Page 68 of Deathmarch

“What are we, freaking kids? We put in the same. Everybody.”

“Did you pick Lamm’s house for your headquarters because he didn’t like to go out?”

“That too, I suppose. But mostly because he already had the place reinforced,” Grambus said, then added in a tone filled with aggravation. “It’s not something I can do at the apartment. They wouldn’t even let me have a steel security door installed.”

“So all the supplies were kept at Lamm’s?”

“The supplies we put together for the long haul. We each have our own kits at home. Enough for a couple of days.”

“Would that be food? Weapons? Money? Drugs?” The black gym bag in the back of Lamm’s Camry held plenty of the latter. Everyone’s leftover pain meds from every medical procedure they’d ever had. The men must have pooled their resources, keeping a veritable pharmacy in the safe in case of an emergency later.

“All of the above.”

“Gold bars?”

Grambus shook his head. “About five hundred dollars’ worth of silver coins each. But most of our silver was in Lamm’s safe.”

“So Lamm had all the gold and most of the silver?”

Grambus’s expression turned pinched. “The apartment building wouldn’t let me install a wall safe either. Shouldn’t have moved in, but there was an opening on the ground floor, thought it’d be good for later as I get older. You have a house, you have to deal with mowing the lawn, shoveling snow, fixin’ the roof, and whatnot. Who needs that shitshow?”

“And everybody in the club knew Lamm had all that precious metal?”

“We paid for it,” Grambus said in a don’t-be-stupid tone. “Of course, we knew about it.”

“Did you keep building the stash, or stop once you had a certain amount?”

“We have a year’s supply. We’re building up to two.”

“How do you keep track of progress?”

“Chuck gave us regular reports.”

“I’d like to see the last one.”

“No can do.”

“I can get a warrant.”

“You can’t see it because the report is a printout he used to give us in person at the monthly meetings. After we read it, we destroy it. Don’t want it to get into the wrong hands and have someone try to raid our supplies.” Grambus fell silent. Rubbed an arthritic hand over his face. “Which is exactly what happened.”

“Do you think someone got hold of one of these printouts?”

“How else would they know what we had?”

“They also knew where the safe was.”

“One of us?” Grambus shot him another don’t-be-stupid look. Then the look hardened into something else. “You think I did it?”

Harper leaned forward. Time to turn up the heat. “You knew about the safe and what was in there. You knew the victim. He fired you from the paper mill, so you have bad history. You wanted to replace him as the head of the group, so that’s current conflict. You’re part of the group, he would have let you in. Nobody can confirm your alibi…”

“Christ.” Grambus huffed. “I explained all that before. And it ain’t a crime to live alone. Couple of decades, and you could be right where I am.”

Since Harper couldn’t argue with that, he turned the questioning in another direction. “Can you tell me, for the record, what size are your feet?”

The bloody boot prints at the crime scene were crucial evidence.

“Size twelve.”