She held her phone up next to her laptop. On the computer, the artist’s rendition of DB Cooper looked back. Henry had stared at the image so many times that every bit was familiar: the small stern mouth, the widow’s peak, the sharp chin. On her phone, Tess showed him the 1959 photo of Ron Benham with his Air Force buddies.
“I see it less and less,” he said. “Maybe if he wasn’t wearing his cap.”
“No,” Tess said. “Not Benham. Look at this guy.”
She pointed at the shortest of the three men in the photo. His jaw was sharp, closer to Cooper’s. Even the smile was diminutive compared to the others. Henry squinted at the name: Kevin F.
Tess’s middle finger was dark at the tip, presumably from her wine.
Lovely hands.
“Closer,” he said. “But who is he?”
“He lived in your apartment before you.”
Henry and Frieda spoke at once. “What?”
“You just noticed this?” Henry asked.
“Honestly, I think we were so focused on Mr. Benham.”
“Is it possible,” Luba asked, watching Henry warily, “that what your criminal is looking for is in your apartment?”
Henry was stunned. Once Frieda went to bed, he should go back to the apartment to pick up Shima.
“Who is he?” he asked. “What happened to him? And who is the third guy, Bryan D?”
“I’ve never heard of the other guy, I’m sure,” Tess said. “But Kevin Fullarton died just last year.”
Henry snapped back from the table as though hit with a cattle prod. Tess flinched in surprise, splashing wine into her lap.
“Henry!”
“Fullarton.” The name stuck in Henry’s throat like a barbed hook.
Chapter Forty-Five
Henry took Tess’s wine from her hand and downed what remained in two gulps, pacing in a circle. He gesticulated with the empty glass as he spoke.
“We know the pawnshop as Corbeau’s Silver & Gold, which is what it’s called because that’s Julian’s last name. But, when Julian’s mom came to the station, Sergeant Khatri told me her name was Linda Fullarton. Furthermore, when we were in the pawnshop, there was a sign for ‘Fullarton Bros. Silver & Gold’, which was the shop’s name under the previous owner. I’ll be damned if Julian isn’t Kevin Fullarton’s nephew.”
Tess stabbed at the table with her finger as she spoke. “This means that his—your—unit has to hold the key.”
“Does it?” he asked. “My gut tells me the key is the pawnshop.”
He tapped his chin with the rim of the glass. “A pawnshop is a cash business, so there should be some means of laundering the money, but I still don’t see how. Sure, some of the money might have got into circulation and never been detected. But all of it? It’s not possible.”
Henry looked at his palms. “The answer was right there. I had it in my hands. There were records of the purchases and pawn loans going back decades. I was literally holding the answer when Keller showed up.”
Frieda ran from the room.
“Now you think Kevin Fullarton could be DB Cooper?” Tess asked.
“No. I think there’s a link between Ron Benham and that pawnshop. Therefore, there’s a link between Julian’s murder and the house on Richardson. Damn it.” Henry pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes as he thought of their fingerprints on the freezer. “And, we can’t say anything to the police without admitting we were there.”
“Hen?” Frieda’s voice interrupted his musing.
Henry’s vision sparkled as he blinked to take in what he was seeing. Frieda was holding the book he had handed to her in the pawnshop: the red leather-bound ledger for 1971.
“Is this what you’re looking for?” Her beaming smile said that she already knew the answer.
“You’ve been carrying this around the whole time?” he said with amazement, taking the book.
“I sort of forgot about it, except that it’s kind of heavy.”
Henry opened the book to the middle and started flipping through the pages. The light from the chandelier over the table shaded as everyone crowded around.
He found the entries for November 24, 1971, and they read the list of transactions. Purchases, sales, property taken in, and loans made.
“What does this tell us?” asked Luba.
“This tells us nothing without matching it to our index card,” Tess said, diving back into her bag.
“Actually,” Henry said, “there’s already something interesting here. Look at the writing on all the days. It’s the same penmanship.”
