by Mike Faricy
Ashley also had fifteen different images on her “photo album.” The photos left nothing to the imagination as far as what, exactly, one would be paying for. All the images had the look of professionally-done studio shots and for just a nanosecond I wondered if the photographer had to pay the model.
There was a sixteenth image on Ashley’s album, a bit out of focus and obviously not part of the professional photo shoot. Ashley looked a tad bit disheveled while sitting in the passenger seat of a fairly trendy car. If I had to hazard a guess, I’d say it was her thug pal, Tony behind the wheel, but he was out of focus and partially cut off so it was tough to tell.
Based on all the vehicles in the background, the photo looked to have been taken in a parking ramp of some sort. I made a mental note to ask both Ashley and Royal if the image had been posted recently. I was thinking it could have even been taken yesterday at The Mall.
I looked at sites for a half dozen other women, all equally beautiful, the women that is. None of them had anything like Ashley’s amateur car image which suggested she, specifically, was being targeted for some reason.
“Haskell Investigations,” I said tearing myself away from a half dozen images of a redheaded beauty in a bubble bath.
“Please hold for Mr. Baker,” a no-nonsense voice replied.
“Happy to do that, Marilynn,” I said, but she’d already put me on hold.
“Royal Baker.”
“Hi, Royal, it’s Dev Haskell. I met with Ashley yesterday.”
“How did that go?”
“I suppose okay, amazingly she didn’t want to come home with me.” I waited a few moments, but didn’t get a response from Royal so I pushed ahead. “Based on what she told me, I think some old fashioned monitoring with another pair of eyes might be in order. Let me ask you something. I just checked out her photos on your site, and….”
“Which site?”
“It’s Compatibles,” I said looking at the address bar on my screen.
“Let me get it up here in a moment. There we go, and you’re in her photo album?”
“Yeah, there’s fifteen studio shots then this one that.…”
“Oh, damn it. God, how in the hell are they doing this? You’re talking about this image where she’s in the car and looks like she just pulled an all-nighter?”
“Yeah, I mean it’s not so bad. It’s just obviously not in line with the other studio shots she has, very nice by the way. I’m guessing it was taken on the fly, looks like a parking ramp of some sort.”
“Yeah. Hell, it looks like she’s working out of the back seat of a car.”
“I met her out at The Mall of America yesterday afternoon. It could have been taken right after we met.”
“Or before.”
“To tell the truth, she was pretty well put together when we met. She looks like she’s been through the mill in this shot. Any idea how long this has been up there, hours, days?”
“We’re doing sweeps of her site twice a day, every day. So, this had to have been posted just in the past hour or so. Damn, that suggests whoever is doing this is aware of our schedule.”
“So, you think they posted it sometime after ten?”
“Yeah, late morning to early afternoon are busy booking hours for evening appointments, we’ve been doing our sweeps just before that. Did you mention this to Ashley?”
“No, I’m waiting for her to call me.”
“Dev, I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t say anything. I’d certainly make it worth your while. She can be somewhat temperamental, we’re all at our wits end over this, and having Ashley fly off the handle again would only serve to satisfy whoever is behind this.”
“No need to do anything, Royal. I won’t mention it, but there’s a good possibility she may have already seen it.”
“Well, I haven’t received one of her screaming phone calls, thankfully. I’m emailing someone as we speak, he’ll have this removed within the next few minutes, barely eleven o’clock so there’s a pretty good chance she’s still asleep.”
I wanted to ask Royal about Ashley’s butthead friend, Tony. I wanted to ask Royal about his business. I wanted to ask what his wife thought. In the end I settled for, “Okay, Royal, I’m going to see about lining up some surveillance time around Ashley, I plan to coordinate with her, she said she’d call me, anything develops I’ll let you know.”
“Stay in touch,” he said and hung up.
Chapter Fifteen
It had been a long day and I knew if I headed over to The Spot it would only serve to make the day even longer, much longer. So I just went home. I was planning on making myself a decent dinner, meaning I would warm up some cold pizza and garlic bread. I was sure I’d left some in the fridge, but the garlic bread was nowhere to be found and although the pizza delivery box was in the fridge, it was empty. I decided to watch a movie of no redeeming value and turn to the liquid diet, in my case, a glass of Maker’s Mark bourbon on ice. Only there wasn’t any. I could have sworn I had a fifth in the liquor cabinet. I ended up just eating candy bars.
My phone woke me the following morning. I was still on the couch, the candy bar bag was empty and the sun was fairly high in the sky.
“Yeah,” I answered, just sort of coming awake.
“Dev?”
“That’s me.”
“Andy Lindbergh, did I catch you at a bad time?”
“No, Andy, sorry, just on another line wrapping some business up.”
“Want to call me back?”
“Nope, all taken care of. What can I do for you?”
“I’ve got a problem over here, wonder if you wouldn’t mind stopping by.”
“You want to tell me about it over the phone?”
“I’ve got some inventory items missing, special order stuff. I think if you could come over it might be easier to show you what I’m talking about. That will answer some questions and probably prompt some others.”
