This particular job was slow and tedious, but also heartbreaking, and Gwen wasn’t entirely displeased when the cell phone in her shoulder bag vibrated. Seeing it was her office, she murmured to Franny, “I have to take this,” and went out to the hall to answer.
It was Chief Inspector Davies. “Are you very tied up there?”
“Pretty much, sir.”
“They found some of the money,” he said.
It had been too long. She said, “Money, sir?”
“From the armored car.”
“Oh, my gosh! They
“Some of it. Also a body. We’re working on ID now.”
“I’ll be right there,” she said, and went back to explain to Franny and to make her promise to send a tape after the interviews.
* * *
It was the conference room at the state police barracks this time. In addition to Chief Davies at the head of the table, there were a pair of state troopers sitting along one side, a man and a woman, who introduced themselves as Danny Oleski and Louise Rawburton. Both looked very sheepish. It wasn’t a usual thing to see a state trooper look sheepish, so Gwen wondered, as she took a chair across from them, what was going on.
Introductions over, Inspector Davies said, “Let the troopers tell you their story.” He himself was looking grim; “hanging judge” was the phrase that came to Gwen’s mind.
The troopers glanced at each other, and then the woman, Rawburton, said, “I’ll tell it,” and turned to Gwen. “Out on Putnam Road,” she said, “there’s a church called St. Dympna that was shut down some years ago. My family went there when I was a little girl. The week before last, when we were told to forget the roadblocks and concentrate on empty buildings instead, St. Dympna was in our area.”
“When we got there,” the male trooper, Oleski, said, “two men and a woman were unloading boxes of hymnals from the church into an old Econoline van. It had the name Holy Redeemer Choir on the doors.”
“We looked in a couple of the boxes,” Rawburton said, “and they were hymnals. When I said I used to go to that church the woman even gave me one of them.”
Oleski said, “The minister’s house was across the road. Also empty. Upstairs, we found a back window broken out, looked as though it could have been recent. When we went back to our car to report the broken window, the van was gone.”
Gwen said, “I think I know where this story is going. You went back to the church. Why was that?”
“We happened to go by it,” Rawburton said, “and we didn’t go inside last time, and I realized I just wanted to see what it looked like.”
Gwen said, “You didn’t go in last time?”
Oleski said, “The three people were very open. I looked at license and registration, all fine. One of the men was in the basement when we got there, and he came up and said everything was stripped out down there, appliances and all of that.”
“They were happy to have us search,” Rawburton said. “They
Gwen said to Oleski, “You looked at his license. Remember the name?”
Oleski twisted his face into agonized thought. “I’ve been going nuts,” he said. “It was Irish or Scottish. Mac Something. I just can’t remember.”
“I Googled Holy Redeemer Choir in Long Island, just now,” Rawburton said. “There is no such thing.”
“When you went in there today,” Gwen said, “what did you find?”
“Three boxes of hymnals on the floor,” Oleski said. “But when we opened them, it was all money. And when I opened the basement door, the smell came up.”
“It was Dalesia,” Davies said. “We’ve got a positive ID now.”
“I keep thinking,” Rawburton said, “we should have done more, but
“That you opened?” Gwen asked. “Or that they opened?”
Oleski said, “One I opened, two they opened, the second one when the woman gave Louise the hymnbook.”
“That’s a nice touch, isn’t it?” said Davies, the hanging judge.
Gwen said, “And the two men? Any idea who they were?”
Rawburton, looking and sounding more sheepish than ever, said, “They’re the two from the posters.”
“But that new one, of the guy that was in the basement,” Oleski said, “we didn’t get to see that until after we’d met them. And it was a lot closer than the first one.”
Gwen shook her head and said to Davies, “Nine days ago. They were here, just the way you said, and so was the money, and nine days ago it all left.”
“There’s no trail,” Davies said.
“When I think how many times,” Gwen said, “they just slid right through.” The idea she never would be calling Bob Modale over in New York to describe the arrest of John B. Allen and Mac Somebody grated on her, but she’d get over it. “Inspector,” she said, “I should get back to my Chinese slaves. At least there, I think I can deliver a happy ending.”
FOUR
1
Tuesday afternoon, Parker tried calling the phone number in Corpus Christi that had once belonged to Julius Norte, the ID expert, now dead. Had his business been taken over by somebody else?
No; it was a Chinese restaurant now. And when he looked for Norte’s legitimate front business, a print shop called Poco Repro, through information, there was no listing.
So he’d have to start again. The guy who’d given him Norte’s name in the first place was an old partner named Ed Mackey, who didn’t have a direct number but did have cutouts, where messages could be left. Parker used the name Willis, which Mackey would know, left the gas station phone booth number, and said he could be called there Wednesday morning at eleven.
He was seated in position in the car at that time, when the phone rang, and got to it before it could ring again. “Yes.”
“Mr. Willis.” It was Mackey’s voice. “I guess you’re doing fine.”
“I’m all right. How’s Brenda?”
“Better than all right. She doesn’t want me to take any trips for a while.”
“This isn’t about that. Remember Julius Norte?”
“Down in Texas? That was a sad story.”
“Yeah, it was. I wondered if anybody else you know was in that business?”
“Time for a new wardrobe, huh?” Mackey chuckled. “I wish I could say yes, but I’ve been making do with the old duds myself.”
“Well, that’s okay.”
