Justice in Mystic Grove

by S F Bose

  I sat back and considered both of them. “Tell me what happened.”

  Kerry looked at Mac and he sighed. Instead of looking at me, he stared at the top of my desk.

  “It was back in 1995. Meagher was already a county deputy sheriff and married to Sharon Hill Meagher, his first wife. They had two small kids. One day, he took his family out on Lake Michigan in their sailboat. Meagher sailed them right into a huge storm. Long story short, the Coast Guard found Meagher the next day, semiconscious. He was on the floor in the cabin below deck.”

  After pausing to take a deep breath, Mac continued. “Meagher said he remembered being up top during the storm. A big wave almost swamped the boat and washed his wife overboard. He heard her scream. She had been in the stern and he was forward. He rushed back toward the stern but another wave knocked him off his feet. He hit his head and was knocked unconscious. He said his two children had been below deck in the cabin. When he regained consciousness, he was in the cabin alone. The children were gone. That was his story.”

  “Who was steering the boat?” I asked.

  Mac shrugged. “Meagher probably engaged the wheel lock when he went forward.”

  “So the boat steered itself?” I asked.

  “Kind of. The wheel couldn’t turn as long as the lock was on,” Kerry replied.

  I nodded. “Okay, going back to the storm. Don’t boats have radios on board for weather alerts?” I asked.

  Mac grimaced. “Meagher said he never heard any alerts on the ship’s radio. He admitted he hadn’t checked the weather before going out. However, he said it was a clear, sunny day when they left the marina and he wasn’t worried about the weather. The other thing is Meagher had a reputation as a drinker. There were rumors he’d brought liquor on board and had been sailing drunk. However, there was nothing about alcohol in the official report or case notes. Also, nobody ever tested his blood alcohol levels. We figured since a different county sheriff was in charge of the case and Meagher was a deputy sheriff, they might have given him some breaks as a professional courtesy. At any rate, the report described him as distraught. They took him to the hospital, but he refused to stay, so they let him go.”

  “There was nothing about alcohol in the case notes? How did you get that information?” I asked Mac. He looked uncomfortable and glanced at Kerry. Then he looked back at me.

  “Like I said, I’m good at research.” I heard defiance in his voice and decided to drop it.

  I sighed. “What county had jurisdiction?” I asked.

  “Ozaukee,” Mac replied. “Meagher had a 30’ Catalina sailboat docked at Port Washington in Ozaukee County.”

  “The wife and kids?” I asked.

  “Never found,” Kerry replied.

  Mac leaned forward. “Meagher said they were all wearing life jackets. The Coast Guard eventually found three life jackets floating in the lake. However, they never found any bodies.”

  I frowned. “Why would the wife and children take their vests off?”

  “Exactly!” Mac exclaimed. “One scenario is Meagher killed them and threw them overboard. Then for some reason he threw the life vests into the lake.”

  “But why didn’t any of the bodies eventually surface?” I asked.

  “There have been cases of people being lost forever in the lake,” Kerry replied quietly. “But you would think that out of three people lost, they would have found at least one of them.”

  I tapped my notepad with my pen. “Was Meagher wearing a life vest?” I asked.

  “He was, and they found no other vests on board,” Mac replied.

  I repeated what Kerry had said earlier. “Never found.” The idea that the young mother and her two children drowned like that was depressing.

  “So they never charged Meagher?” I asked.

  Kerry shook her head. “No. There was no evidence of foul play. He answered all their questions and was cooperative. They also felt he was believable.”

  I mulled over the scenario Kerry and Mac had described. “Was there an insurance policy?”

  “Yes,” Mac replied. “There was a three hundred thousand dollar life insurance policy on the wife. However, because there wasn’t a body, Meagher had to wait years to collect. Eventually, he petitioned to have his wife declared legally dead and the insurance company paid him the money. In 2000, he married his second wife.”

  “He didn’t have the children declared legally dead?”

  Mac shook his head. “No, they never insured the children.”

  “Did you find anything else?” I asked.

  “Three things,” Kerry replied. “The first was a fluke. Mac and I went to the Village Tavern for dinner one night. We saw a woman leaving and Meagher wasn’t far behind her.”

