Class Conspiracy: A Hank Lancaster Mystery

by Ace Beckett

  There was silence on the line.

  “Stephen, you there?”

  “Yes, yes. I….I don’t know what to say.”

  “Then don’t say anything. Did you know Mr. Keegan well?”

  “No. I was a friend but not one of his best friends. Dale was one of the good players on our high school baseball team. He was friendly and made good grades. He liked to hunt too. I remember his hunting stories. Don’t think he had any enemies.”

  “He clearly had at least one,” I said.

  When Stephen hung up I drank the cup of coffee. Then I half-staggered, half-walked to the Village Inn for breakfast. I estimated Sebring was a six to eight hour drive and I should eat before I started the journey. I’m a native of Florida so I had been in or driven through Sebring about a dozen times. For a while a friend of mine was editor of the weekly Lake Placid Journal. Lake Placid is just about ten miles south of Sebring. For all I could tell Sebring was a nice little town when I drove past it go say hello to my friend.

  When I returned to the motel room I was almost alert. I called Bill Wyland and told him the news as he programmed his GPS for Winter Springs. He had a meeting planned with Melinda Fletcher for the afternoon but said the next morning he’d head for Florida.

  North Carolina, Georgia and now back to Florida; Whoever the killer was, he did get around.

  I frowned. I had a long ride ahead of me and from my past experience I knew I-75 was a congested highway. Six hours from my destination but I planned to stop for lunch so that added thirty to forty-five minutes to the trip. Add in Florida traffic on a Wednesday, it would be Thursday before my now familiar trip to a county sheriff’s department to talk about another death.

  I’m an astronomer buff. I began to think astronomy was a better job than private detective. I mean you get to look at the majestic cosmos all the time which beats looking at dead bodies.

  And the cosmos doesn’t sneer at your theories.

  “I find your suppositions fanciful Mr. Lancaster. The Highlands County Sheriff’s Department is investigating a suicide but there is nothing to indicate foul play in this case. I see no connection whatsoever between Mr. Keegan’s suicide and the accidental deaths of a man in Georgia and a woman in North Carolina,” said Captain Stack Ripley of the Highlands County Sheriff’s Department.

  I frowned. It had been a long drive from Green Groves and not much welcome in Sebring. If he had been standing up instead of sitting behind his desk, Ripley could have looked me in the eye without standing on tiptoes. He would have looked with his steel gray, hard eyes. The guy had granite features, he basically was the police equivalent of Mount Rushmore. His tone indicated distaste for private cops.

  “I do realize I don’t have sufficient proof of my theory yet---“

  “Sufficient proof? You have no proof. This department deals in facts, facts and evidence that the state attorney can use in proving a crime. We do not deal in speculation and conspiracy theories and we do an excellent job, if I do say so myself. The clearance of this office in dealing with felonies is higher than 90 percent, which means we do not miss things nor are we careless in investigating crimes.”

  “I’m sure you do a wonderful job for the citizens of Highlands County,” I said. “I know currently evidence for my theory is weak but it is strange that three members of a high school class from Bay Tree County have died within the past few months. Looking into those deaths, at the request of a still living member of the high school class, doesn’t make me a wild-eyed conspiracy theorist.”

  The rock hard stare softened for a moment.

  “What you describe is unusual and perhaps prompted a concern from a fellow classmate who noticed friends were dying. My son is a science nerd, he uses all these scientific terms that sometimes are applicable in other areas of life. Do you know what Occam’s razor is?”

  “The simplest explanation of an event is most often the correct explanation."

  He nodded. “The simplest explanation of two accidental deaths in two different states is there were simply two accidental deaths in two different locations; the suicide of Mr. Keegan has no connection to them.”

  “Perhaps to you but my investigation is still open. Would you mind if I see a copy of the suicide note?”

  “I might…” he took another long look at me. “You ex-military?”

  “Yes. Two tours, one in Iraq, on in Afghanistan, I am a native of Florida, too. My family goes back a couple of generations.”

  With all the new people moving into Florida for the past half century members of old time families take pride in the Florida ancestry. Ripley did stop frowning and gave a slight smile.

  “I’m former military too. OK, as a favor to an ex-military man and a Florida native I’ll show you a copy of it.”

  He had pale folder on his desk. He flipped it open, lifted what I assumed was the official police report and picked up a sheet of paper.

  “This is a copy of the note.” He handed it to me.

  It was a simple one-page note, typed. It read,

  I can no longer live with myself. Long ago I participated in an incident that caused the death of a man. I have lived with the guilt for 20 years but I can no longer bear it. There were others involved in the crime but each of those individuals must deal with it in their own way. I have made my decision.

  “Found at his residence, I assume,” I said.

  “Yes, on the top of his printer and the computer was still on when we found the body.”

  “This is typed, captain. No handwriting to match.”

  “This is a high-tech age, Mr. Lancaster. Most people do use computers these days, plus we also found an empty liquor bottle at his apartment and a very high alcohol content in his blood. In the past he caused a man’s death and he probably got depressed about it and stayed depressed. One night he ended it.”

  “If he committed a crime why not go to the police first and confess?”

