No way out

Chapter Fourteen

Simon called as we were finishing the dinner dishes. I followed the dogs outside, letting them take me for a walk.

“The gun dealer’s name was Eldon Fowler,” he said. “He was hit for a hundred and six assault rifles and fifty-one or fifty-two handguns, depending on who you talk to.”

“Who did you talk to?”

“County sheriff’s deputy who was first on the scene and Fowler’s wife.”

“What about ATF? Wouldn’t they be running an investigation like this?”

“They are running it. They just aren’t talking about it. The sheriff’s deputy said it was one for the books. Fowler hit a deer. They figure he was going fifty miles an hour, which is a hell of a speed for a narrow gravel road in the woods, especially pulling a trailer full of guns at night in the rain.”

“Was he drunk?”

“He’d had a couple of beers with his buddies at the gun show, but he tested legal. Anyway, the deer smashes through the window, a big-assed buck, and spears Fowler in the chest with his antlers.”

“Christ! That’s a helluva way to die.”

“Only it didn’t kill him. He had a heart attack.”

“What happened to the deer?” I asked.

“That’s when things get really interesting. Someone put a bullet in the deer’s brain.”

“Fowler?”

“Don’t think so. The bullet they took out of the deer was a. 44 Magnum. Fowler’s wife said he was carrying a Glock 22. 40-caliber pistol, but the sheriff’s crime scene people didn’t find it. She said he also kept a Browning shotgun on the rack in his pickup, but they didn’t find it either. Thieves must have taken both guns.”

“Sounds like the thieves were following him and one of them took pity on the deer.”

“That’s what the deputy said. I talked to Fowler’s wife, and she told me that Fowler had called her when he was leaving the gun show in Topeka. He told her that someone had stolen a Ruger. 44 Magnum Redhawk from him during the show. Said it was his favorite gun. The sheriff’s deputy found Fowler’s inventory sheet for the guns he took to the show. Fowler had checked off what he sold and what he was bringing home. The Redhawk wasn’t checked off.”

“That’s why they don’t know whether the thieves stole fifty-one or fifty-two handguns,” I said.

“Right. And there’s one other thing. Highway Patrol got a call from someone an hour before Fowler’s wife found his body. Caller said he and his wife had passed a crazy man in a pickup truck that was pointing a shotgun out the driver’s window as they passed him on Highway 24. Fowler’s wife said he always took that highway. There was a hole in the passenger door of Fowler’s truck. The deputy told me it looked as if someone had fired a shotgun at point-blank range. Doesn’t make sense.”

“Part of it does. The thieves were on him at the gun show, at least one of them cocky enough to shoplift the Redhawk. Fowler realizes his favorite gun is missing and gets antsy, figuring they may be after the rest of his inventory. He thinks he’s being followed when he points the shotgun out the window. The driver who called the Highway Patrol, what was he driving?”

“I didn’t ask.”

“Well, ask. The thieves may have been driving something similar, and that’s what spooked Fowler. And that means Fowler thought he’d seen the thieves and what they were driving.”

“I can buy that, but it doesn’t explain Fowler’s passenger door,” Simon said.

“Who knows what was going on inside Fowler’s pickup? Guy is in a panic, maybe already having a heart attack. He’s got the shotgun off the rack. He’s pointing it out the window and pulls it back when he sees who’s in the other vehicle. A loaded shotgun is harder to handle than a cell phone while you’re driving and scared shitless. It’s a wonder he didn’t blow a hole in himself. What are those guns worth?”

“Retail, the handguns would go for an average of four to five hundred and the assault rifles from eight hundred to a grand, same for the shotgun. Makes the lot worth around a hundred and fifty thousand,” Simon said.

“Less if you’re fencing them one at a time.”

“Maybe more if you’re selling them as a lot to a motivated buyer.”

“Such as?” I asked.

“Cartels in Mexico. Drugs are a big business down there, and a handful of gangs and cartels are fighting each other and the government over it. They all need guns, and they’re getting some of them from the U.S.”

“How?”

“They have affiliates in this country. The American gangs steal the guns and smuggle them to Mexico,” he explained.

“I saw a kid on the bus today inked up with symbols of Nuestra Familia. Is that one of the cartels?”

“Yeah, along with Gran Familia Mexicana and the Cholos and some others. Is that what you wanted to know, or do you want me to keep digging?”

“I’ll settle for that for now. Take the rest of the day off.”

Frank Crenshaw was a charter member of the Upright Citizens Brigade. Worked hard, paid his taxes on time, and tried to protect his wife from bad news. I understood how someone like that, who’d played by the rules, could break under the pressure of losing everything, how in a mad moment, he could go crazy and kill his wife. It was the kind of sad crime that was committed countless times all across the world. But, how, I wondered, did a guy like that end up with a stolen gun? That was hard to do.