Back Story (2 page)

Dewey Webb – 1955

It was a warm Monday morning in August, one where the sun had chased all the clouds away and heat threatened an imminent arrival. I had just left my office on Sherman Street, where I’d typed up some case notes for a store manager who thought one of his employees was stealing from the till, and I was heading to the home of Irving Beauchamp. Beauchamp owned National Insurance, a large insurance company that offered a variety of policies, including home, life, auto, theft, and more. I’d heard National Insurance’s catchy ads on the radio, but I personally wasn’t a client, and I didn’t know why the vice-president of the company, Sterling Vederman, had summoned me to Beauchamp’s house rather than to their offices in downtown Denver. But I was soon to find out why.

Beauchamp lived near the Denver Country Club, on Circle Drive, one of the richest parts of town, and as I drove my old Plymouth down his street, past Mercedes and Cadillacs, I felt more than a little out of place. I wasn’t poor, but I didn’t fit this class at all.

I parked in front of a brick-and-timber Tudor mansion that had a steeply pitched roof with cross gables and tall, narrow windows. I walked up a meandering stone sidewalk to an uncovered front porch, rang the bell, and waited. Somewhere far in the mansion, low chimes sounded, and a moment later the heavy oak door slowly opened to reveal an elderly butler dressed in a finely tailored suit that was certainly more expensive than mine.

I took off my hat, my best brown fedora, which I’d worn along with my best brown coat and tie. “Dewey Webb. I have an appointment with Mr. Beauchamp and Mr. Vederman.”

“They are expecting you,” the butler said, his tone flat and lifeless. “Right this way.”

I followed him down a long, dark hallway and to the right, where he opened a door and stepped aside. Then he bowed slightly. I walked through the door and heard it quietly shut behind me. I was now standing in a large library that smelled faintly of expensive cigars. The room was decorated in dark wood, the shelves on two walls were filled with books, and expensive paintings hung on the other walls. A stone fireplace dominated the corner. A huge mahogany desk sat in front of a rectangular window that looked out onto a pristinely manicured backyard. A massive oriental rug covered a hardwood floor, and in the center of the rug was a rectangular mahogany table. At one end sat a man I judged to be in his mid-fifties. He was a big man, but he wore his hand-tailored navy blue pin-striped suit well. His tie was perfectly adjusted, his shirt perfectly pressed, and his expensive cuff links flashed in the light from the chandelier. He had thinning gray hair and a neatly trimmed mustache on a round face. He looked at me through wire-rimmed glasses, and his eyes narrowed as they took me in, but I couldn’t tell what they concluded.

“Hello, Mr. Webb,” he said. His voice was deep and scratchy, probably from too many cigars.

“Call me Dewey,” I said.

He gave a slight nod to a man sitting to his left. “This is Sterling Vederman.”

Vederman was younger and thinner than Beauchamp, with brown hair and a crooked nose that marred an otherwise faultless face. He was similarly attired, yet his suit seemed to hang off of him, as if he’d recently lost weight.

“Sit down,” Beauchamp said, gesturing at a chair on his other side, across from Vederman.

I walked over, set my hat on the table, pulled out the chair and sat down. Apparently I passed Beauchamp’s initial assessment.

“You come recommended,” Beauchamp said.

I nodded. “Chet Inglewood talked to you.” I’d worked with Chet at the law offices of Masters and O’Reilly, where I’d been an investigator. Chet, who was still an investigator there, liked me, and he occasionally threw business my way.

“Chester did mention you,” Beauchamp said. “I need someone discreet and he said you were the best investigator they had on staff.”

I smiled. “If Chet said that, it must be true.”

Vederman let out a tiny cough.

Beauchamp studied me, his eyes black and scorching. He clearly didn’t appreciate my comment. “Do you fancy yourself like Mike Hammer?” he asked. “Like the movie
Kiss Me Deadly
? The wise-cracking detective?”

The movie
Kiss Me Deadly
had come out a few months ago. I’d seen it. It was okay, a little dark for my tastes. I’d seen plenty of darkness during the war, and I wasn’t thrilled to revisit it in a movie. “Mike Hammer was known for violence, not humor,” I said. “I’m no Mike Hammer, but I do what I need to do.”

