“That’s where we come in,” Yuan told him. “Give us some time; we’ll come up with something. Did you say nothing was taken?”
“Not a thing. The police searched the place. No drawers sent sprawling or anything like that.”
Chapter 2
The cell phone next to Stanford buzzed and he picked it up. “What?” he said, after listening to the person on the other end. Before hanging it up Stanford acted as if he wanted to toss the phone out of the window, but put it back in his pocket.
“This is insane,” he said and turned back to the detectives. “They don’t want us to release the names of the two dead women.”
“Who was on the phone?” Yuan asked him. Stanford looked as if he was in a fit of rage.
“The mayor’s office,” he told them. “I can’t believe they would want to keep something of this magnitude quiet. Don’t they realize the press will be all over this one?”
Stanford went to the window and looked out. “Oh, Jesus,” he swore. “I see one news crew down there already. You can bet your sweet ass another one will be here soon enough.”
“There was a bank robbery early today,” Williams told him. “It might keep them busy for a while.”
“Where?” Stanford asked him.
“The Last National Bank,” Yuan filled in the information.
“That old place?” Stanford said. “I’m surprised they haven’t torn it down. I wonder how much they got?”
“Nothing,” it was Williams. “They hit the place with trained attack dogs and only wanted to get into two safety deposit boxes.”
Stanford began to pack up everything. There wasn’t much else he could do now. It was time to go and he had no reason to stay in the condominium of death any longer than necessary.
“Two safety deposit boxes,” he repeated. “With dogs. What is this, another TV episode?”
“No,” Williams said to him. “If it was on TV you’d have a better looking bank.”
“I have no idea why anyone would want to torture these women. Or why I’m not allowed to file the names of the deceased.”
“Could be some kind of witness protection plan,” William offered up an explanation. “Or something to do with Homeland Security. You do have to admit, why torture two old women to death who are close to death’s door anyway? Doesn’t make a lot of sense.”
“Nothing is making a lot of sense today,” Stanford told them as he headed out the door. “Trained attack dogs who rob banks for two safety deposit boxes. Two old women dead and I can’t release the names. I am so looking forward to retirement.” They heard him grumble as he continued to walk down the hall.
“Where to now?” Williams asked Yuan as they headed North on Highway Seventy-Five.
“I haven’t thought much about it,” Yuan returned. “We need to think this one out. Do you suppose there might be a connection between the two crimes? I mean, they seem to have happened so close together. Could be some connection.”
“I doubt it,” Williams answered.
“Who knows for sure?” his partner said.
The snow fell early that evening blanketing every part of the city. The plows were out after midnight getting the ice and snow off the street so that the city could return to work the next day. The two detectives barely made it to their office that morning, after a long and difficult drive into Philly. It was at such times that Williams was glad to be in town. He hated to deal with traffic, which is one reason he always drove lousy cars. In Williams’ mind, they were made to fall apart, so why try to preserve them?
Yuan had woken slowly that morning, with both women in bed with him. They had decided to stay one more day and he wasn’t about to kick them out of his place just yet. Most men would’ve been envious of his position, but to Yuan it was just another day in his quest for a permanent arrangement. His goal was to have several women in a rotating set of relationships, but there were investments to be made and money to earn in the meantime. No one was going to give him a hard time about his life style choices so long as he was on the PPD. Until such time as he had enough money to leave, work was his first priority.
Yuan made his way over to the office at the ninth district. After checking in with the desk sergeant, he entered the small office that he and Williams used when in the station house. Williams was already there and with him was Doc Stanford. Yuan was a little surprised to see the medical examiner. He usually didn’t leave his laboratory and then only if his presence was needed on a crime scene, such as the murder of the two old women.
“So what brings you to our fair corner of the city?” Yuan asked him. Stanford leaned back in the chair facing Williams’ desk and smiled.
“I’ve found a little bit more about those two elderly women who someone tortured to death at the condominiums yesterday,” he told them. “There is quite a bit of interesting back story to those two. I thought you might be interested in hearing about them.”
Yuan sat down at his desk after hanging up his Boss Ego coat in the rack. First, he took care to make sure it was free of any dirty snow he might have picked up on the way into the office.
“I’m always interested in hearing about anything to do with a crime under my watch,” he told Stanford. “Go ahead, I’m listening.”
“It appears they are not so innocent after all. They are former prison camp guards.”
“Wow,” Yuan said, “if that is the case, it would mean they were prison guards during….”
“World War Two,” Williams filled in. “Go ahead Doc, tell him the gruesome details.”
“A number of ex-Nazi’s escaped after the war,” he began. “Some of them were low-profile and didn’t attract the attention of the Israeli Mossad. A lot of them ended up in South America, but a number of them made it into the United States. Some came in as part of a witness protection plan of sorts, the “rat line” people called it, but some had relatives and connections in the United States, which allowed them to slip in undetected and build new lives for themselves. Since most of them are dead, there isn’t a lot of interest in these people anymore. But every now and then, a few of them pop up on the radar.”