I immediately thought Tommy Flaherty, but didn’t say anything. Idiot was probably doing a two-bit score on drugs of some sort, injecting embalming fluid or some stupid thing, blowing his chance at a good job and putting himself back on the road to another conviction and more jail time. “You name the time, Andy.”
“Well, the sooner the better. Can you make it sometime today?”
“Let me cancel my meeting and I’ll be over there in an hour.”
“You sure, Dev? I hate to be a pain.”
“Not a problem, Andy. See you in an hour.”
“Thanks, buddy, I appreciate it.”
I put the coffee on, shaved, took a shower, got dressed, made some toast, gassed up my car, and picked up a couple of things at the grocery store on the way over to Andy’s. I was ushered into his office as soon as Cathy the receptionist saw me walking into the lobby.
“Andy said I was to show you right in, he’s waiting for you, Dev,” she said walking me rather quickly across the lobby and into Andy’s office.
“Dev,” Andy called as I stepped into his office. “Thanks for dropping everything and rushing over. Close the door on the way out, will you, Cathy. Grab a seat, Dev.”
I waited until Cathy closed the door behind her, then asked, “What is it, Andy?”
“I wasn’t sure at first, we had two go missing and I was hoping it was just a shipping issue. Unfortunately, this last incident is local and a one of a kind design to boot. Not good for business.”
“What are you missing?”
“Oh, sorry about that, I’m just so worked up over this. A coffin, three of them actually, as of this morning.”
“Coffins? Someone’s stealing coffins?”
“Yeah, afraid so, this last one was special order. Black walnut, hand carved with a family crest on the lid. It was supposed to be delivered yesterday, I heard from our client about five minutes before I called you. They’ve got the visitation scheduled for tomorrow. Christ on a bike, there’s no way my vendor can turn around another in that short amount of time.”
&nb
sp; “Right off the top, a coffin doesn’t strike me as something that can just walk out of here.”
“True, but we ship quite a few on any given day.”
“Define quite a few.”
Andy clicked a couple of keys on his computer, waited a few seconds then said, “Yesterday we shipped twenty-three. The day before that, we shipped forty-seven. These go out anywhere from groups of five or ten to individual purchases loaded up in a hearse. We ship all over the country.”
“And you’re missing three.”
“That I know of, I’ve got accounting going back over our shipping receipts for the past two months. We wouldn’t have caught this latest one except that it was a special order, and we got that phone call from our customer wondering when he was going to see his order.”
“What are we talking dollar-wise here?”
“Start at fifteen hundred and head north. This latest one, special order, hand carved with that family crest, black walnut, you’re looking at about fifty-five-hundred.”
“That’s a lot of money to place in the ground.”
“It’s a very emotional decision for folks.”
“Any ideas?”
“In all honesty, no not really. But to tell the truth, I haven’t had much time to think about it. Like I said, until that phone call earlier this morning I didn’t have an inkling something like this was going on. Thus far, it looks like three units that we know of, in probably as many weeks.”
I was thinking Tommy Flaherty, again. But what would he do with a coffin, let alone three? “Any chance it was just shipped to the wrong place, got mixed in with one of your larger orders?”
“Anything’s possible, but that’s a pretty slim option. We ID these in our system with unique, specific reference numbers, they’re bar-coded and they aren’t showing up as having been shipped out anywhere.”
“Andy, I’m still trying to get my head around this. What would someone do with these? I mean, is there a black market for coffins?”
“A black market? No, not that I’m aware of, doesn’t mean one doesn’t exist, but I’m not aware of it. Maybe someone would think it’s funny, some sort of prank, use the thing for a dining room table or a guest bed, but not three of them.”
I had a tough time seeing someone using a coffin as a guest bed.
“It’s not like you could place one of these in the back of an SUV or something, they’re too big even for most pickups. I’ve got my warehouse manager going over our security tapes, but the cameras really just monitor the exterior of the building, front and back after hours. Security is activated when the last person leaves at night.”
“When is that?” I asked and immediately thought of Tommy Flaherty again, working late until eight every night.
“I think most nights the cleaning crew is out of here by ten, maybe ten-thirty. They’ve been with us for a lot of years, Dev, it’s a mother and two daughters. I would really be surprised if they were involved.”
I sat and thought for a moment. “What about the possibility of an employee here on the inside, just loading someone up and they drive off.”
“Possible, I suppose. I don’t like to think like that.”
“That’s what I get paid to do, think like that. It’s why I make the big bucks. Say someone with a hearse showed up, their inside contact loads them up, would something like that be possible?”
“We’re running three separate bays just for hearses, that doesn’t count the loading dock where the larger trucks pull in. I suppose it’s possible, hell, at this point anything is possible.”
“And you don’t have any security cameras on the inside?”
Andy shook his head.
“Those bays for the hearses, can you see from one to the other or are they segmented, you know with walls between them.”
“Actually, there are walls between them.”
“So, if a time was prearranged or someone asked for their favorite warehouse guy, conceivably they might be able to pull this off.”
“I suppose.”
