The Last Train From Scottsdale

Chapter Five

When I got back to the hotel there was a note to call Frank at his office. I rang the number and was put through immediately.


" How soon can you get back here?" He asked.." Something's come up that concerns you and the case."


" Slow down, Frank. It can't be that important. According to what Ms. Black told me this thing's been going on for years."


"Yeah? Well, she doesn't know about what happened here last night. How soon can you make it?"


" A couple of hours. I'll rent a car."


" Call Black's office and get her to okay you one. Make it fast, though."


" Frank, are you going to let me in on this? What's so important that I come down now?"


" Lester, I don't have time now. Just get here. " I've heard his impatient tone before, and it was best I wait until we were face to face before I asked him again.


His idea about the Attorney General issuing me a car worked. Inside of an hour I was driving a Dodge Charger


with the big Hemi engine. I roared down the interstate and made it to Scottsdale in under two hours. Frank was waiting in his office when I walked in.


" Why the big rush, Frank? You could've told me over the phone." He put his finger to his lips and ushered me outside the office ; not letting me say anythng until we were outside the courthouse.


" Did you see anyone on your way up here today? Anyone you know? " He scanned the area as he spoke, watching the cars, and people as they passed by.


" No. At least, I don't think so. Why? "


He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small disc shaped object with a dangling wire. " I found this stuck to the bottom of my phone. It's deactivated now. The State Police will be out tomorrow to sweep my office. " He clenched his fist around it as his face clouded in anger." Damn it! " He said. " I should have seen this comng. I don't have one clue as to how long my office has been bugged."


" Then, you think they know about me?" I asked.


" It's highly possible, Lester. " He seemed to shrink as he let out a long tired sigh." This thing is bigger than I imagined. "


" Let's find a place where we can talk it all out." I said, taking his arm.


We walked down to Millie's diner. Her green eyes lit up as we entered. " Well, hello, stranger. " She beamed. " I


knew you couldn't stay away for long."


" We need to use your banquet room, Millie, and don't let anyone know we're here."


She guided us past a sliding accordion door into the room full of tables and chairs. " Would you like some coffee? " She asked.


I nodded and Frank sat down at a table on the far end of the room. We waited until Millie brought the coffee and left before getting into the case.


" Let's start when you first heard about this operation. " I said over my coffee cup. " How long ago did Ms. Black contact you? "


" It was two weeks ago when I got the call. I had just finished that robbery case. You remember; The jewelry store? "


I remembered it alright. It was one of the last cases I worked before I retired. Scottsdale's jewelry store had been robbed on a friday night just before closing. Two men wearing ski masks walked in on Mister Rothstien, the owner, and his clerk, Robert Crane, a part-time employee. The victims were tied up and put behind the large counter. Then, the two perps cleaned out the safe, display cases, and till. They were in and out in less than five minutes. The only problem was when they jumped in the getaway car, and put it in gear, the transmission fell out onto the street. They were apprehended within minutes. Frank popped them for ten years each.


" I came back from court that afternoon when Marcia called me. We met in her office the next day. That's when she gave me the case."


" Who else has access to your filing cabinet? "


" I don't keep it there. It's locked in my safe every night. Believe me, Lester, I've gone over this a hundred times since I found that bug. I don't know how it got in, much less how long ago."


There was a rumble of many voices outside the accordion door; Millie's was filling up with people. " Maybe we should leave." Frank said, grabbing his briefcase. " This thing is making me jumpy. "


This case was beginning to worry me. If someone penetrated Frank's office in so short a time then there had to be a leak in the Attorney General's. That meant whoever was doing it knew about me. My anonymity never


happened.


" You and I are going back to Marcia Black's office tomorrow morning and show her that bug. " I said.


" And have her pull the plug on the investigation?" Frank said." We haven't even got off the ground."


" That device should be looked over by an expert. She has the resources."


As we were leaving Millie stopped me." Are you staying over in Scottsdale tonight?" She asked, as Frank walked out of earshot.


" Yes." I said with a nod.


" Then you're staying with me tonight." She stated as fact." And don't think for one minute I'll let you stay in that


flea bitten roach hole of a motel."


Millie was refering to Scottsdale's independantly owned Lakeview Motel on the edge of town: a hold


over from World War Two. The years hadn't helped it any.


" I'll be at my place at six. " She squeezed my arm and walked back behind the counter with the business of my staying overnight completed.


" Let's find a bench in the park and go over the case." Frank said patting his briefcase.


We strolled over to the park and found it almost devoid of people. There was a picnic table under a shading maple that looked right. Frank's breathing was labored as he sat down and opened the case. a bead of sweat trickled down his forehead as he shuffled papers.


" Man, I've got to go on a diet. My legs and feet are killing me."


I kept mum. His obesity was a problem better left to himself, and I had no claim to being slim and trim myself. Too many Beef Manhattan's from Millie's diner had pushed my gut over my belt.


He glanced over the file and handed it to me. " Marcia's office found this. One of their clerks happened to be looking over the annual costs for roads and noticed that the same companies always won the bids. It went back seven years. Then, there was the same sequence of seven years from companies winning bids. The clerk checked and found that that bunch of companies had been formed just before they won the bids. This really got her going. More checking revealed this process went back twenty years. Her reports showed that all the companies were owned by the same people changing the company names every seven years. They won the bids by undercutting everyone else. Then they made more money by landing the repairs. Do you have any idea how much is involved in road repair? Millions." He wiped his face with a handkerchief.


" Marcia's estimates are astronomical. She figures these companies have taken two-hundred-seventy million dollars over a twenty-one year period. She checked through the Auditor's office and found three State Representatives were on the company boards. Not as CEO's, but holding enough shares to control them"


" Why did she call you?" I asked.


" Because one of the companies has it's operation in Jeffersonville not far from here, and she trusts me to do a thorough invesigation. We were in college together.


" It doesn't look like much of a case. Mostly a 'Good ol' Boy' network thing. This kind of operation's in every state."


" I'm not saying it isn't, Lester. But, when a new governor's elected the companies that supported him.or her are shut out. These same people are never shut out."


" Why do you think they change names every seven years? "


" That's a trick they pull on their suppliers. They use a front man to look like he's running the show. He builds confidence in the suppliers and gradually increases supply while gradually lengthening payments. At the end of the seventh year they stop paying altogether and stiff their suppliers by declaring bankruptcy. "


" You'd think that the suppliers would get wise to this after the first time." I said.


" It's always a different front man with a different business office every time they head up a new company."


" But, the supplies are shipped to the same addresses, aren't they?"


" No. They use warehouses they lease to store the goods. The leases are for a year, which they pay in advance. " Frank shook hs head. " You see, they've covered every aspect. "


" Not every one. Ms. Black's office picked a fly speck out of a pepper pot when that clerk started looking into it.


What was his name ? "


" Albert Hughes. " Frank answered. " You know he was poisoned, don't you ? "


I nodded. " Did he have a surviving spouse? While you're at Ms. Black's office maybe I could talk to her."


Frank rifled through the file and found the dead clerk's address, scribbled it on a paper and gave it to me. " The


State Police investigators have talked to her, but, it wouldn't hurt to see her if only to show we're still on the case. "


We agreed to meet at his house at seven the next morning for the long drive to Indianapolis. I watched him waddle off to his office up the street; feeling a bit sorry for him. Here was a successful Prosecuting Attorney well thought of in the county:a big fish in a little pond. Now, this case was handed to him by the most powerful state office. And, by one of his friends, who trusted him. He was in a situation that could cost him his career.