“I’m not amused, Mr. Webb,” Beauchamp said.

I stared him in the eyes. “I can get the job done, and I can be discreet. If that’s not good enough, I’ll go.”

Beauchamp held my gaze for ten long seconds, then glanced at Vederman.

“We called you here because we have a situation that needs to be handled quietly,” Vederman said, and took up the conversation. Beauchamp sat back ever-so-slightly and let Vederman and me talk.

It seemed I’d made the cut. “What’s going on?”

“Have you ever heard of Floyd Powell?” Vederman asked. His voice was high and pinched.

“I can’t say that I have.”

“Powell is a prominent businessman here in Denver. He runs Powell Incorporated, which has a number of subsidiaries, and he has investments in real estate. National insures him, both his companies and his personal assets, like his house, cars and other valuables.”

“Nothing strange about that,” I said.

Beauchamp frowned. Vederman paused, then continued.

“You are correct. There’s nothing of particular note in that. However, Powell recently submitted a claim to us for a valuable piece of art – a statue. He says it was stolen from his house a few nights ago.”

“But you don’t believe that.”

Vederman paused again, then placed delicate hands on the table. “I have nothing to prove that Powell is lying, but I suspect that is the case.”

“What makes you think so?”

“One, I find it hard to believe that someone broke into his house and didn’t steal anything else. And two, he made a similar claim with us six months ago.”

I leaned forward. “And that was?”

“A Picasso valued at thirty thousand dollars.”

I resisted the urge to whistle. “And you paid the claim?”

He frowned, then said, “At the time, we had no reason not to.”

“How was the Picasso stolen?”

“Powell said he’d just purchased the painting and left it in his library at home. That room has doors that open to a garden. When he returned to the room after dinner, the door was open and the painting was gone. The police investigated, but there was no sign of a forced entry or fingerprints, and no one saw anything. Powell didn’t check the door and it’s possible the house staff left it unlocked. The painting had vanished without a trace. With no clues, there was not a lot the police could do. They concluded that someone knew about the purchase, followed Powell home, let themselves in the library, and took the painting. Powell is a good client, so we paid the claim.”

“But now you don’t want to.”

Vederman hesitated. “We think it’s a little odd that Powell’s painting was stolen, and then this statue, in such a short amount of time.”

“How was the statue stolen?”

“Powell said he came home, but he left the statue in the car. He was going to surprise his wife with it later, and when he returned to the car to retrieve it, the window was broken and the statue was gone.”

“He could’ve staged the scene and broken the window himself,” I said. Vederman nodded in acknowledgment. “How much is the statue insured for?”

“Two hundred thousand.”

“That must be some statue,” I said, thinking of the Maltese Falcon statue from the movie. In the movie, the statue was worth upwards of a quarter million dollars.

“It’s a Chinese figurine encrusted with jewels.”

“You’re out a lot of dough.”

“We will be,” Beauchamp broke his silence, “if we have to pay again.”

Vederman let out another small cough. “We’d like to be sure that there’s nothing untoward happening before we pay the claim.”

“And by ‘untoward’ you mean?” My question hung in the air.

“We’d like to know if Powell was the victim of a couple of unfortunate events, or if he’s done something with the painting and statue but is still trying to get the insurance money.”

“Okay,” I said. “Did you talk to the police about your concerns?”

Vederman shook his head. “We have to be discreet about this. Powell is a powerful man, and if we’re wrong, we don’t want him to know that we suspected him of anything so…” he searched for the word. He finally settled on one. “Devious.”

 “I can check out Powell’s story,” I said. “But it doesn’t sound like you have much to go on. Why would a prominent – and I assume rich – businessman make a false claim?”

“That’s a good question. I’ve heard rumors that Powell has had some serious financial issues of late.”

“So he might be tempted to sell the art pieces and get money from them, and then again from the insurance claims,” I said.

“Precisely.”

“What else do you know about Powell?” I asked.

Vederman reached down and took a piece of paper from a briefcase sitting by his chair. “He’s rich, he has a mansion in Cheesman Park, and he’s connected to the elite here in town,” he said as he passed the paper across to me. “There’s some basic information on him. He came from New York, and it’s rumored that he has mob connections.”

“Another reason why we need to tread lightly,” Beauchamp said.

