The Freeport Robbery

by Michael P. King

  “And, finally, Mr. Denison, I know you were innocent in all this, but we expect your cooperation as well. If the break-in or the murder become public knowledge, your reputation will be hurt as much as ours.”

  “You expect me to help you cover up a murder?”

  “We are the legitimate authorities here, Mr. Denison. Just because we wish to proceed quietly doesn’t mean we won’t capture and punish the killer.”

  “When you put it like that.”

  “So we can count on your discretion?”

  He nodded.

  “Excellent. Enjoy your stay in Nohamay City.”

  Wounded-Bear escorted them out of the city offices building. The sprinkler system was watering a row of bushes newly planted along the sidewalk.

  “Take a deep breath,” Wounded-Bear said, looking directly at Ron and Nicole. “Freshly shoveled dirt is the last thing you’ll smell if you don’t get out of town.”

  They watched the glass door close behind him.

  Ron turned to the others. “Hard to believe Aaron is dead. Even if my first thought was to kill him for roping us into this mess. He had two kids and an ex who were counting on him.” He looked at Mosley. “We handed him to you, and you lost him. What kind of clusterfuck was that?”

  “Hey, you weren’t his only friend. He was supposed to get on the plane, salvage his career.”

  “Who do you think killed him? Did he have any partners?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t have the slightest idea. But I’m going to find out. I’m going to make sure his family gets closure.”

  “You still have the casket?” Ron asked.

  “For now.”

  “When does it go to the museum?”

  Mosley looked from Ron and Nicole to Denison and back again. Was this an opportunity to get paid for the casket without having to stash it for a year or more? None of these three could expose her without exposing themselves. “That’s an open question. Maybe it never goes.”

  “What does that mean? It has to go,” Nicole said.

  Denison cut in. “I thought we had this straightened out. It goes to the museum, and no one finds out I was involved.”

  Mosley continued. “You heard Chen. They’re going to cover up Aaron’s murder. With him out of the picture, the evidence trail is dead. The casket could have disappeared with him. Airline records show he came here, but after that there’s not going to be any information. So if either of you want it returned, I’ve got to be paid. Two hundred thousand, and the casket goes to the museum.”

  “We don’t have two hundred thousand,” Ron said.

  “You’d rather have the FBI hunting you for the theft than find a way to scrape up the cash?”

  “The museum will give you a one-hundred-and-fifty-thousand-dollars finder’s fee,” Nicole said.

  Mosley laughed. “Even if that were true, it wouldn’t apply to law enforcement.” She turned to Denison. “How about you? How badly do you want the casket to go back to the museum?”

  “Why should I pay?”

  “Think it through. It’s just a one-time payment. Something to compensate me for the trouble you’ve caused.”

  “The trouble I’ve caused?”

  “Buying stolen property. Interfering in a police investigation. Might have got to Aaron in time if he hadn’t sold the casket to you.”

  “I’m already out one hundred thousand.”

  “Not my problem.”

  “How do I know you’ll keep your word this time?”

  “Don’t be so cynical. Just get the money ready. I’ll be in touch.” Mosley left them standing in front of the city offices.

  Denison turned to Ron and Nicole. “How can she do this?”

  Ron shrugged sympathetically. “You tried to buy the stolen casket, so you can’t go to the cops. You could claim it was a mistake, probably get off, but the case would still make all the scandal websites. You’re in the gray world now, where leeches like her can tax you whenever they want.”

  “Did you two have anything to do with this?”

  “We got suckered into this mess back in Charles Bay,” Ron said. “If the casket doesn’t go to the museum, and Mosley doesn’t shield us, eventually the cops are going to be coming after us.”

  “James,” Nicole said, “our anonymity is our most important asset. We can’t work if people know who we are.”

  “Do you think she’s right? That I have to pay her?”

  “No. Maybe. Depends on how you play it,” Ron said. “She can’t afford to be exposed, either, so we’ve got a little elbow room. If the casket goes to the museum, you’re in the clear, just like us. So we need to find out where she’s hiding it and take it.”

