The Yellow Packard (22 page)

“We got something,” Reese admitted, “and no matter how little that is, it’s the first break we’ve had in the case.” He turned to his partner. “Where to next, Helen?”

“Chicago to be with the lab crew when they go through that car. But I want you to stay here and see if you can track down the Hookses. If we can find them then we can get a lead on our mysterious car salesman. He’s the key to this whole thing.”

“Can I go back home?” Landers asked.

Meeker shook her head. “Not until you spend some time with one of our sketch artists and then spend a couple of days going through some mug shots. Your memory was jogged tonight. I want to see what an artist can give us from your descriptions and if any of the faces of known criminals fits your car salesman.

“And, Henry,” she went on, “get that boy to give our portrait makers his memories as well. Let’s have a team go through fingerprint files looking for someone with a badly scarred index finger.”

“Got it,” Reese replied.

“But first”—she grinned—“let’s go to the hotel. I need to pick up my things and get to the airport.”

As Reese started the Ford and a very relieved Landers relaxed in the backseat, Meeker took another long look at the diner. The devil had been here. She could still feel his presence. And feeling the cold sting of evil was better than feeling nothing at all.

Chapter 42

T
he office phone was ringing as Meeker walked into the room. After she set her briefcase and purse down on the desk, she answered. A familiar voice was on the other end.

“Five rings, that’s a record. I’ve never known it to take you more than three.”

“I was just returning from lunch, Henry. A girl’s got to eat. What’s going on in St. Louis? You’ve had two full days, surely you’ve got something.”

“A sketch that matches no one in our files,” he explained, “and no fingerprint matches, either, where the index finger matches a face anything like the guy that sold Landers the car. Worse yet, I can’t find the Hookses. At least I can’t find the mother.”

“Okay,” Meeker returned, “you left that door open. So I guess I’ll walk in.”

“Make yourself comfortable,” Reese cracked. “Here is what I know for sure. Their names were Marge and Earl. They were pretty reclusive even before their daughter died. A neighbor said the mother took it real hard when Mary was killed. And it wasn’t a car accident like the kid remembered. She was shot.”

“Let me guess,” Meeker cut in, “no leads on who did it.”

“Yep, you guessed right. She was a good student, didn’t run with the wrong crowd, and never got into any kind of trouble anyway. She was found in a city park. Whoever killed her did it execution style.”

“Wow. No wonder the mother went into a shell.”

“It gets better,” Reese continued. “Earl died a few months ago. No one really knows how. Marge called it in, and the coroner ruled it a natural death. He was buried in a pauper’s grave.”

“How old was he?” Meeker asked.

“Helen, he was way too young to die of old age. The death certificate lists his age at forty-one. There was no autopsy as the body showed no obvious signs of foul play. Listen to this scoop–Hooks had no job, but local crime stoolies say he was connected to a gangster I’ve spent some time trying to catch. This guy is a real piece of work, too—Jack McGrew.”

“‘Pistolwhip’ McGrew?” she shot back.

“None other. I couldn’t confirm it, but it makes a certain degree of sense since the family had no income that I could find.”

“I’m guessing,” Meeker jumped back on the line, “that when Hooks died Marge took off?”

“She moved,” Reese confirmed, “but no one knows where. I took a trip down to Farmington, where she was born and raised, but no one had seen her there. Her only brother died of scarlet fever as a kid. Her parents died about a decade ago within a year of each other. The last time she was back in that area was for her mother’s funeral. No one here has heard from her since.”

“And that is your dead end.”

“Yeah,” Reese admitted. “I have no idea what direction to go now. It’s like she disappeared into thin air.”

“Then why don’t you come back here?” Meeker suggested. “We’ll show the sketch to the Halls and see if it means anything to them.”

“See you tomorrow.”

Meeker had no more than placed the receiver back in its cradle when the phone rang again. This time she answered on the first ring.

“Meeker.”

“Helen, it’s Becca. I’ve gone through the Packard. I could tell you over the phone, but knowing you, I figured you’d want to see it for yourself.”

