Phantom Purloiners, page 7
“Did someone run the road through Cannibal Pass?”
“Yup. State Troopers had the exit onto the interstate closed within minutes. No one was on that road, and there was no indication anyone had used the road in days.”
“So the perps in the Bodacious robbery just vanished.”
“Seems so. We, that is, the Washakie Police Department, were shorthanded that day. Two of us had to take the other Mr. Harrison to Casper. Department strength was three officers for the three days Chief Standing Bear and I were in Cheyenne or traveling to and from.”
“You and the chief weren’t here when the Bodacious robbery took place?”
“Correct, but the other three in the department are no slouches. They left no stone unturned.”
“And they found nothing.”
“Nothing. And the perps were identifiable even at a distance. One, the man, was well over six feet tall, and the other, possibly a woman, was under five feet. There was nothing big happening in town like a rodeo or roundup, so they couldn’t fade into a crowd.”
“I hear that one of the Bodacious brothers has the robbery on tape.”
Standbow laughed. “Tape? Naw. On a baby cam. Terrible picture, bad angle, no date and time stamp. You can see it if you want. The robbery was pretty quick. The two came in with masks, Elvis and Snow White, waved some guns around, grabbed some coins, and were out the door. You can’t see it on the tape, but they ran about a block and then hit the jewelry store.”
“You sure the robbery actually happened on that day?”
“I can’t think of a reason for the Bodacious brothers to lie. They didn’t get anything out of the robberies. Probably lost money. They didn’t own the loot stolen. It was all consignment. Or almost all consignment. The insurance company paid up, but the Bodacious brothers didn’t get much.”
“You did a similar search for the perps? You searched for them just like you did Harrison?”
“Same pattern, yeah. Nothing.”
“They just vanished.”
“I don’t like the way you said that.”
“Sorry. But it’s hard for me to believe that you can have two high-profile crimes in a town this size and have three people simply vanish.”
“They did not vanish, to use your term. We just have not found them yet. Just like in a Las Vegas magician’s act, people do not vanish.”
“OK, moving on. What happened when the second Harrison showed up?”
“That was an interesting call. I got it. He was still haggling with the desk clerk when I got there. He wanted his key, and Harriett, the . . .”
“I’ve met her.”
“Sharp lady, no nonsense. She stalled him until I got there.”
“Did he seem surprised to see you arrive?”
Standbow was silent for a very long moment. “Mr. Harrison is a very odd duck. He is not a normal person. By that I do not mean he is a psychopath. I mean you cannot have a conversation with him. He is dislocated from reality. He’s the kind of person you see walking down the street talking to himself or pushing a cart on a sidewalk full of whatever. I’d say he was a vet wandering the countryside. Homeless.”
“What was he doing in Casper? He came to Washakie from Casper, right?”
“Casper. That’s right. The address we had for him, that is, the alibi, was a homeless shelter. He was there for the evening meals and the nights. The rest of the time he was on the street.”
“So that’s what Chief Standing Bear meant when he said that alibi was not solid.”
“That’s right. After he showed up at the Frank M. Canton Hotel, we, that is Chief Standing Bear and I, took him to the psychiatric hospital in Casper. He didn’t care. Like old-home week. I’m sure he’s been in psychiatric hospitals before. My bet, our Mr. Harrison of day one gave Mr. Harrison of day three money and identification. Drove him to Washakie and pointed him in the direction of the Frank M. Canton Hotel. Said, ‘There’s a room for you there; just ask for the key.’ Then Mr. Harrison of Day One who is not dead drove out of town. While Chief Standing Bear and I were questioning Mr. Harrison of Day Three, Mr. Harrison of Day One was putting miles between Washakie and his back bumper.”
“Good call, but why?”
“I have no idea. I’m a cop, and I am used to simple crimes like murder, robbery, burglary, running a red light and DVs. Someone went to a lot of trouble to steer us up a very steep path that went nowhere with Mr. Harrison Day Three.”
“And there is no money missing anywhere in town? No valuable that might have been stolen while you were distracted with the two Harrisons?”
“Nothing valuable. The museum has some antiques, which might be worth a few thousand, but nothing’s missing. No one’s robbed the bank or any of the gas stations. You know about the robbery of the Bodacious brothers two days after Mr. Harrison Day Three was taken to Casper. But no seems to have made a dime out of that robbery. No reason for the Bodacious brothers to stage a robbery where they get nothing out it.”
“Are they the kind of people who might consider it?”
“They are cockroaches. Yeah, if they figure a way to scam the system for a buck or two. But they didn’t get anything out the robbery. Just headaches.”
CHAPTER 14
It had not been hard getting historically accurate paper. It had been very easy. All it took was a visit to an historical archive. Even easier was to find a book printed in the decade. Wyoming had scads of used bookstores and antique shops. Buy a book out of the 1860s and see if it had blank pages in the back. Take a razor blade, and zip; you then had a sheet of paper that would be authenticated to the 1860s.
Ink took a bit more research—but not that much more. Matching ink from 1670s would have been hard but not the 1870s. The real problem was the pen. The writing had to look authentic, and it would not be authentic it if were done with a fountain pen. It required a quill, and there were just not that many of them around. They had to be made.
