“He’s pretty good, Patty. Actually, I’m calling on an issue that may be of some assistance to Esther. She suggested that your nephew Will might be able to help her.”
“Will’s at home. Come on over now, if you like.”
Twenty minutes later, J.D. pulled into Patty’s driveway and knocked on the door. Patty greeted her and escorted her to the back of the house and introduced J.D. to her nephew Will, who was seated at a computer staring fixedly at the monitor. He was a gangly young man with a shock of dark hair that looked as if it hadn’t been combed since he graduated from junior high school. He wore a pair of ragged jeans, flip-flops, and a t-shirt advertising a computer store in Gainesville.
“I’ll leave you two alone,” Patty said. “Can I get you something to drink?”
“No, thank you, Patty,” J.D. said. “I just finished breakfast.”
Will smiled at his aunt and shook his head. “How can I help you?” he asked after they were seated in the living room.
“I guess your aunt told you why I’m here.”
“She told me that you’re Ms. Higgins’ niece and a cop down in Longboat Key. I love that lady.”
J.D. was a little surprised at that announcement, but let it go. “It sounds as if you know her pretty well,” she said.
“Yeah, she and Aunt Patty belong to the Civitan club and work on projects together. I help them out some. I’ve gotten to know Ms. Higgins pretty well.”
“I understand that you work with computers in The Villages security department.”
He nodded.
“Can you explain to me how the cameras at the gates at all the entrances to the different neighborhoods work?”
“We call them villages.”
“What?”
“We don’t call them neighborhoods. They’re villages, and there are ninety-one of them. A lot of them are named after Florida counties. For example, this house is in the Village of Pinellas.”
“I got it,” I said. “Can you tell me about the cameras?”
“Sure, but what’s this got to do with Ms. Higgins’ predicament?”
“She doesn’t exactly have a predicament, Will. She’s in jail charged with murder and facing a life sentence.”
“Sorry. Didn’t mean to denigrate her situation.”
J.D. smiled to herself. She supposed he’d learned “denigrate” at the university and liked to use it when he could. For a moment, she almost remembered her college days but mentally shrugged them off. She said, “We have a witness who saw a white van leaving the area where the body was found. I want to find out if that van entered or left any of the villages and hopefully get a license plate number. If I can get that, we can find out who the van belonged to.”
“There’s got to be a million white vans around here.”
“Yes, but the one I’m looking for is one of those little Dodge Promaster City vans. And it was plain, no graphics or signs on it. There aren’t too many of those around.” She showed him a picture of one of the vans she’d taken from a Dodge dealer’s website.
“It’s pretty distinctive,” Will said, “but the cameras don’t really show the vehicle. The one at the entrance, just above the red button that visitors use to activate the gate, takes a picture of the driver. The one on that low post just past the gate only gets a shot of the license plate. Same with the cameras pointing at the cars leaving the villages.”
“Can you give it a try?”
“I can try, but I wouldn’t hold out much hope that we can find the van.”
“I’d also like to check on whether a rental car entered and exited any of the villages. I’ve got the tag number.”
“That’ll be a piece of cake,” Will said.
J.D. knew from the autopsy report that Lathom had been killed at about eight o’clock on Wednesday evening. According to Amber, the bartender at World of Beer, the van that almost ran into her as she left work had come screaming out of Paddock Square at shortly after 1:42 on Thursday morning. Assuming that the killer called somebody with a van to pick up the body, it would have entered the gate that controlled the particular village at some time after eight p.m. On the other hand, the van could have been owned by the killer and parked in his or her garage for days. Either way, the van had to have left one of the villages at sometime between eight o’clock and the time that Amber almost had a collision with it at about 1:45 a.m. Of course, this scenario assumed that Lathom had been killed somewhere in The Villages, and there was no evidence that the friend she was going to visit lived there. J.D. and Matt had decided that, until proven wrong, they were going with the hypothesis that Lathom had been killed somewhere in the forty-two square miles that comprised The Villages.
“Okay,” she said. “And you said there are cameras that record vehicles leaving the neighborhoods?”
“The gates open automatically for cars leaving the villages, so there are no pictures of the driver. But there are cameras that again record the license plate as the vehicle drives out of the gate. We’d be able to tell if somebody came in and didn’t leave.”
“Are your computers programed to track tag numbers?”
“Sure. We can plug in the number and the computers will tell us when the vehicles came and went and what gates they passed through.”
“Could you have the computers show you pictures of the license plates of every vehicle that came and went through any of the gates during a particular time period?”
“They could, but there are ninety-one villages here and at least two hundred gates. That’s a lot of cars.”
“Suppose we narrowed that down to a thirty-minute period, say, around one in the morning.”
“That shouldn’t be too hard. Most of the folks around here are in bed asleep at that time of the morning. Traffic would be very light.”
“Can you do that for me?”
“Probably, but why don’t you just go through channels? I’m sure the bosses would be glad to help.”
