Catch as Cat Can (22 page)

44

At eight o'clock Monday morning Roger O'Bannon was exhumed from his grave. As he hadn't been in the ground that long, he retained all his features and his digits but the body was filled with gas.

Rick detested exhumations. They were unpleasant affairs but he felt he had to be at this one in case Sean showed up. Although Sean had promised his mother he would comply with her wishes, people could snap, change their minds. Emotions were like quicksilver even in the best of times. This, hardly the best of times, called for extra vigilance.

Rick accompanied the body to Marshall Wells. As he worked, the new coroner said he couldn't promise when Richmond would return the results but he didn't think it would be longer than a week at most. Fortunately, this was a slow time.

As he drove away from the coroner's office, Rick called Coop, alone in her squad car that day.

“Coop, meet me at O'Bannon's Salvage.”

“Trouble with Sean?”

“No. But I want to go over those grounds again.”

“Might it be a good idea to wait for another day? I would expect Sean's a little raw today.”

“In a perfect world, you're correct and sensitive. But if he is in on this or if he did kill his brother, he might drop a card, you know?”

“Okay. I'll be there in ten minutes. I'm at Route 250 and 240, want a sandwich?” A good deli was at that intersection.

“Not hungry.”

“Sorry. I forgot.” She was glad she wasn't at the exhumation.

Sean was curt but not openly rude. He told them to go wherever they liked.

First they walked the perimeter of the four acres. Rick liked to make sure he knew the terrain. Nothing unusual presented itself except for the fact that the business had room to grow physically, always a plus.

The few small outbuildings contained gardening tools or small pieces needing cleaning. Some salvage yards left the cleaning to the customer. Sean discovered if he cleaned, put in a little time, he could command bigger prices. It was worth the effort.

Then they pushed open the door to the garage. The large sliding door, big enough for vehicles, was locked but the small door, to the left of that, was open.

“Neat as a pin,” Coop said.

“Yeah.” Rick walked over to the hydraulic lift. “This is something.”

“Nothing much here. I guess he wasn't working on anything. The books showed the last old car he sold was a week before his death. A 1932 Ford coupe. He got twenty-seven thousand for it. Deuce coupes. I'd love one.”

“Yeah.” Rick wasn't a motorhead but he appreciated old cars. They were more individual or so it seemed to him. “Nothing out of line. He picked up most of his old cars in South Carolina and Georgia. The sources checked out. Guess he was waiting to find the next one or two. He seems to have contributed to this business. He wasn't the front guy but he worked. For one thing, Sean wouldn't have put up with it.”

“Here's a bag of popcorn.” Coop bent over to pick up the empty foil bag. “That's the only debris.” She tossed it in the trash.

They left, walking through each of the large outdoor piles of offerings. They tried the door to the caboose. Locked. Coop dashed back. Sean gave her the key. She dodged the puddles back to Rick.

She opened the back door, then ran up the shades on the windows. The light streamed in. “Cool.”

A potbellied stove sat in the middle. The floor, hard oak, was clean and no dust was on the two chairs and the heavy desk in the corner.

“Sean's a neat freak, too,” Rick noticed.

“This would make a neat restaurant. I hope he goes through with it,” Coop said.

They opened the drawers of the desk. Nothing but an old cracked celluloid fountain pen.

“Well, that's it,” Rick said. “I wish I knew what we were looking for.”

“I'd have been happy with one marijuana plant in the window.” Cooper sighed. As she walked toward the door, she said, “I feel bad, we're tracking some mud in here. I'll tell Isabella we did. I'll even clean it up.”

“Coop, it's not as though we've brought in slops. If Sean is that anal retentive, he can sweep it out.” As Rick headed for the door he looked down at the wet footprints. A beam of light shone on dried footprints, light mud. “Hey.” He knelt down. “This can't be more than a few days old.”

Coop knelt down with him. “Yeah.” She followed the tracks: one person, big feet. Two strides and then back out, footsteps overlapping the entrance footsteps. “In and out.”

“H-m-m.”

“Boss, you worried?”

“Yes.”

“Me, too.”

