by Lynne Hinton
She turned to the producer. “To answer your question, there’s no doubt about it,” she said. “He could do it easily.”
She could see that Polland understood what she was saying, but she decided to go ahead and finish the thought anyway. “He would kill a man in a heartbeat if he thought his daughter had been harmed.”
“Then I’d say you’re lucky to have a dad like that,” he responded and stood up to take his leave.
Eve stood as well.
“But to answer your question about Megan and me, no, I am not her jealous lover or her overprotective father figure. I care about her, but I wouldn’t kill for her.”
Evangeline watched as he quickly finished his last bit of tea.
He turned and headed for the door. “You coming?” he asked.
She nodded and joined him, thinking about what had just transpired between them. She was surprised at how much her world was expanding. She thought she knew everything there was to know about her family, about her relationship with the Captain. More and more she was discovering she didn’t really know that much at all.
SIXTY-TWO
“You want me to take another trip to Los Angeles?” Evangeline was driving back to Madrid. She was excited about the news she was only just hearing, news that Betsy White was in fact the woman Megan had called and the manager of the production account at the bank. And she was happy to make another jaunt to the West Coast.
“I don’t think we need you to confront Ms. White,” the Captain answered. “Let’s let the attorney and the L.A. police handle it from this point on.” He pulled on the strap of his seat belt.
Even though he didn’t want to admit it, Eve thought he acted a little excited as well.
“So, you talked to her?” She knew the Captain had made the call to the bank once it was confirmed that the number Megan still had in her recent calls list on her cell phone matched the contact number for Elizabeth White shown on the bank website.
“First I talked to her supervisor,” he answered, “then I talked to her.”
“Well …” She waited, turning to look at her passenger. “What did they say?”
Eve had wanted details when she arrived at Megan’s house, but the Captain hadn’t allowed a conversation. Every time she would ask a question, he would block it with some other topic. Only later when they both got in the truck did he explain that he didn’t think it best to talk about this new development in front of his client.
“Better to have a little more to report,” he had said.
“Tell me,” she pleaded.
He released the strap. “The supervisor confirmed that Elizabeth White, known to her friends as Betsy, handled all Polland Productions accounts. She was therefore in charge of the one labeled ‘Project 10: The Way of Broken Trails,’ which required signatures from both Mr. Polland and Mr. Cheston to make withdrawals.”
Eve clapped her hands on the steering wheel. “This is it!” she shouted.
“Hold on there, Sister,” the Captain responded. “We don’t have nearly enough to go to the police yet.”
“What about Betsy? What did she have to say?”
He smiled. “Ms. White was hesitant to tell me much about the account or about her relationship with Mr. Polland or Mr. Cheston. She confirmed being the account representative and knowing both men. She also said that she was deeply saddened about the death of her client and that Mr. Polland had changed the details of the account, removing Cheston’s name from the required signature list and adding Mr. Leon Joiner, the chief financial officer of the production company.” He paused. “That’s standard when there has been a death.”
Eve nodded. “Did you ask her if she had spoken to Megan?”
“She denied that,” he answered. “And she denies that she and the victim ever talked about her having an acting role in his picture.”
Eve sped up and took the highway exit a bit faster than anticipated.
“You trying to kill us?” The Captain had braced himself to keep from sliding across the seat.
“Sorry,” she said, taking her foot off the gas pedal. The truck slowed.
“Thank you,” he noted.
“Was there anything else from the conversation that helps us?” she wanted to know.
He glanced over at Evangeline. “Well, if you must know, her supervisor claims Ms. White has been taking acting lessons. He had even been to see her in a local play of some kind. When I asked him if she had aspirations to be a star, he laughed and said, ‘Doesn’t every girl in Hollywood?’ He thought he was pretty funny.”
“So she lied.” Evangeline thought this was good news. “The account manager did want a role in Cheston’s film.”
“Looks that way,” he replied.
“Well, that wouldn’t be hard to prove, right?”
“That she lied or that she wants to be an actress?”
She thought about the question. “Either one. If she wants to be an actress, she lied about not being interested in a movie role.” She clapped her hands on the wheel again. “We’ve got her! All we have to do is get a search warrant, and I bet we’ll find all the evidence we need.”
There was no response.
“What’s wrong?” She could see the cloud that had moved across his face.
He shook his head. “It’s not going to be that easy to get a search warrant. It’s going to take a lot for the police or the district attorney to be interested enough to check out this woman. It’s like I told you awhile back, if a detective has a suspect and starts moving down that path, he doesn’t like to be told to take another one.”
“Even if he’s wrong?”
“Especially if he’s wrong.”
She shook her head. “I don’t understand.”
He faced her but did not respond.
“You don’t look for somebody else,” he said.
“What do you mean?” She wouldn’t accept his answer. “Even if there is evidence or a really strong lead, a police officer wouldn’t check it out? Before a conviction is handed down, wouldn’t an officer want to make sure they had the right person? Wouldn’t they want to look at every possibility?”
