Terry Odell - Mapleton 02 - Deadly Bones (36 page)

Icy fingers gripped his spine. He attacked the search engines.

Chapter 40

Gordon looked at the two images side by side and scratched his head. Coincidence? Or was it him? “Colfax. Look at this.”

“Huh?”

“Get your ass over here. Tell me I’m not crazy.”

“Can’t promise that.” But Colfax leaned over Gordon’s monitor. “Why am I looking at this?”

“Tell me if you see a resemblance.”

Colfax stepped back and pursed his lips. “Now that you mention it, yeah. Around the eyes. The jawline. But I wouldn’t bet a beer on it.”

“So, how do I find out if they’re related? This would go back at least two or three generations, I’d think.”

“Google family trees for Abraham Pinkerton. That should give you a few places to start.”

“Thanks.” After making sure he’d hear his cell if it rang, and trying to set thoughts of Angie into a separate compartment of his brain, Gordon set to work, and Colfax returned to his laptop.

Gordon’s brows lifted as he zeroed in on the Abraham Pinkerton he was seeking. When he needed background information, he’d have to spend more time on Google and less on the cut-and-dried law enforcement search engines. He grabbed a legal tablet and started making notes.

Born Abraham Pinkus in Danzig in 1912, came to the US with his family in 1919. Settled in New York, family changed their name to Pinkerton. Married to Maude Shipley in 1930. Got his medical degree in 1942 and moved to California.

Gordon scrolled through the listings, wanting more family tree and less up close and personal. Maude and Abraham had a daughter and a son. The daughter, Anne-Marie, definitely had her father’s eyes. He continued, with only the occasional pleading glance at his cell phone. “Bingo!”

Colfax blinked. “I believe the correct term is
Eureka
.”

Gordon studied the screen once more. How could he have missed it? And how did it connect? But Gordon didn’t believe in totally meaningless coincidences.

“So,” Colfax said. “You going to share?”

“Abraham Pinkerton had two kids. His daughter married one Norton Alexander and had a son, Martin, in 1957.”

“Martin Alexander?” Colfax’s eyes bugged. “You’re shittin’ me. Mayor Alexander is Abraham Pinkerton’s grandson?”

“Maybe I’m learning my way around Google myself, but I knew there was a reason Pinkerton’s portrait gave me the willies. It was like standing across the mayor’s desk, getting another lecture about my incompetence. I don’t know why I didn’t see it sooner.”

Colfax rounded the desk and sank into his chair. “So, Abraham Pinkerton is connected to Dr. Evans and Mayor Alexander. That’s gotta mean something.”

“Agreed. So, all we have to do is figure out what.”

“I don’t suppose you’re up for questioning the mayor?” Colfax said.

Gordon tried to tell if Colfax was serious. “Me? And say what? All we have is a family relationship.”

“And a dead man. And some bones. And a missing woman.”

Gordon rested his hand on his cell, looked at the radio, as if information would appear. “You think I can walk up to the mayor and ask him about his grandfather? But—”

“But what?”

Gordon relayed the mayor’s late-night purportedly sympathetic visit. “His shoes were dirty. So were his jeans. Neither of which is a crime, although I’ve never seen him in anything but a suit.”

“Middle of the night, man’s going to go for comfort.”

“He might have been poking around the bone site.” Gordon said.

“If so, why would he come in shedding evidence?” Colfax said. “Anyone with a television’s going to know better.”

Gordon pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes. “I’m running on empty. You’re the detective. Throw out some motives.”

“A prominent physician and apparent philanthropist is related to your mayor? I think we need more connections first. I’m going to prod my research team.”

“What did you get on the Pinkerton Foundation? Any political connections?”

“Like, did it finance the mayor’s campaign?” Colfax clicked at his keyboard. “And so what if it did? The man’s long dead. I don’t think it’s illegal to accept money from a foundation your grandfather started. I was looking at connections to your Doc. Most of the grants are medical, so it wouldn’t be hinky that Doc got one, but it would take weeks to go through everything they’ve funded.”

“Laurie’s good at digging through records. I’ll put her on it—she might stumble on something we need.” Gordon checked the clock. “She’ll be here in an hour.”

Colfax stopped clicking and stared at the white board. “Your Angie. She was picked up near the bones, wasn’t she?”

