Chapter 22: Trying to Fix What’s Broken

June,1985

[“Charlie, I’m giving you FULL AUTHORITY to do whatever you have to do to keep anyone from getting shot. You KNOW what I mean! Someone will be there in two minutes; I’ll be there in 20, SHOW THEM YOUR PAGER. Good luck son!”]

Greg ‘heard’ everything and flashed he was only seconds away. I told him to be careful, because I didn’t want him getting shot. He replied, “YOU TOO!”

I went quickly, but quietly out the door. Jack had his back to me.

It seemed that he was getting twitchy, and was aiming directly at Sam. He was yelling at Larry to put the boxes and plans back in his trunk, which Larry was hurriedly doing.

I was walking as fast as I could, trying to stay quiet. I was still 50 feet away when Larry closed the trunk.

Jack turned his head and saw me, “You called the cops, you little nerd! For that, I’m gonna kill you first!” He said, turning towards me.

I was glad it hadn’t gotten dark yet. I could clearly see the gun in his hand.

“DROP THE GUN, JACK HOFF. Last warning!”

“You nerd BASTARD!”

“WRONG ANSWER.”

The second I was sure the gun wasn’t pointing at anyone, I snatched it up in the air as hard as I could. I heard it go off just as it flew out of his hand.

Jack was screaming in pain.

Sam, Dad and Larry wasted no time tackling him so he wouldn’t get away. Sam began beating him senseless. I grabbed Sam from behind to keep him from killing Jack, who was holding his right hand and there was blood everywhere. The gun had taken his ENTIRE trigger finger with it!

Dad calmly walked over to his car and got his tire iron out of his trunk. He got back, just as two State Trooper squad cars pulled into the parking lot with lights on, but no sirens. They were immediately followed by two North Aurora police cars.

I had walked over to find the gun and waved my arms at the State Troopers and then just stood there with my hands up. The Trooper looked at me, “Are you Charlie or Lenny?”

“Yes, I’m Charlie, and that’s Jack’s gun.” I said, pointing at it.

He chuckled, “You can put your hands down! Can I see your ‘creds’”?

I laughed, “You mean my pager?”

“Ah yes, you’re one of Capt Gregory’s boys!”

I handed it to him as his partner picked up Jacks gun by the barrel. He took one look at my pager and handed it back to me. “Is everyone okay?” He asked.

“I think so...” was all I got out when his partner shouted, “Not everyone, Sarge, somebody’s finger is lying over here!”

“Oops, that might be Jack’s. He didn’t want to let go of his gun.” I snickered.

“Well, at least he still has all of his clothes on!” He chuckled.

“You heard about that?”

“Oh yeah, we’ve ALL heard about the six naked monkeys in the rafters! We also know, not to ask YOU any more questions. Let’s go over by your friends. Capt Gregory should be along shortly.”

The North Aurora cops were starting to question Sam, when Sarge told them to ‘cease and desist’ until his boss got here. They seemed both annoyed and relieved. “No problem, are the State Boys taking this over?”

Sarge said, “Until the FBI gets here, I guess. Can you take the perp into custody and hold him for us for 24 hours?”

“Should we get his finger sewed back on?”

“Sure, but NO PHONE CALLS until we get him back! This is an interstate investigation, and there’s at least one other perp we don’t want tipped off.”

Jack heard that and looked extremely panicked.

“Okay, got it!” The cop said, as they took Jack away in handcuffs. He had a bloody rag wrapped around his hand.

A few minutes later, Capt Gregory came flying into the parking lot with his lights on.

He started smiling when he saw Dad and me. “No fatalities?”

Dad chuckled, “Just a ‘finger-ectomy’.”

“Well, I DID tell Charlie to do whatever he had to in order to neutralize the threat!”

“He did that! He saved us all from being shot!”

Sam said, “Oh my God! Charlie did that? I was wondering WHAT made the gun fly out of Jacks hand like that. I thought I was as good as dead when it suddenly flew like 50’ in the air!”

