“It’s possible.” Meghan turned sideways in her chair. “But a person could spend quite a bit on travel, entertainment, and smaller luxuries that might not stick out.”
Sheila brightened. “Like a yacht?”
Greg laughed. “A yacht would definitely stick out around here.”
Sheila made a face at him. “Not here. In Florida. Meghan said it was beachfront. Someone who lives next to the water might want a boat. And a yacht would be better than a rowboat.”
“Lots better,” Greg said. “Let’s see what I can find.”
While Meghan researched Georgia, the next state in alphabetical order, Greg pulled up the database for yacht owners in the U.S. Meghan didn’t find anything in Georgia, but as she typed Hawaii, he let out a yelp.
“Hey, look here.” Sheila hurried over and peered at his screen. Meghan leaned sideways and looked, too. He grinned and pointed. “Mr. Darryl Wallingford of Fort Smith, Arkansas, is the owner of a 2007 Four Winns Horizon 290 OB. Not a luxury yacht—those run in the millions—but still a pretty nice boat to cruise around in. Sheila, you’d make a good investigator.” He held up his palm, and Sheila laughingly high-fived him.
Meghan smiled. Greg’s attitude toward Sheila had sure changed. But then again, Sheila’s attitude toward the two of them had changed, too. “Does it say what he paid for it?”
Greg turned back to his computer. “No, but given the parameters for inclusion, it wouldn’t show up in this particular database unless it was at least 150K.”
“So even if we go by the conservative amount of one hundred fifty thousand, added to the houses we found, there’s more than half a million dollars spent. By someone who brings in a salary of eighty-three thousand a year.” Meghan closed her computer. “I honestly think that’s enough to convince a judge we need to subpoena Wallingford’s bank records.”
Sheila gave Meghan a puzzled look. “But I thought you already searched his financial records and didn’t find anything.”
“We were given clearance to explore at the bank. But we need to know if he has accounts elsewhere. Because there’s still a big chunk of change not accounted for.”
Sheila nodded knowingly. “Ah. Okay.”
“You know…” Greg rubbed his jaw, his brows low. “It’s possible he could have inherited money, which he used to buy the properties. We should find out for sure. And there’s something no one’s said but is sure to come up when we start pushing deeper.”
Meghan tilted her head. “What’s that?”
“There hasn’t been any embezzlement at the bank since February of 2002. And”—he glanced at Sheila, sympathy pursing his face—“Anson Menke dropped out of sight in March.”
Sheila sucked in a breath and opened her mouth as if to protest.
Greg put up his hand. “I’m not making an accusation toward your dad, but anyone who defends Wallingford will certainly point it out. We need to be prepared for it. That’s all I’m saying.”
Meghan tucked her laptop under her arm and stood. “Let’s get out of here, go back to the hotel, and call Captain Ratzlaff. He’ll need to request the subpoena.”
Sheila hooked her purse strap over her shoulder. “So you’re not gonna look at Mr. Thames anymore?”
“Not unless our investigation of Wallingford clears him.”
Greg snapped his laptop closed and rose. “While we’re waiting for the subpoena, we can research inheritance records—see if anything pops up as a big payout to Wallingford.”
Sheila sighed. “All this hunting through money records is kind of exciting, but when are we going to do something that actually leads to my dad? We still don’t know where he is, what happened to him, or if he’s alive or dead.” Tears winked in her eyes. “Is digging into bank accounts really going to help?”
Meghan put her arm around Sheila’s shoulders. “Every piece of evidence helps, Sheila. Evidence confirms or disproves a theory, and either way, it helps us choose a direction.” She smiled. “Don’t give up, huh?”
Sheila nodded and stepped away from Meghan. Her head low, she scuffed out the door ahead of them.
Greg fell in step with Meghan. He pointed with his chin in Sheila’s direction. “Maybe we should leave her at the hotel from now on. Especially if there’s a legitimate reason for Wallingford to own all those properties. If things start pointing at Menke…”
Meghan gritted her teeth. Menke couldn’t be a thief. The description didn’t fit what they knew about him. She wanted to prove without a doubt Sheila’s dad had been honorable. At least one of their absent fathers should be deemed an honorable man.
