The Weight of Living

by Michael Daigle

  Add Del’s voice to the chorus. Sister Katherine’s righteousness, Calista’s fear and deep pain, Lauren’s sorrow, the cries of the community center kids, pushing back against the weight of the world, even Bruno Hapworth’s twisted self-pity; and the ancient silent pain of Sarah Lawton, the voiceless faces of those girls in the photos. Bring them down, Del? I want rip open their smug world, find the key that brings back the voice to that little girl we found on the street, soothe the wounded souls, end the pain in one, loud exalted scream: No more! Maybe in that we are made whole, maybe in that smiles return; maybe I heal.

  Nagler reached over to Del and pulled him to his feet. He wrapped one arm around his friend’s shoulder

  “Yeah, Del. I’m gonna bring ’em down.”

  PART TWO

  THE CHASE AND THE TRAP

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Seen Dawson?

  Dan Yang stood at the table at Leonard’s shop occupied by Frank Nagler and shook his head, his face perplexed then smiling.

  “How did you get me to do this?” Yang asked.

  “Friendship, and a pull at that old cop desire to catch the bad guys,” Nagler said, tongue in cheek.

  Yang had left the Ironton police department after the Gabe Richman-Chris Foley case years ago and became a professor at Ironton State College. He had remained a police consultant on cases involving financial matters.

  “Sit?” Nagler asked. “Coffee?”

  Yang paused then pulled out a chair. “No,” then said, “Sure.”

  Nagler nodded to Rafe. “A coffee and a refill?”

  Yang sat and squared up several sheets of lined paper in front of him and handed them to Nagler, who with his thumb, flipped the dozen or so pages.

  “So?”

  Yang hesitated while Rafe served the coffee. “Thanks.”

  “Lot of real estate, much like you had mentioned. But a lot of flipping between companies, sometimes within weeks, almost as fast as the paperwork could be processed. A lot of it in small towns, where there is virtually no oversight, but also less municipal staff to move the paperwork. He took advantage of that.”

  “Who’s ‘he’?”

  “I’ll get to that. He did the same with the money. In and out of accounts. Hedge funds, off shore, in and out of shell companies that existed only to receive the transfer of the money before they disappeared. Some stuck, like that Mine Hill Foundation. Every now and then he needed an entity that appeared legitimate. Georgia will get him on taxes, probably Florida, Alabama, Jersey, once they look at what you will send them. Kansas, Alaska, Nebraska...”

  “Nebraska?”

  “Yes, why?”

  “That’s where this guy Randolph Garrettson was supposed to have died, but it wasn’t him.”

  “Randolph Garrettson. That’s who you’re looking for?”

  “We think so. Why?”

  Yang shuffled the papers he had placed on the table and pulled out one sheet, perused it a second, and then turned it to Nagler, with his finger on a name.

  Yang chuckled. “Good luck with that. Look at this list. There’s a Randolph Garrettson, a Randolph T. Garrettson, a Randolph A. Garrettson, and then Randolph Garrettsons two, three and four. And a few Garretts, with two ‘t’s’ Garrets with one ‘t,’ Garrellsons, Garretsons with one ‘t’ and so on.”

  “And most of these people don’t exist.”

  “Right. And all it takes is a name with one different letter to mangle a search.”

  Nagler dropped the papers on the table and leaned back. “How the hell are we supposed to catch him?”

  Yang raised his eyebrows. Nagler had seen him do that before, during the Richman case when he had a great idea. “We set a trap.”

  Nagler shook his head and smiled slightly. “How?”

  Yang leaned in. “This stuff isn’t that sophisticated, Frank. Ponzi Scheme 101. Set up a company, get investors, use new money to pay off old money. Close it down and skip town when it goes south. That’s what a lot of this is. Much of the real estate was just a way to launder the cash.”

  “Wait a minute,” Nagler said. “In Jersey, someone, possibly Garrettson, is sending phony letters to homeowners saying their homes are in foreclosure. They don’t pay attention, he sends someone to court to buy the paper...”

