1 The Reluctant Dick - The Case of the Not-So-Fair Trader

by Jim Stevens

  To take this all one step further, the difference between a good detective and a great detective is: the latter finds ways of unleashing the idiocy of the criminal so that he or she will inevitably do something so dumb that they will virtually handcuff themselves on their way into the slammer.

  This was the whole point of releasing bogus information in the Sun Times article.

  ___

  “I’m getting good at this, Mister Sherlock,” Tiffany tells me as I climb into her parked Lexus.

  “And your reasoning behind this revelation of self-worth?”

  “I did exactly what you told me, as soon as Heffelfinger got off the plane, I followed him here.”

  We sit in her car, watching the house. A newer bigger sign with Abe’s picture has been added to the front lawn.

  “You know where here is?”

  “No, do you?”

  “At Millie’s house.”

  “You’re kidding?”

  “Remember, you dropped me off here?”

  “Oh, yeah,” she says. “Heffelfinger must have gotten really horny on his trip.”

  “I have an odd feeling that Heffelfinger’s personal needs are not the primary purpose of his visit.”

  We hear a row taking place inside the home. Millie is especially vocal.

  “Told ya,” Tiffany says, “little accounting lady is quite the screamer.”

  “Sound effects are assumptions, Tiffany.”

  “They’re doing it.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Mister Sherlock, I had this boyfriend once, who’d be gone for only three days and become an animal when he got back into town.”

  “What happened to that one?”

  “First time he came home and wasn’t chomping on the bit, I knew he’d been playing around.”

  “Damned if we do, damned if we don’t.”

  A cab drives up and parks a few spaces in front of my Toyota, honks its horn, and waits.

  The front door of the bungalow opens. Heffelfinger steps out. He and Millie continue their heated discussion. Tiffany and I watch through the car’s tinted windows.

  “See, after-sex pillow talk, Mister Sherlock.”

  “She’s pissed because he didn’t come back with any of Alvin’s money; and he’s pissed because he’s heard of a witness popping up and spilling a lot of beans. At least that’s a good guess.”

  “My guess is,” Tiffany says, “there ain’t no fury like the fury of a granny scorned.”

  Heffelfinger wheels his overnight bag behind him on the way to the cab.

  “Where do you think he’s going?” Tiffany asks.

  “He’s going to see Doris.”

  “One woman not enough for him?”

  “Not in this case.”

  “Maybe he took Viagra and has one of those four-hour erections, and he’s visiting all the women he knows,” Tiffany concludes.

  The cab takes off.

  “He’s getting away. You want me to give chase?”

  “No, Tiffany. You’ve earned a spa treatment.”

  “I agree, Mister Sherlock.”

  ___

  Agent Romo Simpson is much more conducive to meeting with me than he was before.

  “You release all the guys you captured?” I ask.

  “Yesterday.”

  “Your boss come down on you yet?”

  “Yesterday.”

  “You have no clue how Alvin did it; do you?”

  Romo twirls his coffee cup around and around. “None.”

  “Don’t feel bad.”

  “We went over every trade made, traced money, watched every movement for a month, and I had every MBA in the FBI on this thing. We come up with bupkis and still millions disappeared, vanished into thin air.”

  “You picked the wrong guy to cut a deal with.”

  He looks up at me for the first time. “Now you tell me.”

  Nothing worse than knowing you got sucked in, suckered, and skewered on the way out. I do feel a bit sorry for the upstart G-man, but my feeling will pass.

  “You want in on this investigation or are you going to continue to be a lone wolf?”

  “I can’t jeopardize the Bureau’s investigation.”

  “You just admitted you know nothing.”

  “All right,” Romo says, “I’m in. What do I got to do?” Romo is at least smart enough to realize that to get into the club he’s going to have to pay a few dues.

  I hand over a list of serial numbers. “If any of these Ben Franklins show up in bulk, do your best to get a description of who cashed them in.”

  “That’s next to impossible,” he says.

  I continue my list. “Take whatever you pulled on Alvin’s trading habits, take them over to this guy’s house and put your heads together.” I hand him Herman’s address and phone number.

  He has no idea of the amount of dues he’s about to pay in order to get into our little club.

  “I have to know who the guy was, leaving the condo that Friday night.”

  “We’ve run the picture through every database we have and nothing comes up.”

  “Keep trying.”

  Romo writes it all down, making his own list.

  “Breakaway” blasts out of my phone. “Hello.”

  It is rude to talk on a cell phone in front of another; but it’s Romo, so it is easy to make an exception.

  “How did you know Heffelfinger would be here?” Norbert asks.

  “I’m smart,” I answer. “How many times do I have to tell you?”

  Norbert is in his car, probably eating a donut, in front of the Augustus mansion in Kenilworth. “The little mice are starting to scurry, Sherlock.”

  “I thought they would.”

  There is a pause for Norbert to swallow. “Guess what?”

  “They found the shooter on the grassy knoll?”

  “Lizzy doesn’t exist past two years ago.”

  “Ah, now that’s interesting.”

  “We traced her back to Massachusetts and then she falls off the radar screen.”

