“You okay?” Jefferson asked Marcie.
She was leaning against a car and the color in her face was returning. She nodded her head a couple of times then said, “Yeah, I’m okay, I think.”
Jefferson turned back to Boone and said, “I’ve been in homicide for over ten years and I’ve seen some awful things people do to each other but that…”
“Yeah, I know,” Boone said. “Right now it looks like a boat accident. What do you think?”
Jefferson thought it over for a minute then said, “You’re sure about the fingerprints?”
“Yeah, we ran them three times. And the body size fits. What was he doing up here out on the lake?”
“I couldn’t tell you,” Jefferson said. He paused for a moment then continued by saying, “Well, Sheriff, it’s your case. I can’t tell you what to do. But my advice is if it looks like a boat accident, if the autopsy confirms that, then close your case. Call his parents. I’ll get you their information. If they want the body, okay. If not, dig a hole, put him in it and walk away. No one is very interested in finding out what happened to him. But you do what you think is best, Sheriff. If you need anything, feel free to call.”
At 3:50 that same afternoon, Carolyn buzzed Marc over the office intercom. She told him there was a call from Maddy Rivers for him and Maddy said it was important. Marc, of course, knew that Howie Traynor was back and like everyone else, was on edge about it.
“What’s up?” he asked Maddy.
“I just got off the phone with Gabriella. You should turn on your TV set at four o’clock and catch the Court Reporter.”
“Melinda Pace is dead. Who’s doing the show?”
“I’ll talk to you later,” Maddy coyly answered him.
At four o’clock, the entire office was gathered around the television. Marc told everyone about Maddy’s call and they were all curious to find out what was up.
“Good afternoon. My name is Gabriella Shriqui and this is The Court Reporter,” Gabriella began the show by announcing.
Gabriella went on to explain that the station had decided to honor Melinda Pace by continuing her show. Gabriella was honored, so she said, to be selected to host the show and could only hope to maintain the high standards of journalism that Melinda had established.
She explained that the show was being broadcast live because they had received the news about Howie Traynor moments ago. His shocking death was the lead story and her guest was the lead MPD detective for the Crown of Thornes case, Owen Jefferson.
When the broadcast ended, Marc placed a call to Gabriella and was put right through.
“So, you got the show. Congratulations,” he said.
“Thanks. When can I have you on?”
“We’ll see. The reason I called was to tell you how impressed I was that you kept a straight face prattling that nonsense about Melinda’s journalistic standards. Please tell me you’ll do better than that.”
Gabriella laughed and said, “I think I can do better than that.”
Personal Justice
A Marc Kadella Legal Mystery
by
Dennis L. Carstens
Previous Marc Kadella Legal Mysteries
The Key to Justice
Desperate Justice
Media Justice
Certain Justice
Personal Justice
Copyright © 2016 by Dennis L Carstens
www.denniscarstens.com
A very special thanks to the genius of Charles Dickens who brought us Marley’s Ghost with the universally true warning about the chains we forge in life and will eventually wear through eternity; a warning which very few us adequately heed.
ONE
Mackenzie Sutherland followed the wheeled aluminum bier down the center aisle of St. Mark’s Catholic Church in St. Paul. It carried her husband’s coffin toward the church’s front entrance on Dayton Avenue. The bier was guided by six young men, all of whom were sons of old friends of her husband.
She walked slowly down the aisle loosely holding the arm of her personal lawyer, Cooper Thomas. Her face bore an impassive expression; appropriate for a funeral. Anyone looking at her through the black veil attached to her black hat and covering her face would think nothing of the look she wore.
Behind her, having been uncomfortably seated on the same pew with Mackenzie were her three stepchildren. Robert, the eldest, and his wife, Paige sat with their three unruly children. Then came the youngest, Hailey and her latest oh so cool, chic and hip bohemian-artist boyfriend, Chazz. Bringing up the rear of the dysfunctional family was the middle child, another son, thirty-eight-year-old Adam. Of the three of them, Adam was easily the most useless. His problems with drugs and alcohol made gainful employment problematic at best, if he had ever been so inclined toward self-sufficiency in the first place.
