“Could be, but the case log of the Detroit court system has your name on a file that was pending in 1972.”
“What if it did? I had thousands of cases back then. That was quite a few decades ago. You expect me to remember each one of them?”
“You dropped this one.”
“I dropped lots of them.”
Short and abrupt.
He sat down in a deck chair and stared out into the large lake. Since he didn’t offer, I sat in the other deck chair nearby.
“This was likely one of your last cases. You retired shortly after this. I would think that you might recall something about it.”
“What if I do? What is this to you?” He stared at me as if sizing me up. “You were a little girl back then. What does all this have to do with you?”
“My father was killed around that same time. He was the county sheriff and we had uncovered a child pornography ring in our rural community. He was murdered in our driveway just after this ring was discovered and closed down. I was wondering if there might be a connection between your case and his death.”
“What possible connection? Was he killed in Michigan?”
“Virginia.”
“So where’s the connection?”
“The connection could be Craven Malone Industries.”
He stopped staring at the lake water and moved his head slowly to look into my eyes. I saw fear for the first time in the Captain’s face.
10
We were sitting in the kitchen area at the massive oak table surrounded by custom made oak cabinets. Mrs. McCann had stopped being the socialite and was now working over her Jenn-Air oven fixing our dinner. The Captain had invited me to stay for a meal.
“How long have you been a detective?” McCann said.
“All of my life.”
“Professionally?”
“Long enough to know that you found something back in ’71.”
“I was bought out. Not proud of it, but I did it. I accepted it. I can’t tell you much. These are dangerous people. They have more money than God. They get what they want. Everyone has a price, you know.”
“I’m not here to judge you. I just want to know what you can tell me.”
“Here we go,” Mrs. McCann brought us our steaks. “Let’s not talk business while we eat, shall we?”
“Aye, aye, Captain,” McCann said to his wife. “She’s the Captain in here. My only domain is the boat on the water.”
Either the food was delicious or I was simply hungry. We all enjoyed our food as they extolled the virtues of the house and living in this remote part of the world. I listened and ate. They never asked me anything about myself.
We retired to the upper porch overlooking the water. McCann opened one of the sliding glass windows and lit a cigar.
“You don’t mind?” he said after taking a long drag.
“Be my guest.”
“Some things I can’t tell you, you know. I could get into serious trouble.”
“Did you have any evidence for a case?”
“Not by my standards, but I must have aroused the sleeping monster and the powers that be thought I had enough. They sent a lawyer who offered me an insane amount of money to stop my investigation.”
“Good old fashioned bribery?”
“Thought you weren’t here to judge me?”
“Just naming the game.”
“Actually the way they did it, it wasn’t a bribe. At least not up front. Backdoor kind of bribe. Made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.”
“Did your investigation go beyond the magazine to the parent company?”
“Funny you should ask. Not really. I was still collecting data on Lusty when I was suddenly, out of the blue, contacted by Craven Malone Industries. That’s how we got around the bribery charges.”
“Good for you.”
He puffed on his large Churchill and seemed to ignore my response.
“Was Lusty using children illegally?” I said.
“I couldn’t prove anything directly. They were certainly buying photographs of children, but then they would doctor the photos according to their fetishes.”
“Where were the photos coming from?”
“All over. They had suppliers in several states.”
“Virginia?”
“I better not answer that. Too close to home, you know. Tell you what, Miss Detective. I like you and would like to help, but I have to protect my interests here.”
“You retired well.”
“You don’t know the half of it. I hit the mother load.”
“You hit something.”
“Look, you already suspect Craven Malone Industries of some connection. You’re looking for proof. I can’t give you that. I won’t give it to you. But here’s what I will do. I’ll take Ann and go back down to the boat. We always take a ride in the evening. We love the lake around dusty dark. Great time to be on the water. While we’re gone, make yourself at home. My office is upstairs. Turn right, third door on the left. If you’re a real detective, Missy, you’ll discover what you need in there.”
I was stunned. Maybe Fitzwaller McCann had a conscience after all, or I had made him feel guilty.
11
The Fitzwaller study was larger than my entire apartment. The walls were lined with oak except for the one wall full of floor to ceiling windows on the lake side of the house. His solid oak desk was bigger than my living room. It was full of dark leather furniture – a couch under two over-sized paintings of Labradors and ducks, and two highback leather chairs in front of the massive desk. Hunting pictures hung from every wall except for the wall behind the desk and the wall full of windows looking out on the lake. The desk wall supported a handsome painting of the 80 foot cabin cruiser sailing the low seas of Lake Nettie, or at least that’s what some of the caption said at the bottom of the frame.
The view of the lake was magnificent. I appreciated the view of the dock, the boat, and the McCanns as they readied the boat to debark on their nightly excursion of Lake Nettie.
Being the master detective I had become after nearly fifteen years of experience, I was desperately searching Fitz’s desk for a key to the locked, oaken file that rested perfectly under somebody’s famous painting of a fox hunt. There was no key in the middle desk drawer, but he did have a good looking .357 Smith & Wesson resting calmly near the paper clips, rubber bands, and a box of pencils. Office with an attitude.