  “Any way you can pick up some prints on her?”

  “Not without asking.”

  “More on Joey?”

  “No.”

  “Have you tapped Doris’ phone yet?”

  “It’s been tapped for weeks. We got nothing.”

  “Steve working Clayton?”

  “As we speak.”

  “If you talk to him, tell him to check our little entrepreneur’s credit line.”

  “Why?”

  “I believe it has run aground in a sea of red ink.”

  I hang up Norbert. I look over and see Romo has written down notes on my conversation. “Want to get filled in?” I ask.

  “Please.”

  ___

  I obey the rule of the FBI receptionist and make my next call outside on the sidewalk.

  “Yes, boss,” Tiffany answers.

  “Before you get to the spa, I need you to do something.”

  “I’m your girl.”

  “Jonas needs a set of Lizzy’s fingerprints.”

  “Okay.”

  “I want you to get them.”

  “How?”

  “Find something she’s touched.”

  “Christina?”

  “Something a little less animated.”

  “I’m on it, Mister Sherlock, I’m on it.”

  I return home a little after seven. The only thing in the house to eat is a box of Fruit Loops. I sit on the couch, eat cold cereal, and stare at the index cards on the Original Carlo.

  ___

  Horse shows rank right up there with watching paint dry, standing in line at the DMV, and waiting for your turn in the emergency ward. Painful boredom at its best.

  It is Saturday morning at nine a.m. I sit in the last row of spectators in a huge, hot, humidity-filled barn which reeks of horse manure. There are hundreds of kids, ninety-nine percent of whom are girls seven to twelve years old, all dressed in jodhpurs, black bo
ots, white blouses, blue blazers, and black riding helmets. The three or four boys in the group are dressed in similar garb and might as well be singing show tunes and signing up for a subscription to the Advocate. In the middle of the arena is one hefty women, she’s the Judge Judy of the horsey set. To my left, on a slight riser, is a table with one woman announcing the different events, horse names, and corresponding riders. One woman shuffles papers, trying to keep it all straight, and one woman is filling out the winner’s name on the back of cheap red, white, and blue ribbons.

  The events, which began at a little after seven a.m., are strikingly similar. Sets of eight riders, weighing somewhere between forty and eighty pounds each, sit upon horses ten times their size. They line up, nose to butt (the horses, not the riders) and march in excruciatingly slow motion down one side of the arena, turn around, and march back from where they started.

  I can see absolutely no difference between one rider and the next. The horses -- many of which are stable nags who repeat the same thing over and over with different riders -- obviously share the absolute monotony. At the end of each event, Judge Judy hands a note to a semi-Pony Express rider who gallops the results to the announcer’s table, so the winners can be blared over the tinny loudspeaker system.

  In the spectator section where I sit, very well-dressed moms (husbands must be on the golf course) sip coffee, fiddle with video cameras, scratch, fidget, or talk on their cell phones so all around them can hear their innermost thoughts. They share the traits of being wealthy, polished, Northshore folk who pride themselves in being members of an exclusive, thoroughbred set of individuals, who can afford a hobby where the plaything eats more than the player. The aspect I find most fascinating about this group is that these neat, clean, manicured women have no problem whatsoever with a horse defecating a steaming, stream of crap, a few feet before their very eyes. They don’t gag at the smell, and oftentimes walk right through it without the least bit of hesitation. These are the same women who pay people to walk their purebred dogs.

  My ex-wife has become, or at least is trying to become, one of the chosen few, “horse mother” women. She wears her boots and equestrian garb proudly, straddles a fence with the best of them, and yells encouragement to the girls with comments like “Give ’em a lot of leg.” Why my ex-wife would ever want my daughters involved in such an insipid, so-called sport, as well as the vaulted social strata, is beyond my imagination. Not only is it boring and obviously rigged, I have yet to see one kid break into a smile while on a horse. They are either too frightened, or having fun is prohibited in the rules of the road -- or path in this case. Worst of all, it is hardly a fair competition. Some kids ride their personal ponies while others are stuck with beat-up stable horses who have “been there done that” way, way too many times. The sport’s management, the people that run these shows and pick the winners and losers, are older, fat, unmarried females who obviously consider horses a much better choice of companion than the opposite sex. These women are in a constant heaping-praise mode to all the young riders, whether the kids are any good or not. They never quit patting backs, rubbing helmets, and hugging the girls as if they were the little ones they never had.

  Little League, where art thou?

  Before the lunch break at noon, where the barn barbeque sells five-dollar hot dogs and eight-dollar energy drinks, Kelly has ridden in two competitions and garnered one white ribbon. Care hasn’t been so lucky. She is zero for three. In her last event, one kid fell off her horse and got third place, but my Care got nothing. She is in tears as she greets me.

  “I lost.”

  “No, you didn’t, you were great.”

  “You’re just saying that,” she says through her tears.

  “You were as good as anyone else out there -- actually better.” I try to reassure her.

  “It isn’t fair.”

  “Nor is life, Care.”

  “I want to win.”

  “So, do I.”

