Perfect Grave jw-3

by Rick Mofina

  “I’ve got a friend in the library at the Cleveland Plain Dealer and I’ll call Mavis, our genealogical contractor. We’ll comb the city directories, the public library, municipal records, voter lists, court records, wills, etcetera. A lot of stuff is on CD now, so we should be able to get data flowing pretty fast.”

  “Good, I also need you to confirm and locate St. Ursula Savary College.” He spelled it. “It’s a private Swiss boarding school near Montreux, or Lausanne. If you find it, I know there’s a time-zone challenge, but get them to check records, albums, alumni clubs, anything to confirm the registration of an American student named Anne Braxton, of Cleveland, Ohio, for the same period, some thirty years back, give or take.”

  “But we did a big search for Anne Braxton when she was murdered and found nothing about her.”

  “I know, Kel, just search this new information, please.”

  “How soon do you need this?”

  “I need it now.”

  Chapter Fifty

  T hey were getting closer.

  Grace Garner stabbed a cherry tomato with her fork. Eating her salad quickly at her desk, she checked the time, wishing her phone would ring as she reevaluated the facts before her upcoming case status meeting.

  Kay Cataldo’s discovery had given her a solid break.

  The physical evidence told them that Sharla May Forrest and Sister Anne Braxton’s killer wore size-11 tennis shoes issued by the Washington Department of Corrections. Everything pointed to an ex-con. Maybe one who was recently released, or had violated custody.

  They had ruled out Cooper. And after talking with Roberto Martell, Grace and Perelli canvassed the bar where Martell said the suspect had encountered Sharla May. Martell’s story held up, according to a waitress and a bartender.

  Grace and Perelli then went back to the shelter to interview John Cooper again. A picture was emerging. The suspect was a white male in his forties with a muscular build and a tattoo on his neck. And considering the knife used to kill Sister Anne came from the shelter, where Cooper had witnessed him upsetting her, the killer had to have had some connection to the nun.

  Was he someone she’d counseled in prison? Or a nut job out of control?

  The answer was somewhere with the Department of Corrections. How long had it been since she’d requested the DOC’s help?

  Too long.

  Grace checked the time before her meeting. Perelli was in the records room gathering summaries of cold cases to support a theory he was developing. Grace stared at her phone, hoping against the odds that the DOC had some way of helping them zero in on her guy, or develop a suspect list.

  Why haven’t they called back yet? This was not good.

  She jabbed another tomato and grappled with another problem.

  Jason Wade.

  His messages seemed almost desperate. Where had he been? They hadn’t spoken in a long time. She had to take some of the blame. She had to admit that she liked him. A lot. They were both loners. They both felt like outcasts. They were right for each other. But she’d hurt him and in the process got hurt herself. What goes around, comes around, kiddo, she told herself. Maybe when all this was over she would talk to him. Really talk to him. Maybe they could give it another shot? For now she focused on her case.

  Grace finished her salad and started making notes when her line rang.

  “Homicide, Garner.”

  “Steve Scannell, with the DOC in Olympia.”

  “Did you get anything?”

  “You’re asking us to find a needle in a haystack. I’ve had my people go at your request five ways to Sunday and we can’t pinpoint things the way you’d like.” Scannell was high up the command chain of the DOC’s Prisons Division.

  “What can you tell us so far?”

  “Sister Anne’s order has been very active with our religious and spiritual programs for years.”

  “That should help.”

  “It helps complicate things.”

  “Well, can you give us a list of all the prisoners she’s visited?”

  Scannell sighed.

  “It doesn’t work that way. In some cases she had one- on-ones, in others she was with a spiritual group providing services to a prisoner group.”

  “Well, can I get a list of names?”

  “Detective Garner, we have fifteen institutions and fifteen work releases. We’re talking a prison population of some seventeen thousand statewide. Over the years the Order has visited every facility. In some cases, several times. In some cases, there are sign-up logs, in some cases, like when they addressed groups, no sign-up was required.”

  Grace tapped her pen and thought.

  “Let’s try this, Steve. We know we’re looking for someone who’s been out for at least three months. He’s a male, white, has a tattoo on his neck, and wears a size- 11 tennis shoe, approximately six feet tall, muscular build.”

  “That’s too general. Do you have a specific release date?”

  “No.”

  “Type of release?”

  “No.”

  “Do you know his offense, or length of sentence?”

  “No.”

  “Do you by chance have an offender classification, or institution?”

  “No.”

  “Then, I’m afraid that’s way too general.”

  “Couldn’t you run a program or search?”

  “Grace, listen to what I’m telling you. Every month we average anywhere from fifteen hundred to eighteen hundred releases of all types. Across the state we have nearly forty-three thousand offenders under field supervision, nearly eleven thousand in King County alone.”

  “I get it. Needle in a haystack.”

  “Give us something specific and we can lock onto this guy in a heartbeat. Meanwhile, I’ve got all of my senior custody staff going full bore on this, getting my captains to check with their lieutenants, their CCOs, and Correctional Unit Supervisors.”

  “I appreciate that.”

  “If we find something, you’ll be the first to know.”

