Denny's Law

by Elizabeth Gunn

  ‘That’s not a big percentage if you think about a total of four to five million a year he was sending to the cartel. But for cautious old Cal it was beginning to amount to quite a tidy nest egg. What we don’t know is where he was keeping it.’

  ‘You don’t think he had an account in the Caymans, something like that?’

  ‘Can’t find one. Probably would have been too complicated for him. Calvin’s probably got a stash pretty close by. When you crawl that house again, look for secret numbers. Could be written on the bottom of a drawer or inside a lampshade … anywhere.’

  ‘We’ve already done all that a couple of times but we’ll look again. How much longer are you going to need to keep our records?’

  ‘It’s all being scanned into our system now and the originals will be boxed and on their way back to you via UPS in a week or two.’

  ‘You mean you’re not going to pursue—’

  ‘Oh, we’re not giving up. We’ll be following the money trail and we’ll let you know what we find. We’re convinced your victim was working with the Sinaloa operation but frankly this is too small a part of that system to be very relevant. Four or five million a year – I’m surprised they let him continue as long as they did. But I suppose … he was established and reliable and he wasn’t causing any trouble. Till now.’

  ‘You’re quite convinced his own organization killed him?’

  ‘Oh, yes, I assume so. But it’s not exactly on my job sheet to prove it; we’ve got plenty on this cartel if we can ever seize some of the top people. That’ll probably be a cold day in hell, though. In the meantime, the homicide investigation is back in your hands. We expect to be informed of anything you find, of course.’

  ‘And you’ll file a report on what you’ve found so far?’

  ‘Yes, of course. Including the money we’ve agreed to split, which is in the joint account Don and you agreed on, Captain Delaney. And I’ll notify the home office of all the ways we’re continuing to cooperate. If you want more help at any point you can contact Don.’ She looked at Delaney. ‘Anything else?’

  ‘Don knows all about this? He’s satisfied with this arrangement?’

  ‘Of course.’ She smiled. ‘He’s a very busy man but I’m sure he’ll be in touch. Meantime, he asked me to convey his congratulations on the way this joint effort has worked out.’

  She leaned toward them then, looking anxious to make a point. ‘TBML crime isn’t just for the drug lords any more, you know. It’s an ocean of unrecorded currency circulating in an increasingly globalized black market. Unregulated and untaxed – governments hate that. We’re getting into bitcoins now. Your worst nightmare – no records on those at all. Upsetting legitimate markets, funding God knows how many escalating wars and revolutions – Isis is learning to play this game. And there’s this nasty sideline, smuggling people – the clergy of all denominations are pushing their legislators to fund an all-out war against what it’s doing to women and children. What you’ve stumbled into here looks small by itself—’

  ‘It doesn’t look small to us,’ Delaney said.

  ‘Maybe not but believe me, it’s just a few drops on the edge of a vast Sargasso Sea of undercover money that’s becoming the enemy of well-ordered societies everywhere. Make what you can of Calvin’s quaint maneuvers with adding machine tapes. I’d love it if you’d nail a bad guy or two.’

  Sarah said, ‘But something tells me you don’t think that’s going to make much difference.’

  ‘Listen, they put El Chapo in jail every time they grab him but you notice the flow of drugs goes on without a hitch. There’ll always be three or four candidates standing in line to take the place of every one you finally put behind bars. Most of the ones we really want will never see a courtroom.’

  Delaney said, ‘Our job is still to find out who killed Calvin Springer.’

  ‘Oh, that.’ Lois shrugged. ‘You may have quite a bit of trouble nailing that down. Cartels use teams, usually, and the men on the teams often have several identities.’

  ‘Some things about the crime scene suggest one man and a lot of rage.’

  ‘Oh? Interesting.’ Lois was already putting a few notes back in her briefcase. ‘I suppose it’s possible that Springer offended somebody in the cartel who bore a personal grudge – they’re not robots, after all.’ She shrugged a quick whatever. ‘But it still looks like an organization hit to me.’

