“Absolutely.”
“Here’s some reading for you, Fox’s book. Won’t take you long. And you’ll like the section on where Capone’s gold is stashed.”
“There’s one more thing we need to talk about, Ray. The 911 phantom has struck again. We’ve had three more incidents in the last week. Same MO. Weekend nights, usually after midnight, always in the central sector. The location is out in some field where the responder has to leave their car and walk around with a flashlight.”
“Teenagers,” said Ray, “sitting at a safe distance, watching the spectacle, sharing a joint, a few beers, or both. I’m sure it’s a good laugh.”
“Ray, a lot of downstate departments have stopped responding to these. Should we consider that?”
He pondered the question before answering. “Not yet. I keep worrying about a real emergency situation where we don’t respond and should have. Let’s look at this on a month-to-month basis. When the summer people come back and we’re stretched to our limits, maybe then we will have to stop responding. The kids will have to find another source of amusement.”
“How about digging for buried treasure by moonlight?”
“Or maybe we can teach them about snipe hunts.”
“What’s that?”
“I’ll explain when we have some time.”
16
Ray carried the tray with the two cups of coffee to the far corner of the Medical Center’s cafeteria. The room was almost empty; still he wanted a place where they could have a private conversation. Joan Barton, Vincent Fox’s daughter, lowered herself in the chair across from him. Ray placed one of the coffees in front of her, took the second, and slid the tray onto a nearby table.
He took a sip of his coffee and looked across the table at Barton. Her eyes were red. She looked older than she had only two days before.
“This part of the process is always difficult,” said Ray. “The formal identification by a family member or friend is something that we have to do, and it’s painful. Thank you for coming in.”
“I wasn’t ready for it,” Barton responded. “I mean, I thought a lot about his dying in recent years—when someone gets up near 90, well, you know. And I’ve been afraid for a long time that I would be the one who would go out to his house and find him. I always worried about his safety.” She picked up her cup, sipped her coffee, and looked at Ray. “I mean, I thought about him getting ill and needing some help, but nothing like this. I never expected… Who would’ve thought? And after you called me about his house getting trashed, I didn’t know what to… I was trying to prepare myself for the worst…” Her voice trailed off.
Ray held her in his gaze. He considered several possible responses, but each seemed trite. These were always difficult encounters.
“Please,” said Barton, “tell me what you know. Where was he found? Had he been harmed?”
“His body was discovered along North Bass Lake Road, just before it intersects with Township Line Road. The medical examiner found no injuries, no wounds, fractures, anything of that nature.” Ray chose not to mention the charring on the bottom of Fox’s foot.
“How did my father die?” she asked.
“I hope to be able to answer your question when we get the autopsy results.”
“Why does the body have to be sent to Grand Rapids? We have pathologists here.”
“Your father’s body is going to be examined by a forensic pathologist, a person trained to perform postmortems in cases of suspicious death. We need to establish whether or not his death was connected to any criminal behavior.”
They were both quiet for several minutes. Then Barton broke the silence with a soft question. “So he was found a long way from his house?” She shook her head. “None of this makes sense. How do you explain what’s happened?”
Ray kept his gaze steady. “It’s difficult to say for sure. But I think there’s a strong possibility that your father was abducted.”
“Like kidnapped?”
“Yes.”
Barton put down the coffee cup she’d been holding with the fingers of both hands. “And this might be connected with that Capone book?”
Ray pushed his cup away as well. “Perhaps,” he said. “Whoever trashed his house was clearly looking for something. They took his computer. It might have been somebody looking to fence it, but more likely he was looking for the Capone treasure. He might have thought there would be additional information on the hard drive.”
Once again they sat quietly, Barton staring vaguely towards the bank of windows. Ray waited and watched. Again, Barton broke the silence: “I just can’t wrap my brain around this. To think that he might be harmed because of that silly story. I never thought anyone would believe it, those stories.” She paused. “They ran the story on Dad being missing on television. Did anything come of that?”
“Yes, we did get some useful information. Your father and two friends went to the casino on Friday.”
“Who were they?” Barton asked.
“Mildred Hall and Tommy Fuller.”
“Ah, yes. Mildred Hall, Dad mentioned her. Someone he met at the library a few years ago, his only friend still driving.” She laughed. “They had a cooperative agreement of sorts. She’s got some kind of very old car he likes to work on. In return, she takes him wherever he needs to go around the village. Now, Tommy Fuller is an old friend. I’d sort of forgotten about him. My father hasn’t talked about him much lately. So they were at the Casino on Friday?”
Ray nodded. “Joan, you told me the other day that you’d talked to your father on Friday. What time was that?”
“It would have been pretty early, probably around eight. I try to get hold of him in the mornings, find out about his night and catch him before he goes out and about. I’d always ask him what he had planned for the day even though he’d usually just give me the ‘same-old, same-old.’” She smiled and wiped away the tears. “He liked his privacy, liked to be on his own; he hardly ever told me what he was really up to.”
“That was the only time you talked to him on Friday?”
“Yes.”
“Your father had quite a day at the Casino. He won $6,000.”
Barton hooted. “That old coot! He won all that money, and he didn’t bother to call me! All right, I’m not surprised. What’s happened to it? The money, I mean.”
“According to Mildred Hall, your father gave Tommy Fuller $4,000 of it for a trip to Florida. Mildred arranged for the flight, and she and your father took Tommy to the airport on Saturday. You weren’t aware of any of this?”
Barton’s eyes, again filled with tears, spilled over before she answered. “That’s like him. He’s enormously generous, with his friends, anyway. So what happened then? Was Mildred the last person to see him?”
“Sometime after 3 o’clock she dropped him off at the library. That’s the last anyone reported seeing him. Can you tell me how your father carried his money? A wallet? We didn’t find anything on his body.”
“He wouldn’t have lost it. It was this huge leather thing with a chain attached. The kind bikers have.”
“How about in the house? Was there a place where he hid his cash?”
Barton shook her head. “I don’t know. Like I said, he was very private about most things. But I can’t imagine that he ever had much cash around. He lived on Social Security and a small retirement annuity. This thing with the casino, that’s pretty crazy, not at all normal as far as I know.” She paused. “But what do I know? Even if he did win all that money, I can’t imagine he’d be carrying it around on him. I have no idea where he might have hidden it.”
“How about credit cards? Did he have any? Did he carry them?”