However Many More

by Bo Thunboe

  “Yes. I—”

  The rest of his words were lost in the rattling roar of a passing commuter train, the ground trembling slightly, the flash of the train’s lit windows a blur through the brush and trees choking the embankment. They both waited it out.

  When it had passed, Jake said, “Show me the blood.”

  Wallace pointed out a dark splatter on the Jetta’s roof by the driver’s door and a puddle on the pavement below it. The splatter was dry, and the pool had a thick skin on its surface. One edge of the pool was pulled into a long tail.

  Jake walked around the car, using his own flashlight to examine the scene. As he finished circling the Jetta the shift sergeant’s squad car pulled up and added its headlights to the flood illuminating the scene. Beyond it, at the intersection of Webster and Spring a cluster of emergency vehicles was assembling, lights flashing, doors slamming, excited voices breaking out.

  Jake turned away from the noise and focused. He didn’t like the story the blood told him. As Grady got out of the car, he was hit hard enough for his scalp to split; that explained the blood splashed onto the roof. He fell, lay there long enough for his blood to pool, and then someone moved him, his head dragging away from the puddle and the car.

  Trane must have spotted Grady tailing him and led Grady here. It was as secluded a place as you could find this close to downtown: row houses on two sides, the train embankment to the north, and the thick wad of plantings in the middle of the circle.

  So Trane had lured Grady here and surprised him, but then what?

  Trane would have either left Grady where he landed, or he would have moved him immediately. The pool of blood meant Grady had lain there for some period of time before his body was moved. That didn’t make sense. Why would Trane wait? Unless…

  Unless Trane left Grady where he landed and Grady moved himself.

  He was alive!

  Jake dropped into a crouch, sweeping the flashlight low over the pavement.

  There—a dark smudge, glistening with wetness. Jake scrambled over to it, holding the light a few inches above the pavement, sweeping a narrow arc, continuing in the direction the first smudge established. Nothing.

  Wallace stepped into Jake’s line of sight, pointing at the ground. “There!”

  Jake speared the spot with the light.

  Blood.

  Working together, the two traced a path north across the parking lot and over the curb. From there the trail became obvious in the flattened grass and disturbed leaves, heading straight for the tracks.

  Jake ran his light up the trail and smiled. Grady was a Weston native and had found himself a hidey-hole Trane could never find. The old cow tunnel under the railroad tracks. The city had filled it in for the first time back in the seventies, but from time to time a new generation of boys discovered it and dug it out.

  “Follow me.” Jake sprang up from his crouch and shouldered his way through the thick stand of bushes separating the street from the Burlington Northern tracks. He scrambled up the base of the embankment, his light leading the way, his feet slipping on the loose stone. Grabbing a sapling with his free hand, he fought his way up the hill to a mound of stone and dirt, then he was over it and stabbed his flashlight beam into the arched opening in the hill.

  The waffled bottom of a pair of boots protruded from the narrow hole.

  “Here he is!” He turned to find Wallace right beside him. “Get those paramedics up here.”

  While he waited, Jake dropped to his knees and probed the tunnel with the light. Grady’s ankles were wrapped with duct tape halfway to his knees.

  “Grady! Can you hear me? We got you.”

  No response. Jake grabbed Grady’s foot and shook it, but still nothing.

  He reached deeper into the tunnel and felt his way past the duct tape. Grady’s skin was warm through the polyester pants. A muscle bunched under Jake’s hand, and both feet moved.

  Then a paramedic pulled Jake away. “We got this, Detective.”

  Jake stepped back. Shaking with relief that Grady was alive, he skated back down the embankment on the loose scree.

  The paramedics rolled a stretcher to the edge of the parking area, and a team of first responders carried Grady gently to it. He was strapped in, rolled to the ambulance, and taken away.

  The cold wormed its way into Jake and he shivered. He pulled his blazer together and buttoned it. The shift sergeant reassigned the gathered patrol cars to search for Trane, keeping back one unit to guard the scene. The rest of the emergency vehicles dispersed, leaving behind a forensic van. Jake now noticed civilians gathered in clusters behind long threads of yellow crime scene tape tied from tree to bush to street sign.

  Grady was safe, but Trane was still in the wind. And Trane wouldn’t stop moving until he had the silver—not after all he’d done to get his hands on it. He’d spotted the tail and stopped it. Where would he go from there?

  Jake didn’t know enough about Trane to anticipate his moves. Understanding people was what solved cases: their motivations and connections and relationships. Trane was connected, through the silver, to three other men: Henry and Cole and Bowen. Two were dead, and the third was with Callie.

  No, not three. Four.

  Griffin.

  Griffin bought Henry’s silver, sold the first bar to Cole, posted the forum question that brought Trane to town, and bought Bowen’s silver. Griffin kept portraying himself as a simple businessman trying to make a slim profit off some metal ingots.

  Jake didn’t buy it anymore.

  He got in his car and headed west. It was time for Griffin to talk.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  Jake parked in a dark spot under a burned-out overhead light in front of Paget County Coins. Through the big windows he spotted Griffin holding up a tray of coins to a father and son who both nodded and smiled at what they saw. Jake locked the car and headed inside.