Thirty-Four
Little Rock, Arkansas
Sean
Captain Ratzlaff headed for the detectives’ cluster of desks, his fist gripped around a rolled piece of paper and his grin wide. He stopped beside Farber’s desk and whacked his shoulder with the paper tube.
Farber rocked his chair and smirked. “You got it?”
“Judge Clairmont agrees there’s probable cause to bring Stony Dunsbrook, a.k.a. Fred Jones, in for questioning.”
Sean chuckled. He couldn’t help it. Farber’s idea to search the Social Security database for name changes on Dunsbrook’s assigned Social Security number led them to Fred Jones, who now lived in Sacramento, California. Stony had been thinking like a child when he changed his name to match a character’s from the Scooby Doo comic strips. “Great catch, Farber.”
Farber pointed at his temple. “This thing does still work.” He dropped his hand to his mouse and worked the roller ball up and down with his finger. “Most kids are into cartoon characters. I remembered that one of the twins was found with a Scooby Doo magazine in his jacket pocket. So I followed the hunch. Glad we hit pay dirt.”
At the word dirt, both Sean and Ratzlaff cringed. Farber muttered, “Sorry. Bad metaphor.”
“It’s okay.” Captain Ratzlaff unrolled the tube. It separated into two sheets of paper. He handed one to Sean and the other to Farber. “The police chief in Sacramento’s been notified. He assures me they’ll serve a warrant for Dunsbrook at his workplace. Remember, he’s a person of interest at this point, not a suspect.” He gestured to the pages he’d given them. “Your flights’ve been booked, and I took the liberty of doing online check-in for you. I hate sending you on a red-eye, but I want you in Sacramento first thing tomorrow to meet with Dunsbrook. We don’t want to give him the chance to disappear again.”
Sean folded the paper and stuck it in his pocket. “Sounds good, Cap. I’m ready. How about you, Farber?”
Farber rubbed his heavily stubbled chin. “I need to clean up some.”
“More than some,” Cap said with a laugh. “Both of you, head home and pack an overnight bag. As you can see on your travel papers, your return flight leaves Sacramento at eight tomorrow evening. Only one day to get all the questions asked and answered. If he says something incriminating, then call me. I’ll start the ball rolling for extradition.”
Farber groaned. “After traveling all night, we’ll probably be too tired to think of questions.”
“Then write ’em down while you’re still cognizant.” Captain Ratzlaff turned and ambled toward his office. He called over his shoulder, “Grab a nap before you go if you think it’ll help, but don’t miss that flight.”
* * *
Sean and Farber took a taxi to the Sacramento Police Department. A drizzle was falling, and the windows steamed over. Farber rubbed a spot clear and scowled out the window. “I thought the song said it never rains in Southern California.”
The taxi driver, a dark-skinned man with a heavy accent, laughed. “You’re in Northern California, man.”
“I guess that explains it.” Farber aimed his bleary gaze at Sean. “You ever been in California before?”
“Nope. You?”
“Nope.” He turned to the window again. “S
ure looks different from home.”
The taxi pulled up in front of the station, and the driver popped the transmission in park. “Forty-three fifty.”
Sean paid the driver and requested a receipt, which the man provided along with a toothy grin. “Enjoy your day in not-so-sunny California.”
“Yeah, right.” Farber slid out onto the sidewalk. He hunched his shoulders and cradled his briefcase against his front. “C’mon, Beagle. I already had my shower.”
They entered the station house and crossed to the front desk. They showed their credentials, and an officer escorted them down a long hallway and into a small room. He started to close the door, then paused and shot a querying look at Sean. “You need some coffee? We’ve always got a pot brewing around here.”
Sean opened his laptop. “That sounds great.” He hoped he didn’t appear too eager.
“Comin’ right up.” The officer left the door ajar.
