“Not at all. Just wondering why his legally married wife doesn’t have access to their joint accounts?”
Maxim wiped his mouth with the cloth napkin, and then gently folded it back onto his lap.
“Now that is a question I should not answer but will.” He leaned in even closer. “About a year ago, Sam had me make some changes to all the accounts which were in his name. The joint accounts were left as they were. But his accounts, and, yes, before you ask, it is legal for a husband to have complete control over privately owned financial accounts, with certain restrictions, of course. His accounts were to be held in probate in the event his death was of a suspicious nature. Being murdered certainly met that requirement.”
“How long are the accounts held in probate?”
“Five days is all the law will allow.”
“After that?”
“Jessica Gracers, being the legal wife of Sam Gracers, is entitled to every last penny in Sam’s private accounts.”
“Any idea how much money we’re talking about?”
“I know exactly how much, but we’re not talking about Sam’s money. At least, I’m not.”
“Did he tell you why he wanted that done? To have his personal accounts locked away?” Nikkie asked.
“Not his personal accounts, his private accounts. Big distinction, legally speaking.”
“A little play money he hid away from his wife?”
Maxim gave Nikkie a long stare. Followed the stare with a condescending smirk.
“I think your definition of play money and Sam Gracers definition are as different as the light from a lightning bug and a lighting bolt. But, no, he didn’t tell me why he wanted his private accounts set up as such and I didn’t ask.” Maxim lowered his voice. “But strictly between us and completely off the record, I suspected Sam felt his wife was a threat to his well being. He never suggested she threatened him, and, again, this is all my speculation. I may be completely off base.”
“Makes sense to me,” Derek said. “Sam starts to think someone may be interested in getting rid of him to get to his money, so he decides to have the final laugh and has the money unreachable.”
Nikkie asked, “And Jessica Gracers never found out about Sam’s private accounts and how he had you change access to them after he died?”
“Not that I’m aware. The only person, besides me and two other partners at the firm who were aware of what Sam asked me to do was his alternate power of attorney. His primary power of attorney being his wife, of course.”
“Who was his alternate power of attorney?” Derek asked.
“Since it is a matter of public record, for those who knew where to look, I don’t mind telling you who served as Sam’s alternate. It was the owner of the partnership Sam worked for. FJ DeNuzzio.”
Chapter 26
“I think I’m more confused now than before we met Maxim. Just when I thought we should turn our attention away from Brian Hilton and on to Jessica, Maxim drops an FJ bomb.”
Derek and Nikkie were too exhausted to conduct their day-end recap in the hotel bar and chose instead to sit together in Nikkie’s hotel room. Nikkie was sitting in a chair near the window while Derek was stretched out on the floor; something he did when he felt overwhelmed.
Nikkie glanced towards Derek and responded, “We need another palaver. Need to figure out what the hell we’re looking at with this case.” She paused, then, before giving Derek the opportunity to agree, disagree or to begin his version of a recap, she started in. “We’re hired to prove Jessica Gracers did not kill her husband, Sam. Though she doesn’t give us anything to go on at first—no alibi—we, for the most part, take her at her word. When she finally gives us the alibi, and, if I haven’t mentioned this already, the way she gave her alibi to us was just plain weird.”
“You mean how she’d only give her alibi to me and made me ask her questions to make her story more like a narrative? Yeah, that was a bit different. May just be her way. I’m not thinking too much into it. Yet.”
Carrying on without acknowledging Derek, Nikkie said, “We find out Brian Hilton is a potential player in the murder. At least according to Jessica’s alibi. We get a warrant to check out the lodge Jessica said she was in with Hilton at the time of the murders. But, before we get there, Hilton replaces all the furniture, has it burned and destroys any chance we had to recover DNA evidence to prove Jessica’s claim.
“You—and I have no idea how you pulled this off—get invited into Hilton’s home…”
“Where I lose my affinity for cheap scotch. Don’t forget that part. Pretty important.”
