Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 57, No. 7 & 8, July/August 2012

Tightening of the Bond by R. T. Lawton

“It seems our friend the copper is in trouble.”

Cletis Johnston, the proprietor of the Twin Brothers Bail Bond Firm, sat forward in his executive leather chair with his elbows resting on the mahogany desk, and his ebony hands tented at eye level. Facing him from the other side of the polished mahogany top stood his executive secretary, Moklal Feringheea, and the firm’s solitary bail agent, Theodore Oscar Alan Dewey.

“You’re referring to the station captain?” Theodore ventured.

“The only copper we have in our pocket,” replied Cletis.

Theodore thought he detected a slight amount of sarcasm in that reply, a somewhat disconcerting situation for him to be in. Undercurrents in conversation always left him slightly queasy, causing large beads of sweat to pop out on his pink, bald head. When he thought no one was looking, Theodore used his left hand, the one with the once broken and improperly set little finger that now stood permanently straight out like a wayward flagpole, to squeegee off some of the moisture.

News such as this meant the office would be in turmoil until circumstances had been remedied to the satisfaction of the proprietor. As the proprietor did not like loose ends, Theodore frequently found himself being the person designated to ensure that all endings were tied up with finality, no comebacks. And with the way things had gone the last several years, Theodore sometimes wondered how he hadn’t completely dehydrated through excessive perspiration during one of these problem-solving sessions in the bail firm’s Inner Sanctum.

“May I inquire what the captain’s problem is?”

Cletis paused in reply as he untented his hands and straightened the sleeves of his light tan suit coat of Shantung silk. The cuffs of his dark cranberry shirt now displayed the proper amount of exposure, according to his personal tailor based in Hong Kong. As he reached for a document lying near at hand, soft light from baby spots in the ceiling glistened off his twenty-four karat gold cufflinks which were inset with polished ebony stones. His dark eyes barely skimmed over the sheet of paper before he spoke.

“According to this note delivered to our office a few minutes ago by an anonymous messenger, our friend the captain has been charged with the crime of murder.”

“Who’d he kill?” asked Theodore.

“The deceased appears to be an Internal Affairs detective looking into alleged corruption within the department.”

“Oh,” was all that Theodore could say in reply. This was definitely not good. He then tried drying the wet palm and damp fingers of his left hand by wiping them on the left pant leg of his brown slacks. Didn’t work. A small dark spot now showed in the cheap cloth, which meant the sweat on his balding dome would get worse unless he switched hands. Some days, nothing seemed to go right.

“To protect our asset within the police department,” continued Cletis, “we must take immediate action before the situation worsens.”

Theodore wondered how the situation could possibly evolve into circumstances worse than a murder rap, but knew better than to inquire on that subject. He had asked similar questions over the years about other situations, and had found to his dismay that circumstances could always get worse than they first appeared. He decided to stay with the action part of the proprietor’s statement.

“What type of action did you have in mind, sir?”

“First,” said the proprietor, “we must run our own investigation to determine what really happened.” He turned his attention to the firm’s executive secretary. “Moklal...”

At the mere mention of the Hindu’s name, Theodore felt his upper body inadvertently withdrawing from the immediate vicinity of the tall cadaverous man descended from generations of Thuggees in northwest India. At least that was part of the information listed in the background report that the proprietor had received from his connections at Interpol when Moklal had been taken on as executive secretary.

Of course, in his own defense, Moklal claimed said data produced nothing more in fact beyond a short reference to an alleged Thuggee family. He preferred to consider the situation as a family reputation smeared by frightened officials from the old British Colonial Empire during a turbulent time long past, a time when the English held sway over the subcontinent.

But Theodore knew better. He had observed the Hindu’s long muscular fingers sometimes twitching as if they longed to be massaging someone’s throat. And once, while rummaging through Moklal’s desk, Theodore had accidentally discovered a yellow silk scarf with a knot tied securely in each end. Curious, he conducted a search on Google and found that according to the official records of The Thuggee and Dacoity Department of the 1830s, plus information from their reputed expert, one Captain Sleeman, this particular type of item was known as a rumal, or strangler’s scarf. On the following morning, the scarf had disappeared from Moklal’s desk drawer. However, there were certain subsequent times when Theodore swore he caught a glimpse of yellow silk barely showing from inside one sleeve of the executive secretary’s suit coat. Theodore figured he didn’t need to end up strangled in order to convert that referenced Thuggee allegation into an engraved fact. Nope, if he knew how to work a hammer and chisel, he’d put it into stone himself.