There was a lot of money resting on the documents. They were going to be discovered as forgeries, but that was not the point. The point was the documents had to withstand scrutiny for about six months.
After that it didn’t matter. Then it would be someone else’s problem. Or the courts—and the courts never did anything fast. Five, ten years from now, someone would be squealing like a stuck pig. But it wouldn’t be anyone in the cabal.
Time was on their side. The transfers would go through. Money would be exchanged. Everyone who wanted to get gone would go. Those who wanted to stay could stay, but it was on their heads if anything went wrong. But what could go wrong? There were going to be three arm’s length transactions in a row. It would take the IRS and the SEC years to sort out the rat’s nest of documents.
Right now it was just a matter of time.
The clock was ticking.
All they had to do was continue the misdirection.
So . . . catch me if you can!
CHAPTER 15
Police Officer Harold Standbow had been right on when it came to the character of the Bodacious brothers: they were human cockroaches. Everything about them pulsed cheap, sleazy, and untrustworthy. Why anyone would consign coins or jewelry to them was beyond Noonan.
Until he found out that there was only one coin store in Washakie. It was owned by Harry Bodacious. Sam Bodacious had the only jewelry story in town—if you didn’t count the jewelry aisle in the Washakie grocery store. If you had gems to sell, you had to deal with Sam Bodacious. For coins, it was Harry.
The baby-cam recording was as cheap as the brothers were. Yes, it did show a robbery, but the picture was grainy, old, and gave no indication of date much less the time of day. It showed nothing clearly, just a robbery that was at most two minutes in length. Two perpetrators, one about two inches over six feet in an Elvis mask with a gun holding up the coin store. The other perpetrator, who walked like a woman, scooped up the coins. Then the pair headed for the door. Harry could be seen heading for the phone as the perpetrators left the store.
Noonan tried to find at least one nice thing to say about the baby-cam tape.
He couldn’t.
So he didn’t try.
“This is the worst security tape I have ever seen.”
“Well,” said Harry Bodacious flippantly, “we never expected to be robbed, so we didn’t spend a lot of money on security equipment.”
“Do tell,” snipped Noonan. “At the very least you could have bought a new baby cam.”
“Why?” asked Harry. “Why spend the money on something we didn’t think we’d need? I got the baby cam used. Salvation Army store. Then I put sign in the front window saying we had surveillance cameras.”
“Apparently, that did the trick,” Noonan said flatly.
“Works in the movies,” Harry responded defensively. “And the sign cost more than the baby cam.”
“For good reason,” Noonan was purposely flippant. “This tape is worthless.”
“Not so,” cut in Sam Bodacious. “It shows the two robbers. One is a tall man and the other, a short one. Probably a woman. Even I can tell that by the way she walks and stands.”
Noonan looked over his shoulder and gave Sam a sarcastic look that read ‘Really!’
“What’s the problem here?” Harry cut in. “You’re not here to investigate the robbery. That’s Leonard’s job, Chief Standing Bear. You shouldn’t even be here.”
“I go where crime is,” Noonan said softly. “This is a crime close in time to the supposed murder of person unknown in your small town. There is a chance this crime is related.”
“Related to what?” wailed Sam. “The dead guy wasn’t a six-foot-two man or a woman under five feet! The robbery happened days after the dead guy was, well, dead. We know these two robbers ain’t the dead man ’cause we’ve got ’em on tape, and they ain’t the other Harrison guy because he’s in the loony bin in Casper.”
“I don’t know there isn’t a connection,” Noonan said quietly. “When I am sure there isn’t a connection, I’ll stop asking questions.”
“But there isn’t a connection!” Harry said with exasperation. “We didn’t make a dime on the robbery! The robbers got the coins and gems”—he pointed at Sam—“and we didn’t own the coins or the gems. The insurance company paid us, and we had to pay the people who actually owned the coins and gems.”
“True,” said Noonan. “But the coins and gems are still in the wind. That’s thousands unaccounted for.”
“Ppppllleeeaaasseee.” Sam dragged out the word. “First, if we had stolen the coins and gems,” he accented the words coins and gems as if it were a slur, “we’d still have to sell them. By law we have to check the gems. So we do. We’ve got them on Gemprint. Do you know what that is?”
Noonan nodded as he was writing in his notebook. He didn’t say anything, so Sam went on.
“So if we had stolen the gems and tried to sell them, the gem fingerprint would pop up as stolen. Then we’d go to jail. For a whole of what six thousand dollars? That was the value of the gems stolen.”
Harry added, “The coins, yes, they could be sold because they do not have a provenance. But that’s only six thousand dollars. I spend that much keeping my store open for a month, month and a half. It doesn’t make much sense to risk ten years in jail for six thousand dollars.”
“I never said you two robbed your own stores,” Noonan tried to add.
“Damn sure insinuated it,” Sam said stumbling over the word insinuated. “We’re just a couple of honest businessmen trying to make a living.”