“Be right there.” Dropping the phone back into place, Meeker took a sip of lukewarm coffee and headed out the door and down the hall to the elevator. Two minutes later, she was in the basement where the FBI’s crime lab was housed. In one corner was the Packard. Standing beside it, grease covering several different parts of her white lab coat was Rebecca Bobbs.

Bobbs was not with the FBI. She worked for the OSS, but Meeker only had to make one call to Mrs. Roosevelt to secure the young woman’s trip from Washington to Chicago. An Ohio native, Bobbs was one of the first female grads of OSS’s crime lab training school. She was a bright, energetic blond blessed with a pert nose, blue eyes, and a beauty-queen smile. She employed her beautiful eyes to charm men while she noted the most minute of details at crime scenes. It was for that reason Meeker begged the First Lady to get FDR to have Bobbs pulled from a case in Maryland. She had flown in last night and immediately gone to work.

“So, what do you have, Becca?”

“I have a car that is pretty much clean, as far as evidence goes. The only fingerprints I could find in the obvious places were either from Landers or the black widow he was dating.”

“So you have no prints?”

“None. But the blue paint is thin. It was a quick job. Whoever did it didn’t take anything off the car. They just taped it and shot. I only found a couple of runs, so they knew what they were doing and had some skill. There are a thousand shops that do that sort of thing. They take a car the night it’s stolen, quickly give it new color, and then sell it. You could probably find half a dozen vehicles just like this on used car lots within a couple of miles of here right now. Yet there is one thing that set this one apart.”

“That is?”

Bobbs pointed to the sedan. “I found no prints at all in the paint. Usually the painter touches at least in one place, under a fender or the hood, while it is still wet with enough pressure to leave an impression. This guy must have been very, very careful.”

“I’m not surprised,” Meeker said, “considering this car was involved in a kidnapping. When you’re looking at death row, you tend to cover your tracks. Becca, did you find anything I can actually use?”

“Maybe,” the woman said as she opened the back passenger door. The rear seat had been taken out and turned upside down. She flipped on a flashlight and shined it at a point between the padding and a seat spring. “Do you see that?”

Meeker leaned over, grabbed the light, and studied the spot. Under a spring was a small piece of paper. From behind her, Bobbs explained, “That’s a part of some paper money.”

“Can you take it out?” Meeker asked.

“Sure.” Grabbing her tweezers, Bobbs carefully worked the scrap free. She then moved across the room to a table. “Let me unfold what’s left.” She grabbed a second set of tweezers and gingerly pulled the paper flat. The technician’s ruler proved it was three quarters of an inch long and a half-inch wide.

The lab tech shook her head. “Not much there.”

“Enough to know it’s a C-note,” Meeker said. “Let’s bag it and hold on to that.”

“Does it mean something?”

“Has to mean something. I just don’t know what.”

“Anything else?”

Walking back to the car, Bobbs opened the front passenger door and flipped the bottom cushion. Meeker came up beside her and looked in. There, stuck to the metal seat frame as if hidden to retrieve later, were two toy Scotty dogs. One was black and the other white.

“I’ve seen these,” the agent noted, “or at least some like them.”

“You can buy them pretty much anywhere,” Bobbs quipped. “These dogs are each set on separate magnets and when you push them toward each other they rush to the other or push away. It’s kind of a science lesson all about magnetic poles. Do you think they were the little girl’s?”

“Probably,” Meeker answered. “When you get finished testing them, have them sent to my office. I’m going to go see her folks in a couple of days. I’ll take them down and ask.”

“Will do. Sorry I couldn’t find more.”

“Thanks for flying in, Becca. I’ll take you out for dinner next time I’m in DC.”

As Bobbs took the toy dogs back to the lab table, Meeker studied the car. An idea was forming in her head. It was a long shot, but at this point she really had no other options. And if nothing came out of her next trip to Oakwood then it might be time to take some long shots.

Chapter 43

O
n Friday, Meeker made the three-hour drive to Oakwood alone. She didn’t need Reese and felt it might go better if the Halls dealt with just one person. She walked into Carole’s Flowers at three thirty. The owner was helping a teenager pick out a corsage for a weekend date. As the agent listened in on the conversation, she was able to deduce it was some kind of high school dance being held at the Danville Country Club. Oh, to be young and carefree again. On days like this, adult responsibilities weren’t any fun at all.

