[Frank Harper 01.0] A Field of Red

by Greg Enslen

  Nick had branched out, making investments and buying small businesses and rolling them into the larger construction firm. He’d taken on two partners, both of whom were heavily involved in the day-to-day activities of Martin Construction, and three other “silent partners” who had paid into the company to take share of future profits.

  From the financials Frank was reviewing, it looked like the kidnappers had failed to do their homework. From the outside, the Martins and Martin Construction looked to be flush--owning possibly the largest house in town made that much clear--but the economic downturn had gutted the construction company.

  First, Martin Construction had been heavily invested in a large housing development south of town, someplace called Sunset Ridge. It was planned as a subdivision of about 20 homes near the cemetery, but only 4 were completed and sold by the time the housing crisis began to impact the market in Ohio. Another three houses were in various stages of completion, with the rest of the lots sitting empty.

  Martin Construction had taken a bath on that development--they hadn’t even been able to sell the empty lots. The estimated sales prices for the homes under construction fell so precipitously that all work simply halted. According to the paperwork, the subdivision was still sitting unfinished, waiting for the economy to turn around.

  Most of the other local construction work in the area had also dried up in 2009. 2010 and 2011 had been very lean years for the company. People were let go, and Frank jotted down a note on his pad to ask King if all the ex-employees had been interviewed. Few things made people angrier than being fired. And other large projects had been put on hold--a large investment in a strip of commercial properties west of town and the Holly Toys Lofts project, a warehouse/condo conversion project.

  The commercial strip was a planned development located near the highway, a small group of six retail and commercial spaces near the Bob Evans. The commercial strip had been under construction and fully rented out in late 2009, but as the building was nearing completion, two tenants backed out. Two of Martin’s silent partners had been hurt badly in that deal, losing a chunk of change. The exact numbers weren’t listed in the financials, but one of the “silent” partners was pissed off enough to take Nick Martin to court over ownership of the property. The case had been settled and the partner, a Jimmy Weil, had sold his shares and left Martin Construction. Frank made another note to look up the interview, if there was one.

  The other outstanding property concerned one of several properties that Martin and his primary business partner had purchased together. The Holly Toys building was a massive brick building, from the picture in the file. Located near the downtown, next to the train tracks, Martin Construction had picked up the building at auction in 2007 for a song.

  Nick and his main business partner, Matthew Lassiter, had moved forward with plans to remove all the rusting equipment from the old toy factory and gut the interior to create retail and commercial space on the bottom two floors and condos on the top two floors. Again, this project was on hold. The money ran out. The only current expenses on the project were to pay a full-time security guard to keep the curious away.

  The last project of note was partial ownership of a building in downtown Dayton. Martin Construction and the Martins personally were members of a consortium of investors putting money into a large industrial building that overlooked the baseball field of the local AA baseball team, the Dayton Dragons. The property was undergoing a six-year renovation and conversion to apartments, condos, and retail and office space. It appeared that the Martins were enthusiastic backers of the project, but it, too, had fallen before the economic tide and was on hold, awaiting more funding and support from the local community.

  The last page of the financial report disclosed three other properties that had been sold off by Martin Construction over the past six months to help keep the company afloat. A few construction projects had trickled over the summer, but it looked like the company would be finishing out 2011 in the red, with a bunch of unsellable properties and partially-completed projects on the books.

  There was a page at the end about Martin’s city council seat. He’d run for the position and won it in November of 2010, so he’d been on the Council a little less than a year. He’d been a fiscal conservative, refusing to vote for any expenditure of funds on anything but the essentials. He’d voted against a few borderline “amenities,” and been the only “no” vote to fund the city’s annual downtown Christmas lights. He’d gotten a reputation as stingy with the city’s money. Some people liked it, and some most sincerely did not.

  In fact, he’d developed quite a following of people who were not at all happy with his Council decisions. A handwritten note on the page noted that 17 locals had been interviewed in the last five days about angry emails, letters, and phone calls sent in or made to Martin, voicing their displeasure with some of his votes. In all cases, Martin’s “fans” had turned out to be harmlessly expressing their displeasure with his voting record. At the very least, it sounded like Nick Martin would have some work to do if he wanted to be reelected when his next campaign rolled around in 2014.

  Frank closed the folder on Martin and sat back, thinking.

  Either the kidnappers were badly informed, or they knew what they were doing. If they thought Nick Martin was rich, they’d ask for a bigger ransom, assuming he could get it. If they knew he was on the ropes financially, why ask for so much, and only give him a day to get the money together? Did the kidnappers assume the Bureau was involved? The FBI routinely “assisted” with pulling together the ransom money in a timely fashion. It was almost always the victim’s “money,” but the Bureau would facilitate getting the bills in from a local large bank, acquiring consecutive bills, recording all the serials and, often, marking the bills with a UV-reactive dye or some other tracking/identification method.

