Black Monday, A Stan Turner Mystery Vol 7

  Chapter 22

   

  BREAK IN

   

  One morning several weeks after returning from Washington, I arrived early to my office. I had a chapter 13 bankruptcy docket at 8:30 a.m. and needed to get prepared for it. When I went to open the front door of the office, I noticed the lock had been broken. I pushed the door opened and proceeded cautiously into the reception area.

  The first thing I noticed was all the drawers in Jodie's desk were open. From Jodie's work area I went to the file room. It was a mess—file drawers half-opened, files laying on the floor, and papers everywhere. I went into my office next and it looked like a tornado had struck. My locked middle drawer had been pried open with a screwdriver. Drawers were emptied out on the ground, pictures had been knocked off the walls, and books were all over the place.

  For a moment I just stood there in shock. Then I heard the door open and Jodie walked in. "What the hell?" she said. I joined her in the reception area.

  "I guess somebody was looking for something," I said.

  "Shall I call the cops?" Jodie asked.

  "Yes, call Detective Besch. Whoever did this probably has a connection to one of the two cases he's handling. You better call the trustee's office too and get me a pass this morning. I won't be able to make the 8:30 a.m. docket. "

  Jodie picked up the telephone and called Besch's number. She talked to him a minute and then hung up. "He's on his way over with a crime scene team. He said not to touch anything."

  "Okay, I guess we'll have a cup of coffee while we wait."

  She nodded and replied, "Sure, I'll put a pot on. Detective Besch and his men will probably want some too."

  We walked into the kitchen and Jodie turned on the coffee maker. I sat down and thought about who might be responsible for trashing the office. I couldn't come up with an answer.

  "You must have something that somebody wants pretty badly," Jodie surmised.

  "Yeah, I wonder what it is?"

  "Well, what do you have that belongs to Huntington or Lottie West?"

  "The IRS release," I said. "But the funds have already been stolen."

  "Anything else?"

  "No, the police have all of Lottie's stuff."

  "Maybe, it had nothing to do with either of them. It could have been a thief looking for money or equipment to steal."

  "I don't know," I said. "I guess we'll have to let Besch figure it out. He's the detective."

  Ten minutes later Besch showed up with his crime scene investigators. They began carefully processing the room looking for prints or other evidence of the intruder. Besch joined us in the coffee room while they worked.

  "This might actually be a break," Besch said. "If they left a fingerprint or someone saw them enter or exit the building, we might be able to get an identification."

  "I've racked my brain trying to figure out what I would have that someone might want, but I can't think of a thing," I said.

  "Maybe they were looking for something to do with the Jimmy Bennett case," Jodie suggested.

  "Let's just wait and see," Besch said. "In the meantime we need to focus on William West. I believe he's the key to figuring out who killed Lottie. We need to know more about him.

  "His family doesn't have much to say," I said.

  "Well, there must be neighbors and friends who knew him. They would probably be less reluctant to talk," Besch replied.

  "What about the people who did business with him? “Jodie asked.

  "Well, we've determined he died of cancer in 1980. I've already had someone check all the art dealers in town. Nobody claims to have known him," Besch said.

  "Perhaps that's because he wasn't selling to the general public. He might have been dealing with private collectors."

  "So, how do you make contact with private art dealers," Jodie asked.

  "You ask legitimate dealers. They often know who the crooks are," I said.

  "Or you send someone in looking for stolen art or a piece of art that isn't for sale," Besch said.

  "I'll do that," Jodie said.

  Besch looked at Jodie, then at me. I shrugged. "She's a pretty good actress, actually."

  "No. I'll let one of our people do it."

  "I'd really like to do it," Jodie replied. "I need a little excitement in my life. It gets boring around here typing and answering the phone all day."

  "Actually, I do have something for you to do," I said.

  "You need to contact the Ludinburg Church in Germany and contact that organization that is looking for art stolen by the Nazis during World War II. You like art don't you? You can be our in-house art expert. I have a feeling we're going to desperately need one before this case is over."

  "Okay, that sounds like fun," Jodie said tentatively. "But I don't know much about art."

  "Don't worry, neither do we," I said.

  Detective Besch got up. "We'll I've got to get going. I think my people are about done. I'll let you two get started cleaning this place up. Sorry, I can't stay to help."

