Fatally Bound Read Free Page B

a serious collector. His collection would have given Ken Burns a documentary hard-on. He had rookie cards for Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, Henry Aaron, Eddie Mathews, Bob Feller, Jackie Robinson, Whitey Ford, Duke Snider, Roy Campanella, Willie Mays, Stan Musial, Ted Williams, I mean all the greats from the 1940s and ’50s. He had their rookie cards and several others. He claims they were in ‘mint’ or perfect condition. If so, that collection is worth some serious money, I bet well over a hundred thousand dollars.”
    “How do you know?” Lich asked.
    “While it’s nothing like this, I have a collection of my own,” Mac answered. “I collected baseball, hockey and football cards when I was kid, plus I ended up with lots of cards that other older kids in the neighborhood were just going to throw out. And my dad, he collected when he was a kid and left me some really good baseball cards from the 1950s, ’60’s and ’70’s, not the rookie cards necessarily, but I have really good cards for Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays, Harmon Killebrew, Hank Aaron, Roberto Clemente, Sandy Koufax, Pete Rose, Johnny Bench, Tom Seaver, Robin Yount, Rod Carew and Reggie Jackson, among others. I had my collection appraised two years ago and the best card collector in town said I could probably get somewhere around $25,000 for my entire collection.”
    “Did you sell it?” Rock asked.
    “No.”
    “Why the heck not?” Lich asked, surprised, salivating at the thought of twenty-five Gs. Money was seemingly always in short supply for Dick.
    “A lot of those cards were from my dad. I still like to sit and look at them every once in a while. Helps me remember when he and I did that.” He looked at the list more. “Assuming this crew wants to move these cards and get top dollar for them, there is a limited pool of buyers and sellers. The people that move those kinds of high-end cards are a fairly small group of people and they all kind of know and network with each other.”
    “What are you thinking?” Riles asked, seeing the wheels turn in McRyan’s head.
    “The card collector I talked to who looked at my collection, he’s pretty plugged in, or at least he seemed like it. He knows a lot of people in the card business, legit and, in some cases, illegitimate. If these cards start showing up, even somewhere else besides the Twin Cities, he’s likely to hear about it.”
    A week ago, rookie cards for Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays and Jackie Robinson were walked into a small out of the way memorabilia store in south Chicago. Mac’s card contact had called the store directly a week earlier to have him keep his eyes open. The store owner, well regarded in the card collecting industry, called Mac’s contact while the man looking to sell the cards was standing right across the counter. “Didn’t you tell me a few months ago you were looking for a Mantle rookie card?” he said to Mac’s contact. “I might have a line on one for you.”
    The card collector contact relayed the call to Mac who had Chicago police in the store in less than ten minutes. The man looking to sell the cards was a high-end fence that CPD had been paying attention to for other reasons. It wasn’t his first bust. He was looking at a long prison stretch and was ready to make a deal.
    • • • •
    Washington, DC.
    President Thomson grimaced as the telephone call continued. Two hours ago his press secretary’s afternoon briefing went off the rails when she started getting pressed about the death of Hannah Donahue at the hands of what now appeared to be a serial killer. Hannah was the daughter of William Donahue, a big party contributor, a man who delivered a lot of campaign money to the president, among other politicians. That the White House didn’t know about her death until asked only furthered the mess the briefing turned into. Then Donahue was caught on camera, emotional, blasting the FBI-led investigation and talking about how he would make people in