Mackenzie’s husband, William ‘Bill’ Sutherland, had been a well-known, respected businessman for almost forty years. Bill and his first wife, Beth, had worked and sacrificed to build a chain of successful grocery stores. Sutherland’s were high-end stores known for their quality and service. Three months before his death he opened the seventeenth and final store in Duluth. Bill had always treated his employees well, in fact a little too well judging by how it was affecting the company’s bottom line. However, because of this there was not an empty seat in the church.
When they exited the church, Cooper Thomas gently led Mackenzie toward the Cadillac limousine first in line behind the black hearse. While the casket was being loaded into the back of the big vehicle for Bill’s last trip, Mackenzie took a moment to look up at the sky.
March in Minnesota can be less than pleasant depending on how long winter decides to linger. The driver of Mackenzie’s limo stepped aside to allow Cooper to open the door for her. As he did so, a slight, involuntary shiver went through Mackenzie.
“Dreary day,” she remarked as she entered the car.
She slid across the seat to allow her escort to get in next to her and close the door. While they sat waiting for the other guests to get in line and form the procession to the cemetery, Mackenzie pushed the button to raise the car’s privacy glass behind the driver.
“I’ll be glad when this is over,” she quietly said.
“You’re doing fine,” Cooper said patting her right hand with his left. Mackenzie had placed the hand on the seat between them and Cooper held it as if to comfort her.
“Stop,” she firmly admonished as she removed his hand and placed hers in her lap. “I don’t need consoling, Cooper. I need this business to be done.”
Despite his marriage, Cooper Thomas was thoroughly smitten with the very fetching Mackenzie Sutherland. Even dressed in widow black she was still a fine looking woman. Hiding his disappointment at her admonishment he said, “Soon, Mackenzie, just a few more days. Everything is arranged.”
“I know,” she sighed. “I’m just tired of his damn kids bugging me about money.” Mackenzie turned her head to look out the passenger window as the rain began to lightly fall. She placed her veiled forehead against the window and looked upward toward the gray sky. The limo’s tinted windows made the rainy day darker, gloomier and even feel colder. While watching the rain streak the glass, waiting for the procession to start up, a slight smile curved her mouth upward.
While the two of them were silently chauffeured to the cemetery, Mackenzie retraced the route she traveled to reach this destination. Now in her early forties her crusade began almost twenty years ago.
Mackenzie Lange, her original maiden name, graduated from the University of Minnesota in her early twenties with a marketing degree. A very attractive young woman, borderline beautiful, Mackenzie had little trouble finding employment. She quickly learned she could use her looks, charm and intelligence to excel at sales and she found she liked it. There was something about manipulating people to do what she wanted that gave her a rush.
After a few years, Mackenzie suddenly moved to St. Petersburg, Florida. She had saved enough money s
o she could live without a job for at least two years, if necessary. Having done her research before leaving to move to Florida, she knew exactly where she would work and in six months the job was hers; new car sales at Bauer Cadillac. It was also the location of the corporate headquarters for Bauer Enterprises, the owner of twelve car dealerships in the Tampa-St. Petersburg metro area.
Mackenzie, using her smooth legs and ample cleavage, shot to the top of the sales board in less than three months. It wasn’t long before she caught the attention of the company owner, Joseph Bauer, whose office was in the same building.
Immediately smitten with this beautiful young super saleswoman, within two weeks they were dating. Three months later the angry first Mrs. Bauer was filing for divorce and three days after it was finalized Mackenzie became the second Mrs. Joseph Bauer.
Along with a very profitable business, Mackenzie became a stepmother for the first time. Joseph had two sons, Samuel a mere two months younger than Mackenzie and David, the spoiled Mama’s boy of the family.
