Fear at First Glance

by Dave Balcom

  “Smell? Cologne or after shave?”

  She thought about it, and then shook her head, “Pleasant, but not something I recognized. Like clean.”

  “Thank you. You want to go home right now?”

  “My place is here. When you find Mrs. Ralph, she might need me.”

  “Very well; just sit here. We’ll have a forensics team here in minutes, and,” turning to me, “Jim, you’ll need to walk them through everything you did. They’ll be dusting for prints and such. Let’s go take another look.”

  As we walked into the kitchen, a technician came in from the deck, “Inspector? We’ve found something interesting out here.”

  We followed him back outside, and found three other technicians huddled around a planter at the stairs leading off the deck, “Evelyn here just noticed this as she walked by,” the original tech said, indicating a young woman who was taking photos of the planter.

  “Little late in the growing season,” Miles said.

  “Maybe semi-automatic pistols are a fall crop; who knew?” The blonde with the camera said as she fired off two more shots.

  “Looks familiar,” I said, looking down at Jan’s piece that had been left neatly among the dead mums that had graced the deck planter just a week ago.

  “Mums,” Miles whispered.

  “Colt Mustang XSP, looks like.”

  “Know it well, do you?”

  “I’d have to check the serial number against our permit, but, yep, I believe I know it well.”

  “Dust it, collect it as evidence, and then give Mrs. Stanton a receipt for it, will you?”

  “Yes, sir,” the blonde said. “How do you figure it fits into this?”

  Miles looked at her, “No idea, Evelyn; just keep on keeping your eyes open. Who knows, you know?”

  “Yessir.”

  We walked every room in the huge house, found that the technicians had already been in each before us, and I saw tags with numbers on them stuck in a variety of locations – some with the letters “FP” indicating reminders to dust often-handled areas and items, others coded to signify things I couldn’t fathom.

  “Any ideas?” Miles asked as we stood again in the living room, looking out at the waters of the lake.

  “Maria didn’t recognize her assailant, if that’s the right term.”

  “What else would you call it?”

  “Well, a very careful and courteous assailant; when I untied her, she was secure enough, but whoever did that, was careful not to tie so tightly that it cut off blood, you know? Bowlines, like.”

  “Sailor?”

  “Boy Scout, maybe; who knows? My point is that the pistol may have been for show, there was no intent of causing her discomfort, much less injury.”

  He was nodding, “Just what this case needs, a courteous villain.”

  He was interrupted by his phone burring in his pocket. He stepped away from me to answer it, and was back at my side in seconds. “A packet of information has just arrived in B’laire for me; probably the results of all the info requests I sent Tuesday.

  “Everything’s in place as far as the BOLO on the Ralphs; you want to come with me to see the report?”

  “Jan, too?”

  “Of course. I’m leaving a deputy sheriff on site so Maria shouldn’t be concerned with being alone at a time like this. You wanna come?”

  “We’ll be right there.”

  “I think we’ll ride in your vehicle; I’ll send the chopper back to work; it’s borrowed from the National Forest folks.”

  I looked a question at him, but he just waved me off, “Let’s move.”

  It took the better part of an hour to drive back to Bellaire, and Miles spent almost the entire trip on the phone, talking in simple words that made eavesdropping impossible. Jan finally turned on Sinatra on Sirius. “I can’t stand watching you craning your neck in an effort to listen in,” she said in a disgusted voice.

  “You couldn’t make it out, either?” I said shamelessly.

  “Not a thing,” and we both laughed at ourselves.

  At the Sheriff’s Office, we were unceremoniously dumped in the conference room. A few seconds later, the receptionist brought coffee, and a creamer for me. “Inspector Lawton said he’d be with you in a couple; he’s making copies to share with you.”

  She had barely disappeared when the door reopened and Bromwell and Lawton entered.

  “Here,” Miles said, handing each of us a folder.

  “Take all the time you need, but when you’ve finished reading, stick your head out and we’ll go from there.” They then left without another word.

