by Martin Brown
Eddie removed a Swiss Army knife he always carried with him and slid its longest blade into the tight space between the floor and the cut panel. Just a couple of pulls and it lifted out. It was a solid SentrySafe waterproof fire chest, approximately the size of a large shoebox, with a quality barrel key locking mechanism. Clearly, a much improved and more secure strong box than the one Joanne Hill opened a quarter century earlier.
It was tempting to look for the key, which might have been easy or difficult to find, but Eddie knew the smart move was to take it up to the county crime lab and have the box swept for prints and the contents checked over in a clean secure environment.
Minutes later, with the floorboards back in place and the small carpet and shoes back where he found them, and the apartment key back in the hands of Mrs. Fitzsimmons, Eddie carried the safe up to the county crime lab, reaching there shortly before five. The lab techs had finished for the day, so he made certain the box was secured, and told one of the remaining support staff that he’d be back in the morning to check on the contents of the box.
As he headed back out of the building, planning to drive south to Sausalito, he ran into Sheriff Jack Canning.
“Where are you headed?” Canning asked.
“Home, it’s been a long day. Why?”
“Well I’ve got some bad news; you’re going to have to work overtime tonight. Got a homicide up in Novato.”
“Yeah, who?”
“Some guy named Cook. Killed at his store up in Novato. Probably a robbery.”
“Not Milton Cook?”
Canning looked down at the text message on his phone. Yeah, Milton. You know the guy?”
“Apparently not well enough?”
Eddie raced to his car put the lights on that sat atop the center of the dashboard, turned on the siren, and began pushing his way up through rush hour traffic along the 101 corridor. Unmarked cars with one light and a siren never get the attention of clearly marked emergency vehicles.
The longer than expected drive up to the San Marin exit gave Eddie ample time to chastise himself. Fuck, I should have gone up there earlier today, he said to himself repeatedly, beating the steering wheel with his closed fist. Shit, shit, shit! How stupid am I?
When he arrived at Cook’s Cameras, the store’s small showroom area looked undisturbed. The only sign of trouble was the half dozen police cars and emergency vehicles scattered around the small strip shopping center.
Eddie, feeling the weight of the world on his shoulders, walked inside and was surprised to see Max Brownstein leaning over the body, which was partially hidden behind one of three large camera display cases.
“Max, you’re making a habit of showing up at murder scenes these days. This is twice in less than a week.”
The ME looked up and smiled at Eddie. “Why should you guys have all the fun? I need to get out of the office now and then; too many dead people hanging around there, all demanding my attention.”
“Well, I’m not having much fun right now.”
“What’s wrong, long day?”
“No, I’m pissed at myself because I wanted to come by earlier today and interview our victim here.”
“Well, apparently, this is your busy season.”
“Two murders in less than seven days in Marin is about as crazy as it gets. More troubling than that, Max, is the victim here was Michael Marks’ first employer.”
“So, you think there’s a possible connection?”
“Helluva coincidence if there isn’t.”
“True. And here’s something to add to that suspicion. The victim’s wallet was found in his back pocket, apparently undisturbed, and as best as we can tell, everything from the cameras to the cash register was also left untouched.”
“I’m guessing the call came in when a customer walked in and discovered the body.”
“Correct!. One of Cook’s longtime customers, in fact. Poor guy freaked out when he found the body. His heart was still racing when the EMTs arrived. Come back here and let me show you something.”
Eddie stepped behind the display counter, where Milton’s body lay face down in a pool of dark blood.
“I suspect the killer came in posing as a customer, probably carrying a shopping bag or something to conceal what was likely a 9mm handgun with a suppressor attached.”
“Someone at the nail salon next door would have heard that gun go off if it didn’t have a silencer on it.”
“Second correct answer,” Max said, as he patted Eddie on the back. “Mr. Cook was shot in the back; the bullet exited and went into the wall here.” Max pointed to the spot on the wall where the unmistakable mark of the bullet’s entry was made.
“The victim crumpled and landed here,” Eddie said. “Then, from what I can see, the shooter, wanting to make sure he finished the job, fired a second bullet into the base of the victim’s skull.”
“And with that third correct answer, you win a ten-dollar Starbucks gift card.” With that, Max took out his wallet and handed Eddie a ten-dollar bill. “I’m completely out of those little gift cards. Take cash; they also accept that.”
“Keep your money, Max; I’m going to be busy here for a while.”
Back home in Sausalito shortly before eight, Eddie called Rob.
“You finish dinner yet?”
“Yeah, kids are in their PJs and Karin is reading to them.”
“Good, tell them Daddy has to go for a ride with their Uncle Eddie.”
“Something tells me this isn’t good.”
“I’ll be outside your place in twenty minutes.”
“What’s up?” Rob asked, as he slid in and closed the door to Eddie’s white, unmarked sheriff’s car.
“Well, I’m glad you’re sitting down. You’re not going to believe this one.”
