Corruption of Faith

by Brenda English

  I just silently nodded my head from side to side. This was definitely an unexpected turn in the conversation.

  “He left us with nothing… nothing!” I saw angry tears pooling in the corners of her eyes. “The attorney called me in, a couple of days after the funeral. He was working on processing Nash’s will and estate, and had a surprise for me. There was no estate left to process!”

  “Nothing?”

  “His life-insurance policy. It was a benefit through ElectroTech, so it wasn’t the type of policy he could sell. For two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. That’s all. All the rest was gone. The property. The stocks. The other life insurance. The children’s college funds. Every goddamned thing we had. Probably close to two million dollars. He even took out a second mortgage on this house. And he never said a word to me about any of it. Not a word!”

  I was finally beginning to collect my wits again. “May I ask you what he did with all that money?”

  She laughed that bitter laugh again as tears finally overran the edges of her eyes and tracked down her cheeks, which were bare of the expensive and expertly applied makeup that I knew must once have been a requirement before anyone saw her.

  “We have no idea,” she said angrily, wiping the tears away so hard that her hands left red finger marks on her fine-pored skin. “John, the attorney, hasn’t been able to find a trace of it anywhere. It all just vanished!”

  “Did your husband sell everything all at once? When did he do this?” I asked, wondering if perhaps he had been making plans to run away from home for some reason. No wonder she had jumped down my throat when she thought I was implying that Cara and Marshall might be having an affair. An affair with someone was certainly a possibility that must have crossed her own mind.

  “John said Nash started selling things off just over a year ago. He apparently forged my name to all the paperwork to avoid telling me what he was doing.”

  “And your attorney didn’t know about any of this?”

  “He said not. He was pretty upset about it, too. I guess he was afraid I would think he knew what Nash had done or that he had been a party to it.”

  “Do you seriously think your husband might have committed suicide?”

  “Well, look around you, Sutton,” she answered sarcastically, waving her arms to take in the house and, apparently, all that it represented. “I have two hundred and fifty thousand dollars and two kids to support, and I don’t know how to do the first thing except be a good corporate wife. I have to sell my house, which isn’t worth much more than the two mortgages on it. I don’t know where or how we’ll live. I’ll have to pull my kids out of their private schools. And somehow I have to provide for them, put them through college, and support myself for the next thirty-five or forty years off that money. Pretty soon Nash was going to be forced to tell me what he had done, because it was all gone. Suicide probably looked easier than facing his family!”

  I was beginning to understand why the house looked neglected and why Mrs. Marshall might have resorted to heavy drinking in the wake of her husband’s death. There was no longer any money for the maid—or, apparently, for anything else. And it was clear that Phoebe Marshall felt her life with her husband had been a lie, that the man she was married to was not the man she thought he was. She not only was dealing with the bleakness of a future of drastically reduced circumstances, but one of forever wondering why her husband had deceived her and left her and their children in such financial and emotional straits. Perhaps he really had killed himself rather than face her with the truth.

  “Did you tell the police you thought Mr. Marshall’s death might be suicide?” I asked her.

  “And screw myself out of the life insurance, too? The policy had an exclusion for suicide. Besides, the police had already decided it was an accident and closed the investigation when we found out everything was gone. So what would be the point of reopening it? At least this way, my kids don’t have to live with the stigma of suicide on top of knowing their father left them with nothing. I’ve explained our financial problems by telling them that their father’s business was having difficulties and that everything was just turning around when he had the car wreck. I don’t have the heart to let them know what he really did to us.”

  She had a point, I supposed. Knowing your father squandered away your future for unknown reasons and then took the coward’s way out was not a particularly positive legacy for the children. Just then, my pager beeped, deep in the recesses of my purse. When I pulled it out, the screen showed Cooper Diggs’s library extension. I stood up to take my leave of the widow Marshall.

  “I have to get going now, Mrs. Marshall,” I told her, “but I appreciate your taking the time to talk to me. I’m so very sorry about your husband and your situation.”

  She looked up at me bleakly from the sofa, where she continued to sit, her body language one of hopelessness and pain.

  “Sorry I couldn’t be of any help about your sister,” she told me. “I have no idea what Nash was arguing with Daniel about, or why he was even there at the church, but then I don’t know anymore why he did anything.”

  I thanked her again and said good-bye, then showed myself to the door and out to my car. As I pulled out of the driveway I took out my phone and called Cooper.

  “It’s Sutton,” I said when he answered.

  “I’ve found something I think you’ll want to see.”

  “Are we going to play twenty questions?”

  “Let’s just say it probably would be wiser to discuss it in person rather than over a phone.”

  Shit, I thought, he’s right. Even cellular phones could be tapped, nor was it uncommon for people to inadvertently get their cellular airwaves crossed and hear someone else’s conversation.

  “How late are you there?” I asked. “I’ve got a graduation to cover, so I won’t be back until nine or ten.”

  “I’ve got nothing better to do tonight,” Cooper said. “How about if I just hang around until you get here.”

  “Whatever you have must be good, but your lack of better things to do isn’t saying much for your social life.”

  “What social life? It’s too scary these days to have one!”

