by D. J. Herda
“Now, what can I do for you?” Before she could answer, he shook his head and continued. “You know, I feel terrible about this whole thing. I consider Darryl Hightower a friend, a neighbor. It just cuts me to the quick to have to do what I have to do with this thing. I ... I hope to God I’m wrong. I hope he’s innocent, I really do. But, you understand, I don’t have any choice in the matter. I have to turn over my findings to the District Attorney.”
“Glenn Davids.”
“Yes, that’s right. He received some complaints from a couple of Darryl’s clients who were afraid something like this was going to happen, and they asked Glenn—Mr. Davids—to look into it. That’s how I got involved. I wish to God I hadn’t, knowing what I know now.”
“And what, Mr. Peeps, is that?”
“Well, I know ... well, not know. Perhaps that’s too presumptuous a word. More like I have seen all the evidence against him, and I had no other recourse but to alert the D.A. to my findings.”
“You have a tape recording, I understand.”
“That seems to be the worst-kept secret in town.” He snickered. “I not only have a tape,” he continued emphatically, “I have the tape. The one on which Mr. Hightower admits to committing the crimes.”
Deidre smiled as sincerely as she could and leaned forward, flashing her impressive foundation before him. “And what crimes would those be?”
“Well, why, I’m not in a position to say exactly. Only a judge can determine that.” He cleared his throat, obviously affected by her presence. “But it appears as though Mr. Hightower committed several crimes—stealing building materials from a number of his clients’ jobsites, at a substantial cost to those very clients in time, money, and energy expended to overcome the losses.”
“And frustration, I imagine. They must be pretty upset.”
“Yes. And frustration. He also attempted to cover up his criminal activities with false statements given to the police and to insurance investigators. And he attempted to defraud Trinidale Builders Supply out of a substantial amount of money, claiming that he had never ordered the materials delivered to one of his more remote jobsites and denying that he knew what became of them.”
“Perhaps that was true.”
“Miss ... I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name. What was it again?”
“Deidre,” she said, her smile widening. “Still is.”
“Yes, well, Deidre, if that were an isolated example, one might reach that conclusion, but in light of other allegations and proven facts—for instance, his kiting several bad checks both locally and at a flooring supply outlet in Lincoln—I’m afraid you can reach only one conclusion.”
“But, that doesn’t sound like anything serious enough to rise to the status of a felony—and certainly not a series of them. All you have are a number of accusations by people whom you might say had a great deal of incentive for lying. After all, if Darryl is convicted, he’ll have to pay his clients a lot of money as reparation, won’t he? Free money to them. Money they won’t have to borrow from the bank to finish their jobs. See what I mean? So you have their accusations pitted against Darryl’s statements in his own defense. It sounds a lot like a he said/she said situation to me. Hardly conclusive evidence that a series of felonious acts have been committed.”
He smiled, his face bearing that familiar Okay, gotcha! look. “Ahh, but it’s a little more conclusive than that. We have the coup de grace here.” He opened his top right-hand desk drawer and pulled out his cell phone. “We have the recording.”
Her brows rose, and her eyes widened as she tried to look impressed. “And you say that Darryl actually confessed to committing those criminal acts before you? And on tape?”
Peeps patted the phone like he would an obedient puppy. “That’s right. And it’s all right here.”
“And you have no doubt about the interpretation of what he said? I mean, perhaps, in your haste to get to the bottom of this thing, you misunderstood some of his comments?”
He shook his head and smirked. “No.”
“But why would anyone sitting in front of a bunch of people, some of whom were clients of his and one of whom he knew to be an investigator for the D.A.’s office, confess to committing a number of serious crimes?”
Peeps looked pleased to hear the question, as if expecting it for some time and pleased to be able to regurgitate an answer.
“Call it criminal ego, if you will. We see it all the time. Even Jeffrey Dahmer opened up once he was cornered, apparently quite proud to have gotten away with as much as he had for so long. Perhaps Mr. Hightower is similar in that respect to Mr. Dahmer.”
Deidre cocked her head and squinted.
“Or, perhaps he’d had a little too much to drink that night—we all did—and simply didn’t realize what a poor light he was casting on his own actions.”
Deidre let out a short, crisp breath.
“Or maybe he was just ready to get caught. You know, sometimes criminals are like that when they figure they’ve gotten away with just about all they can, so they think they’d might as well give it up.”
“Or, perhaps,” she said, “mistakes were made in transcribing the information on the tapes into a transcript for the District Attorney to read?”