“From the Kretzers’ house, yes.” Gordon swiveled so he could see the white board. Had Colfax noticed something? Nothing popped.

“Megan Wyatt was in the house, too, right?” Colfax said.

“Yes, but she said she was in another room.”

Colfax tapped a pen against the desk. “Someone watching the house would have seen two women go in. Why not grab both of them? Another minute or two’s all it would take.”

“We’re assuming Angie was still in the house. According to Megan she had this thing about wanting to check out the bones again. Maybe she was on her way there.”

“Door was wide open. Would she have left it that way? Not told Megan where she was going?”

Gordon mulled that over. Angie was impulsive, but he couldn’t see her doing something risky alone—not when Megan was right there. “I doubt it.”

Colfax’s gaze was directed upward, as if he were playing out the scenario, not talking to Gordon. “So, Angie was grabbed—or lured—from the house, resulting in—?”

“In yet another distraction from the bone site. If Kennedy hadn’t taken those pictures, we’d never have looked.”

“Look again. Ignore Kennedy’s looking at the site? Why Angie?”

Gordon’s mouth went dry, his palms wet. “To get to
me
.”

Colfax drew an imaginary tick mark in the air with his forefinger. “But the grab backfired. Instead of you dropping everything to look for her, you find out about tampering with the bone site and you do the professional thing, which is to let your people handle the search and you come back here to attack from the inside.”

“And the mayor is involved how?” Much as Gordon disliked the man’s politics, he couldn’t see trying to pin an abduction on him without concrete—very concrete—evidence.

Colfax grinned. “That, my man, is what we have to find out—or disprove.”

“If we find it, better it comes from you than me,” Gordon said. “But I’m definitely in on the hunt.”

“I’m sure Alexander was investigated down to his toes when he ran for office. I’m equally sure that if we scrape his toenails, we’ll find something they missed. There’s always something.” Colfax opened his cell phone and called someone Gordon assumed was one of his researchers, asking for a deep background check on Martin Alexander. “From conception onward, and I need it yesterday.”

“You know,” Gordon said, after Colfax hung up, “if Alexander is involved, I can’t see him getting his hands dirty. He’s got to have people doing it for him.”

“His entourage?” Colfax asked. “Man in his position is going to have his inner circle, even in a dump like Mapleton.”

Gordon pretended he hadn’t heard the slur. His pulse quickened. “You think one of them has Angie?”

“Can’t see him being stupid enough to keep her at the mansion.”

The mayor’s residence was hardly a mansion, but Gordon ignored that, too. “So, do we look for people who’ve made big donations to his campaign?”

“Seems that might work the other way around. They’ll figure
he
owes
them
. More likely it’ll be someone who’s trying to get into his good graces—someone with his own agenda.”

Gordon wracked his overtaxed brain. Someone on the town council? Most of them were the mayor’s yes-men. And then there were all the Mapleton citizens who supported him. Did any of them have a reason to cross the line for the mayor? A line that included abducting Angie? His stomach turned at the thought of that kind of skullduggery in Mapleton.

“Got names?” Colfax asked.

Gordon rattled off those on the town council who always sided with the mayor. The ones he dreaded seeing at council meetings. But he’d never have thought one of them would be working outside the law.

Colfax’s cell rang. Gordon glared at his again. Where the hell were his updates? Why hadn’t Megan called? In this world of instant communication, why was he so far out of things?

“Crap,” Colfax said. “You sure this time? All right. Thanks.”

Gordon waited.

Colfax stomped to the board. “Your hick newspaper. Damn reporter got the name wrong.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Robert Browning. Your Mad Dog guy. Turns out he was a wild goose chase. The guy’s name was actually Robert Brown
ell
and he ran a gun club out of Aurora. All the guys in the photo belonged. That’s your damn connection.” Colfax erased Browning’s name and replaced it with Brownell and the gun club. “My guys were looking for Browning, and didn’t follow up on the nickname. Until one of them thought it was strange that the nickname never showed up, so he kept digging and found Brownell.”

“You’re sure about it?” Gordon asked.

“I trust these guys. They triple checked. It makes more sense.”

“I don’t suppose Brownell is still alive,” Gordon said, thinking about what his age might have been when the picture was taken.