“Good for you,” Noonan added. “America needs businessmen like you two. Just a couple of more questions. When did you call the police?” Noonan looked at Sam.
“He didn’t call the police; I did,” cut in Harry.
“Well, when the police were called, how long before they arrived?”
“Minutes,” replied Harry.
“Then they went from the coin store to the jewelry story. Is that right?”
“The cops or the robbers?”
“Both.”
“Correct. The robbers started in the coin store and went to the jewelry store. The cops came to the coin store, and while they were here, they got the call that the jewelry store had been robbed.”
“So the cops went to the jewelry store?”
“No,” said Harry. “We have a police force of six in town. One was on vacation and two—Chief Standing Bear and Harold Standbow—were in Casper with the loony. Two cops were here in the coin store, and the third cop, Johnny whateverhisnameis, went to the jewelry store. Then they hooked up and put out the call to the state troopers to close off the highway.”
“How long did that take?”
“Ten minutes, maybe.”
“So the thieves had ten minutes to get out of town.”
“Sounds about right.”
“Apparently, they made it.”
“Well,” said Sam cautiously, “they weren’t stopped at the roadblocks, and they’re not in town, so that doesn’t leave much.”
“True, true,” Noonan added. “Just a couple of more things. Did the thieves take anything other than the coins and gems?”
“Like what?” asked Harry.
“Well,” Noonan said looking around, “the two of your shops sell more than just coins and gems. Did they take anything other than coins and gems?”
“Nothing else of value in the stores,” Sam said. “No, not from my shop.”
“Or from mine,” added Harry.
“How about footprints and fingerprints. Did the police find any?”
Sam laughed. “The robbers were wearing gloves, so no to fingerprints. Footprints? Be serious! This is Wyoming in August. Every square foot of every shop in town is covered with dust and footprints. Did the robbers leave footprints? Sure. Can you distinguish them from every other footprint on the floor? Unlikely.”
“Any other questions,” snipped Harry.
“Just one. How many consignments did you have all together?”
“Coins, a lot,” said Harry, speaking for the brothers. “Coins are small-ticket items. Jewels, three. They are big-ticket items. Two of them were inheritance sales, a brother and sister in Des Moines. They’ve never been here. Their uncle died in town. They sold his house, donated his furniture to the Episcopal church, and consigned his gem collection. The third was Joshua Three Trees. He’s a Native. We don’t know where he got his gems, but they passed the Gemprint test, so they’re legal.”
“Is he part of the Nimerigar group?”
“Every Native in this neck of the woods is in Nimerigar—and we don’t have any woods here.”
CHAPTER 16
Mr. Harrison Day Three was having a great day.
It had started with breakfast.
Not just breakfast but breakfast!
The slop he had been eating in the homeless shelters was swill compared to this meal. Well, that was the price of being homeless. Even if it was for a week. Here in the facility the food was pretty good. Roommates, not so much. There was a real reason they were in here. Very good reasons. That was fine with him. He wasn’t going to be here very long. He only had one task: delay. Delay whoever showed up. That wouldn’t be hard. He’d been fooling juries for two decades. This was going to be his pièce de résistance.
And his swan song.
CHAPTER 17
Johnny Whateverhisnameis was actually Jon Strano. He looked Filipino but was six one. He had baby-blond hair but jet-black eyes. His uniform fit as though it had been tailored for him, but his clodhoppers gave him the appearance of a sodbuster in the city who bought a pair of shoes to fit in with the crowd. But the minute he opened his mouth it was clear this man was no country hick.
Noonan caught up with him at the Washakie Café. The moment Noonan walked into the diner, Strano waved him over.
“I hear you’re looking for me,” he said with a smile.
“If you’re Jon Strano.”
“Come on, Captain. Everyone in town knows who you are even if they’ve never laid eyes on you. Asking all kinds of questions. And”—his right hand swept the packed diner—“I know everyone here. So you have to be Captain Heinz Noonan of the Sandersonville Police Department. And”—he leaned forward confidentially as his left hand pulled the chair alongside the table out so Noonan could sit down—“you’re not wearing boots. You and I are the only two people in town who don’t wear boots.”
Noonan chuckled and shook his head as he sat down. “I know why I don’t wear cowboy boots. Why don’t you?”
“Too hard to run in them. I’m not theater. When I have to move, I want to move fast. Cowboy boots are for show these days. Pinched toes and heels high enough for spurs. Now, what can I do for you? I don’t know anything you haven’t been told before.”
“Well,” Noonan said as he sat down, “you never know. Can I get a cup of coffee before we talk?”
Strano indicated the counter with his left hand. “It’s on me.” With his right hand, he attracted the attention of the cashier and made a motion saying, ‘I’m paying for him.’ The clerk smiled, and when Noonan came to pay, the clerk shook her head and jerked it in Strano’s direction.
“Mighty kind of you,” Noonan said as he sat down.
“We’re mighty friendly here in the Badlands,” he said. “We don’t get that many illustrious visitors here. Cowboys, yes. Ranchers, yes. Buckle bunnies and historians are a dime a dozen. The closest we have to crime fighters are the four teenage mutant Ninja turtles.”