He scoffed.
“No chance?”
He shook his head. “None.”
“So, you transcribed the tape yourself?”
“Absolutely.”
“And that’s how you know that no mistakes were made in the transcription process.”
He nodded. “Miss ... uhh ... Deidre, I told you that already. May I inquire as to what you’re getting at, here? Why you’re asking all these questions?”
Deidre stared into his eyes for several moments until he began to squirm. He reached under his left armpit to scratch, adjusted himself on his chair, and set both hands on his desk before hiking his shoulders and dropping them down again. “Well?”
She opened her purse and extracted another cell phone. It was different from Peeps’ a newer iPhone with a larger screen and a better speaker.
“I’d like you to listen to this, if you would.”
He stared at it curiously as if he were seeing a two-headed turtle. “What is it?”
“It’s an audiotape. The same audiotape that you recorded on your own phone. Same time, same place, same party, same people present. All unedited, untouched, and un-transcribed. Would you like to hear it?”
He shrugged. “I’ve already heard it. Several times.”
“I know you did. But I’d like you to hear it again. This time, the way it really happened.”
He raised his brows, his eyes widening, not quite sure what to say in response. Deidre hit the play button, and Peeps’ voice spilled out:
Did you knowingly and willfully submit a check to Lincoln Servicesmaster in Lincoln, Illinois, when you knew there were insufficient funds to cover it?
Hightower’s voice answered: No, I did not. Our account would have had more than enough money in it if Stan Omado hadn’t broken our agreement to hold our checks without depositing them until we straightened out this theft thing. Oh, right. Sorry. I mean, no, I did not.
Deidre fast-forwarded to the next bookmark. Peeps said:
After speaking with Mr. Sandalman, did you confront Ms. Powell about the delivery of all those unauthorized materials?
Yes.
And did she tell you that Scott Sandalman had ordered her to authorize the shipment of the unordered materials to your jobsite?
Yes, but how did you ...
She glanced at Peeps, who was turning a luminous shade of green, before jumping ahead to the third bookmark:
And is it true that Illinois Custom Design had suffered other financial losses of a considerable amount at around this same time?
Yes.
And these came from overcharges made by a roofing crew, who ordered three times more roofing materials than called for and then returned the excess materials to Trinidale Builders Supply
for a refund, which they received in cash instead of as a credit to your company, is that correct?
Yes.
Is such a refund standard in the industry, a cash refund given to subcontractors or employees instead of a credit made to the company’s account?
No.
Would you say it’s a rare occurrence for that to happen?
It never happens.
Except in this case.
Yes.
But there were also other losses you incurred. I understand that someone gained entrance to your office and stole 15 thousand dollars’ worth of tools. And that, in another instance, you had completed work on a reconstruction job for the owner, who had arranged in writing to pay you after she closed on her mortgage with the bank, is that correct?
Yes.
And who was the owner of that house on which you worked for several months without any appreciable cash flow?
Kelli Powell.
Peeps suddenly pushed his chair back from his desk and threw up his arms. “All right, so, you made your point. Now, you’d better tell me, where did you get that tape?”
She sat back in her chair. “Does it really matter?” She folded her arms across her chest, never taking her eyes off him. “My question is a little more relevant. Where did you get your tape?”
“I ... I recorded it.” He hesitated. “At the party at the Potash residence.”
“Yeah, and then you transcribed it yourself, according to you. Which means you listened to the accurate tape and deliberately distorted it, and then you gave that distorted transcription—a pack of lies—to the D.A. and to the press and to, let’s see, who else can we imagine, here? How about the Potashes and Stan Omado and Scott Sandalman and anyone else who you thought might find your fabrication interesting.”
Peeps’ face turned red. “I ... I didn’t transcribe it myself. I ... I sent it out. We always send all our tapes out for transcription.”
“Out where?”
“What?”
She could see him stalling for time, sense the wheels turning in his head, smell the skid marks they’d left behind. “Where did you send it for transcribing? Because wherever it was, I suggest you find someone else to do the job from now on. Seems as if they’re not all that reliable.”
“We send them ... you know, different places. Look ... I said when I said that, I mean, what I meant when I said that was I handled it myself—I sent them out for transcribing, not that I did the work myself. I’m not a ...”
“How drunk were you the night of the party at the Potash residence when you taped the interview with Darryl?”
A gleam struck one eye. “Yeah. I guess. Plenty. I had too much to drink, that’s for sure. I thought the tape ...”