“Where he tells you he’s gay and therefore not interested sexually in Jessica, explains why he had the lodge cleaned and furniture burned and suggests Sam Gracers thought Jessica may be suffering from a mental illness. I find out Hilton may be scamming business owners into selling him their businesses by working with a doctor in Nashville and one in Tampa. These ass wipes tell the business owners they have a cancer often caused by stress. You overhear Hilton speaking with Matt Steel, who turns out to have just agreed to sell his business to Hilton after going to the same Nashville-based doctor…”
“Timothy O’Connell.”
“…And after being told he has cancer. He’s sent to the same specialist in Tampa…”
“Mark Ruggerio.”
“…But I called Steel, let him know what Donald Reagan told me, and he tells me almost the exact same story as Reagan’s. Steel also tells me the papers for the sale of his business were drawn up by and sent to Maryanne Jenkins.”
“Whom our friend, Peter Maxim, described as an ambulance chaser. Not the typical high-powered attorney you’d expect to be working with a guy like Hilton.”
“Maryanne Jenkins tells me she has ALS. Not sure if that fits anyplace in this mess of a case, but it might.” Nikkie spun her chair around, facing the window. “Sam Gracers has Maxim put a hold on his private accounts—and I have no idea how a private account is different from a personal account, by the way—and has this mystery man named FJ DeNuzzio as his alternate power of attorney.”
“When you think back to Jessica’s alibi, she suggested FJ might have had something to do with Craig Washburn’s death. So, we certainly can’t count him out as a potential suspect.”
“And I’m not. Not in the least. We just don’t know anything about the guy.”
Derek sat up, leaned his back against the bed.
“Physical evidence at the crime scene all point to Jessica. Her gun, her prints on the casings and she was the only one at the scene. Add to that what Maxim said about Sam getting ready to file for divorce and we have motive.”
“Assuming Jessica knew about Sam’s desire to divorce her. No way of knowing that for sure.”
“Jessica also said Brian borrowed her gun when he went running at the lodge. Said he forgot his and needed hers in case he ran across any rabid raccoons.”
“Has Detective Gonzales gotten back to you with any info on the gun? Any prints found?”
“She hasn’t. Hoping to hear something soon, though.”
“It’s the details of Jessica’s story that get me.”
“What do you mean?” Derek, who was now standing, leaning against the far wall, asked.
“Details. Like how she and Hilton used a book…”
“One Shot by Lee Child.”
“…To pass notes back and forth to each other. That’s a very particular detail.”
“And improvable unless we find that book in Hilton’s home. Think we should ask Maryanne for another warrant?”
“Honestly,” Nikkie answered, “I don’t think we should tell her anything. Not until we find out her story. Find out how and why she was involved with Hilton. She may be involved in this tangled mess somehow.”
Derek sighed. Pulled out his Moleskine notebook from his back pocket. Flipped till he found a blank page and scribbled some notes. He finished writing, walked to Nikkie holding the notebook open for her to see. Handed her t
he pencil.
“I wrote down initials for four people. FJ, for DeNuzzio, JG, for Jessica, BH, for Hilton and MJ, for Jenkins. Unless you can think of anyone else I should add to our list of possibles, circle that your gut tells you killed Sam Gracers. Don’t think on it, just let your gut decide.”
Nikkie held the pencil in a hovering pattern over the notebook.
“Are you saying we should only concern ourselves with the murder and disregard what Hilton may be doing with those doctors and those poor business owners?”
“Not at all. But we need to focus. There are way too many variables with this case. No way we can chase all these rabbits.”
Nikkie moved the pencil closer to the page. She paused, gave Derek a little smile, her face set in a slightly upturned position, then drew a large circle around two initials.