“What the fuck happened, Eddie?”
“Remember Michael’s first employer, the guy that I was hoping you or one of your other partners in print would run into at the funeral service?”
“Sure, Milton Cook.”
“Well, Mr. Cook is no longer with us.”
“He split town?”
“No, he was shot and killed at his camera store this afternoon.”
“Fuuuck!”
“That was my first thought when I heard.”
“You went to the scene?”
“Yup, got a tour from the ME himself.”
“So, who wanted him dead and why?”
“That’s the topic of this little meeting we’re having, and before you give this anymore thought, let me add a couple of things you don’t know. It was a clean kill. No weird coincidence here. No robbery. One bullet to the back and then one more placed into the base of the victim’s skull. Chinese execution style; just like putting down an animal.”
“So, like Michael’s killing, probably a professional killer.”
“Possibly a professional; certainly someone who knows how to use the right weapon for the right job.”
“Wow.”
“But why Milton Cook? You’re pissed off about making monthly payments to Marks, so you figure it’s cheaper to contract a hit on him, and if so, how does Cook fit into that scenario? I had not gotten around to interviewing him, but I did a background search. He comes up squeaky clean. You should see his customer reviews on Yelp; they’re love letters.”
“But you think there’s a connection?”
“How could there not be? The odds of this not being connected are astronomical, especially when you throw in the fact that from what we know nothing in the store was taken; even his wallet was sitting, apparently untouched, in his back pocket.”
“So what could possibly be the connection?”
“Well, if you can’t tell me, then get the hell out of my car, ya bum.”
“Very funny, Eddie. If I come up with anything I’ll holler.”
“Yeah, you do that. I’m going to Fresno Friday morning. Paying a visit to Michael’s father and brother. I want to interview them before they show up de
ad as well. When I went back to check on Michael’s rental unit in Mill Valley, I saw his landlady Mrs. Fitzsimmons. I don’t know if you were ever at his place.”
“No, Eddie, Michael and I were friendly, not familiar.”
“That’s a good line. Turns out, Michael kept a strongbox under the floorboards of his bedroom closet.”
“What’s in it?”
“It’s getting opened tomorrow morning at the county’s crime lab. First thing we have to do is be sure it’s not booby-trapped. We don’t want any surprises.”
“Particularly not those kind of surprises…”
“Speaking of surprises, maybe Cook introduced Marks to the business of blackmailing people with pictures you’ve taken of them.”
“Anything is possible, Rob. If that was the case, Cook might have been Michael’s linchpin.”
“What the hell is that?”
“That’s a human form of the pin ring in a grenade. Call it insurance. The guy shaking you down warns that if anything happens to him, you’ll go down as well, because his buddy is going to release everything he has on you…yada yada.”
“But Cook couldn’t be that because there should have been one big data dump within hours, or certainly a day or two after Michael’s murder.”
“True, Rob, but Cook could have been shaking down our killer, particularly if he knew who hired the gun to kill Marks. Bottom line, right now I’ve got too many questions and too few clues.”
“Okay, well one other thing, Mr. Holmes?”
“Yes, Dr. Watson?”
“Who is keeping an eye on Walt Douglas? You don’t want another camera shop owner turning up dead.”
“He’s probably sitting at home right now watching TV with a deputy sheriff keeping him company. I might be a few steps behind our killer, but I’m not out of the game.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
By eight the following morning, Eddie was sitting with the crime lab’s technicians as they carefully opened the sturdy SentrySafe found under Michael Marks’ closet. They began by checking for prints and x-raying the box to assure that there was no detonating device or other surprises awaiting them. It was improbable that the box posed any such threat, since Michael frequently opened and closed the box, but their training had prepared them to always err on the side of caution.
Inside the safe was a worn envelope and a Walther PPK 380 handgun. Eddie, wearing surgical gloves, picked up the gun and admired its weight and size. Six inches long and about four inches high.
“Wow,” Eddie said, as Canning walked in and looked over his shoulder. “Marks was ready for something to go wrong if he felt he needed to carry around a piece like this.”
“Isn’t that known as the ‘James Bond’ gun?” Canning asked.
“It is,” Eddie said. “When you’re blackmailing people, I imagine they can get a bit prickly.”
“You think?” Jack said with a short laugh.
“Whatever protection Marks thought he was buying himself with this gun didn’t do him any good against a guy hiding above his house with a rifle and a scope.”
Of course, the anticipated highlight was what was inside the worn yellow envelope that lay beneath the gun. A tech lifted it carefully and put it under a light to detect fingerprints. There were many prints, all identified in minutes as belonging to Michael.
But what made Eddie and Jack gasp was the discovery of a narrow notebook. It looked like an accounting book used by a collections agent forty or more years ago. Small in size, approximately three by six, it was lifted gently and also checked for prints, both on its worn cloth cover and inside pages. Unfortunately, once again, only Michael’s prints were present.
