“Marcus Terry.”
“I got you right here, Mr. Terry. I’ll just need to see some ID.”
“I actually ran out of my house without my wallet.”
“Sorry, I can’t give you the code without any ID.”
“Come on, man. Give me a break, please? It’s already turning out to be a shitty day. My address is 3822 Bremer Street. My grass needs cutting, my old lady is all up my ass, I’m almost out of gas, and I need to go grocery shopping. What else do you want to know? My shoe size? Ten and a half. Here are the keys, see? And here’s an invoice.”
The burly man behind the counter smiled sympathetically. “I hear you, bud. I’ve had those days. Gimme a sec. Here, I’ll write it down for you.” Ray watched him scrawl the code on a slip of paper.
“Thanks, man. You’ve literally saved my life.” He shook the man’s hand, turned to go.
“Excuse me, Mr. Terry?”
Ray froze. “Yeah?”
“This month’s payment is two weeks past due.”
“Oh, okay. Let me talk to the old lady and have her give you a credit card.” He headed out toward the storage units. “This is probably the last month I’ll be using it anyway.”
“Hey, where are you going?” the man asked.
Ray froze again.
“I thought you said you were 601?”
Ray didn’t move.
“That’s in here, remember? That’s one of the climate-controlled lockers.”
Ray shook his head, laughed. “Yeah. Duh. Sorry. I don’t know where my head is today.” He turned right, toward the interior of the building, and the door slid shut.
He punched in the code. The security door opened. He followed the signs to 601—about halfway down a long hallway lined with dozens of blue corrugated metal doors. Above him a fan clicked on. A few rows over someone rattled something, and then came the sound of glass clinking on cement.
The locker couldn’t be that large—doors about three feet wide marched endlessly, side by side, down the corridor.
There was 601. He fumbled in his pocket for the keys. His fingers shook. His hands were sweating and he had to try three times to get the key in the metal padlock. Finally the key slid in, clicked, and the shackle slipped back. He removed the lock, placed it on the ground, pulled back the bolt, and lifted the corrugated metal door.
The unit was shallow—maybe three or four feet deep, with a cement floor. It was completely empty except for a medium-size cardboard box from Amazon, taped closed. He ripped away the tape.
Inside was a cheap black plastic laminate violin case.
He opened it.
PopPop’s fiddle—his own most loved Stradivarius violin—grinned up at him, unharmed.
Perfect.
Chapter 36
Aftermath
In the months leading up to the trial, it all came out—and it was so very simple. The morning of the theft, while Ray was showering, Nicole put on a pair of gloves, took out the violin, and stashed it in her small roller bag, using her clothes to pad it. In its place she left the Chuck Taylor shoe and the ransom note. She’d bought the shoe at a Walmart outside Cleveland.
Ray, oblivious, followed her out the door and down to the lobby, slung her roller bags into her taxi, and kissed her goodbye.
The taxi took her to Penn Station, as the GPS and the driver’s own testimony corroborated. She exited the taxi, went down to the bowels of Penn Station, her route confirmed by dozens of video cameras along the way. She’d already bought her ticket on New Jersey Transit to Newark Airport, which she’d charged to her Visa.
She stayed on the train one station past Newark Airport, got off at Elizabeth Station wearing a baseball cap—detectives later found the video footage—went across the street to where she’d parked her car in an overnight parking garage. She took out the violin, slipped it in a cheap plastic case that she’d picked up at a pawnshop, slid the case on the back seat floor, and covered it casually with a towel. Then, after locking the car, she caught the next train back to Newark Airport. She’d missed her stop, she told the conductor, waving her Newark ticket.
She’d flown back to Erie and then, that night, when Ray alerted her to the theft, flew back to New York. When they finally left New York, she picked up her car and drove back to Erie with the violin in her back seat. None of the detectives thought of checking her last route from New York back home: the extra miles meant an earlier oil change. Gosh, she hated driving her car. If only she’d taken public transportation.
Pilar Jiménez, who’d delivered their breakfast that morning, was a particular bit of brilliance. Nicole had learned months ago that many of the Saint Jacques housekeeping staff had immigrated illegally. The day before the theft, Nicole had paid the housekeeper $5,000 to deliver the breakfast cart and return to Honduras: if the woman refused, Nicole would report her to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The woman took the money and went back to Honduras—a nice red herring to keep the detectives busy.