“Such as these two. It seems they were known for quite a long time and the FBI had them under close watch. They were building a case against them. My friends in Washington who clued me in on what was happening haven’t been too clear as to why they didn’t pick them up already, but I think someone wanted to trade them for a deal of some kind. I’m not sure what, but every now and then, somebody high up in the intelligence community needs a favor and produces a resource such as we had here in Philadelphia. At their age, it was getting harder and harder to do much with them, so I suspect they were just waiting for them to drop dead. Looks like someone did the FBI a favor and hurried the process along.”
“So now this case is all sorts of interesting,” Williams spoke up. “We got Nazis and dead prison guards involved. Heck, we have a case of real Isla She-Wolf’s and don’t know who killed them. Can you find out more from your friends, Doc?”
“I wish I could,” the old medical examiner told them, “But I had to use a lot of favors to get this far. No way will they be able to help me anymore. At least no more than what they’ve already done. It cost me a lot of back favors to find out what I did. But, dammit, I don’t like the federals interfering in my work. Did you see the paper yesterday? They’re trying to make it seem like those two old women died from a drug overdose accidently taken. How the hell they managed to get that crap published I will never know.”
While they were deliberating over what to do with the new information, the cell phone went off next to Williams. He looked at the caller ID and picked it up. After a brief discussion, he turned to the other men and said, “Sorry Doc, but the captain wants us in his office. We’ll have to continue this conversation later.” They thanked the aging medical examiner and left the office as Doc Stanford made his way out of the building.
“Guess what?” the capt
ain said to them as they entered his office. “Both the robbery of the bank and the murders of those two old women yesterday are connected. I’ll bet you never considered it.”
“Well,” said Yuan, “to tell you the truth, it did seem a little strange we had two major incidents so close together, but you go ahead.”
“Whoever killed those women,” the captain told them from his fancy chair in his office, “wanted some information they had. It seems they were both prison guards back in World War 2. Fascinating, huh?
“Never would have guessed it,” Williams said. He looked over at Yuan and did his best to keep his mouth shut. Yuan smiled at him and returned his attention to the captain.
“I received an email from Washington last night that the women were under investigation as potential war criminals and the feds were interested in them. They instructed me not to let any information on their identities out into the open and definitely make the deaths appear to be the result of natural causes. Hell, at their advanced age, I’m sure no one thought anything else. But anyway, we took care of that part and thought it was over.”
“This morning I find out the safety deposit boxes the bank robbers were interested were leased to these women. That was the first bit of bad news I had. Next, Washington is breathing down my neck again. They tell me the two women are believed to be in possession of a Fabergé Egg and a diamond necklace looted from some Prussian nobles. They go on to tell me the egg and necklace are priceless. The egg was designed for the Tsar’s family before the fall of the monarchy in Russia. Why these two old bats didn’t sell those items years ago, I will never understand. Anyway, Washington wants the egg and necklace found. It seems someone in Moscow claims they know the items are in the United States and that they properly belong in St. Petersburg’s Hermitage Collection. They want them back and right away!”
“So now we know the reason why the egg and necklace are such hot items,” Yuan said. “Russia wants them both and I’ll bet they’re holding up some kind of deal with the State Department until they get them returned.”
“Oh, great,” Williams said, “not only do we have to do deal with a murder and bank robbery, but an international incident as well. Anything else?”
“Isn’t that enough?” the captain snapped back at them. He was another career officer looking forward to retirement. In a few more years, he’d join the rest of the old Philly coppers and sun himself on the coast in Florida.
“So you want both of us to go looking for the egg and necklace?” Williams asked him.
“Yes I do. But I want you both to look into the different aspects of the cases. See how they are related to the bank robbery. For instance, who trained these dogs? Someone local had to do it, someone who has plenty of experience in the handling and conditioning of attack dogs. You just don’t walk up to your local animal shelter and say, ‘Hi, I need a big ugly dog who can help me rob a bank’. This was deliberately done by someone who knew how to train these dogs to work at keeping a group of people at bay. They also had to know how to stop a security guard from reaching for his gun. And they had to act like normal dogs while they were headed to and from the bank. Shouldn’t be too hard to find someone who fits the profile.”
“You might think, “Yuan spoke up. “There are plenty of places out near Exton who train dogs and other animals. I think there is a whole section of Lincoln Highway where it’s zoned strictly so people have a place to care for their pets. The last time I was down there, it was all I saw. One veterinarian clinic after another interspersed with animal care places. You might think there are more dogs than people if you went through that section.”
“It can be a big business,” Williams agreed. “I think some of those people spend more money on their animals than they do on their children. The way I’ve seen them grieve over the death of a pet is something else. I was once told by a guy in the pet care business that the ideal customer is some lady who has a rescue dog. I think it fills something on the inside of people. At least that’s my take on it.”