Pope Rat, observing them from his cozy quarters, growled,
“Nipshits.”

45

Coop sent photographs of Dwayne Fuqua and Donald Clatterbuck to Bill Boojum in Lexington, Kentucky. Bill couldn't or wouldn't identify either man. He'd never seen them with Roger.

Refusing to give up, Coop sent photos back to the dealer in Newport News. She asked him to show all his employees photographs of Dwayne, Roger, and Donald. Although none of those men ever worked at the dealership, it would have been possible that one or more of them could have dropped off a vehicle or picked one up to be delivered to Boojum's in Lexington, since a leasing agent would purchase cars from big dealers all over the U.S.

Within two hours of faxing the photographs she received a phone call from Fisher McGuire, the general manager. One of his office workers remembered giving Dwayne the registration papers for him to drive a Jaguar to Boojum's. He even remembered that the car was a three-year rental.

Large rental dealers like Boojum's would get a request for a specific vehicle, in this case a new Jaguar sedan, British racing green, tan interior. The salespeople at Boojum's would call their contacts at various Jaguar dealers until they found one matching their client. They would then pay for the car, have it driven to the dealership, and rent it to the customer. If the residual value of the car is accurately figured, a dealer can't lose on car rentals because the customer eats the depreciation, not the dealer. The customer is responsible for maintenance and is allowed a certain number of miles per year, usually twelve to fifteen thousand. Any mileage over that is charged at ten to fifteen cents a mile. If the wear and tear on the vehicle is excessive, the customer is responsible for costs when the lease term expires. Once the car is turned back in at the term of the lease, usually three years, the dealer sells it at retail value. The customer has the right to purchase the car at retail value.

The program works nicely for those people not wishing to tie up a lot of money in a car. However, since they don't own the vehicle it is never counted as an asset but only as a liability. The tax write-offs and depreciated value present another labyrinth of issues that only an accountant can decipher. A renter needs a lawyer before signing a contract. The renter might be able to write off the monthly rental fee if the vehicle is used for business. However, as is often the case, what you save with one hand the IRS steals from the other.

Cooper nabbed Rick as soon as he walked through the door. He listened intently to her findings.

“Boojum can't identify Dwayne?”

“No, but it's possible he never saw who dropped off the car. Dwayne may not have been a regular.”

“True.” Rick dropped heavily into his chair. “Who paid for the delivery?”

“It was prepaid by Boojum's. They didn't specify a driver. Fisher McGuire, the general manager down there in Newport News, faxed all the paperwork, including the release form, to Dwayne Fuqua. McGuire was under the impression that Dwayne was a driver for Boojum's. Bill Boojum says no one at his dealership has ever seen Dwayne Fuqua or Wesley Partlow, pick your name.”

“I can guarantee you someone had seen him!” Rick slammed his hand on his desk out of frustration. His coffee mug rattled.

“Yeah, someone is lying through their dentures.” She held her hand on his coffee cup in case he lost his temper again. “So what's the deal? Are they running drugs in these rented cars? Each time over the mountain a different car is used. Maybe even a different driver. Lexington and Louisville are good drug markets.”

“Hell, they're so rich in Lexington they can fly the shit in,” he growled.

“Well, not everybody is that rich, Boss.”

“It makes sense and yet it doesn't make sense. If Boojum is in on this he—” Rick stopped in mid-sentence, grabbed his address book. “Just one minute.” He found the number he was looking for and dialed. “Sheriff Paul Carter, please.” He waited a moment. “Paul, Rick Shaw from Albemarle County, Virginia. Buddy, I need a favor.”

“What?” the sheriff, an old friend from Washington County, asked.

“I'm going to fax you three photos. Will you take them to Boojum's in Lexington, avoid Bill Boojum, and see if anyone can identify any of these men?”

“The big dealership there? Very high-end.”

“High seems to be the operative word,” Rick said. “That's it. I'm conducting a criminal investigation here and I have strong reason to believe that Bill Boojum may be involved.”

“How criminal?” Paul laughed.

“Two murders and when the lab reports come back from an exhumation, I may have three.”

“Jesus.” Paul whistled. “I'll do it myself—out of uniform.”

