Joel Goldman - No way out

“Right. And there’s one other thing. Highway Patrol got a call from someone an hour before Fowler’s wife found his body. Caller said he and his wife had passed a crazy man in a pickup truck that was pointing a shotgun out the driver’s window as they passed him on Highway 24. Fowler’s wife said he always took that highway. There was a hole in the passenger door of Fowler’s truck. The deputy told me it looked as if someone had fired a shotgun at point-blank range. Doesn’t make sense.”

“Part of it does. The thieves were on him at the gun show, at least one of them cocky enough to shoplift the Redhawk. Fowler realizes his favorite gun is missing and gets antsy, figuring they may be after the rest of his inventory. He thinks he’s being followed when he points the shotgun out the window. The driver who called the Highway Patrol, what was he driving?”

“I didn’t ask.”

“Well, ask. The thieves may have been driving something similar, and that’s what spooked Fowler. And that means Fowler thought he’d seen the thieves and what they were driving.”

“I can buy that, but it doesn’t explain Fowler’s passenger door,” Simon said.

“Who knows what was going on inside Fowler’s pickup? Guy is in a panic, maybe already having a heart attack. He’s got the shotgun off the rack. He’s pointing it out the window and pulls it back when he sees who’s in the other vehicle. A loaded shotgun is harder to handle than a cell phone while you’re driving and scared shitless. It’s a wonder he didn’t blow a hole in himself. What are those guns worth?”

“Retail, the handguns would go for an average of four to five hundred and the assault rifles from eight hundred to a grand, same for the shotgun. Makes the lot worth around a hundred and fifty thousand,” Simon said.

“Less if you’re fencing them one at a time.”

“Maybe more if you’re selling them as a lot to a motivated buyer.”

“Such as?” I asked.

“Cartels in Mexico. Drugs are a big business down there, and a handful of gangs and cartels are fighting each other and the government over it. They all need guns, and they’re getting some of them from the U.S.”

“How?”

“They have affiliates in this country. The American gangs steal the guns and smuggle them to Mexico,” he explained.

“I saw a kid on the bus today inked up with symbols of Nuestra Familia. Is that one of the cartels?”

“Yeah, along with Gran Familia Mexicana and the Cholos and some others. Is that what you wanted to know, or do you want me to keep digging?”

“I’ll settle for that for now. Take the rest of the day off.”

Frank Crenshaw was a charter member of the Upright Citizens Brigade. Worked hard, paid his taxes on time, and tried to protect his wife from bad news. I understood how someone like that, who’d played by the rules, could break under the pressure of losing everything, how in a mad moment, he could go crazy and kill his wife. It was the kind of sad crime that was committed countless times all across the world. But, how, I wondered, did a guy like that end up with a stolen gun? That was hard to do.

The phone rang at nine-thirty. I was dozing through the news. Joy was reading, the dogs asleep at her feet. I picked up the cordless phone.

“Who is it?” Joy asked.

“Caller ID says unknown.”

“Let the machine answer. You can always call back if it’s someone we need to talk to.”

She didn’t like calls from unknown callers, especially late-evening ones. The ringing triggered the primeval fear that had never left her since we lost Kevin. There had always been calls in the night when I was an FBI agent. They were part of my job. She hated those as well because they took me away, leaving her alone, uncertain when or if I’d come back.

“It’s probably nothing,” I said, answering the phone. “Hello.”

“Mr. Davis. It’s me. Roni Chase.”

I was surprised by her formality but realized she hadn’t called me by name at LC’s or at her office. Her voice was strained and hushed.

“Roni, you can call me Jack. What’s up?”

“Frank Crenshaw is dead.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. What happened? I thought that nurse told you he was going to be okay.”

“He would have been except someone else shot him.”

“Who?” I asked.

“It wasn’t me, but I don’t think Detective Carter believes me.”

“What makes you say that?”

“I’m at the hospital, and he won’t let me go home.”

“Are you under arrest?

“I don’t think so. Detective Carter hasn’t said that, but he told me I couldn’t leave.”

“Has he read you your rights?”

“Like I have a right to remain silent? All of that?”

“Yeah. All of that.”

“Not yet.”

“What happened?”

“I came to visit Frank. I wanted to see for myself that he was okay. It’s not that I’m sorry I shot him. He didn’t give me a choice. But I am sorry in another way, even if he did kill Marie. Does that make any sense?”

It was the same thing she’d told me earlier in the day. She’d keep asking herself and anyone else who would listen the same questions until it did make sense or she could live with the possibility that it never would.

“It makes perfect sense to me because I’ve been there.”

“You’ve shot people?”

“A few.”

She hesitated. “Any of them die?”

“Some.”

“And you’re okay with that?” she asked.

“I am. What about Grandma Lilly? She’s the one who made sure you knew how to use that gun. What does she have to say on the subject?”

“Her mother, my great-grandmother, was shot to death. Grandma was fifteen. She saw the whole thing and says she never got over it.”

“It’s not about getting over it. It’s about what you do with the experience. Your Grandma didn’t want you to end up like her mother. If she hadn’t taught you that lesson, you could have ended up like Marie.”

“Maybe, or maybe Frank would have just run off and left us all there and I wouldn’t have shot him and he wouldn’t be dead.”

“But that’s not what happened. I’m more interested in what happened tonight.”

“When I got to Frank’s floor, a nurse told me I couldn’t see him, so I asked to talk to that nurse I told you about who’s a friend of my mother and she said no way and got real pissy and we got into it and the next thing I know we’re both screaming at each other, she’s calling security, and the cop guarding Frank’s room comes running over. When security finally showed up, the cop went back to Frank’s room. Next thing I know, he comes running out yelling to call a doctor because Frank’s been shot.”

I understood why Carter wouldn’t let her leave. Intentionally or not, she’d created a disturbance that left Frank Crenshaw unprotected long enough for his killer to finish what she had started.

“Have you told Carter anything? Answered any questions?”

“He asked me what I was doing at the hospital, and I told him I just wanted to see how Frank was doing and then me and the nurse got into it and she called security. That’s when he gave me a look like I don’t think so and put me in an office and told one of the cops to make sure I stayed there. I didn’t know what to do, so I called you.”

“Okay. Don’t answer any more questions. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

“I don’t get it. I didn’t do anything wrong. I just wanted to see Frank.”

“No good deed goes unpunished.”

I hung up and looked at Joy. She’d put her book in her lap and was staring at me, expectant, biting her tongue.

“How’d she get our number?”

“I gave her a business card today. It’s got the office number and my home and cell. I have to go,” I said, telling her what had happened.