However Many More

by Bo Thunboe

  “I’m doing some work in the basement.”

  She stepped past him, one finger raking a hot line across his abdomen.

  He closed the door behind her. “What’s going on?” he asked, keeping his voice low.

  “He found out you were with the Fox women at Everson’s and why. He’s not happy.”

  Shit. Jake followed Callie into the kitchen.

  Braff pulled three bottles of Bud Light from the fridge. “Let’s all have a seat,” he said, pointing at the card table in the corner.

  “Boss, I know the victim but it’s not a problem. I’ve known plenty of the victims—”

  “Sit!”

  Braff sat, put the other two beers down, then held up one of his thick fingers. That meant to shut the hell up.

  “It is a problem,” he said. “You more than knew him. He was one of your best friends! Hell, I googled your names together and got hits on six different sports stories and two photos, for Christ’s sake.”

  “Those were all from a long time ago.”

  “One was from the homecoming game. Two weeks ago.”

  Jake sat down and picked up the beer, cold in his hand.

  Callie twisted the cap off her beer and took a long pull. Her gaze met Jake’s then skipped away.

  “I’m making Diggs primary,” Braff said. “Give her—”

  “There’s no need for that. I’m already beyond any conflict I might have had. Henry’s ex didn’t—”

  Braff held up his stout finger again. “Already past the ex? On day two.”

  “She has an alibi?” Callie asked Jake.

  “Yes.”

  “Solid?”

  “I’m telling you it’s about the silver Henry found.”

  Braff’s eyebrows shot up. “This I gotta hear. From the beginning.”

  “Silver bars have—”

  “The beginning.”

  Jake started at the beginning, working his way through the storage unit business and the coin dealer and his suspicions of Bowen and how Lynn Fox provided Bowen’s alibi.

  “And her own,” Callie said. “Did you confirm it?”

  “Not yet,” Jake said.

  Braff shook his head, then sprang from the table and started pacing, his steps pounding out a stuttering rhythm on the bare wood floor. Callie nodded for Jake to continue, and he told them about the Texans and the thousand-ounce silver bars.

  “How many of these big bars are there?” Braff asked.

  “Enough to bring these Texans to town. Both of them have lied to me about why they’re here. They—”

  “Shit.” Braff stopped pacing. “You’ve already talked to the Texans?”

  Jake nodded, his spirits lightening. Braff wouldn’t want to interfere with whatever relationship Jake had developed with the main suspects.

  Callie and Jake both waited. Braff resumed his pacing, carving a lane in the underlayment, back and forth across the kitchen. Finally stopping.

  “Diggs will take the ex and her lover.” He pointed at Jake with his thick finger. “You stay the hell away from both of them. You only work the Texans and the silver. Got it?”

  “Does the ex know about the big bars?” Callie asked.

  “I think she and April both do, but I haven’t confirmed it yet. Hell, I haven’t even confirmed they exist.”

  “They exist or the Texans wouldn’t be here,” Braff said.

  Jake nodded. “That’s what I think too, Chief. And I’m sorry about—”

  Braff held up his hand again. “Save it, Houser. But don’t go off the reservation again or I’ll suspend you. Got it?”

  “I do.”

  Callie sprang up from the table. “I’ve got work to do. Tell me now if the ex is an old flame of yours.”

  Braff spread his arms wide. “Don’t tell me—”

  “She’s not!” Jake said quickly.

  Braff shook his head, made Jake promise that he wouldn’t regret this decision, then he and Callie left.

  Jake sat back down at the card table, peeling at the label on his beer. They were right: he should have nailed down that alibi, tearing down Lynn’s story and examining every piece of it. It would be a shock to Lynn when Callie dug into it all. He considered calling Lynn—but that was too much like a warning. It might even be obstruction.

  He finished the beer. He wasn’t supposed to be thinking about the case tonight; he was supposed to be thinking about the eulogy. And that gave him an idea.

  He got in the car and drove to his Spring Street property. It was originally the site of his dad’s old landscaping business, but Jake had converted the offices into a half-assed bachelor pad and still had all his belongings stored there. Including his old mementos.

  He shifted boxes around until he found the one he was looking for, then sat on the old leather couch in the shop area. For the next couple hours he did nothing but look through yearbooks and old photos, disappearing into the past, remembering everything about his friend that Henry’s secrets and deceptions had started to push from his mind.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Jake slept until seven the next morning, waking to cloudy thoughts. He took a long hot shower, and by the time he stepped in front of the sink to shave, his dreams were coming back to him. He wiped the fog from the mirror and stared at his own reflection, trying hard to focus on what he saw, not what he remembered.

  But he lost the battle. Images of his freshly murdered wife and bludgeoned friend kept flashing across his mind like slides playing on an endless loop. He gripped the counter and hung on, staring at himself and fighting the visions. The fog returned, then cleared, and finally the shuttering images faded away.

  He shook himself, releasing the tension across his back and shoulders, then finished up in the bathroom and got dressed.

  Today he needed to figure out both the silver and the Texans. When he had, he would have Henry’s killer. He would avenge his friend.

