The Yellow Packard (26 page)

The shop owner gave Meeker her address book opened to the number. Four minutes later George Hall was on the other end of the line.

“Did you know a man named Mitchell Burgess?” Meeker demanded.

“Didn’t really know him,” the man answered, “but Rose and I talked to him once.”

“Was it right after you found the money?”

The line went silent for a few moments before George, his voice weak, came back on the line. “Yes, it was right after she found it. I was asking around, trying to make sure no one had lost it. Surely that had nothing to do with her being taken. I mean he was a bit strange, but he’d been around town for a while. Should I have told you about him when it happened?”

“I wish you would have remembered him then,” Meeker replied. “But that’s water under the bridge now.”

“I didn’t,” the man whispered. “Maybe I was too shocked. But I only ran into him once. And I just never thought anyone from Oakwood could …” He paused a moment before asking, “Are you sure it’s him?”

“No,” the agent replied, “but we might be closer. We’ll keep you in the loop. Now let us do our job.”

Carole looked toward the agent as she hung up. “What’s this all about?”

“Maybe nothing,” Meeker explained. “And maybe everything. We will have to find Mitchell Burgess to know for sure. We feel confident he was the one who sold your car to the salesman. And as he knew about the money, that means he was likely involved in the kidnapping. Come on, Henry, we’ve got to get moving.”

The two walked quickly to the door. Just as they were about to leave, Meeker looked back to the shop owner. “Say a few prayers. This is definitely a break, but there is still much to be done.”

Carole nodded as the pair charged off down the street on foot.

“So, Helen, what are you thinking?” Reese asked once they were a full block from the shop. “It’s like you know something I don’t.”

“I believe the car has always been the key,” she replied. “Yet to be sure I need to ask Johns one more question.”

Meeker rushed into the lawyer’s office, past the secretary, and without knocking, pushed his office door open. A surprised Johns was sitting at his desk on the phone. As he looked up and spotted his uninvited guests he mumbled, “I’ll have to call you back. There are some FBI agents in my office.”

“Sorry to bother you, but I need a couple of answers,” Meeker explained.

“Okay,” he replied while setting the phone’s receiver down.

“Did you search the car for the money?”

“You mean her yellow Packard?”

“Yeah.”

“We looked in the trunk,” he said.

“What about under the seat? Or actually in the seat’s cushion?”

“No,” he admitted. “Do you think that’s where she hid it?”

“I think so.”

“That explains something I never understood,” Johns whispered.

“What?” Meeker demanded.

“She and her niece took me out to eat one day. Abbi insisted on driving. I let Janet ride up front, and I rode in the backseat. I couldn’t believe how lumpy and uncomfortable it was.”

Meeker glanced over to Reese. “The gal I brought in to do the lab work on the car, Becca Bobbs, found a piece of a hundred-dollar bill under the seat pushed up into the springs. What we found out from Mr. Johns here, combined with the lab report, tells me Abbi must have hidden her money in the car. So, Burgess likely searched everywhere but there. But he put two and two together when Rose found the money. She probably reached her hand in between the top of the seat and the bottom. Maybe she was playing and lost something down there. The toy dogs maybe. A few of the bills must have worked their way down to that area and she pulled them out.”

“But she said she found them on the ground,” Reese argued.

“Maybe what she lost was something she wasn’t supposed to have,” Meeker explained. “I remember being a kid and playing with things I wasn’t supposed to touch, like my dad’s lighter or my mother’s jewelry. If I’d lost one of those things I wouldn’t have wanted to show my parents exactly where, because if they found it I’d get in trouble….”

“But why didn’t Burgess just take the car? Why the kidnapping scam?”

“Maybe he tried to take the car but between both of the Halls using it and then locking it in the garage at night, he couldn’t get to it. So he got impatient. Or …”

She smiled as another thought came to her. “Or he wanted to know if they had found all the money. If they had, then coming up with the five thousand would have been easy. The Halls wouldn’t have protested at all. But if they seemed concerned about raising the money, if they had to go to extremes to come up with the cash, it meant Watling’s loot was still in the car.”

Reese nodded. “So when the Halls had to scramble for cash, he had his answer. That’s why he wanted the car left at the rest stop. He needed to search it. But that would’ve taken some time, so he just took the car.” He paused. “But why not just destroy the car after he found the money?”