In the five additional minutes it took for Carole Hall to convince the boy which flower was best and then fix the corsage and box it for him, Meeker thumbed through the latest issue of
Good Housekeeping.
She noted a recipe for a cream pie that looked tasty. She made a mental note to pick up a copy of the magazine when she went by a newsstand on her way to work on Monday.

As the bell atop the door rang, signaling that the boy had left the shop, Carole made her way to the corner where the agent stood. Meeker looked up and smiled. Though her eyes were sad and her complexion pale, the mother seemed be stronger than she had been during their last visit. Nevertheless, Meeker asked, “How are you doing?”

“As long as I’m working,” Carole explained, her voice steady and strong, “I’m fine. The nights aren’t very good.” She paused, bit her lip, and added, “Thanks for the card you sent on Rose’s birthday. It meant a lot.”

“It wasn’t enough.” The agent sighed. “Not nearly enough.”

Carole walked over to the window and looked out at the now empty street. “When you called I got my hopes up a little. But you’d have said something on the phone if you’d found Rose. That is unless you found her and she’s …” She obviously couldn’t bring herself to finish the sentence.

“No,” Meeker quickly cut in, “we haven’t found her, so don’t go imagining things. What I called about was that we did find your Packard.”

Carole didn’t speak. Rather she just turned and waited for the explanation she was sure would follow. She didn’t have to wait more than a heartbeat.

“It was in Arkansas. A salesman bought it back in April in the St. Louis area. Best that we can tell, he had no way of knowing it had been a part of a crime. Someone had repainted it dark blue. Right now we are trying to track down the man who had it painted and sold it to this Bill Landers. I was hoping the car might give us some more clues, but that hasn’t happened. At least not yet.”

Casting her eyes to the floor, Carole nodded.

“Carole, I was hoping George would be here, too.”

A pained expression washed over the woman’s face as she looked at Meeker. Her bottom lip trembled as she fought to control her emotions. Finally, her voice quivered out a completely unexpected explanation, “I should have told you on the phone, but he left about a month ago. Just packed his things and took off. He said he couldn’t take it anymore.”

The agent reached out and took the woman’s hand. “I’m sorry.”

“I understand why he left,” Carole continued. “What happened broke him. No matter what anyone says, he feels he’s to blame. When he realized her birthday was coming up, he fell completely apart.”

She turned her head back to the window and added, “You know, George never drank. Not even when the other kids were doing it back in high school. He was always the straight arrow. But in the weeks before he left, he drank himself out of a job. He was just that miserable. I couldn’t pull him off it. No one could. He drank for three straight days before he left. When he sobered up, he packed and had me take him to the train station. He called me last week, told me he was in San Francisco. He assured me he loved me, just that he felt he’d let me down too much to come home.”

She walked over to the counter and pulled an envelope out from a shelf under the cash register. She waved it in the air as she picked up the conservation. “He must have a job. This arrived today. He sent me money and vowed to continue to make all the house payments and any other expenses I had. So he’s trying. Maybe someday, when the wounds heal, he’ll be strong enough to come home.”

The fact that George Hall left his wife didn’t surprise the agent. A lot of marriages failed when children died in crimes. Those couples that didn’t split never really got back on with their lives. At least their lives were never the same. The wounds didn’t heal. She knew firsthand—from an experience she had never and would never share with anyone—they never would.

Reaching into her pocket, Meeker pulled out the toy dogs Bobbs had discovered in the car. She squeezed them into the palm of her hand for a moment, and then after taking a deep breath, strolled resolutely across the room.

“Carole, do these mean anything to you?”

She held out her hand, opening it so the other woman would see the Scotties. She noted an immediate flash of recognition in the flower shop owner’s eyes.

“Rose had a pair like this. Her dad gave them to her at Christmas. She liked to play with them when I drove around making deliveries. I think she liked the fact that she could stick them to the dashboard.”

“They were in the car,” Meeker explained.