CHAPTER 16
The elderly librarian peered at them over wire-rimmed glasses, a forced smile on her face. One of the men didn’t impress her as someone likely to spend much time in search of a book. The old man, on the other hand, looked and sounded well-educated. She was surprised that he hadn’t already read Great Expectations.
She led them toward the fiction section and the row of books whose authors’ last names began with D.
“Dickens . . . Charles Dickens . . . Mis-ter Dickens,” she said to herself as her finger passed along the leather spines. “I’m sure we have it. It’s not one of our more popular titles, mind you, but it does occasionally get borrowed.” She returned to her desk and looked through files. “Nope, it’s not out. It must have been put on the wrong shelf.”
The two men watched as she frittered about, humming to herself as she happily searched.
“Found it,” she finally called out as she hurried back to them, clutching the book to her breast. “Who on earth could have put it in the section for family histories? Such carelessness is embarrassing.”
“I’d like to borrow it if I may,” Profer said, showing her a card that identified him as a member of the Fort Worth Lawyers Association.
He waited until he and Ben were outside before he opened the book and began flipping through it. Halfway through the three hundred pages were several loose papers that fell out and fluttered to the sidewalk. Dalton collected them and handed them to Profer.
As the lawyer read, a smile broke across his face and he began to nod. “This is what it’s all about,” he said, “what someone has been willing to kill for. These are the notes Thomas Cookson gave to Rawlings for safekeeping. I told you he was a bright young man, didn’t I?
“John hid them in the library of all places.”
It had begun like this:
John Rawlings was surprised when Thomas Cookson appeared in his office that afternoon, shortly after the bank had closed for the day. The young lawyer had his account at Fort Worth Bank & Trust but had met the owner and president only once. Cookson had appeared from his office just long enough to shake his hand the first time he made a deposit and thank him for choosing to do business with his institution.
Short and portly, Cookson hardly looked like a man with great expertise in financial matters. His suit, though obviously expensive and well tailored, seemed always wrinkled and fit a bit too snugly. Though almost bald, he refused to wear a hat. The constant smile he had for his customers seemed genuine, though there was always a slight hint that his thoughts were elsewhere. All in all, however, he was viewed as a pillar of the community and more than once it had been suggested that he consider running for public office. And each time the subject came up, Cookson would laugh and say he was busy enough, thank you, seeing to the financial needs and well-being of the farmers, ranchers, and business owners who patronized his bank.
On the day he visited Rawlings there was no smile on his face.
“There is a somewhat delicate matter I wish to discuss,” he said, “and I’d prefer to do it in the privacy of my own home. Could I persuade you to come to the house this evening, perhaps after you’ve had your supper? Bring whatever papers you need me to sign to officially become a client and I’ll write you a check.”
To a lawyer, the last sentence included the magic words. They agreed to continue their conversation at eight o’clock and the banker quickly exited the office.
That evening, after he and Mandy had put their son to bed, John went to the Cookson residence, where Thomas’ wife cheerfully greeted him at the front door and escorted him to her husband’s home office.
“Close the door, please,” Cookson said. “I keep few secrets from my wife, but this is a matter I don’t wish her to worry over.” He poured his visitor a glass of brandy and, after being assured their conversation would not leave the room, went straight to the matter he wished to discuss.
For the next hour, he described a problem that had been aggravating his ulcer and robbing him of sleep. “I consider myself an honest and law-abiding man,” he began, “but I fear I may have stepped beyond a line I don’t want to cross. To have done so goes against all I believe in, but the safety of the lady who just ushered you in is at stake, and her well-being is my foremost concern.
“After coming to the conclusion that I needed counsel and deciding today to speak with a lawyer, I chose you.”
Rawlings took a sip of his brandy but said nothing.
“So that all of our cards are on the table, I should say that you are hardly the first man I would have chosen under more normal circumstances. I know of your dealings with some of the, shall we say, less reputable of our citizens. On one hand, I don’t approve of the career path you seem to have chosen, despite the fact I see you have done quite well for yourself. On the other—and this is of greater importance to me at the moment—you are clearly an aggressive and fearless attorney, one who seems to have accumulated considerable knowledge of undesirable individuals and the way they think. That, Mr. Rawlings, is why I’ve asked you here tonight.
“I have come in contact with a grossly undesirable man who now threatens everything I hold sacred.”
Far from comfortable with the shaded compliment he had just been given, John leaned forward and cleared his throat. “Do you want to tell me who this person is?”
“He is Colonel Raymond Abernathy, a local rancher of considerable means. He’s a customer at my bank. My largest depositor, in fact. There was a time when I was so enamored of his financial success that I welcomed him as a shareholder and even offered him a place on our board of directors.”
Cookson sighed deeply and rubbed his temple before continuing. “In time, I began to hear rumors that, I’m embarrassed to admit, I chose to disregard. We’re all, in one way or another, greedy people, Mr. Rawlings, and I allowed it to blind me to the truth.”
He told of suspicions that the rapid growth of Abernathy’s herd was due to his stealing cattle that belonged to others. Cookson had personally signed off on land transactions that were troubling. Too often, small farmers had sold their property to the Colonel for far less than it was worth. But if people were being forced from their homes, none said so.
“It’s sad to say that ignorance is, indeed, bliss,” he said.