“Because he couldn’t resist”—Meeker smiled—“making a few more easy bucks. Every small-time crook who tries to hit the big score still can’t let go of who he once was when every dime counted.”

“And the kid?” Reese asked. “They were probably spooked that she could identify them.”

“And you know what that means,” Meeker added.

The ringing of the phone caused three sets of eyes to turn toward the closed door to the entry. Johns’s secretary picked up, and they could hear her say, “Samuel Johns, Attorney at Law. How can I help you?” A moment later the door cracked open.

“Are either of you Henry Reese?”

“I am.”

“There’s a call for you. The party says they are from the FBI.”

As her partner moved toward the outer office and to the phone, Meeker cast an accusing stare back at the attorney. “I can’t believe you didn’t recognize Burgess the first time you saw that sketch in the newspaper.”

Johns set his jaw and fired back, “Listen, young woman, in my practice you defend a lot of people. I always try to see the good in them. If I can’t, then the case is in trouble. I now wish I had never had any dealings with Mitchell Burgess. But what I’m telling you is that in my mind, the man in your sketch didn’t look like the man I knew. I just didn’t see it until you finally pointed it out to me.”

“Because that man in the sketch was guilty?” Meeker asked. “And you couldn’t take knowing that you might have been part of the reason a little girl died?”

Her words cut into Johns with the fury intended. She wanted him to think about it. If he had opted not to get involved for fear he was the reason this happened, then he needed to have a lot of sleepless nights. And he needed to be forthcoming with any other information he had. As she heard Reese end his call, she slyly noted, “We got lucky. Thanks to talkative Nancy we have something concrete to go on, but it might be too late.”

“Luck,” he wryly laughed, “that’s what that car you drove up in brings everyone who drives it for a while. Then, according to what everyone around here believes, the Packard turns on you. Suddenly it cuts you down. If legend is right, you’re in for some bad times.”

Meeker looked into the man’s suddenly sad eyes. “You believe that?”

“I didn’t,” he admitted, “but since watching what happened to the Halls, I do now. You need to take that car back and park it. You should never drive it again.”

“Thanks for the warning,” she snapped, “but I’m going to see if there’s still some good luck left in that ride for me.”

“We’ve got to get moving,” Reese urged as he joined the two.

“Let’s roll,” Meeker replied. But before she walked out, she added one terse coda to the proceedings, “If I find out you knew that it was Burgess in that sketch and you did nothing, then I’ll be back to deal with you personally.”

Chapter 49

D
rive 150 west,” Reese said as they slid into the Packard.

After starting the car and pulling away from the curb, Meeker glanced to the left and asked, “What’s up?”

“Nothing to do with the Hall case or anything you’re working on. It was a case I was assigned to a year ago before they teamed us up. You know about Jack McGrew.”

“Of course,” she replied as she turned right and brought the car up to speed. “You brought him up the other day as having known that Hooks character. He’s a one-time small crook that graduated to the big world of bank heists. He’s been on the Public Enemy List for a couple of years. If I remember correctly, he’s from Wyoming.”

“That’s our guy,” Reese replied. “We got a tip that he is holed up in a farmhouse nearby between two small towns—Ogden and Hope. There’s a trooper waiting about two miles south of Ogden on the highway. His partner is watching the house to make sure McGrew, if he is there, doesn’t take off.”

“So, we need to speed it up a bit?” she asked, pushing the car up to seventy.

“No,” he said, “we’ve got lots of time. We are going to do this one real quiet-like and try not to create any fireworks. And speaking of fireworks, you set a few off today. You were pretty hard on Johns back there.”

“Oh.” She grimly smiled. “You heard me dig into him when you were on the phone?”

“I can do more than one thing at a time. But why the issue with him?”

“He should have recognized the sketch.”

“How do you know? You’ve never seen Burgess, maybe the sketch doesn’t look enough like him to set off alarms.”

“I think he might be hiding something,” she shot back. “But maybe you’re right. Maybe the sketch doesn’t look like the Burgess he knew. Time will tell. Now, how did McGrew get the nickname ‘Pistolwhip’?”

“It’s not a name he likes,” the man explained. “He got pistol whipped by a member of the Chicago mob back when he was trying to make their team. He was just a hick from the west trying to impress Capone and his gang. He took one step too many. Unless he’s gotten it fixed, his nose is still pretty crooked.”

Reese waited a moment before adding, “When you get about halfway through Ogden, you turn left on 49.”