  It was still pouring outside. Frank watched the rain spattering against the windows and drenching the metal table and chairs just outside his window. People outside ran comically from awning to awning, trying to stay dry.

  He wondered where the little girls were, if they were out in this downpour. Dead or alive, they had to be somewhere. Chief King had said that half of the town had turned out for organized searches of every park, common area, ditch, and culvert in the city limits. Groups of volunteers had scoured the Great Miami River, which wound along the eastern edge of town. They had walked the riverbanks and thick tangles of trees on either side of the river for two miles up and down stream.

  Another group had meticulously worked their way down Canal Road and the under-construction bike path. King had said that the twisty road wound south along the route of the old canal. Bicyclists were apparently struck on a regular basis on the narrow road by passing cars, so a new bike path twenty feet off the road was being put in. One early theory had been that the girls had somehow gotten far south of town without anyone seeing them. Perhaps been struck by a motorist, their bodies thrown into the thick brush or corn fields that line both sides of the road. Then the ransom call had come in, and the police had altered their thinking. They were still continuing with the searches, just in case, their primary focus being the ransom demands and the kidnappers.

  Frank shook his head and grabbed the next file--Glenda Martin.

  Chapter 21

  It was all there.

  $1,000,000 in cash.

  No trackers, non-sequential bills. The man had never seen so much cash in one place before. Certainly not laid out on his bed, stacked up in beautiful piles of green.

  He’d retrieved the money from the airport parking lot this morning. He thought it would be prudent to let the money sit overnight, in case it was still being tracked. The two kids hired by his partner were supposed to clean the money, but you could never be too careful. He’d arrived at the airport and sat in his car, watching the old Mustang for another two hours before gingerly walking over to it, unlocking the car, and retrieving the green duffel bag from the back seat.

&nb
sp; He’d then taken a long circuitous route home, passing through Dayton and another suburb before driving back to Cooper’s Mill, stopping several times along the way to see if he was being followed.

  At one point, a helicopter flew over, and it put him into a panic, like the Ray Liotta character in “Goodfellas.”

  But now, as he was standing in his bedroom, looking down at the money, and the much smaller stack of paperwork on the bed next to the money, he realized that he’d never actually thought this would happen. Together, these two things represented six months of planning, laying the groundwork, associating with people out of his circle. He also hadn’t thought the girl’s father, Nick Martin, would be able to come up with all of it that quickly.

  But there it was, all laid out on the bed. His part of the ransom would be a big help. The cash would go to his silent partner.

  The man walked over to the window and looked out. His apartment overlooked the quaint shopping district in downtown Cooper’s Mill. He leased one of the few second-story apartments downtown. He’d been lucky to find it and even luckier to buy the building for cheap. Of course, he’d sold it later at a profit and kept back the apartment for himself.

  Profits--that’s what he needed now. Clearing out all of his investments was the only way to get enough money to get square. It wasn’t really his fault--he’d just gotten in over his head.

  You knew it was bad when a thick guy from Vegas with no neck showed up in the little town of Cooper’s Mill, Ohio, reminding you of your “payment plan.” It wasn’t a very flexible payment plan, certainly. And if you didn’t stay on the plan, the balloon payment at the end would kill you. Literally.

  Or, at least they’d wait on killing him until they’d squeezed every penny they could out of him. Obviously, Vegas was not happy with him. But now, things were looking up. He had a plan, and skills, and assets that could be cashed in.

  The man walked back over to the bed. The apartment was small, but it had always been enough for him. He liked intimate settings and opulence and style, and he took pride in knowing that his apartment was probably the nicest bedroom in town. Not that that was saying much.

  The people here were nice and had accepted him with aplomb. And he’d brought them a little style. But his time here was nearly over.

  The man opened the FedEx box and slipped the paperwork inside, stopping for a second to triple-check that he’d signed the deed over. Wouldn’t that have been a fun phone call? “Hi, we got the money and the paperwork on the building, but the deed isn’t signed. What are you trying to pull?” It would have been followed by the usual threats, which invariably involved breaking something on his body, usually a leg. Sometimes the guys from Vegas also threatened to cut things off, or out, but mostly they stuck with breaking things. Probably because breaking a leg would hurt like hell but not be a permanent condition. Unless you counted the limp. He guessed clichés got to be clichés for a reason.

  The man slid the deed and the rest of the paperwork into the box, along with the $363,000 he had counted out. Seemed crazy to trust that kind of cash to a flimsy cardboard box, but Vegas had assured him it was fine. “Just remember to get the insurance,” the guy had said with a laugh.

  Between the property and the cash, it was everything he owed. Now, he was square, and Vegas would back off. Just knowing the end was coming was a big relief. All the planning was paying off, and no one had gotten hurt.

  The man took another $400,000 and put it back into the green duffel bag--that was for his “partner,” a man he’d grown to thoroughly despise over the past six weeks. But doing business like this required working with less savory elements. His partner had handled the whole kidnapping side, including arranging for people to watch what had turned out to be two girls instead of just Charlie Martin. But the partner was being handsomely compensated, even after paying the others out of his share.