  I laughed, but my laughter had an edge to it. I hadn’t heard a word from Chris all week, not since I had called him on Monday night. I had to wonder whether I was doing so well in the social-life department either.

  “I know what you mean,” I said. “Okay, I’ll stop by as soon as I get back to the paper.”

  “See you then.”

  I pressed the off button and tossed the phone on the passenger’s seat. A few blocks from the Marshall home, I picked up Route 123 and took it south to the Lorton area, where I could jog across to Route I and over to Mount Vernon. And then I took a look at the questions that had been nagging at me since leaving Phoebe Marshall.

  What the hell had Nash Marshall been up to? Had he really killed himself rather than come clean to his wife? And what had he done with all that money? Even if he’d had a gambling habit, that was a lot to lose in a year’s time. And surely his wife would have had an inkling of that sort of problem. But she seemed genuinely surprised—and devastated—by what she had learned.

  And there were still the questions about his argument with Daniel Brant. Had he confided in Brant about his money problems? Could they have argued because Brant urged Marshall to come clean with his wife about whatever it was he had done with the money? But that made no sense. Phoebe Marshall said her husband had stopped going to Brant’s church months ago. Why would he have decided after all this time to confide in its minister? And why would any of that have bothered Cara so much? Nobody seemed to think there was any relationship between her and Marshall. So why would she care?

  The same questions were still asking themselves several hours later when I pulled into the parking garage a block from the News, in which the paper rented parking spaces for its employees. And I still had no answers for any of them.

  Twelve


  It was actually pretty surprising, I thought as I walked into his cubicle, that Cooper Diggs could say he had no social life. It certainly wasn’t because he couldn’t have one if he wanted it. He was a good-looking guy with brains and a family with money. And he had one of the world’s great grins, which currently was aimed at me.

  Without a word, he handed me a sheet of paper from his desk. I read the brief verbiage:

  Brantlow, Inc.

  c/o Harlan Bancorp

  Box 4009

  Grand Cayman Island

  P.O. Box 92045

  Springfield, VA 22152

  President: Daniel Brant

  Vice President: Alfred Barlow

  Secretary/Treasurer: John M. Brant

  Brantlow, Inc., is a privately held company chartered in the Cayman Islands and specializing in computer-system consulting.

  A fuzzy line of type at the top of the sheet, which was clearly a fax, said, Corporations Office.

  I looked back up at Cooper.

  “Can you think of one good reason,” Cooper asked, obviously relishing my reaction, “why a man of the cloth would be an officer in an offshore corporation in the Cayman Islands?”

  “Not a one,” I told him. “Rich men and camels through needle eyes and all that. Where did you find this?”

  “I talked to the folks in the state corporations office down in Richmond,” he explained. “Companies doing business in Virginia have to register their names and their officers with the department. That”—he pointed to the fax—“is what they had on file.”

  “But what does the company actually do?” I wanted to know.

  “Computer-system consulting, whatever that means. Apparently they don’t have to give much more than a minimal explanation of what they do. The corporations office is a registry agency. Its primary job is to keep a list of companies that do business in Virginia, regardless of where their headquarters are. But it doesn’t regulate the businesses, so they only have to file basic information. Officers, annual reports, articles of incorporation, the names of registered agents, stuff like that. With a privately held company like this one, there isn’t even an annual report.”

  “Does it strike you as odd that they would be chartered in the Cayman Islands, instead of Virginia?” I asked.

  “Depends on your point of view,” Cooper replied. “If you had something to hide, it would make a lot of sense. Offshore corporations are favorites of people who have money they want to launder or that they don’t want someone else—usually the IRS or a divorce-court judge—to know about. Of course, they’re more often people like the Mafia and drug kingpins, not ministers.”

  “Jesus, Cooper,” I said, leaning against the wall next to his desk and looking again at the fax, “who is this guy? And what is he really up to?”

  “Sounds like a story to me.”

  “Yeah, whether there’s a connection to Cara or not.” I stood away from the wall and folded the sheet of paper in half. “I’ve got to get to my desk and write this graduation piece for the last couple of editions of tomorrow’s paper,” I told him. “But thanks for following up on this. Although, if I’m not careful, you’ll be doing my job.”

  “No danger of that,” Cooper said, standing up and taking his suit jacket off the coatrack. “I’d much rather be the power behind the throne.”

  I said my farewells and headed off to tell our readers about the advice for surviving out in the world that Justice Theron Polk had imparted to the graduating class of Mount Vernon High School. And to mull over the meaning of Cooper’s latest find. The Reverend Daniel Brant, possibly aka David Daniel Brantley, definitely was assuming the proportions of a story of some sort. But did it involve Cara? I still didn’t see how.

  The phone on my desk rang just as I walked up and put my purse in the bottom drawer. It was Detective Jim Peterson.

  “Long day?” I asked, noting the time on my watch and calculating just how fast I was going to have to write to make the deadlines.

  “Criminals don’t keep office hours,” Peterson said, sounding as if he might have gotten over most of his earlier annoyance with me. “Although actually, I’m at home. I called your apartment earlier and got your machine, so I thought I’d try you at the office again. It’s about your sister’s car.”