“Got it. What do we need to know about McGrew? Are we going in to arrest the guy or just confirm he’s the one in the house and then wait for backup?”

“The latter,” Reese explained. “I’ve seen McGrew. When I get a look I’ll know if it’s him. If it is, we’ll call in a task force with lots of firepower. Then, after we’ve figured out how many men are in that house, we’ll move in. Hoover has stated that he’d like to save the courts the cost of a trial.”

“That’s grim,” she replied, “but I understand. It’s not about the banks, it’s about the blood he’s spilled.”

“Three cops,” Reese added. “Look up there. That must be the trooper beside that car parked in the ditch.”

Meeker eased the Packard to a stop on the shoulder, and the two got out to meet with one of Illinois’ finest. As they walked up to the man, the agent noted a bit of dampness in the air. Looking over her shoulder she observed storm clouds gathering. She wasn’t looking forward to getting wet, not in her best suit and pumps.

“You Reese?” the trooper asked.

“Yeah, and this is a member of FDR’s crime task force, Helen Meeker.”

“I’ve seen you in the newsreels, ma’am. I’m Strickland.” He nodded at her.

“How far is the farm?” Reese asked.

“About a mile to the west, down that gravel road over there. We got a tip from a postman about McGrew being holed up in the house. The postman recognized him from a poster that had been pinned up in the post office.”

“Yeah,” Reese said, “those things work from time to time. Whose house is it?”

“No one has lived there for a couple of years. The man who owned it before sold it to a neighbor and moved to the city to work in a factory.”

“Anybody there besides McGrew?” Meeker asked.

“We don’t know,” the trooper admitted. “My partner, Jim Schwatzy, is up there. Maybe he can tell us. You ready?”

Reese nodded.

“Then get in the Packard and follow my Ford. I’ll lead the way.”

A few drops of rain spattered on the windshield as they reentered the Packard. By the time they turned onto the gravel road the skies opened up.

“The rain’s a good thing,” Reese noted as he pulled out his gun and checked it. “It’ll make us harder to spot.”

“I take it you’re expecting trouble?” Meeker noted, her eyes going to the thirty-two.

“We shouldn’t have any problems, but you never know. There’s no predicting a snake like McGrew. The ones that know they’re going to death row are the most dangerous.” He lifted his gaze to hers. “Can I ask you something?”

“You can ask,” Meeker replied, “but I’m making no guarantees I’ll answer.”

“You ever fired your gun? Well, you know … at something other than a target?”

“No,” she honestly replied. “I’m hoping I never have to.”

“Neither have I,” he admitted. “But if this is McGrew, we might both get our baptism by fire.”

The trooper pulled off the road about a quarter mile from a dilapidated, two-story frame house surrounded by a large barn, a corncrib, and a chicken coop. Each of those buildings, just like the house, needed a new coat of paint. Except for one small stand of trees, the remainder of the flat area was completely surrounded by cornfields.

Strickland stepped from the car and glanced over to the small clump of trees. After waving, he walked back toward the two agents. With guns drawn, they waited in the light rain alongside the Packard.

“Schwatzy’s over in the trees watching the place,” the trooper explained. “I’m sure he’ll come over in a minute to give us an update.”

Meeker cast a look in that direction. As she peered through the now steady shower, she saw no movement. “You sure he’s there?” she asked.

“Yeah,” the man replied. “But we can go over and meet with him there.”

“Might be better,” Reese suggested. “The trees will at least offer us a bit of shelter from this darn weather.”

With Strickland leading the way, the trio stepped through knee-high grass to the six or seven trees. “That’s strange,” the trooper said, “he’s not here.”

As the two men took a few steps up the fencerow toward the home, Meeker inspected the area where they had expected to find Schwatzy. It was obvious the man had been here—she could see where his shoes had pushed down the grass. There were also three recently smoked cigarette butts that had been dropped by a tree. She studied the field just to the right of the trees. The cornstalks were brown. Heavy ears, almost ready to harvest, were pulling them down toward the black Illinois soil. Everything looked normal except for a series of broken stalks about twenty feet beyond the woods. It was obvious that something had disturbed them. Moving quickly forward, she ducked in between the rows of corn and followed the channels for almost fifty feet. She stopped dead in her tracks when she spotted the crumpled body in the uniform of a state trooper. The man was lying face down in the black soil, a broken cornstalk resting on his back as if it were a funeral bouquet.