“Moklal,” continued the proprietor, “will go to the county jail as a representative of our bail firm and proceed to interview the good captain to see what he knows about this charge of murder against him.”

The Hindu nodded.

“And me, sir,” inquired Theodore. “What do you want me to do?”

The proprietor made notes on a small square of paper and slid it across the desk.

“You, Theodore, will meet with a certain secretary for Internal Affairs at this address. She will provide you with an envelope containing all reports typed up so far that concern this case. In doing so, you will make no attempts to see her face, or to identify her in any way.”

The bail agent bobbed his head up and down in understanding of the order he’d received.

“Do I need to pay her?”

“That will not be necessary, Theodore. There are other ways to engender one’s cooperation under these circumstances. I have already taken care of the matter.”

Theodore bobbed his head again. He knew all too well how these matters worked. He now switched hands to surreptitiously run his right fingers and palm over the top of his perspiring head, especially since conditions now appeared to be getting even more slippery.

The proprietor went back to his paperwork.

Theodore took this as his clue to leave and get about his own business. When he turned to go, he noticed that the Hindu was already nearing the doorway leading out into the front office, therefore Theodore hurried to catch up and pass him.

“Tough luck for the captain, getting crosswise with Internal Affairs,” he murmured, trying to maneuver through the doorway first. “Them guys are going to make our work much more difficult.”

Moklal effectively hip blocked any quick exit by the bail agent and moved his own body first into the doorway. His head inclined slightly forward as if to speak in confidence.

“As the master Mahatma Ghandi tells us in his sayings, ‘Blaming the wolf would not help the sheep much. The sheep must learn not to fall into the clutches of the wolf.’ ”

Theodore came up short. His brow furrowed.

“Wait a minute. Which one are you calling the wolf? I’ve seen the results of some of the captain’s actions, and he didn’t act like no sheep to me.”

Moklal grinned. “And who is the one getting caught here?”

Theodore contemplated the image of a white woolly sheep, and then one of a black wolf with red glaring eyes and long white fangs. The two images slowly morphed into a dark wolf covered in the purity of a white sheepskin. Their bent captain had definitely played both sides quite well. Or had, up until now.

Theodore had been in the process of paying for his sandwich and something to drink at the food court in the mall when he was rudely bumped on his left shoulder. He turned quickly in that direction to see who had committed this infraction to his person, but there was no one beside or behind him. When he finally faced forward again, he noticed a woman hurrying away off to his right, but from her backside he didn’t recognize anything about her other than she appeared to be dressed for office work. Not wanting to give up his almost purchased lunch and possibly be late for his pending meeting with the Internal Affairs secretary, he let the woman go. Some people just never apologize for their transgressions was his thought.

It was only a few seconds later when Theodore reached into his right side sport coat pocket for enough change to pay the cents portion of his food bill that he realized there was something more than just coins in that pocket. His stubby, almost webbed-fingered hand drew out a locker key with a white number on its red plastic handle. He stared. He’d known he would be contacted, but not how. The bump-and-run sleight of hand by the office-dressed woman was evidently it.

“Excuse me, sir,” said a snide young male voice on the opposite side of the order counter, “you’re holding up the line.”

Theodore glanced behind him for the second time. Oh, there were several people lined up there now. He hadn’t been paying attention.

“Plus,” continued the voice, “you still owe me seventy-nine cents.”

Theodore counted out the proper change right down to the penny, careful not to lose the key in the process, took his bagged lunch, and hurried away. Holding the bag with one hand and feeding four salty French fries at a time into his mouth with the other hand, he searched for any lockers there might be in the mall. He could only hope that the key wasn’t for lockers at a bus or train station somewhere. Seemed airports had already removed all lockers in their buildings as a safety precaution in these terrorist times, so that option wasn’t feasible.

Finally, in the last place he wanted to look, near the mall security office, he located a long corridor with a wall of bright yellow lockers where shoppers could store their coats in cold weather or even extra bags of purchases while continuing to shop in comfort.

There it was. Number 23.

Theodore inserted the key and turned.

The door dragged open with a slight creaking sound.

