Counterfeit Road (29 page)

‘Yes.’

‘Is that what he did, he sent it to you?’

‘We have the gun. We’ve tested it. It’s why we’re here.’

Casey didn’t seem surprised. He must have gotten there on his own already, or maybe it was part of a plan she didn’t understand yet.

‘Jim Frank bought that gun in Austria when they first came out. He asked me to hold it for him and it has sat in that cabinet there on and off for decades. Sometimes he’d take it back to the house with him or loan it to somebody. The boy will tell you the same thing. The boy learned to shoot with it. It’s why he loves Glocks. I’m sure he can remember Jim carrying it back up the trail or loaning it out. Sometime later it would reappear in that case. That was the way it worked. Jim wanted access to it, but he didn’t want it in his house.’

‘How many years has it been in your possession?’ Raveneau asked.

‘Since Jim brought it back.’

‘When was that?’

‘It was—’

La Rosa saw the moment it happened. She watched the change and thought a heart attack was possible. The color drained from Casey’s face faster than she had ever seen.

‘Don’t tell me AK was shot with it. Don’t tell me that.’

‘He was. We have a ballistics match. Your gun was the murder weapon.’

‘The gun went out there and killed AK?’

‘What do you mean it went out there?’

‘Jim loaned it out.’

‘Why would he loan a gun to people?’

‘You’d have to ask him.’

‘Since we can’t interview a dead man I think you had better tell us.’

‘Are you suggesting I had something to do with AK’s murder? Of course that’s what you’re suggesting.’

‘Who had the gun when he was killed?’

‘I don’t remember.’

‘Then it comes back to you, Tom.’

‘No, no, it doesn’t come back to me. It was never my gun. I would have killed myself before killing Alan.’

La Rosa had a hard time not believing he was sincere.

‘You can see where we’re at,’ Raveneau said. ‘It’s the murder weapon. You need to convince us.’

‘The gun went out on its own. Someone had a drink with Jim and then it got borrowed. It was only used to do good. But Jim loaned it out so much it got to be a running joke. If someone complained too much about a boss or a wife he’d get the gun and tell them either go take care of it or quit complaining. He didn’t like complaining. Other people borrowed it to learn to shoot and that’s what I mean when I say used for good. Like the boy learning to shoot so he’ll be ready when the time comes.’

‘When what time comes?’

‘Change is always coming, Ben. One event can trigger a historical convulsion. The Archduke Ferdinand and his wife were shot in their car on a side street in Sarajevo early on a summer afternoon on the twenty-eighth of June in 1914 by a young man with a Browning .32 exactly the same as the one in the case behind you.’

He pointed. He wanted Raveneau to turn to look and she looked but Raveneau didn’t. Raveneau took a drink of beer.

‘You have to understand, anything he had Jim would loan out. It wasn’t about guns and as I said earlier he didn’t like to be around guns. I have to remember. I have to think back. I just can’t get my head around what you’re saying, that he was killed with the Glock. Are you sure about the ballistics test?’

‘We are and we may be taking you back with us.’

Casey reacted immediately to that. The look of pain left his eyes. A bright hardness replaced it.

‘Oh, I can guarantee that you won’t be doing that.’

‘Then you need to convince us.’

‘That’s what I’m thinking about right now. I’m considering a way to irrevocably convince you.’

La Rosa felt a prickle along her spine and as Raveneau continued to meet Casey’s gaze, she asked, ‘Are you in some way threatening us, Mr Casey?’

Casey turned to her.

‘The idea of you speculating I murdered Alan or assisted in any manner is repulsive. It fills me with disgust for the type of bureaucracy that produces your type. I couldn’t possibly explain that to you because you wouldn’t understand, but no, I’m not threatening you. I’m considering what to do. I’m debating what action to take. Do you understand that?’

Raveneau stepped back in. ‘We don’t have your breadth, Tom, and we’re forced to work with facts, so our range is more limited. According to you, the gun other than being loaned out occasionally has been here in a glass case since the day Jim Frank returned from Austria with it. You can help us by giving us the names of those it was loaned out to, starting with who had it in January 1989.’