  Ripley shrugged. “He admits he didn’t want to incriminate anyone else. He says this was not a crime but an incident, whatever that may be.”

  “Did his friends say he was depressed?”

  “Friends said he was a loner who didn’t show his feelings.”

  “How did he do it?”

  “It’s all in the report but I will save you some time. His apartment was on the edge of small forest and we still have some of those in Florida. On the night of his death he went home and drank a lot, we found traces of alcohol in two glasses and drops on the floor. He sat at the computer and typed out the note, printed it out and placed it on the printer. He grabbed a rope and walked out into the forest, found a solid tree, tied the rope to a branch, made a noose and jumped off knowing his feet wouldn’t hit the ground. No suspicious characters hanging around his apartment. A sad case but no murder.”

  “Did he have a girlfriend?”

  “Yes, a lady name Emma Rawlins. To answer your next question we talked to her and she was surprised but she provided no evidence of any foul play. She told us that Keegan did not seem depressed or upset about anything during the last several weeks. She doesn’t believe it was suicide but that is to be expected given her relationship with the dead man.”

  He closed the file.

  “So what do you plan to do now, Mr. Lancaster?”

  “Go see a couple of girlfriends. First, Mr. Bradley’s and then mine. I doubt Astrid will be much help in this case, but she has other talents.”

  Emma Rawlins was very eager to help me and very upset with the Highlands County Sheriff’s Department because it didn’t give much credence to her opinion that Bradley didn’t kill himself. We sat at a pink kitchen table with two windows beside it; a breeze blew Ms. Rawlins yellow hair over her chin. She sipped from her glass of ice tea.

  “I will never believe Keegan committed suicide. It’s just not possible. He was a good man who had a good job; He was an excellent financial analyst. Keegan had given me tips that made me money. I got this house in the divorce because I had a littl
e saved but with two children even if you have money saved it can disappear quickly. I made a couple of thousand from my honey’s tips. He wasn’t down, he wasn’t depressed, and he didn’t have the blues. He looked forward to every day and, after I met him, so did I. He loved my two kids as his own. Jeffrey is thirteen and Darlene is ten and they got along very well with him. We were even discussing marriage. There is no reason he would kill himself.”

  She sniffed and raised a tissue to her nose and mouth. Her eyes moistened and a tear slid down her cheek before she caught it with the tissue.

  “If it helps Emma, I don’t believe Mr. Bradley killed himself either but I don’t know who did and I don’t know why either.”

  I gave her a brief two-minute outline of the case. She had pale eyes and they were not tearing when I finished, they looked alert and angry.

  “So you think someone has killed three members of Dale’s graduating class?”

  “That’s the theory I’m working under, but if facts show I’m wrong I will change my theory.”

  “You don’t know why they were killed?”

  “No. I know the connection but not the motive. I don’t think they were randomly selected but I don’t know the reason the killer targeted them.”

  She sipped her iced tea. “I will do anything I can to help you. I…I still haven’t recovered from the shock. I didn’t know Dale long, not even three months but we seemed to hit it off. We just clicked. Honestly, he was my soul mate. I want the man who killed him to pay for what he did.”

  “Did he seem worried about anything recently? Was there anything different about him in the days or weeks before his death?”

  “No. If there was something on his mind he didn’t tell me and even though we hadn’t known each other that long I could read Dale like a book. I could tell if something was nagging him, he did have a minor financial problem not too long ago. He didn’t say anything about it but I asked him what on his mind and I could tell something was. That surprised him because he said he didn’t think it showed. It did to me. The week of his death nothing was bothering him, but he was a bit busy at work but that’s all.”

  “Any problems with other employees?”

  She shook her head.

  “You know what his income was?”

  “He never said specifically. I know some of his finances were drained because they went to his wife and for child support. He wanted the divorce and his ex-wife was a real pain. One of those nagging wives and didn’t ever really appreciate Dale, so he said he slowly withdrew during the marriage, into isolation, and finally said enough was enough. So you might say she made him pay to be rid of her. Even so, he was doing okay. He told me he was going to get a raise next month.”

  “Emma, he mentioned an incident that cost a man his life. Did he ever say anything about that when he was with you?”

  She shook her head. “No, when I read the letter I was shocked. He never mentioned that incident, if it did happen. Dale was not a man who talked about himself much. He did talk a little bit about his first marriage but he was not bitter or complaining. He spoke in a matter of fact way, no great emotion either way and he admitted he was not perfect. But he never mentioned any traumatic events in his life.”

  “He seems like a nice guy. Did he have any enemies?”

  Her hand slapped the table so hard the glasses shook. “No! Absolutely not! Everybody loved him. He wasn’t a gregarious man and he wasn’t a party animal slapping everybody on the back and saying ‘How’re doing?’ He was a bit introverted but he still liked going out and having a good time. Southern born, he liked to hunt and fish although he had gotten so busy recently he didn’t have much time for it. He was something of an outdoorsmen. He was at home in the woods and if you put him in a cabin in the middle of nowhere it would be a while before he got lonely. Before he met me of course.”

  “Of course,” I said. “I’m sure that’s true.”

  She shook her head. “I wish I had more to tell you, Hank but his…it was totally unexpected. I will never believe he killed himself.”

