However Many More

by Bo Thunboe

  “And did he tell you what he was looking for?”

  “Said his collection needed a bar with the GWU mint mark. So we agreed I’d let him know if I bought one, and he would pay me a premium for any bar I found.” Griffin leaned back in his chair. “Fox came in with the bar. I saw it had that mark, and I bought it for a fair price. There was no other collector market for the bar, so I sold it to Cole.”

  “How do you know there was no collector market for it?”

  “I posted the question in a precious metals forum.” Griffin shrugged. “I got no responses.”

  “Did you tell Cole where you bought the bar?”

  Griffin looked away, rubbing his big hands across the desktop.

  Jake waited.

  “He said he needed provenance. You know, proof of where the bar came from. So I gave him a copy of the receipt.”

  “With Henry’s name on it.”

  “Yes.”

  “How many of these bars did you buy?”

  “From Henry?”

  From Henry? Griffin was not a good liar. Jake stood up and came around the side of the desk. “From Henry and whoever else.”

  Griffin spun his chair to face Jake, sweat beading on his upper lip and along his hairline. “Nineteen. From Henry and his partner.”

  “Name?”

  “What’s he got to do with anything?”

  Jake waited.

  Griffin looked down. “James Bowen.”

  “How many bars were there in total?”

  “I think there were twenty. Henry kept one.”

  “Did Cole buy all of them from you at a premium?”

  “He only wanted the one. He’s a collector. One was enough.”

  “Who bought the rest?”

  “I sent the other eighteen through the exchange. That’s all my records will show.”

  “When did all this happen?”

  “I bought all nineteen of them within a couple weeks of that first sale.”

  “Why did Cole come to you? There are a lot of coin shops.” It seemed like too much of a coincidence that Cole was looking for a certain mint mark and put out a feeler at the exact coin shop where the bar eventually appeared.

  “Why not me?” Griffin was suddenly angry, like the question challenged him.

  “Seems like Cole would have had to make a deal like yours with every coin shop around if he wanted to stop coming up here.”

  “Well, there’s really just me. No one else—not in the western suburbs, anyway—deals in bulk silver. There’s not enough money in it for as heavy as it is, but I’ve always liked it.”

  Jake peppered Griffin with more questions, but learned nothing else. He got the name of the precious metals forum, and permission to use Griffin’s password to look at its archives. He told Griffin to print out his complete records for all the bars and courier them to his attention at the station.

  Back in the car, he spent a few minutes making notes of his conversation with Griffin. Then he sent Erin a text to have her run Titus Cole from Texas, and now of Weston, through the system. And while he tapped the text into his phone, one thought kept bouncing around his skull.

  A second man from Texas.

  * * *

  Jake pulled onto North Kirwin Road. Traffic was light as he headed for another strip mall, this one on Route 59 just south of Diehl Road.

  Jake had met Levi a few months earlier while investigating skeletal remains found in a car pulled off the bottom of Radar Grove Lagoon. They’d become friends since then, and their talks had even led Levi to pursue an associate’s degree in criminal justice at Paget Community College, with an eye toward becoming a private investigator. His keen observational skills, appetite for minutiae, and facility for online research made him a natural for modern PI work. So Jake used him for background research when a case entered a world he wasn’t familiar with.

  Like the markets for buying and selling silver.

  Levi worked at Paget County Cleaners, one of three tenants left in a long strip mall south of the tollway. Jake sat in his car watching through the store’s front window as Levi waited on a customer. When the woman left, Jake went in, enjoying the sudden warm humidity and the clean scent of starch.

  Levi greeted Jake with his wide smile. “How are you doing on this day of the feast of…” His fingers flew across his keyboard. “St. Delmatius of Rodez?”

  Levi had recently found a website listing Catholic feast days and thought the idea of feasting every day was hilarious. The truth was, Levi could use some feasting. He was skinny as a rail, probably weighed less than one-thirty.

  He waved for Jake to come around the counter and sit on the extra stool. “Look. We have a dozen reasons to feast today.” He pointed to his computer screen, where an open window showed a long list of saints.

  “Actually, I’m working a case and need some help.” Jake settled on the stool and pulled his feet up onto the rests.

  “The Fox murder?” Levi kept up with local police activity. “I read he was a lifelong resident. Did you know him?”

  “Yeah. I knew him well.” Jake told Levi a little about Henry and their friendship, but he brushed off Levi’s attempts at sympathy. “Levi, this case is moving fast and I need some help. I’d like you to search the archives of a precious metals forum for me.” He explained what he knew about the silver, and gave Levi the web address and Griffin’s password. “But if you can get into it without using his password, that would be better. Then we can re-create the search if we need to.”

  Levi’s eyes lit up at the opportunity to learn something new. He rubbed his hands together and grinned. “I’m on it!”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Jake parked in front of Titus Cole’s apartment building and left the car running and the heat on. Before going in, he called Erin to see what she’d learned. Cole was clean in Illinois but had a record in Texas, where he’d lived for forty-two years before coming to Weston.

  “Looks like he was questioned seven times. Five times for assault and twice for battery. He was charged for one of each. Both dismissed. Hang on.”