“Yes,” Vederman continued. “We don’t know if any of this business with the art is related to the mob or not.”

“But you don’t know for sure if Powell has dealings with the mob,” I said.

Vederman shook his head. Beauchamp said nothing.

“All right,” I finally said. “I’ll look into it.”

Vederman reached into the briefcase again and pulled out a check. “You had told us your fee over the phone.” He pushed the check across the table. “That should cover a week, and I’ve taken the liberty of adding in extras for expenses. If it takes longer, we’ll discuss it.”

I glanced at the check. It was a lot more than what I expected.

“That’s yours, even if it takes less time than we think,” Vederman said.

“You must be discreet,” Beauchamp insisted. “That’s why we had you come here instead of the office. No one but the two of us knows about you, so you’ll inform only Mr. Vederman or me of your progress.”

I pocketed the check, wondering if they were buying my silence. And did that matter? “I understand.”

“Powell mustn’t know anything about this,” Vederman said.

I stood up and took my hat. “He won’t.”

With that, I turned and walked out of the library. The stern butler materialized from nowhere and escorted me to the door.

“Good day, sir,” he said as he let me out.

“That it is,” I said, thinking of the hefty check in my pocket.

Reed – 2015

I closed the green file folder and looked up at Brad. “This whole business with the missing artwork sounds interesting,” I said. I drank the last of my beer. “Looking for a jewel-encrusted statue sounds just like
The Maltese Falcon
.” Sam Spade was one of Humphrey Bogart’s most famous film noir roles and the film was also one of my favorites. I have always aspired to be as cool as Bogie, a kind of twenty-first century noir hero. But without all the personal demons and the need to drink heavily. 

“I never saw it,” Brad said.

“It’s a classic. Bogie plays Sam Spade, a hard-as-nails detective who gets involved with three weird criminals and a femme fatale – of course – who are all trying to find a priceless statue. It’s considered one of the best movies ever made…” I suddenly stopped, as I realized how bored Brad looked. “Sorry,” I muttered.

“Maybe whoever wants Dewey’s files is trying to find the Chinese statue that Powell had,” Brad said.

“Could be.” I thought for a second. “I’ll have to look into it more, but since we’re dealing with cases from sixty years ago, it’s going to take a while. And I hate to tell you this, but it probably won’t lead anywhere.” I pushed the folder across the table.

Brad put out a hand and stopped me. “Take the files with you. I don’t want them around.”

“So whoever’s after you can come after me,” I said dryly.

His lips twitched into a faint smile. “You don’t believe anyone’s after me, remember?”

Touché.

“All right.” I grabbed the folders and the journal. “I’ll call you with any questions. In the meantime, if you see any suspicious activity around your house or work, be sure to let me know.”

“I’m going to stay at a friend’s house tonight.”

I stood up. “You really do think someone’s after you.”

“Uh-huh.” He put some bills on the table for a tip, stood up and followed me outside. The last of the daylight was quickly fading as we walked down the block to a side street lot where we’d both parked.

“What’d you drive?” I asked.

He pointed to a red Audi sports car. “It’s a fun car.”

And easy to tail
, I thought, then said, “I’ll wait until you leave and look for anyone following. Just in case.”

That made him grimace. “I hope no one knows I’m here. I was careful.”

“I’m sure no one did, I’m just cautious.” I waited while he got in his car, then watched him slowly drive out of the parking lot. I strolled down the street, keeping an eye on his car. He had to wait for a traffic light at Broadway, so I stopped at the corner and tried to appear casual as I loitered about. The light turned green and the Audi took a left, and the taillights disappeared in the traffic on Broadway. I didn’t see another car pull out and follow him.

Mickey’s had been air-conditioned but stuffy, and I enjoyed the warm night air as I strolled back to my 4-Runner. I cranked a CD by The Smiths, one of my favorite 80s bands, as I took Broadway north toward downtown. As I drove, I mulled over my new case.