  Chapter Fifty-One

  I n the side mirror of his rented Ford Taurus, Ethan Quinn watched Henry Wade’s pickup pull out of the West Pacific Trust Bank half a block down Yesler.

  Quinn set his video recorder down, started his sedan, and wheeled round into traffic, careful to keep several cars between him and Wade’s truck.

  As he gathered speed, Quinn’s heart rate picked up and he exhaled slowly. This was the biggest psychological gamble he’d ever taken on a case. And, at the outset, he was certain that he’d blown it.

  But now, some forty-eight hours since he’d rolled the dice and began his surveillance of Henry Wade, Quinn was convinced that he was on the right track-convinced that his instincts were right.

  Henry Wade was a wise old fox.

  Contacting him cold was a calculated risk.

  But it yielded the result Quinn needed. He’d caught Henry unawares. Quinn saw it in the old guy’s face. As expected, Henry played his grief card, telling him that the case had taken a toll. That he couldn’t help, that sort of thing.

  That was fine.

  That was expected.

  All that really mattered were Henry’s actions after the meeting.

  Quinn had done his homework. He’d studied the files of the case exhaustively for months. Months. Because this old case fascinated him.

  Things just did not add up.

  The armored-car company was owned by ex-cops. There were a lot of cops there the day it went down and $3.3 million in cash vanished. An innocent bystander died in a botched hostage bid. Leon Sperbeck, the one suspect caught, the only suspect caught, was convicted without breathing a word about the other suspects.

  Were there other suspects?

  There were witness statements with descriptions so general-two other suspects in ski masks-one was thin, the other heavyset-they were useless.

  All of it was very unusual.

  The case fades.

  As Sperbeck does his time,
years roll by. People die. The case grows cold.

  None of the money surfaced. No word on the street of it being circulated. And contrary to popular belief, Quinn knew from criminology studies of convicted armed robbers that often those who commit big heists are condemned to live in fear, to always look over their shoulder. Man, in many cases, they’re so paranoid, they live modestly because they’re afraid to spend the money. They fear that spending the cash would draw attention. It was common to find most of the stolen cash in their possession, even years after the crime.

  That was exactly what Quinn believed was at play here.

  A textbook case.

  Sperbeck and Wade were the only two survivors linked to the heist. No way did Sperbeck do all that hard time only to walk out and commit suicide. Quinn didn’t buy that for a second. Sperbeck likely staged his death so that he could start a new life after he collected his share of the heist.

  Henry Wade had to be involved.

  Quinn was convinced of it. That’s why he’d taken a gamble by contacting Henry, tipping his hand while feeding Henry that line about sharing any recovered portion of the cash. It was a strategic move designed to draw him out, to gauge what he knew about the case-hoping that maybe Henry would lead him to the cash.

  And now, Quinn’s gamble was paying off.

  What was he doing at Sperbeck’s bank, talking to a bank manager? No private detective was that fast. That good. No way. Henry Wade played the recovering drunk ex-cop thing like a B-movie actor. For him to move this fast, he had to be working with Sperbeck. Had to know something.

  Quinn was certain of it.

  He glanced at his camera in the passenger seat, thinking that if he cleared this one, it would be his biggest payday ever.

  Upward of $1.5 million.

  For a moment, Quinn entertained his financial options when suddenly the rear of a Seattle Metro bus was all he saw in front of him. Rubber screeched as he slammed his brakes, stopping dead.

  Traffic ahead halted.

  Quinn cranked the wheel to the left, craned his neck to see that a construction crew was working ahead.

  No sign of Henry Wade’s pickup truck.

  Quinn slammed his palms against the wheel.

  The roar of a Detroit diesel engine in a dump truck unloading steaming asphalt onto the street ahead drowned out Quinn’s cursing.

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  T hree hours to deadline.

  Jason took stock of the newsroom, the tense clicking of keyboards as reporters concentrated on filing. Senior news editors were emerging from the big glass-walled room at the east end where they’d wrapped up their final news meeting on where stories would play in tomorrow’s paper.

  Only the night news editor could override their decisions.

  At his desk, Jason inserted the CD with his story into his computer, downloaded it, flagged the holes he was going to fill, then sent it to the metro desk for editing.

  Next, he went online for info, then called the U.S. Embassy in Bern and requested information from the twenty-four-hour duty desk about the school and two American citizens who died in a car crash near Geneva. He also got numbers for Swiss police who had jurisdiction over the areas.

  Then he called the Swiss Embassy in Washington, D.C., and made the same request after he’d reached the on-call press attache.

  Next he called Grace Garner. She didn’t answer. He left a message, then headed to the cafeteria for a coffee, cheeseburger, fries, and a Coke. Back at his desk, he’d just lined up his burger for the first bite when Eldon Reep called him into his office, where he had been reading a file on his computer monitor.

  “You should’ve alerted me the instant you got back.”

  “I called in to the desk. I had a lot to do.”

  Reep swiveled.

  “I’m your boss. I authorized your trip. You report to me first.”

  Jason rolled his eyes.

  “Just finished your story from Canada. You struck out. The hard news just ain’t there.”

  “Bull. It’s full of exclusive revelations.”

