The Day Steam Died (26 page)

Chapter 56

“This funding will allow your children to be trained in the latest technical fields as electricians, mechanics, and drafters.”

Ann gets a break

Ann tried to look busy waiting on a phone call from Officer Cartier. The coffee vendor restocked supplies for the next week. Her monthly payments to all other bills were caught up. She’d finished going through Marie’s desk and file cabinet and found nothing usable in either one.

The phone rang just as she poured her second cup of coffee.

“S & T Distributing, how can I help you?” she said in a relaxed voice.

“Good morning, Ann. John Cartier here. I have the information you needed. Got a pen?”

“Yes, and thank you for being so prompt.”

“The vehicle is registered to a Rick Barnes in Raleigh. I did a little more digging and found out he’s a reporter for the Raleigh Times Herald. His phone number is (919)243-7318. Anything else you need?”

“Very impressive, Officer Cartier. That will do nicely.”

“Not a problem. Our mantra is,
To Protect and To Serve
, and please, call me John.”

“Well, thank you very much, John. You’ve been most helpful.”

“Could I ask a favor of you?”

“I owe you that much. What can I do for you?”

“Would you have dinner with me Saturday evening?”

Ann sat speechless.

“Uh oh. Do I take that as a no?”

“John, you’re a nice man, and I’m grateful for your help. But I’m going to have to decline. My husband passed away suddenly last December and I’m still working my way through that. I appreciate your kind invitation. I hope you understand.”

“I’m so sorry about your husband. I apologize for being so forward. I meant no offense.”

“None taken.”

“If I can be any help to you in the future, please don’t hesitate to call me. Take care and have a good day.”

The click from the other end echoed in Ann’s ear. She laid the phone in its cradle, wondering if she would ever be ready to have a serious relationship again. She felt relieved and proud that Rick had gone on to a successful career as a journalist, and she wondered what her life would have been like as Mrs. Rick Barnes.

Right now she needed to know what Rick was doing asking questions about the products being distributed from the warehouse. Did he know what was going on here? Since the local police weren’t interested in her newfound evidence, Rick might be the person to send it to. If she gave the information to him anonymously, he could deal with the police and leave her out of it.

She had to protect her family.

Chapter 57

“In conclusion, it saddens me to formally close these shops that have been the center of Bankstowne’s life for generations. But I am proud to announce that Coastline Railway will donate this facility to the State Bureau of Historical Preservation to make it the best Steam History Museum in the country.”

Secret informer

Wil sobered Rick up and let him sleep all the next day. The overdose of alcohol had flushed Candi from his memory, at least temporarily. He went back to work the next day in a new environment without Candi. He missed her already, and knew the only cure was to lose himself in work.

Back at his desk, Rick sorted his mail with the help of a cup of Ben’s high-octane coffee to kick start his neurons. He was about to toss a letter with no return address into the trash when he noticed a Winston-Salem postmark. Intrigued, Rick opened the envelope and pulled out a note block printed by hand.

Mr. Barnes,

I have information that can help your investigation of the S & T Distribution Co. Do not try to identify me. I must remain anonymous for the safety of my family. More information will follow.

Rick read the note again, trying to decide if it was a gag or not. He took it to Ben’s office and tossed it on his desk.

“What do you think?”

Ben read the note, cocked his head, and arched his eyebrow. “It might be real. Wait to see if you hear from them again. But we have to be extremely careful dealing with an anonymous source. Anything we get from this person has to be verified before we can use it.”

“I’ll run it over to SBI and get Wil to check it for fingerprints.”

“I would be surprised if there are any prints beside ours.” Ben shook his head. “What a couple of professionals we are. We’ve already contaminated the evidence. This person is afraid of being exposed. It would have to be somebody on the inside knowledgeable of the operation. Let’s hope they’re serious,” Ben said, handing the note back to Rick. “Keep me informed.”

SBI office

Rick carefully folded the note and hurried over to the SBI building. He repeatedly punched the elevator’s call button. It was moving too slow. He found the stairs and bounded up them two at a time to the third floor. He hustled down the hall to Will’s office and burst through his door without knocking.