“They’ll want a search warrant, Will. Or at least, a subpoena. I’m just a moonlighting cop digging around in a jurisdiction where I have no authority. If the lawyer were to go that route, he’d have to let the prosecutor know where he’s headed with this line of investigation. We don’t want to alert the law enforcement people to what we’re doing. At least, not yet.” A little cloud was forming in the back of her mind obscuring that part of her moral compass that included Matt’s view of legal ethics. She mentally whisked it away. Now was not the time to get technical.
“I could get in a lot of trouble if I’m caught monkeying with the computers.”
“Can you hack them? Not leave a trace?”
“Maybe.”
“Will you try? To help Ms. Higgins?”
Will sat quietly for a few moments, chewing at a fingernail. Finally, he ran his hand through his hair and said, “Give me a couple of days. Let me test the system and see what happens. I’ll let you know.”
“Thanks, Will.” J.D. gave him her business card with her personal cell phone scrawled on the back, said good-bye to Patty, and left. She drove to Lake Sumter Landing and found the Barnes & Noble store and asked to speak to the manager.
A woman who appeared to be in her midthirties came to the front of the store and introduced herself to J.D. as the general manager. “How can I help you?”
“I’m J. D. Duncan. I guess you know about the murder of Olivia Lathom right after she had her signing in this store.”
“I get asked about that by at least twenty people a day.”
“I’m an investigator working with the lawyer who is defending the woman accused of the murder. We’ve come across some information that Ms. Lathom spent a few minutes talking with a man just before she began the signing event. I’m sure you have surveillance cameras in the store.”
“We do. They cover the entire area.”
“I’m hoping I can get a look at your security tapes of that day to see if we can identify the man Ms. Lathom was talking to.”
“I would gl
adly give them to you if you had a subpoena. Do you have one?”
“No. I’m sure we can get one, but it’s a lot of effort, and we’ll waste a lot of days getting the court to issue one.”
“I’d like to help. Let me call my district manager and see what he has to say. Do you have any identification?”
“I do, but let me explain something. I’m a detective with the Longboat Key Police Department, but I’ve taken a leave of absence to work with the defense lawyer on this case. I don’t have any jurisdiction here, or anywhere else for that matter while I’m on a leave of absence. I’m working completely in a private capacity, but the badge and ID I’m about to show you are my official LBKPD credentials.”
“I understand, Detective.” She looked for a moment at the ID card and badge and handed them back to J.D. “I’ll call my boss and explain this to him. I’ll make it clear that you’re here in a private capacity. Give me a few minutes. There’s a Starbucks over in the corner of the store. Make yourself comfortable.”
The manager was back in ten minutes. “My manager was sold on the fact that you’re a real detective. I made sure he knew that you were working in a private capacity and not officially and he said he understood. He told me to go through the security recordings and find the one with Ms. Lathom talking to an unidentified man.”
“If that’ll take a while, I can come back.”
“Shouldn’t take long. We can narrow down the time because we know when she started the signing. Relax and I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
“Would it be too much to ask for a still picture of the man? The best shot you can get of his face?”
“Not a problem.”
“Can you email it to me?”
“Sure.”
J.D. gave the manager her email address and went back to her coffee.
Ten minutes later, J.D.’s phone pinged, alerting her to an incoming email. It was from the store manager and had two pictures attached, the first, a picture of a man talking to Olivia Lathom and a second one of just a head shot of the man.
“Did you get the pictures?” the manager asked as she walked up. She handed J.D. two pictures that she had printed on photographic paper. They were the same as the emailed photos.
“I did. Thank you very much.”
“It’d probably be better if you kept this to yourself.”
J.D. smiled. “Mum’s the word.”
CHAPTER 23
BACK AT MY hotel in Atlanta, I fired up my computer and ran a search for Danny Lathom. I found an obituary from some twenty years before with his name, a short little bio telling me nothing about his life other than the bare facts of birth, death, and survivors. He had died young, but the obit didn’t say of what. His place of death was Douglas, a town in South Georgia. The date and place of his birth seemed to match the man I was looking for, and he was survived by a brother named Charles. There was no reference to a sister or any other siblings, children or wife.
A Charles Lathom showed up with office and home addresses in Vinings, a trendy community of upscale homes and high-rise office buildings not far from Buckhead. He was a financial advisor and would be in his sixties by now. It was getting late in the afternoon, but Vinings was only about five miles from my hotel. I drove to Charles Lathom’s office and gave the receptionist my card and asked if I could speak with Mr. Lathom on a confidential matter.
“I’ll see if he’s in,” she said. It was a small office that probably didn’t have a back door, so I guessed she was trying to decide if my unexpected presence warranted an audience with the big kahuna. It was my day for officious people. She disappeared into the back of the office and returned a few minutes later. “Mr. Lathom will see you now,” she said, and led me back into a sumptuous office with an expansive view all the way south to the skyscrapers of downtown Atlanta.
Charles Lathom had come around his desk to shake my hand. He was a large man with a head full of white hair and a red face. He was well into his sixties now, and what had once been an athletic frame was going to fat. “Welcome, Mr. Royal. I wonder what I can do for a lawyer from Longboat Key. I do love that island.” The accent rolling off his tongue was pure Atlanta upper class. I could smell liquor on his breath, but if he’d been drinking a lot, he didn’t show it.
