Memories of a Murder

by Sid Kar

  “What can I do for you, Detective Frank?” he asked.

  “I need to access the court’s archives, specifically related to the corporate bankruptcies in the 1990s,” Frank said.

  “As you can see, the courthouse is closed today. You will have to come on Monday,” the cop relied.

  “No, it can’t wait. This is a police matter. You must have a key,” Frank said.

  “This is a courthouse. Your badge isn’t going to cut it here,” he replied, “I am a cop myself, don’t forget.”

  Frank and Joe walked back to the door of the archives room to confer.

  “What now, Frank?” Joe asked.

  “We need a judge,” Frank said, “and not a regular judge but a bankruptcy judge.”

  “We don’t know any,” Joe said.

  “Dad does,” Frank sighed. The thought of calling him for another assist rankled him. He took out his phone and stood there thinking for five minutes. Then he made the call.

  “Frank!” Dennis said, “How goes?”

  “It goes,” Frank said.

  “You and Joe want to join us for dinner and drinks tonight in Princeton?” Dennis asked.

  “Maybe, if you do Joe a favor he will come,” Frank said.

  “The favor is for Frank!” Joe shouted.

  “I heard that. Tell me, Frank,” Dennis said.

  “Do you know a bankruptcy judge?” Frank asked.

  “I know a few.”

  “Know any of them well enough to call on a weekend and ask for access to bankruptcy records?”

  “I play golf with Judge Parker,” Dennis said, “Can I make reservations for four at a nice restaurant for tonight?”

  “We are working tonight, book next Saturday,” Frank replied.

  “Fine. I will make the call. Stand by,” Dennis replied.

  “Free good food,” Joe smiled after Frank got off the phone.

  They waited a few minutes and then the duty station officer walked over to them.

  “I got a call from Judge Parker,” he said shaking his head in disbelief, “you are to be shown the bankruptcy records which you require.”

  “We want to access the records from the companies which filed in 1999. Can you guide us there?” Frank asked.

  “I can do one better, I will take you to the company if you know the name,” duty officer replied, “otherwise, you might be here all night.”

  “Babbage, Brothers and Sons Trucking,” Frank replied.

  The officer opened the door to the archives and then led Frank and Joe through the stacks of boxes packed atop the maze of metallic racks. They reached a sign for year 1999 and the officer turned left into a row and stopped at the second set of stacks that had data for company names starting with B. He read the names and then pulled out five different boxes and dropped them on the floor.

  “All yours,” he said, “I will be outside when you are done.”

  “Grateful,” Frank replied after him as he walked back to his duty station.

  “What are we searching for, Frank?” Joe asked.

  “All payroll data with the names of truckers from the year 1992 and before,” Frank replied, “separate the papers that have those from the rest.”

  Frank and Joe sat down on the floor and went through over a thousand pages of printed paper with the company data. It took them over an hour to finish. Then they walked around till they found a photocopier and made two copies of the 27 pages they had identified as important. They returned the originals, lifted up the boxes back in their spots and waved the duty officer goodbye on their way out.

  “Find anything, Frank?” Clara asked when they returned to their office at the headquarters.

  “Found 27 pages of work we have to do,” Frank replied, “Any news come in? Anyone call?”

  “Nope.”

  Frank logged into his computer and checked his email. There was a message from Dr. Benjamin. He had forwarded his artist’s graphical representation of the face of the person behind the skull.

  “We have an image,” Frank said.

  Clara and Joe walked over to him and leaned over his shoulder.

  “What do we match this to?” Clara asked.

  “Driver’s license photos,” Frank replied as he logged into the CDL Database. “Call out the names on the payroll starting from those for 1992 and we will work back a year at a time.”

  Clara and Joe alternatively called out names of those whose occupation was listed as a “Truck Driver” in the company records. After pulling up each license and the accompanying photo, they took turns comparing it to the sketch the artist had emailed.

  “Roy Beard,” Joe read out the seventeenth name.