First, if Brad was right, and his grandfather lost his life because of one of the last three cases he was working on, I’d need to learn all I could about those cases and the people involved. That wouldn’t be an easy task, but maybe I could locate children or grandchildren who could fill in some details for each case. And I needed to find out all I could about Dewey’s murder to see if I could unearth something the police might’ve missed. They likely tried to link his cases with his murder, but if they hadn’t discovered anything then, how could I now? At the moment, I didn’t have much hope of that. The big question was: what was so threatening in those cases that would cause someone to steal and, maybe, commit murder? Dewey must’ve uncovered something really big sixty years ago.

“Piece of cake,” I said to myself as I turned east on Colfax. Then I noticed a dark SUV in the rearview mirror. Hadn’t it been behind me as I drove down Broadway? I stayed on Colfax and drove past my street, then turned north on Downing. The SUV followed me. I got to 18
th
Avenue and turned left, and the SUV kept going straight. I sighed. Was I getting paranoid already? I meandered around the neighborhood streets but never saw the SUV again, so I concluded I was indeed paranoid, and I finally turned down my block.

I own a condo in the Uptown neighborhood east of downtown, and my fiancée, Willie, lives with me. Her parents named her Wilhemina, but she was never called that. She’d been living with me for a while, and we’d gotten engaged a few months before. I still get a kick when I think about marrying her, but it’s usually quickly tempered by thoughts of planning the wedding. I did my best with deciding what kind of dishes and silverware we should get, or if we needed a gravy boat or not. But I am also going to meet my future in-laws, and that is a kind of pressure I rarely experience. Willie’s father is a retired police officer, and since I’m a private investigator, I worry that I won’t live up to his standards, either professionally or personally. Plus, Willie and I are struggling with the wedding guest list, which only adds to the pressure. In short, I’d rather face the worst villains in the film noir movies than deal with all of the wedding plans.

The sky was morphing to black as I slowed down near our building. Since moving in, Willie parks her Mazda CX-5 in the garage around the back, so I found a place to park on the street. I grabbed Dewey’s journal and files, then hurried up the metal stairs to my unit.

“Oh, that’s a lovely idea,” Willie was saying when I walked through the door. Willie’s an emergency room admissions nurse at nearby St. Joseph’s Hospital, and she was still wearing light purple scrubs. “Uh-huh,” she said, then tucked her blond hair behind her ear. I love it when she does that. She put her hand over the phone and murmured, “It’s your mother.” My grandmother’s engagement ring, which my mother had given me to give to Willie, glinted on her finger. Some women might have wanted a new ring, but Willie had loved the style, and she said the fact that it belonged in my family was a special bonus. She’d also been touched that my mother wanted her to have it. My mother had been delighted, saying that Willie was the daughter she’d never had.

“Wedding plans?” I asked quietly.

She nodded.

I grinned. “Lucky you.”

Willie rolled her eyes, although I knew she wasn’t really put out by having to talk to my mother. The two actually get along very well, which is great for me because my mother is sweet, but she can drive you bananas.

“Let me get on the computer and look,” Willie said as she strolled into the kitchen. Her laptop was sitting on the table and she sat down in front of it.

I followed her into the kitchen, but avoided the computer. I got a Coke from the fridge, kicked off my shoes and padded down the hall into my office, better known as my “sanctuary.” One wall with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves is devoted to my favorite books, mostly mysteries and a collection of rare, first-edition detective novels. I also have a DVD case full of film noir and detective movies that I love, along with the “Best of Alfred Hitchcock.” A glass case in the corner holds a first edition of
A Study in Scarlet
, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and a first edition of Raymond Chandler’s
The Long Goodbye
. Finally, I have vintage posters of
The Maltese Falcon
and
The Big Sleep
, two of Bogie’s great movies, on the wall. When Willie had moved in, her stuff had come too, but she’d graciously left my office alone. And I loved her all the more for it.

I set down the journal, files, and Coke on my desk, sank into a chair and logged onto the Internet. I first checked old newspaper archives for information about Dewey Webb’s murder, but trying to find archived information online was not easy. I found sites that wanted me to pay for information, but I didn’t know if they would come up with any pertinent results. And besides, I could get my best friend Cal Whitmore, hacker extraordinaire, to access the sites if need be. A better option would be to go to the Denver Public Library and search through their newspaper archives in the Western History Collection.