“No, but his son is, and he runs the gun club. I’ll give him a call.”

While Colfax handled that, Gordon started looking into search engines for the mayor’s henchmen. As far as the law enforcement sites went, the two men Gordon thought most likely to owe the mayor were a bust. His phone vibrated against the desk. He pounced on it, his hands visibly trembling.

A text. He pulled down the display. From Megan. He calmed himself and opened the message.

All is well. Dropped Justin at the airport. Find Angie? Can I move back to the house?

Stomach churning, he typed
Not yet. Please stay at the motel
and sent it.

Colfax set his phone on the desk. “Kid remembers the group, although he didn’t know everyone’s full name. He called them all Uncle So-And-So. They were regulars at the shooting range, went on lots of hunts, always nice to him. When his dad died, junior discovered a tidy investment package which included connections to the now-defunct Roger, Suben and Clark.”

“So, Brownell, senior, was involved in the goings-on of the company?”

“Yep. He’d owned a sizeable amount of real estate decades ago, much of which was purchased through them. The kid doesn’t know for sure where it all came from, whether he’d invested at the recommendation of the corporation and then re-sold, or whether he’d owned the land early on. He does know it’s paying for
his
kid’s college education.”

“I see the financial connection, which doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with the bones. Unless Brownell originally owned the property the Kretzer’s bought—but even then, that doesn’t mean he buried the bones there, or knew who did.”

Gordon drew lines connecting Brownell to Fred, Roger, Clark, Hal, and Doc. “Another fact to add to the pile. Which is sprawling all over the place.”

“That’s how it usually works. Until you find that one key piece.”

“And hope everything comes together instead of falling apart.”

“You could be a detective,” Colfax said.

A knock on the back door interrupted them. Gordon’s heart jumped to his throat. Angie?  Gordon glanced toward the white board and told Colfax to flip it. He inched the door open. Irv?

 Gordon took in Irv’s greenish tinge, the red-rimmed eyes, stubble-covered jaw, rumpled black denims, and a faded long-sleeved tee underneath a nylon jacket. Didn’t look like the man had slept. “You sure you shouldn’t be home in bed, Irv?” Gordon said. “If you’ve got a bug, you shouldn’t be spreading it around here.”

Irv shuffled his feet. “What I got isn’t catchable, Chief.”

“Come in.” Gordon introduced Irv to Colfax, who relinquished his chair.

Irv lowered himself onto the seat, looked from Gordon to Colfax and back. “I can’t do it anymore, no matter what Marty says.” He drew himself erect. “Chief Hepler, I hereby tender my resignation.”

Chapter 41

Gordon’s heart rate skyrocketed, more from Irv’s saying Marty than the announcement of his resignation. Ignoring the latter, he repeated the name. “Marty?”

“Didn’t seem wrong at first,” Irv said. “I mean, he
is
the mayor. He had a right to know, I reckoned.”

Gordon had a fleeting moment of feeling miffed. The mayor had told Gordon to call him Martin. Irv rated a
Marty
. Feeling foolish for the thought, he went back to what Irv had said. “Had a right to know what?”

“Routine stuff. You know, dispatch calls. If something was going on, he wanted to know about it. Gave me a number to call, and I left messages. Figured he would pick them up in the mornings, seeing as how I worked the night shift.”

“What made you come in now?” Colfax asked.

“So much going on—things weren’t ringing true.”

“Explain,” Gordon said.

“Well, first I told him you”—he cut his eyes toward Gordon—“you were doing a good job as Chief, and I didn’t see why he needed me checking up on you. He said he agreed, that he was putting together a fancy report to show the town council, and he wanted to prove that you were on top of things—making sure everything was covered, like that. Looking back, it sounds stupid, but at the time, it was convincing. And he’s the
mayor.
”

Irv’s voice was low and hoarse. Gordon leaned over and turned down the volume on the radio.

“What wasn’t ringing true?” Colfax asked.

“Like those break-ins the other night?” Irv said. “Most of them were on the list.”

“List? What list?” Gordon asked.

“You know, the Directed Patrol list. So we boost patrols when folks go out of town, or there’s a vacant house.”

Why hadn’t he thought of that, Gordon wondered. He glanced at Colfax, who shrugged. “Go on, Irv.”