The police had set up crime-scene tape around the building, and there were half a dozen squad cars with their lights flashing, parked just outside the cordon, plus several unmarked Chevys that anyone with a brain would make for police vehicles.
Usually, when you had this much police activity, onlookers would crowd around the crime scene, just beyond the tape, to see what was going on. Here, there were no civilians, which was evidence of just how desolate the area was.
A white man with thinning, sandy hair and gold wire-frame glasses came up to me as Rutledge was helping me get out of the passenger side of his car. He was dressed in plain clothes with a laminated credential around his neck.
“I just want to shake the hand of the man who shot Randall Jennings. That guy was a giant asshole,” he said.
The thing hanging on his neck had a photo of him and the word FORENSICS on it. I used my decades of accrued detecting experience to draw a clever deduction:
“Are you a lab guy?” I asked.
“I am what passes for a guy in what passes for a lab in what passes for the Memphis Police Department,” he said. “My friends call me Ed Clark, but my wife calls me late for dinner, and the Action News investigative team calls me twelve years behind schedule in testing all the rape kits.”
This guy was kind of funny. I liked him. But I had a reputation to maintain.
“I don’t like you,” I said as I lit a cigarette.
He smiled. “I guess I wouldn’t have things any other way.”
“I brought Mr. Schatz here because he believes Charles Cameron aka Carlo Cash kidnapped a robbery suspect called Elijah out of Andre Price’s car yesterday,” Rutledge said. He had retrieved my walker from the trunk of his car, and he paused to unfold it and set it in front of me. “We believe Cash may have brought Elijah to this building. I’m hoping Mr. Schatz can square his understanding of the situation with the evidence you’ve found here.”
“That sounds like something we can talk about,” Clark said. The corners of his mouth turned downward. “Are y’all coming from the hospital? Is there any news about Price?”
Rutledge shook his head. “Last time I talked to the family, they said he still ain’t breathing on his own. If he lives through this, he won’t live well.”
“God, I’m sorry to hear that. He always seemed like a real decent kid.”
“He was one of us,” Rutledge said. “And now, there’s hell to pay. We’re taking this to where these motherfuckers live. We’re burning their goddamn houses down.”
“I think Elijah already beat you to it,” I said. “But I like your attitude. Let’s find out what’s inside that warehouse.”
There were three steps up to the side door of the warehouse, and no ramp. It was supposed to be illegal for a building to be inaccessible to people with handicaps, but I suspected this oversight was just one of many ways this building failed to meet code.
The stairs were too narrow to accommodate all four tips of my walker, so I couldn’t steady myself by leaning on it. Rutledge had to hold my elbow as I slowly climbed, while Clark stood behind me, trying to pretend, for the sake of my dignity, that he wasn’t preparing to catch me if I toppled backwards.
Inside the warehouse, the dim overhead lights had been augmented by some portable floodlights the police had brought in to help search for evidence. A large circle of floor just inside the doorway had been roped off with traffic cones and police tape. Other than that, the space looked empty. A thick layer of dust covered most of the surfaces, and looked to have been displaced from the floor only recently, when a lot of drug dealers had walked over it, and then again, when a lot of cops had walked over it.
“This is somewhat anticlimactic,” I said.
“I don’t know what you were expecting,” said Clark.
“The last scene from The Wild Bunch,” I said.
“The last scene from Reservoir Dogs,” said Rutledge.
“Yeah. Sorry,” said Clark.
“What did you find here?” I asked.
“Well, the floor was covered in dust except in the area we have roped off,” Clark said. “We think that spot was scrubbed with bleach.”
“How can you tell?” I asked.
“Because it smells like bleach,” he told me. “This shit ain’t rocket surgery. We did find traces of blood on the floor in the area that was cleaned, though. People think bleach hides blood, but people are stupid.”
“So, what do you think happened?” I asked.
“I think somebody got shot there, and then somebody carted off the body and cleaned up the mess. There’s no signs of dripping or blood anywhere but in that one place, so the killer probably knew how to move a corpse. Maybe they shoved him into a barrel. Maybe they had a body bag. You can pretty much roll a guy up in a plastic sheet, as long as you fold it right to keep it from leaking.”
“It’s likely that the stain is Elijah,” Rutledge said. “They brought him here to kill him, and it looks like somebody got killed. It doesn’t require a huge logical leap to presume your friend is dead.”
“Doubtful,” I told him. “This bloodstain is Carlo Cash. One of his accomplices shot him in the back of the head as soon as he came in here.”
“What makes you so sure?” he asked.
So I told him how Elijah robbed the Cotton Planters Union Bank.
35
1965
Twenty-seven hours after Longfellow Molloy was killed by the Memphis police, Whit Pecker, the worst detective on the Memphis police force had finally connected my arrest of Ari Plotkin and his gang with the Planters Union bank robbery, so I got dragged into that investigation.
Pecker asked me in a pointed way why I hadn’t bothered to tell him that I’d been investigating a plot to rob that bank. I told him that it had slipped my mind in the chaos of the previous day’s events, and also that he could go fuck himself. An hour later, word came down from on high that the robbery was my case now, due to my previous involvement. As far as I was concerned, Pecker could have kept it.