  She hung her neat case over her shoulder and shook hands with them both, saying, with one of her little nods, ‘My message to both of you and the rest of your crew is be careful. Watch your own backs for a while. Big-time drug dealers are very dangerous.’ She walked to the elevator, looking at her watch, which Sarah felt certain would always be accurate to the last second.

  ‘I made a fresh pot of coffee to offer her,’ Delaney said when Lois was gone, ‘and we never got to drink any. Let’s have a cup now and decide what’s next. You got time?’

  ‘Sure,’ Sarah said. On the way to the break room she decided to get one of those crullers she had seen there earlier … wasn’t sugar a proven antidote to frustration? But the pastry was all gone by the time she got to the console so she put double cream and sugar in her coffee.

  Delaney had already swallowed several swigs of hot black brew, she saw when she got back to his desk, and was looking even pinker and itchier than he usually did in hot weather.

  ‘Well, she’s a little hard to take,’ he said, putting his cup down carefully, ‘but she did leave us with something, didn’t she?’

  ‘Did she? What Lois always leaves me with is the feeling that in her eyes I’m kind of a small-time dweeb.’

  He made the amusement noise she didn’t get to hear very often, something between a snort and a chuckle. ‘I think Lois read that book about how to win friends and – what was it?’

  ‘Influence people.’

  ‘Yeah, that. And she decided it would be more interesting to try some other way.’

  Sarah drank some of the incredibly delicious rich coffee, enjoying the mellow side of Delaney that Lois Johnson’s hard edge had uncovered. ‘So what do you think she left us?’

  ‘That name we’ve never heard before, William F. McGinty. I feel like I’ve been buried up to my eyeballs in information ever since we found Calvin Springer, don’t you? So much evidence but it doesn’t seem to fit together very well. In fact, I only believe about half of it. I mean, a clown suit in the trash container – what the hell? I don’t feel right even talking about it.’

  ‘But if that’s what we’ve got—’

  ‘I know. But now I’m thinking about a simple story, something people can understand, that we can release to the media along with this new name. Person of interest, we’ll call him. Say we want to question him in connection with the death of blah blah blah. You know the drill.’

  ‘OK. Let’s see, it’s early yet, I can get that onto the six o’clock news. That’ll repeat at ten and then there’s that Friday night Week in Review.’

  ‘Fine. That might get it mentioned by some of the weekend talk shows and maybe by Monday, who knows? Somebody will come up with … something.’

  ‘Worth a shot,’ Sarah said and went to work on it. She privately thought it was about the lamest move she’d made all week but it pleased her boss and wiped out the sour feeling she’d had when Lois Johnson zipped up her soft leather briefcase and strode out the door to her next, much more important meeting.

  ‘Tucson homicide detectives are anxious to question this man in connection with the violent death of Calvin Springer in the Menlo Park neighborhood on the Fourth of July.’ Sarah finished the story, hit the print key and called the information officer.

  Driving home, she thought some more about Calvin’s stash. If he was skimming as much as Lois says he was, and he kept it in cash, there has to be quite a pile. He sure didn’t spend it on anything in that house and yard.

  He liked to keep things simple.

  And she’s probably right – a hidden account in
the Caymans would seem too risky to him. So what then?

  A suitcase in a storage unit near his house. Maybe more than one suitcase.

  Storage units all have locks. Padlocks or those combination things with dials.

  He hated complexity. I’m betting on a key.

  Damn, do we have to go back to his yard and turn over all those river stones?

  EIGHT

  At ten o’clock on Monday morning, a woman on the phone, not young by the sound of her voice, said, ‘My name is Mabel Conway.’

  ‘How can I help you, Mabel?’

  ‘Are you a detective?’

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’

  ‘I believe I have something to tell you.’

  ‘All right.’ Sarah put all the helpful vibes she had into her voice. Her caller had already talked to the switchboard and the information officer before being forwarded to Ollie who, forewarned at the morning briefing, had passed her on to Sarah. By now she was probably beginning to be sorry she’d called. ‘I’m listening, Mabel.’

  ‘Something to tell and then something to ask, I guess.’

  ‘Fine. Let’s start with what you have to tell me.’

