Free No Way Out by Joel Goldman Page A

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.

Chapter Fifteen
     
    The phone rang at nine-thirty. I was dozing through the news. Joy was reading, the dogs asleep at her feet. I picked up the cordless phone.
    “Who is it?” Joy asked.
    “Caller ID says unknown.”
    “Let the machine answer. You can always call back if it’s someone we need to talk to.”
    She didn’t like calls from unknown callers, especially late-evening ones. The ringing triggered the primeval fear that had never left her since we lost Kevin. There had always been calls in the night when I was an FBI agent. They were part of my job. She hated those as well because they took me away, leaving her alone, uncertain when or if I’d come back.
    “It’s probably nothing,” I said, answering the phone. “Hello.”
    “Mr. Davis. It’s me. Roni Chase.”
    I was surprised by her formality but realized she hadn’t called me by name at LC’s or at her office. Her voice was strained and hushed.
    “Roni, you can call me Jack. What’s up?”
    “Frank Crenshaw is dead.”
    “I’m sorry to hear that. What happened? I thought that nurse told you he was going to be okay.”
    “He would have been except someone else shot him.”
    “Who?” I asked.
    “It wasn’t me, but I don’t think Detective Carter believes me.”
    “What makes you say that?”
    “I’m at the hospital, and he won’t let me go home.”
    “Are you under arrest?
    “I don’t think so. Detective Carter hasn’t said that, but he told me I couldn’t leave.”
    “Has he read you your rights?”
    “Like I have a right to remain silent? All of