“Wil, you won’t believe what I got in the mail this morning.” Rick handed the note to Wil, which he’d enclosed in a wax paper envelope normally used to store negatives. “Can you get this run for fingerprints? I’m afraid Ben and I handled it, so our prints will be on there too.”

“Thanks for contaminating the only evidence we’ve ever had, big brother. If you get another note, please don’t handle it. Bring it straight to me. Then we may find something.”

“So, shoot me, I’m a lousy detective.”

Rick spent the following morning hanging around the General Assembly building, quizzing house and senate members on the status of the cigarette tax bill. He avoided Tank but spotted the Appropriations’ Chairman, Senator Edward Palmer darting between meetings.

“Senator Palmer, Rick Barnes from the Raleigh Times Herald. Could I have a minute?”

“Walk with me,” he said, setting a quick pace Rick was barely able to keep up with.

“Senator, this is the fourth time in Governor Mathews’ administration that this or a similar bill to increase the tax on cigarettes has been introduced. Each time it failed to come out of your committee. In spite of budget shortfalls, why not help close the gap with increased revenue from tobacco? You’ve raised sales taxes, license plate fees, inspection fees, driver’s licenses, and gasoline to the point that North Carolina is one of the most taxed states in the country. Can you explain why there has been such a hands-off policy on cigarettes by the General Assembly?”

“North Carolina is a tobacco state. Tobacco farmers vote, especially when their livelihood is threatened,” Palmer responded without breaking his stride.

“But sir,” Rick said, “other major tobacco growing states like Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, and South Carolina have raised their tax per pack several times in that same timeframe. We have the lowest tax on our cigarettes and lead the other states in illegal sales transported to states with a much higher cigarette tax. Wouldn’t increasing the tax help reduce the illegal sale and smuggling of our low-taxed, unstamped cigarettes to higher taxing states like New York? It’s no secret that smuggling is rampant while the law and legislature look the other way. And your co-chairman, Assemblyman Johnson, has personally crusaded against any tax increase on tobacco. Yet he has no connections to tobacco. Why is that?”

Senator Palmer stopped abruptly and wheeled around to face the trailing, out-of-breath reporter. “Are you insinuating there is a connection between our refusal to tax cigarettes and the illegal smuggling of cigarettes from North Carolina?”

“No sir, but you just did. You still haven’t answered my question, sir. Why is North—”

“Watch yourself, young man. You are flirting with slander. If you have any more questions, why don’t you ask Mr. Johnson? Your time is up. I’m late for my meeting.”

Senator Palmer disappeared behind a door labeled
Members Only.

Back at the Times Herald, Rick and Ben huddled in the editor’s office.

“I’m telling you, Ben, something really smells about this tobacco tax issue. Senator Palmer was flippant at my first question but freaked when I bored in on the smuggling angle.”

“Maybe so, but he had a good point. If you want to know why the General Assembly vetoes any cigarette tax bill, why don’t you ask Tank?”

“That could tip our hand even if he agreed to an interview.”

“You’ll never know unless you ask. Maybe we’ve been too easy on him all this time. If our anonymous informer has any usable evidence on the S & T operation, you could squeeze him a little.”

“I’d like nothing better. When do you think we should bring the SBI in on this fulltime? Wil already knows what we have so far. There weren’t prints on the note, other than ours. I don’t feel like getting hit on a withholding of evidence charge.”

Ben cocked his head like he always did to make a point. “Wait until you have something solid but can’t verify it. Then let them do the grunt work with the understanding we get exclusive rights to the story. We’re on the same team, but they can go places we can’t.”

“I think Wil can get an exclusive for us.” Rick returned to his desk and flipped through his mail. Next to the last piece, there was another handwritten letter with no return address. “Hey, boss, I think this is another letter from our anonymous contact.”

Rick took the letter, grasping a corner with his thumb and index finger. He carefully dropped it on Ben’s desk. “Wait until I get some rubber gloves from the photo lab.”

The thick rubber gloves he eventually got made opening the envelope difficult. Rick held the envelope while Ben sliced it open with his letter opener. Rick shook the envelope and a folded note fell on Ben’s desk.

“Go ahead,” Ben said. “It’s your letter. Read it.”

Rick couldn’t get the finger of his glove under the edge of the note to pick it up. Frustrated, he blew on the edge of the paper and raised the top half high enough to grab it with his pincher fingers.

