Magic City Murder Read online

  After a few minutes of driving, I pulled up to the Carbon County Jail. It was like any other county jail, small with too many people in it. If you were in jail in Montana, you had really screwed up or pissed someone off because there simply was not room to put people.

  I went through the front entrance. A young lady behind plexiglass recognized me and waved me around. A buzzer sounded and I went through a metal and glass door to an office area. “Jones around?” I asked.

  She started to answer but a voice sounded over her shoulder. “Oh hey, John. Good timing,” said Deputy Phil Jones. He motioned for me to come back with him. I followed Jones through a few hallways, occasionally nodding to people in an office or passing by. We came to a blank metal door with a digital key beside it. Jones punched a few numbers, the door buzzed, and we entered.

  The room was slightly larger than a closet. It contained a desk, a chair, and a monitor. Computer equipment was mounted to the wall. I assumed they were servers for the rest of the building’s network. Jones motioned at the monitor. “Walton’s been in there for the past hour and hasn’t gotten a peep out of the guy.”

  On the monitor, I could see an individual in handcuffs and the standard issued white jail scrubs. He looked to be probably in his mid-30s, sunken eyes, with sores on his face. His hair was closely cropped, and his beard was splotchy. He kept rocking back and forth but did not utter a word. “So what’d the tweaker do?” I asked.

  Jones chuckled and the potbelly beneath his vest shook as he did so. “Held up a casino. Well, he had least told the attendant he had a gun. Never showed it to the girl. We got him on camera at the casino doing it, so we got him charged. We were hoping to recover the money though. No idea where that is.”

  I nodded. I listened to Sergeant Fred Walton mention the video to the suspect several times during his questioning. His face was reddening, and I could see why. It is kind of difficult to have a one-sided conversation with someone when they are the ones who are supposed to be doing most of the talking. I’ve had interviews where I had prayed the person who I was interviewing would at least say the word “lawyer,” so I could stop the pointless questioning and get the hell out of there.

  “I’m going to go in if that’s okay?” I asked.

  Jones nodded his approval.

  I walked out and around to the door of the interview room. It locked from the outside by a deadbolt. I threw the deadbolt and stuck my head inside the door. “Hey Fred, your wife’s on the phone, sounded pretty important.”

  Walton looked up at me, put his hands on his hips and sighed. Without a word he stood up and shuffled out of the door. I was wearing jeans and a sweater which is a stark contrast to the other individuals the suspect had been not speaking with. He probably thought I looked like a young Mister Rogers. I pulled the chair out where Walton had been sitting. As the door closed, I motioned towards it, “What an ass, right?”

  The suspect smirked. I realized at that point I didn’t know his name, but it didn’t matter. “Look, here’s the deal,” I said, leaning forward. “I just need to know if you took 100s or 20s. There’s someone passing 100s around town that might be laced with ricin and if you took the 100s we need to get you and anyone else who might have come into contact with those bills tested quick, we only have 24 hours from initial exposure. We got a few possible cases at the hospital already and one’s not looking so good. It starts out as flu-like symptoms: fever, runny nose, coughing, then progresses to diarrhea, lightheadedness, until you start coughing up blood and your lungs fail.” The man in the handcuffs sniffed and looked around nervously. I continued, “So just tell me did you take the 100s or the 20s? We’ve got to get people tested. I don’t think you would want anyone to get hurt, would you? I think you were just having a tough time and having some withdrawals and needed some cash. No one would blame you for that. But they would blame you if you are spreading this poison around.” I paused and let my words settle. His eyes met mine and I said softly and slowly, “So tell me, was it 100s or 20s?”

  The man across from me began to speak and speak very rapidly. “There was only a couple of 100s and the rest were 20s, but I didn’t know anything about no ricin, you gotta call my girl and tell her to get to the hospital because she’s been holding it for me and if her or her kid get that shit on ‘em I don’t know what I’m going to do, I don’t need that shit on my conscience. You going to take me to the hospital right now? I need to find out--”

  I held up a hand to stop him and stood up. “I’m going to go get someone who can help you out, just sit tight.” I walked out of the room, noting the time on the clock as I left. I had been in less than two minutes, Walton would be pissed.

  As I closed the door behind me, he was already coming back to the interview room. “I don’t know if that confession is going to fly,” he said. “You can’t make up evidence in Montana.”

  “I didn’t make up evidence, I made up a terrorist attack,” I responded. “Besides, you got him on video, you don’t need a confession. Go find his girl and see what she’ll confess to.”

  Walton shook his head. “Thanks for the help, but I don’t need a former fed telling me how to run my show.”

  I didn’t bother responding.

  The door opened, Walton entered and before it had completely closed, I heard the tweaker shriek, “Am I going to die?”

  Jones came out of the monitoring room chuckling. “How’d you know that kid would even know what ricin is?”

  I shrugged my shoulders. “Every tweaker has seen Breaking Bad, haven’t they?”

  The deputy nodded and he walked me out to my Jeep.

