The Fourth Perspective

by Robert Greer

  He had pretty much wrapped up dealing with the 1883 Wyoming cattle-brand book, having called his friend, the former ranch foreman, Billy DeLong, in Baggs, Wyoming, for the long and short of it. The now teetotaling, wiry, rough-cut sixty-five-year-old, who’d lost his left eye to diabetes and Old Crow, had said, “A 123-year-old book full of cow tattoos, now, that’s sayin’ somethin’.” CJ knew he had a real find when Billy, a man prone to understatement, had told him the book was probably worth about five grand. CJ had screamed, “No shit!”

  Aware that the brand book wasn’t the kind of item he could put out in the store for looky-Lous and kids with Popsicle hands to paw over, he had priced the book, given it an inventory number, slipped it into a small safe in the doorless, unpainted cubby that served as his office, and moved on to the Montana medicine book.

  CJ assigned Medicine in the Making of Montana, by Paul C. Phillips, published in 1962 by the Montana Medical Association and the Montana State University Press, inventory number 301 and the shorthand log-in name The Lazy MD.

  The book opened with a preface on the history of the medical practices of Montana Indians in the 1830s and moved on in the first chapter to document a list of the medical supplies carried by the members of the Louis and Clark expedition, but what caused CJ to puzzle as he flipped page by page through the 564-page volume was not what was contained within the book’s bound buckskin boards but what was missing. The front and back panels and the book’s first and last pages opened into two identical buff-colored, center-creased maps of Montana. The map in the front of the book that showed the territories of a host of Montana Indian tribes looked original and pristine. The end map, however, had been damaged, and pieces of yellowed cellophane tape and fragments of what appeared to be either string or fishing line clung to the tape as it crisscrossed the map in a perfectly centered X. The string or line appeared to CJ to have at one time secured something to the back board. A barely visible note printed in lowercase letters near the upper right-hand corner of the map read, page 298, Covington.

  Intrigued, CJ flipped to page 298 and began reading. The page began with a discussion of the election of a recording secretary to the Helena, Montana–based medical association before going on two paragraphs later to describe in dry, succinct terms the life of Jacob L. Covington:

  Dr. Jacob L. Covington left little record of his early life, but from accounts of his younger brothers and other family members, he was born in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, in 1838. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania Medical School in 1860 and practiced in Pennsylvania until 1866, when he moved to Helena. The reason he gave for the move was that he was attracted by the climate. In 1868 he moved to Laramie, Wyoming, to become a doctor for the Union Pacific Railroad. He worked for the Union Pacific from 1868 until 1870 but returned to Helena the next year and established his living quarters and office in the St. Louis Hotel. Covington, an avid photographer, worked and lived at the hotel until it burned down in 1880. The doctor narrowly escaped death by sliding down a pillar to the street, but his 470-volume library and his surgical instruments were destroyed, along with most of his photographs.

  CJ reread the paragraph, deciding after the second reading and a perusal of the biographies of a dozen other doctors that there was nothing unusual enough about Covington’s background, education, medical practice, or life’s tragedies to distinguish him from the hundreds of others described in the book, many of whom had had hobbies that had ranged form ornithology to fly fishing, and most of whom had been educated back East. There was one thing that was strikingly different about the Covington biography, however: the entire bio had been underlined perfectly, and almost imperceptibly, in pencil. CJ flipped to the book’s endboard and tried to match the underlining with the notation that had been penciled on the map of Montana, but he couldn’t. He reread the biography a final time. Assured that he hadn’t missed anything, he shrugged, closed the book, and nudged it aside, convinced that the Wyoming cattle-brand book had been the real find of the day.

  He checked his watch and decided that one-forty would have to be the witching hour for the day. He thought about whether he should put the book he now thought of as The Lazy MD in the safe with the brand book. Deciding it wouldn’t hurt, he walked over to the safe, knelt, and ran the combination. As he held the door open, he had the feeling that he’d missed something important in the book. He had noted that except for one minor page tear, some smudges, and three or four barely perceptible page crimps, the book appeared almost as pristine as the day it had been printed. He slipped it into the safe, wondering as he closed the door why he was so drawn to a drily written book on the history of medicine in the nation’s third-largest state when he probably should have been more concerned about whether the book or its companion had been stolen, and whether the cops and the rightful owner would descend on him, confiscate his finds, and charge him with trafficking in stolen merchandise.