  ‘That name I read about in the paper … and then I heard it on TV. William F. McGinty?’

  ‘Yes. You know him?’

  ‘The one I knew was called Bill, but I suppose it could be the same person.’

  ‘Well, sure. Most Williams are called Bill, I guess.’

  There was a short silence filled with breathing. Mabel was a little anxious. ‘Why do you need to find him? You think he’s done something?’

  ‘He’s a person of interest,’ Sarah said. ‘That just means we want to talk to him. It doesn’t necessarily mean he’s in any trouble. Tell him he shouldn’t be afraid to come in.’

  ‘Oh, well, I don’t know where he is. I mean, the last time I saw Bill McGinty was, my gosh, it must be almost twenty years ago. And that was in Mexico.’

  ‘I see,’ Sarah said. Mexico. This might actually be something. ‘Do you remember where in Mexico you saw him last?’

  ‘Sure. La Paz, on the Baja peninsula, when I was down there sailing with my late husband, Fred, who sadly departed this earth just over six months ago. We had – I still have – a long-time friend here in Marana who was down there with us. He keeps saying it can’t be the same person but it just seems so odd … that familiar name coming up in the Tucson paper, in connection with somebody who died.’

  Sarah said, ‘Why is that so odd?’

  ‘Well, I mean, after all these years? Jack said forget about it, it’s got nothing to do with us, but I couldn’t get it out of my mind so I finally said well, heck, I’m just going to call and find out what’s going on.’

  ‘Good for you! What’s going on is a homicide investigation, Mrs Conway. What’s your address in Marana – can I get that first?’

  ‘Wait a minute, I don’t want to get involved or anything. I was just asking—’

  ‘You’re not involved – I’m just making sure I know who I’m talking to. Would you rather give me your email address – do you prefer to be contacted that way?’ She was Googling Mabel Conway, getting nothing so far, and making signs to Ollie. He came over and looked at her search, made a circle ‘OK’ sign and went back to his desk. But Mabel was getting ready to bolt.

  ‘I mean, I don’t really know anything at all,’ she said. ‘And I’ve got all I can handle right here at home. Fred’s only been gone six months and, believe me, after forty-three years of marriage it isn’t easy. I just called to get one simple piece of information—’

  ‘Which was what?’ Sarah waited through the short, crackly silence that followed her question and finally said, ‘Mabel? What is it you want to know?’

  ‘Well … if you find this William McGinty … you want to talk to him about a dead person, is that it? The man who got killed there in Tucson on the Fourth?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘It just seems so darn spooky,’ she said in a wondering voice.

  ‘Mr Springer’s death seems spooky? In what way?’

  ‘The fact that you want to find Bill McGinty to talk about it.’

  ‘Why is that spooky?’

  ‘Because all those years ago in Mexico, that’s the last thing we said about him: “We’ve got to find Bill McGinty and talk about this.” But we never did. The police came and took Poppy’s body away, and after that they didn’t want to talk to us anymore. And Bill never came back and it was Mexico, you know? Everybody had been so friendly and kind to us but all of a sudden they were suspicious and hostile. They didn’t appreciate our questions one bit.’

  ‘Was Poppy a friend of yours?’

  ‘Well, yes, she was Bill’s wife.’

  ‘Oh. And you never found out where McGinty went?’

  ‘No. And we finally realized if they didn’t want to talk to us there was nothing we could do about it. Fred said, what are you going to do, start a revolt in a harbor in Mexico? Three Anglo sailors … They see a hundred new ones every day, why should they care what we want?’ The quiet woman had conquered her initial shyness and was letting it all spill out.

  When she paused for breath, Sarah said, ‘That does sound like a tough situation.’

  ‘Tough is right. We certainly didn’t want to stick around La Paz and play anymore. So we got our boats ready and went home. Twelve days up the Baja in the teeth of a filthy wind, every other wave slapping us in the face – I’ve never been so cold. I wore foul-weather gear over my oldest clothes, the same set for eight days; I never changed anything. I couldn’t stand to smell myself. But you have to get undressed to change clothes so I didn’t even consider it till we got to Turtle Bay.’