  We both opened our files and while Jan carefully took each stapled portion out and arranged them on the conference table to better inventory the contents, I started reading from the top which turned out to be a summary of the packet drafted by someone in Lansing.

  We were still reading when there was a knock at the door, and a uniformed deputy came in and handed a bag to Jan, “They cleared this, wiped clean except for your prints on the ammo and clip; it’s been photographed and logged, so the Sheriff checked with the county prosecutor who said to return it to the permit holder.”

  “Thanks, deputy,” Jan said with a warm smile. She took it out of the bag, checked that there was a round in the chamber and the safety was on, then opened her purse and put the weapon into its holster.

  After the deputy left, she said, “You can bet I’ll keep closer to my purse going forward.”

  I just smiled at her and went back to reading.

  Just over two hours later, I had completed my reading and had added notes in margins and longer thoughts on the backs of pages. I rose and stretched, went to the door and found it locked.

  I turned back to the table and picked up the phone, and was scrolling the keys looking for some hint on how to call out that we were done when I heard the door open. It was Edwina, the receptionist, and she was blushing.

  “You locked us in?”

  “Habit. Sorry about that. I saw your light come on the switchboard and realized what I had done. Can I help you?”

  “I need a restroom; how about you, Jan?”

  She looked up from her reading, “I guess I better if we’re going to be locked in here...”

  “Oh, no,” the trainee gushed, “I swear, that was my mistake. You’re not under detention.”

  I started toward the door and she backed away, “Down that hall, first door on the left.”

  When I returned Jan was gone, and I could see that she’d put all her packets back in the folder. I went looking for Miles or Bromwell, and Edwina intercepted me three steps from the interrogation room. “Looking for more coffee?”

  “No, Ed; I was looking for the sheriff.”

  “This way, sir.” She led me to the office and rapped quickly on the door, opened it, and waved me in.

  “Ready to talk?” Miles said from a couch on the other end of the room from the sheriff’s desk.

  “I think so; Jan’s using the facilities, but I think she’s finished reading; pretty interesting stuff.”

  “Lots of data; no concrete answers,” Bromwell said.

  “I can think of several ways to connect dots and come up with a hypothesis,” Lawton said. “And from the hypothesis, you can identify leads to track down. Let’s go to the conference room and find Jan; hear her take on all this.”

  It was full on dark by the time our conference had broken up, and we were all a bit blurry.

  Bromwell had brought Edwina in, armed with a tape recorder to catalogue our discussion. “This will ensure we all have the same record going forward; I think that helps from time to time, you know, to be able to go back to square one when you hit a roadblock.”

  “Ed, can you transcribe that stuff tomorrow?”

  “Yessir.”

  “Good, then go home, eat some dinner and rest. We can function on our notes, but give us each a copy when you complete the transcription, okay?”

  “Good night, Sheriff.” The y
oung woman walked out with her recorder and several discs.

  “She’s a good gal,” Miles said.

  “She’s my wife’s cousin,” Bromwell chuckled. “I had the county prosecutor and the chairman of the County Board interview her and send me written recommendations before I hired her; can’t afford any sign of nepotism in a small county like ours.

  “She’s good wood; gets her degree and some OJT and she’ll fly through the academy.”

  “That her ambition?”

  The sheriff nodded, “Wants to be Miles Lawton when she grows up.”

  “Heaven forbid,” Miles groaned. “You two going back to the Ralph home tonight?”

  “Nope. We discussed it and decided we’d be more comfortable over here; any recommendations?”

  “There are vacancies in the B’laire House. I’ll make a quick call, then let’s go find dinner. Rick?”

  “I’m outta here; a meeting at the school and Tracey’s holdin’ dinner.”

  Miles was on his phone. Jan went to the restroom to freshen up. I just walked around the office, stretching muscles cramped from a day of tension and inactivity.

  The researchers in Lansing had turned up some interesting possible connections for our mystery.