Everything went exactly as Mackenzie had envisioned it. Having been married to a Jewish Princess for over thirty years, the sexual wild ride that Mackenzie brought to the conjugal bed turned Joseph into a pliable puppy.
Suddenly, a month after changing his Will, which cut out both sons, Joseph was found slumped over his desk. At the ripe old age of fifty-five, his heart gave out. Because he was a Jew and his history of heart problems, no autopsy was performed. Three months later the grieving widow sold the business for seventeen million dollars. The amount was probably half what it was worth, but she wanted a quick sale and a quicker exit from St. Pete. The four-million-dollar beach front house was mortgaged to the max. Since her name was not on any of it, Mackenzie did a quick deed in lieu of foreclosure and she was on her way back to the Midwest.
During her marriage to Joseph Bauer, Mackenzie had become acquainted with an old college friend of her late husband. They had socialized several times and Mackenzie had taken every opportunity to flirt and flatter the well-to-do widower. Of course, when Joseph died suddenly this friend, Kenneth Hayes, had flown immediately to Tampa-St. Pete to help the poor widow, console her through her time of grief and help handle the estate proceedings. Although Mackenzie required no help or grief consoling, she was all too happy to let him do it. By the time she cashed out and moved to Milwaukee where he lived, Ken Hayes, soon to be husband number two, had been reeled in and landed.
Hayes, whose first wife had killed herself while driving drunk several years before, was a partner in a mid-size investment firm. In good times and bad, bull and bear markets and even through recessions, the firm made money. The firm’s clients might not have always made money but commissions were always paid.
Mackenzie had done her due diligence and had a fairly accurate estimate of the man’s net worth. Knowing she had him hooked, for appearances Mackenzie played the part of the grieving widow for almost a year. Unknown to poor Ken Hayes, she even began scouting out the man who would become husband number three.
Almost exactly a year after the death of Joseph Bauer, Mackenzie was the new Mrs. Kenneth Hayes. Along with the ring came a six bedroom, seven bath home with both an indoor and outdoor pool on the shores of Lake Michigan.
Being married to Joe Bauer had been easy. Bauer had little interest in socializing which left Mackenzie with time to do what she wanted. Ken Hayes was another matter entirely. Being a partner in the firm required a constant stream of entertaining well-heeled existing and potential clients. If she wasn’t planning an event in the lakeshore home, they were going to one at someone else’s. And as if that wasn’t boring enough, Ken was heavily involved in the state Democratic Party. Being apolitical Mackenzie could not have been less interested in any of it. She was also finding out Milwaukee and her husband were about as interesting as warm oatmeal. To top it all off, the cherry on the sundae, were the three dull, useless progeny. The oldest, a married daughter Carol, was a year older than Mackenzie, a son, Kenneth Jr., was a few years younger and the youngest was a spoiled party girl, Faye.
The marriage lasted until at death they did part, not quite eighteen months after the wedding. The Milwaukee police found Ken slumped over the wheel of his Mercedes on the side of the freeway. A quick autopsy revealed a sudden and unexpected heart attack followed by cremation less than forty-eight hours later.
Of course, a few days after the memorial service, when the Will was read, Mackenzie was shocked— she almost fainted, a nice touch that was — to find Ken had recently changed the Will. He had left fifty thousand dollars to each of his children and the rest to his loving bride, Mackenzie. In addition, there was a three-million-dollar life insurance policy the firm held on each of its partners. The three million was used to buy out the stunned, grieving young widow from any claim in the firm. The final tally was a little over fifteen million, including the house. Shortly after, Mackenzie, who was still only thirty-six, moved to Chicago.
Target number three was an old money Chicagoan by the name of Wendell Cartwright. Wendell Cartwright was the great-grandson of a Chicago Robber Baron, Philemon Cartwright. Fortunately for Wendell, Great Granddad had amassed a fortune the old fashioned way; by ruthlessly crushing any potential competition. At the turn of the twentieth century, the old crook was the principal owner of the Chicago Stockyards and almost one-third of the real estate in what would become downtown Chicago.