The right-hand top drawer revealed a partially imbibed bottle of Jim Bean, two boxes of cartridges for the .357, and a box of 12 gauge shotgun shells all camouflaged by two or three hunting magazines. No glass in sight for the Bean, and no key to the file cabinet to be found.
Exasperation set in when I found no key after going through all of his desk drawers. I ran my hand around the leg hole of the desk looking for a hook or small nail that might allow the key to hang innocently out of sight from the probing eye. I discovered a button on the left-hand side and pushed it. The clicking sound coming from the file cabinet caused me to smile. Move over Sherlock Holmes.
Fitzwaller was logical in his filing methods. Everything was in alphabetical order. I opened the file named Lusty. I was speed reading some of the pages when I heard the voices coming from outside.
I eased toward the windows and saw two oversized men in dark suits talking with Fitz and Ann from the dock. The Captain and his First Mate were in the boat. The two suits were on the dock looking suspiciously out of place. I watched as the suits climbed aboard. Captain Fitzwaller slowly backed out from the docking area and gently maneuvered the large beauty towards the setting sun.
I went back to the file. It was too thick to sit and read it all. That meant I would have to take the whole file and read it on the flight to Norfolk.
I was closing the file cabinet when I heard the four distinct gun shots coming from the direction of the water. I returned to the windows. I waited and watched from behind the curtain on the right. The boat returned slowly to the docking area and b
acked in.
The two suits jumped onto the dock. No lines were out to moor her. They both pushed the craft away from the dock. They watched the boat begin to slowly drift away. There was no sign of Fitz or Ann.
I could see now that both suits were wearing gloves. Not a good sign, as if anything else I had seen connected with those two was good.
By the time I had decided to run for my Blazer it was too late. A noise from downstairs informed me that I was not alone in the house. There were more than two.
I suddenly felt naked without my .38, but I remembered Fitz’s handgun in the middle drawer. I checked the gun and was glad Fitz had kept it fully loaded. I opened the other drawer and put handfuls of cartridges in both pockets of my jacket. The box of shotgun shells caught my eye again. Where would Fitz keep his shotgun?
I checked the dock again. The suits were walking slowly towards the house.
I opened the accordion doors of the closet. Resting comfortably in the corner, nearly out of sight, was a Remington semi-automatic shotgun. Fitz kept it loaded as well. Prepared hunter.
I had to assume that the suits knew I was here. Maybe they had just happened to show up and exterminate Fitz and Ann, and maybe there really is a cow somewhere that jumped over the moon. In my work, a coincidence is a clue. And not a coincidence.
I decided to allow the killers to come to me. They probably knew I was there, but they wouldn’t know I was armed to the teeth. At least not until I was forced to shoot someone.
There was sufficient room for me to hide in Fitz’s larger-than-necessary closet. I grabbed the large file off of his desk and closed the accordion doors behind me. I had a limited view out of the horizontal cross slats in the door. I would be able to see only the lower half of person’s body when they entered the office. After a few seconds of this hide-and-seek spot, I had this brilliant flash of intellect informing me of the inferiority of my hiding place. I would be forced to come out blasting with my .357 and hope for some approximate accuracy on my part. I didn’t have enough space to maneuver the Remington into a shooting position because of the closet depth. I decided to vacate.
Instead of closing the accordion doors completely behind me, I left them partially closed. It was a measure of deceit I used often with success while playing hide-and-seek with my brother Scott back in Clancyville, Virginia. It forces people to look in the spot behind an almost closed door. It always fooled Scott anyway.
Fitzwaller McCann had his own private bathroom off of his office. Another large room. This house had no small rooms. Sink, commode, shower and linen closet formed the nucleus of the room. The shower had a sliding door made of non-see through glass, but you could see shapes behind it. Bad place to hide. The linen closet was actually small by this house’s standards. I could have doubled up my body and hidden in the bottom section, but would have been able to only shoot myself if someone found me in that position. My final option for this room was a chair and small table by the window at the far end of the bathroom. I could wait there for the door to open with my shotgun in position and my .357 handgun close by. I laid the file on the table and looked out of the window at the peaceful lake and waited for the suits to come find me.
12
Fear is oftentimes the better part of valor. I knew that the odds were with me for taking down the first suit who walked into my stronghold. The second and third gentleman would be more of a challenge for my pistolero skills.
I loosened the belt of my slacks and shoved the file about halfway down the front. After tightening my belt so I wouldn’t lose either slacks or file, I forced my supple body to climb out of the window onto the roof just above the porch where Fitz had enjoyed his cigar while confessing his weak ways earlier that day. The sun was halfway down on the horizon now and the shadows would be a great help for my planned rooftop escape. Getting down from the roof was another matter.
I decided against climbing down to the porch roof and leaving myself in an open view from the windows of the study. Even in the twilight, a person could be seen and shot. Nasty way to die.