“I really appreciate it and, believe me, I'll return the favor if the opportunity presents itself.”

“Don't mention it.”

After hanging up the phone with Paul, Rick bounded up from his chair, striding over to his maps pinned on the corkboard on the wall. Coop followed.

“Boss, want a map of Kentucky?”

“Yeah.”

Coop buzzed Sheila. “Hey, check the metal file cabinet out there for a recent map of Kentucky.”

There was one and Sheila brought it in. Rick pulled extra pins out of the corkboard, opened and straightened out the map. He put it up as Coop, anticipating his next request, brought him a state map of Virginia. Once up they both stared at it.

“Here's what I don't get.” Cynthia stuck her finger on Newport News. “Over a million people. A huge naval base. Wouldn't there be a big drug market there? Has to be. Why fool around with Lexington?”

“Organized crime owns Newport News. A small-fry could survive for a time but they'd be squeezed out eventually. Maybe mid-South cities are more open.” He touched each of the pinheads representing the murder sites. “I'm not convinced this is about drugs, even legal ones as you've suggested.”

“Whatever they're doing, it has to be easy to transport.”

“No. Whatever they're doing simply must not call attention to itself. It doesn't have to be easy. They could be transporting stolen cars.”

“Yeah, but we'd know if the cars were stolen around here. Besides, would Don have five hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars in his safe from stolen cars? These guys would have to be running one of the biggest rackets in America for that kind of money—and just for one guy. He probably wasn't even the head of it.”

“I know. I know. That doesn't quite fit either. When we went to Roger's garage I was looking for a chop shop. Not a sign. Hauling in a car, stripping and selling off the parts, hell, there'd have been junk everywhere. That place of Roger's was immaculate.”

Coop said, “His garage was cleaner than some people's houses.”

“Scratch chop shop. I've even thought about counterfeit money. Unless there's a buried bunker or another place hidden, that's not going to work either. I know that drugs are the one logical piece in what is illogical right now but, Coop, I don't think it's drugs. I don't know if Don Clatterbuck and Roger could deal without dipping and that always shows.”

“Roger liked to drink but remember Diana Robb says he did coke, too. I remember going over there to check on Mrs. Hogendobber's hubcaps and there was a line of beer cans to his shop. Never found a trace of drugs though.” Cooper crossed her arms over her chest.

Rick paced in front of the maps. “It's difficult, hey, almost impossible to imagine Don or Roger organizing some kind of criminal business. Neither one struck me as that smart. Someone has to be on top, someone much more intelligent.”

“Most murders occur within families or between people well known to one another. And most of those murders involve alcohol, drugs, or are crimes of passion. These murders are dispassionate, cool. The murder of Dwayne was opportunistic but not a crime of passion. The body wasn't mutilated, he'd been hit over the head; for whatever reason the killer couldn't finish him off with a blunt instrument so he strung him up.”

“Maybe the weapon wasn't heavy enough or the killer wasn't strong enough. That points to a woman.”

“Hoisting Dwayne over a tree couldn't have been light work.”

“Push him on the back of a truck, throw the rope over the tree, and drive off. It rained so hard nothing was left. There could have been a truck in there or even a car, slide him over the trunk. It's messy but not all that hard.”

“And Dwayne wanted more money. After Din Marks's talk with you that would appear motivation enough. If he wanted more now, he'd want more later. Or maybe he wanted promotion inside the company.” Rick shook his head. “Greed leaches out every other emotion, doesn't it?”

“Yes, it certainly seems to do that. People become bloodless.”

“I'm going to wait for the lab reports on Roger. If he was murdered then I must consider my first suspect Sean O'Bannon. He had the most to gain by his brother's murder, separate from whatever scam Roger was into. Sean inherits all of a lucrative business. Maybe he even inherits a lucrative illegal business.”

“Maybe the safe full of money will lure the killer to put his foot right into the trap.”

“A poster about selling off Don's goods might help. I spoke to his parents. They agreed and we won't put their phone number on there. Just an auction date, location, and time. Ought to light a fire under his ass.” Rick's one eyebrow arched upward. He could be clever.