He rested his elbow on the door. “In their minds, every other possibility has been eliminated. They’ve already narrowed down the list of potential perpetrators. They picked Megan Flint. Nobody wants to back off from their number one suspect. Nobody wants to admit they were wrong.”
“So the entire police force would just squelch Megan’s attorney’s request to check out this other lead? Even one as solid as Betsy White at the bank?”
“I’m afraid so, Eve.”
She blew out a long breath and kept shaking her head.
“It just happens,” he added. “You get in this pattern of police investigations, and you don’t want to believe you can make a mistake. You don’t want to think you charged the wrong person, believed the wrong story. If you start to doubt yourself, you quit being an effective officer of the law.”
Eve turned to look at the Captain. “Is that what happened to you?”
Something about the way he was describing this situation sounded very personal. He looked away, pulled down the visor, and rested his head against the back of his seat. “I made a big mistake,” he confessed. “I arrested the wrong guy, kept him in jail for two years.” His voice had softened. “Kept him away from his family, his job, everything, because I was so sure that I was right and he had committed the crime.”
Eve watched the road, keeping both hands on the steering wheel.
“But I was wrong. And by the time the evidence was released that proved I was wrong, this guy had lost everything.” He cleared his throat.
Eve didn’t look, but she knew the emotion had overcome him and made him stop. She heard him take a breath.
“He got out of jail, went to his house that had been taken over by the bank, called his wife who had moved away and divorced him to tell her he loved her and to say good-bye to his little girl, and then he got a gun and shot himself.�
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Eve kept driving.
“I put in for my retirement the next day.” He reached up, turned the handle, and rolled down the window.
A cool breeze filled the cab of the truck, and the outside noise kept there from being any further conversation.
SIXTY-THREE
“What if Polland talks to her?” Eve asked.
Evangeline and the Captain had driven back to Santa Fe the day after the calls were made to the bank where Elizabeth White worked. Lee McDonald tried everything he could to get the police chief or the district attorney to check out the motive and the bank manager’s story, but they would have nothing to do with it.
“What if he talks to her like he trusts her or maybe like he has a part for her in the movie after all? He could use a tape recorder or something. Maybe she’d confess everything to him.”
It was late in the evening and they were home, sitting on the front porch. Trooper rested between them.
“It’s actually amazing to me how much people will tell you. I used to think people were confessing to me all the time because of the habit, because they could tell I was a nun and they immediately assumed it was what they should do. But even without the habit and veil, if you ask the right questions or even act like you’re interested, people will tell you anything.”
“People just don’t talk to everybody,” the Captain responded.
“No?” Eve asked.
“No,” he answered.
“Hmm.” The news surprised her.
“You’ve always had that gift,” he added.
“A gift?”
“People wanting to talk to you, tell you things.” He turned to her. “You know this, right?”
Eve shrugged. “I just thought that’s what people did.”
He shook his head. “No, Evangeline, people don’t tell things to just anybody and everybody. They have to feel like they trust you.”
She didn’t respond.
“Guess that’s what makes you a good nun.” He reached over and gave Trooper a welcomed scratch behind her ears. “And a good PI.”
The compliment was unexpected. Eve was at a loss for words. She cleared her throat and then all she could do was acknowledge what had been said with a nod. She had never felt so validated or appreciated in her life. She wanted the moment to last.
“He can use his phone,” the Captain responded, breaking the silence.
“What?”
“His phone—he doesn’t need a tape recorder. He can record a conversation with his cell phone.”
Eve shook her head. “There are so many things I don’t know,” she said. “A phone that records conversations—I have to get one of those things.”
“You think you’ll need one at the convent?” the Captain asked.
He was fishing, she could tell.
“So, if we can get him in there with her …” She was ignoring the comment. “He could just keep his phone close by and record what she says.”
The Captain nodded.
“You think he can act?”
“From what I’ve seen, everybody in that business thinks they can act.”
Eve smiled and leaned over, nudging the Captain in the side. He grabbed her by the arm and held it for just a second. Then he let go, giving her a few pats when he did.
It was the only show of affection she had received from him since her mother died. She waited and then pulled away.
“All right, let’s see what the talented Mr. Polland can do,” she said, summing up the conversation and feeling her heart swell.
SIXTY-FOUR
“I know you don’t want to confess to anything, and I don’t blame you for that, but just tell me how it happened, Betsy, tell me how you got to Cheston, and just know that I am a huge fan. I am so glad he’s gone.”
There was a giggle.
“Just let me in on some of the details of how it happened, how you found him, how you killed him, because I think in addition to acting, you may have a future in writing scripts. I just know this one is ready for prime time, baby.”