‘We both know the boy sent you the gun. He’s angry at me.’ Casey waved at the other guns on display in the room. ‘Keeping it in the glass case was about salt and corrosion. It was an original Glock, one of the first. I’m trying to remember at what date Jim gave me the gun to hold for him. There were times when his temper got the better of him and he didn’t want it in his house. But he wanted it where he could come get it if he needed it. So we picked that case there, and frankly I can’t remember if that was before or after January 11, 1989. I think now it was after. It may have been the spring of that year. Let’s just say it was.’

‘That’s different than what you said a few minutes ago.’

‘There’s also another thing to consider. This house is never locked. We had an intruder a few years ago, a dope grower that the boy shot and killed, but even with that I haven’t started locking the doors. I’ll never lock the doors here.’

He nodded at Raveneau.

‘Your first instinct was right, Ben. Shooting that grower gave him a taste of a thing he craved. The power of life is what I would call it. Killing affirms one’s power. The boy craved that feeling. I could read it in his eyes years before we had the problem with the dope grower. I have no doubt you were right in sensing he was close to shooting you. I heard the conversation through the mike. You did the right thing to try to get away.’

He shook his head and looked down at the table.

‘I can’t get my head around this, but Jim may have been working with AK on an investigation, helping with the contract work Krueger was doing. He sometimes played a part as AK sold or bought counterfeit bills. He backed him up. He delivered money or carried it when he flew. The Secret Service may or may not have known that. They probably knew all about that. You should tell them the gun is a match, confront them with it. Demand to know what they know.’

‘We’ll be back this afternoon looking for names.’

Casey leaned forward. He looked at Raveneau and then her.

‘A month ago I sat here holding the gun to my head. I had a very large decision to make and it was necessary to consider all alternatives. My prints should be all over the gun from that night, but they aren’t because my housekeeper cleans and oils the weapons in this house. That keeps the salt from corroding them.’

He pointed at the screening keeping insects out of the lanai that was otherwise open to the air.

‘Most don’t realize they choose the mark they make on history. The first time I burned a village that wasn’t on the target list I didn’t feel a thing for any of the gooks. If they weren’t helping the Cong, they would be soon. It was that simple and that’s what I told the captain. He didn’t mind either. He used me for certain missions after that. He knew before I did. You can see it in a man’s eyes before he knows inside.

‘Now, there is something I’m remembering now. Four or five months before he was killed, Alan decided Jim was pocketing some of the bills he was ferrying. He got very angry about it. Words got exchanged and Jim didn’t like to be threatened. I can tell you that.’

La Rosa re-entered the conversation.

‘Why did you consider killing yourself?’

‘A man should only exist as long as he has the will and the stomach to do what needs to be done. Waiting has sapped me. I’m like a hunter succumbing to cold.’

‘What is it you’re waiting for?’

‘For the right moment and now it’s arriving. Most of us pass without making a difference. I’ll use the example of Inspector Benjamin Tomlinson Raveneau. His career isn’t over but it’s winding down. He’s had a good solve record on the San Francisco Homicide Detail and for many years was the best among his peers. But has he made any real difference? I have to say no. He’ll retire. He’ll get a pension. He’ll do some private work perhaps and he may even go on living in that apartment up on the roof. That’s a little isolated and his girlfriend, I’m told, is more nervous about it, particularly at night, but who wouldn’t be?

‘Maybe they’ll marry and settle in closer to her new bar if it catches on, but it’s a difficult city to compete in and chances are her bar will just limp along. The inspector will see a fine goodbye party with the police force, but will the police force or the city be any different for his having been there? I don’t think so and though they’ll use him sporadically after he retires, his utility will decline. His purpose in life will vanish and with it his reason for being. That night I went to that threshold. You have to act to make a difference.’

La Rosa wasn’t going to let this pass, but Raveneau caught her eye. Raveneau didn’t care if Casey had hired private investigators to look into his life. His look said let that part be, so she asked, ‘Have you ever killed anyone other than in war?’

‘I’m going to ask you to leave now. We’re both out of time. I need to think about my plans and you need to drive to make it to your lunch.’

‘We can call and tell her we’re running late. We’d like to know more about you.’