  “How’d you know it was Meagher?”

  Mac smirked. “Easy. We found photos of him online. Some were related to his work as a deputy sheriff. Group shots, conference photos, things like that. There were also photos of him and his second wife, Larissa.”

  “Okay what happened at the Village Tavern?” I asked.

  Kerry took a slow breath and replied. “Meagher and the woman were both at the front of the parking lot, near the tavern. He was behind her and said something we couldn‘t hear. The woman wheeled on him. She was irate and shouted, “Leave me alone! It’s over! You’re not getting anything more!” After that, she stormed off, got into a car, and screeched out of the lot.”

  Mac jumped in. “Kerry and I had stopped to watch, when a guy behind us said, ‘His time is coming.’ We turned around and there were two paramedics watching the whole thing. When I looked back toward the lot, Meagher still stood there staring after the woman’s car. Finally, he walked toward the back of the lot to his car and left.”

  “Did you talk to the paramedics?”

  “Of course,” replied Kerry. “They wore name tags on their uniforms. The man was Dwight Reed, and the woman was Carol Robinson.”

  “Yeah, we chatted them up,” Mac said. “I mentioned that I knew the man was Steven Meagher, but didn’t know the woman. Reed said she was Rose O’Ryan, a trustee on the village council. When he asked me how I knew Meagher, I lied and said he’d given me a traffic ticket. Reed laughed at that and said he felt my pain. When I asked what Meagher and Rose O’Ryan had been fighting about, Reed’s partner replied that it could be anything. She said Meagher had a nasty temper, liked to throw his weight around, and was a good guy to stay away from.”

  “Then what?” I prompted.

  “I asked Reed if that’s why he’d said ‘His time is coming?’” After hesitating, Reed said Meagher was a grown-up bully. He was sure that someday Meagher would pick on the wrong person and would get crushed. After that we all entered the Village Tavern and parted ways.”

  I looked at Kerry. “You didn’t recognize Rose O’Ryan from your work at the newspaper?”

  She shook her head. “No, it didn’t look like her at all. The woman wore a hat that covered her hair, glasses, an old jacket, and was very pale. I didn’t know who it was until the paramedic said it was Rose O’Ryan.”

  “Okay, what else did you find out?”

  “The second thing we learned came after Mac did some research. He discovered that Meagher and his wife attended St. Joseph’s Catholic Church and were proclaimers at the 11:00 Mass there,” Kerry said.

  “You went to St. Joe’s?” I asked.

  Kerry smiled. “We did. Three weeks in a row. We noticed Larissa Meagher ogling the same guy at each Mass. He eyed her back. Big guy. Well-dressed. Beard and mustache. The third week Mac left church early and waited in front of the church. When the man left, Mac trailed him.”

  Mac grinned. “He walked to a black BMW 528i, and I strolled by. I pretended to be talking on my cell phone. As I walked by the car, I got the plate number and recorded it on my phone.”

  I watched Mac. “You somehow ran the plate didn’t you?”

  “Well, I can tell you that his name is Dom Fontana. He owns Fontana Movers and Storage, a
moving company in Madison. There are branch offices in Milwaukee, Oshkosh, Green Bay, and other locations in the state. He owns a condo in Madison and a house in Black Earth,” Mac replied. I jotted that down.

  “How did Meagher react to all the ogling going on between his wife and this guy?” I asked.

  “He glared a lot,” Kerry replied.

  I rubbed my face with both hands and looked at both of them. “So why did you decide to stop your investigation and come to us?”

  Kerry swallowed hard. “That was the third thing we learned. We realized we were in over our heads. It was the week after our third visit to St. Joe’s. Mac and I were in my car headed east on Founders Road when I saw the flashing lights of a police car behind me. I pulled to the right and parked. When I checked my mirror, I saw Meagher get out of his car and walk toward us.”

  “But Meagher works in Braden, not Mystic Grove,” I said.

  Kerry’s shoulder moved up and down. “I know, but he still stopped us. I told Mac we would stay cool and cooperate. I was worried because we were on an isolated stretch of road.”