  He ate a bowl of cereal at his card table as he updated the online murder book with what he’d learned the day before. Although he was eager to get moving, he took his time, reviewed his notes, and worked to recall every word, gesture, and inflection of every conversation he’d had the day before, looking for the connections and inconsistencies and deceptions.

  He added Callie Diggs to the list of people authorized to edit the murder book. He was glad she was going to take a hard look at Lynn. His failure to verify the alibi she’d given Bowen—and herself—could have been used by the real killer’s criminal defense attorney to confuse a jury. But spending time verifying the alibi didn’t move the investigation forward. That would come from his work on the Texans.

  With Grady watching Trane, Jake decided to start his day by focusing on Cole. He called Erin.

  “Did you find out anything more about Cole?”

  “I was just about to call you,” she said.

  The excitement in Erin’s voice stoked Jake’s own.

  “First, his silver bar will be on its way to the lab at the stroke of nine. Second, Cole worked security for one family his entire career. The Bunkers. Mostly for Huntley.”

  “That name’s familiar.” Bunker. But not Huntley. Something with an L. Maybe Leroy?

  “Big Texas family. Made a gazillion dollars in oil, then got into some other areas. One brother—I think there were eight or ten of them—owns a football team. Hangs out with the Bush family. The Texas billionaire club.”

  Lamar Bunker—that was the name he knew. Jake had seen him on TV this past Sunday when they showed the team owner watching the game from his climate-controlled suite high above midfield. The owner always wore a suit and tie, and Jake always wondered why. After all, it was Sunday, and he was the boss.

  “Hang on.” Jake trapped the phone between his shoulder and his ear, then grabbed his notebook, flipped to the first blank page, a
nd wrote down this new information. “You said Huntley Bunker, right.”

  “Yep.”

  “And that job ended, what, eleven years ago?”

  “Right. That’s when Cole retired as head of security for Bunker Oil. Had an army of guys working for him by then. But still traveled with Huntley when he was on the move. Sounds like more of a companion at that point.”

  Jake finished writing the information down. “Thanks.”

  “On Bowen and his wife, I still have some feelers out, but I can tell you what I have.”

  “Braff put Callie on that part of it—on both Lynn and Bowen.”

  “What? I never heard a peep about that here or I would have tried to stop him.”

  “It’s okay,” he said. “I’m still on the Texans and the silver. She’s taking Lynn and Bowen. Did I tell you she alibied him? Says they were together. Having an affair.”

  “That jibes with a rumor I heard that the Bowens didn’t get on too well because of an affair. But it was weak, and the affair might have been hers. I found nothing else off about either of them. No criminal records. Not even a moving violation.”

  “Call Callie with what you have, okay?”

  “Will do.”

  “How about forensics? Fanning report anything?”

  “So far all the prints they’ve run have been ruled out by the comps they collected.”

  “Thanks, Erin.”

  “Sure thing, Jake.”

  Jake booted his laptop back up. He entered the new information into the murder book—about the Bowens, Cole’s employer, and Cole’s silver bar being on its way to forensics. Jake didn’t think forensics would find anything on the bar. Henry had found twenty bars, Griffin would be providing proof that eighteen went to the silver exchange, and one was in Cole’s lockbox. Henry kept the other one… which was now missing. That one had to be the murder weapon.

  Jake realized he needed to understand the exchange well enough to write it up in the book and explain it to a jury. As he picked up his phone to call the accountant, it buzzed with a text. Grady: Trane having breakfast at the B&B. Lanigan says he was looking through the local interest books they keep in the lobby.

  Jake was glad to have Grady’s extra eyes as things heated up. He texted back for Grady to send updates whenever Trane moved.

  Trane was here for the silver, so his interest in Weston history and geography had to be related to the silver.

  He called the accountant. “Ryan, tell me how this silver exchange works.”

  “Sure. One sec.” The phone muffled for a few seconds, then Beck came back on. “What do you want to know?”

  “I need to understand how a coin dealer buys silver bars and sells them to the exchange.”

  “Okay. Silver is a commodity that is bought and sold, but not to use, like orange juice and pork bellies. Most buyers, on a volume basis anyway, never take possession of the silver they buy. It’s enough for the buyer to have the contract on it. The proof of ownership he gets when he buys it and gives when he sells it. He never even sees the silver—probably never even thinks about it as a hunk of metal that actually exists somewhere. Though of course if it didn’t, his contract would have no value.”

  “Okay.” Jake carried his bowl and spoon over to the trash can and dumped them in. He didn’t have a kitchen sink, so he used disposable everything.

  “Silver is traded on the commodities options exchange, COMEX, and for silver to be traded there it has to be delivered to the exchange and stored there. Before COMEX will accept silver it has to be assayed, which means it’s examined to determine if it’s 99.9% pure silver. Other than that, weight, obviously, is the other important factor. The mint mark is immaterial. Some bars have a mark from the mint that created them, and some have a mark from the company that mined it, or even the company that made the bar. No uniformity, but because it isn’t part of the value, that’s fine. Some bars do carry a serial number, which is relatively new, and is mostly done to create the perception of security.”

