Black Monday, A Stan Turner Mystery Vol 7

  Chapter 50

  BACK TO THE RANCH

   

  On the long drive to Abilene Detective Besch and I had lots of time to talk and discuss the cases we were working on. I was a little surprised that Detective Besch wanted to go to Abilene with me since he hadn't been assigned to the Jimmy Bennett case. I knew he said the Huntington case and Bennett case were now related, but Wilkerson made it pretty clear he didn't want anything to do with dirty politicians and illegal arms dealing.

  "Isn't Wilkerson going to be pissed at you for getting involved in this case?"

  "He'll get over it. Anyway, he's not my boss. I've got the discretion to take my investigation wherever it legitimately should go. Fortunately, you found out Huntington and Baker were working together. That interests me and raises a lot of questions."

  "Like what?"

  "Like who really killed Don Baker and now, possibly, Jimmy Bennett? Was it the same people who kidnapped Huntington and tried to kill you?"

  "Listen, I didn't get a chance to tell you this and, I was told not to tell you, but you need to know."

  Besch looked over at me intently. "What wasn't I supposed to know?"

  "My old contact at the CIA I told you about. He contacted me and said Huntington and his partner were alive. He said they were going into hiding because the CIA had disavowed knowledge of them and their activities. He said that I should quit looking for them."

  "That makes some sense actually. The FBI wants to prosecute anyone involved in illegal arms dealing with Iran. If the CIA disavowed knowledge of them, they'd just look like a bunch of greedy gunrunners."

  "And if they had information that might link the illegal arms dealing to other politicians and prominent businessmen, their lives wouldn't be worth a bucket of spit."

  Besch frowned. "So you're telling me you want me to quit looking for Huntington?"

  "If he's alive then why should you keep looking for him"

  "But do you trust this contact at the CIA?"

  "I don't have any concrete reason to trust him, but my gut tells me he's telling me the truth."

   The problem is the FBI won't quit looking for them even if I did."

  "Yeah, but for some reason they're worried about you and I looking for them more than the FBI."

  "Why would that be?" Detective Besch asked. "Unless . . . They knew the FBI really wasn't looking for them."

  "Exactly, nobody in Washington really wants the truth to come out. They just want the entire mess to go away."

  It was nearly 4:00 p.m. when we arrived at the ranch. We asked the first person we talked to if Roy Olsen was around. He said he was and pointed to a small house down the road. We drove down and parked behind a big Ford F250. We knocked at the door and Roy answered. We introduced ourselves and Roy invited us in.

  "It was a shame about Jimmy. I liked him a lot. He was kind of a hot head, but Don loved him like he was his own son."

  "I think Jodie talked to you a few days ago," I said.

  "Yes, Jodie. She's a nice girl. Very intense though, all business."

  "Yes, Jodie is very focused. It's hard to distract her."

  "I just wanted to buy her some dinner before she drove back to Dallas, but she wouldn't hear of it."

  I laughed. "She's had a tough breakup a year or so ago. I think she's sworn off men and is concentrating on her career. She wants to be a lawyer."

  "Wants to be. I thought she was."

  "Anyway, Detective Besch and I had a few more questions that we hoped you might help us with."

  "Sure, fire away."

  "How close are you to Earl Modest?"

  He shrugged. "I've worked for Earl now for a couple years. He's okay. We don't socialize or anything. Margie keeps him pretty busy."

  "How about Margie? Do you like her?"

  Roy shrugged again. "Well, to be honest. She's a difficult woman to work for, if you know what I mean."

  "Not exactly. Elaborate, would you?" I asked.

  "Well, she's pushy, demanding, self-centered, and half-drunk most of the time."

  "I see."

  "But worst of all she's got Earl so pussy whipped that he'd do anything she asked."

  "Anything?"

  He nodded. "Trust me. Anything."

  Besch said, "Would it surprise you if Margie and Earl were involved in Don's death?"

  Roy looked at Besch without expression. He thought for a moment and said, "No. That makes more sense than Jimmy's involvement."

  "That's why we're here," Besch said. "To find out if perhaps Margie and Earl were responsible for Don's death. We also are looking into the possibility that they had something to do with Jimmy's death."

  "You think Jimmy was murdered?"

  "We don't know. But it is a possibility. Was Earl here yesterday?"

  "No. He hasn't been here all week. I thought he was in Dallas at Jimmy's trial."

  "Has he called here this week at all?"

  "No," Roy said. "We didn't hear from them until yesterday afternoon. They called to tell us about Jimmy's overdose and to say they'd be delayed awhile until the funeral was over."

  "You told Jodie you used to work for United Recycling, right?"

  "Un huh. I worked for them about thirteen months until they shut down last December."

  "Did Jimmy know anything about United Recycling?"

  "He knew it existed. I don't think he knew all that was going on or exactly how it worked. Don kept everything pretty close to the vest."

  "Do you know anything about the fight Don had with Jimmy just before the murder?"

  "Just what Luther told me?"

  "Luther?"

  "Luther Palmer. He ran the operation here for Continental Exporters. Don called him right after the fight. He told him Jimmy was not cooperating and it didn't look like he'd be able to raise the two million to save Metroplex. Bottom line—the party was over and it was time to clean up the house."

  This confirmed my suspicions that Luther Palmer wasn't in Beijing but was actually commuting between Tehran and Abilene running the arms sales to Iran. Huntington had used the threat of his imminent death to motivate me to get his money out of the clutches of the IRS. Huntington had fed me a pack of lies to get me to do what he wanted.

  "Earl was involved in all this too?" I asked.

  "No," Roy replied. "Don just let them use one of the barns as a warehouse. They had a warehouse in Washington, D.C. too."

  "In DC?"

  "Right."

  Roy told me about the DC warehouse and how he had helped locate the facility and hire crews to handle the guns and military hardware that went through there.

  So what did Don want Palmer to do?"

  "Shut down the operation and clear out the barn. If the feds came to Buffalo Ridge, he wanted the barn full of straw and horses with no evidence of weapons ever having been stored there."

  "So, the weapons are all gone?" I asked.

  "Yes. You'd never know they'd ever been there."

  On the way back to Dallas Besch and I discussed what we'd learned and tried to put all the pieces of this very complex puzzle together. It appeared the big fight between Jimmy and Don wasn't just about Betty but also over illegal arms trading. With Metroplex Savings & Loan near collapse and Congress coming down hard on anyone involved in selling arms to Iran, Jimmy must have got spooked and tried to distance himself from his father-in-law. He had mentioned the feds had been snooping around but I had thought he meant the bank examiners. He must have been questioned by the FBI about Continental Exporters or United Recycling. Now it all made sense.