  “Tell Walton I’m sorry if I offended him,” I said. I sincerely did not want to piss off any of the locals for a couple of reasons: 1) they were good guys and 2) they sometimes steered me some business. That’s why I did stuff like this without charging the county. Though, based on past cases that had gone to court, I don’t think they ever mentioned me having been there. I would not have been surprised if Jones had cut the tape when I went into the interview room. I was kind of like their dirty little secret.

  I had a little extra time so I went by the post office and checked my mail. Mostly junk as I suspected. I gassed up the Jeep and then headed over to a little deli off of Broadway to get some sandwiches for me and Noel. With two prosciutto on rye sandwiches in hand, I was ready to head back to the cabin when my pocket vibrated. I pulled off a glove with my teeth and reached inside my coat to retrieve the flip phone that rang. Yes, a flip phone just like a drug dealer. Smartphones did nothing for me other than piss me off. My son always had the latest Apple invention and there was no doubt in my mind the money for his airline tickets had gone to the handheld device that constantly held his attention.

  “Lockhart,” I said.

  The voice on the other end was female, maybe in her 20s. “Is this the private investigator?” she asked.

  “Yes, can I help you?”

  She stumbled over her words, “Yes--I--err--I think I need your help.”

  “Ok,” I said, trying to demonstrate patience. “Maybe you could tell me a little about what kind of help you need?”

  The voice on the other end of the line sighed. “I think I’m going crazy. I mean, I don’t think I’m crazy, I think someone wants me to think I’m crazy,” she explained.

  “I tell you what,” I said. “Sometimes these things are easier to explain in person. How about we meet for coffee and you can tell me all about it. Are you local to Red Lodge?” I asked.

  “No, I’m in Billings.”

  “Oh, OK we can still do coffee or something, but it will take me a bit to get up there,” I explained.

  We agreed to meet at a coffee shop off of Grand Avenue on the Billings West End. I wrote down her contact information. Her name was Stephanie York. She was a senior at the Montana State University Billings campus and lived with her sister in a rented house near the college.

  I returned to the cabin with the sandwiches and found Noel watchin
g TV and playing on his phone. After explaining my need to run to Billings for most of the day, he objected to staying at the cabin by himself. “It’s already boring enough in this place, you can’t leave me out here all alone too.”

  “I thought you were having fun with that new phone your mom bought you,” I said.

  Noel did not correct me. He just stared at me. I guess maybe the silence was still uncomfortable for me at times too. “Alright fine, but you are going to be incognito,” I said.

  “What?” asked Noel.

  I explained, “She’s not going to know that you’re there. We’ll have you sit in a chair or booth near me but not with me. She sounded nervous; I don’t want to spook her.”

  “Oh, like a spy?” he asked.

  Sighing, I shook my head. “No, not like a spy. Like a teenager who is drinking coffee in a shop, not giving a shit about anyone around him.”

  Noel was hit with a realization. “Oh, I do that all the time.”

  “Exactly,” I said. “Grab your coat, let’s go.”

  We drove for almost two hours to Billings. The city was nicknamed the Magic City as it had seemingly boomed overnight from the success of being a railroad town in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Now, it had three refineries around it and a methamphetamine problem. Still, it was growing and slowly transitioning from a blue-collar town to a more modern city. I was not sure if that was good or bad. Despite its problems, there was a certain beauty to the city. The rimrocks ran across the northern part of town and were a unique fixture. The Yellowstone River meandered around the eastern side of town, creating a natural barrier to any expansion. Any growth was predominately happening on the western side of the city known to the locals as the West End.

  We pulled into the parking lot of the coffee shop and I reminded Noel of his duty to be invisible. I gave him a few bucks for a drink and waited a minute before going in. Noel had already picked out a table in the far corner. The clientele was sparse. Then again, it was not quite 2 p.m. We had arrived a little early, which was fine. At any first meeting, I like to have a firm hold on the environment. There was a time early in my career when I was late and met someone at a fast food joint. It was a quick interview and was fairly unremarkable, but I was certain the person in the booth next to us had been recording me or listening to my conversation. When the little voice inside you starts tugging at your ear, there is usually a good reason. We just have not been able to explain it with words yet. Call it intuition or something else, your brain recognizes when something is not right. Humans are smart despite our best efforts not to be.

  I saw no one who looked like a college-aged female named Stephanie. The freshly brewed coffee flooded my nostrils and brought back memories of meeting Sonia at places like this during the week. She worked white-collar crime from the FBI’s office in Dallas, while I spent the majority of my time at DEA’s office as a Task Force Agent as part of the High-Intensity Drug Trafficking Area task force or HIDTA. The DEA ran the show but included representatives from local departments, state agents, and law enforcement from other federal agencies like the Bureau, IRS, and Secret Service. The majority of our cases had criminals who didn’t just traffick drugs but they also laundered money, forged currency, had terrorist links, and engaged with not so nice people across the world. Cool, huh? It was pretty much a shit show.

  The majority of our time was spent trying to figure out how we were going to juke the stats to make all of our respective agencies look good. The stats themselves were already a joke when done the right way. A suspect would get arrested and it would get reported by 4 or 5 local state and federal agencies. We had our successes though. Once in a blue moon, the stars would align, and we would have a big takedown that would have an impact and send a whole slew of people to prison for a very long time. Then, some other person or organization would pop up and we would start the whole thing over again. There is a lot of job security in law enforcement.

