Cruelest Month

by Aaron Stander

  “Did you get his registration number?”

  “It was dark. If it was there, I didn’t see it. When we get the Fox investigation under control, I want to go back and see if we can figure out what’s going on.”

  Sue nodded and stood, picking up her coat and folding it over her arm. “I’ll get all the material organized. But as you know, there are no obvious leads.”

  “So what do we know?” asked Ray, pulling down a whiteboard from the ceiling. He wrote motive in the first column on the left.

  “There’s only one that we’ve identified,” said Sue. “Money.” She paused as Ray added the word with a blue marker. “What about the family? Possible inheritance…?”

  “I don’t see it. No. It’s all about the pot of gold Fox put out there in his book or the cash he won at the casino.” Ray walked back to his desk and sipped at his coffee, thinking. “Last night I had trouble sleeping. I even got up at one point and tried to conjure a list of our known bad guys. No one fits.”

  “I agree. I can’t put a face to this crime with anyone we know from the region.”

  “How about the Watonda sisters?” asked Ray. “They were willing to do most anything for dope or money.”

  “Or love,” said Sue, “Last I heard Darcy was in a slammer somewhere in the south, maybe Tennessee. She was caught bringing dope to her boyfriend on a jail visit.”

  “I sort of remember that. How about her lovely twin, Marcy?

  “Rumor has it she’s becoming a big porn star in Eastern Europe. Her newest flick, All the way with the NBA, is getting a lot of critical attention. Probably will be an award winner at Telluride and Sundance, maybe even TC.”

  “Where do you get this stuff?”

  “You need to go to yoga with me, or at least to the bar after. When one of the local gals or guys makes good, it’s something to talk about. And, according to my sources, the Watonda girls have been providing great gossip since they were in eighth grade.”

  “Okay, getting back on task, can you think of any of the usual suspects that we should check out?”

  “No, not a one. We’ve got our share of lowlifes, but I can’t paste this on any of them,” Sue answered. “But we’re living in such hard times. Maybe someone went over the edge. Maybe it’s someone new to the area.”

  “We have to go back to the bookstore and library, see if Phillip or the librarian remember anything. I’d like to do that as soon as I get back from meeting with Fox’s daughter at the Medical Center. Anything else I should know about?”

  Sue put her coat back on the chair. Simone immediately jumped up and scratched out a bed. Sue sighed. “Well, we’ve had another theft of produce from one of the CSAs.”

  “What this time?” Ray got out a notebook.

  “Potatoes and carrots from one of their storage units. Last week 500 pounds of potatoes went missing from Gourmet Boutique Farms. The Cedar County Gleaners has also reported some losses.”

  “Remind me when this started exactly.”

  “The first one was a few weeks before Halloween. A farmer near Inland Corners thought that he had some pumpkins stolen. I met with him and took a report. Let me get his name.” She slid into Ray’s desk chair. He waited as she keyed in a search command.

  “John Dirker, an old guy, late 80s. I didn’t think much about it at the time. There were hundreds of pumpkins in fields, near the barn, and loaded in two trucks. He was a little fuzzy on how many were missing, but insisted that it was the small ones, the pie pumpkins and the Wee-Be-Little, that disappeared. Nice old man. I learned a lot about different pumpkin varieties.

  “I asked him if he had an inventory system, or a count, some way he could determine numbers and estimate the value. Dirker couldn’t do it. Said he’d planted the Wee-Bees mostly for his great-grandkids and their friends, but he had a couple of commercial customers who’d also ordered several hundred, and he couldn’t fill the order because most had gone missing. He couldn’t tell me precisely when they disappeared. Could have been any one of several nights.”

  “And that was the end of it?” asked Ray.