I went down to the bank, where Greenfield was waiting in his magnificent office with his assistant, Riley Cartwright, a lawyer for the bank who was named Pumfrey or something, and a wraithlike insurance man called Swaine. All the seats were taken, so I had to stand, and it pissed me off.
For the benefit of his guests, Greenfield pretended to be meeting me for the first time. He called in his secretary, and she asked me if I’d like some coffee. She was very pretty in an Aryan sort of way, and Greenfield seemed delighted for any excuse to show her off to his guests.
Nobody else was drinking anything, so I assumed I was expected to politely decline her offer. I told her I’d love a cup with cream and two sugars.
“I’d heard you had arrested a sort of gang that was planning to rob us, but we never imagined anyone could have taken down our vault,” he told me.
He waited with a look of dread for my response. I was only halfway done with the cigarette I was smoking, but I dropped it on his carpet and then stepped on it and ground the ember out with my heel. Then I lit another one with a wooden match, shook the match out, and threw it on the floor as well. Just to be thorough, I mashed the blackened head of the match with the toe of my shoe.
“If I had anticipated that there were any other robbers planning to hit your bank, I certainly would have come here to talk to you about it,” I said.
I looked up and saw Pumpleroy and Swindle staring at me with undisguised horror. I smiled at them. Greenfield, for his part, looked somewhat relieved.
“I think it’s pretty clear that the security apparatus failed, and the vault was breached somehow, when it was supposed to be locked down and sealed,” Greenfield said.
“But how could that happen? The vault is nearly impregnable,” Swine said.
“The ‘nearly’ being the reason we carry insurance,” Pimplepiss added.
“Why weren’t there guards posted by the vault?” I asked.
“I had to make a decision in a circumst
ance that wasn’t covered by ordinary protocols,” Greenfield said. “The street-facing entrance to the bank is all windows; essentially a sheet of glass, and we were in the midst of what we understood might be a race riot. I decided to move all my security personnel to the front of the building to deter looters from trying to smash their way inside.”
“And you left the vault unprotected?”
“No. I triggered the alarm, which was supposed to seal the vault. It should have been impossible to open. We can’t figure out how the thief could have gotten into it.”
“What sort of person could possibly do this?” Squidge said. “Who could take apart a state-of-the-art security system and unlock a sealed vault without ever being noticed?”
“Negroes,” Greenfield answered without hesitation.
“Yes,” I agreed. “When things like this happen, we generally assume Negroes are responsible.”
The insurance man did not look pleased. “Detective, do you think you can recover the stolen funds?”
“I’ll certainly do everything I can,” I said. “But the truth is that I most likely will not be able to find the perpetrator. If thieves aren’t caught in the act, and we don’t have witnesses who can identify them, our best shot at capturing them comes when they try to fence the stolen goods. But thieves who steal cash don’t need a fence, and it’s hard to identify stolen money, even if we find it. We usually either catch bank robbers within minutes of the crime, or we don’t catch them at all.”
“That is bad,” Sibilant said. “Very bad.”
Here, the conversation paused as the secretary came in with my coffee. I took a sip, and it was very good. I almost felt guilty about dumping it out all over the rug.
“Oh, how clumsy of me,” I said. “I’m so embarrassed.”
I wasn’t, really.
Greenfield pressed an intercom button on his desk and called the girl back in to try to clean up the mess. I felt awkward about having her on her hands and knees, rubbing the stain with a rag, so I dropped my cigarette on the carpet, ground it out with my heel, and then I bent down to help her.
“You don’t need to do that, Detective,” Greenfield said.
“Are you sure? I just feel so bad about this mess,” I said.
“It’s really not a problem,” said the secretary.
“All right.” I stood up, lit a cigarette with a wooden match, shook the match out, dropped it on the rug, and stepped on it.
After a very long and uncomfortable exchange of horrified glances among the three expensive suits, the conversation resumed.
“There is one silver lining—for you, I mean,” Pissface said to the insurer. “The vault comes with fairly comprehensive guarantees from the manufacturer, and the security firm that installed it guarantees the work it performed as well. They promise to pay for any losses associated with the failure of the vault or the alarm mechanism.”
“That is good news,” said Swindler. “Detective, do you expect your report will find that the robbery occurred as a result of the vault failing to perform as promised?”
“I’ll have to investigate further before I can say for sure,” I said. “But that certainly seems to be what happened.”
The lawyer seemed pleased by my willingness to oblige. “Obviously, we’ll expect your firm to fully indemnify our loss as per the terms of the insurance agreement,” he said to Shitball. “But you may then step into our shoes and attempt to recover on their guarantees, which should spread around the exposure a bit.”
“I don’t think this conversation is pertinent to my investigation,” I said. If I had to listen to these assholes much longer, I was going to run out of cigarettes. “Maybe I had better go take a look at the vault.”
“Certainly,” Greenfield said with a dismissive wave. “Cartwright can show you anything you need to see.”