“You thought you were going to stack the deck against the best, most honest contractor this town has ever seen. You thought you were going to tar and feather him right along with everyone else who has something to gain by seeing him arrested and convicted. What I want to know is, what’s in it for you, Mr. Peeps? What do you get out of dirtying your soul? The undying admiration and gratitude of Stan Omado? Of Scott Sandalman? How about Robert Snow? You know him, too, don’t you? The heating contractor who started this whole mess rolling ... with your blessing?”
“No. How would I know him?”
“How wouldn’t you? You were once married to his ex-wife.”
Peeps got up and took a slow turn around his desk, stopping next to Deidre’s chair. He reached out just as she stood up. She held up her phone, clicked on “speakerphone,” and said, “Heard enough?”
“I think so.”
Peeps looked stunned. “What is this?”
A deep, strong voice resonated from the phone. “Hello, Mr. Peeps? Bob Ransom here, in Chicago. I’m Darryl Hightower’s criminal defense attorney. And, unless I’m mistaken, you’re going to have a lot to answer for to your District Attorney. In fact, so will he when the disciplinary board of the Illinois State Supreme Court looks into this matter, which they’re sure to do after I file a complaint with them. They’re going to want to know why no one investigated this matter more thoroughly. And why the chief investigator for the Town of Trinidale falsified court evidence to elicit a bad indictment of one of its citizens. After all, a man’s life is literally at stake here, what with a total of 80 years’ worth of prison time on the line. I’m sure the two of you will be hearing from the board shortly. In fact, you can count on it.”
“That’s it, then?” Deidre asked.
“That’s it,” Ransom said. “Nice job, Deidre. Talk to you soon.”
She clicked off, picked up her purse, and turned toward the door. “Why, Mr. Peeps, you’ve been a veritable smorgasbord of colors this afternoon. Now, you’re absolutely ashen.” She paused, feigned concern, and continued. “But don’t feel too bad. If you need a good defense attorney, I suggest you give Mr. Ransom a call. I believe he just wrapped up one case. He just might be in the market for another client soon. And I can highly recommend him.”
“What gave you the idea?” Hightower asked. “How did you ever come up with it?”
“Well, to be honest,” she said, “it wasn’t until Tammy let slip the fact that she’d taped her interview with Peeps the other day. Once I knew that, I listened to her tape closely and picked up on Peeps’ original questions to you. When you stopped by the other night, I got the idea of asking you the same questions he did at the party, and I taped them. After you left, I combined the two tapes—the one with his original questions and the one with your reconstructed answers. I have to say, you have a great memory. Peeps never even suspected you had reconstructed your answers for me to dub in on Tammy’s tape.”
“Why, you little schemer. Isn’t that illegal? Editing two tapes into one that way?”
“Absolutely. But that’s exactly what Peeps did to set you up. Sometimes, you know, you just have to fight fire with fire.” She paused as she slowed the car down to make a turn. “All I can say is thank God Tammy kept her tape with Peeps after she transcribed her notes.”
Darryl rubbed his chin. “So, we have Tammy to thank, then. I mean, in reality. Except for her, I’d still be behind the eight ball.”
“You’ve got that right.”
“Maybe I should get her a bottle of wine ...” He paused, watching her from the corner of his eye. “Or maybe take her out to dinner to some nice restaurant or something. You know, just to let her know how grateful I am.”
“Not a good idea.”
“It’s not?”
“In fact, it’s a horrible idea.”
“It is?”
“I’ll tell you what. Why don’t you let me come up with a way to thank Tammy. You know what I mean. Women just have a knack for understanding other women so much better than men.”
He shrugged. “Could be you’re right.”
She paused as she steered the nose of her car into the driveway leading to her garage, mumbling nearly incoherently beneath her breath, “Damned straight I’m right.”
“Tell you what, then,” he continued. “Let me at least take you out for dinner. To thank you for all your help. I mean, there’s no way on earth I would have survived this whole, sordid mess without you.”
She nodded her head before pulling to a stop and turning off the ignition. She leaned closer to him. “Now, that’s more like it,” she said, pressing her lips to his for several seconds before finally pulling back. “But I think you’re going to owe me a helluva lot more for this one than dinner.”
Don't miss out!
Click the button below and you can sign up to receive emails whenever D. J. Herda publishes a new book. There's no charge and no obligation.
https://books2read.com/r/B-A-PKCL-SLLHB
Connecting independent readers to independent writers.
er>