Evangeline turned to the Captain and rolled her eyes. The two of them had gathered at his office with Megan to listen to the recording Polland had sent them via e-mail. The producer had made the trip to Los Angeles, scheduled a meeting at his office with Elizabeth White, and after a couple of glasses of wine, she’d made a complete confession. He recorded the entire conversation between the two of them.
“Well …” A small feminine voice began to take over the recording. “He came to me not long after you opened up the account and offered to take me on a studio tour after work one day. We had drinks and dinner a couple of times after that. Then a couple of weeks later, he came to the bank and said he was going to New Mexico to tie up some loose ends for this project, that he had to make arrangements for a final location, and that he needed some extra cash to take with him. When I explained that he couldn’t make a withdrawal without both signatures, that’s when he mentioned that he had been thinking about something ever since he met me that first day at the bank. He said that especially after spending a little time with me, he was certain that I was perfect for the lead in the film.”
“And I absolutely agree with him. You are perfect.”
“I knew letting him have the money was wrong, Mr. Polland.”
“Yes, yes, I know. Cheston could be so charming when he wanted something.”
Evangeline looked at Megan. The young woman had dropped her eyes and was staring at the table in front of her.
“He could, couldn’t he? Anyway, he promised me that he would get the money back in the account in less than a week, and that I just needed to give him the withdrawal, keep the slip for a few days, and find a way to not let you access the account.”
“You changed the password,” Polland said.
There was no verbal response, but it was easy to figure out that she was nodding at this point in the conversation. “But I changed it back, you saw that, right?”
“I did,” he answered.
“And the money is there.”
“Yes, it is all there, and I thank you for that.”
There was another giggle.
“But, Elizabeth, what made you want to kill him?”
“He lied. I found out from his girlfriend that there was no part for me and certainly not the lead. She made it very clear that she had that role.” There was a break. “Is that water? Can I have some water?”
“Of course.” And there was the sound of something being poured into a glass. “Here you go.”
“Thanks.”
Another break.
“So, you flew to New Mexico to confront him?”
“No, I drove.”
“My goodness, Betsy, that’s a long trip.”
“Twenty hours there and back, but it took even longer because I hadn’t expected his girlfriend to be there.”
“Megan.”
“They were fighting. He told me when we had dinner here in L.A. that he was breaking up with her, that he had divorced his wife and Megan was just a rebound experience. He said he never loved her and that she was having a hard time accepting the fact that he was breaking up with her. She was so needy. She claimed she had to have the work to pay for her mother in an institution. She’s crazy.” There was another giggle. “He said she was intolerable. That’s how he said it, needy and intolerable.”
Evangeline turned again to Megan. They locked eyes and Megan’s began to fill with tears.
The Captain saw the reaction. He hit the Stop button on the computer screen. The conversation halted. “We don’t have to listen to this right now.” He watched Megan.
Eve reached over and took the young woman by the hand. “He’s right,” she added. “We can listen to it and then tell you what was said, tell you how it happened.”
She shook her head and wiped her face with a tissue. “No, I’m fine. I want to hear it.”
He hesitated and then switched the recording back on.
SIXTY-FIVE
“So, I just watched the house until he left real early in the morning. I followed him to a cabin off a dirt road.”
“A cabin?”
Evangeline glanced over at the Captain. They both realized that Polland didn’t know about any of this. In this part of the conversation he wasn’t acting. He didn’t know about Biltmore and the scripts being written by someone else.
“Way out somewhere. He was picking up the last pages of the script for this movie.” There was a pause. “I have them if you want them.”
“Of course,” he answered. “And Cheston was picking them up at this cabin?”
It sounded as if she was taking a drink.
“And that’s when you killed him?”
There was a gasp. “I didn’t mean to kill him,” she said.
“I’m sure you didn’t. He probably got physical with you, and you just did it out of self-defense.”
Everything was quiet for a moment.
“No, it wasn’t that.”
“Oh?”
“I just meant to scare him. I had a dart gun. I got it from a friend who works for the state parks department, wildlife and game division. He’s the one they call when they need to tranquilize a mountain lion or bear. He’s starting his own business, wants to work as an animal wrangler for the movie studios.”
“Did your friend know you had his dart gun?”
The Captain smiled. He jotted down a note and passed it to Evangeline.
You were right! Handles himself pretty well in an interview, he had written.
Eve nodded.
“No. I took it when I went out to his place to drop off his loan papers. That’s how we met,” she explained. “I was helping him with his business loan.”
“So, you stole this dart gun and the tranquilizer, shot him, and it killed him.”
There was a soft whimper. “I didn’t mean to kill him. I didn’t mean to kill anybody.”
“There, there, Betsy, of course you didn’t. It’s okay. It’s just fine.”
More weeping.
“I didn’t know what to do, so I just dragged him into my SUV and started driving. When I realized he was dead, I was so upset. I just drove and drove, and I ended up in another little town and out past this horse-stables place, and I just stopped and rolled him out of the car.” She blew her nose. “I guess it snowed later and that’s why it took a few days to find him.”