Cartwright looked a little bit crestfallen to be kicked out of the high-level meeting, but he obediently followed me out of Greenfield’s office.
Once we were in the elevator, he told me: “I think you pretty much destroyed his rug.”
“That’s a shame,” I said. “It really tied the room together.”
36
1965
“So the vault is just left open during business hours?”
“We keep two armed guards stationed on it,” Cartwright said, gesturing at the two men standing by the open vault door. “But, yes. It would be quite unwieldy to have to open up this complex apparatus every time tellers needed to refill their cash drawers or a client wanted to access a safe-deposit box.”
I examined the vault door. It was nearly two feet thick. I stepped through it and looked at it from the inside. Then I stepped out. I peered at the locking mechanism. I didn’t know anything about vaults, but I figured cracking one open would involve drilling holes in it or something. The vault door did not appear to have any holes drilled in it. It didn’t seem as if anyone had worked on it with acid or blowtorches or sledgehammers. As best I could tell, this door had not been tampered with.
“Could the guards have been in on it?”
One of the guards frowned at me.
“The men who guard our vaults each have at least fifteen years of professional experience, and an established record of trustworthiness,” Cartwright said.
“A man’s trustworthy only until you leave him alone with something that’s worth more to him than his reputation,” I said.
“Several of our guards have worked on armored truck crews, which routinely carry amounts in excess of a quarter-million dollars,” he said. “Others have experience working security in larger banks than this; banks that always keep large amounts of cash on hand. These are good men. I hired most of them myself.”
“I am not sure your word or anyone’s reputation is good enough to eliminate all suspicion when so much money has been stolen,” I said.
“Every member of the security team stayed on duty, guarding the front of the bank for hours after the lockdown,” he protested. “I don’t think any of them could possibly have been carrying all that cash on his person. And I don’t recall any suspicious behavior from any of them, even after the robbery was discovered.”
“Okay,” I said. “So, for the moment, let’s assume the guards are innocent.”
I walked down the hallway to look at the security cage. It was made of a sturdy mesh that was too fine to stick a hand through, and too thick to cut easily, but there was no lock I could see on the inside of it; just a handle. “Do you need a key to open this?” I asked.
“Not from this side. Fire regulations prohibit having doors like this that lock from the inside.”
I started to turn the handle.
“Don’t do that, Detective. It isn’t locked, but it’s wired to the security mechanism, and if you open it, you will set off the alarm.”
“So the exterior door at the end of the hall isn’t locked, either?” I asked.
“It has a security bar, but the lock can be disengaged from the inside without a key.”
“Seems like a pretty big hole in your impenetrable security system, if somebody can just walk right out the door after emptying your vault.”
“We are a bank, not a prison. We want to keep people from getting in, not prevent them from getting out. Our security system assures that an alarm will be triggered and the vault will be sealed before a thief ever gets near it. Preventing an escape should never become a concern. And, of course, anything that would prevent a thief from escaping would also impede an emergency evacuation.”
“The problem is that your security didn’t work, and we need to figure out why,” I said. “And it certainly wasn’t helpful that the thief was able to walk right out the door after he cleaned out your vault.”
“If he got out that way, I don’t understand why the alarm didn’t go off when he opened it.”
“What if the alarm was going off already?”
Cartwright shrugged.
I turned to the guards. “Were either of you men gua
rding this vault the morning of the robbery?”
One of them nodded. “I was, until Mr. Greenfield moved all security staff to the lobby, to keep the rioters from smashing the windows.”
“Were you standing here in front of the door when it sealed?”
He shook his head. “I was already up front. But I had only just gotten there. Mr. Greenfield called over the intercom and told us that we were to reinforce the street entrance, and then he activated the security system.”
“Just so I’ve got this right: He moved you up front, and then he triggered the alarm, which sealed the vault.”
“That’s right.”
“And the vault was open when you left it?”
“Yeah, but not for very long. Couple of minutes, at most. Nobody could have come in and robbed it before he set the alarm off.”
I looked at the vault again, and then I looked at the security gate blocking the hallway. Then I looked at the ceiling.
“Is there a janitor here?” I asked Cartwright.
“Yeah, of course. Somebody’s got to clean up.”
“Have him come down here, and tell him to bring his broom.”
Cartwright scurried off and fetched an elderly colored man in a faded blue jumpsuit.
“Were you here yesterday when the bank was robbed?” I asked the janitor.
“No, sir. I got sent home with the office staff. I was none too happy about it. You know, they all get salaries, but I get pay by the hour. If I ain’t workin’, I ain’t eatin’.”
I nodded. “Can I borrow your broom?” I asked.
“I’m gonna need it back,” he said, but he handed it to me.
I poked the ceiling with it.
Greenfield’s office was covered in luxurious hardwood, and the grand lobby was made of pink limestone, but the guts of the bank, the parts the clients didn’t see, were no-frills commercial office space. The walls were thin and felt like cardboard, the floors were cheap tile, and the ceilings were drop-in panels made of compressed sawdust and asbestos, held up by a grid of steel beams.
Don't Ever Look Back: A Mystery (Buck Schatz Series) Page 20
