* * *
About forty minutes later the two boys were riding in Bill Hunter’s Explorer on the way to the burrito place. “What have you two been up to today?” he asked.
“Oh, not much, Dad,” Jason replied. “Just another mind boggling day in the lives of Jason Hunter and Daniel Holmes.”
“What on earth do you mean by that?” Bill asked.
“Oh, we’ll have a good talk about things at dinner. You’ll see.”
“Sounds like the teenaged detectives have been at work! Is that the case?”
The three of them picked up a nice dinner of steak burritos, a chicken quesadilla, and some nachos with guacamole and sour cream. When they got to Jason’s place, they discovered that they were all famished and so they made quick work of the food, along with drinks from the refrigerator.
“All right, guys. What’s the big news? You haven’t been this secretive in a long time!” said Mr. Hunter, once the food was gone.
“Well, Dad,” Jason started in, “it’s just that we have figured out that the whole kidnapping was phony. It was staged in order to hide another crime!”
“What!” Bill exclaimed. “You can’t be serious! I saw the bruises and rope marks on you, Jason, and the photo of you in captivity. That looked pretty real to me.”
“Dad, I was kidnapped and brutalized. That was real. But it was just a cruel diversion. We know it was a set-up because of the timeline for payment of the ransom and the kidnappers delivering me to the maintenance building.”
Jason then took them through the timeline of what happened to him on Friday and then Daniel had Bill go over his timeline of activities on Friday after he had received the ransom note. Finally, Bill could see their points and how he had been tricked. Jason was already being taken to the drop-off point before he had even collected the money at the bank to pay the ransom.
“I know your ransom amount was low, Jason, but now you are saying I didn’t even need to pay fifty dollars. That you were going to be dropped off anyway!”
“Not only that, Dad, but pretty much everything the kidnappers told us was wrong information, meant to steer us and the police in the wrong direction! Like the whole idea of some godfather of organized crime taking pity on us because they grabbed the wrong kid. Our last name is Hunter, not Corleone. Have you ever heard of a mafia or other organized crime family in this country that specializes in kidnapping innocent, middle-class kids so that they can pick up $50,000 in cash?”
“Now that you put it that way, Jason, it does seem totally ludicrous.”
“The day I was released, the kidnappers passed along the idea that I had been kept hidden in some far-away hideout in the country. If that was true, why did they keep me gagged so much? If I was out in the country I could yell until I was hoarse and no one would hear me. But if I was kept right here in town and started yelling, while they were gone somewhere, well you get the idea. They played everyone, Dad, and they used me as a decoy to cover something else up. Somehow that something else has to involve you. Otherwise, why kidnap me?”
Bill Hunter got up and went over to where Jason was sitting and put his arms around him. There were tears in his eyes. “This is just horrible, Son. They tied you up, beat you up, and humiliated you just to get at me somehow? I can’t begin to tell you how sorry I am or how guilty this makes me feel. Ever since you were taken, I have been going over in my mind why us or why our family? I have been unable to come up with a single name of anyone that we could have wronged to a point that they would want to seek this kind of revenge. We have always been aboveboard and honorable in our business dealings. Your grandfather and great grandfather insisted on it. Your mother and I raised you the same way. How could someone hate you or our family so much! It didn’t make any sense at the time of your kidnapping and it still doesn’t make any sense.”
“It’s okay, Dad. I know you would never do anything to deliberately harm me or Mom. You’re a great dad. It’s not your fault. Don’t blame yourself for this!”
Daniel then spoke. “I don’t think that this has anything to do with your family honor or behavior, Mr. Hunter. Both of you are among the nicest people I have ever met. That’s why everyone was so devastated when Jason went missing. He was chosen for the kidnapping because he is such nice person. When he was harmed, it had great shock value. People were so concerned about his well being that they didn’t focus on anything else. And that’s what the kidnappers were counting on. His kidnapping was the MacGuffin, the event that started the real crime rolling and covered it up at the same time. The problem is we still don’t know what that is yet. I think that the key to the real crime is in something that you did, or were forced to do during the kidnapping, Mr. Hunter.”
“Yeah, Dad,” Jason said. “Let’s systematically go through everything that you did from the time you found out I was kidnapped until the ransom was paid.”
Bill Hunter sighed a big sigh and sat down again at the table. “There really wasn’t that much. Most of the time I was here with your mother waiting for the telephone to ring.”
“Did you ever leave to run errands or go to your store?”
“No, actually. We just stayed around here and waited and moped. It was very grim and frustrating. I told Ellie Planting at the store to handle everything. All I could do was concentrate on you being missing, Jason. I didn’t even leave the house on Wednesday or Thursday.”
“Let’s look at Friday then.”
“By Friday, I was going nuts. We still hadn’t heard anything and we seriously were beginning to think that you were dead or in the hands of a child molester! Sorry that you had to hear that, Jason.”
“It’s okay, Dad. The same thing went through my head when I woke up from the drugs and found myself bound, gagged, and blindfolded.”