  Dave Boyington had been a career soldier from the very start, volunteering for airborne infantry training and excelling at it. He was on the landing force in Grenada in ’83, and spent two years after that in Honduras where his native intelligence and natural affinity for covert work had come to the attention of Army Intelligence. He spent the rest of the ’80s and the early ’90s kicking around the Middle East.

  According to the limited part of his record not redacted by “Need to Know,” his boots had been on the ground in Iraq and Kuwait long before the smart bombs started awing television audiences in America.

  After the first war, he was assigned to anti-terrorism activities Stateside, and spent the final four years of his Army career assigned to a task force operating out of offices shared by Wayne County’s Task Force on Organized Crime and Terrorism.

  “He was a spook as much as he was a soldier,” Miles had summarized. “In Detroit he formed a strong connection to the current generation of the civilian organization that busted up the Stahl crime family in ’68.

  “You note that he earned a master’s degree in Geo-Politics and was well on his way towards a PhD when he up and pulled the plug in 2000?”

  “That’s a long way from connecting him to the mystery in his hometown,” Bromwell said.

  “Not that far, really,” I said in my best off-hand approach, “especially if you believe that at the base level all politics are ‘local.”’

  That earned a chuckle from Miles and a scowl from the sheriff, but if he had a comeback, he let it slide.

  Jan had been sitting back in her chair, eyes on the ceiling. “Do you think it possible that Margie Phillips’ argument at the ’90 reunion – and that, it turns out, was an instant Stoney legend – could have been a dot that Dave Boyington could have connected when he was sharing pillow talk with Marci Evers in 2001?”

  Miles smiled at his friend and shared that smile with each of us in turn, in the way proud papas smile when junior does well. “It becomes more plausible when you put Frank Foster’s background into the picture. Did you note that he interned with Judge Willie Rector?”

  “What’s the significance of that?” Jan asked.

  “I asked that question, too. I talked with my people in Lansing, and they followed up on Frank’s connection. Judge Rector was the Wayne County Prosecutor in 1968; earned his judgeship on his efforts to clean up Detroit’s mob scene.”

  “But when could Boyington have reconnected with Foster?” I asked, turning back to the sheaf of papers on Foster’s background.

  “They were friendly in high school,” Jan said, still studying the ceiling. “They shared a passion for the river and the woods. They didn’t play sports, but they were active. I wouldn’t have called them ‘best friends,’ but other than Marci, I can’t recall Dave having any close relationship back then.

  “If Dave had heard anything that might have registered a Stoney connection, I can see him calling Frank; and I don’t know that he never came to Stoney when he was stationed in Detroit...”

  Rick looked at his watch, and then hurried out the door. He came back minutes later shaking his head. “Missed them, but I’ll find out about Dave’s property purchase tomorrow first thing. I’ll bet he had that place bought and maybe even built before he left the Army; that would have put him in Stoney while Foster was still working for the county.”

  Jan pulled her cell out of her purse and made a call. “Annie? Jan Stanton here.”

  She was listening and a smile spread across her face, “That’s not likely tonight, but I think we’ll be around for a few more days yet, so maybe...”

  She listened again, and then, “I’m calling to dredge your memory. Two thousand or so...Do you remember the first time you saw Dave Boyington in your place?”

  She waited and I saw her fumbling for her pen. I reached over with mine, and she took it and started scribbling, “Wait up, just a second...” She kept writing, “So that was the first time?”

  “Perfect, thanks a lot, and I’ll speak with Jim about maybe stopping for dinner and some music before we leave town... Love you too.”

  “You’re right, Rick. Annie has a photo from the Trout Opener in 1998, and both Frank and Dave are in it. She said it’s one of those framed shots she has all over the place. She redistributes them from time to time, and right now it’s hanging over her desk in her office. She said he was coming to town about once a month in ’98 and ’99; built the house the summer of ’99.”

