HEINZ NOONAN
and
Captain Heinz Noonan, the "Bearded Holmes" of the Sandersonville Police Department, was settling into a deep leather chair at the Anchorage Westward with a copy of Warren Sitka's SOURDOUGH JOURNALIST when his attention was attracted to a bellboy who was a woman waving at him from the front desk. Noonan spotted the woman waving wildly and then looked behind himself to see whose attention the bellboy was trying to attract. When he realized that there was only wall behind him, he knew he was being paged.
Pointing to himself, the bellboy noted in the affirmative. She raised four fingers and then pointed to the bank of telephones on the south wall next to the stuffed alascattalo. The alascattalo, a cross between a moose and a walrus, had always fascinated Noonan and, until he had actually seen one in the lobby of the Westward, he had not really believed that they existed. In fact, he still did not believe it in spite of the fact that here was one right in his hotel's lobby.
Rising from the red leather chair, Noonan ambled to the telephones and counted four over from the left. As he reached for the telephone cradle, he turned and looked at the bellboy as if to say, "This one?" She shook her head and indicated with a shrug of her body that he was to take the fourth phone from the right, not left. The detective stepped sideways twice and picked up the white house phone.
"Where are you, dear? You know we have a testimonial dinner this evening and I still want to make it to the Daddy Warbucks Museum of History and Art." Noonan chuckled to himself. The front page of the Anchorage Daily Times had just carried a story that the Anchorage Museum was being re-named for a rich patron of the arts. It would probably miff his wife since she probably knew the old codger.
"That's fine with me, Daddy-o. But the bottom line is still the same here. We're missing five children and a mile of the turnpike."
"Huh?"
"Captain Noonan?"
"Better be, otherwise I'm having a great time in his clothes."
"This is Commissioner Shogren in Robertson City, Colorado. We meet briefly last year at the Law and Order Symposium in New York. There's no reason for you to remember me."
"OK. Why am I talking to you?"
"Your wife said I could reach you in the lobby. We've got a bit of a problem here in Robertson City."
"It sounds like it. How can you lose one mile of turnpike?"
"That's why I'm calling."
"I'm listening." Noonan dug around in his pocket until he found a notepad and pencil. It was a short pencil so he licked the tip.
"Five hours ago we got an anonymous call stating that a perp was holding five students from school bus 75 for one million dollars in ransom. At that time the school bus wasn't even overdue. We put a call into the driver of the bus and he said he was just passing Mile Post 17 with the five students in question. He reported no trouble but we sent some patrol cars to check on the bus anyway. We ordered him to stop right there just in case there was some kind of trouble ahead. He said fine and that was it. There were police units at miles 47 and mile 2 at that time and both of them were informed of the ransom demand. They both raced Code 3 toward Mile Post 17. Neither of them passed the bus and when they met they realized the bus had disappeared -- with the five students."
"You trust both those police units?"
"Absolutely. We're a small city, Captain. Robertson City has all of, oh, 55,000 people. Everyone in the department knows everyone else. One of the police units was composed of a 17-year veteran of Robertson City and the other unit was two men, one a former New York street office and a rookie who happens to be my son-in-law. Yeah, I trust those guys."
"And you checked every road that led off of the turnpike?" Noonan licked the tip of his pencil again.
"All two of them, yeah. Nothing. Don't forget, we know this area real well. I grew up here. So does the bus driver. The bus wasn't at Mile 17 and not on either of the spur roads. It didn't pass either patrol unit and they were looking for it as they drove toward Mile 17."
"How do you know the bus didn't pull off on the spur road and wait for the patrol unit to pass and then continue on the unwatched road?"
"Because we had back up units on patrol. They were not assigned to go to the bus but they were on the turnpike on other assignments. If the bus had passed either one of them, they would have notified us. Three hours after the bus was missing, they still hadn't seen it. Besides that, there are toll booths at the end of the road in both directions. Even if the school bus had managed to slip by the other patrol units it still would have had to go through one of the toll booths. But the bus didn't go through either booth and every vehicle large enough to have contained a school bus was stopped and checked. We even back-checked the video cameras We got zip."
"And at Mile 17?"
"This is a bit tricky, Sir. The original road was cut through the Robertson City area in the 1840s. It was part of the wagon train route to California. Over the years towns grew up along the way and eventually formed the highway. Then, five years ago, budgets being what they are, the State of Colorado decided to re-pave the roadway and have it pay for itself. That's when they came up with the idea of a turnpike."
"Like they have back east." Noonan shook his head sadly.
"Same concept. You pay when you enter for how far you go, except in this case you can only use 63.5 miles. Like I said, there's only those two spur roads. The rest of the way is solid forest on either side of the road. There isn't even a gas station."
