Dead Bang (20 page)

“Perhaps he would like to clean up the candy first,” said Agent Azzara, his arms still folded.

“Put – the – seat – back – in – the – car,” growled Matty with a slight curl of her lip.

Agent Azzara sulked over to the seat, picked it up, and wrestled it back into the car.

“I never said anyone was a terrorist. Manny said he was a terrorist,” I said. “But I have to admit that blowing up a building has a certain terrorist cachet to it.”

“The incident at the Waters Building is in the hands of a task force from Washington,” said Matty. “They came in this morning, and you have to talk to two supervisors just to take their lunch order.”

“But you're here,” I said.

“You'll be happy to know that we are working closely with the Wyoming Police on this. Chief Kope feels very strongly that the incident at Karen Smith's house was a drug-related home invasion and not related to the bombing.”

“The simplest answer is usually correct,” said Azzara.

“Thank you, Agent Azzara,” said Matty. She scrounged an envelope out of her purse and dropped four pictures on the trunk. “The man you talked to this morning?”

“Don't see him,” I said.

“Look close,” said Matty. “Some of these pictures are ten to fifteen years old.”

“Number three, maybe,” I said. “Add thirty pounds, recede the hair, and add a moustache.”

Matty turned over the photo and said, “Recent photo.”

“Then he ain't there. They find the yellow Dodge Neon?”

“In the Share-a-Ride lot at Lincoln Lake Road and 1-96. Wasn't hard to find. It was on fire.”

“Title? Registration?”

Matty scooped up the pictures. “Rented at the airport with a stolen credit card. We're checking the receipts for fingerprints.”

“The guns still in the trunk?”

“More left of the guns than the body,” said Matty.

“They still have serial numbers?”

“Both stolen in Detroit,” said Matty.

“In the same B and E,” said Azzara.

“Odd,” I said.

“Perhaps there is a simple answer,” said Azzara.

“And that would be?” I asked.

“Soon discovered,” said Azzara.

“Who are the guys in the pictures?” I asked.

“Just pictures, Art,” said Matty. “Don't worry about it.” She put the envelope back in her purse. “If anybody contacts you about Manny's money, try to set up a meet.” She handed me a card with an address. “We need a couple of hours, so we can control the environment.”

“This is a rod and gun club,” I said.

“Recent IRS seizure,” said Matty. She tapped the card with her index finger. “This is the only place, or you don't meet 'em. We get two hours lead time, or you don't meet 'em.”

“What if they won't play?”

“You don't meet 'em,” said Matty.

“What if they jump me on the street?”

Matty gathered up her purse. “If you think you're being followed, go to a police station.”

“Yeah, I hadn't thought of that.”

She shook out her car keys and said, “Agent Azzara's take on this is very popular downtown. Think about that.”

“Y
OU WANT A WHAT
?”
asked Marg.

“Five-hundred-dollar invoice for
The Mark Behler Show.”

“You saw what they paid Lily just to embarrass you.”

“I want to find out about the policeman who was ever so helpful to Mark Behler,” I said. “Using Lily's Social Security number to further a private enterprise is against the law.”

“Lending institutions and credit-reporting agencies do it all the time.”

“PI's who do it go to jail.”

“Behler will never reveal his contact,” said Marg.

“It's not like I was going to ask him directly,” I said. “And I get a quiet afternoon of slumming in gun shops.”

Marg cranked an invoice into her typewriter. “Lily will be here to check in before she heads back to Seattle. You going to have something for her?”

Marg always amazed me with how she could rattle the keys, talk about something unrelated, and never make a mistake. “Touched your heart, did she?”

“I don't want to return the check,” said Marg.

“Go ahead and play that,” I said. “You ain't fooling me.”

“Quarterly taxes and FICA are due.”

“I'm on Lily's case like ants on a fumbled jelly bean.”

• • •

For temporary office space, Mark Behler had landed a card table and folding chair in a utility closet at the junior college, complete with a slop sink and mop rack.

“Nice digs,” I told him.