He turned to Raveneau.

‘A thing can be justified if you have a higher object and you achieve it, but focus has to stay on the goal, the result. I know you understand that. You flew over here because you have the murder weapon and the sense you’re closing in. But even if it’s true that’s the gun used to kill Alan, and I suppose it’s likely true, you still don’t know what you can do with it, do you? Or are you just hoping things will evolve? I’ve passed the point where I can wait for that evolution.’

‘Tell us about the argument between Jim Frank and Alan Krueger,’ Raveneau said.

‘Jim was able to walk on and off a flight without any risk of his luggage being checked. He sometimes smuggled money or weapons for AK. He may have stolen counterfeit bills he was carrying from here to the mainland. He was very short of money. He had a fairly large land deal go bad here and lost everything. Ask his ex-wives how much alimony they ever saw. Alan accused him, they argued, and that was the last I saw of Alan, but, of course, I’m not saying Jim had anything to do with killing him.’

He smiled at la Rosa.

‘When you get back I’ll tell you what it feels like to napalm a village and watch some of them try to run while their skin is melting. The kids didn’t get far, but some of those women would get twenty or thirty yards, like a torch moving in the twilight. When I put a gun to my head I think about them, but I don’t feel guilty. I just think about them as part of a balance sheet, an expense. The meaning of our lives is capital we spend and you cannot make a mark on history without inflicting some pain on some people.’

‘What are you focused on now?’ Raveneau asked.

‘That’s already in motion.’

‘Are you going to tell us about that?’ la Rosa asked. ‘We’d really like to know.’

‘I’m sure you would.’

FIFTY-THREE

‘
W
hat was that about?’ la Rosa asked. ‘Was he threatening us?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Has he talked this way before?’

‘Not quite like this, but he can move quickly from threatening to get me fired to asking what I want to drink.’

‘You ought to call Coe and ask for help finding out more about him. He knew Krueger. Krueger is tied into the counterfeit notes and the counterfeit money ties into the Secret Service/FBI investigation. The Feds will help us on this, don’t you think?’

‘They will and I’ll call him when we get down to the beach.’

‘Why are we going back there?’

‘Before we make the drive to Ito’s gallery, I want to see if Matt Frank is still at Hapuna.’

When they didn’t spot Frank’s pickup in the beach lot, Raveneau said, ‘Let’s pick up the can he was drinking from. I saw him put it down on top of a garbage can. But we need something to put it in.’

‘I’ve got a plastic bag in my purse and I’ll go get the can while you call Coe. I know where to look for it.’

Coe picked up on the first ring and asked, ‘Have you met with him?’

‘We left his house fifteen minutes ago. We’re on our way to interview a woman on the other end of the island and then we want to meet with him again. He’s nervous and agitated.’

‘You checked in with our satellite office?’

‘Yeah, they said call if we need backup. We’ll give them a call but what can you do to help us find out more about Casey?’

‘I’ll do what I can. I’ll call you.’

The can was still there. La Rosa had it with her as she walked back. By the time she reached the car he was off the phone. They drove south skirting Hilo and then the long grade on the road up to Volcanoes National Park. The gallery was set back among trees. They parked in a gravel lot across from an outdoor garden where it looked like pieces of sculpture were for sale. Inside the gallery were paintings and photographs. Many depicted scenes from the park up the road.

Raveneau spotted a woman in the back with a customer and couldn’t be certain it was her, but it looked like it was. She became aware of them but she was still in conversation with her customer. As they waited, Raveneau studied a black and white photograph of a small group of men at the edge of Kilauea Crater taken perhaps a hundred years ago. The starkness of the crater and the small figures of the men at the edge of it said something he couldn’t quite put a name to.

Then from behind him a voice said, ‘I like that photograph very much myself. In a scene that is so stark you realize what is fragile. Are you looking for a particular artist?’

‘We have an appointment with Aolani Ito.’

‘That’s me.’

It turned out Ito knew Thomas Casey as an islander whose family through a corporation had wrested control of a large block of ranchland and an even larger former sugar plantation in the interior. She believed Casey to be very wealthy and heard the money came from timber, coal, and land long before Casey was born.