But inside was an investigators dream come true. A separate tally of names and totals paid and remaining amounts due from what appeared to be all of Michael’s targets.
“Holy shit,” Jack and Eddie said in unison.
“Looks like a directory of suspects,” Jack said. “There are dozens of names here.”
“Lucky me. Looks like my list of suspects just grew by sixty or more. Mr. Marks was one busy guy.”
Two thirds of the way back in the small book was a paper clip, where a different accounting record was kept. Both Jack and Eddie stared at those pages for just a few moments and came to the same conclusion.
“I think this is a record of when and where he took money and transferred it out of holding and handed it over to someone else,” Jack said. “What do you suppose all the ‘MC,’ entries next to those figures might mean?”
“Jesus, only one thing comes to mind, the initials for Milton Cook,” Eddie replied.
“The camera shop owner Marks worked for when he first came to Marin? The guy that’s now in the chiller down in Max’s office?”
“One and the same, Jack.”
“I’ve got a total cash count on that envelope,” Debbie Salem, the county’s top forensics tech called over to Eddie and Jack. “Eighty-four hundred, all in hundred-dollar bills. Most appear to be in mint condition. Straight out of the bank.”
“So, what do you think?” Jack asked Eddie.
“I think he collected cash, and then dumped it off when it reached ten K or more. Look at these entries, eleven-five, MC; ten-six, MC. I suppose Cook had some way of laundering the money and transferring it into legitimate investments.”
Eddie thought for a moment, then looked across at Jack and said, “I thought Cook was squeaky clean; I guess I was wrong.
Eddie spent the balance of Thursday preparing his notes for a Friday trip down to Fresno, principally to interview Caleb and Christopher Marks. The balance of the day, he devoted to two interviews in Mill Valley. One was with Mrs. Fitzsimmons, the second was with Walt at his camera store.
For his brief interview with Michael’s still-fragile landlady, Eddie brought several photos of known family members and friends of her deceased tenant and patiently asked if she recognized any of them, and if she did, when she last recalled seeing them. It was a long slog going through them, but Eddie practiced patience, and was grateful for her assistance during what was still a difficult time for her.
When he arrived at Walt’s shop, it was empty, with the exception of Walt and the sheriff’s deputy, who was one of a detail of three attempting to ensure he remained unharmed.
“I want to follow up with you concerning Michael and Al D.”
“Gosh, I hope I didn’t get Al in trouble opening my big mouth about what he said to me about Michael.”
“Don’t worry about that. I’m just doing my job. Besides, I’m sure you want me to catch this killer before he catches anyone else.”
“So, you’re thinking with Milton Cook dead, I might be the next victim.”
“I’m not sure what to think at this point, other than the fact that I’ve got two homicides in one week, and in Marin, that is what we call ‘a killing spree.’”
“I just can’t imagine those two being connected,” Walt said, shaking his head.
“Last week at this time, none of us could have imagined that Michael Marks had been blackmailing people for decades. Now we know that he was. And because he was so diligent at his work, I have a list of possible suspects that, placed head to toe, would stretch from here to San Francisco.”
“And I thought he was just a photography enthusiast.”
“Well, he was, just not in the way any of us would have guessed. Now, in all this time, you never saw any behavior that was strange on Michael’s part?”
“Strange in what way?”
“Questions he might ask. People you might have overheard him arguing with, here in the shop or over the phone? Anything out of the ordinary?”
“Nothing that comes to mind. I guess I’m not the sharpest tool in the shed, but I didn’t think he was much different than me. He was a quiet type of guy, who wanted to pursue his love of photography in a really special part of the world. There were times that he was really curious about some people in town.”
“Curious in what wa
y?”
“Details about who they were, what business were they in, who they knew that I might know. Lots of questions about my customer base, but I assumed that was just him being both sociable and a good salesman.”
“You never saw him with Cook here at the store, or overheard him talking with Cook on the phone? No mention of Cook at all?”
“Not a thing. I suppose Michael kept his cards close to his chest. The only clue he ever gave any of us was all that extra money he had.”
“And you never pressed him about that?”
“Not really. I would have like to, but I figured, however he came by his money…that was his business. I asked him a couple of times if he wanted to buy a share of the business, but he seemed uninterested, so I didn’t pursue it. Michael was the best sales assistant I ever had. Why would I want to rock the boat by making him uncomfortable?”
“Did Al D. ever come into the shop, or did you ever see the two of them talking?”
“I don’t remember his asking anything about Al D. But he mentioned, on several occasions, how much he enjoyed the community history room down at the Mill Valley Library. I remember his mentioning that it was amazing how many successful people lived here.”
“Did he ever mention how he learned about all these people?”
“I know he enjoyed looking through the library’s microfilms of the Mill Valley Standard and the old Crier before it became the Standard. He said his favorite part was the society pages. I thought it was great that interested him. We sell some high-end equipment. People with extra money to spend are our best customers.”