“Hey,” he said, decked out in full curmudgeon, sans the toupee, wearing jeans and a green
The Mark Behler Show
T-shirt, “I got the only office with running water.”

“A reward for definitive reporting?”

“I'm a journalist,” said Behler. “Journalists write the first draft of history. A few anecdotal facts aren't important if they tend to cloud the truth at the heart of an issue.”

I rocked my chair back. “You said I was a security guard.”

Behler shook a finger at me but said nothing. He went back to unloading the contents of a cardboard carton onto his desk.

“What?”

Behler dragged a ragged T-shirt from the box and used it to wipe off a dictionary and a thesaurus before he piled them onto the desk. A mahogany gavel with a brass plaque came out of the box next. He gave them a loving rub up and said, “I happen to know that you have a private security license.”

In Michigan, a detective license comes with a security license attached, like a conjoined twin. It doubles the license fees, and if the state police pull your detective ticket, you can't hang around to bedevil them as a security operator.

“I guess you've done your homework,” I said and watched a hint of the fox morph onto Behler's basset hound countenance.

“I have my sources,” he said.

“What's the gavel?”

“I'm a past president of the Suburban Rotary Club.”

“Meets at the Beltline Bar?” I asked.

“Familiar?”

“Fantastic wet burritos,” I said. “Saw the Rotary plaque in the lobby. Ryan Kope belongs to that chapter, doesn't he?”

Behler blinked and talked into the box. “Yeah, he's the president this year.” Glancing up from the box, Behler filtered, “Sorry to hold you up,” through a saccharine face.

“Hey, you bought four hours, and the coffee here is better than at your studio.”

“Chet makes the coffee.”

“Chet's a dangerous man,” I said.

Robby, the cameraman, walked in with a tan trench coat draped over a black gym bag.

“Art Hardin, Robby Richards,” said Behler. “Robby will be rolling tape for us today.”

Robby took my offered hand for a quick shake.

“I met Mr. Richards with Chet Harkness the other day.”

“Robby's fine,” Richards said and let go of my hand. “We just about ready? I have some editing.”

Behler snatched a tan trench coat off his folding chair. “Probably should go now. We only have Art for four hours,” he said. He pulled on the trench coat and buttoned it up to his neck. Robby did the same.

“Sorry, I forgot my trench coat,” I said. “Don't we need a camera?”

“In the gym bag,” said Robby.

• • •

“The name Thomas Vogel mean anything to you?” asked Mark Behler from the back seat. Robby Richards had taken the shotgun seat because he had to wrestle the camera in and out of the car. I turned east on Michigan Avenue and started up the hill.

“Vogel?” I said. “Nothing comes to mind.”

“Peggy Shatner's son,” said Behler. “After the divorce, she took back her maiden name.”

“He's the one who went out sideways?”

“Sideways?” asked Robby.

“Suicide,” I said.

Robby groaned and then chuckled.

“Chet Harkness said the revolver she shot up the pizzeria with was the same one her son used to kill himself,” I said.

“Remember the gas station that used to be on the corner of Twenty-eighth and the Beltline?” asked Behler.

“Guy went bankrupt,” I said. “Turned out he'd financed the same tow truck four times using junkyard titles.”

“Thomas Vogel,” said Behler. “We did a segment on the story. The man Peggy Shatner shot at the pizzeria was the fraud investigator from the bank that held the paper. The woman was his daughter. She worked at the pizzeria. His office was in the bank across the parking lot, and he had lunch with his daughter every day.”

“So it wasn't a random shooting?” I asked.

“The investigator at the prosecutor's office and the man the Shatner woman shot took turns calling Vogel at the gas station and his home for
three days. Every time he hung up the telephone, it rang again, and one of them asked him to send a tow truck. On the third day, he said he only had one tow truck.”

“I thought we'd be going down toward South Division,” said Robby.

“Criminal element?” I asked.

“Well, yeah,” said Robby.

“Not to worry,” I said. “Plenty of criminals where we're going.”

He nodded.

“Vogel got five years,” said Behler. “When his father died, they let him come home for the funeral. He took his father's gun out into the garage and blew his head off.”

“Why'd he do that?” asked Robby.