  “There’s a certain symmetry to this,” Bromwell mused. “They were talking, and one or both of them start chasing a lead, and one or the other of them shakes a bush a bit too hard, and... think about the timing, it would have been Foster who slipped up. Whoever they were pursuing becomes active and Foster disappears...”

  “Could have happened that way,” Lawton agreed.

  Bromwell jumped back in, “Same thing could have happened with Boyington and Evers; they remained curious and probably frightened as they wondered what happened to Foster... or, perhaps, our villain worked on Foster a bit and learned about Boyington and that led to Evers...”

  “Where does Paul Ralph fit in all this?” Jan asked.

  “At the very beginning,” Lawton said, referring to his notes. “As a young lawyer, Paul Ralph worked at the firm Krueger, Javits, Stolp and Associates. He reported directly to the partner Arthur Javits III, and young Paul had an assistant, one ...”

  “Melanie Deal!” Jan blurted as she stood up. “The fire bombing, and it was some kind of warning.”

  Lawton was smiling again, “The same. Their kids, twins Duane and Sue, received a last-minute invitation to a neighborhood sleep over.”

  “But if Paul Ralph took that as a warning and fled to Stoney, he’d have had to recognize the connection to the Deal children,” Jan said. “How would that have played?”

  Lawton had his notes open, “Did you know that those two kids had their college educations paid for?”

  “We were told it was an insurance or some such thing their parents had set up before the fire...”

  “Reality is that before the fire, Paul’s law firm, knowing their clients as they did, and hearing the senior Stahl – they called him ‘Pappy’ – accuse the young people of snitching on his son and later his own activities, they did the only thing that made sense to them.

  “They fired young Ralph with a severance of half a million dollars, and they found the Deal woman a position with a small firm specializing in probate and real estate work – a long ways away from criminal representation.”

  “Whoosh,” Jan said. “That’s a pile of money in those days. No wonder they could buy that store; but, then, they worked hard at it, the whole family did.”

  Miles picked up the thought, “And, recog
nizing the irony of the situation, he must have figured the children couldn’t connect him to Detroit, so he started that trust account on the QT as some sort of penance for having ducked out leaving Melanie and her family on the spot.”

  I couldn’t help but speak at that point, “I find that difficult to swallow. Obviously my acquaintance with Mr. Ralph was short, but I saw or felt nothing that would lead me to a cowardly flight.”

  Miles wasn’t argumentative, “It may not have been so cut and dried; he might not have been aware of the danger behind the termination and severance. If he wasn’t, he might have already picked Stoney’s store before the bomb even went off in Ferndale.

  “But the bottom line is he’s the tag end of the thread, and when you start pulling there, you end up with an unraveling that provides us a possible explanation of the disappearances of Margie Phillips, Frank Foster, Dave Boyington and Marci Evers.”

  Everyone sat silently, thinking about this until finally, Rick added, “And now, what? Paul and Betty Ralph and Tony Ralph? We have to put an end to this.”

  “My thought exactly,” Miles said, stretching and looking at his watch. “You’re needed at home, Rick; Jim, Jan? Let’s find your beds, and I’ll treat you to the best food B’laire has to offer outside the Bromwell family kitchen.”

  CHAPTER 39

  Dinner was more than adequate, the kind of comfort food you usually only eat at home. My meatloaf could have come from Jan’s kitchen, and she said the same thing about her pork chop and scalloped potatoes. Miles said his basic steak and salad was about normal for that part of the world.

  He then admitted so had the previous four nights’ entrees.

  “Don’t you ever tire of steak?” Jan asked with an arched eyebrow.

  “It’s not that important to me, and when you’re eating alone it’s, you know, ‘Who cares?’”

  We sat over coffee and Jan and Miles chatted about family and mutual friends. It was pleasant, but I was getting restless; there was something we were missing, and I didn’t know what it was.

  “Folks, you’ll have to excuse me. I’m going to take Judy for a walk; I’ll meet you back at the rooms.”