Next I tried Irving Beauchamp and Sterling Vederman, but a little poking around didn’t reveal anything. Then I Googled “Floyd Powell” and “Denver, Colorado.” I found a link to an obituary and clicked that. Powell, a “prominent Denver businessman,” was born in 1881 and died in 1956. The obituary was long on all his achievements and contributions to the Denver community, and it listed a wife, Hazel, two sons, Raymond and Eugene, some grandchildren, and other relatives among those who survived him.

I leaned back, sipped some Coke, and stared at the screen. Then I opened Dewey’s journal. Brad had stuck Sam Webb’s notes inside the book. I took them out, opened the file on the Powell case, and started comparing names in the file with what Sam had written on his list: Phil M. Ned, H.H.F., O.S., and then W.C.
Water closet?
I thought.
Could Sam have been any more cryptic?
Then I came to E. P.
Eugene Powell?
He’d been mentioned in Powell’s obituary. Next to E.P., Sam had written “Lorraine Fitzsimmons - daughter”.
Finally, a full name
. Sam had written a phone number beside Lorraine’s name.

I glanced at the clock. 9:30. Too late for a respectable person to call now, and even though I was the unrelenting private investigator, hot on the trail, I was nothing if not respectable, so I decided to call her tomorrow.

There were no other matches from the list in the file, so I opened one of the other files and was just starting to compare names to those on Sam’s cryptic list when Willie strolled in.

“Hey, hon, do you have a new client?”

“Yep,” I said.

She came over and gave me a kiss. “What’s it about?”

I told her, then said, “Who knows if anyone that Dewey was talking to is even alive? I’m dealing with a number of cold cases at this point, including Dewey’s murder. Although,” I held up a finger. “I’ll bet the police still have a case file. Maybe Spillman would let me look at it.”

Detective Sarah Spillman was with the Denver Police Department. I’d run into her on several of my cases, and although she was brusque with me, I think I’d earned her begrudging respect. With that in mind, maybe she’d help me.

“That’s a good idea,” Willie said.

“I’ll give her a call tomorrow.” I rubbed my hands over my face. “This is going to be a challenge.”

She sighed. “Not as challenging as the wedding is going to be.”

I could tell by the tone she wanted to talk, so I swiveled in my chair to face her. “What’s up? Is my mother the challenge you’re talking about?”

My mother had three persistent concerns about me: would being a private investigator get me hurt; would I get married and provide her with grandchildren; and was I doing drugs. It had never helped that she seemed invariably to call when I was on painkillers after being injured on a case, which fueled her worries that I was on drugs and that my profession was dangerous, which it was. But she hadn’t mentioned drugs in a while, so maybe she finally believed me when I said I didn’t use any. As for the detecting business being dangerous, I couldn’t do anything about that. That left marriage and children, but since Willie and I were engaged, that concern would soon go away. At least the relationship part. I wasn’t ready for kids…yet.

“Is she bugging you about kids already?” I blurted out.

Willie scrunched up her face. “Where did that come from?”

“Uh, nothing…I…” Words, Reed, use your words. “So she’s not concerned about me?”

“No, she’s fine.” Willie leaned against the edge of the desk and crossed her arms. “I’m trying to keep your mother and my mother happy. They both have their ideas of how things should be done.”

“We just need to make it to next spring,” I said.

She sighed. “We could always elope.”

“If you want to.”

She punched my arm. “You know as well as I do that your mother would never speak to you again if you did that. I can hear her now. ‘My son up and elopes. Did you not even think of your mother who might want to be a part of her only child’s wedding? Reed, dear, I can’t believe you did that.’ ”

I burst out laughing. “That was a perfect imitation of Mother.”

She started laughing, too. “Trust me, with your mother and my mother on this, it will be the best wedding you’ve ever seen.” She yawned and stretched, then shoved herself upright. “I got home hours ago and I’ve been on the phone ever since. I barely had time to eat and I haven’t even had a chance to get out of my scrubs. I’m going to take a shower and watch a movie. Want to join me?”

I cocked an eyebrow at her. “For the shower?”

“Ha ha. I meant the movie.”

I grinned. “I will in a minute. I want to do a little more reading on these cases.”

“Okay, have fun.”

She left the room and I opened the journal and began reading. Dewey had jotted down notes about his day-to-day activities. After he left Beauchamp’s house, he visited an appliance store…