“He was doing the same thing with some of the local businesses, particularly those down in Hell’s Half Acre. A shop owner would begin to struggle to make payments on his loan—a situation I sometimes helped create—and soon had sold out to Abernathy. It seemed he was trying to own everything in sight.
“But I guess things weren’t moving fast enough to suit him. You learn in my business, Mr. Rawlings, that greed too often begets greed. I’m guessing you’ve experienced a taste of that yourself.
“At any rate, that’s when the Colonel paid a visit to my office. He was quite friendly at first, saying all the right things about the economic future of the city and how he wanted to do his part. It seemed a fair enough reason for his purchases. Or at least one I could deal with.
“But on later visits, he began outlining a plan: There were those too stubborn to hear him out and give up their farm or grocery or whatever. There was a way, he suggested, that they could be convinced to reconsider their position.
“That’s when he mentioned the idea that the bank increase interest rates on loans to a level that would be impossible to pay. Bankruptcy would be the next step, that or selling out cheap to the Colonel.
“I reluctantly carried out his plan a couple of times but felt terrible about it. Thus, I later made it clear to him that not only would I no longer consider such actions but that, in all likelihood, they would be in violation of any number of state and federal banking regulations. Basically, I threw him out of my office.
“The next time he came back, he had several of his men with him, including our fine Sheriff Langston. In retrospect, it was to make sure I was aware that he had muscle as well as high-ranking city officials in his corner. He came in, all smiles, and said he just wanted to know if I had reconsidered my position.
“I told him I hadn’t and he quickly left. Foolishly, I thought it was over.
“He waited a couple of days before returning earlier this week. He talked about what a nice house I had, how pretty my wife was, what a good life we were living—and what a shame it would be if all that were to suddenly end. It was a threat, pure and simple.”
Cookson fell silent, leaning back in his chair and locking his chubby fingers together, waiting for the lawyer to respond. When Rawlings said nothing, he continued.
“I had one of my clerks pull our records of Abernathy’s financial dealings,” he said, “and I think they clearly show he has dealt unfairly with a number of people. Whether it rises to the level of criminal activity is for someone like you to say. But even if it could be proved, I don’t know what I can do.”
Neither did Rawlings, in light of the fact that the Colonel and local law enforcement were obviously on a friendly basis.
John knew Cookson expected a response, so he got to his feet and began pacing around the room, thinking. “As I see it,” he finally said, “your primary concern is keeping your wife and home safe and protecting the integrity of your bank. To do the latter, you need to find a way to avoid being accused of any illegal activity.”
“Exactly.”
Rawlings shook his head and continued. “What you need is a way to protect yourself, something that will give Colonel Abernathy reason to back away. It’s pretty clear there’s no use alerting Sheriff Langston to your concerns. A judge would do nothing without proof. I’ve never dealt with banking authorities or federal law enforcement, but I’m afraid anything they could do would take forever and a day.”
For the first time, Cookson’s voice was shrill, pleading. “Then what can I do?”
“I need to sleep on it,” John said. “And I’ll try to have an answer for you when you come by my office in the morning.”
He walked into the cool of the spring evening, contemplating the bank owner’s dilemma. It was complicated, potentially a matter of life and death if the Colonel’s threats were to be taken seriously. He’d never dealt with anything similar before and was frustrated in the knowledge that he had no good answer.
John knew that once home he would get little sleep.
When he arrived at his office the following morning, Thomas Cookson was waiting. “I hope you got more sleep than I did,” he said.
“Not much. Come in.”
The banker didn’t even bother to sit. Neither did Rawlings.
“I think it would be a good idea,” he said, “for you to put everything you told me last night in writing. Then give it to me for safekeeping and, if Abernathy continues to bother you, tell him what you’ve done and warn him that you’ll see it made public if necessary.”
“Aren’t you concerned that telling him might put you in jeopardy as well?”
“That’s what lawyers do,” John boasted with a strained laugh. “Of course, it might be wise at this stage if you didn’t reveal the name of your attorney.”
Shortly after Cookson delivered the detailed document and copies of the Colonel’s financial records, there was yet another confrontation in the banker’s office. Abernathy’s patience had disappeared as he cursed and jabbed a demanding finger at the banker’s chest. The shouting could be heard all the way into the bank lobby.
When Cookson told him what he had done on advice of counsel, Abernathy stormed out, yelling a threat over his shoulder. “This isn’t over,” he said, shoving a customer from his path.
Two days later, Rawlings had found the note on his door, asking that he visit his client immediately. When he arrived, Thomas Cookson was dead.
Hurrying back to the apartment, he barely had time to hide the pages in a book Mandy had set aside to return to the library before he was arrested and taken to jail.
All this is finally beginning to make sense,” Shelby Profer said as he folded the notes and stuffed them inside his jacket. “Thomas Cookson got himself killed because he wouldn’t give up the notes he’d written. Rawlings was blamed for the murder once they figured out that he had the incriminating information. When he went to jail and very nearly died without telling where it was, they next decided that by kidnapping the youngster they could get somebody, maybe even Mrs. Rawlings, to tell them what they wanted to know.”
“Where does it end?” Ben said.
“I haven’t the slightest idea,” Profer said as he turned to go back inside.
“Ma’am,” he said to the librarian, “I’ve changed my mind and wish to return your book. As a man who genuinely admires the adventurous plots of dime novels, I fear Charles Dickens might be a bit too dense for my taste.”