  Multiple assaults and batteries. Cole was a violent man, and Henry had been killed by sudden violence. Jake’s pulse ratcheted up. If Cole was Henry’s killer, Jake would make sure he paid for it.

  As he waited for Erin to continue, he looked at Cole’s building. The bright clear day didn’t do it any favors. It probably looked better in the dark. It had to.

  “Yeah,” Erin said, “that’s over a couple decades, ending eleven years ago. Nothing since.

  “The incidents have anything in common, other than the lack of convictions?”

  “That’s all I have so far.”

  Cole had been the subject of seven police investigations without being convicted of a single crime. That took more than luck. That took power. Connections. Or money.

  “Did you hear me?” Erin said.

  “What?”

  “I said I talked to Beyoncé and fixed things.”

  Jake could only think of the one Beyoncé. “What are you talking about?”

  “Are you listening now?” Erin said. “I said I rescheduled the dinner. Her name is Janet.”

  “Not Beyoncé?”

  “Right.” Erin hung up.

  The dinner date fix-up. He’d forgotten all about it.

  He headed up the walk toward Cole’s apartment, his right hand moving under his blazer and onto the butt of his Glock. Simply checking his equipment, he told himself. The gun was one tool of many, his last resort when all else failed. If he had left it in its holster twelve years ago when he went into the alley with Royce Fletcher, maybe he could have talked the man down.

  Or maybe he’d be dead instead of Fletcher.

  A fold of carpet runner held the building’s door open. Jake stepped over it into a hallway that
smelled so strongly of garlic he could taste it. He ignored the buzzers and mailboxes and found Cole’s apartment, the first unit on the right. He paused before knocking; the over-excited voice of a television sports commentator came through the door. That level of enthusiasm could only be about football.

  He knocked. The television muted, and the door swung open.

  “Yes?”

  Titus Cole was about Jake’s height and stood very straight for an older guy—shoulders back, chest forward. His gray hair was trimmed short, with a silvery stubble on his face. The left side of his jaw held the blotchy discoloration Jake had seen when the man was talking to Bantam.

  “I’m Detective Houser, Weston PD.”

  “Yes?”

  “You were outside the crime scene on West Jackson on Wednesday afternoon. I’m following up.”

  “I guess I should have expected a visit.”

  “May I come in and ask you a few questions?”

  Cole’s lips pulled into a hard line, and he shook his head slightly before stepping back and waving Jake across the threshold. The man had a lot of experience with police; no doubt he’d learned it was best to cooperate and get it over with.

  Jake sat on the couch, a worn plaid that didn’t match anything in the room. He gave the space a once-over. It looked like it was furnished with junk left behind by other tenants—except for the TV, of course. It was huge, and the complex graphics of a sports program pulsed across it.

  Cole sat down in a wood chair across from the couch. “Fire away, Detective.”

  “What were you doing in the park that afternoon?”

  Cole put his hands on his knees, then licked his lips. The chair creaked under his shifting weight. Deception was coming. “I’m a birder. My focus is the birds of the Paget River Valley. The stretch from Riverfront Park there all the way north through Blackwell Forest Preserve.”

  “Why the Paget River Valley?”

  “It has strong year-round populations and gets high-volume migrations in both the spring and fall. The fall migration is just finishing up. With all the wetlands along the river there’s also an amazing amount of waterfowl. I identified a barnacle goose two weeks ago. A wild one, not a domestic escapee. Created a buzz in birder circles.”

  Too much detail; the explanation sounded prepared.

  “Did you meet Henry through your birding?”

  Cole nodded. “Barn swallows. I was along the river and spotted some bombing in and out of the park. They’re fast little buggers, but I was able to follow them to the barn. Henry was working in it and we got to talking.” He shrugged.

  “When was that?” Jake asked.

  Cole’s eyes jittered as he tried to figure out the safe answer; he didn’t trust the truth. “Midsummer. The week after the Fourth.”

  A lie; Cole got Henry’s name from Griffin in June. “How often did you talk?”

  “If I saw him out in the barn, I’d stop for a chat.” Cole leaned back in the chair, comfortable with how he was doing. “He was a nice guy. Always willing to give an old-timer a few minutes.”

  “Have you seen anyone else acting suspicious around the Fox place?”

  “No.”

  “What’s wrong with the birding in Texas?”

  Cole nodded with a little smile. “After living there for forty years I’d covered it. Plus, the migration isn’t as intense. When I retired, I decided to relocate for a new birding challenge.”

  “And Paget County is a well-known birder paradise?”

  “I don’t know about that, but Weston is a nice town. Good people. The birding. And lots of quality football.” He gestured at the TV. “Some great high school teams, college has North Central in D3 and Northern Illinois in D1. And of course the Bears are only an hour away.”

  Jake didn’t buy it—there were plenty of towns with good football and birding. But he wanted to know more about the man’s arrest record and about the other Texan before he started hitting Cole on his lies. For now, it was enough to know Cole had lied about his relationship with Henry. There was nothing casual or accidental about how Cole had met Henry; he had sought him out to get his hands on the silver.