Instead, I climbed around the gable that was formed at my bathroom escape window. I sat down in the shadows by the gable and waited for something to happen. I did remember to close the window behind me like a good girl. I really didn’t want to leave these guys clues about my awkward position.
I heard some non-distinct voices that were likely coming from the office. The squeaking of the accordion doors behind Fitz’s desk informed me that they had fallen for my first location deceit. Someone kicked in the door to the bathroom, cursed mildly, then must have left to join the other suit back in the office. I heard the word “downstairs,” so I waited a minute or so to be sure that they were not setting a trap for me.
I watched Fitz’s cabin cruiser drift out of sight. Despite his selling out back in seventies, I felt sorry for both of them. That was a tough way to die. He probably deserved jail time, but not a bullet in the brain, or wherever it was that the suits nailed him.
I heard the sound of footsteps in the garden below me. One of the suits was outside, probably searching the roof. It was dark enough now that I felt secure in my spot by the gable in the shadows. A light from the downstairs living area permitted me to see the man walking around below me looking up at the roof.
The other suit must have been searching the rest of the house.
The one below me walked briskly towards the house. I heard the door slam. It was time to re-enter the bathroom and take my chances inside.
I stepped on the chair next to the table and it slid on the tile floor making a scraping sound. I paused in mid-entry and aimed the shotgun at the door to the office. The room was dark now, but my eyes had dilated sufficiently to allow me to see fairly well. The door opened and a shape entered.
I fired one round of the shotgun and the body went crashing backward into the door and onto the floor of Fitz’s office. One down. Now the game was afoot.
I waited briefly for another movement or sound. There were still two of them, at least. Idiots travel in threes a lot.
Nothing happened. I crawled back out the window, this time with the notion of actually leaving the gable shadows and climbing down to the ground. I decided that the front of the house was closer to the ground in case I had to jump.
I eased along the roof towards the crest. I could hear voices that sounded as if they were coming from the bathroom. I had forgotten to close the window this time. I mounted the crest in a crouching position just in case one of the suits was bright enough to suspect I might try to escape on the front side. Idiots have varying degrees of stupidity.
Easing down to one of the front gables, I rested a moment and listened for sounds. I could see fairly well in the dark. There was some type of dark sedan in the circular drive behind my Blazer. I was breathing regularly again. I put another shell in my Remington. I wanted it fully loaded.
After several minutes, one of the remaining suits walked out to the car, opened the trunk, took out a gas can, and returned to the front of the house. I doubted that these guys had planned this, but they could have been following orders.
It must have been five to ten minutes before I smelled smoke and saw firelight on the backside of the house. This was my clue to move from my lofty perch.
Ann McCann had flowers growing around the front of the house as well as the lovely garden in back. She had installed latticework for some variety of climbing roses. Fortunately for me, the latticework extended all the way to the roofline. I just hoped that the lattice would be strong enough to hold my one hundred and forty pounds of supple muscle and sinew.
I was on the ground in a matter of seconds. Light as a feather.
I could see the fire on the inside of the house. I ran towards my Blazer in a circular fashion, hiding behind bushes and trees en route to the parked vehicle. Fifty feet from the car, the other two suits came out of the front door and stood looking back at the house. They were no doubt proud of their pyrotechnical work.
I sto
pped first at their vehicle, hoping that their carelessness extended to parking the car and leaving the keys in the ignition. Bingo. The keys were dangling from the steering column. When you stop off at someone’s house in the middle of the wilderness intending to kill them, you don’t think about someone stealing your car. I took the keys as a souvenir of our adventure together. As an added measure, I took my trusty penknife and punctured the tires on my side of the car. Prankster.
I was pulling away in the Blazer before the two firewatchers reacted to my sounds. When I emerged from Fitz’s quarter-mile long driveway, I decided to return to Detroit via another route. I had to figure that the suits had followed me to Fitzwaller McCann’s estate, and that they would assume enough about a woman to suspect that she would return by the same route she had come. I turned right and headed east.
The missing car keys and the slit tires would only slow them down. At least I had several minutes head start, and that would be enough for me to escape to Virginia. I decided to hold onto the Remington and the .357 until I was closer to Detroit and felt safe disposing of them.
My other route for leaving Lake Nettie was through the countryside of Northern Michigan along Quinn Creek Highway to 451. I then followed 32 & 65 to fair town of Alpena. It was nearly ten o’clock when US Highway 23 merged with I-75 and I was on my way to Detroit.
13
By the time I had finished reading the notes that Fitzwaller McCann had on Lusty, I had learned that while Craven Malone Industries may have owned the magazine, they seemed to have no say on decisions made. The board of directors was composed of seven people. Only one of that group had any likely connection to Craven Malone. The head of Lusty was Joey Malone, President. There had to be some connection there. The editor of the magazine was a woman by the name of B.A. Dilworth. Great acronym for the editor of a sleazy publication. Rogers would enjoy chasing down that name.
One Lost Soul More: A Clancy Evans Mystery (Clancy Evans PI Book 1) Page 5