"Are there any structures at all between the two toll areas?" Noonan looked around the lobby as he thumbed to a new page in his notebook.
"About a mile inside each toll area is a snow removal equipment shed. We checked each of them and came up with nothing if you're thinking the bus might have been secreted in one of those buildings."
"I was. But your men found nothing?"
"Not a thing."
Noonan nodded his head slowly. "How long has the turnpike been open?"
"A little over a year."
"From which end did the school bus enter?"
"Mile 0."
"Did the person at the toll booth actually see the school bus enter the toll area?"
"Not in the sense you mean. The school district, some trucking companies and a lot of service vehicles use an automated entrance. They drive through a gate and an electronic eye scans the top of the windshield for a bar code. When it recognizes the bar code, it logs the vehicle through. So, yes, on video we saw the school bus go through the turn style. But no, a human being did not look in and see the school bus go through in real time."
"Could you see who was driving the bus?"
"No. But it had to be the regular bus driver. Don't forget, I talked to him over the radio when he was at Mile 17."
"Ah, yes, the mile?"
"Well we couldn't find Mile Post 17. The mile markers went from 16 to 18 on both sides, as if a mile of the road had disappeared. One of the patrol units checked around what should have been -- Mile Post 17 but was actually labeled Mile Post 19 -- and the other went back to the toll booth at mile 0 to clock the distance on a speedometer -- just in case they made a mistake.."
"Clearly someone adjusted the mile post signs."
"Why? Mile 17 is
still Mile 17 even if it's called something else. Besides, that's a lot of mile
markers to change.
"Apparently someone thought it was worth $1 million."
"I agree with you. It doesn't make any sense. Exactly what did the driver say when you contacted him?"
"He said he was looking at the mile post marker so we pretty much pinpointed where he was when he called in. We went over that ground at Mile 17 on our hands and knees and there's no sign that there was any bus there or that it went off the road or disappeared into the trees."
"How about a chopper?"
"We sent one up but this is underbrush country. Ten feet off the road you might as well be in deepest, darkest Africa. If someone wanted to hide the bus, all they had to do was throw a blanket or canvas drop cloth over the bus and that would be it. But they would have to get off the road first and that's how we'd spot them"
"Any reason to suspect the bus driver?"
"None. He's about 60, has a wife and a nest of grandchildren here in town. Pays his bills, drinks a bit every now and again but other than that he's what I'd call a normal guy. And he's the Mayor's brother. Not a good chance of him going bad."
"Ransom demands?"
"A million in diamonds and other valuable gems. They're going to call with instructions later. We're getting them from the local jewelers because we don't have much of a choice right now. We're talking about five students? Screw the bus."
Noonan tapped the fingertips of his right hand on his forehead. "Let me tell you what you told me to make sure I have this right. About 7:45 this morning you got a call from a kidnapper demanding $1 million in jewels saying he was holding five students from the school bus. You contacted the driver, a man you trust, and told him to stop in the proximity of Mile Post 17 and wait for a patrol escort." Noonan was writing feverishly on his notepad and occasionally cursing the pencil when it wouldn't write.
"Right."
"Rites and procedures of law enforcement being what they are, you radioed two units, people you trust, at Miles 47 and 2 that the bus needed an escort and to proceed to Mile post 17 Code Three.."
"That's correct."
"Neither unit passed the vehicle on its way to Mile Post 17."
"Yes."
"When the vehicles met they immediately realized that there was no Mile 17 marker. Once searched the area around Mile Post 18 and the other retraced its steps to the toll booth and clocked the distance. Then they checked the two spur roads and came up empty."
"Correct. One road runs about a mile and dead ends into a box canyon. The other is a road under construction and goes as far as the river. There's no bridge there yet so the road ends at the river bank."
"So what we have is a missing bus with five students and a driver, a mile of turnpike that may or may not exist, and a ransom demand for $1 million in precious gems." Noonan scratched his head.
There was a pause at the other end of the line. "Does that mean you can't help me?"
"No." Noonan stretched and put his notepad away. "It just means you haven't told me everything you know. At least not enough to help you. Tell you what, call me back in about an hour at the Anchorage Museum of History and Art through the Anchorage Police Department switchboard. I'll leave a message at the front desk of the Museum that I'm expecting a call. But I need some more information."
"I'll get whatever I can."
"Good. First, how is the payoff to be made? Second, where have you searched for the bus and students outside of the turnpike area? Third, what kind of traffic does the turnpike see per hour? Fourth, how deep does the snow get there in an average winter? Fifth, what was your budget for snow removal last year?"