  With the duffel bag and FedEx boxes ready, the man looked around the room again. He had nearly a quarter of a million left for himself. But it would have to last. He would be leaving this life behind and needed money to get set up somewhere else, somewhere where absolutely no one knew who he was.

  Chapter 22

  Frank continued through the files, making notes as he went.

  Glenda Martin was the wife--heavily into art and the local art scene. She worked with a small art gallery in one of the downtown buildings, using the space to support local artists. Glenda wanted to turn Cooper’s Mill into “another Yellow Springs;” evidently, Yellow Springs was a nearby town with a bustling art scene. Glenda Martin had been involved in establishing the local arts group and was an active volunteer with the local farmers market.

  The Martins had met at Ohio State, and Frank was mildly disappointed to find out that Glenda was not a cheerleader. In fact, she had majored in Economics. They had been friends in college and stayed in touch while Nick was in the military, reconnecting when he returned to their shared home town. A year later, they were married. She’d been an early employee of the construction company, helping Nick to keep his finances in order, until he could hire a full-time CFO. She still taught occasional semesters at Wright Brothers Community College, “when her schedule allowed it,” the notes said. Frank wasn’t sure what that meant.

  Sergeant Graves, the first policeman on the scene, had noted in her file that “the mother had been the most upset, visibly distraught” that first morning of the case after learning that her daughter and the daughter of her housekeeper had gone missing. In Frank’s experience, people either reacted genuinely or grossly overreacted, playing it up and making sure that everyone around them knew how they felt. The over-actors gave all the classic, outward signs of being genuinely upset, but they piled it on too much, giving themselves away. According to Graves, she’d been holding it together, but on the verge of excusing herself, breaking into tears several times during the discussion.

  In these types of situations, women often reacted with tears and desperate sadness, whereas men reacted angrily or insisted that they wanted to help. Sometimes the men seemed like they just wanted something at which to direct their anger. In more cases than Frank wanted to remember, he had taken the brunt of their anger. The woman crying on his shoulder and the man yelling at him. Both unsure of what to do next, both unable to direct their emotion into anything helpful. Both feeling helpless, frustrated, angry.

  There was little else on Glenda.

  Frank read carefully several more files, flipping through them and quickly scanning for anything out of the ordinary. He finished the first box, reading various reports on people connected to the case.

  The first file in the second box was on Ms. Nora Gutierrez. She had been hired by the Martins in 2004 and had been with them since. When the Martins bought their current home two years later, they had purposefully chosen a home with a live-in suite above the garage for Ms. Gutierrez and her young daughter, Maya, who was one year younger than the Martins’ own daughter. Ms. Gutierrez’ employment records and immigration status were in order, and her financial report was short and completely unremarkable. She was well-paid by the Martins and apparently happy.

  Frank scanned several more folders and was grabbing for another file when Deputy Peters came back into the coffee shop, stepping inside and shaking off the rain like a dog.

  “Hi, Mr. Harper,” Peters said, setting his wet hat down on the table. “How’s it going?”

  “Good,” Frank nodded. “Grab a drink and join me.”

  Peters left, and Frank moved the files away from the damp hat. Drops of rain ran down the blue fabric and created tiny pools of water on the metallic table. Each drop formed a perfect circle.

  After a minute, Peters returned and sat, sipping his coffee. “That’s one good cup of coffee.”

  Frank nodded.

  “But the other place is good, too,” Peters said in a conspiratorial tone, his voice lowering. “There are two coffee shops downtown. This one is the ‘new’ one, and some folks don’t even seem to kn
ow the name of the place. They just call it the ‘new’ coffee shop.”

  Peters sat back and looked around the interior of the place. Frank, unsure if there was more story to come or not, waited, one hand inside the next folder, ready to flip it open on the table in front of him. When Peters didn’t say anything for a while, Frank sighed and spoke up.

  “I didn’t see another coffee shop. What do they call the old place?”

  Peters seemed genuinely confused for a moment, then smiled. “Most people just call it the ‘old’ coffee shop.”

  Frank smiled down at the next folder. Why did he even ask?

  “So,” Frank began, “what do you think of the Martins?”

  “Oh, they’re salt of the earth,” Peters said, setting down the mug of coffee. “Everyone in town knows them, mostly because of Nick’s school records in high school. Most people like them, as far as I know. I’ve known a few people that worked for Martin Construction, short jobs and such, and all of them said he was good to work for. And Mrs. Martin, she’s on a bunch of boards down here downtown and is always coming up with some wacky art event.”

  “Anything suspicious?” Frank asked. “What about enemies?”

  Peters shook his head.

  “No, nothing like that. Nick Martin has made a few enemies since getting on the Council. He voted down a couple of pay increases for the city employees, folks he works with. There could be some hurt feelings there, but nothing that could...I don’t see anybody getting that angry about it. Plus, all of those people have been checked out.”