“I don’t really care what anyone’s take on it is,” the captain told them. “The important thing is to get back the missing egg and the necklace too. I have Washington and city hall breathing down my back to find these things. The city is under financed and over-mobbed. You tell me what to do, because right now I’m trying to keep too many people happy on not enough money.”
Yuan thought for a minute. “It reminds me about that show called The Dog Whisperer,” he said. “Didn’t that guy have an uncanny way to get results from dogs? Do you think someone applied his techniques and used them on a team of dogs to train them for bank robberies? Most of the time, someone tells me that kind of story I would say it’s crazy, but it really happened and we have to deal with the possibility. Can’t be the guy from the show, he wouldn’t get involved in something like this, but maybe someone trained under him. I’m assuming it’s a local party because I can’t see someone from out of town flying into Philly just to case the bank. They would have to do it too often to pull off a job like this.”
“Not just that,” Williams said, “but I think those dog whisperer techniques are over-rated. They might be good for someone who had unlimited resources to spend on the animal, but to truly stimulate a pack of dogs you would have to devote yourself to them twenty-four seven. I don’t see too many people doing that sort of thing. Now, I’m not saying someone couldn’t incorporate the training into what they were already doing, but I don’t see them using those methods non-stop on a pack of dogs to train for robbing a bank.”
“Consider the reward for doing something like it,” Yuan pointed out. “If they really expected to net millions of dollars in priceless jewels, it just might have been worth it to spend the time on those animals training them to carry out one specific job.”
“But the Fabergé egg,” Williams brought up, “is hardly the sort of thing you can sell on the open market. From what I remember reading about the man who made those things for the royal family, he only did one a year. Which means each one is unique.”
“Whatever, guys,” the captain stopped the conversation. “I need one of you to track down the killer of those two women and someone else to look into the dog angle. One of you needs to approach it from the dead women angle and another from whoever trained the dogs. It’s the only way we’re going to find out who is behind this robbery and murder. And I need some answers soon before the FBI decides it’s a matter of national interest and comes down here personally to look around. That would go over real well with the mayor’s office. I’m sure we would all get an early transfer to the clerk of courts division over something like that.
Yuan and Williams looked at each other. They were renowned in the PPD for their ability to crack the tough cases. The last thing they wanted was to be sent to some godforsaken bureau to satisfy the FOP requirements. The captain wasn’t kidding either. Politics in Philly could be brutal and they both knew it.
“I’ll handle the dog trainer aspect of it, “Yuan volunteered.
“Let me see what I can find out from the other end,” Williams offered. “I’ll talk to Doc Stanford; he seems to know a few people who can help us.”
“I don’t care how you approach it,” the captain told them, “Just get me some results. And no messing up potential suspects this time, I don’t need any problems from lawyers. Not like the last time.”
“Sorry, Captain,” Williams said, “the guy in question actually believed Yuan was a paid assassin from the Russian mob. How else were we going to get him to talk?”
“You heard me, now go. Both of you get out of here.” The captain went back to his computer. It was his signal that they were supposed to leave the room.
“Are you alright with the doggie angle?” Williams asked his partner. “I can take it if you’d rather pursue things from the angle of those two dead women.”
“I’ll start with locating a dog trainer who could have done this,” Yuan said. “You go ahead and see if D
oc Stanford has anything useful to contribute. I don’t mind this part, I like dogs. And no jokes about how I like them!”
“Did I say anything?”
“I saw the smile on your face.”
Yuan left in his new SUV in the direction of Exton. It took him a while to get out of the city because the snow had messed up the highway. Anytime it snowed or rained the highway traffic out of, and into, Philly slowed to a crawl. He once heard a rumor traffic specialists flow into Philly to learn how NOT to build a highway system.
The main problem was that the interstate acted like Philadelphia was an afterthought. Highway 95 barely ran near Philly and there were little if any ramps to get to it. The Pennsylvania Turnpike was the major conduit to Philly, but it was best for long trips across the state. Since it had a toll, most people didn’t want to use it for commuting. Of course, the rail system ran in and out of the city, but the times and stops were insane. Plus, the rail system served towns which were important when it was built, but that was a long time ago. The end of the line towns tended to be of little economic significance. And the good people who lived in the suburbs had no desire to mess up their lovely little garden views with the great-unwashed coming out of the city. Thus, transportation to and from Philadelphia was a mess.
Williams had a shorter drive to make in his old car. He drove directly across town and went to Doc Stanford’s lab. In his case, the distance was shorter, but the traffic no less insane. Roosevelt Boulevard was a speed demon’s dream and the constant flow of traffic uninterrupted by circles or lights made acceleration tempting to any young man with a lead foot. He watched cars roar past him well in excess of the speed limit, but he wasn’t about to stop them. It was all in a day’s work for an officer of the law and the Philly PPD.
The Untimely Death Box Set Page 30