  “Holy…” Frank exclaimed when Roy’s photo popped on the screen, “what do you guys think?”

  “He could be it,” Clara said.

  “We found our boy,” Joe said.

  “One way to find out,” Frank said and then logged into the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, selected New Jersey for the State and 1992 for the year. A large list of names were displayed on his screen. He scrolled down the alphabetical list and found a single record for Roy Beard. Frank gasped for air and held his breath in anticipation as he clicked on the name.

  The photo displayed was the same as the photo from the driver’s license.

  “That’s him,” Clara and Joe spoke simultaneously.

  Frank wanted one more confirmation and scrolled down till he saw the listing for the Last Known Employer: Babbage, Brothers and Sons Trucking.

  “We got him,” Frank said.

  “What now?” Clara asked.

  “Clara, search for his family’s contact number and address on Joe’s computer. I am going to see if he had any type of a criminal record like Adam did,” Frank said.

  Frank looked up Roy Beard’s name in the National Crime Information Center Database and there was a hit.

  “Pieces are just fitting into the puzzle left and right now,” Frank said.

  “What did you get?” Clara asked.

  “Roy Beard was convicted for cigarette smuggling in 1990, just a couple years after Adam was,” Frank said.

  “They could have been working for the same boss down in AC,” Joe said.

  “Strange, though. He was sentenced to one year like Adam, which was the standard time for that type of offense then, but the judge reduced it to three months,” Frank said scratching his chin, “notes on his profile say the judge in the case believed Roy had genuinely expressed remorse and only taken up this job to pay off his gambling debts to shady bookies.”

  “We can ask his wife about it,” Clara said.

  “What did you find?” Frank quickly turned towards her.

  “One Ruth Beard, widow, address listed in Red Bank,” Clara said, “know where that is?”

  “You bet,” Frank said and got up, “Joe, I am taking Clara now. Keep me up to date if anything comes.”

  “You two returning tonight or tomorrow morning?” Joe smirked.

  “Joe, watch it!” Clara exclaimed, and Frank laughed.

  “Ever driven a police cruiser?” Frank asked Clara as they approached his car.

  “No, can I?” Clara asked.

  “I want you to. I have to make a phone call,” Frank replied.

  “Can I gun it at top speed with lights and sirens?” Clara asked.

  “No, you will get me in trouble,” Frank laughed, “you have already impersonated an officer once.”

  They got on their way and Frank searched his diary for a phone number. Frank made a phone call to Anthony Foster, the state police captain in charge of the Hazardous Materials Unit. He received the voice mail and left a detailed message taking up the entire space on the answering machine.

  “What are you going to tell him when he asks how you found out about these illegally buried chemicals?” Clara asked after Frank had finished the call.

  “I will just say ‘Don’t Ask.’ He will understand it to mean it was using a method that won’t sta
nd up in court,” Frank said, “I am not going to tell him about Friedrich and Adam’s brain.”

  “Frank, what are you going to do about the billion dollars of heroin you had told me about earlier?” Clara asked.

  “Do nothing,” Frank replied, “I am not narcotics and it’s not in Jersey; it’s not even in the US, so it’s not my problem.”

  “Frank, that is going to ruin a lot of lives if it gets sold on the streets,” Clara said.

  “You are the CIA; you go after it,” Frank said.

  Their ride was quiet rest of the way to Red Bank. The home of Roy’s widow was located in a suburban development. It was a small, blue colored two bedroom house with a yard and a driveway and two young children playing outside.

  “Who else is in her family?” Frank asked.

  “A son and a daughter, Ian and Ruby. Ian has two kids, Ruby one,” Clara said, “they must be his.”

  Clara pulled up outside the curb and the two kids stopped playing and gawked at the police car. When Frank got out and walked towards them they ran inside.

  A balding man in his forties wearing a striped full sleeve shirt and black khakis walked outside holding a beer bottle in his hand.

  “What’s going on, officer?” he asked Frank.