Farber clicked open his briefcase and burrowed under a short stack of folded pants, shirts, and underclothes. He yanked out a long yellow notepad and pencil and slapped them onto the table. He glanced at Sean’s computer and made a face. “I know most people have gone to recording everything on devices, but I think better when I’m putting a pencil to paper.”
Sean tapped in his password. “Whatever it takes to think clearly. We don’t want to leave any stones unturned.”
Farber groaned. “Are you trying to make puns, Beagle?”
Sean started to answer, but the officer came in with their coffee, and a second officer followed. The second one ushered in a short man with thinning mouse-brown hair and a potbelly. His green jumpsuit, the kind auto mechanics wore to protect their clothes, bore a tiny patch on the right chest. White block letters in the center of the patch spelled the name Fred.
The first officer darted out, and the second one pulled a chair from beneath the table. “Here you go, Mr. Jones.” He sent a somber look at Sean and Farber. “I’m Officer Horn. If you need something, I’ll be right outside.”
Stony Dunsbrook held up his pointer finger. “I’d take a cup o’ joe.”
The officer left without answering.
Dunsbrook sighed and slouched in the chair. He looked longingly at the cups of coffee. Sean slid his across the table, and Dunsbrook yanked it up, almost spilling it. “Hey, thanks.”
“No problem.” Time to get things started. Sean pointed to Farber. “Mr. Jones, this is Detective Tom Farber. I’m Sean Eagle. We’re with the Arkansas Cold Case Investigations Department.”
The man slurped the coffee, his watery hazel eyes shifting back and forth between Sean and Farber. “Hi. The policeman said you wanted to talk to me. How come?”
“We’d like to talk to you about your cousins, Dominic and Xavier Dunsbrook.”
He set the coffee down and zipped his hands to his lap. “I don’t have any cousins.”
Farber drew squiggles with his pencil at the top of his notebook page. “Let’s skip this part, okay? We already know you’re Stony Dunsbrook, that your father and the twins’ father were brothers, so Dominic and Xavier were your first cousins. We also know you were at the park for a family camping trip the last weekend of June in 1979, when the twins died.”
“But—”
“Annnd,” Farber said, raising his voice, “we know you changed your name from Stony Dunsbrook to Fred Jones in 1986.”
“My name’s—”
Farber thrust up his hand like a traffic cop stopping a semi. “No. Don’t lie. Don’t waste my time or yours. Capisce?”
Dunsbrook let out a hearty guffaw. “Capisce? I like that.” He took a noisy slurp of the coffee. “All right. I had some cousins. But I haven’t been around my family in years. So I don’t know what you want with me.”
Farber banged his fist on the table, making his notepad bounce. “We want the truth.”
Dunsbrook jumped and stared, wide eyed, at Farber.
Sean cleared his throat. Farber had apparently decided to play the bad-cop role for the traditional good cop–bad cop interrogation. But Cap had said to treat Dunsbrook like a person of interest, not a suspect.
Sean set his computer aside and folded his hands on the table. “Mr. Jones, as Detective Farber said, we’re trying to uncover the truth about who murdered Dominic and Xavier. I’m sure you’d like to have the mystery solved, too, considering you must’ve been friends with the twins when y’all were little.”
Dunsbrook’s rheumy eyes twitched. “Yeah…yeah, we were…friends.”
“Then will you tell me everything you remember about the day they died? Did you spend time with them?”
He nodded.
“Where did y’all play? What did you do?”
He lifted the cup and took a slow drink. “We, uh, we played all over the park.”
“By the river?”
Another slurp. Beads of sweat appeared on his forehead. “Some.”
Sean turned his computer so Dunsbrook could see the screen. “Look at this report, Mr. Jones. This is from the twins’ autopsies.” He pointed to a paragraph. “Can you read what it says there?”
He squinted at the screen, licking his lips. “Um, I don’t have my glasses.”
Farber grabbed the computer. “I’ll read it to you. It says, ‘Particles of dirt and clay found in boys’ nostrils, throat cavity, and lungs.’ ” He lifted his scowl to Dunsbrook. “Now tell me, where did you play?”