  “I listened to him, wrote up a theft report, had him sign it. Yep, that was the end of the pumpkin caper. So that was October. Since then we’ve had several more reports of missing produce, primarily root vegetables, many that I’ve never heard of—things like celeriac, Swedes, and kohlrabi. The interesting thing is that the quantities are small, usually only a few hundred pounds. The thefts are either from unlocked buildings or open storage areas. I’ve been having Brett follow up on most of these: it’s more a show of concern about their loss. They know there’s little chance we’re going to recover a couple of gunny sacks full of carrots.”

  “And it’s always produce, yes? There have been no reports of livestock being…?

  “None. No pigs or steers, not even a chicken or a duck. There’s some poaching going on. That’s usual. And the road kill, the deer, disappear before they cool off.” She looked at Ray and rattled her empty coffee mug. “So what are you thinking?”

  “I don’t think it is just hungry people helping themselves. And even if it were…. There seems to be a pattern. We just have to figure out who’s involved.” He looked at his watch. “I’ve got to get down to the Medical Center. Can we pick this up again in the late afternoon?

  “Absolutely.”

  “Here’s some reading for you, Fox’s book. Won’t take you long. And you’ll like the section on where Capone’s gold is stashed.”

  “There’s one more thing we need to talk about, Ray. The 911 phantom has struck again. We’ve had three more incidents in the last week. Same MO. Weekend nights, usually after midnight, always in the central sector. The location is out in some field where the responder has to leave their car and walk around with a flashlight.”

  “Teenagers,” said Ray, “sitting at a safe distance, watching the spectacle, sharing a joint, a few beers, or both. I’m sure it’s a good laugh.”

  “Ray, a lot of downstate departments have stopped responding to these. Should we consider that?”

  He pondered the question before answering. “Not yet. I keep worrying about a real emergency situation where we don’t respond and should have. Let’s look at this on a month-to-month basis. When the summer people come back and we’re stretched to our limits, maybe then we will have to stop responding. The kids will have to find another source of amusement.”

  “How about digging for buried treasure by moonlight?”

  “Or maybe we can teach them about snipe hunts.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I’ll explain when we have some time.”

  16

  Ray carried the tray with the two cups of coffee to the far corner of the Medical Center’s cafeteria. The room was almost empty; still he wanted a place where they could have a private conversation. Joan Barton, Vincent Fox’s daughter, lowered herself in the chair across from him. Ray placed one of the coffees in front of her, took the second, and slid the tray onto a nearby table.

  He took a sip of his coffee and looked across the table at Barton. Her eyes were red. She looked older than she had only two days before.

  “This part of the process is always difficult,” said Ray. “The formal identification by a family member or friend is something that we have to do, and it’s painful. Thank you for coming in.”

  “I wasn’t ready for it,” Barton responded. “I mean, I thought a lot about his dying in recent years—when someone gets up near 90, well, you know. And I’ve been afraid for a long time that I would be the one who would go out to his house and find him. I always worried about his safety.” She picked up her cup, sipped her coffee, and looked at Ray. “I mean, I thought about him getting ill and needing some help, but nothing like this. I never expected… Who would’ve thought? And after you called me about his house getting trashed, I didn’t know what to… I was trying to prepare myself for the worst…” Her voice trailed off.

  Ray held her in his gaze. He considered several pos
sible responses, but each seemed trite. These were always difficult encounters.

  “Please,” said Barton, “tell me what you know. Where was he found? Had he been harmed?”

  “His body was discovered along North Bass Lake Road, just before it intersects with Township Line Road. The medical examiner found no injuries, no wounds, fractures, anything of that nature.” Ray chose not to mention the charring on the bottom of Fox’s foot.

  “How did my father die?” she asked.

  “I hope to be able to answer your question when we get the autopsy results.”

  “Why does the body have to be sent to Grand Rapids? We have pathologists here.”

  “Your father’s body is going to be examined by a forensic pathologist, a person trained to perform postmortems in cases of suspicious death. We need to establish whether or not his death was connected to any criminal behavior.”

  They were both quiet for several minutes. Then Barton broke the silence with a soft question. “So he was found a long way from his house?” She shook her head. “None of this makes sense. How do you explain what’s happened?”

