Chapter 11. The Federal Case
"I gotta thank you a lot, boys, for helping me out here!" Bill Maxwell said, as he ruffled through the old file drawers in the basement of the St. Louis Federal Building. Two clerks, in their early to mid-20s, looked over his shoulder.
"No problem, Agent Maxwell," the younger one said. "Anything for the country's top agent!" The second clerk, only a few years older, shook his head and gently pushed his coworker at the shoulder, in disapproval. The two argued non-verbally, behind Bill's back, over whether or not it was proper to make a celebrity out of a visiting agent.
"Um, Agent Maxwell, why not just call this in?" the second agent asked. "We could have sent the information over the wire."
"Lesson number one, fellas!" Bill replied, enjoying the attention. "Never get someone else to run your own field operations." Bill smiled, then rocked his head side to side. "Plus, I was in the neighborhood, anyway, boys! Ha ha! Listen, if you ever need anything from the L.A. office, you just give me a holler! Okay? I'll owe you one. But for now, if you don't mind, I'm going to take a looksee at this baby."
Although he enjoyed being a bit of a celebrity, he hoped his young clerk friends would not spread the word that he was here. The last thing he wanted was to run into anyone he knew, or anyone in charge. How could he explain to Carlisle what he was doing in St. Louis? How would he justify being in the St. Louis record room, without anyone's knowledge, or approval? Hoping to fade into the walls for a few minutes, Bill walked over to an unoccupied desk, sat down, and quickly looked through the Charles McDonald file.
The file on McDonald was, thankfully, thin. It was, in fact, just a few pages long. Bill flipped back and forth through the pages.
He was surprised by the lack of information contained in the files. The missing persons report was there, with a small photograph of the middle aged McDonald, wearing thick rimmed glasses, a tidy tweed jacket, and a neat bow tie. A big, red stamp reading "Closed" covered the front page. The file also contained a police report, dating back to May 15, 1968, of a 1963 Chevy Nova with blood stained interiors, abandoned in a corn field. Other than that, there was only a single letter typed on letterhead from the Central Missouri Trust Company, describing three large bank withdrawals, between 1967 and 1968. Each withdrawal was for five thousand dollars - a fortune in those days.
"Well, well, well, Charlie, where did a country lawyer like you get fifteen thousand dollars, huh?" Bill asked himself, as if mocking the dead. "Come on, Charlie, what on earth did you do with the money?"
Finally, Bill found a torn out page from Martin Field's book - the book that started it all. Bill looked at the printed page; it was number 204 - the page Ralph first found mention of McDonald's sighting. McDonald's name was circled in red, as was the word "hitchhiker."
"Again with the hitchhiker," Bill mumbled to himself.
Bill jotted down a few notes on a small notebook he kept in his shirt pocket. Thinking it over, he tapped his pen on the desk, nervously. As he looked over his notes again, he casually called over the clerks.
"Uh, boys, any of you raised on a farm?" Bill asked. "Can either of you tell me when corn is harvested in the southern part of the state?"
"Depends on the year, but no sooner than August, typically."
"That's what I though." Bill said, as he jumped up from his chair, and handed the file back to the clerks. "I'm gonna need another favor of you fellas. I need to know, quickly, if there were any other federal cases in or near Sikeston, Missouri between 1965 and 1970."