When he turned twenty-one, Wendell’s share of the old crook’s estate, a family trust fund, became available with almost one-hundred million dollars in it. During the next forty plus years, Wendell had managed to reduce it to approximately forty million by the time he met McKenzie. Wendell had a definite weakness for the ladies and the good life.
Mackenzie would be wife number five. Wendell’s four ex-wives were all living quite well on the alimony payments they received each month. In addition, there were two adult children to support. The first child, a forty-year-old woman from his first marriage named Dorothy, was about to divorce husband number three, a twenty-eight-year-old biker who had introduced her to the joy of methamphetamines.
Wendell also had a son who was thirty-three-years-old when they married named Phillip by wife number two. Despite an excellent education provided by Daddy, Phillip was all but totally useless as a human being. Bothering with employment had never been high on Phillip’s to do list. Why should it? The example dear old Dad had set for him had done its job. Phillip was following right in Daddy’s footsteps and Dad kept the monthly checks rolling. That and Phillip’s drug business kept him living fairly well. He would have lived better still but for his usage of his own products.
All of them, four ex-wives, two adult children and Wendell’s hedonistic lifestyle were totally dependent upon the trust money. Getting a job for any of them was out of the question. Because of the way the trust was set up, Wendell could not make lump sum payments to everyone and be done with them. Instead, they all would live off of monthly payments until Wendell’s death at which time the trust’s remaining principal would be paid out to the named beneficiaries.
Within six months of relocating to the north side of Chicago, Wendell Cartwright was wrapped around Mackenzie’s little finger. Wendell was absolutely convinced that the over-sexed Mackenzie was his longed for soulmate. Little did he know how much she really despised him for his weakness and self-indulgent, indolent lifestyle. Less than a month after Mackenzie’s thirty-eighth birthday, husband number three was discovered in bed dead from a massive heart attack. A perfunctory autopsy, a quick cremation and a shocked young widow was forty million dollars richer.
During her brief marriage Mackenzie had come to know the ex-wives, the two children and the amount each of them were being paid every month. When the Will was read, the exes and the kids discovered that the spigot had been shut off. On the surface, Mackenzie appeared shocked and assured them she would do what she could to take care of them. All the while thinking that bankrupting this gang of leeches was the best part of bein
g married to the old fool.
Lawsuits were filed by all of them. Because the divorces were set up with no provision for securing the alimony payments, the lawsuits would be eventually dismissed. Wendell’s responsibilities died with him. And to be clear that leaving all of them out of the estate was not an oversight, he made provision in the Will that each were to receive the sum of one hundred dollars.
The local media had a field day with it. The story had everything the public could want and they ate it up; an attractive young wife, a rich old man, a huge fight over millions of dollars. Unfortunately for Mackenzie, her picture was in the news at least weekly and it was not long before an enterprising reporter tracked her back to Milwaukee. Just about the time the death of her previous husband came to light, the liquidation of the Cartwright estate was finalized. Once that was completed, Mackenzie disappeared to Europe for six months before coming home to St. Paul.
TWO
The drive to the cemetery, even with the motorcycle police escorts, took almost thirty minutes. Mackenzie made a mental note to give the two motorcyclists an extra two hundred dollars each because of the rain. It was a cold, wet, miserable day to be on a motorcycle. The long procession snaked its way through the Catholic cemetery in Mendota Heights. The hearse finally stopped near an open area alongside Augusta Lake. Bill Sutherland had purchased a quarter acre plot overlooking the lake expecting the entire family to eventually be buried there.
A 20 x 20 awning had been set up over the gravesite. A large marble angel resembling the Virgin Mary faced the street in front of the plot. It was set on a concrete base with the name SUTHERLAND prominently displayed.
Marc Kadella Legal Mysteries Vol 1-6 (Marc Kadella Series) Page 182