First of State

by Robert Greer

  “Still am.”

  “You need me, you call me, okay?” Henry urged, concerned that CJ’s response had been so clipped.

  “You got it. Talk to you later.” CJ cradled the phone and, deep in thought, decided to call Alfred Claymore, president of the Rocky Mountain Automobile License Plate Collectors Association, and have a talk with him about what else but the rare and the not so rare.

  Chapter 28

  All CJ could think about after talking on the phone to Alfred Claymore, longtime president of the Colorado chapter of the Rocky Mountain Automobile License Plate Collectors Association, a man he’d known since his teens, was that if somehow license plates were at the heart of the GI Joe’s killings, then Quan Lee Chin had been no more than someone in the wrong place at the wrong time on the morning of the murders. Claymore, who knew just about every license plate collector from New York to LA, said he’d never heard of Chin.

  Guessing that Chin had more than likely been dropped on the spot along with the killer’s real target, Ames, because he’d seen something the killer didn’t want him to or because the killer wanted the cops traipsing off in the wrong direction, CJ whispered to himself, “Smart move.”

  As he nosed Ike’s Jeep down Santa Fe Drive and accelerated toward Littleton, a southwest Denver suburb, feeling a little guilty and telling himself that he should’ve contacted Claymore as soon as he’d run across that first Monte Vista license plate at the Mile High Flea Market, he found himself wondering what kind of surprises he might find stashed away in an old Quonset hut.

  Littleton, which sat just thirteen miles from downtown Denver, was a sleepy city that originally adjoined and now included Colorado’s once famous Grant Ranch. As far as CJ had been able to tell from Ike’s old topo maps, the Quonset hut and maybe even the peace dove sign he was headed to check out occupied what had at one time been Grant Ranch property.

  In 1879 thousands of people had rushed to the Rocky Mountains in search of silver, and savvy prospector James B. Grant, a man who would eventually become Colorado’s third governor, had been no different. Grant snapped up 1,280 acres of scrub oak, prickly pear, and elm, along with the acreage’s water rights, which he had the foresight to realize were the lifeblood of the burgeoning cattle industry, and gave up his dream of panning for gold. A few years after first setting foot on land that included several water-rich lakes, Grant found himself overseeing a thriving, profitable cattle business.

  Grant Ranch survived drought, flood, and cattle-trade ups and downs for over a century, but it couldn’t survive the encroachment of civilization, and recently the property had been sold to real estate developers who’d promised to turn the ranch, with its unparalleled views of the Rockies, into a community of ecofriendly homes, lakes, ponds, and neighbors.

  Whether that promise would ever come to fruition was anybody’s guess, but as CJ eased the Jeep onto former Grant Ranch property, past barbed-wire fences that sported one “No Trespassing” sign after another, he stared out at the fading blaze-orange-and-magenta Rocky Mountain sunset and couldn’t help thinking that no developer’s promise could possibly match what he was looking at right then.

  The best he’d been able to determine was that the peace dove sign and Quonset hut were on or near the southwest corner of the ranch, and the only access to that piece of land was via the old main headquarters road.

  Bumping past the exquisitely restored log cabin that had once been Grant Ranch headquarters and driving into the approaching twilight, he slowed to take a good look at what was no longer a onetime cattle baron’s home but a real estate sales office. The sign in the front yard, which shared three fenced-off acres of once irrigated pasture with a dozen or more majestic Colorado blue spruces, read, “Grant Ranch Homes, from the low $80s. Pick your homestead.”

  Shaking his head and thinking, Progress, CJ continued past the sales office and a small graveled parking lot. The lot was empty, and at seven o’clock on a Monday night, he felt pretty certain there were no sales agents around. The only sign of office life was the ribbon of light peeking out from beneath a half-lowered upstairs window blind. Suspecting that some forgetful sales agent had forgotten to turn off a light, he drove on.

  Seventy-five yards past the sales office, the headquarters road turned into what was barely a cow path. As the Jeep dipped, bumped, and jiggled its way toward the southwest corner of the ranch, he was happy that he hadn’t driven the Bel Air. A quarter of a mile later, he dropped over a rise, bottoming out the Jeep in a sandy rut. Briefly thinking, What the hell am I doing here? he spotted his objective, a Quonset hut rising like some silver-domed Indian mound in the distance, and behind it the peace dove sign.