  “So when Griffin sent the bars off to the exchange they went to COMEX?”

  “They should have, yes. And he should have the paperwork accepting the bars into the exchange, as well as the assayer’s certificate certifying their purity and weight.”

  “Well, he agreed to send that paperwork to me at the station,” Jake said. He wandered over to the front window and looked out at the day. It was cloudy, the clatter of the wind-whipped tree limbs clear through the glass. A blotch of sun shone high on the high school football stadium in the near distance. “Can you keep your eye out for it and take a look?”

  “Will do.”

  “If it isn’t there by two this afternoon, rattle his cage. Erin has his info. Or call me and I’ll rattle it.”

  “I can do my own rattling.”

  “Good.”

  Jake ended the call, satisfied that if something could be found in Griffin’s paperwork, Beck would find it.

  He wondered what Levi had turned up on the mint mark. It seemed trivial, but it was hard to predict which piece of information might be the key to unraveling a complex web of information. He considered calling the would-be PI, but opted for a face-to-face instead. Movement made things happen. He geared up and headed out.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Jake was pulling away from his house when his cell phone buzzed, shooting a jolt of optimism through him. Some investigatory thread was unraveling, and the end of that string was now flapping his way. He swerved to the curb and threw the car into park. Before answering, he checked the screen. Coogan.

  “How about I drop by?” Jake asked his friend. “I’m headed that way and can be there in less than five.”

  “See you then.”

  Jake found a parking spot in front of the frozen yogurt shop less than a hundred feet from Coogan’s building. As he climbed the rickety stairs to Coogan’s office, he felt sure his friend would have something good.

  Jennifer was behind her desk in the waiting area, her fingers tapping out a staccato beat on her keyboard. “He said to send you on in.”

  Coogan sat behind his big walnut desk, leaning back, eyes on his computer screen. He swiveled his chair toward Jake, and a big smile split his face. “That was fast.”

  “Tell me what you found.” Jake plopped in a chair in front of the desk.

  “Well…”

  A good start. It meant Coogan had something so big he needed to wind himself up for the telling.

  “I’m still going through it. It’s a big bankruptcy, and attorney’s fees are already over a million. But a couple things about it struck me, so I wanted to share them with you.” Coogan flexed his jaw, veins pulsing on the side of his gaunt skull. “First, although TH filed a chapter eleven—that’s the reorganization type of bankruptcy that allows a company to keep operating while it sheds debt—it shut down its treasure hunts and is already selling off its assets. When a company decides to do that—to liquidate—it usually switches to a chapter seven, a liquidation bankruptcy. But in a seven, a court-appointed trustee takes over the company. So if a company wants to maintain control over its own dismantling it stays in a chapter eleven and handles its own affairs, subject to some loose court supervision.”

  “Okay.”

  “So here’s the first odd thing: Trane did not file personal bankruptcy along with his corporation.”

  “Why is that odd?” Jake asked. “He shouldn’t have to if he did business as a corporation, right? Isn’t the whole purpose of a corporation to shield the owner from personal responsibility?”

  “That is a main purpose, yes. But in many large cases with a closely held ownership—here it was just Trane and a couple venture capitalists—creditors can find creative ways to get to personal assets. So the individual often files personal bankruptcy; rich businessmen typically organize their personal finances to allow them to keep as m
uch as they can after a personal bankruptcy. For example, in Texas, even in bankruptcy a person’s home is protected, no matter how lavish it is. You could invest all your money in a penthouse apartment in Dallas worth millions, file bankruptcy, and keep the penthouse.”

  “So Trane must be happy with how the corporation protects him and doesn’t believe any creative creditors can get at him.”

  “Well, he should be worried about that. But I’ll get back to that in a minute.”

  “What else?”

  “Frequently when a company starts liquidating, its production assets—the machines and equipment that makes whatever the company sold—are bought by the individuals who ran the company into the ground. Then they open a new company and start the whole thing over.”

  “That sounds crooked.”

  Jake leaned back in the chair, his excitement leaking away under the onslaught of technical jargon and analysis. But the excitement was still rising in Coogan’s voice.

  “It does, but it is common and done publicly. A sale is advertised to find other buyers, and the bankruptcy judge supervises the whole thing. But often the production equipment has no value outside its industry and little value inside it because competitors already have their own equipment or are worried about the condition of the equipment for sale.”

  A string of school buses rumbled by outside, the kids inside so pumped up their shouts were clear through the closed windows.

  “TH owned two ships outfitted for underwater exploration, each with submersibles and scuba equipment. Trane’s bid to buy the smaller boat was accepted, but he still hasn’t paid for it, and the judge’s patience is running out.”

  “So Trane wants to stay in the treasure hunting business. And?”

  “Trane bought something else out of the bankruptcy. This he has paid for.”

  The long-awaited point, Jake hoped. He pulled out his pen and notebook.

  “He bought all right, title, and interest in TH, Inc.’s ownership of the ‘missing assets of WLB Foods, Inc. as identified on the relevant bill of sale.’ That’s how the docket reads, and I haven’t been able to find the paper on it.”