“No popcorn?” Sylvia joked, feeling relieved that the whole ordeal was soon behind them. Everyone laughed, then got serious again as the face of Sheridan Avery appeared on the screen.
“There was no torture involved in production of this video,” teased Sheriff Caywood, “only stupidity, fear, and guilt.” They all began to laugh again, but things abruptly went serious once the main feature began to play.
The introduction began with Detective Harrison's voice playing over the visual of Sheridan Avery facing the computer mini cam, shifting his eyes back-and-forth in a nervous fashion and adjusting his collar as if to make a little more room for him to swallow the lumps in his throat. It was evident that wires had been attached to Mr. Avery and a lie-detector test was being administered.
“Mr. Avery, for the record, please state your name, age, and today's date.” He did so.
“Is it true that you have had an association with Arthur Caplan of both a friendly nature as well as business matters in the past?”
“Yes. That is true,” he answered.
“And you have known Mr. Caplan for a number of years, dating back to when you were colleagues, since you were in your twenties in the early nineties?”
“Yes. That is true,” he answered.
“And you both were members of the same club, the St. Louis Businessmen's Association which was and is still located in downtown St. Louis, Missouri where meetings are held.”
“Yes. That is true,” he answered.
“And also a member of this same organization was a Joseph Marshall, founder and owner of the former Marshall's Meats, one-time president of the St. Louis Businessmen's Association? A man now believed to have been murdered in his prime in 1995?”
“No, no. I didn't have anything to do with a murder,” he protested.
“That was not the question, Mr. Avery. Were you aware that this man was also a member of the association which has been described?”
“Yes, okay,” he stammered, starting to sweat. “He was.”
At this point, Sylvia's mouth dropped, and she made a quiet gasp. Greg looked puzzled at the turn of events as well and reached out to touch her hand.
“Were you a member of this club when a suspected arson fire occurred in 1994?”
“I had nothing to do with that, either,” he argued. “I don't smoke cigars, and I didn't even know Caplan was going to do that.”
“And you recently began selling franchises of your successful locksmithing business. At only forty-four, that's quite an accomplishment. And you bought a very nice house in Stover that was listed for nearly $200,000. People say it's the nicest one in town, even better than the mayor's. And you paid cash for that house. Things like that do not go unnoticed in a small town, Mr. Avery. And, did you know that some of your tools were recently confiscated in a foiled break-in by that very same friend of yours, Mr. Caplan?”
“No, I don't know anything about that,” he said. “I can't keep track of all my tools, especially considering that other people work for me. I hardly touch tools anymore.”
“Are one of your franchises located in St. Louis? How were your tools there?”
“No, I don't have one there,” he strained for an answer. “But those tools are commonplace. You can't be sure it's one that belonged to me.”
“Oh, but is has one of your fingerprints on the handle, Mr. Avery. And the attempted break-in from where it was confiscated was at the apartment of Miss Sylvia Marshall, the daughter of the man who may have been murdered back in 1995. And how did you know it was a cigar that started the fire back in 1994? We hadn't disclosed that information to you.”
Mr. Sheridan Avery sat in silence, looking quite worried, probably wondering if he should rescind on his agreement to assist in this inquiry and call his lawyer. Sheriff Caywood poked Greg with his elbow at that point, as if to say, “Wait for it, wait for it...”
“I don't want any of that pinned on me. It was Caplan who did it all. I want a deal. I can tell you the whole story, if you guys get me out of this mess.”
“Would you like at this point to dispense with the lie-detector test and enter into a negotiation with the sheriff, Mr. Avery?”
“You can leave it on, as far as I'm concerned,” he stated emotionally. “I'm telling the whole truth, and I don't mind proving it. That is if I can avoid any jail time at all. I have two little Boston Terriers at home. They are like sons to me. I couldn't bear to part with them. I'll help you any way I can to put that scoundrel away. I'll admit what I did, do community service, make restitution—anything but jail. Can we make a deal?”
At that point in the recording a lot of shuffling noises were heard. Equipment was adjusted, and Sheriff Caywood came in with some papers that he laid on the table in front of Mr. Avery.
“Let's be clear with one another, Mr. Avery. We don't know what you're going to say, so we don't know if it's even worth our time. We can't guarantee you a specific bargain. To some extent we have to trust you; you have to trust us. I can say that without a doubt you can be exonerated of any charges less than a felony, and most felonies can be reduced to misdemeanors with no jail time. You have no previous convictions, so your chances are pretty good that you'll get the kind of deal you want. But, if you are implicated in a murder or anything violent, our deal is off. Got all of that? If so, you can begin at the start of this mess, all the way back to the early nineties. Just tell it your way, the way it happened.”
Throughout the explanation given by Sheriff Caywood, the camera peered over the officer's shoulder, and the viewer could see beads of sweat pouring off Mr. Avery's brow. He seemed to be nearly to the brink of tears. Surely, his story would be enlightening.