  “You Ian?” Frank asked.

  “Am.”

  “We are here to talk to your mother, Ruth Beard,” Frank said.

  “What is this about?” Ian firmed up.

  “Your father, Roy Beard,” Frank replied.

  “You finally found that lout huh? Was he pitch drunk on some park bench?” Ian asked.

  “Damn, I thought I didn’t get along with my old fool,” Frank chuckled.

  “I bet yours didn’t walk out on your mother leaving her to care for two children on her own,” Ian said, “and after blowing all the family savings on gambling.”

  “Ian, your father is dead,” Clara chimed in.

  Ian was taken aback a bit and collected his thoughts. The door chirped behind him and an old woman in her sixties appeared.

  “Are you talking about Roy, young lady?” she asked.

  Clara nodded her head.

  “Please come in. I thought this day would come, but never thought it would be after thirty years,” Ruth turned around and walked inside. Frank and Clara followed her and Ian closed the door after them. Ian pulled out two chairs for them and himself stood against the door while Ruth sat down in the sofa. The kids ran upstairs when they saw Frank enter.

  “Mrs. Beard can you tell us about the circumstances of Roy’s disappearance?” Clara asked.

  “Disappearance? Hell, he just up and left,” Ian said, “but that was thirty years ago.”

  “We found his skeleton that was buried thirty years ago too,” Frank said.

  Ian nearly lost his balance as he stepped forward from the door. He looked straight at Ruth. But she sat there calmly and sighed.

  “Mother, what is this?”

  “I didn’t tell you everything about Roy,” Ruth said.

  “What do you mean?” Ian asked.

  “Mrs. Beard, it would be great if you would tell us all what happened in the days preceding his disappearance,” Frank said, “we believe he was murdered.”

  “Murdered!” Ian jumped.

  “I suspected something bad had happened to him,” Ruth said looking down at her hands that were slightly shaking, “Ian, what I told you and Ruby about your father wasn’t false; it was just incomplete,” she said looking at her son.

  “Tell us now and don’t hold back,” Ian said.

  “He was a gambler and he did blow our savings, but he was going to set it right,” Ruth said.

  “How so?” Ian asked.

  “You see, officers,” Ruth looked at Frank and Clara, “Roy didn’t just gamble in AC. He also got in hock to the mob connected bookies. They wanted their money back but allowed him to pay them back by smuggling cigarettes for their bosses. But Roy wasn’t cut out for that type of work. He got busted and went to jail.”

  “We are familiar with his record,” Frank said.

  “So am I,” Ian said.

  “What you don’t know is that he quit all of that afterwards, gambling, smuggling even drinking though he was never a drunk,” Ruth said, “but he still owed some money to the bookies. He was going to pay them back by working straight but then Adam came to him with a job paying more than enough to repay all his debts.”

  “Adam!” Frank and Clara’s eyes lit up, “his fellow truck driver Adam Buck?”

  “Yes,” Ruth said softly.

  “Did you know he was murdered too?” Frank asked.

  “I heard,” Ruth nodded and then spoke after a few seconds, “he came here about a month ago?”

  “What?” Frank blurted out in shock.

  “Mother, why do you hide all these things from me?” Ian asked.

  “Ian, I didn’t want you to go looking for answers. There was danger,” Ruth said

  “Mrs. Beard, we can offer you and your family round the clock protection. Please tell us first about this job Adam had for him and then about his visit to you,” Frank said.

  “Adam used to work for the same trucking company as Roy and did smuggling for the same bosses in AC,” Ruth said, “but this job was different. It was for a rich man but a businessman, not a mobster. Someone who was clean but had an accident and needed a couple of truckers in a hurry to do a one-time hush hush job. Money was the best ever offered, a hundred grand each,” Ruth said.

  “What was the job?” Frank asked.

  “They didn’t tell me,” Ruth said, “Roy said it was dangerous. Told me to buy life insurance on him. I did and that’s how I paid for this home and my children’s college. Roy never came back.”