  Detective Besch and his team left and Jodie and I started cleaning up the mess. Two hours later everything was in its place and we went back to work. I thought about our discussion about William West and finding black market art dealers. It was time to start the hunt. I picked up the big Dallas Yellow Pages. There were 103 listing but luckily many could be eliminated just by examining their names—American Museum of Miniature Arts, Dallas Museum of Art, etc. After culling through the list there were only eighteen that looked like serious art dealers who might deal in the type of art works that William West had for sale. After calling each of them and asking general questions, I further narrowed the list to four that seemed very sophisticated and particularly knowledgeable. It was nearly noon so I decided to get a bite to eat and then go visit the four galleries.

  The first gallery was manned by a college student who barely knew how to run the cash register. He said the owner was out of town for a few days. The owner of the second one was suspicious of my intentions, rude, and completely uncooperative. I was starting to get a little frustrated when I entered Euro Art of Dallas beneath One Main Place in downtown Dallas. It was a modest looking gallery with a large inventory of prints and quite a few original looking works of art on the walls. A partner in the business, who identified himself as Hans, greeted me. I introduced myself and told him the purpose of my visit.

  "We don't touch stolen art," Hans advised.

  "I didn't think you did, but I thought maybe being in the business you could point me in the right direction."

  "I'm sorry. I can't help you. I don't know anyone like that."

  "I'm not out to get anyone. I'm just looking for information to help me find out who murdered a client, Lottie West. Her husband William West acquired some art while he was in Europe and may have tried to sell it. He died seven or eight years ago.

  "He never actually brought the pieces with him—just pictures of them."

  The voice came from behind me. I turned and saw a tall, heavy set man speaking. He introduced himself as Leonard Linus—the other partner in Euro Art, I surmised.

  "You knew him?"

  "Like I said, he came by with photos of pieces of his stolen art and wanted me to buy them, or find a buyer. I, of course, wouldn't touch them."

  "How did you know they were stolen?"

  “Mr. Turner, these pieces were very well known—rare manuscripts in jewel bindings from Germany. They are historical pieces of great value. There have been people looking for these treasures for more than forty years. In fact, a person can earn a substantial reward simply by providing information that eventually leads to their recovery."

  "Really? Who pays for the reward?"

  "Either the church, the government, or the German Cultural Organization."

  "Did you ever report Mr. West to the authorities?"

  "No, but I contacted the German Cultural Organization and told them about it."

  "When did all this happen?"

&nb
sp; "Oh, it's been ten or fifteen years at least—I'm not sure."

  "What did they do?"

  "They told me they would pay a one million dollars’ reward for the return of the treasures—no questions asked."

  "Really?"

  "Yes, the primary purpose of the organization was to recover the goods, not prosecute the thieves. They didn't want anyone who had these pieces to be afraid to return them for fear of going to jail."

  "So, what did you do?"

  "I called Mr. West and told them I would buy the pieces from him for a million dollars, but he said he'd already sold them."

  "To whom?"

  "A private collector—Zimmerman—I think his name was."

  "I see."

  "So, I contacted him and offered him the money, but he wasn't interested in selling so cheaply."

  "Do you know his first name?"

  "Yes, I can look it up," he said as he started going through a stack of index cards. "He bought some other pieces from us, so I have his name and address. But don't tell him where you got it. He's a powerful and ruthless man."

  "I won't," I said, puzzled that he would give me this information so freely. "I really appreciate you telling me all this. I am curious though. If he's so dangerous, why are you being so helpful. If you hadn't of stepped forward, I would have left and known nothing."

  Linus shrugged and replied, "Mr. Zimmerman doesn't care so much about art as he does making lots of money. He has no scruples whatsoever. He's a rude, arrogant man who will do whatever it takes to get what he wants. It's about time someone put him in his place."

  "Luther," he said reading from a card he had selected. “His first name was Luther."

  It was clear Leonard Linus had no love for Luther Zimmerman. He wouldn't go into more specifics as to why he hated him so much, but I was sure it would be juicy. Linus went into the back room for a moment and then returned and handed me a piece of paper. It had Luther Zimmerman's address and telephone number on it. I thanked him, gave him a card, and asked him to call me if he thought of anything else that might be helpful. He said he would.

  On the way back to the office I was excited. Luther Zimmerman sounded like a great suspect. He knew the value of Lottie's treasures, didn't mind dealing in stolen goods, and apparently lacked any sense of morality. Now all I had to do was find out if he had an alibi.