Chapter 27
August 22
Derek was awake by five-thirty the next morning. After gulping down two glasses of water drawn from the bathroom sink, he dressed in his running clothes then made his way via the stairwell to the lobby. Running had become more therapeutic than exercise for him over the past few years. It gave him time when no one would ask him questions, seek his advice or demand his attention. For a short while, friends of his with whom he worked along side when he was part of the Columbus Police Force would join Derek for his morning six to nine mile runs, but his pace and penchant for finding hills to run up soon convinced them to find other running partners. In truth, it was more Derek’s desire to be alone for the forty to sixty minute run than him wanting to physically push himself so hard which drove his intense running workouts. Since it was against the unwritten, unspoken “man code” for one to ask another to “slow down,” Derek’s morning runs were almost always time for him alone.
This morning, with nothing more than his jumble of thoughts and his memories of Lucy to accompany him, he ran close to ten miles. He cut his pace back, assuming the day might drag late as the recent ones had, and managed to complete his run in a few seconds under seventy minutes.
When the elevator doors pulled open to the seventh floor, Nikkie was leaning against the wall across from the doors.
“Happy to see you,” Derek said, “but, kind of creepy to think you’ve been waiting here for me the whole time I’ve been running.”
“I want to change the initials I circled last night.”
“You stood outside the elevator doors, waiting for me to get back, to tell me that?”
“I’ve been up since four. I heard you leave and wanted to tell you before you left. But, I know you don’t like to talk to anyone before you run so I decided to wait till you got back.”
“Why have you been up since four?” Derek asked as they walked side-by-side down the hallway to their adjoining rooms.
“My thoughts woke me up. Couldn’t fall back to sleep once they did.”
“Your gut telling you something differently than what it did last night?”
Nikkie stopped, put her hands on her hips.
“You kind of forced my gut to make a decision last night. Holding that notebook open in front of me with four people’s initials for me to choose from; don’t think my gut feelings work that way. So, after a few hours of thinking more about it, I want to change who I circled.”
“That’s not how gut reactions work, Nikkie. The whole thing about them is they’re not arrived at after hours of thinking.”
“Well, mine are. And, I want to change my answer.”
They spanned the final twenty feet to Derek’s room. He slid his key into the card swipe, pushed open the door.
“And,” Nikkie said from behind him, “I noticed you didn’t circle any initials last night. You without a gut feeling or don’t feel like sharing?”
“You and I have been working together for over a year now, right?”
She nodded her head.
“In that time, your gut has been right way more often than mine has. I have a good idea who killed Sam Gracers but not sure I trust that idea fully yet. I wanted to see what your gut was telling you. See if we were on the same page.”
“And?” Nikkie said as she inched a bit closer to him. “Are we on the same page?”
Derek fell silent. His eyes fixed on Nikkie’s while his gut twisted and leaped in strange acrobatics. He took a small step closer to her, erasing the small space which had separated them. Nikkie reached her open hand up and caressed the side of his face. “Same page or we still a chapter away from each other?”
Derek’s cell phone rang. She pulled her hand back, looked at Derek, and said, “Check the caller ID. I have a strange feeling about this call.”
“You and your gut,” Derek said. “I wish it was wrong sometimes.”
He slid his finger across the screen. He shrugged his shoulders, indicating he didn’t recognize the number.
“Derek Cole…”
Derek’s face fell slack. He plowed his fingers through his hair, took a deep breath in. Whoever was calling him had more to say. Nikkie’s eyes grew wide with anticipation. She stood, pressed her face against Derek’s and tried to listen the conversation. A few moments later, and after Nikkie picked up exactly nothing from the conversation, Derek thanked the caller then ended the call.
“What? What happened? Who was that?”
Derek stepped to the bed, then fell face down onto it.
“That was Detective Rachel Gonzales,” he said, his voice muffled as it leaked out through the mattress his face was pressed against. “Brian Hilton is dead.”
“Oh my God,” Nikkie exclaimed. “What happened? When?”
Derek rolled over, extended his arms straight out to his sides.