  “Thank you for your time, Mr. Cole.” Jake stood and headed for the door. “I’ll let you know if I have any more questions.”

  Cole said nothing as Jake opened the door, but as soon as it was closed the TV volume came back on. Something about the Bears.

  As Jake walked back to his car, his phone vibrated with an incoming call. Callie Diggs.

  “What do you have?” he asked her.

  “A man down and across the street from Fox’s driveway saw that big white truck—he noticed it because of the Texas plate. It was parked on Jackson a few days ago—couldn’t remember which day—in the afternoon, with a man sitting in it. And the morning bartender at the VFW comes in through the park and saw a big white crew cab down there about ten one morning. Thinks it was this last Monday.”

  “Either of them add anything to what we know about Cowboy?”

  “The neighbor said the symbol on the hat was the flag that boats use to indicate a scuba diver is in the water.”

  “Diver down,” Jake said. Which explained Mrs. Brueder’s reference to Van Halen. The band used that flag on an album cover way back in the eighties. “What did Henry’s customers have to say?”

  “I’ve gotten through to enough of them to get a picture,” Callie said. “Fox had been a bit off the last few weeks. Quiet. Distracted. Rescheduled a bunch of jobs from early November to later in the month.”

  “Any sense of why?”

  “Two of the women said they asked him… they’ve known him their whole lives. He told them he was just tired.”

  Henry had been into something. Something that brought trouble to town that he had not seen coming. Something bigger than the twenty bars. Those had all been wrapped up in June. “Thanks, Callie.”

  “I’ve got a task force thing today, all hush-hush, but call me if you need me to chase down something else, and I’ll jump on it as soon as that’s done.”

  As Jake got back in the car, Cole’s violence-filled criminal record thrummed away in his head. He pulled up his contacts and scrolled until he found the number he wanted. Grady answered on the first ring.

  “Grady here.”

  “I’d like you to help me with something else today.”

  “I’m off now so I’m wide open.”

  “Perfect. I can get you overtime. I just questioned a guy who lives out on West Jefferson. I need you to sit on him, watch what he does and where he goes. Make sure he doesn’t dump anything.” Jake explained who Cole was and how he was connected to the case.

  “Is this the guy?”

  “Maybe, maybe not. I need to develop more information before I push him. But I want to see if my visit spooks him at all.”

  “I can be there in ten.”

  Grady’s academy training had covered surveillance, but Jake explained how he wanted him to handle the loose plainclothes tail. When he hung up he settled back to wait. He wanted to make sure Cole didn’t leave before Grady arrived.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Jake’s phone vibrated with another call. He kept his eyes on Cole’s apartment as he answered.

  “Houser.”

  “Good afternoon, Detective Houser!” The caller sounded delighted to be talking to Jake. “This is Donald Hallagan. I have some help for your murder case.”

  Jake sat up straighter. Hallagan was Paget County’s best criminal defense attorney. A call from him told Jake two things: One, his investigation had struck a raw nerve. And two, he would never get to talk to that raw nerve again without Hallagan present.

  “What can I do for you, counselor?”

  “James Bowen has retained me to help him explain himself in the unfortunate matter of Mr. Fox.”

 
Hallagan’s careful wording implied that a simple explanation would exonerate Mr. Bowen without the need for a pesky criminal charge or trial. But the explanation wouldn’t be an alibi. An alibi didn’t need to be delivered by a high-priced mouthpiece.

  “I talked with Mr. Bowen just this morning,” Jake said. “He must have run straight to your office.” Guilty people ran—away, or to their lawyers. “How did you find time for him? Is he an old friend?”

  “He and his wife are here with me, and I suggest we come down to the station right now and put your mind at ease so you can concentrate on finding the killer running loose in our community.”

  Mrs. Bowen’s presence explained why Bowen still wasn’t using his alibi. “That’s very thoughtful, counselor. Conditions?” Hallagan always had a few.

  “Nothing to the press, of course. And Mr. Bowen will be disclosing facts that suggest behaviors that might be against other laws, ones you don’t enforce, and you must agree not to refer him for prosecution to the relevant authorities.”

  Hallagan was referring to the same things all his white-collar clients worried about—tax laws and the IRS. Jake didn’t care about tax laws or how Bowen might have screwed the IRS. He only cared about catching, and punishing, Henry’s killer.

  The problem was, he knew Hallagan would only let him talk with Bowen once. Jake needed to know more before he took that shot.

  “I’m happy to hear Mr. Bowen is willing to talk to me. His behavior this morning left his name on my suspect list.” Jake tapped his pen against his notebook. “But I’m chasing a few other leads today. How about telling me what Mr. Bowen has to say? Off the record, of course, until we get together to finish the formalities.”

  “One moment, Detective.”

  By suggesting that he was prioritizing other leads over talking to Bowen, Jake hoped to lure Hallagan into sharing Bowen’s story now. It worked nearly every time.

  Grady’s white Jetta pulled to the curb twenty yards down the street. Grady looked in Jake’s direction and held up his phone. Jake raised his free hand in a “wait a minute” gesture.

  Hallagan came back on the line. “Agreed. My client met Mr. Fox through—”