"Some of those questions I can answer right now. I don't know how the payoff is to be made yet because the kidnapper hasn't made a call. Second, we haven't searched outside of the turnpike area very extensively but we've got an APB out on the bus and every state trooper, highway patrol unit, Neighborhood Watch and concerned citizen group is looking for the bus. Traffic? A lot. And I mean a lot. Let's say that the toll booths see about 60 cars and a dozen trucks an hour during the work day and half that from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. Snow? That's an odd question for July. After a good storm snow can get 15 feet deep but the average depth after a storm is four or five feet. Last year's budget? I don't know. It's a state road so I'll have to check the state budget. But if it makes any difference, regardless of how much was budgeted they didn't use very much of it last winter, or the winter before that. Snowfall was way down. You must have read about it in the papers? The ski resorts had to create their own snow."
"I read something about that, yes, now that you mention it. But get the budget figures anyway."
"You got it and I'll call back in two hours."
SNOW FALL?
WHY IS NOONAN ASKING ABOUT SNOW FALL?
AND HOW CAN A MILE OF ROAD DISAPPEAR?
IF IT DIDN'T DISAPPEAR, WHERE'S THE BUS?
WHAT DO YOU THINK IS GOING ON?
WRITE YOU ANSWER DOWN
AND SEE HOW HOW YOU FARE
AGAINST
HEINZ NOONAN!
Halfway through his salmon pate' appetizer, Noonan got a tap from an Anchorage Police sergeant. Noonan took the cellular phone and fought his way through the curtains on stage. Stepping down into the dim light of the Alaska Gold Rush display, he leaned against the diorama of the Kotzebue disaster.
"What do you have for me, Commissioner?"
"Some good news and some bad news. Which do you want first?"
"The bad news, of course."
"OK. We've received the ransom details. Our perp wants his money in a paper grocery bag. A patrol car is to drive down the turnpike with the payoff and, on orders from the perp, place the grocery bag near a specific mile post. After the gems have been checked, he'll tell us where the hostages are. We've got a chopper with an infrared camera ready to fly and we'll be able to triangulate the phone call the minute it comes in . . ."
"Forget it, Commissioner. The call you're going to get will not come from the bushes. It'll be from a pay phone from downtown. Forget the chopper too. The gems are going to be dropped off downtown. Your officer is going to be told to exit the turnpike immediately and the bag will be dropped off somewhere in town."
"That's quite a guess."
"Maybe. Did you get that budget figure?"
"That's the good news. I've a number for you. Zip. There is no budget. The budget for snow removal for the turnpike is actually part of a slush fund for the state that builds during light snow years and ebbs as it is used in heavy snow years. Last year's expenses were in the range of $500,000 but that was because salaries of some state workers switch to the snow removal slush fund from September to May. So, the department budget is $500,000 for salaries and nothing for removal."
"Fine. I kind of thought that might be the case."
HUH?
There was silence on the cell phone for a moment. Then Commissioner Shogren cautiously asked, "Do you have any answers for us?"
"Well, I've got some guesses for you."
"We'll take whatever you can provide."
"Will you hold it against me if I'm not right?"
"While I'm Commissioner, no. Anything you can come up with is better than what we have now."
HEINZ NOONAN HAS FIGURED IT OUT!
HAVE YOU FIGURED IT OUT?
WHAT DO YOU THINK HAPPENED?
WRITE AND IT DOWN
AND
COMPARE YOUR CONCLUSION
WITH THAT OF
HEINZ NOONAN
Noonan continued. "I think your kidnapping is a fake. I have to admit that I was stumped for a while until I realized that I was assuming that the students in this case were children. In fact, they are not, right?"
"That's right. Actually they are high school athletes. The cross country team and they were on their way to a meet."
"Good. So far I'm on the right track. I'll bet that one of those athletes has a father that works as a snow plowman."
"Could be."
"Here's how the kidnapping came down, Commissioner. The five students decided to see if they could pull a prank. On one of their trips they talked with the bus driver and unknown to the driver they recorded him talking about Mile Post marker 17. He must have been on some other road because, as you now know, there is no Mile 17 marker on the turnpike. Then, when you made the call to the bus, they just turned on the recorder. Over the radio what you heard was a recorded voice talking about the Mile 17 marker. You recognized his voice. You said so yourself. After that, when you asked a question, a student answered. I think you said the conversation was pretty short. You recognized the voice on the recorder so you didn't question any changes in the pitch or tone of the response. Even if you had you would have put it down to the poor quality of the transmission."
"That's right. But we saw the bus enter the turnpike."
"No, you didn't. You saw something that looked like a bus enter the turnpike. What it was, Commissioner, was a piece of snow removal equipment that looked like a bus. I'll bet it had some water soluble yellow paint on the side where the video camera was located. The paint job didn't have to be good. It only had to fool a video camera at 20 or 30 feet for what, five or six seconds? It did the job. What you saw was a state vehicle, half-painted yellow that went through an automated gate. They probably got the state bus from the snow removal equipment barn a few days ago and just kept it hidden while they painted it. No one would missed it because no one is in those snow removal equipment sheds. Even if someone saw it driving out they'd assume it was being serviced which, in a sense, it was.