“She found out around two this morning. Explosion in his home on Snead Island.”
“Are you kidding me? His house exploded? A bomb?”
“Not sure yet. But, there’s more.”
Nikkie sat down on the bed beside Derek.
“What? Tell me.”
“They’ve arrested Jessica Gracers. She was seen leaving Hilton’s home a few minutes before the explosion.”
Silently, Nikkie stood; walked over to the chair she had been sitting in the night before. Picked up the notebook and the pencil, drew a big “X” over the initials she had circled last night and drew a few heavy circles around another set of initials.
“Sorry I’m so late. Case I just got assigned last night is a real doozy.”
It was past two in the afternoon before Derek and Nikkie met Rachel Gonzales at an oceanside walking park not far from their hotel. Rachel had asked to meet with Derek and Nikkie during the call she made to Derek and fully expected to make that meeting by nine. But, soon after she and Derek ended their call, she was pulled out on a new case.
After Derek and Nikkie caught Rachel up to speed on what they uncovered the day before, Rachel turned the conversation to what she had been learning and doing in the background on Jessica Gracers’ case. By the time they had finished filling Rachel in, Rachel’s face was set in a surprised expression.
“Guys,” she said, “I hope you’re ready for another surprise.”
“I seriously don’t know if my brain can handle any more surprises,” Nikkie said.
“Well, you mentioned a doctor’s name up in Nashville during the rundown of your day.”
“Timothy O’Connell,” Derek said.
“The case I was called out on, the case that made me late for our meeting today, was for a dead body found in the bay. I didn’t have much to do at the scene since the body was found washed up on shore. Wallet, filled with ID’s still inside. Guess who the victim was?”
“You’ve got to be kidding me?” Nikkie said. “The doctor? Timothy O’Connell?”
“Absolutely positive. And by the looks of his body, he was killed within an hour or two from when his body was discovered. Whoever killed him, didn’t do it quickly. Tortured him pretty bad.”
Derek said, “Cause of death?”
“Gun shot to the forehead.”
“Small. Not sure yet.”
“I have a feeling ballistics will come back saying it was a .380.”
“That wouldn’t surprise me in the least.”
“Tell us about Hilton,” Derek said. “We’ll get back to O’Connell later.”
“Details are sketchy. Snead is in Manatee County. Probably wouldn’t have heard much about the incident till tomorrow but I have a friend who works dispatch for Manatee who knew I was interested in Hilton. She called me as soon as she found out it was Brian Hilton’s home and that he was killed. Like I said, details are sketchy, but the lead investigator believes someone planted a pipe bomb directly under the chair Hilton was sitting in. Remote detonation. Instant death. There’s Hilton all over the walls in the room.”
“And they like Jessica Gracers for the murder?” Nikkie asked.
“Some neighbors of Hilton gave a spot on description of a woman they saw walking down the front walk and getting into her car. Didn’t get plates but the car they described matches Jessica’s car. And the description they gave of the woman matches perfectly. She’s in county jail down in Manatee County as we speak.”
“She admit to the crime?”
“Nope. Said she went to see Brian to try to find out why he denied everything she told us in her alibi, rang his bell but he never answered. Said she left and drove straight home.”
“Wait a minute,” Nikkie said. “The bomb was planted beneath the chair Hilton was sitting in? How could he not have known he was sitting on a bomb?”
“There was an empty bottle of whiskey on his back patio and another bottle, two-thirds empty, in his kitchen. Best guess is that he got drunk and never knew his ass was about to decorate his walls.”
“The sheriffs will find my prints on the bottle out on the patio,” Derek said. “My half-smoked cigar may still be in the ashtray, as well.”
“I thought of that,” Rachel said. “I’ll let the lead investigator know I spoke with you and share your story with him. Nothing to worry about.”
Deathly Reminders: a Derek Cole Thriller (Derek Cole Suspense Thrillers Book 6) Page 17