—he’s…he’s dead, Uncle Stan. Somebody murdered him. And Jerome.” Her voice sounded flat, dull.
“What? A robbery? At this time of day?”
“I don’t know. I heard the police talking, and they don’t think so.”
“Then what? I don’t get it. Who’s in charge in there?” Stan was feisty and wanted to get involved.
“I don’t know. I…Stan, it’s so bad. They tore his face up. There’s so much blood.” She stopped, unable to continue.
“Oh, honey. Oh God, I’m sorry. I don’t even know what to say.” Reality was beginning to register on Stan. Robert was dead; killed, in cold blood. Maybe fifty feet from where they were standing. And Tess had found him.
They talked for a few minutes and his watch beeped. The money. Saul. Their meeting. Hell, did it even matter now? Stan decided it did—he’d promised his friend he’d check on the cash; now the money was Tess’s, so his obligation still held.
“Tess, I hate to ask you, but did your dad say anything about some hundred-dollar bills?”
She stared at him blankly, and then pulled a small wad of cash out of her fanny pack and thrust it into his hand. “I know he wanted you to have these. There’s five hundred dollars there. I was getting them at the bank with Nick when…” A look of realization came across her face. “Maybe if we’d been here, none of this would have happened.”
“Or maybe you and Nick would be dead now, too. It can go both ways, Tess. Judging by what you described, you were lucky you weren’t.” Stan kissed her cheek and held her for a few moments. “Are you going to be okay? I’ve gotta run to a meeting, but you call me or I’ll call you. What’s your cell number?”
She told him.
Stan hugged her close for another long moment, and then stepped back, fumbling with his phone as he entered her number.
“I’ll call as soon as I know anything. You can stay at my place if you need to. Anything I have is yours, do you understand? Don’t you dare even hesitate to ask.” Stan clearly felt terrible, leaving her to fend for herself, but she would be there with the police for a long time, and he couldn’t do anything to help her at the moment. He reluctantly moved back through the crowd. “I’ll call.”
His words sounded hollow to him even as he spoke them, and his last image of Tess was her standing, a cop next to her, tears cascading down her face.
~ ~ ~
Stan caught the subway up to West 96th Street, where Saul had been living for over forty years in a pre-war brownstone: no elevator, air-conditioning an afterthought, floors creaky and windows soiled with decades of accumulated soot.
Saul’s business was largely conducted over the Internet these days; his reputation preceded him, so he never had any shortage of work. He’d never bothered hanging out a shingle or opening a storefront. He was regarded as one of the foremost currency authorities in the country, and being one of the top guys in a tiny field, his agenda was full with auction companies and traders requiring his expertise.
The door buzzed and Stan mounted the stairs to the third floor apartment, dazed from the scene at the shop. He was turning the situation over again and again in his mind; it all seemed so surreal. Robert and Jerome murdered for reasons unknown. It made no sense.
He climbed the final flight of stairs, pushed the decrepit doorbell, and heard lumbering footsteps inside. Three deadbolts unlocked with dull clanks, and the door opened inward to reveal the hallway blocked by a mammoth of a man, easily three hundred and fifty pounds.
“Stan, good to see you. Running a little late, I see? I’m getting hungry—you had me worried.”
“Saul, you have no idea what’s happened. Let me tell you, this is a dark day, my friend. A dark day indeed.” Stan entered the apartment, following Saul down the hall.
“What happened?” Saul had never seen Stan so visibly troubled.
Stan described the situation at the shop: the police, Tess, the bodies, the questionable circumstances surrounding the killings, the watch exchange. Saul, who was naturally paranoid, was already in full roar with possible theories as to what had happened. Stan cut him off. He knew his friend well, and knew that if left unchecked, he could become a perpetual-motion machine of speculation.
“I brought the bills for you. Five of them. Don’t spend them all in one place,” Stan said.
Saul was immediately sidetracked. Stan put them on his desk, and noticed an old hundred-dollar bill—a Federal Reserve note from the early part of the twentieth century.
“What’s the story with the old bank note? Surely that’s beneath your level of expertise? They’re hardly even collectible.” Stan enjoyed ribbing him. A little torment was good for the soul.
“That one is very collectible. It’s a counterfeit from the late 1920’s, almost perfect. Came through a Berlin bank, printed by our good friends the Soviet Union under Stalin,” Saul explained.
“You’re kidding. Stalin counterfeited U.S. hundreds? We weren’t at war in the twenties. What’s the story with that?”
Saul explained that in 1928, counterfeit hundred-dollar Federal Reserve notes began appearing in casinos and banks in Europe. The bills were so well done, no one caught them. After four years, the Treasury Department finally got wise because of some of small flaws: the lettering on the reverse side of the bills was cruder than the real thing.
It issued a written warning advising all banks to closely inspect the backs of the 1914-series Federal Reserve notes, and within two months a new set of counterfeit bills started circulating. They had the original flaw corrected, but left another flaw that hadn’t been described in the bulletin: the thumb of the woman holding an olive branch didn’t fully encircle the branch in the fakes, whereas in the genuine article, it did.
Treasury traced the bills to Berlin when the bank passing them failed during the Depression, and eventually the issue went away after the currency was changed to a smaller format. In 1940, a Russian defector confirmed that Stalin had been behind it, counterfeiting from 1928 to 1932, creating roughly ten million dollars’ worth of 1914-series bills. The defector died in a suspicious suicide in his hotel room in 1941, taking the full story to his grave. Every now and then one of the bills surfaced, and this was only the fourth one Saul had ever seen.
“Why haven’t I ever heard that story?” Stan asked.
“The U.S. Government wanted it to go away; they felt that due to the geopolitical situation, it wasn’t in our best interests to call the Russians on it—especially once World War II was underway,” Saul explained. “One of the biggest mysteries to this day is how they got the paper. It was perfect, and obviously from the same source the Fed used. All kinds of conspiracy theories circulated at the time, but nobody ever found out for sure.”
“That’s incredible. So the Russians were screwing us back when we were at peace with them, too.”
“Yea
h, that was the period when Russia was industrializing, and they were short on hard currency to buy the machinery they needed.” Saul turned his attention to the new bills. “Let’s see what we have here…”
He felt them with practiced fingers, compared them to genuine bills, examined them front and back with a loupe, held them up to the light, and put one on a digital scale and weighed it. Finished, he sat back with a groan.
“At first glance I’d have to say they’re real. I don’t see anything obvious. The paper looks right, has the strip, and the inks match. Leave them here, I’ll do a more thorough exam later. I’m famished. You feel like a deli sandwich?”
“Deli works for me. Lead the way, my friend.” Stan wasn’t hungry after the morning’s cataclysm, but a deal was a deal.
~ ~ ~
The Asians were also eating, down the street from the murder scene, sitting at a picture window watching the commotion. They really had nowhere to go from there; they needed to figure out a way into the bank and into the safe deposit vault, and identify which box was Gideon’s.
It was just bad luck that years of sedentary living had clogged the watch dealer’s arteries to the point where a little torture could induce a heart attack. They’d figured him to be way too young for that when they’d discussed their options in the store.
The smaller man fished out his phone and placed an international call. The line picked up on the second ring.
“Yes.”
“We located the primary target, however there was a complication and we were unable to secure the package,” the smaller man said in Burmese.
“Where is the package now?”
“As far as we know, in a safe deposit box. But we weren’t able to locate the key. We think one of the assistants may have it, so we’re staying in place until we can identify who works there. Then we’ll be able to finish the assignment,” he said.
Fatal Exchange (Fatal Series Book 1) Page 9