"After the fake bus went through the automated toll booth it was driven directly to the snow removal equipment barn. Once inside, the students hosed down the bus thus removing the yellow paint. When you searched the snow removal equipment shed, as I'm sure you did, you didn't pay much attention to any water on the cement because you were looking for a big yellow school bus. Your patrol units probably just looked in through the window, saw nothing and went on their way.
"And, in defense of your men, there wasn't any reason for them to look too carefully. Snow fall has been down substantially for the past two years so those vehicles have just been sitting there. No one's checking them on any kind of a regular basis, and particularly now in July. In essence, that snow removal equipment barn has been abandoned for two years. The students knew that. That's why I'm pretty sure one of them has a parent who works for the snow removal detail."
"But if that's true, where's the school bus? And where's the driver?"
"The school bus is probably in the school bus yard with its license plate changed. Hide in plain sight, remember. The driver? He's a drinker, right? I'll bet the students got him drunk. Maybe he showed up with the keys to the bus and the students waylaid him and said that the meet had been delayed and they were to wait in a hotel room for some reason. They would have kept him waiting for an hour or so that then told him the meet had been canceled. They might have left a bottle or two out in plain sight and the guy got soused. And why shouldn't he? The meet was canceled and he didn't have to drive. It was like a day off and the room was already paid for. The hotel might even have a pool and he could have spent time lying in the sun shine. No reason to call home either, to do what? Tell his wife he was tying one on because he didn't have to work that day? She could even be working. No, I bet you'll find him in some hotel in town asleep with a bottle of booze in one hand and a pillow in the other."
"We'll check."
"Good. You'll probably find the five students in the same hotel. After he started drinking they took his keys. They drove the bus to bus yard and switched the plates. They probably drove in a car to the snow equipment shed where the fake bus was. They they drove the fake bus out through the tunpike through the automated toll booth while one of them drove through the regular toll booth. No one was looking for a bus there so it wasn't any big deal. They probably weren't even stopped -- state vehicles just come and go. Then they pulled a U-Turn a mile or so up the road and drove back through the toll booth. They probably took the automated coder from the school bus so the electronic scanner at the toll booth would register the bus as having passed through. They drove the fake bus back t the snow equipment shed where they washed it off and left in a car."
"But I talked to the driver on the bus! You can't move that radio off the bus! I called the bus."
"You called the bus, yes, but you didn't talk to the driver. While four of the students were hosing down the snow removal bus, the fifth was probably in the bus at the bus yard on the bus' radio with the recorder. You heard him say he was at Mile Post 17 and you bought his story. While your men were eating up the turnpike, all five students went back to the hotel where they've been all day. They probably made the ransom demand from the hotel phone and I'll bet that's where they're going to take the ransom."
"You really believe they're in a hotel?"
"Yeah. You said you had 55,000 people in town. That means you've got about 15 hotels. Start with the one nearest the school bus yard. I'll bet they got a double room, one to keep the bus driver in where they could keep an eye on him and the other where they've been watching TV and eating pizza all day. Want to place a bet?"
"No." Commissioner Shogren gave a nervous laugh. "But if you're right I'm going to be very embarrassed."
"Why should you be?"
"I don't know. But if you're right, I'm going to feel stupid. Then what about the missing mile post maker? How did they manage that?"
"They didn't. One of them must have noticed it and they just worked it into their plans. It was a marvelous touch. Logically they should have chosen a mile post that was closer to the center of the turnpike, say mile 30 or 31. I'll bet if you check the records of the company that built the turnpike you'll find that there was some kind of a bureaucratic screw-up. Like one crew stopped putting in signs at mile 16 and listed the mile as 17 and the next crew started with mile marker 18. You said the turnpike had only been open a year. Nobody's noticed the missing mile yet. But don't worry about, Commissioner. The State of Colorado didn't lose a mile of turnpike. It's still there."
The Commissioner laughed. Then he got serious. "I'll put my men on the hotel angle right away, Captain, but if you're right what can I do about this? What we've got here is a prank by 17 year olds. It's not hanging offense, even in Colorado."
Noonan laughed. "Send your TAC boys into the hotel room like gangbusters and threaten to send them all to prison for extortion, kidnapping and illegal use of state property."
"For a prank?"
"Sure. Plead them down to community service and make sure their first job is to walk the entire turnpike replacing the mile post numbers. They could use the exercise."
The Commissioner laughed. "Is there anything I can do for you?"
"No. Just let me get back to my salmon pate' before my wife steals it all."
HOW DID YOU DO?
COULD YOU HAVE SOLVED THIS ON YOUR OWN?
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