  ‘You’re not making me envy your trip.’

  ‘Well, there were things to love about that adventure but not the trip home. Besides that, I felt so guilty the whole time, sneaking off to the north that way, even though I had nothing to do with Poppy’s death. I kept thinking no, no, we’ve got to go back and straighten this out. But we hadn’t been able to straighten anything out while we were right there in front of a dozen policemen, so what was the use?’

  ‘Sounds pretty discouraging, all right.’

  ‘For sure. I felt bad every time I thought about it, all these years. And then last week I read in the paper about this other murder and the next thing the story says is that the Tucson Police want to find William McGinty and talk about it.’ She breathed into the phone a few times and added, just above a whisper, ‘Spoo-key.’

  ‘Yes,’ Sarah said, ‘I agree, Mrs Conway, that seems like a very strange coincidence. So unusual that I think we ought to get together and talk about it, don’t you? You live in Marana, right? What’s your street address?’

  ‘Jack is going to be so disgusted with me,’ Mabel said. ‘I promised him I’d leave it alone.’

  ‘Mrs Conway, you’re not in any trouble. I just need to talk to you. Shall I come and see you or send a police car to bring you in here?’

  A silence followed, filled with little mouth sounds, a gasp and a swallow, maybe. Sarah said, ‘Mabel?’

  ‘Oh, well, just let me think a minute,’ she said miserably. At that moment Ollie thrust his notebook in front of Sarah’s face with Mabel Conway’s name and address displayed. Sarah read it off aloud and said, ‘Is that your correct address, Mabel?’

  ‘Yes.’ Once it was out and she couldn’t call it back she grew calmer, even sounded a little relieved. She gave good directions to her house in a subdivision.

  ‘Fine. We’ll be there in about twenty minutes. Nothing to worry about, Mabel, we just want to talk!’ She hung up the phone and said, ‘Ollie, you got time to go with me to talk to Mabel?’

  ‘Absolutely, I wouldn’t miss it. How’d this happen?’ he said as they started toward the elevator. ‘This woman just read the paper and remembered something?’

  ‘Yeah, but we chummed her – just a minute.’ Passing Delaney’s office, she saw him on the phone and made an urge
nt time-out sign. He said something to the phone and punched his HOLD button. ‘What?’

  ‘The news release worked. Woman in Marana wants to talk about William McGinty. Ollie’s free to go so we’re heading out now.’

  Delaney beamed, put two thumbs up and said, ‘Stay in touch.’

  In the elevator, Sarah asked Ollie, ‘Will you drive so I can look some stuff up?’

  ‘Sure. My car’s over there in the shade.’ As he pulled onto South Stone, he said, ‘Chummed how?’ The morning brief had included a report on the Friday meeting with Lois, so Ollie knew most of the McGinty story they’d received from Lois Johnson.

  Sarah told him about Delaney’s inspiration to get the name out to the media. ‘I thought it was a waste of effort but I did it to please him and here we are, first thing Monday morning, getting a response. Shows you what I know. You need I-10, we’re going to Marana.’

  Remembering what Mabel had said about being a new widow, she tried Googling Fred Conway and hit the mother lode. As they rolled westward she developed a profile on him, reading it off to Ollie as she found it: Marana resident since the late nineties, prominent in trail building and hiking activities, Vets’ Club, golf tournaments. ‘But Fred succumbed to Alzheimer’s six months ago.’ Now finally some facts about the widow: newest member of the Marana Technology Club, volunteer with a literacy program. ‘Mabel doesn’t have a lightweight’s bio. She sounded a little scattered on the phone at first but that must have been because of her uncertainty about telling me her story. She seems to have a friend who thinks she has enough on her mind right now and she shouldn’t get involved in anything new.’

  ‘Probably true. But you don’t think we’re heading for a total Nimrod?’

  ‘Her bio says not. But Bill McGinty’s name seems to trigger some unpleasant memories. And she’s just lost her husband so … we better take it slow so she doesn’t start crying before we find out why the memories make her jumpy.’