The man’s eyes swam with unshed tears. His chin began to quiver. All at once Sean felt he wasn’t looking at an almost fifty-year-old man but a little boy. A frightened little boy. Sean spoke to him the way he would calm a nervous child.
“Mr. Jones, what’s the matter? Did you see something scary that day?”
He nodded hard. His entire frame shook.
“What did you see? Anything you can tell us about what happened to Dominic and Xavier will be helpful.”
He scrunched his eyes and put his fists against the side of his head. “I saw…I saw…” He shook so badly his teeth clacked.
Farber turned a disbelieving look on Sean. He whispered, “Is this guy all there?”
Sean was beginning to wonder if the man was an exceptionally good actor or if he had a below-average IQ. “Mr. Jones? Look at me please, Mr. Jones.”
Dunsbrook’s eyes opened, but he didn’t lower his hands.
“What did you see? Tell me what you saw.”
“I’m not supposed to tell anyone. My dad said not to tell anyone.”
A sick feeling flooded Sean’s stomach. “That was a long time ago, Mr. Jones. I think if your dad was here today, he’d say it was all right to tell us.”
The man slowly lowered his hands. “Do you think so?”
Sean nodded. “I do. I think he’d want us to know.”
He rubbed his nose, wriggled in the chair, and squared his shoulders. “The dirt. I saw the dirt fall down. Dom and Xavy were in the cave.” His expression turned stern, and he shook his finger. “I said, ‘Don’t go in there.’ Mom said never go in the caves. So I didn’t go, but they did, and I said I was going to tell. I climbed the bank and I…” His chin quivered. “I must’ve stepped in the wrong spot, because the dirt fell down. It all fell down.” He threw back his head and wailed.
Sean got up and rounded the table. He sat next to the man and put his hand on his heaving shoulder. “What happened next, Fred?”
He crossed his wrists over his chest and rocked slightly. “I pulled them out. It took lots of time, but I dug and dug with my hands, and I pulled them out. But their faces were all dirty. They had dirt in their mouths. I wanted to clean the dirt out, so I used water from the river and washed them, but—”
He sent a furtive look across the table at Farber. “You aren’t going to tell anyone else about this, right? My dad told me I shouldn’t tell anybody.”
Farber lowered his brows. “Did your dad help you with the twins?”
“Yeah. I couldn’t get them up the bank by myself, so I got my dad, and he carried them up the bank. We put them under a tree, where they’d be safe and someone would find them. But he said don’t tell anybody. He said if people knew I’d killed the twins, I’d end up in prison for the rest of my life.” He began to rock again. “Ooooh, I killed them. I should be in prison. I tried and tried to go to prison, but they never put me in.”
Sean met Farber’s gaze. He read the same understanding dawning for Farber that was blooming in his mind.
He squeezed Dunsbrook’s shoulder. “Do you mean you broke windows and took things that weren’t yours so the police would put you in jail?”
“Murderers belong in jail. That’s where I should’ve gone. But Mom said I needed to stop trying to go to jail. She said since Dom and Xavy were gone, I needed to live for them. I needed to do lots of good things, as many good things as three people could do. So I decided to be Fred Jones. He’s a good guy. He helps people.” Hope ignited on his round, flaccid face. “Did I help you today?”
Sean patted his back. “Yes, you did. You helped us a lot.”
“Then can I go back to work? I keep the floors clean, and I wash the cars, and there’s a dog that comes in the alley every day looking for food. If I’m not there, the other guys’ll chase ’im off and he won’t get any dinner. So I need to go back to work.”
Farber flipped the notebook around and laid his pencil on it. “Before you go, can you write down what you told us? For our records?”
Dunsbrook took the pencil and aimed it at the page. He wrote slowly, laboriously, his tongue poking out the corner of his mouth. Sean watched the words form.
The twins went into the cav. The durt fell on them. I dug them out and washed there faces. Dad put them under a tree. He paused, and then he scrawled, I gave Dom my comic book to say I am sory.
Unveiling the Past Page 27