Guns, Gams, Ghosts and Gangsters

1. The Lovely Irene-2

My eyes went back to the monitor. The images began to move. Everyone was cleaning up and preparing to leave. They did so in ones and twos, with everyone gone around 7:23 p.m. At 7:28 p.m. a worker, pushing a heavy looking four-wheeled cart in front of him, rolled into the frame and disappeared into the men’s room. On the cart was a large cardboard box. Very large. Ten minutes later, the figure, still pushing the cart with the large box, rolled out of the men’s room and disappeared off screen.

“Did you catch it? Both of’em?”

I threw a questioning glance at Frank and then looked back at the screen as he rewound the images again.

“I saw the guy moving the cart a hell of a lot easier. Like whatever he was rolling into the pisser seemed to be a lot lighter when he was leaving.”

Frank, twitching the corner of his lips visibly, told me he was silently amusing himself on my near sightedness. So I stepped closer to the monitors and took a second look. The worker went into the men’s room with box and heavy cart. He—maybe—was around five-foot eight. He was thin, and he wore a baseball cap pulled low over his face. There was no way to make an identification. But, eyes narrowing, I finally saw it. I turned and looked at the lip-twitching sonofabitch.

“A woman?”

Frank nodded and then lifted the clicker up and began fast forwarding through a number of other images.

“Security tapes get replaced every twelve hours. Noon and midnight. Watch this.”

My eyes went back to the monitor. It was our dead man stepping out of the elevator and walking to his death. He walked into the rest room and, maybe twenty-five seconds later, the door to the restroom moved just a hair. It was hardly noticeable. Unless, of course, you were looking for it, which apparently, Frank had been.

He raised the clicker and froze the image on the monitor and looked at me. I looked at him, shrugged, and improvised.

“Only thing I got is our killer was dressed up as our victim,” I said, “and that the real victim was dead long before she dressed up as him. She delivered him disguised as a plumber. He’s stuffed in that box. She dumps the body, leaves, then dresses up as the victim and deliberately allows herself to be taped stepping out of the elevator and heading for the restroom. My, my, my, a clever little girl. She hoped to give us an impossible crime to solve, thus giving her time to make her escape.”

The red headed giant grunted, nodded, and folded his massive arms across his chest.

“So how did she stop the camera?” my partner asked.

“With the same clicker you have in your hands. She cracked the door open just enough to aim it toward the security office. Apparently, it has a long enough range to turn off the recorder. She walked out of the restroom and dubs the tape with the images she wants recorded once she’s in the clear.”

“Good. We know how the murder was done. We have a vague idea of a possible suspect. We know who our real victim is. But we really know nothing. Where did the murder take place? What, if anything, did she steal? And why was our accountant murdered?”

I grinned savagely at the big guy. He frowned, turned toward me, and tilted his head to one side curiously. I’m told Frank has an IQ of about two gazillion. But he hates it when someone else comes up with something he missed. Like now.

“Spit it out, Sherlock. I’m all ears.”

“Two things,” I said, still grinning like a malicious elf. “One, did you talk to the security officer on duty tonight? I didn’t. Did you?”

“No,” Frank growled, shaking his head. “The uniforms did. They relayed to me the information he gave them.”

“Not him, my overgrown little Watson. Her. She told the uniforms everything she knew and then left the building. Said she had to get to her apartment at a certain time so her baby sitter could go home.”

“So our killer worked the building in the capacity of a hired security guard. Meaning she had keys to get herself into practically every office in the building. Hey, I like that. Smart. Now, tell me what else that little peanut brain of yours has cooked up. I’m dying to hear it.”

“Schumer & Schumer. What are they known far?” I asked.

“High end investments. Specifically, stocks and bonds.” Frank answered, a light bulb suddenly going off in his eyes. “Oh, okay. I see it. The chick comes in and steals a shitload of untraceable bonds. Old bearer’s bonds from way back when. God only knows how much she took. Probably millions.”

Confession time. I’m rich. No. Not bragging. Just telling the truth. I’m a rich homicide detective. A few years back a grandfather I didn’t know was still alive walked into my life and handed me an inheritance. Millions of dollars in cash, stocks, bonds, and real estate. I’ve been trying to play it smart and invest it ever since. So yeah, I knew Schumer & Schumer quite well.

“We got a killer running around town lugging a sizeable amount of very valuable paper. She can’t fly commercial and go through the security checks with all that paper on her. TSA would ask too many questions. The bonds have coupons which must be personally exchanged at a bank to get the money. They’re stolen. We’ll have every bank and investment firm in town alerted to be on the lookout for them by tomorrow night. She’s killed someone to get the bonds, so she’s not eager to stick around town any longer than she has to. What’s her only option?”