  Ron turned to Nicole. “How many guys are we up against? I saw five at the Crenshaw Industries airplane hangar. Anybody else?”

  “That was all of them.”

  Denison interrupted. “Crenshaw Industries?”

  “There’s a crew of thugs operating out of the Crenshaw Industries warehouse,” Ron said. “We’ve been trying to stay out of their way.”

  “What do they look like?”

  Nicole said, “We’ve seen three black guys and two white guys, all dressed like they’re modeling for a sporting goods catalogue.”

  Ron continued. “So maybe five to seven guys were after Aaron. We know Mosley bends the rules, but we don’t know how far. Is she with them or is she on her own? Somebody killed that guy back in Charles Bay. And somebody killed Aaron. Was it the same somebody, or just a coincidence?”

  “What are you saying?” Denison asked. “Are you saying those guys killed Rickover over the casket? Are we in danger here?”

  “Of course we’re in danger. I’m just trying to figure out how much,” Ron said.

  Denison’s mouth fell open. “What if they think I still have the casket? I’ve got to call the hospital.” He took out his phone. “Hello? This is James Denison. Has anyone been to see my wife?” He listened for a few seconds. “Thanks.” He put his phone back in his pants pocket. “She’s safe.”

  “For now,” Ron said. “Do you have any juice with the management here?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Will they provide a security detail for your wife?”

  “I could ask.”

  “Why don’t you go back in, talk to Chen, see if they’ll provide security. Don’t tell him about Mosley’s threat or the Crenshaw crew. We want to keep the Mosley thing between ourselves.”

  “Why? Why don’t we want all of them arrested?”

  “James,” Nicole said, “we’re the only people who need the casket returned, so we’re the only people we can trust. Everyone else has their own agenda. And maybe you want to call in your own security people. Once your team is in place, then you know you and your wife are safe.”

  “Okay,” Denison said.

  “And one more thing,” Ron said. “See if they’ll let you look at their on-street security camera footage. We might get lucky and find out if Mosley is working alone or if she’s part of that Crenshaw crew.”

  Denison nodded. “What are you two going to do?”

  “We’re going to try to find the casket,” Ron said.

  Denison went back into the reception area of the city offices building. A large Native American rug featuring a red and white zigzag pattern on a gray background hung from the right wall. The windows in the left wall looked out over the front lawn of the city offices. Wounded-Bear was gone. A small, thin woman sat behind the desk, furiously keyboarding on a laptop. “Excuse me,” Denison said, “I’d like to see Mr. Chen.”

  The woman finished inputting her thought before she looked up at him. “Do you have an appointment?”

  “No.”

  “Wait a minute.” She wagged her finger thoughtfully. “You’re—”

  “James Denison.”

  “Right.” She picked up her phone. “Mr. Chen? Mr. Denison is here.” She smiled. “Go on in.”

  Chen closed his laptop when Denison ca
me into his office. “Please sit down,” he said. “What can I do for you?”

  “Mr. Chen, I have some concerns I’d like to talk to you about.”

  Chen nodded.

  “This is how it appears to me. I got the casket from Rickover. Rickover’s been killed. I gave the casket to Mosley, so I can’t give it to the killers if they come for me or my wife. My wife’s in the hospital and can’t be moved, so I want a security detail for her.”

  Chen shook his head. “I’m sorry, Mr. Denison.”

  “Just until my security team can get here. Twenty-four hours at the most.”

  “I understand why you would be worried, Mr. Denison. And we do want your business. But if we provide special security for your wife, there will be no way to contain the information. It will become a status symbol. All the high rollers will want special security. Besides, it’s unnecessary. Everyone is safe in Nohamay City.”

  “Like Rickover?”

  “That was an unfortunate, isolated incident, which he brought with him.”

  “Which is still ongoing. Are you investigating?”

  “Our security personnel have the situation well in hand.”

  “What makes you think you’ll find the killers before someone else gets hurt?”

