by Ace Collins
“So.” Meeker sighed. “The man you sent us the tip on. Why did Abbi know him?”
“Well, why didn’t you say so rather than confuse me?” Nancy complained. “Abbi would have known him because he worked for her. Didn’t I tell you that? I meant to. You know how it is? When you get a little older, sometimes you forget what you say. I wasn’t that way when I was a kid. I could memorize like no one’s business. That’s why I got the lead in all the plays. By the way, what color was that suit you wore in the newsreel?”
“A pale blue,” Meeker said.
“It looked gray. I do wish they’d make those newsreels in color. That would have saved Gertie and me arguing over that and the color of your eyes. Did I tell you that you could have been a model?”
“Yes, you did,” Meeker replied.
“Well, you don’t have to get in a snit about it,” Andrews shot back. “I meant it as a compliment even if I did repeat myself.”
“Sorry,” Meeker replied, not meaning her apology at all. “Anything else you need to share about this man?”
“Only one other thing I remember, but it’s probably not important.”
“What’s that?”
“He held his cigarettes in a funny way.”
The agents’ eyes met from across the room. Meeker took a deep breath.
“Mrs. Andrews. How did the man hold his cigarette?”
“Between his pinkie and ring finger of his right hand.”
Placing her hand over the phone’s mouthpiece, Meeker asked Reese, “Wasn’t Johns the man who came in with the local cop and Hall during our first interview here?”
The agent nodded.
“Henry, dig up his number and see if you get the name of our smoker.”
As Reese carefully hung up so he could call the switchboard, Meeker got back on the line with Andrews.
“I want to assure you that you’ve been a huge help, Mrs. Andrews. This might just be the break we need. If it pans out, you’ll get that reward the newsreel company is offering. I’m sure that there’d be enough there for you to make that trip to Los Angeles and get your teeth fixed.”
“My, my!” The woman excitedly laughed. “I forgot about the reward.”
“And,” Meeker cut in, “I’m going to send one of our agents to do a full interview with you. He’ll call to set things up. You’ll love visiting with him. His name is Stan Gates.”
“I will make sure and bake some of my brownies for him. Joe doesn’t like them, says they are too salty, but I’ll bet Mr. Gates will.”
“I’m sure,” Meeker smiled as she replied. “And make sure he eats several. Thanks.”
She didn’t give the woman a chance to reply before setting the receiver down. As luck would have it, Reese was just putting his phone back in its cradle, too.
“I can’t believe you did that to Gates,” the male agent said.
“He deserves it,” Meeker shot back. “Did you get anything?”
“Johns was out, but his secretary will be back soon. I figured you’d want to drive down to Oakwood tomorrow, so I set up an appointment with the attorney for eleven.”
“Perfect.”
Meeker leaned back in her chair and put her feet on her desk. It had taken months, but they had a break. Now it was a matter of getting the press on the lookout for the handyman. If they did that, then maybe the Halls would get the answers they needed to go on with their lives.
Chapter 47
Just across from the Oakwood post office, Samuel Johns’s office was a converted storefront made up of two rooms. The front area where the secretary’s desk sat was about ten by twenty. Beside her oak desk were two small bookshelves and a couple of mismatched wooden chairs for visitors with a table between them. A few newspapers and magazines were scattered on the small black bench alongside the front window. Against the back wall a counter held a silver coffee pot. Next to that was a door. Johns was standing in that back doorway when the two agents walked into his place of business.
“Welcome. You made good time,” the attorney said.
“Not a lot of traffic leaving Chicago,” Reese explained, “but there’s quite a bit going on, so we might not be so lucky when we head home.”
“Well, good to have you.” Johns grinned. He waved toward the empty desk. “Barbara is out right now. She had to go to the bank and post office, but I can invite you into my humble quarters as well as she can. Come on back.”
They followed the attorney into a room that was not only larger than the outer office; it was furnished a lot more nicely, too. The man’s desk was a massive walnut piece longer than most pool tables. A brass desk light with a green shade sat in the middle of the workstation. Floor-to-ceiling bookcases lined the back and side walls. The shelves were filled with impressive volumes covering every facet of the law, as well as hundreds of books on history, literature, and travel. On the front wall were a half-dozen file cabinets made from what appeared to be cherrywood. The three large chairs that were positioned in front of the desk sported green leather held in place by bright brass tacks.
Evidently noting his guests’ admiration, Johns said, “You should have seen it when I bought it fifteen years ago. This was a corner grocery store at the turn of the century. If you look up, you’ll see the pressed-tin ceiling. It’s about all I left intact.” He paused while Meeker and Reese glanced up then waved toward the chairs. “Now have a seat, and we can discuss whatever questions you might have.”
“Mr. Johns,” Helen began.
“Miss Meeker.”
“There was man who once worked for a woman named …” The agent opened a file and glanced through her notes before continuing, “Abbi Watling.”
Johns smiled. “Dear sweet Abigale. What a grand dame she was! Never met anyone like her.”
Meeker nodded. “So you knew her well.”
“I was her attorney for more than twenty years. I handled her estate when she died back in ‘37. She had a heart of gold.”