Tess produced the index card and laid it on the table. “The card matches, too.”
“So what?” asked Luba.
“So,” Henry pointed at the book, “the person who wrote all of this couldn’t have been hijacking in the States if he was working in Vancouver on November 24th.”
“An employee?” Luba suggested.
“Anything’s possible,” Henry said. “But it’s the same writing in the entire book.” He flipped through the pages, stopping at odd intervals. “I’m thinking only one person would be authorized to make loans. The owner. If I’m right, then Kevin Fullarton is also not DB Cooper.”
Henry picked up the card and turned it over.
“This one’s different from the others I recall seeing in the pawnshop. The others were typed, not handwritten like this one.”
The back had numbers beginning at fifty and counting down. “And this appears to be a loan for fifty bucks.”
“I found it,” Tess said. “That’s not fifty bucks.”
In the ledger book, the entry read,
WFT Duffel & Jackson $50,000
Henry pulled out his phone and punched in numbers. “The index card is an amortization schedule for a loan. Fullarton loaned someone fifty grand and got repaid a thousand bucks a month over four years.” He looked back at the ledger and the card.
“Holy…” Henry again typed onto his phone. “When I first read the card, I thought that Duffel and Jackson were the people who had sold or pawned something. But look at the columns in the ledger.” Henry pointed at the other entries on the page.
“WFT is the name. Duffel and Jackson are the things that WFT pawned in order to borrow fifty thousand dollars.”
“Getting lost here, Hen,” Frieda said.
Henry became hyper-animated, his fingers spread wide as he waved his arms.
“What did Cooper get away with, Fred?”
“Money.”
“More specifically.”
“Two hundred thousand dollars.”
“More specifically.”
“Twenties.”
“Yes. How many?”
“Augh,” Frieda groaned.
“Ten thousand,” Tess said, picking up the index card.
Henry smiled.
“Right,” he said. “And who is on the US twenty-dollar bill?”
“Andrew Jackson,” Tess said. “So, the card says that WFT brought a duffel bag into the pawnshop with nine-thousand three-hundred and eighty twenty-dollar bills.”
“Or, one hundred and eighty thousand six-hundred US dollars,” Henry said. “The rest probably either came loose after Cooper jumped from the plane, or it got spent. We know some of it turned up in a sandbar down in Washington State in the 1980s.”
“Why would they get a loan for less money than they had?” Luba asked.
“Good question.” Henry flipped back and forth between the front and back of the pawnshop card.
“You said the cash was worthless, right?” Tess asked.
“You cheeky bastard,” Henry said, handing Tess the card and taking over her laptop.
“Excuse me?”
“No. It’s clever,” he said as he searched through the Net-Tectives site. “The ransom is all traceable by the serial numbers. So the challenge with laundering this cash starts right with getting it placed into the system without leading the authorities right to you. But, until you do this, you can’t go throug
h the next step of legitimizing the source of the ransom. The laundering. Cooper, or whoever, solved the placement issue by never depositing the money into the system to begin with. Look.”
He pointed at the screen. The two familiar drawings of Cooper were part of a larger wanted poster, including a physical description and reward.
If you have information regarding the identity or whereabouts of this individual, please contact the FBI in your area.
“The FBI were offering fifteen thousand dollars for information. Fullarton couldn’t spend the money, either. But if the loan wasn’t repaid, Fullarton could have handed the money in and claimed a reward. You couldn’t spend the cash, but it was far from worthless.”
“Fifteen is not fifty,” Luba said.
“Right,” Henry said. “And who would pay more than the FBI? If we look long enough, I think we’ll discover that the insurance companies for the airline would have been desperate to get their money back. I’ll bet they would have paid at least fifty thousand dollars.” He searched further. “Fullarton would just say that fifty thousand was all the customer had asked for. Even fifty thousand dollars was a king’s ransom in 1971. Very decent seed money to start building a fortune.”