“We would never make it as detectives,” Rick said with a chuckle. His hands shook as he held the note and read its contents to Ben
.

Mr. Barnes,

A witness of the S & T operations of illegal cigarette shipments to New York was murdered by the manager of the warehouse. His locked files contain all the records of the business. Enclosed is a copy of the note he wrote to make it look like the woman committed suicide. Also a sample of a letter written on his typewriter with the same damaged letter ’o‘. If the police investigate him for the murder, his files can legally be searched with a warrant. There are a dozen illegal immigrants working in the warehouse, if that helps get a search warrant.

You do what you think is best.

“If this is true,” Rick said, “we have enough to get into those files and that would nail Sam and implicate Tank.”

“If is a big word. We’re going to have to show this to the SBI and let them handle it from now on.”

“I’ll get this over to Wil’s office and see how he wants to handle it. I’ll check you later,” Rick said then hurried out of Ben’s office.

Rick could hardly contain himself as he fought downtown Raleigh traffic, looking for a parking place near the SBI building. He hummed in the elevator up to the third floor and there was a bounce in his step down the hall to Wil’s office. He entered the office with a grin that broke into laughter.

“Okay, big brother, what’s this great new lead you have for me that you couldn’t talk about on the phone?”

Rick handed the note in plastic photo sleeve to Wil. He stood back in anticipation of confirmation that the information was good enough to move on.

Wil put on cotton gloves, read it over, and then asked, “Do you have any way of verifying who sent this? If it’s legitimate, I need to be able to convince my captain to act on it.

Rick shook his head. “I have no way of finding out who’s sending these notes.”

“I’ll have to contact the sheriff over there. After that ass chewing he gave me I have to coordinate anything we do with him.”

“Do whatever it takes.”

“What do you know about the allegedly murdered woman?”

“I met her when Candi and I went over there back in January. The other office worker wasn’t there. She was on leave because her husband had just died. I also met the manager referred to in the letter, who just had the air of a thug.”

“If there were two women, how do you know which one was the alleged victim?”

“I researched the obituaries during the month of January. The age and photo confirmed it was the older woman. I checked the autopsy report. Her death was ruled a suicide caused by an overdose of heart medicine. That agreed with the police report concluding it was a suicide confirmed by a suicide note she left. The note our anonymous friend says was a fake had been typed on the warehouse manager’s typewriter.”

“If the person would just come to us, this would be so much easier. A credible witness working inside the company would make this a slam dunk.” Wil sighed. “Otherwise our hands are tied.”

Rick’s smiling exuberance disappeared. “Man, there’s just got to be a way to use this. What about using the illegals to get a warrant? Or how about if you take this to the judge but can’t divulge its author because they are a source cooperating on condition of anonymity?”

“I don’t know, Rick. It’s pretty risky. Judge Eckman owes me for some legwork I did for him on a case last year. He might be persuaded to sign a warrant that would let us verify the note was typed on the suspect’s typewriter by comparing samples against the suicide note. The illegals are probably our best bet. That would at least give us access to his files.”

“I don’t think we need to talk to Detective Connell, who dismissed it as a suicide, but I definitely need to bring Sheriff Swenson up to speed,” Wil said.

“Okay, but let’s keep a lid on this. If we keep the murder investigation separate from the investigation of S & T, we can spring it on Sam and Tank when they least expect it.”

“What’s all this
we
stuff, and when would that be?”

“They will both be in Bankstowne in a couple of weeks for the dedication of the new museum.”

“The wheels of justice don’t always move as fast as we’d like. This is a police operation that has to follow procedures of the law, not your vendetta. Because of the sensitivity of the case, we’ll keep it low-profile until there’s enough evidence to make arrests, whenever that may be. Is that clear?”

“Crystal clear.”

“I appreciate all your help. You’ll get your exclusive story, but you have to move to the sidelines now and let us do our job. Then you can do yours.”

“I get it. It’s just that I have been waiting for so long to nail that smug bastard. Two weeks should give you enough time for an investigation into the murder and process his files. The dedication is a perfect opportunity to nab them both. Can you do that?”

“I’ll see what I can do but no promises. We’ll just have to wait and see how this plays out.