  Cara’s car, which she had bought used in Hilton several years ago, had been impounded by the police as part of the investigation of her murder.

  “What about it?” I asked.

  “Well, we’re pretty much done with it, so I wanted to let you know we can release it back to her family.”

  “Oh,” I said, feeling my heart tighten at the sudden mental image of Cara dead in that car. “Thanks for letting me know. Where do I go to get it?”

  “Uh, that’s the other thing.” He hesitated. “I think you might want to consider maybe selling it and letting the buyer pick it up.”

  “Why?” I asked, stupidly.

  Again Peterson hesitated before answering. “It’s not in real good shape, if you know what I mean,” he said. “We’ve processed it for evidence, but that didn’t clean it up.”

  Only then did I get what he was telling me, that Cara’s blood was still on the upholstery and wherever else it had fallen or spattered. It would be a graphic, appalling reminder of her death.

  “Oh, God,” I said, sighing. “What should I do about it?”

  “I’d sell it to a car-auction company if I were you. There are several in the area. All you’ll need to do on our end is let me know who you’re selling it to, and I’ll notify the impound about who’ll be coming to pick the car up. The police impound is over on Woodburn Road in Annandale. This way you wouldn’t have to go out there or see the car.”

  Would this nightmare never end? I wondered.

  “Oh, and you’ll need to give them keys if you have an extra set, since we never found the ones your sister was using. I’m sure the killer took them. It’s why there was no sign of a break-in at the apartment.”

  I sat down in my chair, propped my head on one hand, and closed my eyes. No, it would never be over. I was certain that the pain and horror of Cara’s murder would continue to ambush me forever. I opened my eyes again and reached for a pen.

  “I think I’d better take your advice,” I said to Peterson. “Can you give me a name?” I jotted down the three he rattled off and made a note to myself to make the calls first thing tomorrow. I thanked Peterson for the suggestion and hung up, weary and even more heartsick at the mental image I now had of what Cara’s car must look like. I tried to lose myself in the banalities of Justice Polk’s speech and to make the story at least somewhat interesting by putting it into the context of his controversial opinions. At one point I looked up to find Rob Perry standing in his office door and watching me with concern writ large on his face.

  “Five minutes,” I told him, giving him a thumbs-up and a feeble smile. Then I went back to my keyboard.

  Once I finished the graduation story and sent it to the editing queue in the computer system, I sat back and argued with myself over whether to call Chris.

  He did say maybe we would get together over the weekend, I thought, so I probably should call and find out if we were still on and for when.

  Can you say “grovel”? It was my little buddy, never content to let one of my internal arguments go by without chiming in with another two cents’ worth.

  Can you say “butt out”? I asked back.

  But was I groveling? Had I become desperate enough for human companionship that I had sunk to begging for it?

  I’m not begging, I answered myself. I’m just wondering if we’re going to see each other. We do have a relationship, after all. It’s not like my calling him to check on Saturday-night plans is out of the ordinary.

  So then why are you hesitating?

  I was loath to concede it, but it was a good question. The answer, I knew, was that I thought I sensed misgivings on Chris’s part. His reaction to the news of Cara’s death, his lack of
visible, tangible support when I really needed someone there had surprised me—and it had hurt. It was as if I had asked him for a marriage proposal, for God’s sake, when I just wanted someone to hold me and tell me it would get better. But he had made himself noticeably scarce.

  And now, I knew, the perverse part of me was taking over, wanting to force him into acknowledging his misgivings, to admit that he had fallen short. It was the same part of me that inevitably had come to the fore when Jack and I had argued. Jack would always clam up when he was upset, and I would be determined to make him say what was wrong. I would pick at him (okay, nag) until he finally would lose his temper completely and say what he thought in the harshest possible terms. I would glare at him in triumph, having forced him to admit that what he had been thinking was just as bad as I had suspected, and then we would have a screaming match that would leave us both sullen and silent for days.

  It was just about the last thing on earth that I wanted to do with Chris Wiley. Yet I couldn’t let it go when I knew that something was wrong between us.

  I called.

  “Hello?” he said, picking up on the third ring.

  “It’s Sutton.”

  “Oh, hi, Sutton. I was just thinking I should give you a call.”

  “Oh really?” I didn’t know whether to believe him or not.

  “Yeah, do you want to do dinner Saturday night?”

  I sighed in relief. Once again, I thought, my imagination had been working overtime.

  “That would be great,” I answered.

  “If it’s okay, do you want to meet me at Copeland’s at seven? I need to spend the afternoon at the office, but after dinner you could invite me out to your place for coffee.”

  I smiled. This sounded like the Chris I knew.

  “I’ll be there,” I told him. We chatted for just a minute longer before hanging up. Feeling better, I gathered up my things and went home.

  Friday

  Thirteen

  First thing the next morning, I looked up the number for Greenbelt Auto Auctions, one of the auction companies Detective Peterson had mentioned to me. The woman who answered the phone when I called told me what the company required in the way of paperwork—a title signed over to them and a copy of Cara’s death certificate—and said she could have the driver stop by the paper to pick it all up, along with the keys, on his way out to the impound lot.