“She has to bite the bullet and sell them off at a steep discount rate,” Frank said, his lips twitching suddenly in laughter. “If she’s lucky she might get a quarter on a dollar. But the fence has to be a big one. Someone who can handle that amount of money in a few hours. That means her options are equally limited.”

“Not just limited,” I said, smiling as well. “There’s only one guy in town who can come up with that much cash on such a short notice. That’s where we’re going right now.”

It was the first faint light of dawn when we blasted across town in my white ’65 Shelby Mustang. Where we were going the traffic was light. So we drove fast. And the Shelby, being a Shelby, with that small block Ford V8 in it, just purred.

The house was a mansion. A mansion pushed back deep into foliage with a long driveway that curled around in front of the house and disappeared back in the direction we had just traveled from. There were no lights on in the house. Except for one, to one side, in a wing of the house we knew to be the library. Yes. Frank and I have been at the house before on official business. We knew the place quite well. The owner of the house was a fat guy by the name of Lewis Hayden. A procurer of anything stolen which promised a very high pay off. Like, for instance, stolen bearer’s bonds.

We walked around to the library, guns drawn, and peered in through the windows. Sitting in a big chair about the size of something a Nero Wolfe would sit in, a maid was placing three glasses of freshly drawn beer onto a coffee table in front of Lewis. The fat man nodded and mouthed the words, “Thank you.” The maid walked out and closed the double doors of the library behind her. There was no one else in the room. Only Lewis, and three glasses of beer.

It looked ominous.

Using the barrel of my weapon to tap on the double French doors, we watched the big man rise out of his comfy chair and waddle across the carpeted floor to open them.

“Ah! Detectives Hahn and Morales. What a lovely surprise. I was told I would be visited soon by the city’s finest. Come in, come in. I took the liberty of having refreshments at the ready in anticipation of your arrival.”

We stepped into the library and followed the round frame of Lewis Hayden back to his behemoth of a chair. Ponderously, he lowered himself into it and reached for one of the large glasses of cold beer.

“Please, gentlemen. Partake. I know you, Sergeant Hahn, to be a devoted aficionado of the hops. This is a rare brew direct from Germany. Not sold here in the States. I’m sure you’ll find it most delicious.”

“Who told you we were coming?” Frank growled, eyeing the dark colored beer before forcing himself to turn his attention back to our host.

“A delightful young lady for whom I have a most profound admiration for.”

“What’s her name?” I asked, turning my head and eyeing the interior doors of the library. The same doors the maid had just exited through.

“Oh, a most delicious irony there, detective. Most delicious indeed.”

“She came here and sold you some old bearer’s bonds. Obtained through a theft, and I might add, she committed murder in the process.”

“Really?” Hayden exploded, astonishment on his face. “I was not aware of any such crime, or set of crimes, my dear detective.”

“If you have the bonds in this house, that makes you are an accessory to murder. You know that don’t you?”

“I am completely at a loss for words, Detective Morales.”

“We could search the house,” I said.

“You would need a search warrant, my dear boy. I would insist. And obtaining one at this time of night? I daresay it would be an arduous process.”

“How long ago was she here?”

“Why Detective Turner, I think you just saw her leave moments ago. Good luck finding her now. She is a most resourceful person.”

I started to say something. But the house rocked as a big hammy fist pounded on the front door insistently. Frank glanced at me and nodded, before walking out of the library and into the main hall. Moments later, the big red-headed Neanderthal re-entered the library, followed by two uniformed officers bracketing the small frame of a red headed young girl. In the hand of one of the officers was a zip drive, which he tossed to me.

“Found her trying to hail a taxi at this time of night a quarter mile away. We thought that strange. So we picked her up and brought her over here. Knew you and Frank were working a homicide. Thought maybe there was a connection there.”

Officers Flannery and O’Connor. Sons of Irish immigrants who became cops. From father to son. Both the best of the best when it came to police work.

I caught the drive, eyed it for a moment or two, and then smiled.

“Betcha this is the password for a freshly created bank account in some off-shore bank. Money transferred from your account into this one. With this little lady being the main recipient. If I’m right, both of you are going to jail for a long, long time.”

Lewis Hayden looked almost sick. But give him credit, he was a showman who could not pass up wowing a crowd.

“Detectives, may I introduce you to a most charming young lady who calls herself Irene Adler.”

“You’re kidding,” Frank, my oversized Watson, said, turning to look at the young woman standing between the uniforms, before turning to look at me again. “Well, Sherlock. You did it again. Congratulations.”

Indeed, Watson. Indeed.