  “We might be able to salvage it as an exclusive human interest bio: ‘A troubled young heiress becomes a nun in Paris and donated her fortune to her order.’ Dedicated her life to helping the poor before her murder.”

  “I wrote it as a murder mystery.”

  “Yes, that’s why I’ve ordered the desk to rewrite it as a bio feature.”

  “What? Are you nuts? Did you even read the thing? It’s a start at unraveling the mystery surrounding her murder. We quote her secret diary, the donation, Cooper’s account of the mystery man at the shelter who’d ‘ asked her to forgive him and it upset her. ’ I’m telling you, there’s something here. We’re connecting the dots. The pieces are starting to come together.”

  “I don’t see it, I think you’re reaching.”

  “I don’t believe this! Did Vic Beale or Mack Pedge read it yet?”

  Reep stood, put his hands on his hips, and invaded Wade’s space.

  “Set this aside for the moment. I want you to check out something more important right now.”

  “Like what?”

  “Nate Hodge was shooting pictures at a house fire when he overheard a cop talking about rumors of a new lead in the case.”

  “What sort of lead?”

  “That’s what you’re going to find out. He sent the desk an e-mail. I’ll bump it to you. You act on it now.”

  Cursing under his breath, Jason returned to his desk and opened Nate’s e-mail. “I was at house fire near Ravanna and was talking to a cop friend. He got a call on his cell phone. He stepped back but I overheard him say, ‘We’ve got a new lead in the nun murder?’”

  The cop was probably referring to a new tip, rather than a solid lead. If it’s big, it rarely gets down to the uniforms on the street. Jason wasn’t sure what to make of it. He put in another call to Garner, shook his head, then tore into his burger, managing three bites and half a dozen fries before Kelly Swan appeared from the library, tapping a slip of paper in her hand.

  “Don’t know if this is good or bad-can I have one?” Kelly stole a fry. “But so far no records-absolutely zip-for a Sherman and Etta Braxton in Cleveland, or anywhere in Ohio.”

  Jason halted chewing.

  “And,” Kelly continued, “there’s no record for St. Ursula Savary College in Switzerland, nothing that even comes close.”

  Jason resumed chewing, but thoughtfully, noticing, at that moment, the arrival of an e-mail from the press attache at the Swiss Embassy. Preliminary queries with authorities indicate no citizens of the United States whose names you provided are listed in records as traffic fatalities. The St. Ursula Savary College is not among the country’s schools. Included below is a link to all Swiss private and international schools.

  “Thanks, Kelly. Can you please keep checking?”

  Quieted by the development, Jason resumed eating and thinking. Thinking of the image of Anne Braxton, a distraught young woman, alone in a church in Paris, begging nuns to allow her into their order.

  But did she lie to them about her past?

  Why would she do such a thing?

  And where did that one million dollars come from? How does a twenty-three-year-old American woman come to have one million dollars in a Swiss bank account?

  His line rang.

  “Wade, Mirror. ”

  “It’s Garner.”

  “Grace,” he sat up, “Listen, I’ve been doing some digging and I’ve got something.”

  “Will I be reading it in the paper, or are you going to tell me?”

  “I think we need to meet.”

  “Is that what you think? I think you want something.”

  “Grace.”

  “So you’re talking to me now. All done with your tantrums, is that it?”

  “Grace, please.”

  “You want to meet now?”

  “Now would be good.”

  “All right. That place beside the old warehouse. In twenty
minutes.”

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  T he Rusted Anchor was an all-night sanctuary for cops and the like who worked 24/7 downtown.

  Tucked down a side street near an abandoned warehouse and the waterfront, the narrow building was webbed with vines. Its battered metal door, punctured with several bullet holes, gave newcomers pause.

  Even during sunny days, the Anchor remained dim inside. The darkness calmed frayed nerves and eased troubled minds, offering tranquillity and beer as cold as an embittered ex-wife. Low-watt lights hung low over the dark high-backed booths that were evocative of church pews. Jason spotted Grace Garner alone in a corner, poking the ice in her Coke with her straw.

  The neon clock on the wall gave him a little over two hours until his deadline.

  He sat down and ordered a ginger ale from a bored man in a dirty white apron who had three days’ worth of white whiskered growth on his face. They waited in awkward silence until Jason’s drink arrived.

  “Okay, Wade, I made a mistake. Can we move on?”

  Jason held up two fingers.

  “Two mistakes: You dumped me. And you went out with Special Agent Asshole.”

  “How did you know?”

  “You’re not the only paid investigator at this table.”

  She looked away.

  “Grace, what happened? Just tell me what happened?”

  “I got scared.”

  “Of what?”

  “It felt so right with you. We were moving fast, but it felt so right I caught myself thinking long-term, even though I realized it ain’t going to happen.”

  “You don’t know that. You got to take things one step at a time.”

  “Okay, I messed up. Can we move on?”

  He looked into her eyes until all the hostility between them subsided. After a few moments, Grace drank from her glass and said, “You said you may have something.”

  “The paper got a tip on Sister Anne that led to Canada. I went there to follow it up and just got back.”

  “Canada? What sort of tip did you get?”

  “We received some information about her life before she entered the Order.”