Dad chuckled, “‘For the record’, I hit the gun with this tire iron when he looked at Charlie coming out of the office.”

Sam and Larry looked at us and ‘zipped’ their mouths shut, smiling.

“Capt Gregory knows EXACTLY what happened, trust me.” I told them.

Jim was just grinning. “Well, let’s see what we’ve got before I contact the FBI. This might be a long night. You guys might wanna call your wives. Can we use your office, Mr Granger?”

“Yes, Charlie and Larry can round up the plans from Jacks office while the rest of us go into the meeting room and get everything laid out that Jack tried to abscond with. While they’re doing that, I’ll make some coffee.”

“Sounds like a winner”, Captain Gregory said, “I think we’re gonna need it.”

Greg said, “Tim’s getting all the invoices and receipts together and will come over if you want.”

“That’s the construction company superintendent?” Jim asked.

“Yes, are we going to need the owner too?” Greg wanted to know.

“At some point, but, for now, we’ll just go with what we’ve got.” Capt Gregory replied.

We got the ‘signed’ copies of the official plans and everything we could find in Jacks drafting table drawers, as well as his desk.

Sam was explaining our suspicions to Jim, as Larry and I started comparing the quantities of the special-dimension steel. For the most part, the circular building and ours was an exact match. The only real difference was the vertical beams part #V-120-AS. On the circular building, there were 96 of them. On Jacks design, there were only 72 and 24 #V-120-S beams.

Larry explained that ‘S’ meant symmetrical attachment points, where ‘AS’ were asymmetrical. On Jacks first story, he had 24 ‘S’s’ where the original had ‘AS’s’. Larry said, “That explains the problem they were having with the horizontals being ¾ of an inch too long and short. The ‘AS’ beams connection points would have accounted for that!”

Sam asked, “Why would Jack do that? He had to know there was going to be problems.”

Larry started looking at Jacks ‘work sheets’ and started laughing. “The ignorant bastard screwed up! He originally intended to put the S’s on the third floor. The first three floors are all identical and he must have figured, by the time it was discovered, he would have gotten all the money for the stolen steel and would have been long gone!”

“I wish we knew how much they’ve already been paid.” Sam said.

Just then, Tim came in with a big file box. “We wrote one check for $500,000 two weeks ago”, Tim said, “and we were getting ready to overnight one for $1.9 million, if Greg hadn’t stopped me!”

Jim whistled, “Whew, 2.4 million. What a scam!”

Tim chuckled, “They haven’t gotten ANYTHING yet! I called the bank this afternoon, and they said the first check hadn’t cleared yet. I took a chance and stopped payment on it!”

We were all laughing and high-fives were flying around the room.

Jim asked, “Has anyone contacted Dunphy Steel? Do we know who’s all involved there?”

Sam said, “Not yet, we only got this information a few hours ago, I wonder if the CEO is involved? I know the CFO is Jacks brother, Frank and we’re certain he’s involved!”

“And do we have any idea WHERE the steel is being hidden?” Jim asked.

Dad was grinning, “Yep! Look in those boxes for a receipt from Acme Storage in Pittsburgh.”

We dumped the box of papers on the counter and found a photocopy of a receipt from Acme Storage. It was dated, Oct 15,1984 and was prepaid for one year!

“Bingo,” Dad said, “oh, and if I ‘read’ Jack right, the CEO IS involved! He discovered their scam, and was blackmailing them!”

Jim looked at Tim and let out a long sigh. “Tim, I hate to say this, but, you’re going to have to stop working on your job. My FBI friend is going to have to take over from here, and there’s a chance they will have to impound all of the stolen steel. I’m really sorry. I’ll do everything I can to see if they can somehow sell it to you. I’m no ‘Legal-beagle’, but, the courts just want money, NOT STEEL! Since you stopped the minute you discovered the possible crime and have cooperated completely, they may work with you. Contrary to popular belief, they can be quite cooperative with people who help them. ESPECIALLY, when it leads to an arrest!”