  He rose and dimmed the store’s lights, ready to head for Bail Bondsman’s Row and home. Donning his Stetson and slipping on his jacket, he stepped outside to be greeted by a warm chinook breeze. The temperature had risen twenty degrees since the young man with the books had walked into Ike’s Spot on a rush of frigid air. Springtime in the Rockies, CJ thought, heading for the sagging poor excuse for a garage where Lenny McCabe allowed him to park his 1957 drop-top Chevrolet Bel Air each morning. He slipped into the Bel Air, considered the day’s events and the rapid double-digit rise in temperature, and shook his head, thinking, Rocky Mountain weather—you never know what to expect.

  CHAPTER 4

  What greeted CJ the next morning as he raised the 1940s-vintage brown parchment shade on the glass-faced front door of Ike’s, instead of a warm, comforting wind or a dusting of snowflakes, was the freckled face of a sunken-cheeked white man with a head of wiry red hair and a pencil-thin, equally red mustache staring back at him.

  The man smiled, mouthed, “Open?” and stood back waiting for CJ to open the door.

  “You’re at it early,” said CJ, taking in the man’s lengthy torso and stilt-like legs.

  The man, an inch taller than CJ, stepped across the threshold and into the store. “Started at seven. Always prefer to get a fast early break.” The man, whom CJ judged to be no more than thirty, jammed a hand into his right pants pocket, extracted a business card, eyed the card as if it might not be what he’d reached for, and, handing the card to CJ, asked, “This one of yours?”

  The way he said the word yours, as if he expected CJ to bolt for the back door, grovel, or start to hem and haw, told CJ everything he needed to know about the man. Vintage collectibles dealer or not, CJ still had the nose for sniffing out a cop. “Yeah. Got a problem, Officer?”

  “You’re quick on your feet, Mr. Floyd,” the man said, surprised at how quickly he’d been made. He reached into the pocket of his loose-fitting seersucker jacket, pulled out a wallet that contained a business card and a badge, flashed the badge, and handed CJ the business card. “Sergeant Fritz Commons—as in, it happens all the time. Seventh Precinct, Homicide.” He smiled and slipped the wallet back into his pocket.

  Poker-faced, CJ said, “And why do I have the early-morning pleasure?”

  “That’s easy, Mr. Floyd. Your business card plopped me right here on your doorstep. One of my forensic guys teased it out of the pants pocket of a man we found lying jack-face up, dead as a doornail, in an alley late last night, eleven blocks from here. He had a couple of nice-sized bullet holes in him. One dead center in his throat, one in his forehead.” Commons flashed CJ the self-assured nod of someone who liked to get every fact straight, follow every rule just right. “Customer of yours?”

  “Maybe.”

  “I need a lot more certainty than that, Mr. Floyd.”

  “Describe your dead man for me,” said CJ, accustomed to playing cat-and-mouse with cops.

  “Five-six, dark-complected, big round face—the hint of a goatee.”

  “Could be he was in yesterday,” sa
id CJ.

  “About what time?”

  “Late afternoon.”

  “Buy anything?”

  “No.”

  “Sell you anything?” asked Commons.

  “A couple of books.”

  “Got proof of the transaction?”

  CJ’s answer was diversionary and quick. “An eyewitness.”

  Commons smiled at the tactic and shook his head. “I’m talking receipt, as in the paper kind most businesses use.”

  “I paid in cash.”

  “And your eyewitness saw the man too?”

  “Sure did. It was his cash.”

  “I see. Are the books you bought handy?”

  “They’re in my safe.”

  “Hmmm. That valuable?”

  “One is for sure,” said CJ, gauging Commons’s reaction, uncertain how much the sergeant might already know about the books.

  “Let’s take a look,” Commons said, glancing around the room and scanning the merchandise as he tried to determine whether he was dealing with a legitimate antiques dealer or a fence. “Nice merchandise,” he said, his assessment apparently still incomplete.