  “Relax, Mr. Denison. There is nowhere to hide in Nohamay City. If the assailants are still here, we will find them.”

  When Ron and Nicole got back to their hotel room, Ron opened the room safe and laid the guns out on the nearest bed. “Where do you think we stand with Denison?”

  Nicole picked up one of the Glocks, ejected the clip and checked the breach out of habit, and then reinserted the clip. “I think he’s with us, for now, but he’ll only cooperate if he thinks we’re helping him and his wife.”

  “She’s already gone.”

  “But he’s not ready to believe it.” She put the Glock in her handbag.

  Ron checked the other Glock and put it in the holster at the small of his back. “We’ve got two problems. We need to figure out what the Crenshaw guys are up to. They must have killed Aaron, but why did Philips send them here?”

  Nicole nodded. “They’re our only suspects; that’s for sure.”

  “If they’re after the casket, then Mosley probably isn’t in with them, unless she’s planning to double-cross Philips, and she seems to be smarter than that. We have to get out ahead of these guys before this job blows up. We need to get our hands on the casket. Pronto. So if we can’t steal it from Mosley, we need to convince Denison to buy it.”

  “I’d rather steal it,” Nicole said.

  “Absolutely. We don’t need Denison in the picture, making things more complicated; we just might not have a choice. That’s why you need to keep spinning him.”

  Nicole’s phone rang. She looked at the screen. “It’s Denison.”

  “Answer it.”

  “Hey, James, what’s up?”

  She looked at Ron. “The city won’t help.”

  “Won’t help? I’ll fix that. Tell him to go to his hotel room and wait for Chen’s call. His wife will be safe. I’ll be watching her.”

  She relayed the message and put her phone away. “He sounded skeptical.”

  “Good. He’ll be all the more impressed when I pull it off.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Create an incident.” He laid his Glock in its holster back on the bed and got down on one knee to strap on the .38’s ankle holster. “And then I’m going to use the keycard we took off Rickover to have a look in his hotel room.”

  “Need any help?”

  “Tell you what. Leave the gun here and start following Mosley. See if anyone is watching her. Maybe you’ll find out where she’s hiding the casket. You know she’s not keeping it in her room.”

  Ron ducked into a knickknack shop on the corner next to the water park and elbowed his way through the families pawing over the merchandise. By the checkout was a locked case of silver and turquoise jewelry. Racks of swimsuits and T-shirts filled the center aisles. On the walls were displays of minerals, fake arrowheads, Native American ceramics made in China, toy guns, toy bows and arrows, puzzles, and cowboy and Indian costumes in children’s and adults’ sizes. He searched through the facemasks—Indian princess, warrior, blonde-wig cowgirl, Lone Ranger—before he settled on a rubber facemask depicting a banged-up cowboy with a black eye and his tongue hanging out. The gum-chewing, teenage Native American girl behind the checkout counter looked at the mask and then at him. “Let me guess. Costume bachelor’s party.”

  “You got me,” he said.

  “Never changes.” She handed him his receipt. “Have a nice day.”

  Out on the sidewalk, he rolled the mask up and put it in his blazer pocket. It was late enough in the morning now for the sidewalks to be busy with vacationers going to brunch or to the water park or to the casino for some early gambling. He walked past the front of the casino-hotel and down to the hospital, where he went around to the side entrance and up the stairs at the end of the hall. In the second-floor stairwell, he looked through the safety glass window in the door. The hallway was empty. He cracked the door and listened. All quiet. He moved silently down the hall to Stacey Wert-Denison’s room. Denison had done as he was told. Stacey was by herself.

  Ron stepped into the bathroom in her room and put on the cowboy mask, taking care to tuck it into the collar of his jacket. Then he locked the room door open and went to her bed, unlocked the wheels, and unplugged the wires from the monitors, tossing the wires over her body. Moving quickly, he pushed her bed out into the hall just as the alarms from the disconnected equipment started going off at the nurses’ station.

