Missing Banker

by Curry, Edna

  ***

  Lacey respected Sheriff Ben's opinions and she definitely wanted his version of this story before she stuck her neck out by taking on this odd case. Paul would have to wait a bit.

  Ben's office was right on the way to the burger place where Paul Menns had asked her to meet him.

  She and Sheriff Ben were old friends, though he'd gotten huffy when she'd accused him of being involved in her Uncle Henry's death a couple of years ago. After all, Uncle Henry had been Ben's card-playing buddy for years, and she couldn't expect him to be happy about her suspicions. She'd made up with him after they'd found the real murderer, but a certain coolness and wariness remained between them.

  But most of the time they got along okay. Ben even sent her a client now and then. Of course, the fact that she was the only PI for miles around might have something to do with his generosity.

  Ben wouldn't always talk, but occasionally she could trade on their long-time friendship for information she needed. She'd read the Trib's version of this story, heard the coffee shop version, and now the supposedly dead guy's version. Where was the truth?

  It was mid-morning on a weekday, so there were only a few cars on Canton’s main street. The old brick courthouse sat in the center of the main square, and various small retail businesses and offices sat in a square around it, sort of like secret service guys ringing the president.

  A block off that square, Lacey pulled up at the white frame building that served as the sheriff's office and the county jail. Canton didn't get much crime. Anyone sentenced for more than a few months was sent to one of the state prisons.

  The building's interior was plain, but furnished in natural-finish oak. They hadn't been stingy with the taxpayer's money. She waved at the dispatcher who was on the phone and walked on back to Ben's office.

  Sheriff Ben was sitting back in his swivel chair with his feet up on his desk. He had a jelly doughnut in one hand and a newspaper in the other, folded open to the same story Lacey had been reading earlier. Ben was in his late forties, a tall, thin man with a long hawk-like nose. He was usually good-humored, and always fair. He glanced up and greeted her with a wide grin.

  She perched on the corner of his desk and met his gray eyes. “Morning, Ben. I hear that article you're reading is now outdated. What's up?”

  He frowned. “Lacey, you know better than to pump me.”

  She gave him her most disarming smile. “It's all over town already, Ben.”

  “I suppose that's true.”

  “I hear you got two phone tips as soon as the paper came out with this sketch this morning.”

  “Yeah.” Ben looked away ruefully. “First was from the coroner. He said both this woman and I were nuts. The guy in the computer image is the dead guy, not the perp.”

  Lacey grinned. “That was the scuttlebutt at the Flame this morning. Hadn't you seen the body yourself?”

  “Sure. But I just had a general description of the perp from the birdwatcher. I didn't realize that she saw the dead guy instead from that.”

  Lacey nodded. “And the second tip identified him as Paul Menns?”

  Ben grunted. “So you heard that already, too. Is nothing secret around here?”

  “You know how it is in a small town, Ben.”

  “Yeah, I guess.” He sighed and drank his coffee. “Second was the woman over in Canton who owns the Anderson Apartments on the south side. She was sure the guy in the paper was a man renting one of her apartments there, Paul Menns. I went over and picked her up. She wasn't too happy about the idea of going to the morgue, but she ID'd the guy there all right.”

  Lacey's eyes narrowed. “She had no doubt it was him?”

  Ben laughed and finished off his doughnut. “No. She claimed she knew him well enough. He's lived there a couple of years now.”

  “You've released that information already? Don't you have to wait to notify his next of kin?”

  Ben shrugged. “His landlady says he told her that he doesn't have any relatives. She keeps that info on her renters in case they skip without paying. I checked it out and couldn't find any either.”

  Lacey chewed her lip and stared out the window. Something didn't add up here. She couldn't tell the sheriff she'd just talked to a guy who said he was Paul Menns. Either he was lying about who he was, or someone else who looked a lot like him was in the morgue.

  The guy on the phone had sounded sincere enough. Not evasive like she'd expect if he were lying. This case was so weird, like nothing she'd come across in the several years that she'd been an investigator. Before opening her own office, she'd worked for a firm in Minneapolis for a couple of years. If this Paul Menns had killed a guy, wouldn't he have worked out an alibi of some kind? “Is this guy anybody we know?”

  “Was, Lacey. Past tense. As in 'he's dead'. In the morgue with a couple of slugs in him.”

  “So you said,” she said, glancing back at him in disbelief. “Go on.”

  “What's your interest in this case?” Ben eyed her suspiciously. He got up to refill his Styrofoam cup with coffee.

