Amen, brother, preach on.
CHAPTER 10
Kramer was ripped, both because of the speed of Reverend Walter’s funeral arrangements and also because we had missed out on the chance for him to talk to Emma Jackson. He grilled me on the way back to the department, trying to learn if there was anything I had gleaned from my talk with her that might give him a handle on how to approach her.
Now that he knew how to reach Emma himself, I was sure he would cut me out of any subsequent interviews, but that was hardly anything new and different in my dealings with Detective Kramer. Every time I have any contact with the man, he always acts as though we’re working for opposite teams. Come to think of it, maybe we are.
To give the devil his due, however, Kramer wasn’t the only one angling for information. If he wanted data from me, the reverse was also true. Those possibly fraudulent student loans that Kramer’s part of the investigation had turned up might bear some pretty unsavory fruit by the time the investigation was over.
According to law enforcement ethics, cops aren’t supposed to have any kind of business dealings with members of the criminal element. The idea is to avoid both the appearance of evil as well as the actuality of it. Owning jointly held businesses or taking out personal loans with crooks qualifies under the broad heading of conduct unbecoming an officer, and the offenses would cast a major blemish on Ben Weston’s previously flawless record.
I wanted to learn everything I could about those loans while Kramer and I were still trading tit for tat. “How did you find out about the loans?” I asked. “What tipped you off?”
He shrugged with uncharacteristic modesty. “To begin with, going through his desk was just routine, but when I found the set of bank statements, that got my attention. If somebody starts keeping financial records at work instead of at home, what does that usually mean?”
“That he’s got something to hide,” I replied. “And most likely he’s hiding whatever it is from his wife.”
“Exactly,” Kramer agreed. “So when I stumbled on the file folder with all the loan applications in it, I was already on point, already looking. It didn’t take me two seconds to figure it out. There are four separate bank loans all together, four different banks, and four different names, but all the cosigners share the same home address which also happens to be Ben Weston’s address. What does that say to you?”
“It does raise a question or two, doesn’t it?”
Kramer glared at me. “More than one or two, if you ask me. Several in fact. I’ve got Sue Danielson checking for rap sheets on the other three names. I turned up Russell’s on my own.”
“What about the schools?”
“Schools?” Kramer asked. “What schools?”
“Don’t student loan applications indicate where the student is enrolling? Have you checked with the registrars to see whether or not those students are actually there?”
Kramer didn’t answer, an omission which was, by itself, an admission. No, he hadn’t checked.
“Shouldn’t you?” I prodded. “If the students on the applications are actually enrolled just the way the form says they are, then maybe there’s no fraud involved, after all.”
By then, I was parking the car in the Public Safety Building parking garage. Kramer shot me a withering look as he reached to open the car door. “Believe me,” he said, “they won’t be registered anywhere. This is the real world, Beaumont, not some kind of never-never land. Knuckles Russell is a two-bit thug with a rap sheet ten feet long. I’ll lay you odds the others won’t be any different. The only institution of higher learning these guys will ever land in is a federal pen.”
On that congenial and uplifting note, we headed upstairs. I think Kramer expected to lose me in the fifth floor maze, but I was determined to see copies of Ben Weston’s loan applications. I followed Kramer on down the hall. When we turned into his cubicle, the whole place was a shambles. Multiple boxes, some opened and some closed, were stacked against the wall. A half-emptied file cabinet with the top three drawers opened stood in the far corner. I waded through the boxes to a chair, removed a stack of folders, and made myself at home.
Kramer began shoving file folders into one box. “Looks like you’re moving,” I said.
He glanced up and seemed surprised to find me sitting there. “Down the hall,” he mumbled, “so I can be closer to Watty. We’ll be working together closely on this one, you know.”
“Right.”
He stared at me in what could only be described as a clear-cut invitation to leave, the old here’s-your-hat-what’s-your-hurry-type stare. I didn’t take the hint. “What do you want?” he asked finally. “Don’t you have work to do?”
“This is work. I want to see Ben Weston’s student loan applications.”
Grudgingly, he picked up a file folder from a stack on his desk, extracted a sheaf of papers, and shoved them across the desk in my direction, but before I had a chance to glance at them, Sue Danielson appeared in the doorway and looked at us across the disarray.
Sue, a single mother with two teenagers at home, is a recent transplant in Homicide. She started out years ago as a 911 dispatcher and has gradually worked her way up. Gravelly voiced, she along with Janice Morraine down in the Crime Lab are two of the Public Safety Building’s unrepentant smoking holdouts. They both go downstairs and stand outside in all kinds of weather to have a morning and afternoon smoke.
Sue nodded briefly in my direction, but her real message was for Detective Kramer. “You called that shot,” she said, “four for zip. Every last one of them has a sizable rap sheet, and they’re all BGD, or at least they were. They’ve all dropped out of sight in the last three to ten months.”
“You’re sure they’re not in jail someplace?” Kramer growled.
“Not that I can find so far.”
“Maybe they’re dead then. Maybe Weston had someone knock them off.”
“Maybe you should check with the schools,” I suggested.
Kramer glowered at me while Sue Danielson looked genuinely surprised. “What’s this about schools?”
“What if those students are actually enrolled there?” I continued. “Maybe the applications are just exactly what they say they are and these kids are all back in school.”
“Like hell they are!” Kramer said, exasperated.
But Sue Danielson had been paying attention to me, not to him. “That’s a good idea, Beau,” she said. “I’ll do some checking on that, if not tonight, then for sure in the morning. Bye.”
Waving, she backed away from the door before Kramer had a chance to say anything more. Pissed, he went on pitching file folders into boxes while I glanced through the set of loan applications.
That’s what they were-student loan applications. Despite the rap sheets, these kids were really that-kids, with the oldest barely twenty-two. The largest loan amount was for two thousand a semester for Washington State University over in Pullman. One applicant listed his school of choice as Central Washington with the required loan amount of a thousand dollars per quarter. The third, for the same dollar amount, listed Western Washington in Bellingham. The last one, for an Ezra Russell, was only partially completed. It didn’t list a school at all.
If his amount was similar to the others, that would bring the total indebtedness up to around twelve or thirteen grand a year. For a cop with a family of his own to support, thirteen thousand dollars a year would be one hell of a financial burden if one or more of Ben Weston’s cosigners defaulted on the loans, but in the drug-dealing world that these gang members formerly inhabited, thirteen thou was small potatoes, not even one night’s take-on a slow night. What the hell was going on?
I put the papers back down on Kramer’s desk. “Don’t you think these ought to be turned over to Internal Investigations?” I asked.