  Twilight was descending into darkness when he pulled the Jeep to a stop at a barbed-wire fence about forty yards from the Quonset hut. Looking up at the five-story-tall peace dove on a pole, which he could now see clearly was less than a hundred yards east of the Quonset hut, he found himself thinking, Bigger than I guessed.

  Taking in the lay of the land and carefully assessing the position of the peace dove in relation to the Quonset hut, he could see that they were both sitting on a small, fenced-off plot with “No Trespassing” signs that were a different color than those for Grant Ranch. Gazing back south in the direction of Bowles Avenue, the road that ran east and west past the Grant Ranch property as it rose toward the foothills, he realized for the first time why the peace sign was such a visible landmark. Set on a rise that paralleled Bowles Avenue, the sign was visible whether you were approaching it from the mountains to the west, from downtown Denver to the north, or from the south as you came up Santa Fe Drive from Colorado Springs. He took a final look around before getting out of the Jeep, reached into the glove compartment, extracted his snub-nosed .38, and slipped it into the right-hand pocket of the lightweight jacket he’d traded his vest in for. Walking to the rear of the Jeep, he raised the back hatch and took out a pair of bolt cutters, a flashlight, and a pair of gloves before heading for the fence.

  He snipped his way through the barbed wire in no time and, with his jeans swishing loudly in the tall, dry grass, closed in on his objective. When he reached the Quonset hut’s two fourteen-foot-high, south-facing sliding doors, he slipped the bolt cutters off his shoulder and went quickly after the lock securing the doors. It took a little longer to cut through the lock than the barbed wire, and it was only when a few rivulets of sweat worked their way down his neck that he considered the fact that a building with such a formidable lock probably also had an alarm system.

  Mouthing, Shit, he stepped away from the door and walked along the east side of the 120-foot-long metal building. Having no idea where alarm wires might be buried in the soft clay soil or whether they might not be threading their way inside the conduit he could see running along the building’s concrete apron, he stopped his search. Stumped, he stared up at the building’s corrugated metal curvature and realized that the building had no windows. Thinking that there had to be some way to let outside light in, he headed for the west side of the building. Halfway down the west side he spotted a skylight covered by a heavy-gauge clear plastic that was snapping and clicking in the wind. The skylight was inset into the Quonset hut’s metal shell several feet below the highest part of the arc.

  He had no idea whether the skylight was wired with an alarm, but he intended to find out. Sprinting back to the Jeep, he slipped in, gunned the engine, and rammed the vehicle through the undermatched barbed-wire fence, purposely dragging two entangled six-foot-long steel fence posts and a broken twenty-foot length of fence along with him.

  Glancing around into what was now early-evening darkness to make certain no one came rushing out of the quarter-moon darkness after him, he pulled the Jeep to a stop and took a deep breath. The only thing he could hear besides his own nervous breathing was the ever-increasing howl of the wind.

  Nosing the Jeep forward, he positioned it directly below the skylight, killed the engine, and, with a pair of pliers he’d taken from the glo
ve box, quickly wiggled and snipped the two steel posts he’d dragged along with him away from their four strands of barbed wire. He placed the steel posts on top of the Jeep’s cab and stair-stepped his way from the front bumper onto the hood and up onto the top of the cab.

  All he had to do now, he told himself as he stared up at the skylight, was to wiggle the plastic covering away from what he could see was a two-by-six-foot wooden frame using one of the steel posts, hope the skylight wasn’t wired, and drop headfirst twenty feet down to the floor inside without breaking his neck.

  Hoping that whoever owned the Quonset hut had never figured on someone inquisitive or foolish enough to risk a twenty-foot nosedive wanting to break in, he took a deep breath, jimmied the spear-shaped business end of one of the steel posts under the skylight’s cover, and started teasing the plastic away from its moorings.

  Hearing no alarm, he worked earnestly for a good two minutes, flashlight in one hand and steel post in the other, until he’d almost pried the skylight’s cover away from its frame. When a stiff breeze finally sent the sheet of plastic sailing toward the peace dove, he found himself trying to maintain his balance in the wind.