  Oh, oh, he's going to get suspicious and clam up on me. “Just curious, Ben. Sounds interesting, and I wondered what was fact and what was just gossip,” she hedged.

  “Don't want to tell me, eh? Want a cup?” At Lacey's nod, he filled another cup and handed it to her.

  Lacey took the coffee and shrugged. “Nothing to tell, Ben.” Ben rubbed one long bony finger along the side of his nose. That seemed to be his favorite gesture, and Lacey wondered if he'd broken his nose at one time, making it itch. He hadn't answered her question, so she repeated it. “You know this Paul Menns?”

  “Nope, he's nobody I've run into before. No priors. An over-the-road trucker, his landlady says. Had his own rig and was an independent. Got jobs where he could, nothing regular. Did pretty much as he pleased for a schedule, I gather. Out on the road most of the time.” Ben lounged his long frame into the chair again and sipped the hot coffee.

  “Have you identified the body any other way, yet? Fingerprints, maybe? Dental records?” The Trib had said they hadn't when it went to press. But that was probably written last night, hours ago. How could she find out without tipping off Ben to who her client claimed to be?

  “Nope. There was no ID on the body. Nobody missing who fits the description, either.”

  “So, you only have the landlady's word for who he is, so far?”

  “Well, yeah, I guess so.”

  “Make sure who the dead guy really is, will you, Ben? Just to avoid any complications, okay?”

  Ben stared at her quizzically, then shrugged. “Sure, Lacey. Can't hurt to do that, I guess. Give us time. We're getting an autopsy and we've sent in his fingerprints.”

  Lacey drank the coffee, thinking. “This eye-witness who described the man for the police artist, she's reliable?”

  “She sure seems to be.”

  “I hear she's from Minneapolis?”

  “Yeah.” Ben stared stoically into his cup, then took another long swallow.

  Honestly, getting information out of him was like pulling taffy, Lacey thought. She watched Ben's face as she went on, “The gossip at the Flame was that she claims she was bird-watching on the Wisconsin side of the river around six Monday morning when she saw movement across the river, in the trees along the shore. She turned her binoculars on him long enough to get a good look at his face. The guy dropped the body, then disappeared back into the trees. That about right?”

  Ben shrugged. “Why don't you ask her?”

  “Maybe I will, Ben, just to spite you. They say she came back into town right away and reported it. You went out and found the body in the woods on this side of the river, in the upper Lion's Park, right where she said it would be.”

  “That's about it, Lacey. Satisfied?”

  Lacey's coffee was getting cold and she needed to see the man who'd called her. Maybe then she could figure this out. She eased herself off the corner of his desk. “Sure Ben. I can tell you want me to
get lost. So this bird-watcher's testimony won't be much use now?”

  Ben shrugged and said, “Sounds like it. She obviously saw the victim's face before the guy dumped him. Maybe they were both there talking before the guy shot him.”

  Lacey raised an eyebrow. “You don't sound too sure.”

  Ben crushed his empty Styrofoam coffee cup and aimed it at the brown plastic wastebasket against the wall. He missed and his dark bushy brows dipped. “Well, some of it doesn't add up. She's sure she saw him carrying the guy, then drop him there. But obviously, that couldn't have been the way it happened.”

  Lacey chewed her bottom lip. It could have been if Paul Menns is still alive and really did dump that guy's body. This doesn't sound good for Paul's case. “She didn't hear any shots?”

  “No. Nothing.”

  Lacey frowned. “You know sound carries pretty good over the water. Anyone close enough to identify him should have heard the shots.”

  “Sure, if the guy was shot out there.”

  Meeting the sheriff's gaze, Lacey said, “You doubt it.”

  He rubbed the crook in his nose distractedly. “Well, we didn't find any evidence of it. Not yet anyway.”

  “No blood, no shell casings, no gun?”

  Ben shook his head. “We're still looking.”

  “The river was a pretty handy place to get rid of the gun.”

  He nodded morosely. “Exactly. And the bottom's muddy. Going to be hard to find.”

  Lacey swallowed the last of her coffee, saying, “You've got that right.”

  She crushed her cup and tossed it into the wastebasket. She didn't miss.

  Smiling triumphantly, she took her leave.

  She knew her hints that he might be wrong about the body's identity would spur him to do more than he normally would to double-check the identity. That was exactly what she wanted him to do, because it would be easier for him than for her. He had official channels to get the autopsy, dental records and fingerprints. If this guy claiming to be Paul was lying, the sheriff would prove it soon enough.

  In the meantime, she needed to see what the guy looked like for herself.

  ***