“I think for starters, I’d put in place some sort of policy like nothing gets shipped out without two signature releases from your staff. The other thing, if you can identify these items, and you said that one was pretty specific, I’d maybe check out eBay.”
“Oh God,” Andy groaned.
“Yeah, just a thought. I remember a few years ago someone was stealing pacemakers from a hospital and attempted to sell the things on eBay. You mind if I go out there and just look around? You never know what might pop up.”
“Please be my guest, our warehouse manager is Milo. In fact, let me walk you back there and introduce you. As you might imagine, he’s just a little testy about all this right now.”
Chapter Sixteen
Milo Wasnik was in his mid-fifties and didn’t look all that pleased to have me underfoot. Andy introduced me and then on his way out the door said, “Give Dev whatever he needs to get this figured out.”
That left the two of us, Milo and me staring at one another. I was leaning against the door frame of Milo’s small office. Milo was seated behind his desk viewing what looked like a stack of security tapes. Meanwhile, three forklifts were busy loading boxes and barrels of product into a large semitrailer and a small truck. Four or five individuals were rolling carts or two-wheeled dollies in and out of the warehouse aisles loaded with more product.
I had the feeling Milo didn’t get very many quiet moments even on a normal day and today was turning out to be anything but normal.
“Andy says you got some bad news?” I said.
“That’s the understatement. I’ve gone through a half-dozen security tapes, nothing but empty parking lots and the occasional kids parked in the far corner for a petting session. I’ve got nine, make that ten more of these damn tapes to go through.”
I explained my thoughts about some inside guy and a prearranged pick up.
“God, I suppose it’s possible, but we have a pretty cohesive group. Everyone has been here for at least a couple of years. I hope that’s not it.”
“You aware of anyone on your staff experiencing money problems? Maybe a divorce, sick kid, mortgage headache?”
Milo shook his head. “We’re all nothing if not dull. I’m not aware of anything like that, doesn’t mean it might not be happening, but I’d usually hear about it.”
“The people out there working, are they aware of this situation?”
“Yes and no. I had two guys running around trying to find that custom coffin for a good forty-five minutes this morning. That slowed us down while we looked for that damn thing. It’s why they’re all racing around out there right now, we’re trying to get caught up. As you might imagine, something that size, it’s not too easy to miss. I think we combed through the warehouse four separate times. It’s definitely not here.”
“So just two other guys know?”
“For now, but like I said it’s a pretty tight knit group. Give it another hour or two and the word will be out.”
“I’m not gonna bug your folks, but would you mind if I just looked around. Andy mentioned three bays for loading up vehicles, hearses. I’d like to look at them, maybe walk down a couple of aisles. Just get a feel for the place.”
“Do you need me to go with you?” It was an offer, but Milo gave the polite, distinct impression he would prefer not to waste anymore time with me.
“You know, thanks, but I’m just gonna stroll around, shouldn’t be more than maybe fifteen minutes. I’ll let you get back to looking at those security tapes. You come across anything let me know, here’s my card,” I said handing him one of my cards.
Milo examined the card then leaned it up against a large white coffee mug with black lettering that read “Resurrection Cemetery” sitting on the corner of his desk. “Watch out for those forklifts, they’re moving pretty fast.”
He wasn’t kidding. One of the forklifts zipped past me when I was no more than two steps out of his office. The driver gave me a dead pan nod
, raced up a slight ramp and into a large semitrailer. Once he passed, I hurried out of the way then headed for the three small loading bays.
They were located at the far end of the warehouse and were just as Andy described; private stalls that someone could back into and pick up a coffin. Two of the bays had a hearse parked in them with the back door open. The coffins were shrink-wrapped and brought into the loading bay on a four-wheeled cart. From there they were simply rolled into the back of the hearse.
I watched as one of the warehouse guys scanned the barcode on the side of the coffin with a little handheld device. Then he adjusted the height of the cart to be level with the back door before he carefully pushed the coffin into the hearse. There were rollers imbedded just inside the rear door of the hearse and the guy made it look relatively effortless to roll the coffin inside. He closed the rear door on the hearse then handed the customer some sort of a receipt to sign. Once signed, he handed the guy a copy, waved good-bye and headed for Milo’s office. He gave me a nod as he passed and said, “How’s it going,” but didn’t stop to wait for a reply.
It seemed a pretty standard sort of shipping procedure. I watched the same process again in another bay. By the time I had finished watching, another hearse was backing into the bay. I’d check with Andy, but I guessed this was pretty much an all day sort of affair.
I wandered down a couple of aisles, everything from chemistry to holy cards was stacked on shelves going up probably ten feet high. In the far rear of the warehouse, the coffins were stacked on pallets and placed on shelves. A bald-headed driver was just lowering a coffin from about ten feet up with a forklift. He lowered the thing down to another guy with one of the four-wheeled carts and together they seemed to casually slide the coffin off the pallet and onto the cart. Then baldy drove off with the pallet still on the forks while the other guy wheeled the coffin back out to one of the bays.
“Dev? Hey, what are you doing out here?”