  Ray kept his gaze steady. “It’s difficult to say for sure. But I think there’s a strong possibility that your father was abducted.”

  “Like kidnapped?”

  “Yes.”

  Barton put down the coffee cup she’d been holding with the fingers of both hands. “And this might be connected with that Capone book?”

  Ray pushed his cup away as well. “Perhaps,” he said. “Whoever trashed his house was clearly looking for something. They took his computer. It might have been somebody looking to fence it, but more likely he was looking for the Capone treasure. He might have thought there would be additional information on the hard drive.”

  Once again they sat quietly, Barton staring vaguely towards the bank of windows. Ray waited and watched. Again, Barton broke the silence: “I just can’t wrap my brain around this. To think that he might be harmed because of that silly story. I never thought anyone would believe it, those stories.” She paused. “They ran the story on Dad being missing on television. Did anything come of that?”

  “Yes, we did get some useful information. Your father and two friends went to the casino on Friday.”

  “Who were they?” Barton asked.

  “Mildred Hall and Tommy Fuller.”

  “Ah, yes. Mildred Hall, Dad mentioned her. Someone he met at the library a few years ago, his only friend still driving.” She laughed. “They had a cooperative agreement of sorts. She’s got some kind of very old car he likes to work on. In return, she takes him wherever he needs to go around the village. Now, Tommy Fuller is an old friend. I’d sort of forgotten about him. My father hasn’t talked about him much lately. So they were at the Casino on Friday?”

  Ray nodded. “Joan, you told me the other day that you’d talked to your father on Friday. What time was that?”

  “It would have been pretty early, probably around eight. I try to get hold of him in the mornings, find out about his night and catch him before he goes out and about. I’d always ask him what he had planned for the day even though he’d usually just give me the ‘same-old, same-old.’” She smiled and wiped away the tears. “He liked his privacy, liked to be on his own; he hardly ever told me what he was really up to.”

  “That was the only time you talked to him on Friday?”

  “Yes.”

  “Your father had quite a day at the Casino. He won $6,000.”

  Barton hooted. “That old coot! He won all that money, and he didn’t bother to call me! All right, I’m not surprised. What’s happened to it? The money, I mean.”

  “According to Mildred Hall, your father gave Tommy Fuller $4,000 of it for a trip to Florida. Mildred arranged for the flight, and she and your father took Tommy to the airport on Saturday. You weren’t aware of any of this?”

  Barton’s eyes, again filled with tears, spilled over before she answered. “That’s like him. He’s enormously generous, with his friends, anyway. So what happened then? Was Mildred the last person to see him?”

  “Sometime after 3 o’clock she dropped him off at the library. That’s the last anyone reported seeing him. Can you tell me how your father carried his money? A wallet? We didn’t find anything on his body.”

  “He wouldn’t have lost it. It was this huge leather thing with a chain attached. The kind bikers have.”

  “How about in the house? Was there a place where he hid his cash?”

  Barton shook her head. “I don’t know. Like I said, he was very private about most things. But I can’t imagine that he ever had much cash around. He lived on Social Security and a small retirement annuity. This thing with the casino, that’s pretty crazy, not at all normal as far as I know.” She paused. “But what do I know? Even if he did win all that money, I can’t imagine he’d be carrying it around on him. I have no idea where he might have hidden it.”

  “How about credit cards? Did he have any? Did he carry them?”

  “Not in recent years. He liked cash. He didn’t trust plastic, had little faith in banks. You know, part of his story. Capone.”

  “In our last conversation you told me about your father’s business.”

  “Vinnie’s Import Auto.”

  “You told me that he took care of the exotics, often the cars of the summer people.”

  “Yes, the Jags and Mercedes, some lovely sports cars. I’m not sure what they all were.”

  “There’s a family that has a large piece of property along Lake Michigan; it’s the only place that’s specifically named in his book as a possible Capone treasure site. Hollingsford is the family name. Do you know anything about them?”