“And the man who worked for her?” the agent prodded.
“During that time there were a lot of folks who worked for Abbi. She was pretty much a sucker for someone needing a meal or a job. Do you have any idea when this person worked for her or what he did?”
Meeker again checked her notes. “It appears, from what Nancy Andrews told us, that it would have been shortly before Miss Watling died.” The agent pulled the sketch from the folder and slid it toward the lawyer. The desk was so large it only made it about a third of the way across. Johns had to rise from his chair to pull it the remainder of the way.
“Hmm …” he said, setting the drawing back on his desk and looking back toward his guests. “That looks something like Mitchell Burgess. Looks more like him than anyone else who worked for Abbi. But Burgess’s hair is a bit darker, or at least it was the last time I saw him, and his brow is not as pronounced. Has kind of a cleft in his chin, too.”
Meeker glanced toward her partner. Reese shrugged.
“I suppose,” Johns continued, “that Nancy told you this drawing was the spitting image of Burgess.”
“She pretty much indicated that,” Reese admitted.
“Nancy’s vision is not very good, but she’s too vain to wear glasses. She’s had three car wrecks in the past year because she simply drove into things. But there is one thing she’s very good at and that’s talking. She’s the gossip queen of Vermilion County.”
“We found that out,” Meeker assured him.
“When she comes by here,” Johns said with a laugh, “Barbara has instructions to tell her that I’m not in.”
“Well,” Meeker admitted while shaking her head, “we’re not really here to discuss Mrs. Andrews. Do you mind if I ask you a couple of more questions about Burgess?”
“No, not at all.”
“Is he still in town?”
The attorney leaned back in his chair, closed his eyes, and crossed his arms over his chest. He remained that way for about thirty seconds before his eyes popped open. “
You know, now that I think about it, I haven’t seen him since sometime last spring. Might even have been in the winter. He usually comes around during the summer asking me to use him for yard work. He didn’t this year. So he very well might be gone.”
Reese nodded, looked over at Meeker as if to get her approval to jump into the fray. She tilted her head slightly and smiled.
“Mr. Johns,” he said.
“Agent Reese, isn’t it?”
“Yes. Did you ever see Burgess smoke?”
“All the time,” came the quick reply. “If he was awake he was puffing.”
“Was there anything strange in the way he smoked?”
“I don’t follow you. He pretty much did it the same way I do. He put the cigarette in his mouth, took a draw, and then blew it out. The only thing was he smoked a lot more than anyone I knew.”
“What about the way he held his cigarettes?” Meeker jumped back in.
“I guess he held them like everyone else. I don’t remember anything unusual about it. Of course I didn’t really spend any time socializing with him. When I saw him, the smokes were in his mouth and he was cutting grass or pulling weeds.”
Meeker leaned forward and probed a bit deeper, “Was there anyone else that knew him well?”
“I guess you could ask around,” the attorney offered, “but he was a lone wolf. He didn’t have a friend to his name. I don’t remember him ever having a friendly conversation with anyone. But, as I said, you could check around. Someone might recall. He probably bought his cigarettes at the grocery store or Meyers’ Marathon station. You could talk to the folks who work there. I would tell you to talk to the Lester family, but they went somewhere on vacation. Supposed to be gone more than a month.”
“Thanks,” a disappointed Meeker replied. “Do you or anyone you know have a photo of him?”
He shook his head. “No one was close enough to him to take a picture, and no one liked him well enough to ask for one.”
“No family?” Reese chimed in.
“Not that I know of,” Johns replied. “Of course I never asked. But I never knew anyone to visit him.”
“Too bad,” Meeker replied. “We’ll ask around anyway. Maybe someone in town can give us a bit of information. Thanks so much for your time.”
The trio got up, headed out the office door, and moved through the front room. Reese was just reaching for the doorknob when Johns snapped the fingers of his right hand. “So, what did Burgess do?”
“It looks like he is connected in some way to the Rose Hall kidnapping,” Meeker informed him.
The news seemed to stun the attorney. He rubbed his forehead, his expression showing that he was having problems processing the information. “Lord, I hope not. My giving him work was probably what kept him in town after Abbi died.”
“No one can hold you accountable for that,” Reese noted sympathetically.
“Maybe from a legal standpoint,” Johns said, “but it’s not all about law, is it? And maybe just as bad, I helped George Hall buy that car. Everyone in town but me thought it was cursed. Maybe it was.”
“I’m not sure what you mean?” Meeker quizzed, hoping he would explain. She thought back to the unfortunate accident she’d witnessed when the car was being assembled.
Johns’s tone seemed troubled as he went on, “That Packard was involved in a couple of accidents—not wrecks, just strange things that cost a couple of men their lives. Abbi bought the car when no one else would touch it. Then she died not long after that.”
“Did the car cause her death?” Reese asked.
Crossing his arms across his white shirt, just above his protruding belly, the attorney shook his head. “No, the coroner ruled it a natural death. She was old, too, but she’d been in good health, so I had my doubts. So did Jed, I mean Sheriff Atkins. I probably shouldn’t even mention the other strange thing.”
The woman glanced over at Reese before demanding, “What strange thing?”