  “And that’s how he gets the real estate to hide the cash,” Yang said. “Once it gets in motion, it is really hard to find. You create a blizzard of paper and forms. By the time one finally gets processed, he’s on to the next one, and so on. Don’t you see, Frank? We use his own scheme against him.” Yang placed his tongue in his cheek and closed one eye as he thought. “What are the chances that Jimmy Dawson could post a story about some of this?”

  “He may have already. He’s got a story out in a day or two about the Mine Hill Foundation.”

  Yang nodded confidently. “Good. Watch the online classifieds. I’m gonna sprinkle some bait.”

  ****

  Nagler watched Yang leave the bookstore, which seemed quieter than usual. Rafe at the cash register handled a sale, two women in the children’s book section examined titles and a couple of teens were at the computer table with books out apparently conducting research.

  What, rather, who, was missing was Calista Knox, Nagler realized. She’d been absent for a couple of days; her soft constant chatter had become commonplace as it filled the rooms with a soft buzz. She had even missed a physical therapy session with Leonard.

  “Hey, Rafe, Where’s Leonard?”

  “Hey. He’s in the warehouse with Bobby, messing with those books again, trying to get them out of way, you know, in a safer place.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Hey, Frank. What’s up with them, the books? Del was bummin’, didn’t want to say anything.”

  Nagler hesitated, trying to find a short answer, then said, “It’s a bad tale, Rafe; businessmen many decades ago using young girls for sex. I don’t even know all of it, but what I know is bad.”

  “That’s twisted, man. Twisted.”

  Nagler pulled his mind back from wherever it had drifted. Would someone come for those books? Suddenly, it seemed possible. “Have you seen Calista lately?”

  Rafe grinned. “That crazy chick? Naw, not in a couple of days. But Leonard’s been missing her. He’s always makin’ calls on that phone. When she don’t pick up, he shuts it and sometimes hard, puts it back on the table. Sometimes he wipes his face with one hand like he might be crying; then he stares into the street. I mean I know he can’t see nothing, but still. She may be crazy to the rest of us, but she’s straight for Leonard.”

  Nagler smiled at the young man. “Thanks, Rafe.”

  The kid held up a closed fist, and Nagler reached over and banged his own fist into it.

  “First one?”

  “What?”

  “First fist bump?”

  Nagler laughed. “Yeah, probably.”

  Rafe smiled and shook his head. “You got some serious catch-up comin’, man.”

  As he walked to the warehouse, Nagler realized that the books would have to be moved because someone attached to the Mine Hill Foundation would figure out they weren’t where they last stored them, and someone smart would know that Bruno Hapworth was attached to the foundation and in some way — he stopped walking and glanced quickly around the street — “That Hapworth is somehow attached to me,” he said aloud.

  He pulled out his phone.

  “Hey Ramirez, anyone using that old police evidence van? Good. Can you fill out an evidence order? Yeah, at the warehouse next to Leonard’s store. Twenty-five boxes of books. Make it obvious. Case number? Um, mark it ‘pending.’”

  Nagler scanned the street before he stepped into the warehouse.

  ****

  Leonard sat near the door of the second floor, the only breezy spot in the room. Bobby with a handcart was shuffling piles of boxes from side to side.

  “Hi, Frank,” Leonard said. “I heard your steps on the stairs.” He reached over and fel
t for the three books on the bench next to him, and finding them, dropped them on the floor. “Sit, please.”

  Nagler sat and started to tell Leonard that he was going to have the foundation books moved, but Leonard started talking.

  “This was a wonderful idea to add this line of business,” he began. “I had no idea so many people were interested in old books, or wanted copies of paperback mysteries or children’s books. And Bobby is doing a wonderful job managing it all. We are renovating the first floor as a used book shop, have you noticed? Just a few small classified ads and...”

  Nagler touched Leonard’s shoulder. “Where’s Calista?”

  Leonard began again.

  “Have you heard about the farmer’s market the city is planning to start right out front? Rashad Jackson wants me to inaugurate it with a speech. Oh, dear. What should I say?” He paused. He rubbed his hands together again and again, linked his fingers, then folded his arms, then released them. His eyes darted unseeing about the room; he stared at the floor.