Bill continued, “Then I got the call from Ellie that Mr. Ricardo was going to finally buy the Albioni necklace. This was a sale that we had been working on for over a month. Mr. Ricardo usually had a lot of trouble making up his mind, but by being patient with him, we had sold several large items to him over the past three years. The necklace was quite expensive, $749,000, and so I kept it locked up in a special safe with extra security. Only I can open the safe. So I had to go in and do that, which I did. I just had to get away from the house for a little while.”
“Maybe there is some significance to that. Did Ricardo actually come in and complete the sale?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact he did. I wasn’t there because after I got out the necklace, I opened the package on my desk, which turned out to be your ransom note. Once I read it, and you remember that the directions insisted that I get right on it without delay if I ever wanted to see Jason alive again, I told Ellie to handle the sale and I left the store.”
“Hold it a second. This seems to be a key event that bears more examination. If you hadn’t gotten the call from Ellie about the necklace, you wouldn’t have gone into the store Friday morning and wouldn’t have received the ransom note until a lot later. You being there soon after it was delivered was essential to the illusion that you were paying the ransom to secure Jason’s release. Was that a lucky coincidence or was somehow the Ricardo sale part of this whole kidnapping scenario?” Daniel asked.
“It seems far-fetched that the elderly and indecisive Mr. Ricardo could be part of the gang who kidnapped you, Jason. He’s quite wealthy so why would he need or want a share of a small ransom of $50,000 when he just spent $749,000 on a necklace?”
“Still...it seems strange that key events in the kidnapping plot have relied so heavily on coincidences like Jason just happening to decide to walk home on that path and you deciding to go into the office just after that ransom note package was delivered.” Daniel said.
“True,” Jason added, “but I don’t see any action yet that could set up a new crime. Were there other expensive valuables in that special safe, Dad?”
“Not particularly. Some diamonds, but only worth about $100,000 all together.”
Dani
el said, “All right, let’s continue. What did you do next?”
“I went to the bank, and to my safe deposit box to get the $50,000 cash for the ransom. The only person I dealt with was the bank employee who brings people in and out of the vault. You know it takes two keys to open the storage place in the vault. One held by the bank and the other by me. We turned the keys together and opened the little door. Inside was the long oblong box that has my valuables. The employee then assisted me in bringing it to a private viewing area and that is where I prepared the cash and put it in the ransom envelope I was given.”
“Was there anyone else in the vault?”
“Just one other customer. We almost ran into each other when I was leaving.”
“Any problem returning the box?”
“No, everything seemed normal. We put it back in its slot and then turned the keys. I then took mine.”
“The safe deposit box bears some more examination I think,” Daniel mused. “One important piece of information is that the kidnappers somehow knew that you had cash in the safety deposit box. Any idea how they would know such a private thing?”
“It is certainly something I wouldn’t advertise, but it would be a logical guess for anyone who understood how the buy-and-sell world of art auctions works. Clients are always needing large amounts of cash on short notice. Sometimes we have to front the money in order for the sale to go through or to prevent the seller from backing out at the last minute by trying to get a better price.”
“What else do you keep in the box, if you don’t mind my asking?” Daniel said.
“Personal papers, some important business papers and a few legacy items.”
“What is a legacy item, Dad?” Jason interjected.
“A legacy item is something that we have been given to store for a client—usually for a very long period of time, often twenty years or more. They turn it over to us for safekeeping, especially if the client has estate issues, so it will remain out of circulation or out of their estate inventories for a long time, probably in some cases to avoid probate, inheritance taxes, or greedy heirs that the client doesn’t like. There could be other tax and export law issues with these items, but their disposition is normally handled by attorneys. All we do is store the item for a fee. An item might sit there for twenty or thirty years. Then one day we get a order from an attorney showing that they have the legal right to claim the legacy item. We then turn it over and collect our final fee. I think that there are three or four items like that in the box.”
“Do you have any idea what the items are?” Daniel asked.
“We identify the items by their containers, which usually are sealed boxes in which you might store jewels or fine jewelry. My guess is most of them do contain precious gemstones.”
“Now, after you left the bank, you went to the library, put the ransom money in the hollowed-out book and then went back home. That’s what I remember from your statement to the police,” Daniel stated.
“Yes, that is correct.”
“It seems to me that your going to the safe deposit box has to be the thing that you were manipulated into doing. In second place is your office safe, but that is a lot more private and not in a public place. If the kidnappers could afford to blow off $50,000 in cash, there must have been something more important—something worth a lot more that they were after. Those legacy items seem like the best match. Do you have any more specific information on them? Do you at least know where they came from and when they were placed in the safe deposit box?”
“Not off the top of my head, but I will look for the information when I go into the office tomorrow. Also, I will make a trip to the bank and check out the safe deposit box. It’s hard to imagine how someone could have gotten into it without my key, but this morning I thought I had paid $50,000 to ransom my son.”
“Can I go with you, Dad?” Jason asked. “I really would like to see this for myself. I don’t mean to pry into any private things, but I am your son, and one day I would need to know this stuff anyway, right?”