Suddenly remembering the airport scene with John Travolta playing Chili Palmer in Get Shorty, Theodore held the door only partially open while he quickly peered in both side directions to see if anyone was paying attention to him and locker 23.

At the far end of the corridor, a door to the ladies room opened. Metal banged on metal as the door swung shut.

Theodore flinched.

But it was only an elderly lady in an electric, three-wheeled vehicle with a single, rubber-tipped handle for steering and a small red, triangular flag flying from atop a long whip antenna which stuck up from one corner of the cart’s rear bumper. Its driver appeared to be attached to a green oxygen cylinder by means of a clear plastic tube which ran from the cylinder strapped in the rear of the vehicle to a clear plastic line under her nose. She breathed heavily and motioned frantically at Theodore, as if he had committed some unknown sin just by being there.

He quickly deduced that she wanted him to get out of her way. Theodore stepped forward toward the locker as she drove past behind him, steered around the corner at the other end of the corridor, and disappeared from sight. He told himself to relax. Surely the police department wasn’t so hard up that they had resorted to enlisting senior citizens in their police auxiliary in order to fill current gaps in the Long Blue Line, gaps caused by budget cuts in these hard economic times. Removing a large manila envelope from the locker, he hoped he was correct in his assumptions, and hurried out of the mall.

As extra insurance to ensure he was not being followed by anyone, Theodore drove four times around the same block before returning to the offices of the Twin Brothers Bail Bond. For a moment, he had been concerned about the multitude of moving yellow cabs behind, beside, and in front of him, but then he reminded himself there were a lot of taxis operating in the city. They couldn’t all be surveillance cars. Upon closer observation he also noticed that the cabs had different numbers stenciled on them, and none of the same numbers seemed to be parading after him during his around-the-block countersurveillance tour. As a final measure, he parked three blocks away and walked to the office.

Inside the Inner Sanctum, Theodore found that Moklal had already returned and was finishing up his verbal report to the proprietor with the words, “Unfortunately, he has no alibi.”

By that, Theodore assumed that Moklal was referring to the captain. And if the captain had no alibi for the murder, then the Twin Brothers Bail Bond Firm would lose its inside man at the police department. Which meant there would be no further warnings of pending raids on questionable businesses owned by silent partners, no intelligence reports on which criminal organizations various sections of the police department were currently working on, and most importantly to Theodore, there would be no further protection from arrest during one of his “tying up loose ends for the proprietor” escapades if something should go awry, as sometimes happened. For a brief moment, Theodore pictured some of the firm’s previous clients who had inadvertently fallen from high places, carelessly gone deep-water swimming without appropriate underwater breathing apparatus, or had been struck by a wayward taxicab, and each time, the firm made an exorbitant amount of profit on their special bail transactions. Although as Theodore reminded himself, those rendered deceased by an errant cab had been jaywalking outside the officially recognized crosswalk at the time of contact. In any case, perhaps he was right to maintain a certain paranoia toward city taxicabs. One never really knew.

“Are you daydreaming?” inquired the proprietor.

Theodore glanced quickly at his boss, realizing that Cletis Johnston was staring directly at him, and had his hand extended as if he were expecting to be handed something.

“Oh, the report.”

The proprietor took the manila envelope, removed the contents, and commenced to read.

“According to this report,” he said, “the Internal Affairs detective was having a couple of drinks in his favorite bar two nights ago with fellow associates. At approximately nine fifteen he received a phone call and left immediately to make an appointment with one of his secret informants. He didn’t come into work the next morning.”

“Where’d they find him?”

“Patience, Theodore, we are coming to that part. On yesterday afternoon, the deceased was found lying beside his unmarked police vehicle at the end of a dirt road in the county. He’d been shot three times with an automatic pistol, nine millimeter. Three casings were recovered at the scene.”

“Three times,” muttered Theodore. “Somebody really wanted him dead.”

“Forensics ran a ballistics test on the three slugs removed from the body,” Cletis continued, “but there were no matches in the national files and no fingerprints on the three casings.”

“Then how,” questioned Theodore, “did they pin the rap on our captain?”

“In a later report,” said the Proprietor as he finished shuffling some of the documents, “it seems an anonymous caller suggested that the police department check their own internal files for a ballistics match. They did, and up comes our captain’s department-issued nine millimeter as a perfect match.”