  A nurse, a heavyset woman with a blonde ponytail, started down the hall, shrieked when she saw him, and yelled back over her shoulder. A thin Native American woman and a huge Native American man with a buzz cut came running. Ron wobbled the bed sideways so that it blocked the hall and ran back the way he had come. He bounded down the steps in the stairwell two at a time, pulled off his mask on the first-floor landing, pushed through the door to the first floor, shrugged out of his jacket as he fast-walked down the hall, and then rolled the jacket up and shoved it under his arm. He ducked into the men’s restroom near the information counter in the lobby, put the mask in the trash, and ran his hand through his hair. Then he came back out into the hall and sauntered up to the information counter just as the huge nurse with the buzz cut pulled open the stairwell door and came barreling toward him. “Excuse me,” Ron said to the receptionist behind the counter, “Bill Jenkins isn’t in his room.”

  A dark-haired woman with freckles on her face looked up from her computer screen. “Just a second. I’ll check for you.” She tapped some keys on her keyboard. “He’s at physical therapy. Are you family?”

  “No, just a friend.”

  “Visitors’ hours are noon to eight.”

  Just then the huge nurse put his hand on Ron’s shoulder. “Hey you, what are you doing here?”

  Ron looked up into his face. “I’m here to visit a friend, but I guess I have to come back later.”

  “Really? You just got here?”

  “What’s this about?”

  The nurse studied Ron’s eyes. “I don’t believe you. What you got rolled up under your arm?”

  “Get your hand off me,” Ron said.

  “Let me see what you got.” He reached for Ron’s jacket with his free hand. Ron knocked the nurse’s hand off his shoulder and stepped back. He turned to the receptionist. “Could you call your supervisor, please?”

  The nurse pointed his finger at Ron. “There’s something not right about you.”

  “I don’t know what’s going on around here, but I’m leaving,” Ron said. He turned on his heels and pushed through the door. As he walked down the steps in front of the hospital, he called Nicole on his phone. “Hey, honey, you can tell Denison to expect a call from Chen.”

  “That was quick. How did it go?”

  “No problem
at all. You find Mosley?”

  “No luck yet.”

  “I’m on my way to Rickover’s hotel room.” He put his phone back in his pocket as he walked down the sidewalk to the boulevard.

  Up on the second floor, the two nurses moved Wert-Denison back into her room and reconnected the monitors. While the thin nurse checked Wert-Denison over, the heavyset nurse went back to the nursing station to call Dr. O’Brian, the hospital administrator, but when she got there, Dr. O’Brian was already hurrying off the elevator. O’Brian was a slightly built Native American woman dressed in khaki slacks, a blue open-collared shirt and a white doctor’s coat. Her gray-streaked hair was tucked behind her ears. “What’s going on up here?”

  “A crazy guy in a Halloween mask tried to take away Mrs. Wert-Denison.”

  “Is she okay?”

  The ponytailed nurse nodded. “Larry chased after the guy. He hasn’t come back yet.”

  “Larry Smithfield?”

  “Yeah.”

  O’Brian got out her cell phone as she strode down the hall to Wert-Denison’s room. “Mr. Chen? You told me to keep you informed of any unusual situations.”

  “Yes?”

  “Somebody tried to take Mrs. Wert-Denison out of the hospital.”

  “You can’t be serious.” The line was quiet for a moment. “Who?”

  “We don’t know. He was wearing a mask. One of our people chased after him.”

  “Keep someone with her until a security officer gets there.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And have the staff write down exactly what they saw while it’s still fresh in their minds. Mr. Wounded-Bear will send an investigator.”

  Chen hung up his phone. He looked out his window down to the street. Today appeared to be as peaceful and ordinary as any other day. It needed to stay that way. He should warn Bobby Lee and Jason Stands-Alone to be on the alert. But first things first. He speed-dialed Wounded-Bear and explained what had happened. “Send an investigator and a female security officer to the hospital.”

  “Yes, sir. Right away.”

  “Any leads in the Rickover investigation?”

  “We’re just getting started. We’re trying to find his hotel room, but it’s not listed under his name.”