  “Thank you for your time, Emma.”

  “Will you keep me updated on your investigation? I want you to find the scum who killed Dale.”

  I nodded.

  “I have a little money. If---”

  I shook my head. “My client is paying me a very good rate. I don’t need any more money, but I will keep in touch with you. When I find the killer I will let you know.”

  Possibly I should have said ‘if’ I find the killer but I wanted to leave her with a little hope.

  Astrid likes romantic movies so we watched the classic “Dr. Zhivago” with the great love story between Yuri and Laura on my big screen television. Astrid sipped red wine as I sipped white. She grumbled I was not getting into the mood of the film simply because I said if Lara had known me I could have taught her to shoot better. Her bullet would have punctured Komarovsky’s heart instead of giving him a slight arm wound.

  She sighed when intermission came.

  “What a beautiful story,” she said. She slapped my knee. “How did you like it?”

  “It is a beautiful story, lousy ending though. The Bolsheviks took over the Russian government and by the time they fell, Communists had killed more than 100 million people during the 20th century.”

  She sipped her wine. “Honey, I don’t think you are quite getting into the romantic mood of the evening. Worried about the case?”

  “That could be it.”

  “That’s not like you. Usually you can ignore a case when you’re not working on it. You’re pretty good at compartmentalizing. What’s the difference in this case?” She glanced at the television. “You have to tell me in less than seven minutes though, that’s when the movie comes on again.”

  “You know the basics of the case. I’m leaning toward the view that the three people were murdered. Three people in three different states are murdered in three different ways. That tells me the killer is very clever, cunning and ruthless. He also has an ample supply of cash. He had to spend time and money to murder Mrs. Laurie up in North Carolina. He obtained and left a fake credit card and fake driver’s license to a rental car company in Georgia. He had established an identity and a fake bank account. A great deal of planning went into the three murders. I’m still wondering why, although Keegan might have given a clue in his suicide note.”

  She sipped her wine again. “What type of clue? And you have five minutes left….”

  “In the note he said he was involved in an accident that took a man’s life. He didn’t say when the accident happened but he hinted it was a long time ago. Maybe twenty years ago, perhaps in high school. Maybe with two other members of the same class and, if so, that could be the motive for his murder.”

  “If it happened twenty years ago why kill him now? That’s a rather slow response time.”

  “Yes, that’s a problem. Why now? Why did the killings begin now?”

  She glanced at the television again. “OK I want you to forget about the case and think about romance in Russia. I got a feeling we are not going to have many sweet evenings until you get this case solved.”

  “We’ll have least one more. I’m not leaving for Winter Springs until day after tomorrow. I need to meet with Stephen and give him an update personally instead of on the phone.”

  “OK, the movie is back on. Focus on 20th Century Russia and Yuri and Lara.”

  Astrid liked the movie. I thought it had a rather melancholy ending.

  A Florida storm was sweeping through the Panhandle so the man wore a bright yellow raincoat when he opened the rear entrance to the building. He shook himself off and walked up the stairs to the second floor. He didn’t bother to knock on the open office door. The deskman had been waiting for him. He sighed.

  “You’re a little late. I thought something might have gone wrong,” the deskman said.

  “No, just Florida traffic. There was an accident on I-95, traffic was backed up for miles. Got off at the
first exit to get some dinner and when I finished cars were stilled backed up.”

  “I’m glad I don’t live in South Florida. All the asphalt and concrete are going to overwhelm us. Did everything go well?”

  Raincoat nodded. “It went remarkably well. Keegan was hoping to make a little extra cash and he told me his life story for about fifty minutes and it was so incredibly boring I almost fell asleep but he was anxious to jump at a chance to make additional money. When I said I needed to talk privately with him he invited me to his house and we had a few drinks. In an hour or so we became bosom buddies.”

  “You slip something into his drink?” deskman asked.

  “No. If the county did an autopsy I didn’t want a trace of anything besides alcohol. I didn’t need it, besides he wasn’t that big of man. I just hauled him over my shoulder when he passed out from the drinks but I did add extra liquor in his drinks when he wasn’t looking. He couldn’t hold his alcohol all that well.”

  “Good, good. I was checking the Sebring paper regularly until I saw the story. Excellent job. No one will suspect a thing and we only have two more, then a tremendous payoff. For the next victim you don’t have to use any subterfuge. Just kill him one of the old-fashioned ways, with a knife or gun.”

  Raincoat nodded. “I’ll get a Black Market gun, they’re always available and I won’t buy it locally. I’ll travel to Savannah; stay a new days until I can get one, that way there’s no chance of tracing it.”

  The deskman nodded.

  “Black Market guns are always expensive. I have money left from the last payment but it may not be enough.”

  The deskman slipped his hand into a drawer and brought out a wad of cash. He tossed it onto the table.”

  “Two thousand dollars. Will that be enough?”

  “Yes. I’ll get on the road tomorrow. I’ll let you know when I get back.”

  The deskman nodded. “I’m glad you were recommended. You do real good work.”

  Raincoat smiled. “After the big payoff I’ll retire and I won’t have to work ever again after that.”