  Quickly back on task, he tossed the steel post to the ground and made a couple of unsuccessful attempts to jump up the two feet he needed to grab the bottom lip of the skylight’s wooden frame. Momentarily out of breath, he wondered if his two hard landings on the top of the cab had done any serious damage.

  A third attempt bought success, and as he hung, clutching the wooden frame with both hands, his body arched against the curvature of the Quonset hut, he had the feeling that he might be making one hell of a mistake.

  Grunting and sweating, he pulled himself up and wriggled his body a third of the way through the skylight opening. He paused to tease his flashlight out of his jacket pocket, forced an arm back through the exceedingly tight opening, and snapped on the beam. He let out a gasp the instant he saw two rows of vintage automobiles lined up on the concrete floor beneath him. Counting off each car, he whispered, “Eight,” and aimed the flashlight’s beam down onto the black convertible directly below him. The car’s hood ornament, graceful lines, and distinctive rear lights screamed, Packard. Guessing the model year to be either 1936 or 1938, he scanned the remaining cars quickly with the flashlight, thought, What a haul, and looked for someplace he could land safely.

  When he spotted a pile of what looked to be either car covers or blankets several feet from the rear of the Packard, he muttered, “Now or never,” wriggled the rest of his body through the skylight, briefly locked his knees for stability, zeroed in his landing site, and dove.

  With both arms extended and his head tucked into his chest, the landing was anything but soft. His hyperextended left arm took the brunt of the shock as he crashed into a pile of fluffed-up car covers that didn’t provide much cushion.

  Yelling, “Shit!” he heard his shoulder pop. Suspecting he’d dislocated the joint and grimacing in pain, he stood, eyed the broken flashlight bulb at his feet, awkwardly brushed himself off with his right hand, and tried to pop his shoulder back into place. After several unsuccessful attempts, he swallowed his pain and decided the best thing he could do right then was to make sure he still had his .38 and then find a light switch.

  Patting his jacket pocket and finding that the .38 was still there, he walked along one side of the darkened Quonset hut toward the doors whose lock he’d snapped. Halfway there, he found a light switch and flipped it on. The light, barely enough to brighten the darkened Quonset hut, at least allowed him to get a better look at the cars. His eyes widened as he soaked in the elegant lines of the antique cars, but it was the absolutely pristine license plates attached to the front or rear bumpers or trunks that held his attention. Quickly realizing that each plate or set of plates came from a different Western state, he counted off the states aloud, as if he were some excited second grader called up to recite the names of the states in front of his class. “Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, Arizona, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico.” Every Western state of importance in the rare and collectible license-plate game was represented, and every license plate on every car was a first-of-state issue. As the words Worth killing for threaded their way slowly through his head, he finally understood what the GI Joe’s killings had truly been about.

  Chapter 29

  His shoulder throbbing, CJ moved from car to car, basking in each automobile’s unique classic beauty. What he now recognized as a 1939 Packard V-12 sedan, the lead car in the line of four closest to him, was an automobile he’d only seen pictures of. There didn’t seem to be one thing that wasn’t absolutely mint about the car, which had a mirror-like black-lacquer finish. When he spotted a ninth vehicle, a white Chevy Suburban with front-end damage that looked identical to the one in Gay-lord Marquee’s garage, sitting by itself in semidarkness near the doors of the Quonset hut, he knew immediately that it was that Suburban and not the one in Marquee’s garage that had run down Petey.

  Turning his attention back to the cars, he tried the Packard’s driver’s-side door. The door was locked. Reasonable thing to do, he thought, walking from the front of the car to the rear, where an undated, mint-condition, red-and-white first-of-state Wyoming license plate, complete with the Wyoming state seal and identical in every way to its mate on the car’s front bumper, capped off the car’s aerodynamic beauty. The undated plate’s low issue number, 2, could just as easily have read, “Ten grand.”

  Moving slowly down the aisle between the two lines of cars, he could only shake his head in amazement. A set of 1915 Utah first-of-state plates adorned the front and back bumpers of a 1947 Plymouth four-door sedan with the infamous suicide doors.