“Sounds like you’re familiar with the island,” I said.
“My wife and I used to spend a little time at the Colony before they closed it. We’d go down every year for some tennis and the beach. What brings you up our way?”
“A delicate matter, I’m afraid. It may have to do with your family, and I wouldn’t intrude if it weren’t important.” I told him about Esther and the charges against her and what I knew about the victim. “I spoke with Mrs. Halstead, who bought your parents’ home, and she said she remembered you and your brother, but didn’t know anything about a sister. Yet, Olivia was from Atlanta and Lathom, the way you spell it, is not a common name. The victim’s friend down in The Villages told me that Olivia came from a wealthy family and had grown up in Buckhead. Olivia also told that to a Constitution reporter.”
I noticed Lathom’s face turning a darker red as I spoke. He looked as if he were straining at lifting weights. I was beginning to think he was having a stroke, when two words, surrounded by a fine spray of spittle, exploded from his mouth. “That bitch!”
“You know her?” I asked.
Lathom nodded his head. “A long time ago, she was my sister-in-law for about a month. Then my brother died.”
“I’m sorry about that. I found his obituary online when I was looking for you. He was a young man when he died.”
“Yes, he was. Forty-two. Just a little over a year younger than me. That’s what made it so tragic.”
“What happened to Olivia after your brother’s death?”
“I have no idea. I never heard from her again and I sure as hell didn’t try to find her.”
“May I ask why?”
“The sun is over the yardarm and it’s five o’clock somewhere or whatever excuse the alkies use for taking a drink. You want one?”
“If you’re having one, I’ll join you.”
“I’m having Scotch. What do you drink, Mr. Royal?”
“Beer, if you’ve got one.”
“I think we can manage that.” He picked up his phone, pressed a couple of buttons, and ordered our drinks. “Now what was your question?”
“It sounds like you and Olivia didn’t get along. May I ask why?”
“Well, for starters, she was a foursquare bitch. She took over my poor brother’s brain. Reminded me of one of those movies where the dead take over the bodies of live people. Only this time, it was like she took over his brain.”
“Can you be more specific?”
“It’s a long story.”
“I’ve got time,” I said.
“Right after the Civil War, my second great-grandfather started a construction business and was part of the reconstruction of Atlanta. He also bought up property on the edges of the city, which was then very small. Over the years, he and his son, my great-grandfather, made a large fortune in construction and real estate. In his time, my grandfather took over the business and bought out his two sisters who had each inherited a third. Five years later, he sold the business and the remaining real estate and spent the rest of his life spending the money. When he died, my dad, an only child, inherited what was left, which still amounted to a medium-sized fortune.
“My mother came from old money, older than ours, but by the time my brother and I came along, it had dwindled to nothing but a small trust fund that was administered by a bank. Her family had owned a massive plantation down near Douglas in South Georgia. When the slaves were freed, the cotton plantation became a lot less profitable because they had to pay wages to get the infernal stuff picked.
“The family turned to the timber business. They had bought up a lot of wooded acreage before the war that they’d planned to clear and plant with cotton. But the war happened and life as the
y knew it came to a rather abrupt and bitter end.
“Mother’s family made a lot of money selling timber, but the recession that followed World War I pretty much broke them. Nobody needed lumber. Her dad, my maternal grandfather, had the good sense to cash out before we got into the war in France, and he put his money into industries that became part of what President Eisenhower later called the Military-Industrial Complex. He made a lot of money and after the war, reinvested the majority of it in other stocks. When the depression hit, he lost most of it.”
He paused, jabbed at the buttons on the phone, and said, “Bring us another one.” He looked at me and I nodded. “Bring another beer, too. Might as well bring the whole Scotch bottle and a bucket of ice. And the rest of that six-pack in the refrigerator.”
“Just one more for me,” I said. “I’ve got some more work to do tonight.”
“Forget the six-pack,” he said into the phone and hung up. “Now, where was I?”
“Your maternal grandfather just survived the depression.” I had the uncharitable thought that this tale was going to be a lot longer than I had anticipated, but I didn’t want to stop him while he was on a roll. I suspected that the more Scotch he drank, the more involved his story would be. I’d learned a long time ago that there were often kernels of substance in the disjointed stories of the inebriated.
“Oh yeah. Grandpa had had the foresight, or luck maybe, to put some of the money that was left into buying gold and other precious metals. Those survived the depression, and the family lived pretty well during the bad years, and he set up a trust fund for my grandmother, my mom, and her sister. Grandpa died in 1940 when my mother was twelve.
“When Mom finished high school, she came up here to Agnes Scott College. My dad was finishing at Emory and the two got married. My dad went off to fight in Korea and right after he came home, both his parents died within a couple of months of each other. My parents inherited the Buckhead house and moved in. When the will was read, my dad was surprised to learn that there was not a lot of money left, and what there was, he squandered over the next twenty years. By the time they sold the house, they were living off my mother’s trust fund.”
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