That didn’t sound right to Theodore. “You mean the police department keeps its own special ballistics files?”

“A mere precaution, Theodore, in some of the larger law enforcement organizations these days when it comes to department-issued weapons. A newly received firearm is discharged into a water barrel to ensure it works properly, the slugs are retrieved from the water barrel, and a ballistics record is made before the weapon is issued to a particular officer. That way, in any questionable shootings involving a policeman, the department can quickly determine from which officer’s weapon the bullet was fired. It’s like having a DNA data bank already in place, except this one’s established for guns instead of people.”

“That’s sneaky,” said Theodore. “What’s the captain got to say about things.”

“Our good captain says he didn’t shoot this particular detective, so Moklal had him go over all his recent activities, trying to find an alibi or a reasonable explanation for the charge.”

“I already heard Moklal say there was no alibi.”

“Quite right, Theodore, which leaves us with finding a reasonable explanation for the charges.”

Theodore waited for more, but Cletis Johnston only stared off into the darker recesses of the Inner Sanctum. Fearing to interrupt the Proprietor’s meditation on the situation, Theodore turned to Moklal and whispered, “So what do we know about an explanation?”

“Not much,” replied Moklal in a normal voice. “For yesterday and the day before, the captain was involved with his mandatory semiannual firearms qualifications. During the first day, he fired standing from the fifteen-, twenty-five-, and fifty-yard lines for a numerical score, and on the second day, he shot a tactical combat course.”

Theodore shrugged his shoulders. “That doesn’t tell us anything.”

“Actually, it does,” injected the Proprietor. “Moklal, return to the jail and ask our good captain who else was on the firing range with him. I need more details. When you have him in the interview room, call me on one of our throwaway cell phones so I can ask him all the right questions.”

Nodding his head in a short bow, the Hindu turned and was gone.

“What about me?” inquired Theodore.

“Go wait in the outer office while I contemplate a strategy. I think you will soon be dining at the food court in the mall again.”

As Theodore backed away, he noticed that the proprietor had resumed staring off into the dark recesses of the high ceiling at the far end of the Inner Sanctum. Turning abruptly, Theodore hurried his steps toward the door. Even after all his years at the firm, he had never turned his vision upward toward those dark recesses like the Proprietor did. In truth, Theodore was afraid of what he might find lurking there. He strongly suspected it was the lair of something sinister.

With a bulky sealed envelope in hand, Theodore returned to the mall food court for an early supper. His instructions were simple: Purchase something which would be placed into a food bag, eat the food, and place any remnants back in the bag. Then, before he threw it into one of the trash receptacles in the food court, he was to surreptitiously insert the envelope into the bag, roll up the bag’s top, and then dispose of it like any other customer getting rid of his trash.

Since the envelope had already been sealed, Theodore had no idea what was written on the paper inside. All he knew was that the heavy envelope contained instructions from the Proprietor to the Internal Affairs secretary, and that these instructions were very important to the outcome of the captain’s dire situation. After throwing away the bag, Theodore was to leave and not look back.

All had gone almost as planned.

While consuming something allegedly from the chicken family — he had declined to return to the sandwich and fries shop because the snide young man was still working that counter — Theodore mentally picked out one of the nearby large metal trash cans as a drop. The only problem as he saw it was that the mall janitor was slowly moving through the food court, emptying all the receptacles.

Theodore ate slower. He didn’t want to finish too soon, throw the bag away, and then have the mall janitor pick up his food bag containing the important instructions along with all the other garbage. In that case, they would lose the valuable services of their bent captain, and he, Theodore, would be in serious trouble with the Proprietor. Theodore figured he already had one broken and improperly set left pinky finger, he didn’t need a matching finger on his right hand.

The mall janitor seemed to be working slower.

Theodore ate even slower.

Finally, the janitor emptied the receptacle nearest to Theodore and wandered off with an overfull trash cart.

Theodore breathed a sigh of relief, inserted the sealed envelope into his food bag, and tossed it carefully into the large metal trash can. With all that empty space now in the can, Theodore could hear his bag hit bottom with a muffled thud, but then that bulky envelope of instructions had been rather heavy, heavier than just paper. Before leaving, he glanced all around. None of the other food court patrons seemed to be paying any attention to him.