We all shook hands. When I shook Tim’s I had another flash. “Tim, call Dunphy Steel right now. Ask whoever answers to talk to Brian Dunphy. He’s the owner. I have a feeling.”

Tim looked confused, until Sam said, “Trust Charlie. I do! He had a ‘feeling’ about this whole thing!”

Sam called directory assistance and got connected to Dunphy Steel. It was already past 10:00 in Pittsburgh, but the receptionist answered on the first ring, “Dunphy Steel, this is Marian, how can I help you?”

Tim said, “Could I leave a message for Brian Dunphy?”

He had it on speaker, so we all heard a giggle, “You can talk to him right now if you’d like. The old goat is still here!”

Tim looked shocked. He was smiling at me when a deep voice answered the phone. “This is Brian; how can I help you?”

“My name is Tim Hansen, from Hansen Construction, in Downers Grove, Illinois, I have some problems with some of your steel.”

“Well, Tim, what’s your account number, so I can pull your contract folder?”

Tim read him the # from the contract and we waited for his reply.

Several minutes went by before Brian returned. “I found it in my CFO’s office. Sorry for the delay, but what seems to be the problem? It says you ordered 24 V-120-S beams. Was there a problem with them? It says there’s an outstanding balance of $75,000 for it.”

Sam, Larry, Jim and I all had raised eyebrows at that. Tim looked flummoxed and said, “There should be a lot more than THAT! Are you missing some invoices? I was billed $500K and was about to pay another $1.9 million!

There was silence and paper ruffling. “I’m terribly sorry, but I’m going to have to consult my CFO, there’s no record here of any other orders for Hansen Construction.”

Capt Gregory put his hand up, “Mr Dunphy, this is Captain Gregory, of the Illinois State Police. I have to ask you NOT to say anything to Frank Hoff about this. Do you remember that Circular building that went bankrupt about 9 months ago?”

We heard a long sigh, “Yesss, we had the FBI here asking questions for weeks! Does this have something to DO with that?”

“Yes, we think your CFO and his brother have colluded to steal and resell the steel. Jack Hoff has designed a building specifically to use that steel. We just can’t quite figure out why 24 beams were wrong. It’s interesting that it’s the same 24 on that invoice you have!”

“That son of a bitch! The reason is, 24 beams had already been put up and WEREN’T stolen! They were recovered by the court. You’re telling me the truth, right?”

“Yes sir.”

Brian sighed, “Well, that explains why Frank put in his notice. We were going to have a farewell party for him this Friday.”

“He’s going away alright. But it’s going to be to a federal prison! We have a suspicion your CEO is also involved, at least to some extent. PLEASE don’t say anything to either of them. Since I’m relatively sure you WEREN’T involved, you don’t have anything to worry about, legally. But, you must help us and the FBI by keeping quiet about this for now.” Jim said.

Brian responded, sounding hurt. “My reputation, the Architectural firm and Mr Hansen’s reputations are all going to be badly damaged. Tim, I swear to you, when the investigation is over, PLEASE give me a chance to make this right.”

Tim was somber, “I will Brian. We’ve all been duped. Thank you for caring about my company, and we will work together with my new architect to build something great together.”

“You have my word, Tim. Captain Gregory, you just make sure these thieving bastards pay for this!”

Jim was grinning, “One is already in custody on this end. And he’s missing a finger!”

“Good, Hopefully Frank won’t get off so easy!” Brian sounded pissed.

“That depends on him. You can bet there’s going to be a surprise for Frank tomorrow!”

“I won’t say a word Captain.” Brian said.

“Thanks, Brian.” Jim said. “Just be ready for a little excitement around the office tomorrow!”

“I’ll call you as soon as the dust clears, Brian.” Tim said.

We hung up and took a few deep breaths. Tim and Sam were looking at each other and I knew they were thinking “What do we do now?”

Sam asked, “How much steel do you have up right now, Tim?”

Tim sighed, “16 of the verticals ... the ones that were on Brian’s invoice! We were told by Jack that we would be getting ‘adapters’ to make the horizontals work, so we DON’T have any of the stolen girders up yet.