“He'd contracted HIV in jail,” said Behler. “Kind of an ugly story.”

“No, I mean why'd he go out into the garage? You know. People do that. They go into the bathroom or basement.”

“I guess suicide is kind of a private thing,” said Behler.

“Dutch tidiness,” I said, and turned south on Ball Avenue.

Robby wrinkled his face into a question mark.

“Cement or tile floor,” I said. “Easier to clean up the mess.”

“Oh,” said Robby, sounding ill.

“What did Peggy Shatner say to you just before she killed your tape recorder?” I asked.

Behler made a groan but didn't answer.

“Hey,” said Robby, “that's the county jail coming up here on the right.”

I flipped up my turn signal for a right-hand turn. “Like I said, no shortage of criminals.”

“What are you doing?” asked Behler.

I stole a glance at Behler in the rearview mirror and found his eyes locked on mine. “Kent County Sheriff's Office. This is where you apply for a permit to purchase a firearm.”

“This isn't what you were paid for,” said Behler.

“I was paid to walk you through the purchase of a firearm,” I said. “I've heard you hold forth on the sorry state of Michigan's gun laws. Figured you'd know we had to start here.”

“This is pointless,” said Behler. He looked out the side window in disgust.

“Gee whiz, Mark,” I said. “‘This is just some paperwork.' Isn't that the way you put it on your show?”

“You were paid for your street acumen,” said Behler.

“You just got the benefit of it.”

Behler collapsed back into his seat and stared at his hands. Robby looked ready to bolt out of the car.

“Look, Mark,” I said and threw an arm over the seat so I could look at him directly. “Somebody went through this process to purchase the revolver that the Shatner woman used, and it sure as hell didn't stop her from shooting up the restaurant. Doesn't that kind of make your point?”

Behler looked up from his lap wearing a five-hundred-watt smile. Robby made an audible exhale.

• • •

The woman on the gun desk—Mildred, civilian attire, with a name tag—disappeared when Robby hauled out the camera. She said she needed to fix her hair. Thirty seconds after the door fanned her backside, the sheriff strolled in, all smiles and handshakes.

“A heads up would have been nice,” he said. “I don't get many chances to wear my dress uniform.”

Mildred returned smelling of hair spray. “You fill out the form, we Teletype the State of Michigan, and they Teletype us back with the clearance. Takes about ten minutes.”

“Ten minutes?” asked Behler, his face lighting up like a kid with an Easter basket.

Robby cranked up the camera. Behler told him to shoot from behind—he didn't have his hair with him. Everyone delivered their lines deadpan. The sheriff planted himself in the background, shoulders square, hands folded, and made the occasional nod to convey his confidence and concern.

Behler filled out the forms and tendered his driver's license. The woman on the gun desk scanned the form and turned it back to Behler. She pecked at a line with her finger. “Have you ever been convicted of a felony?”

“Mark Behler has never been convicted of a felony,” he said.

“Then the answer is no,'” she said. “And there's a blank for your Social Security number.”

Behler produced a pair of reading glasses and parked them on a sheepish face. He finished the form. The sheriff broke into his stump speech but let it taper off when Robby shut off the camera.

Mildred examined the form, pronounced it good with a nod, and swiveled her chair to face the Teletype. She rattled the keys with the same speed and confidence that left me in awe of Marg. She hit the send key.
Nothing happened. She hit the send key again. Still nothing. “The Teletype is down,” she said.

“How long?” asked Behler.

“No way of telling,” said the sheriff. “I
am
sorry. This happens occasionally. The best bet is to come back tomorrow to pick up your purchase permit.”

“Isn't there something we can do?” asked Behler. “I've got the cameraman today and a heavy schedule tomorrow.”

The sheriff made a growl out of clearing his throat and said, “Mr. Behler, the thing to do is come back.” With a nod and an arch of his eyebrows he added, “Tomorrow.” He smiled. “You know we're going to take care of you.” He grabbed Behler's hand for a shake and clapped him on the shoulder. “If tomorrow doesn't work for you, pick a day when we can fit into your schedule.”