  “We hope... I...wonder...Is she in trouble, Frank?”

  Nagler rubbed Leonard’s neck. “No, no, Leonard. Shouldn’t she be here?”

  Leonard covered his mouth with both hands. “She’s trying to help Alton Garrett.” He glanced up at Nagler. “She didn’t want you to know.”

  Nagler sighed and leaned against the wall. “Yeah, I know. She thinks I’m angry with her. I’m not. She and Garrett and Sister Katherine have been running something on their own for a while, but I think it is getting out of control and they all need to be very careful. It all started with that little girl, but it’s bigger than that. Did she say anything to you?”

  Leonard smiled. “No, Frank. She’s smarter than that. She had told me that she was involved in a rescue mission and the less I knew about it the better. That’s what she called it: A rescue mission.”

  “Okay,” Nagler said. “I need to hear from her, because I can help her. And, because you need to hear from her.”

  Leonard wiped his eyes. “I see her face, Frank. Oh, I know, see is a relative term for a blind man. But I’ve felt her face, and shoulders, held her hands, run my fingers down her nose and along her jaw line, across her eyes. I know what she looks like, the texture of her skin and the soft, yet spiky nature of her hair. I imagine its red color and feel its heat. I have felt my name on her shoulder where she had that tattoo done. I’ve held her, kissed her lips, and felt her goodness fill my soul. I’ve had such good friends and protectors — you and Lauren, Del and his kids, Bobby — but Calista is my Martha, Frank, my one and truest love.”

  Nagler smiled and nodded, his throat full as the thought of his young wife Martha settled. “Good for you, Leonard,” he tried to say, but a choking cough interfered. “Bring her home. She needs my help.”

  He stood up and touched Leonard’s shoulder. “I stopped by to tell you that Lieutenant Ramirez is going to take those books from the Mine Hill Foundation off your hands. They might be evidence.”

  Leonard chuckled. “Is that the first time you’ve ever taken books into protective custody, Frank?”

  “Yeah, might be. I’ll tell Bobby.”

  ****

  “Mysterious foundation owns Catholic Sisters home.”

  Wow, Nagler thought. Dawson got the church attorneys to talk. Good for him.

  The story called the foundation a “shape-shifting, hydra-headed entity that changed names and locations as often as some people change shirts. But that was the point: A new look all the time.”

  The story cited lost documents, missed meetings, lack of communication, deed searches, and the absence of an actual owner or spokesperson as keys to ongoing problems at the home, such as poor maintenance and failure to pay taxes.

  The home is not a nonprofit?

  The lawyers explained in the story that by selling the home to a for-profit corporation, the building was not considered church property, and thus, was a taxable property. Dawson’s story noted that the taxes had not been paid for several years, and the lawyers were negotiating with the town.

  The details were repeated in Ironton’s tale with the old theater, an old nightclub in Mount Olive, and a variety of shopping centers, apartment buildings, warehouses, and other holdings scattered around the county.

  Dawson included a list of two dozen other properties that the foundation apparently owned; some, Nagler noted, were in the neighborhood of Leonard’s store. Given the foreclosure scam Dawson had documented previously, Nagler wondered how many of those properties had been acquired fraudulently.

  He closed the story on his tablet computer and looked around Barry’s.

  This was usually the time when Dawson would make a grand entrance and accept the mock adulation from the lunch crowd. And the cheering would have been well earned. The murmur in the diner was low and angry, and said, “Don’t mess with my church.”

  “Hey, Barry,” Nagler yelled out. “Seen Dawson?”

  Barry looked up from wiping the counter. “No. Not for a couple days. But I tell you I’m having my attorney look at the paperwork on this building.”

  “Good idea. Wonder where he is?”

  ****

  Late spring had not been kind to Ironton. One intense snowstorm was followed by an ice storm and a day of rain that filled the streets with slushy puddles and the sidewalks covered with Styrofoam snow pocked with road dirt and cigarette butts and wrapped with fast food papers; icicle swords hung from rooftops, seeking victims, and city crews with picks hacked away at frozen storm drains to free intersection ponds.