  CJ turned and headed for his unfinished office. He knelt in front of the safe, opened the door, reached inside, and handed Commons the two books. He watched the calculating red-headed detective examine the cattle-brand book first, knowing full well what Commons was thinking: Why not pay the man for the books and get your investment right back by killing him? Deciding to take the wind out of the pesky cop’s sails, CJ said, “I didn’t kill the man, Sergeant.”

  “Didn’t say you did.” Commons set the brand book aside and flipped through the Montana medicine book.

  “But it’s on your list of possibilities,” countered CJ.

  Commons laid the second book down on top of the first one. “You seem to know a lot about cops, Mr. Floyd. Ever been one?”

  CJ smiled. “Nope. A long way from it.”

  Commons drank in CJ’s smile, and his eyes narrowed to a suddenly less-than-friendly stare. “I’ve got a murder on my hands, Floyd, and you were quite probably the victim’s last contact. You’ve got what was assuredly his property locked in your safe and no documentation to prove that he willingly sold the merchandise to you. Bottom line here, friend, is you’ve got a problem.”

  “And I’ve got a witness to attest to the sale, remember?”

  “Time to produce your witness, Floyd.”

  “Easy enough. He’s right next door,” said CJ, hoping that for once Lenny McCabe had opened his store on time.

  “Then let’s walk over and have a talk with him, and on the way maybe you’ll tell me how it is you’re so quick to spot a cop.”

  “Learned it in a previous life.”

  “Doing what?” Commons asked, following CJ toward the front door.

  CJ paused, causing Commons to nearly stumble into him. “A thirty-year tour as a bail bondsman,” he said, swinging open the door to McCabe’s Matchless Gems and sighing in relief as he watched Lenny McCabe stride toward them.

  Fifteen minutes later, after grudgingly accepting the fact that McCabe had indeed given CJ $1,700 to buy the dead man’s books, Commons was gone. He’d departed only after McCabe had produced CJ’s uncashed check with a note on the memo line that read, “Montana medicine book and Wyoming BB 1883”—and then only after he’d quizzed both men about the transaction three different ways from Sunday.

  CJ had tried to squeeze more details out of Commons about how the book peddler with the thick Spanish accent had died, but the cagey homicide cop wouldn’t step beyond his earlier revelation that the man had been shot.

  Commons had left with strong words of advice for CJ: “Lock up the books, photocopy that check, and stay friends with your next-door neighbor. And by the way,” he’d added, offering a departing salvo from McCabe’s doorway, “when it comes to a murder case, leads are, as I’m sure you’re well aware, a lot like muscle cramps. You have to massage them over and over to get out the knot. Count on it, I’ll be back for another visit.”

  The unmarked police cruiser with blackwall tires, no hubcaps, and a volleyball-sized dent in the right rear quarter panel looked so out of place sitting in the cobblestone driveway in front of Howard Stafford’s sprawling French country home that the two undocumented Latino gardeners who were trimming hedges along the driveway’s western edge whispered in near unison to each other in Spanish, as Sergeant Commons exited the vehicle, “Policía.”

  The noonday skies had turned overcast, promising a calm, dreary afternoon, but that calm had been shattered moments earlier by Theresa Del Mora’s wails, her mournful sobs, and her pleas in Spanish for help.

  Theresa had been supervising the placement of a 350-pound, centuries-old Grecian urn that with its twin would flank the tiled entry to Howard Stafford’s home when Fritz Commons had pulled up. The entryway was normally gated, but two workmen had been installing a new entry keypad to the right of the gate, and the gate had been open, affording Commons the chance to circumvent a security clearance and breeze past them on a beeline to Stafford’s house. On his way he’d sped past a mass of greenery, freshly planted spring flowers, fountains, rows of hedges, and a grouping of ornate cast-iron benches that looked as if they belonged on a Hollywood movie set.

  He hadn’t expected the mother of his murder victim to greet him as he’d walked up the front steps to the Stafford mansion, but Theresa Del Mora had, and when he’d announced who he was, relaying the unsettling news about Luis to her as she took a seat, she’d let out a wail and immediately begun to sob.