  “What did Adam…” Frank started to ask.

  “You didn’t look for father?” Ian interjected.

  “I filed a missing person’s report with the police,” Ruth said, “what could I, with two children in tow, do? I was scared about us too.”

  “Why didn’t you ask Adam?” Frank asked.

  “I thought the same had happened to him as Roy, till…”

  “Till he showed up about a month ago,” Frank said.

  “Yes, out of the blue,” Ruth said, “I didn’t recognize him at first. I had put my past behind. Adam wouldn’t say what happened to Roy but said that Roy had been wronged by the man who had hired them. It had eaten up Adam all these years. He had gotten paid but Roy’s family didn’t. Adam said he was dying, had some incurable disease, wanted to set things right before he went. Told me to watch the news. I didn’t realize it would be the news of his death.”

  “Why didn’t you come to us after that?” Frank asked.

  “I knew that same man had gotten to Adam,” Ruth said, “I didn’t want our name out there to and make us targets.”

  “How would this villain have known Adam was going to expose him?” Clara asked.

  “Adam told me this man had visited him, had another big job for him,” Ruth said.

  Frank and Clara exchanged a knowing glance.

  “Adam had angrily mouthed him off, cursed at him and threatened to go to the police,” Ruth said, “that’s why he came to visit me too. He said there was no going back now. He was going to try to find the right government agency to complain to. But he was too late.”

  “But we are not,” Frank said getting up, “we are on the case and we are going to find this man and get him for the murder of both Roy and Adam.”

  “Oh, I hope you do,” Ruth smiled at them for the first time.

  Frank took the wheels again on their way back. It was dark outside and they picked up two large pies of pizza for dinner. For their pie they had ordered just cheese and pepperoni but the second pie was all for Joe and Frank got him all the meat and vegetable toppings except for the mushrooms which both Joe and Frank abhorred.

  They gorged on the pizza and drank cans of soda from the lounge vending machine and the dual effects of food coma and tiredness
from a day that had begun with a battle and ended with running around everywhere chasing leads had led to the sleep overwhelming any of their desires to further think about the case. Frank and Joe collapsed on the carpeted floor of their office right in their uniforms, not even bothering to put aside their holstered Glocks. Clara slept on the sofa in the reception area for the visitors.

  CHAPTER 16

  Sunday, Day 11

  Next morning both Frank and Joe were woken up by the loud ringing of Frank’s phone.

  “Frank, you set alarm even for Sunday?” Joe yawned.

  Frank was still sleepy but forced one of his eyes to open to look at the number. He vaguely remembered the number and then it dawned on him that it was the same number he had dialed yesterday.

  “Anthony called,” Frank said. He looked at the time and forced himself to sit up straight. He checked his voicemail and listened to Anthony’s message.

  “What he saying?” Joe asked.

  “He and his team are on their way to Applewood Forest,” Frank said.

  There was a knock on their door and Clara walked inside carrying a cupholder with three cups of coffee and a bag of donuts.

  “You are up already?” Frank asked.

  “I got you breakfast,” Clara smiled as she threw the bag of donuts into Frank’s lap.

  “This should go to Joe,” Frank tossed it over and it landed on Joe’s stomach tickling him into a laughter. That made his sleep evaporate and Joe sat up, looked inside the bag and started eating with great relish. Frank grabbed a cup of coffee, hastily took a sip and spat it out with a burning tongue.

  “It’s hot!” Frank complained.

  “What did you expect, iced cold?” Clara asked.

  “Yes!” Frank said.

  “Frank only drinks iced coffee; even in freezing winter,” Joe smiled

  “Frank, are we serving a search warrant on Dunlap?” Clara asked.

  “If Anthony and the Hazmat team dig out the chemicals, a judge would grant us a warrant because his refinery is the only industrial plant around,” Frank said, “but it would do us no good, at least for the murder case as it is thirty years old.”