  “That was smart,” I replied and Kerry smiled.

  “Meagher walked up and I rolled down the window. He said I’d been speeding, which was a lie, but I didn’t argue. When he asked for our licenses, we gave them to him. He looked at mine and read off my name. When he read off Mac’s name, he asked what our relationship was. I told him we were brother and sister. Then he leaned down and said he’d read my article on community policing and liked it. But he’d also heard I’d been snooping around about him and that was bad.”

  Kerry stopped for a minute and took a few deep breaths. “When I interrupted him and said I hadn’t been snooping around, he went ballistic. He yelled that he hadn’t been born yesterday. Friends told him all about what I’d asked people in Braden. Fellow deputies had told him what I asked them. And he had seen us at St. Joe’s. He wanted to know what we were up to.”

  “What did you say?” I asked her.

  “I said that as a reporter, I was always looking for interesting people to interview. I thought there might be a story I could do about him, but I hadn’t found any angles I could use. That was close to the truth. I don’t know if he really bought it but he stopped yelling.”

  “That was quick thinking,” I observed and Kerry smiled again.

  “I could see Meagher physically reign himself in,” Kerry continued. “He said he didn’t want any stories written about him. He didn’t want to see Mac or me following him. He also didn’t want to hear we were asking questions about him. When I said we wouldn’t, he gave back our licenses.”

  “He didn’t run your plates or license number?” I asked.

  Kerry frowned as she thought back. “I don’t know about my license plate, but he didn’t run my driver’s license number.”

  “That’s interesting. What happened then?”

  Kerry frowned. “Things fell apart. Meagher was about to walk away when he asked if I had new tires on my car. I said I did because someone had slashed my old tires. He smiled and said I should remember that sometimes snoopy people had bad accidents.”

  “That was when I lost it,” Mac said. “I jumped out of the car and walked around to the driver’s side. I swore at him and told him if he did anything to hurt my sister that I’d kill him. I was right in his face. He shoved me back, so I walked up to him again and called him a coward. He sucker punched me in the gut and I hit the ground.”

  “I screamed and pulled out my cell phone,” Kerry said. “Then I jumped out of my car. I told Meagher I was calling the police. He laughed and warned us again to stay out of his business. He walked back toward his patrol car. Mac stood up and yelled again that he’d kill him if he came anywhere near us. Meagher stopped and for an awful second I thought he would come back. But he shook his head and continued to his car. Mac and I got back into my car. Meagher watched us until we drove away.”

  Mac leaned forward and pinned me with his eyes. “Meagher is dirty and he’s dangerous. We want you to find out what he’s involved in. He shouldn’t be a deputy sheriff.”

  Kerry nodded. “We can’t take this any further on our own. We need professional help.”

  I looked at Mac. “You told him twice that you’d kill him?”

  “Yeah, I did. When he threatened Kerry, I wanted him to know there’d be consequences,” Mac replied, his eyes flashing in anger.

  I took a deep breath and looked down at my notes. When I looked up, Kerry stared at me. Her eyes had teared up.

  “Please help us,” she whispered. “We need someone on our side.”

  “Will you give me the name and telephone number of the officer who called and warned you?” I asked her.

  Kerry shook her head. “I can’t. It’s too risky. After what Meagher said about friends giving him information, I don’t know if I can trust that officer. If Meagher connects me to your investigation, he might hurt Mac and me.”

  I mulled it over. My gut told me that Kerry and Mac were telling the truth about what happened.

  “Look, I believe what you’ve told me,” I replied. “However, if you want Meagher prosecuted we’ll need solid proof of illegal activity. Without being able to talk to his fellow officers, collecting that evidence will be more difficult.”

  Their eyes drilled into me and I felt a tingle down my spine. Despite some major reservations, my gut told me, Take the case. I sighed.

  “Okay, I’ll check around and see what the word on the street is about Meagher. I’ll also talk to Rose O’Ryan and the two paramedics. I have a source that might help us get more information about Meagher. However, I can’t promise we’ll find evidence of illegal activity. I don’t want to give you false hope and I also don’t want to waste your money. Would you like time to think about it?”