  As he pushed through the door his eyes were on Griffin. The man looked up and met his gaze, then frowned and shook his head before getting back to his sale.

  “Can I help you, sir?”

  A twenty-something man in jeans and a yellow button-down stood to the right of the door wearing a weak smile. Jake remembered him from his earlier visit.

  “Yes, you can, Jason.” Jake turned his back on Griffin and showed his badge.

  Jason licked his lips. “Mr. Griffin talks to the police. Not me.” He craned his neck to look at his boss.

  Jake didn’t have time to massage this kid; he needed to cut through the bullshit and get the truth. He stepped into his sight line. “How long have you been here?”

  “I’ve worked here for—”

  “Today. How long have you been here today?”

  “Since noon.”

  “Did you leave for lunch or dinner or to go to the dentist?”

  “No, sir.”

  “How about Griffin?”

  “He’s been here all day. At least since I got here. We had a pizza delivered for dinner.”

  “Let’s be clear on this, Jason. You will take the stand in court and tell a judge and jury Griffin has been here since you got here at noon. He didn’t leave for a half hour to go to the bank or to get his nails done.”

  “Yes.” The kid stood up straighter. “I will.”

  Griffin’s customer left, and the big man made his way over, heavy footsteps slapping the concrete floor. “What are you doing here again, Houser?” His voice vibrated with anger. “You’re getting to be a pain in the—”

  Jake stepped into Griffin’s space, his chest bumping against the soft mound of the man. “Shut up, asshole.”

  Griffin didn’t back away, but he kept his mouth closed, chewing his bottom lip.

  “I have more questions, and you’re going to answer them or I’ll shut this place down and make you jump through every hoop availa
ble in our great American bureaucracy.”

  Griffin’s face flushed red, and his eyes shot to his employee. “I’ll handle this, Jason. You take over at the counter.”

  Jason scurried away without a word.

  “Let’s go to your office.”

  Griffin led the way through the curtain into the back room. The tables that had been spread with inventory on Jake’s last visit were empty now, the women gone. In the office, Griffin took his fancy chair and Jake stood over him at the end of the desk. The man’s neck and face were red, and sweat stained the collar of his blue shirt.

  “Spill it,” Jake said, leaving Griffin to interpret the generic it as the one thing he was worried about. The thing making him sweat.

  “James didn’t kill Henry.”

  James. Not “Bowen” or “Mr. Bowen.” Jake wanted to talk about Trane, but he would start with Bowen if that’s where the leverage was. “Convince me.”

  “He was with me that night but he didn’t want to tell you because of his wife.”

  “Bullshit,” Jake said, though something about the words with me strummed a suspicion in his mind. “I’m going to need more than your say-so.”

  Griffin shot a red-faced glance at Jake then turned away and started banging away on his keyboard and clicking with his mouse. A black-and-white video appeared on the left monitor. It was cut into quadrants, each showing a different view of the store. Then one of the sections swelled to fill the screen. Griffin and Bowen sitting on the leather couch right here in this office. A bottle of wine and two glasses on the desk.

  “Freeze that.”

  Griffin clicked the mouse, and the screen froze on an image of Griffin leaning in for what could only be a kiss. Jake stepped around the desk and behind Griffin to take a closer look at the time stamp in the corner of the screen: 10:07:29 on the night of Henry’s murder. “How late was he here?”

  “Until after two.”

  That covered the time of Henry’s murder. Bowen was innocent. Which meant Trane had planted the murder weapon in his house. “Run it on fast forward.”

  The camera only took a few images a second, so the video was quick. It wasn’t pretty, but two bloated, hairy, pasty-skinned men engaging in consensual sex was tame compared to what Jake had seen while working a child porn case the year before.

  “Bowen’s alibi for Henry’s murder.” Jake worked to keep his voice even. “And yours.”

  Griffin nodded.

  “I’ll have to get our techs out here to verify your system integrity and date stamp.”

  Griffin looked away. “Okay.”

  “You told Bowen about the silver bars Henry sold you because he was your lover.”

  “He wasn’t then, but I… felt it. I wanted him to know Henry wasn’t being straight with him. How could Henry be right for him if…?”

  “If what?” Jake asked. Griffin’s words—right for him—echoed in his mind. Another damn secret.

  “If he was lying to him about their business.”

  “To be clear, Griffin. Are you telling me—”

  “James and Henry were… together. But when Henry tried to steal James’s share of the silver, that ended it.”

  No deception. Jake absorbed the news and let it settle in. It changed nothing but his perception of his friendship with Henry.

  “Tell me about Trane.”

  Griffin’s eyes shifted away and his shoulders slumped. “He came in here right at closing last Saturday. Said he had a big transaction to discuss with me and wanted to talk in private. After my employees left I locked up and brought him back here.” He shrugged. “I thought he had something to sell. Some collectors are secretive and don’t want anyone to know what they have.”

  “And?” Jake asked. Griffin was having trouble getting to the point. Whatever happened with Trane couldn’t be as embarrassing as the sex tape.

  Jake’s phone buzzed. “Hang on a second.”

  A text from Erin: Trane’s truck found parked on Liberty west of the mall. No sign of Trane. Still searching for him.