He left the food court, walked a short distance, and then turned where he could still observe the trash receptacle. Nobody made a move toward that particular can. After ten minutes of boredom, Theodore decided to leave his post and go on up to the mezzanine where he had a better view of the entire food court. True, he wasn’t supposed to look back in order to identify the receiver of the bag, or even to see what happened after he left, but this delivery was important and needed to go correctly. Besides, who would know other than himself? He took the escalator up.

If it hadn’t been for the large crowds of shoppers on the escalator, plus those taking their own unhurried time along the elevated walkway, Theodore figured he would have arrived at the mezzanine rail earlier. As it was, he showed up just as a second janitor was making his rounds of emptying the same trash receptacles. Didn’t these guys coordinate with each other? And, sure enough, there was Theodore’s own food bag with the rolled-up top now joining garbage from several other cans.

“Hey,” shouted Theodore.

Without turning in the direction of Theodore’s voice, this second janitor, pushing his semifilled cart, slowly meandered off in the same direction the first one had taken. By the time Theodore fought his way back through the crowds and down the escalator, the janitor had vanished. And, so had the food bag with sealed instructions for the Internal Affairs secretary. Theodore wasn’t sure how he was going to explain this to the proprietor.

Dragging his feet, Theodore once more returned to the office. Mulling circumstances over in his head en route to the Inner Sanctum, he decided that denial was the best defense. As far as he was concerned, he had done as he was told. Except for the last part, of course, but then he could deny sticking around to see who picked up the bag, and that it turned out to be one of the mall janitors instead of the Internal Affairs lady. This particular error was clearly not his fault; therefore, he’d remain silent on that part.

The proprietor glanced up. “I see you’re back. Did you make the drop as instructed?”

“Yes, sir, envelope in the bag, bag in the trash.”

“Good, then all should go as planned and our captain’s murder charge will soon have a different explanation.”

“Excuse me, sir, but how exactly do we provide a different explanation for his murder charge?”

Cletis Johnston came as close to a smile as Theodore had ever seen on the proprietor’s face.

“Having a working knowledge of semiautomatic pistols is of immense assistance in determining a very rational set of circumstances as to how our captain’s gun fired the deadly bullets.”

Theodore, himself, carried a six-shot revolver. Having the extra duty of remembering to thumb the safety on an automatic pistol to an off position was just one more thing that slowed him down when he needed to use a weapon. As he saw it, committing crimes was difficult enough without having your weapon fail to fire because you forgot to flip off the damn safety. A guy could get himself killed that way.

“Automatics of the same model,” continued the Proprietor, “have interchangeable parts. The barrel, that’s the piece with lands and grooves which determine an individual weapon’s ballistics, of one automatic will easily fit into the slide of a same model automatic.”

Theodore nodded his head as if he understood so far, but in truth, he still didn’t get the big picture.

“Since weapons are usually cleaned after daily use on a police firing range,” Cletis went on, “I had Moklal inquire as to who was in the firing lines the same days as our captain. It seems most of the higher brass prefer not to qualify with the lower echelon in attendance at the range. Something about losing face if the brass happen to shoot a lower score than, say a common patrolman does.”

That made sense to Theodore.

“Turns out the only other police officer qualifying on the same two days as our captain was a lieutenant in Vice.”

“But, how’d the lieutenant do it?” asked Theodore.

“During my second questioning of our captain, he remembered being called away to the phone on both days, just as he was in the middle of disassembling his weapon for cleaning. I think the lieutenant arranged those calls in order to swap barrels on that first day, then used his own gun with the captain’s barrel inserted to shoot the Internal Affairs detective out on the dirt road, and of course swapped the barrels back during cleaning on the second day. Thus the subsequent anonymous phone call for the department to check its own internal ballistics files. The killer wished to direct blame toward someone else.”

“But,” exclaimed Theodore, “now that we’ve figured out how it was done, all you have to do is notify the Homicide Squad.”

“Think about it, Theodore. We have no witnesses to the exchange of gun barrels and no actual proof it happened that way.”

“Then what is our strategy? What do we do?”

“I’ve already done it, Theodore. The envelope of instructions you delivered to the Internal Affairs secretary will take care of the matter.”

“How’s that?”