  Frozen seemed to be the right description, Nagler thought, as he navigated the icy walkways, trying not to step into a waterhole or wrench his sore left foot. Frozen politics, frozen economics, and now some suspicious company claiming a couple dozen properties that will remain vacant and useless until they are exposed.

  He stopped by his desk at police headquarters to check for messages and to ask Ramirez about the books, which had been collected and stored. He hadn’t been in the office much since that tweed hat had been seen in the lobby; didn’t trust the place.

  He had to admit that the tweed hat had become an obsession. He once followed an older man with a similar hat for five blocks, even stopping in the drug store while he had a prescription filled. While stopped at red lights, he scanned the pedestrians crossing in front of his car; while walking; while shopping. He even scanned some traffic video. And yet there it was: On the top of the head of a man who threatened Bruno Hapworth, and resting on a table in the city hall lobby; resting, he admitted, on the edge of what was this case.

  Soon, he had a feeling, it would stop being a phantom.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  A pillar of the community

  Alone. The kitchen. The cone of light from that cursed lamp filling the table.

  In one pile, Yang’s findings. In another, some of the files that Guidrey sent up from Atlanta. In a third, the books of photos from the Mine Hill Foundation boxes, and to the right, the flash drive that was found in one box. Finally, a chance to examine all this stuff, he thought, and create from the stuff, a plan.

  The flash drive would be last, Nagler thought; maybe it would provide the glue that would hold all this together. Or maybe it’s just cat photos.

  Oh, and a beer, half-empty, sitting in a puddle of its sweat. Lauren would roll her eyes because he failed to use a coaster, or at the very least, a napkin.

  Distractedly: She’s out late. A meeting? He couldn’t recall.

  So, what’s all this mess mean?

  First, Guidrey’s pile.

  Nagler recalled he had said Randolph Garrettson had kidnapped four girls, only one of whom was found.

  Okay, page one of the summary said the same thing. Page two changed it.

  They were his daughters. Three of them were killed and the fourth escaped.

  Nagler read the summary again, feeling his head spin. How did they get it so wrong?

  The last daughter was the only witness to what
had happened in that cabin. No, wrong, there was one other, a son.

  Was that who had died in Nebraska in that I-80 crash?

  Nagler shook his head, then swigged some beer, emptying the bottle. These files were maddeningly incomplete.

  How about a date or two?

  Okay, the report on the Nebraska crash had a date: Fifteen years ago.

  Nagler reached for the file from Yang, who to his ever-loving credit, had run a spreadsheet including dates of all the transactions listed in the Atlanta files.

  Okay, fifteen years ago, Garrettson, was running thirteen companies. One in Jersey, one in Florida, one in Nebraska, (okay) and the rest in Georgia.

  Nagler flipped another page of Yang’s report.

  Ten years ago, Garrettson was running seventeen companies, one in Jersey, and the rest in the South; five years ago, there was still the Jersey company, and nine in the South and a couple other states.

  Then, two years ago, okay, wow, there was only one listed company, in Jersey.

  I wonder.

  Nagler pulled out his tablet and looked at Jimmy Dawson’s story on the Mine Hill Foundation.

  There it was, the first time the name showed up on the books was two years ago. That was when new subsidiaries were created, the money shuffling began in earnest, and the phony foreclosure sales began.

  He must be in Jersey, Nagler thought, somewhat amazed. Why can’t we find him?

  Nagler glanced at Dawson’s story. Eight years ago, something called Church Hill Estates acquired the Sisters Home, then sold it to CHE LLC, then to another company, then finally to the Mine Hill Foundation two years ago, and then swapped it a couple more times, judging from the lawyer’s comments.

  Nagler pondered that while he got another beer from the refrigerator.

  That gives us a time frame.

  What about the kids?

  He turned back to Guidrey’s file.

  The three girls were killed and dumped in different states, the report said. The girls were roughly the same age, about ten to twelve, and discovered about two years apart each, so a six-year killing spree.