  “What would it cost?” Mac asked.

  I flipped one of my business cards over and jotted down my weekly fee. I also added the cost of the profiles I thought I’d need. When I handed the card to Mac, he held it so that Kerry could see the number too.

  “That’s my fee for a week and the cost for background profile reports I’ll need. We farm the profiles out to a specialist. We’ll cap the billing at forty hours for the initial investigation. I’ll interview the paramedics and trustee. I’ll also talk to my sources about Steven Meagher. They may know if he’s involved in something illegal. It’s possible I won’t need forty hours to accomplish all of that, in which case I’ll prorate the fee. After the initial investigation, I’ll provide a report with recommendations for next steps.”

  “The cost isn’t as bad as I expected,” said Mac. He turned to look at Kerry. Her eyes locked with his. After a few seconds, she nodded.

  She looked at me. “I want to go for it. I’d like to hire you and see what you can find out for us. I know he’s an evil person and a bad deputy. I think you’ll find the evidence we need.”

  Mac nodded. “I agree. We can’t stop now.”

  I smiled. “Okay, I’ll take the case.”

  Kerry clapped her hands and said, “Thank you!” She pulled a folder out of her tote bag and slid it onto my desk.

  “We have photos of Steven Meagher, Larissa Meagher, Rose O’Ryan, and Dom Fontana from different online sources. I also included the license plate number Mac got from Fontana’s car,” Kerry said. There was a new energy in her voice.

  I pulled out our standard contract and reiterated the fees and retainer. After scanning through the contract, Kerry signed it and wrote out a retainer check. I also had her complete a contact card with her address, email, and phone numbers. I asked Mac to add his email and phone numbers to the bottom of the card.

  Kerry’s head shot up. “Oh I forgot. I’m on vacation this week and driving home to visit my mom and dad. I’ll be back Thursday afternoon. But if you have any questions or news, please call me on my cell phone.”

  “I will,” I assured her and gave her a copy of the contracts. After giving each of them my business card, I walke
d Kerry and Mac to the front door.

  ***

  I returned to Sam’s office and peeked in. He was on the phone with someone, but waved me in. As I sat down in one of the guest chairs, his dark brown eyes shifted to me and he whispered, “Adrian.” I nodded.

  Adrian and Sam were old friends. After college, Sam worked as a deputy sheriff until budget cuts led to a lay off. He then landed a job as a paid intern at Adrian Rich Investigations, one of the largest private investigation firms in Madison. Eventually, Adrian sponsored Sam who became a licensed PI at the firm. After Sam opened Nolan Private Investigations in Mystic Grove, he and Adrian remained good friends. They frequently traded cases back and forth.

  Sam pushed his Irish cap back on his head. He snatched up a pen and twirled it between his fingers. Adrian was doing most of the talking, which was normal. Flip came around to the front of the desk and I scratched his ears and back. He whined happily and stretched out on the floor in front of me.

  I snuggled into the comfy guest chair. My Grandma Addie, who had introduced me to Sam last year, swore he looked like a young John Cusack. I saw a vague resemblance. Sam was an attractive guy in his late twenties with thick black hair, pale skin, and a boyish face. He definitely shared the actor’s love of monochromatic clothing.

  Sam closed the conversation and hung up. After taking a long drink of tea from his mug, he looked at me and smiled.

  “How’s Adrian?” I asked.

  Sam made a face. “Long-winded. He’s excited about a retainer they may get with the Bainbridge law firm. He said it would mean more work for us if we want it.”

  “Do we want it?”

  He nodded slowly. “I think it would help us grow. We work with several law firms in Mystic Grove, but the volume isn’t as big as what Bainbridge would offer. We’ll have to wait and see if Adrian closes the deal.”

  I nodded. More work was always good.

  Flip stood and walked around the desk. Sam hugged the dog and rubbed his back.

  Then Sam stood and stretched. His Henley rode up revealing the Glock 22 on his right hip. I preferred to carry my Glock 19 in a sticky holster inside the waistband of my jeans, pants, or skirts. However, I loved the tooled leather of Sam’s holster.