  “You’ll have to calm down, ma’am, if you want me to try to help,” Commons said, uncertain how to cope with Theresa’s hysteria. He turned to one of the hedge trimmers for help when a puzzled-looking, cowboy-booted, bush-hat-wearing Howard Stafford bounded up the steps toward him.

  “What’s going on?” shouted Stafford. “And who the hell are you?”

  Commons slipped his badge wallet out of a coat pocket, flashed it at Stafford, who’d barely slowed his charge, and said, “Sergeant Fritz Commons, Denver Police.”

  Stafford, a tall, gaunt man with keen features, stopped inches from Commons. “What’s happened?”

  Theresa glanced up, sobbing. “Luis is dead.” Her words were slurred and barely intelligible.

  Stafford eyed Theresa and let out a sigh. “Oh, God!” He took Theresa’s right hand in his and squeezed it reassuringly. “I’m sorry.” Theresa choked back more sobs as Stafford, speaking to her in Spanish, helped her to her feet and walked her through the front door of the house into a bright marble-floored foyer. Accompanying her to a wooden bench that hugged one wall, he sat with her on the bench and nodded for the trailing Commons to take a seat on a nearby hassock.

  They sat in silence as Theresa continued sobbing. When a woman wearing an apron and dressed in black, form-fitting slacks appeared from a barely visible nearby doorway, Stafford said, “Some water, please, for Theresa.”

  The woman scurried away and quickly returned with a serving tray, a carafe of ice water, and three chilled glasses. Stafford took the tray and waved her off dismissively.

  “Try this,” he said to Theresa, pouring her a glass full of water. “You too,” he said to Commons, his manner as ingratiating as it had been rude to the woman who’d brought the water.

  “Now,” he said, sounding breathless and looking at Commons, “perhaps I can hear the rest of the story.”

  By the time Theresa Del Mora had calmed down enough to listen to Commons describe what had happened to Luis, including most of the circumstances surrounding his death, a half hour had passed and an empty carafe sat on top of an antique carpenter’s chest across the foyer from them.

  “And that was it?” asked Stafford, responding to the suddenly silent Commons. “No car tracks in the snow, no footprints, no other significant clues?”

  “Only one,” said Commons, deciding it was time to drop his bombshell about the books. “Luis had just sold an antiques deale
r on South Broadway a couple of books. The seventeen hundred in cash the dealer had paid him was still in Luis’s pocket.”

  “Then Luis wasn’t robbed,” said Stafford, eyeing a morbidly silent Theresa, elbows on her thighs, head bent, eyes on the floor.

  Commons chose his words carefully. “Things don’t seem to point that way at the moment.”

  “Seventeen hundred dollars. That’s a pretty hefty sum for two books,” said Stafford.

  “They were rare ones. What collectors call antiquarian.”

  The muscles in Stafford’s face were suddenly taut. He looked at Theresa, who still hadn’t moved, and asked haltingly, “What were the titles?”

  “Don’t remember exactly,” said Commons, bending the truth in order to see where Stafford would take him. “But one was a Wyoming book of cattle brands from the 1880s. The other was a historical account of Montana medicine.”

  Stafford shook his head and eyed Theresa disappointedly.

  “Problem?” asked Commons.

  “Maybe.”

  “Mind clueing me?”

  “I’m a collector of many things, Sergeant, including books. The books you mentioned sound like two I have in my collection. But they’re not so rare that I’d think people would steal or kill for them,” said Stafford, trying not to sound accusatory.

  “Can you check and see if your two books are missing?”

  Instead of answering, Stafford rose from his seat and took three strides toward the doorway that the woman who’d brought them water had appeared from. He pushed aside a well-concealed sliding door, barked a command in Spanish, and walked back to join Commons. Moments later the woman reappeared.

  “Take Theresa to her quarters,” Stafford said authoritatively.

  The woman dutifully helped Theresa from her seat. Wrapping an arm and a brightly colored shawl around her, she angled Theresa toward the front door.

  “I’ll check on her later,” Stafford called out as he and Commons watched the two women disappear through the front door. Turning to Commons, he said, “I didn’t want Theresa to hear or see any more of this. Let’s take a walk to my library.”