Henry didn’t even bother to hide his smugness. The plan was simple, and beautiful in its simplicity.
“But who is WFT?” Frieda asked.
The room slowed to a standstill.
They stared at the pages. Occasionally, someone would pick up the index card, looking at one side, turning it over, and inspecting the other.
One by one, Frieda, Luba and Tess drifted away.
Frieda lay on the floor with her laptop. Pillows from the bed she was sharing with Tess were piled under her chest and chin. Her short hair had dried in a burst of chaos. Luba made tea for herself and Tess, coffee for Frieda and Henry. Tess reclined on the couch in the living room, scrolling through pages of Net-Tectives evidence and conspiracy, picking at the bowl of Cheezies. Henry sat alone at the kitchen table, where the evening had got its second wind, flipping back and forth between the same few pages in the pawnshop ledger.
Luba placed her hand on Henry’s back as she poured more coffee into his cup. She let out a small laugh as she read over his shoulder.
“Like the cartoon,” she said.
“Pardon?”
“This man here,” she said, pointing at the entry above the WFT loan in the ledger. “He sold a road runner. Like the cartoon.”
“No,” Henry said, irritated. “It says 1968 Road Runner. That’s a car.”
“Is it unusual to pawn a car?” she asked.
“Well, I don’t know if it’s unusual.” He pictured the pawnshop in his mind. The rough corner of the downtown east side. It was possible that someone might have brought a car in. There was the loading bay in the back.
He stared at the entry.
Lee, James 1968 Road Runner OR JCL22 $850
Henry leaned backward and wrapped his arms around Luba in a sort of hug. The Russian expat held her arms stiffly at her side. He stopped just short of kissing her.
“What did you find?” Tess asked.
“James Lee,” he said. “On the same day as our ransom loan, he sold the pawnshop a car with Oregon plates.”
Tess and Frieda were typing furiously even before Henry had a chance to start.
“There are too many on Google,” Tess said. “I’ll try directories.”
“There’s nothing in the Cooper thread on Net-Tectives,” Frieda added.
“Well, that’s not entirely surprising, Fred,” Henry said. It was sweet that she was trying to innovate her own contribution.
“Hen,” she said.
“Hang on.” Henry scrolled through a directory of Lee names in Oregon. It would require brute force and a lot of time to investigate all of them. It may even be too much work. The name was far too common.
Maybe it was time to turn in. Better to start with clear heads in the morning.
“No, Hen,” Frieda insisted. “I found him.” Her expression was a convoluted combination of pride and concern. Everyone stopped what they were doing and joined her on the floor.
“But it’s not what you think,” she said, twisting to face the others and groaning as she lifted herself to her knees. It was a Net-Tectives page, but not DB Cooper.
MissingPersons/Cold Cases/WA – Paulette Johnston
November 25, 1971 Part 2
Henry read aloud. “Washington State Patrol is asking the public for help in search of a missing woman. Paulette Johnston was last seen in Camas, Clark County, Washington in the early hours of Thursday, November 25, 1971.” He raised an eyebrow. “What is this, Fred?”
“Keep reading.” Her hand shook with excitement as she finished her coffee.
The missing woman’s boyfriend, James Lee, was the original suspect. Ultimately, no one was ever convicted, the woman was never found, and her disappearance remained unexplained to this day. Her sister was still looking for her and had started the thread.
Tess interrupted the silence, her tone skeptical. “So what? Lee hijacks the plane, drives to Canada, sells his car, leaves the money with Fullarton, and returns to Washington State to be interviewed about his girlfriend going missing?”
“Look harder,” Frieda said.
Henry scrolled and came to a photo. An image of a long-haired brunette in her twenties looked into the camera. She wore overalls and leaned on a shovel as she laughed.
“She is familiar,” Tess said. “Where have I heard about this?”
“You wouldn’t have heard about it because Paulette Johnston changed her name to Bernadette.”