“It seems,” replied the Proprietor, “that Internal Affairs still has the captain’s pistol in evidence. It has not yet been test fired again to confirm the original ballistics match. I merely instructed the Internal Affairs secretary to get into evidence and replace the barrel in the captain’s gun with a third barrel from an unregistered automatic of the same model. When Forensics fires the captain’s gun, there will be no incriminating match. When confronted about the difference in ballistics from when his service weapon was issued long ago, the captain will conveniently remember that he replaced his original malfunctioning barrel a few years back.”

“Smart,” said Theodore, “but where will this new barrel come from?”

“Simple,” Theodore, “you delivered the new barrel yourself in that sealed envelope at the food court.”

“Oh,” said Theodore. He remembered the heavy thud in the bottom of the trash receptacle, then he had visions of two different janitors picking up mall garbage. At this point, he didn’t know whether to stay and squeegee, or find an excuse to suddenly be elsewhere.

“What I have also set in motion,” continued the Proprietor, “is to arrange a private meeting with our industrious lieutenant in Vice. Anyone as clever as he is should work for us.”

“Why would he do that?” inquired Theodore, who now felt his brain operating on two tracks simultaneously like subway trains going in opposite directions. One track tried to maintain normal conversation as would any person clearly innocent of malfeasance of duty, while the second track contemplated damage control due to the third gun barrel possibly having ended up in a garbage compactor.

“Don’t forget those three shell casings left at the crime scene,” said the Proprietor, “Upon close examination, forensics may be able to determine that the marks left by the pistol’s extraction and ejection mechanisms do not match the captain’s pistol, but they may match those of the lieutenant’s weapon. I wonder if the lieutenant is willing to gamble his life on a test of his department-issued automatic.”

“Excellent strategy, sir,” said Theodore, using the first track of his brain.

On a third track of the same brain, Theodore wondered when the proprietor’s phone would ring, and would it come from the Internal Affairs secretary now mad about her lost-in-the-trash instructions, not to mention the third gun barrel, or would it be their bent captain inquiring why he had not yet been released from his holding cell.

“In any case,” said the proprietor, “the captain should soon be exonerated, which will tighten our bond with him.”

“And the lieutenant?” inquired Theodore, as if all was still going according to the proprietor’s plan.

“He has the choice of prison or becoming ours.”

At this point, the Inner Sanctum phone rang.

Theodore surreptitiously retreated three steps toward the exit, just in case. The longer Cletis Johnston talked on the phone, the more steps Theodore figured he could take.

“I see,” muttered the proprietor. He hung up.

Theodore took one more step and hesitated.

“That was the Internal Affairs secretary,” said Cletis. “She did as I instructed and the captain is being released at this very moment.”

Theodore gave a sigh of relief. “All’s well that ends well then, sir.” Somehow something must have gone right after all. He turned for the door.

“There is one thing, Theodore.”

The bail agent froze.

“Yes, sir?”

“The Internal Affairs secretary has refused to work with us anymore under any circumstances, and she attributes that to you.”

“How so, sir?”

“Disguised as the mall janitor, she was prepared to pick up your bag with the sealed instructions, but you kept eating slower and slower and wouldn’t throw the bag into the receptacle. When all the other trash cans were empty, she felt conspicuous and finally had to leave.”

“Sorry, sir, I didn’t know that was her, but why is she so angry?”

“In an act of desperation to recover all contents of our envelope, the Internal Affairs secretary had to mug the real janitor back in the maintenance office after he made his own rounds of the food court. Apparently, mugging is not really her area of expertise. She is rather upset.”

“I understand completely, sir.” He slid one foot closer to the door.

“Furthermore,” said Cletis, “she saw you peeking over the mezzanine rail after you left, and she wondered why you were calling attention to yourself by shouting down into the food court. You realize all this will be reflected in your annual performance evaluation at the end of the year.”

“Yes, sir.”

By now, Theodore had inched his way over to the doorway leading into the outer office. He almost bolted. “Just not my day,” he muttered, “everything went wrong.”

Standing nearby, Moklal Feringheea politely held the door open and bowed slightly from the neck. As Theodore passed by, the tall Hindu whispered, “You should consider two sayings of the Mahatma. First, ‘It is a bad carpenter who quarrels with his tools.’ ”

Theodore waited for the other shoe to drop.

“And?”

“And, ‘Rome’s decline began long before it fell.’ ”

Copyright © 2012 R. T. Lawton