“All right, Jason. I think you have earned it. I am still very upset about how they used you to get to me and I think I will keep you in my sights a little more until this is all resolved.
“Oh, one more thing. How on earth did you guys know what a MacGuffin is?” he asked.
“The Internet, Dad. Go check it out!” Jason said with a wink to Daniel.
Since the discussion seemed to be over, Daniel went with Jason to his room in order to enjoy some games until around 9:30 p.m. when Mr. Hunter drove him home.
On the way back, Jason told his father, “Please don’t blame yourself so much for what happened to me. It wasn’t your fault. I think we are just starting to learn what this last couple of weeks was really about.”
“Thank you for saying that, but it cuts to the very core of what being a dad is all about when it seems that you can’t protect your own son from malicious low-life people like those kidnappers. It hurts even more to think I might be the reason for your kidnapping. There is nothing more precious or valuable to me than you and your mother. I hope you understand that.”
“I know, Dad, I love you too!”
CHAPTER 32
IF YOU CAN’T TRUST YOUR BANKER...
(Friday Morning)
It was about nine the next morning when Jason and his dad drove into town and parked at the back of the Hunter & Sons store. They went inside and walked into the showroom area. Ellie Planting got up when she saw them.
“Good morning, Bill. Hi, Jason. It’s so good to see you.” She came over and gave him a little hug. “You are looking so much better now. How are you doing?”
Jason smiled back, “I’m doing just great. All my cuts and bruises have healed now.”
“What brings you to Hunter & Sons today?”
“Jason and I have some errands to run,” Bill interjected. “I just wanted to stop by for a few minutes to see if there was anything here I needed to do right away.”
“There is nothing urgent at this time. I put the sales report for last week on your desk. It’s so ironic. Last week was one of the worst weeks ever for you and your family and yet the business had its best week in two years! Of course that was mainly due to the sale of the Albioni necklace.”
“I guess sometimes life kicks you down hard and then something else comes along to pick you back up. I’m curious, Ellie. Did Ricardo mention why he finally decided to buy the necklace?”
“You know, Bill, he actually did. He said that he was still very hesitant to buy it and then, out of the blue, he received a letter from a long-lost cousin he hadn’t heard from or seen in years. The letter contained a cashier’s check for $15,000 and said, ‘Thank you for helping me out so many years ago. I know I should have repaid you years ago, so I have added $5,000 in interest in addition to the $10,000 you lent me. I want you to go out and spend it on something really nice for yourself.’ So, Mr. Ricardo took that as a sign he was meant to buy the necklace! Mr. Ricardo also said that it was doubly pleasant because he couldn’t remember when he had made the loan and had forgotten all about it.”
Jason and Bill looked at each other in astonishment. “That is an amazing story,” Bill said. “I’ll be sure to work up your commission check this afternoon. Come on, Jason. We have things to do.”
Bill and Jason went back into Bill’s office and shut the door. “Can you believe what we just heard?” his dad exclaimed. “There are just too many coincidences in this case!”
“I know, Dad. I think we now know how the kidnappers knew you would receive the package with the ransom note. We need to ask ourselves what is so valuable that Hunter & Sons Antiquities possesses that a criminal would spend $15,000 in cash and stage a fake kidnapping just to have the opportunity to steal it?”
“I’m going to look up the paperwork on those legacy items right now!” Bill went over to the file cabinet and started looking through folders.
Pretty soon he said, “Here they are. It looks like there
are four items.” He took the files and sat down with Jason. “Let’s see...the first legacy item was initially stored by your great-grandfather Winfield Hunter a few years after the war. Wow, that’s a long time, sixty years! The next two items were stored by your grandfather, Walter. One was placed in our trust in 1980 and the other in 1992, a few years before I took over the business. The last item was added by me in the year 2000.”
“Do the files say what the legacy items actually are?” Jason asked.
“No, they just give a description of the storage box. The attorneys of record would probably know, but I wouldn’t be sure of that until I actually talked to one of them. Remember that our function is like a blind trust. We store the item at the client’s request and when it is time for it to be reclaimed, we either return the item to the client’s attorney or we put it up for auction. Until we actually receive instructions to sell the item, we have no specific idea of what it really is.”
“Maybe we can get a better idea by looking in your safe deposit box,” Jason suggested.
“At least we can take a closer look at each one, write down a description, hold it and shake it.”
“Sounds like the treatment I give the presents under the Christmas tree,” Jason said laughing.
“Jason, I’m shocked! I never knew you would do such a thing.”
“Yeah, as if you were never a kid, Dad!”
“All right, I guess I’m guilty of that too. Let’s pack up and get over to the bank.”
A few minutes later Bill and Jason were back in the Explorer on their way to his bank.
Once inside the bank, the two went straight to the vault area. When Bill went to sign in, the bank employee was a different person than the last time he had been there. “Is Mr. Evans no longer working here?” Bill asked.
“No, his last day was Saturday, I believe. Can I be of assistance? My name is Rosa Sanchez.”
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