Tess snatched up the laptop and held it close to her face, squinting. “That’s her?”
“I’m with Fred on this,” Henry said. “I saw an old picture of Bernadette in her apartment. If it’s not her, it’s a dead ringer.” He shook his head. “The timing with Cooper is . . . suggestive.”
“Of what?” Tess asked. “First Ron is Cooper, then Kevin, and now Bernadette?”
Henry waved his hands.
“It would make sense if Cooper was working with someone. Someone who would meet him on the ground. Remember, he jumped from the plane in just a business suit and an overcoat.”
“If Bernadette was involved, then why isn’t she rich?” Tess asked. “We’ve seen Mr. Benham and Bernadette’s apartments. Those aren’t people with money.”
“That could just be someone not spending money,” Henry said. “What if Fullarton was holding onto it until the investigation was over? Maybe they never expected the FBI to keep hunting Cooper for forty-five years.” Henry’s hand rubbed his chin. “Invested right, it might be worth hundreds of thousands, even a million dollars.”
Henry ballooned his cheeks.
“Could it be in the company?” Tess asked.
The air blew out of his mouth fast.
“That would explain what Bernadette has been trying to hide.”
“And Keller had the information about the numbered company. If he didn’t get what he was looking for from Mr. Benham . . .”
Henry nodded. “He’s going to keep working his way through the house until he finds it.” Henry thought of Shima. “Maybe he’s even made the Fullarton connection, which means he could be tearing my place apart right now.”
The old cat was clever and would hide somewhere if necessary.
But if anything happens to my boy…
“And if he doesn’t find it there?” Tess asked.
Henry dialed Bernadette’s phone. Everyone watched him as it rang and rang. He shook his head.
Tess called Bonnie next, the conversation brief.
“Bonnie says Bernadette was going back home.”
Henry tried Bernadette again.
“Her phone must be off. Whether we’re right or wrong, someone has got to warn Bernadette. I’m going.”
“Not without me,” Tess said.
“Or me,” Frieda chimed in.
Tess stopped. “You
should stay here with Luba.”
Frieda held Tess’s gaze. “Nope. I kept the red book. I found out Bernadette was missing.”
Tess and Henry looked at one another, conferring silently.
“I’m not letting her out of my sight,” he said. “We stick together.”
Tess sighed. “Why break up the team? Grab your coats.”
1971: The Flight
The long blond hair of the stewardess disappeared behind the first-class curtain. He waited another moment to give her time to get into the cockpit.
Brenda didn’t seem too scared. He was glad for that; she was a good kid. She had managed to lighten up and joke about all the money. She even made a good wisecrack as he cut cords away from one of the reserve parachutes. Maybe because she realized at that point that the extra ones weren’t for her.
The man who had given his name as Dan Cooper tugged at his knots, the pink nylon cords running through his belt loops around his waist and ending at the heavy bag of twenty-dollar bills. He wove the slippery cords into a netting around the bag. Three good-sized bundles of cash, held together with elastic bands, slipped out of the bag onto the floor of the aisle. Cooper made a growling sound and wound more cord around the mouth of the bag, tying it as tightly as he could before stuffing the errant wads of twenty-dollar bills into his pants pockets.
With Brenda gone, the cold of the vacant, unpressurized cabin stabbed through his business suit, a harsh reminder of what was to come. He took the book of matches out of his breast pocket and cursed under his breath. Empty.
He lifted a foot onto a seat in the back row, his elbow resting heavy on his knee. The intensity of it all was exhausting; adrenaline gave way to reality, like ground rushing up to meet him. The negotiations had gone well, but still not according to plan. It had taken an hour and a half to refuel the plane; a frustrating delay just to play out the ruse that their destination was Mexico. In the end, they had taken on enough to make it as far as Reno. This would do.
Still, he had to hurry; the stairs weren’t down, and he would have to operate them himself.
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