  “I don’t remember that, but….”

  “I was wondering if he might have worked on some of the family’s cars.”

  “Dad was the only game in town if they needed anything more than an oil change. Hollingsford.” She repeated the name and looked thoughtful. “I don’t remember that name, either from back in the day or from reading his book. If it’s there, like you say, I totally missed it.”

  “Just one more thing,” Ray said, “and we’ve been over this before, but I need to ask again. Did your father have any enemies, or might there have been someone overly interested in any of his possessions or money?”

  “I can’t think of anyone, Sheriff.” Barton smiled weakly. “As you can see, I didn’t know much about my father’s life.”

  They sat in an uncomfortable silence, Barton fidgeting with her empty cup.

  “I need to do some planning for a memorial service,” she said finally. “When do you think his body might be available?”

  Ray waited for her to look at him. It didn’t happen. “I will get that information for you,” he said gently. “I’ll call tomorrow and tell you what’s happening.”

  17

  “Here are the original photos from the crime scene,” Sue said, pushing the stack across the table. “I’ve looked at each one very carefully. It’s pretty much what you saw. Nothing new.”

  “And you searched the surrounding area?”

  “Yes, and found nada. We fished around in the water where the body was recovered. We also checked both sides of the road for a fair distance. Only the usual detritus: beer cans, plastic bags, fast food containers. None of it recent.”

  “How about the other boot?”

  “It wasn’t there—not in the water or anywhere else.” Sue crossed her arms. “So what do you think?”

  “The same thing that you do,” Ray answered. “Fox was abducted. They used torture to try to get information out of him, probably a wood stove. How he died is still an open question, but they were putting a lot of stress on a very elderly man.”

  “Bastards, I’m surprised they didn’t want to water board him,” said Sue.

  “That would take work, assembling a teeter-totter and finding something to hold water. These guys aren’t into heavy lifting. They didn’t even go to the trouble of burying hi
m. It would have been so easy to put Fox in a shallow grave. His body would have quickly decomposed, leaving almost no chance of ever being found. We would be looking for an old guy who had gone missing under suspicious circumstance rather than a couple of killers. These thugs are lazy and stupid.”

  She moved on to the next pile. “I have lots of pictures from his home, plus fingerprints and the shoe casting.”

  “Did you run the fingerprints?”

  “Uh huh. No hits.” Sue took a moment to look at Ray’s notes on the whiteboard. “So what do we know so far?”

  “Sterling reviewed the surveillance video of Fox and friends from the time they entered the casino to the time they drove away. He couldn’t spot any of the other gamblers paying Fox more than the normal interest that a big winner attracts for a few minutes. That said, given his age and costume, Fox was easy to spot. I’m sure some of the people recognized him as a regular, even knew where he lived. They could have taken their time tracking him down and snatching him.”

  “And the other scenario, the Capone book?”

  “Yes, there’s that too: some fool who’s been taken in by the book abducts Fox and tries to extract the location of the treasure. I guess I should say the many locations of the treasure. And the person or persons who tore up his house and stole his computer might have thought the info was on the hard drive.”

  “Or,” countered Sue, “maybe they snatched him off the street, found $2,000, and went to his house looking for the rest. They took the computer with them because it’s something they could use or sell.” She paused and frowned at Ray. “What’s going on with you? You can’t sit still.”

  “I’m trying to stay rational and control my anger. We’re just spinning our wheels here. We need to do a press release this afternoon and follow up with a news conference early tomorrow. That will get the Fox story on tonight’s news and keep it there.”

  “I’ll write the press release,” said Sue, opening her laptop. “What do you want in it?”

  Ray remained silent for a long moment. Finally he said, “The body of Vincent Fox, 89, first reported missing on Monday afternoon by family members was found late yesterday in northern Cedar County. The cause and circumstances of Fox’s death are under investigation.