He began:
“Arthur Caplan and I were unlikely partners in any kind of way you want to look at it. He went to business school, got a degree, and had managed several profitable enterprises before I met him. That was when I joined the St. Louis Businessmen's Association. I had just opened my shop in Stover and attended a locksmith's convention which recommended joining groups like that to network. I had big ideas back then, as a young man in my twenties and thought I could move to the big city and hit the big time. My gift of gab was noticed by Caplan, that's what he told me when he picked me out to get involved with what was by then a cover-up maneuver. He had already done the crime, and he needed me to help him cover his tracks.
“Mr. Marshall had discovered his involvement in a scheme Caplan ran that duped a friend of his out of his entire life's savings. A Mr. Charles Merriott had been operating a small, family-owned jewelry business that was located in old North Saint Louis in a little shopping district known as Fourteenth Street. Caplan convinced the man to invest in a major expansion which was to make him a millionaire. All the while Merriott saw mounting orders pouring in, Caplan was taking the man's money and slipping it into secret bank accounts—in his own name. The orders were bogus. Merriott not only went through all his savings, but he borrowed heavily, supposedly to set up stores in outlying cities like Chicago, Denver, and Minneapolis. Caplan produced documents for him to sign, pictures of construction, employee paychecks to sign, receipts for paid orders—all of it forged. Merriott didn't discover that it was all phony until it was too late. He went to Mr. Marshall for help instead of the police because he was president of the Association, and it seemed like a good idea at the time. Maybe he was right to do that, in a way.
“Mr. Marshall confronted Caplan and offered him a deal. In Marshall's mind, sending the guy to jail would help no one because the money could not be recovered. It was well hidden. So, with all the evidence in his hands, he made Caplan agree to pay back Merriott in installments to the tune of, I think $50,000 a month. It was an amount large enough to support his family and even get his business started again on a much smaller scale, of course. It was better than nothing. Mr. Marshall kept the documents in a steel lockbox at the men’s' club, and if Caplan were to miss a single payment Marshall was going to take it all to the authorities.”
“Caplan was dying to get out of this predicament. His bank accounts were going to dry up in a matter of years, even if he made good investments—legitimate ones—he was losing money, fast. He considered killing Mr. Marshall, but the man had been smart enough to set up a fail-safe tactic.
“The administers of the club had been given instructions to open that lock-box only in the event of any accidental or suspicious death or for his daughter when she reached her thirtieth birthday, whichever came first.
“Caplan's next solution was to burn down the club, destroying the evidence. But that really back-fired on him. Not only was the fire contained in time, but Caplan was seriously hurt in the process. He had been smart enough to avoid prosecution, though, since the arson could not be proven. His face was severely disfigured, and any hopes he might have had of a career in business were gone. He is very hard to look at. Mr. Marshall gave him a job as a butcher in his own wholesale meat company. I think he did it as a favor to the man, knowing the man would have a difficult time making a living after that. Who knows, maybe he even thought the man would reform, regret what he had done. But, Caplan took his gallant gesture as an insult. He hated being a butcher, although back in those days it was considered a decent way to make a living.
“Here is where I came into the picture—a very tiny part of the picture,” he continued.
“He knew I was a locksmith. And for a promise of a substantial cash payment, he wanted me to help him break into the Marshall residence as well as the Indian Foot Lake cottage so that he could search there for the key to the lockbox. We went to their home during the funeral and searched carefully without disturbing any of their belongings. They didn't even know they'd been hit.”
The back of the sheriff's hand could be seen shooting upright in the lower corner of the screen. “Excuse me, Mr. Avery, for a minute there,” interrupted Sheriff Caywood. “I have a little problem with some things you just said. Answer a few questions for me before we continue.”
He nodded in agreement, but looked very troubled by the pause in the proceedings.
“You said the two of you went to the Marshall home while the funeral was in process. We have evidence which proves that Arthur Caplan attended Joseph Marshall's funeral. We have his signature in the guest book. People signed both before and after him, so he did not slip in afterwards and add his name to the bottom. Also, if you managed to buy that nice house in Stover with money from Caplan received as compensation for your services, then you were paid an exorbitant amount for what you're describing as a lock-picking job. That doesn't make sense. If you're not going to be honest, Mr. Avery, we have a serious problem with our deal.”
“Okay, okay,” he admitted. “I tried to minimize my involvement. I knew Caplan before the association. I met him in business school, but I dropped out before graduating. Actually, since you probably know already, or you will, I was expelled for cheating. It was Caplan who introduced me to the group. I was in on the Merriott scam. We scored big on that deal, our first together—I swear. Caplan hated it that I got off scott-free, so to speak, and that I had safely invested my cut on the deal. I learned a few things in business school. Caplan didn't implicate me—he said because he was no snitch—but really it was because he wanted to have someone he could manipulate who was beyond suspicion with the law. He felt free to call upon my services time and again, playing me for a fool, using the fact that I still had my cut on the Merriott deal. He pressured me into following people, giving that card to Greg Devine, and pumping my sister for information about the sale of Indian Foot Lake.