  I sat at a table somewhat near Noel with my back to him. I sipped on a black coffee and laid a small notepad and pen in front of me. Opening up the notebook, I jotted down a few things I do before any preliminary interview like the person’s name, the date, and where the interview is taking place.

  After a few minutes, I looked at the time on my phone. If she was coming, she was about ten minutes late. I did not see this as a surprise, people were late all the time. I figured young people had even less of a sense of time than most others. Maybe that was an unfair assessment to make. As much as I liked to criticize Noel and his millennial ways, he was a pretty punctual kid.

  All in all, Noel was usually responsible. His mom and I were never married so he had to explain that growing up, which in the scheme of things was probably not as odd as it could have been compared to when I was growing up. We stayed in Dallas throughout his childhood, so he did not have to harbor the resentful feelings of being an Army brat or shuffled around from one parent’s house to another’s. Sonia’s family was mostly in Texas or in that area, so it made it easier for Noel to have some cousins to connect with. My family was mostly from Kentucky, but most were gone now except for a younger brother named Derek who I never talked to. He had developed a few extracurricular hobbies my employer would not have approved of so we grew distant until he just sort of fell off the map.

  No, Noel was not bad at all. He had decent grades in the classes he cared about. I think more than anything he was just bored. He was like me and a little more math and science brained rather than the creative side like Sonia. There was no doubt in my mind he had snuck up to Montana in his own car because in his own head, that was the most logical thing to do. I didn’t have to worry about him staying out late and getting into trouble. I’m sure he experimented with various things in life like any kid did who was his age, at least I hoped he did. Then again, when you’re parenting from 1,300 miles away, what do you really know about a young person who is turning into an adult faster than you want them to.

  Time passed and I started to wonder if Stephanie would show. I gave her another five minutes. An occasional customer would come in and then leave. There were two older ladies at the far end of the cafe who had been chatting. They grabbed their purses and went their separate ways. As I watched the clock, I realized that many of the lattes there took way too long for a barista to make. Strange observation, but that’s the kind of thing you notice when you’re not glued to your phone.

  It was now half an hour past when Stephanie was supposed to be there. I flipped open my phone and dialed her number. The call went straight to voicemail. After looking around for any possible cars that might have just pulled up to the coffee shop, I stood and walked towards the door, slapping Noel on the shoulder as I passed him. “Come on kid, we’re aborting,” I said.

  He looked up from his phone and seemed slow to compute what I had just said. Then, he nodded and stood before following me out.

  “So what happened?” asked Noel.

  I started the Jeep and got us on the road to go back home. “No idea,” I said plainly. “Sometimes people have a change of heart for one reason or another and just don’t want to meet up. She might’ve re-thought the importance of whatever issue she has and maybe how much it would end up costing her financially. I’m not really sure.”

  Noel pursed his lips together and nodded.

  “We might not ever know,” I said. We headed southwest towards the Beartooths. We had wasted much of the day on the road.

  By the time we made it back to Roscoe, both of our stomachs were rumbling so we stopped at the Lion's Paw Tavern for a bite to eat. We made sure Noel’s car was okay before heading in. Sam, the owner, was gracious enough to let me park it out back. I was not overly concerned about it during the winter when the population of the area was sparse.

  We walked in and sat at the bar. In the far corner were a few slot machines with multiple games on them like reels, keno, and video poker. Since there were slot machines the bar was also considered a casino. The definition of casino was pretty
loose in Montana. Any place with a couple of slot machines was called a casino, so you could not throw a rock without hitting one. When Noel was younger, he would pester me to play them and I would explain that they were called “one-armed bandits” for a reason and that gambling, much like the lottery, was a tax on people who are bad at math. What I said must have stuck because he quit asking.

  Sam the owner was running the bar as he did most days during the week. His daughter Lil usually ran the show those days and helped out here and there during the week. Her husband worked at the Stillwater Mine and made a decent living. Lil would say she just worked there to get out of the house sometimes. I think she could see that her old man was slowing down as he aged. I was not sure how old he was, but he had to be around 70. His hair was thin and gray, and glasses were thick that sat on a face wrinkled like a raisin. Sam always wore the same style of white, buttoned down shirt that looked like a barber smock. He had spent his time in the Vietnam war by cutting hair on the USS Enterprise. When he came back, he opened a small barbershop in Roscoe and eventually sold it to a lady who turned it into a beauty salon. He took the money and refurbished an old restaurant and it became The Lion's Paw Tavern. I asked him once why he quit cutting hair in favor of bartending. His answer was, “I needed a damn drink.”

  I ordered a pale ale and a soda for Noel. Sam eyed Noel, “No whiskey today?” he asked in a gruff voice.

  Noel shook his head. “You know I was just kidding about that,” he said.

  “Uh huh,” said Sam.

  We munched on some chicken wings and shot a few rounds of pool before returning to the cabin. “Well this was a waste of a day,” I said. “I’ll try to find something for us to do tomorrow.”