  “What should I do, Dad?”

  Not being of the horsey mind set, I’m not sure what to say. “What did your mother say?”

  “I’m not giving Rascal enough crop.”

  I have no clue what this means, so I merely tell my daughter, “try your best, Care, if you always do your best, you’ll always be a winner.”

  Kelly comments on my comment. “That is so corny, Dad.”

  We move up in the line to sample the overpriced fare, it’s funny how the kids leave their mother and come to see me when they’re hungry.

  Care asks, “Dad, what do you think of our horse?”

  “He looks like he’s had a lot of practice at these shows.” I try to keep the sarcasm out of my tone. “A real, seasoned professional.”

  I look to my left and see the Judge Judy lady retrieving something from a horse trailer hooked up to an SUV that should be named The Terminator. I give Kelly a twenty, leave the line and approach the woman. “Hello,” I say, “I’m Officer Sherlock. My girls are in the horse show.”

  “How are you?” she says suspiciously.

  “My daughter’s a bit disappointed. The last event she was in, the kid who got the ribbon fell off the horse and still beat her.”

  “That’ll happen,” she says, trying to busy herself with a bridle or some such thing.

  I place my foot on the bumper of her trailer stopping her activity. “I see your registration is not current and the brake lights don’t seem to conform to legal specifications.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “Hate to see you get pulled over, before you get a chance to fix all that. Ticket could be as expensive as the repairs.”

  Judge Judy asks, “What did you say your daughter’s name was?”

  The afternoon events, which were scheduled to stretch far into the night, were slightly different than the morning’s marches. Three, two-foot jumps were placed on the path, and the riders would have to maneuver over the obstacles both to and fro. At the speed the horses travelled, this could hardly be called a jump, more like a step up.

  It seems a bit inconceivable to me that a fifty-pound girl would have the strength to get a twelve-hundred-pound horse to jump. There must be a lot of faith within show jumping.

  It is the same series of eight horses in a row, with Judge Judy in charge of picking the winners and losers. Over and over and over, one flight is as slow and plodding as the last. The excitement being generated would challenge anyone with a weak heart.

  Care’s first flight goes on a little after 2 pm. She’s tentative, a bit unsure of herself, and barely slaps the horse with her black riding whip, sending Rascal over the jumps with the enthusiasm of a criminal returning to solitary confinement. The event, which lasts less than two minutes, takes about as much athletic ability as drinking a beer at a Cub game. I can see no difference between the riders.

  A few minutes after the event ends, the announcement is made: “And the blue ribbon goes to Carolyn Sherlock.”

  I see my youngest daughter jump for joy into the arms of her mother. I promise myself I will wait at least twenty years before, or if ever, I tell her the truth.

  “Mister Sherlock…”

  I hear, and a few seconds later feel a tap on my shoulder. “Mister Sherlock.”

  “Tiffany.”

  “Hi.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Somebody tried to kill Brewster.”

  “Who?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “When?”

  “An hour ago.”

  “Why didn’t you call me?”

  “I did,” she says. “You must have turned your phone off.”

  “Oh yeah,” I say. “They ask you to do that so you don’t spook the horses.”

  I get up out of my chair. “I got to say goodbye to my girls.”

  “Say hello for me, would you?” Tiffany sees the girls across a well-traveled horse path. “I’m not risking six-hundred-dollar Manolos with this much horseshit lying around.”

>   “I can’t say I blame you.”

  I make my way over to the girls who stand with their mother. “Congratulations, Care. Told you if you just did your best it would all work out.”

  “I won; I won.” Care shows me her ribbon.

  “I’m proud of you.”

  Her mother clears her throat to get my attention.

  I don’t give it to her. “Girls, I have to go.”

  “Why, Dad?” Kelly asks.

  “One of my clients just got shot.”

  “Can I come?” Kelly asks.

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because you’re in the middle of this exhilarating and exciting competition.”

  “I’d rather see somebody bleeding.”

  I give the girls each a kiss and almost get away; but I hear my ex say, “the babies still need shoes.”

  “And their mother needs priorities.”

  She says, “See me now or see me later.”

  I ignore the orange-level threat. “You girls do your best, sorry I got to go. Love ya.”

  I give last hugs and walk off toward where Tiffany waits. I hear in the background, “Is that your dad’s girlfriend?”

  ___

  “This is the third Saturday in a row I’ve had to work, Sherlock,” Norbert informs me as I arrive. “I hate that.”

  “Where’s the victim?”

  “Inside. The boy’s still shaking.”

  The police techs are once again out and about in Alvin’s back forty. It has got to be easier for them this time, since it is a return appearance.

  “How many shots?”

  “He remembers four,” Norbert says, “so I’m figuring maybe two.”

  “Pull any slugs?”

  “Two from the garage wall.”

  “A foot or two above his head?” I ask.

  “How’d you know?”

  “I’m smart.”

  Tiffany follows as I walk off into the wooded border of the property, which would be the line of sight to the back of the garage.

  “What was little Brewster doing out here?” I ask my assistant.

  “Taking out the trash.”