  Jake put the phone away. “Spill the rest, Griffin.”

  “He’d seen my post about the thousand-ounce bars and wanted to know all about it. I told him our privacy policy didn’t allow me to talk about it. He offered me money and then threatened me and slapped me around.” He swallowed and turned away.

  “And you gave him Henry’s name and address.”

  Griffin nodded. “And a copy of the proof of ownership.”

  The storage facility receipt with Henry’s address. “And Bowen’s info?”

  Griffin shook his head.

  Of course not. “Do you have all this on video?”

  “Like with the… uh… first video there’s no sound, but I have it.”

  Jake chewed his lip. He wanted to join the search for Trane, but even a silent stop-action video might tell him something worth knowing. “Queue it up for me so I can see what we’re talking about.”

  Griffin turned back to the computer and clicked through a few menus.

  “Here it is.”

  A video filled the monitor: Griffin talking animatedly as he escorted Trane into the office. Selling him. The men sat and talked for a few minutes, and then Griffin was shaking his head.

  “That’s when I told him I couldn’t reveal who had the thousand-ounce bars.”

  A few seconds later Trane held a fan of bills and waved it around before throwing it on the desk. Griffin left it there and crossed his arms. Suddenly Trane sprang up and slapped Griffin across the face, his head snapping one way then the other. Griffin tried to get up but Trane pushed him back down and another series of slaps left Griffin huddled in his chair. Trane picked up the money and put it in his pocket, then stood waiting. Griffin did something at the computer and gave Trane a document that shot from the printer. Then Trane was gone.

  “That it?” Jake asked.

  Griffin nodded, looking so beaten that Jake was sure he now had the man’s full cooperation. Jake told Griffin to wait for the forensic team to come copy the videos and verify the system, then left.

  Back in the car he called Callie and gave her the news about Bowen’s alibi for Henry’s murder. “A real alibi, this time,” he said. “Bowen was framed just like he claimed.” And Jake had made it possible. Griffin hadn’t told the big Texan about Bowen. It must have been Jake who had led Trane there.

  Then he told her about Griffin’s claim that Henry had been in a romantic relationship with Bowen that ended when they argued about the silver.

  “Which gives his wife a motive,” Callie said.

  “Whose wife? You mean Lynn?”

  “No—Bowen’s wife. I busted her alibi, too. When we searched the house we found receipts for a hotel stay at the Starlight the night Henry was murdered.”

  “She wasn’t in Cincinnati like she told me?”

  “Nope.”

  “What did she say about it?”

  “I haven’t confronted her with it. Yet.”

  “There’s only one killer.”

  “That’s an assumption,” Callie said.

  Maybe, but it wasn’t a stretch.

  They talked it through and decided Callie would work the Bowens together, covering both Griffin’s alibi sex tape and the wife’s busted alibi, and see what shook out of it.

  “I’ll set up the tech guys to get Griffin’s video and confirm the time stamp,” Callie said. “How is Grady?”

  “Trane hit him hard. I… don’t know.” Jake’s stomach roiled as he thought about the blood splatter on Grady’s car.

  “He’s young and tough, Jake.”

  “I know.” Jake squeezed his phone hard, the edge biting into his hand. “I’ve got my fingers crossed.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  Conner heard cops out on the driveway laughing about something. He
cracked his bedroom window to listen in, but they were just talking about the errors they spotted on some cop show on TV. He stepped into the hallway and heard voices coming from downstairs. Pressing up against the wall, he edged toward the top of the stairs until he could peer into the living room. His parents were on the couch, their lawyer on the chair next to it. The black lady cop stood in front of them.

  “Who do you represent here, Mr. Hallagan?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Do you represent Mr. Bowen or Mrs. Bowen?”

  “Jim retained me, but why—”

  The cop angled her back to Hallagan and looked directly at Conner’s mom. “Mrs. Bowen. We have learned that you lied about being in Cincinnati the night Mr. Fox was killed. You never left town, but were checked into the Starlight Motel the whole time you pretended to be gone.”

  What the fuck?

  Conner’s mom looked down, and his dad looked back and forth between the lawyer and the cop.

  “Susan?” The lawyer. “You don’t have to say anything. I can represent you—”

  “Can you, Mr. Hallagan?” The cop glared down at the pompous lawyer. “What if her best defense is to blame her husband?”

  The lawyer’s mouth snapped shut.

  Defense? Did the cop think Conner’s mom had killed Mr. Fox?

  “Why did you lie to Detective Houser?” the detective asked.

  Conner’s mom said nothing.

  “Susan?” Conner’s dad twisted in the couch to face her. “Why—”

  “As if you care,” she snapped.

  “I do care—”

  “You want to know why I was at a hotel instead of at home, Detective? The conference was canceled, but I’d been so… happy at the thought of getting away for a couple days that I checked into the Starlight.”

  Conner’s dad shook his head. “I leave you alone all day long. You’re—”

  “But you’re here, aren’t you?” she yelled back. “Always locked in your office doing… whatever the hell it is you do.”

  “I’m writing.”

  “Writing.” She said it like it was a curse. “Bullshit.”