“Why did he care about Indian Foot Lake?” Sheriff Caywood asked, “why did he care so much about who bought it? He had already searched the cabin years earlier and not found the key to the lockbox.”
“Originally, he was worried that a new owner would tear down the cabins in the process of making renovations and find the thing he had never yet been able to find. That's why he wanted my sister to become the agent in the sale—so that he could keep tabs on it through me. Then when unexpectedly the daughter became involved, he really went ballistic. He thought the daughter had already turned thirty, not knowing her birthday, had already seen the contents of the box, and became interested in the property for some reason he couldn't figure out. The man had really become more and more paranoid over the years. When my sister told me that she didn't think that Miss Marshall was ever really serious—and I told him that—he came to the conclusion that she had very sinister motives and was in the process of setting some kind of trap for him. He was afraid she was on to him because her mother had a chance to talk with her before she died. He felt she might have told her daughter something.
“Mrs. Marshall?” asked the sheriff in the recording as the real one shared a glance with Sylvia. “What does Mrs. Marshall have to do with this?”
Sheridan Avery appeared stunned. Oops, his face read clearly, showing that he obviously had let something slip. He was prattling on, now believing that the sheriff already had all the facts.
“I might as well come completely clean,” Avery sighed with exhaustion. “Caplan and I scammed Mrs. Marshall. She didn't know me, as I had little to do with the association and nothing to do with her husband's business. But, after he died, with Caplan feeding me all the information, coaching me what to say, and me contributing some expertise of my own, I got Mrs. Marshall all fired up about expanding the business and becoming a millionaire. He wanted to screw her good—not literally—pardon the crude reference. Caplan considered this the crowning glory of his criminal career—to get back at the man who ruined him. Somehow or other, he even managed to blame Marshall for what happened to his face. Caplan replenished his coffers on the Mrs. Marshall scam. For almost thirteen years, he was back in business—as long as that lockbox remained secret. Then the daughter appeared on the scene threatening to take it all away again after all those years. He did some simple math and realized she was about to turn thirty, or maybe already had.”
“Let me add all of this together, now,” Sheriff Caywood said to Avery. “Mr. Marshall, Mr. Merriott, and Mrs. Marshall all died of heart attacks—deaths that all somehow benefitted Arthur Caplan. He ended those pesky payments, eliminated a huge threat to his freedom, and got rid of a woman whose financial dealings might have received greater scrutiny had she lived to go to the police or seek advice. Isn't that rather odd?”
Avery thought for a moment, and then admitted that he had too agreed it was odd.
“But, these people were under a lot of stress,” argued Avery. “It is possible that they just had heart attacks. I don't know. Although Mr. Marshall was only forty-five, it happens. Women don't commonly have heart attacks, especially at her age, but she didn't look well toward the end. I don't know if your hunch is right or not, but I certainly had nothing to do with it. I remember, though, that he made a comment recently that put me a little on edge—about the daughter. Caplan said that with any luck she might end up dead, too. I asked him what he meant by that, and he grinned weirdly. He said that things happen, and sometimes things help things happen.”
The sheriff stopped the video and addressed the crowd huddled in the little room.
“Shortly after Mr. Marshall died, Merriott died, also of a heart attack, so he didn't have to make the payments anymore, didn't have to work as a butcher anymore, but he still worried that the contents of that box could send him to jail. Mrs. Marshall had a heart attack and died within twenty-four hours, just like all the rest. She died as soon as her accounts had been bled dry, but before she had time to talk to anyone—except Sylvia. Exactly where and when did your mother die?” he said, addressing Sylvia. “She came to see you before your high school graduation at the school.”
Sylvia was holding her head in her hands, and said she felt ill. Greg reached for a
waste can, but she refused it, saying she had composed herself.
“My mother looked so bad,” she recalled. “Given the emotional turmoil she had endured, I didn't think that extremely unexpected. But, she died that very night. The doctor who came with the ambulance said that it appeared she'd had a heart attack in her sleep. With what I told them about our conversation—that she'd lost the entire family fortune in a bad business deal, and that she looked very unwell—the doctor ended the diagnosis. The cause of death was obvious to him. At the time, I didn't really believe that she had been scammed, as she put it. I thought she'd made really bad business decisions and just lost it all. Businesses go into bankruptcy all the time, especially when they are run by people with no experience.”
“There are substances,” Detective Harrison added, “many of them easily available and practically untraceable unless suspected, that can cause a heart attack within hours or a day of ingesting them. I can do more research on that, but it's doubtful that an autopsy would show anything after all this time.”
Indian Foot Lake Love Story Page 14
