S is for Silence (Kinsey Millhone 19)

As I’d anticipated, Cramer was on the premises. In the interest of snagging business, the dealership stayed open until 9:00 every night. Chet told me that at the end of a hard day’s work (and a couple of stiff drinks), many a man found himself in the mood to look at new cars. What better reward for a job well done than to sit in a red-hot Corvette, with a salesman fawning over you, demonstrating all the bells and whistles, offering to cut you a deal. You might pretend you were window-shopping until you realized you could actually drive a new car home.

Cramer was schmoozing with a married couple when I walked in. He was such an old hand at selling that I doubted they even realized what was happening. He had Winston fetch the keys and he watched with something close to parental pride when Winston went off with them on a test drive. He caught sight of me and greeted me warmly, perhaps thinking I was finally in the mood to buy.

I said, “I’m here to test your memory. I’m trying to find out who owned a black late-model Chevy pickup truck back in 1953.”

He smiled. “Half the men in town,” he said. “Let’s go up to my office and I can check.”

“Glory be. You still have records from that era?”

“I have records dating back to 1925, the year I got into the business.”

I climbed the stairs behind him and followed him to his office. He opened a door and led me into a storage area easily as large as his office. File cabinets lined the walls on three sides, each drawer neatly labeled with dates and vehicle types.

I said, “I don’t believe this.”

“Well, I’ll tell you why I keep these. Every vehicle I sell represents a future sale. Customer comes in, I can talk about the cars he’s owned and every servicing he’s had. I can compare last year’s model to this year’s, compare this year’s model to the one he was driving six years ago. Good points and bad. He knows he can trust me because I have the facts at my fingertips, and I’ve taken the time to look them up before he walked in the door. Guy dies, I talk to his son, reminisce about the old man, and maybe sell him a car as well.”

Without mentioning Ty by name or detailing the circumstances, I told him what I knew.

Cramer regarded me with interest. “So you’re saying this fellow would have recognized the truck because his father had the 1948 model.”

“Right. And it couldn’t have been later than 1953 because the ‘54 models wouldn’t have come out as early as July.”

“You’re correct on that point. So a span of five years. That shouldn’t be too hard. Have a seat and I’ll pull what I have. There’s a tin of chocolate chip cookies on my desk if you want to help yourself. My wife made them. Caroleena. She’s a fabulous cook.”

The cookies were incredible, so I treated myself to another while I waited for him. Five minutes later he emerged from the room with an armload of files, saying, “I keep these cross-referenced. Customer’s name with the type of vehicle he’s bought from me before. I don’t go so far as to color code, but I can lay hands on the contract for every vehicle I’ve sold. What I have here is the Advance Design Series, 1949 through 1953.”

He handed me a scratch pad, pen, and two of the files while he took the other three. We sat and went through them contract by contract, checking the color of the pickup, noting down the names of anyone who’d bought a black one. Twenty-five minutes later, we each had a list, though mine wasn’t at all enlightening. He got up and made copies of both lists and gave them to me.

I ran my eye down the names on his list. “No one I recognize.”

He shrugged. “The truck might have been repainted.”

“In that case, we’d have no way to find the owner.”

“Another possibility, the fella might have borrowed the truck. In those days, nobody locked their doors, and half the time people left their keys in the ignition.”

“I’ve heard that before and it actually makes sense. You go out to dig a grave, you don’t want use your own truck complete with California plates. Well. I’m sorry I wasted your time.”

“I guess every lead you get isn’t going to pay off.”

“That’s for sure. Mind if I pick your brain about something else?”

“I’ll help if I can. It’s not like I have total recall of anything much beyond this dealership.”

“Understood. I’ve been digging and I’ve come up with something quirky.”

“That being?”

“Hairl Tanner’s will.” I went on to tell him what I’d discovered about the terms.