Johns shrugged. “I’m sure it doesn’t have anything to do with Rose Hall, so probably not worth tossing out.”
“Let me decide that,” Meeker replied.
“There was the matter of the missing money.”
“Money?” the female agent asked, suddenly even more interested.
Johns nodded. “Abbi converted her bank accounts to cash a few months before she died.”
“Was it a considerable sum?” Reese chimed in.
“Yeah, maybe one hundred grand.”
Reese dug his hands deeply into his pockets and whispered, “Wow!” He shot a look toward Meeker before asking, “You never found any of it?”
“Not a dime, and we tore her house apart looking.”
“Why didn’t we know about this before now?” Meeker asked.
“No one knew except me and Jed,” Johns explained. “Besides, it didn’t apply to your case. I’d almost come to believe she spent it all, because no large bills ever turned up around here.”
“Large bills?” Meeker asked.
“Yeah, she had all the cash in hundreds.”
“Henry,” Meeker noted, “the cash the little girl found that paid the down payment for the store, those were hundreds, right?”
“Yeah,” Reese said, his eyes showing that he was on the same track as his partner. “And she found them by the garage.”
“This has never been about some old robbery,” Meeker explained. “This was never about a few thousand dollars. This was about something much bigger.” Meeker looked to Johns, “Did Burgess know about the money Watling pulled out of the bank?”
“He might have,” the attorney admitted. “He worked for her. He could have overheard her talking or seen her with it. But he couldn’t have taken any. He never had an extra quarter to his name.”
“We need to go see Carole Hall,” Meeker said.
Chapter 48
The agents walked the two blocks to the shop. Carole Hall was alone when they entered. Meeker didn’t bother with the usual greetings.
“Carole, do you know a man named Mitchell Burgess?”
“No, why?” She was obviously confused.
“What about your husband? Did he know him?”
“Not that I know of. Why?”
“Do you know how to get ahold of George?”
She nodded. “He gave me his number.”
“I need it, and I need to use your phone.”
The shop owner gave Meeker her address book opened to the number. Four minutes later George Hall was on the other end of the line.
“Did you know a man named Mitchell Burgess?” Meeker demanded.
“Didn’t really know him,” the man answered, “but Rose and I talked to him once.”
“Was it right after you found the money?”
The line went silent for a few moments before George, his voice weak, came back on the line. “Yes, it was right after she found it. I was asking around, trying to make sure no one had lost it. Surely that had nothing to do with her being taken. I mean he was a bit strange, but he’d been around town for a while. Should I have told you about him when it happened?”
“I wish you would have remembered him then,” Meeker replied. “But that’s water under the bridge now.”
“I didn’t,” the man whispered. “Maybe I was too shocked. But I only ran into him once. And I just never thought anyone from Oakwood could …” He paused a moment before asking, “Are you sure it’s him?”
“No,” the agent replied, “but we might be closer. We’ll keep you in the loop. Now let us do our job.”
Carole looked toward the agent as she hung up. “What’s this all about?”
“Maybe nothing,” Meeker explained. “And maybe everything. We will have to find Mitchell Burgess to know for sure. We feel confident he was the one who sold your car to the salesman. And as he knew about the money, that means he was likely involved in the kidnapping. Come on, Henry, we’ve got to get moving.”
The two walked quickly to the door. Just as they were
about to leave, Meeker looked back to the shop owner. “Say a few prayers. This is definitely a break, but there is still much to be done.”
Carole nodded as the pair charged off down the street on foot.
“So, Helen, what are you thinking?” Reese asked once they were a full block from the shop. “It’s like you know something I don’t.”
“I believe the car has always been the key,” she replied. “Yet to be sure I need to ask Johns one more question.”
Meeker rushed into the lawyer’s office, past the secretary, and without knocking, pushed his office door open. A surprised Johns was sitting at his desk on the phone. As he looked up and spotted his uninvited guests he mumbled, “I’ll have to call you back. There are some FBI agents in my office.”
“Sorry to bother you, but I need a couple of answers,” Meeker explained.
“Okay,” he replied while setting the phone’s receiver down.
“Did you search the car for the money?”
“You mean her yellow Packard?”
“Yeah.”
“We looked in the trunk,” he said.
“What about under the seat? Or actually in the seat’s cushion?”
“No,” he admitted. “Do you think that’s where she hid it?”
“I think so.”
“That explains something I never understood,” Johns whispered.
“What?” Meeker demanded.
“She and her niece took me out to eat one day. Abbi insisted on driving. I let Janet ride up front, and I rode in the backseat. I couldn’t believe how lumpy and uncomfortable it was.”
Meeker glanced over to Reese. “The gal I brought in to do the lab work on the car, Becca Bobbs, found a piece of a hundred-dollar bill under the seat pushed up into the springs. What we found out from Mr. Johns here, combined with the lab report, tells me Abbi must have hidden her money in the car. So, Burgess likely searched everywhere but there. But he put two and two together when Rose found the money. She probably reached her hand in between the top of the seat and the bottom. Maybe she was playing and lost something down there. The toy dogs maybe. A few of the bills must have worked their way down to that area and she pulled them out.”