  A first-of-state set of 1914 Arizona plates was the crowning glory of a 1948 Chrysler Town and Country convertible, and a single-issue Colorado first-of-state plate from 1913 sat recessed in the center of the trunk lid of a 1937 Hudson Terraplane straight-eight that was its original olive green. A ’55 Chevy hard-top, identical in color to his own cream-on-red Bel Air, sported a single-issue 1913 Idaho first-of-state plate. Montana 1915 first of states rode like jewels on the front and back bumpers of a 1946 DeSoto coupe with a sleek-looking sun visor, and when he spotted Nevada first of states on a 1952 Nash Rambler, he simply whispered, “Shit.”

  There, as if to cap off the Rose Bowl parade of vintage automobiles, peeking above the front bumper of a 1936 Auburn Boattail Speedster was a New Mexico first of state that, like its Colorado cousin, had been a single-issue license plate. Most collectors he’d talked to over the years felt that fewer than two dozen New Mexico first-of-state plates in mint condition like the one he was looking at even existed. But there, staring at him in the muted light in all its mint-condition glory, was a green-on-white, undated New Mexico first-of-state plate with the low issue number 8 sitting smack in its center. Guessing that the plate was worth at least fifteen thousand dollars, CJ let out a lengthy whistle.

  He was interrupted by a voice rising from near the partially open front doors of the dimly lit Quonset hut. “Impressive enough to whistle at, indeed, Mr. Floyd. You’re quite obviously a man who knows what he’s looking at. I can only say that I wholeheartedly agree with your assessment.”

  When CJ jerked his head to the left and craned to see exactly where the response had come from, a current of pain shot through his injured left shoulder. Immediately recognizing the strange apparition standing in unflattering light twenty feet from him, CJ said, “Marquee.” Marquee, who stood a couple of feet inside the Quonset hut’s massive doors, which he’d opened just enough to squeeze through, smiled and said, “Hard to hear anybody approaching when you’re so totally captivated, and here’s a word of advice. You shouldn’t drive your classic automobile to garage break-ins, Mr. Floyd. It’s far too easy to spot.”

  “Yours?” CJ asked, pointing toward the cars, realizing that Marquee had probably been on his tail for awhile.

  “No, I’m sorry to say his.” Marquee stepped back and push
ed one of the Quonset hut doors open wider to reveal a very perturbed-looking Harry Steed.

  “Well, well, well,” said CJ, wondering whether the two men could see the bulge of the .38 in his jacket pocket. “I pretty much figured Marquee was in on the kill, but you know what, Harry? You were way down on my list.”

  “I didn’t kill anybody,” Marquee protested.

  “Put a damper on it, Gaylord,” Steed ordered.

  Squinting into the light as he tried to determine whether either man was armed, CJ said, “Quite a car collection you’ve got here, Harry. Not to mention the first-of-state license plates.”

  “You’re trespassing, CJ,” Steed said angrily.

  CJ glanced up toward the single hanging overhead pool-table-style light he’d turned on earlier, thinking he might be in a better negotiating position if the Quonset hut were dark. He said, “Just something I had to do in order to find a killer. Mind telling me how you got all those first of states? Oh, wait a second. Guess you really don’t have to do that. I’m betting they belonged to Wiley Ames.”

  “How I got them doesn’t matter. What matters is you’re an intruder.” Steed slipped a holstered .45 from beneath his jacket, aimed it point-blank at CJ, and squeezed the trigger as CJ dove for safety beneath the Chrysler. He fired three quick additional shots before CJ pulled his .38 and with three shots of his own took out the overhead light.

  “Get some more light in here, damn it!” Harry screamed at Marquee.

  As Marquee raced for a second light switch, the former machine gunner, as expert at firing a weapon at what he could hear as at what he could see, squeezed off two rounds in the direction of Marquee’s footfalls. The second shot slammed into Marquee’s thigh. Screaming and writhing in pain, Marquee fell to the floor.

  “Like we used to say in ’Nam, ‘Even Steven in the dark.’ You wouldn’t want to shoot up one of your cars,” CJ called out. “Or maybe even one of your precious plates, would you, Harry?” Crawling toward where he had heard Marquee fall, CJ yelled, “Bad idea putting so few lights in this place,” seconds before reaching the wounded Englishman.