Rachel Todd’s connection and past history with Hurt was interesting and added other possibilities to the case, especially the fact that she became an overnight millionaire when her adoptive parents conveniently perished in a house fire only hours after she’d returned to Pensacola from her holiday visit. And Rachel’s supposed untimely demise somewhere in the South American jungles two weeks after the boating incident only thickened the Mulligan stew.
Throw in Kate’s discovery of the conflict diamonds and altered paperwork among Harrison’s possessions; add Alice Spence—Robert Ramey’s cousin and his mother’s caretaker—and her romantic ties to Wes Harrison, and the damn stewpot was getting so full it was in danger of spilling over.
And yet, what did I have? Nothing that I could prove and take to the bank. There were too many dots already connected for this whole thing to be coincidental, but my dot-to-dot pen had run out of ink. I needed more.
I had a strong hunch Alice Spence was somehow further involved in this mess other than being Wes Harrison’s past flame and Mrs. Ramey’s current caretaker. It seemed improbable that a young woman with her looks and education would be whiling away the prime of her life playing nursemaid to a near-invalid elderly aunt. There had to more to Alice than that.
There also had to be more to Dakota Blaire Owens, and I was determined to pay her a visit ASAP.
I also started wondering about a few other things I’d overlooked. If Robert Ramey left his lover Eric Kohler a million-dollar life insurance policy, and Eric’s “sister” Rachel Todd was the beneficiary, what the hell happened to that money and the other cool millions sweet Rachel had inherited from the Todds? I’m no lawyer, but I figured that if anyone had laid claim to Rachel Todd’s estate they would’ve had to have access to a will or maybe power of attorney. Otherwise, whatever wealth Rachel had accumulated was probably being held by the state of Florida.
When I got back to my trailer after making the Palmetto Royale Casino half a roll of quarters richer, I booted up my laptop and began digging. God bless Al Gore for creating the Internet! Since Rachel Todd had no known living relatives, I didn’t know if a death certificate had been issued for her or not, but I did quickly learn that Florida death records aren’t available online. Info on wills, however, is another matter.
After a few minutes of searching I learned that a Florida resident’s will is not public record unless it’s been filed with the clerk of court of the county in which the decedent resided, which in Rachel’s case was Escambia County. Will custodians are required to file a decedent’s will with the clerk within ten days after receiving notification of the person’s death. Once the person dies and the will is filed with the county clerk, it becomes public record. The only catch is, John Q. Public has to visit the county clerk’s office in person and request to view the records.
I got on the horn with Frank right away. “Can you get to the Escambia County Courthouse tomorrow or sometime this week and find out if Rachel Todd has a will on file?”
“And good evening to you too, Mac.”
“Sorry, Frank. Look, if Harrison and Hurt pulled off some scheme and Rachel was in on it, it doesn’t make sense that they would let the money she inherited from the Todds and Brother Eric sit in the state’s coffers, would it? My bet is she made some kind of arrangement so they could get hold of that money later, after things cooled down.”
“That sounds reasonable. By the way, how is Katie?”
“Your guess is as good as mine. How about it, can you get to Pensacola and check it out for me?”
Frank let out a long sigh. “Sure. It might take a couple of days. I’ll be in touch by the end of the week.”
“Thanks, I appreciate it.”
“Another ‘by the way’ for you, Mac. While I’m in Pensacola running errands for my partner, what are you up to?”
“If I can’t find what I’m looking for online, I’m headed back to Atlanta.”
After giving Frank the update, I called Dakota’s number but got no answer then or the next morning. It looked like my little visit would have to wait until mystery girl was ready to make herself available again.
Over the next two days I spent several hours searching the Internet for any info I could dig up on Alice Spence. In particular, I wanted a good up-to-date color photo. I found her listed on LinkedIn and Facebook, but the photos were not much use for what I needed. I could’ve tried “friending” Alice on Facebook to obtain access to her photo page, but I figured that might appear just a wee bit suspicious.
In order to gain access to Alice’s LinkedIn page, I created my own account with LinkedIn, listing myself minimally as a retired Marine and an investigative consultant. When I clicked onto Alice’s profile I struck pay dirt. She not only held an MBA from Georgia Tech but was also a certified massage therapist and certified personal fitness trainer. Both of these degrees she’d earned from Gwinnett College’s Atlanta-area campus. That would help explain Alice’s great figure and the exercise outfit she was wearing the day of my visit.
There was a link to a web page next to her massage and fitness trainer listings. I clicked on it and learned that Alice offered scheduled in-house massage and fitness training sessions only; call such-and-such number for an appointment. Living in Atlanta’s Buckhead area, I figured she must cater to a real upper-crust clientele. Just for the hell of it I jotted down the number in my notebook. You never know.
There was something even more interesting on Alice’s LinkedIn site. She was listed as president and manager of Spence-Ramey Investments, a private investment partnership. I had no idea what a “PIP” was, but it jumped right to the top of my “to find out” list. I immediately searched on Google for “private investment partnerships” and came up with some interesting info. A lot of what I found was legalese Greek to me, but this much seemed clear enough: At the most basic level, a private investment partnership is simply a hedge fund—investors put their money in a fund to be managed, for a fee, by a full-time professional. In the case of Spence-Ramey Investments, that was Alice.
Unlike mutual funds, in exchange for less regulation and oversight from the Securities and Exchange Commission, PIPs aren’t allowed to advertise or market themselves to the general public. Instead, they solicit what’s known as “accredited investors,” which in most cases means having up to ninety-nine investors with a net worth of at least a million bucks each.
I also learned that it’s common and generally expected that the manager of a PIP have a substantial amount of his or her own net worth in the fund alongside their investors’ money. That’s a powerful safeguard against any shenanigans and also a nice incentive for the manager to make sound decisions. The one or two percent management fee and twenty percent of net profits earned off each investor’s dollar was probably another nice carrot to entice Alice to eagerly take on the managerial role. It was also a nice coup for Spence-Ramey that PIPs aren’t usually required to disclose their activities or holdings to the SEC or public. Alice Spence had certainly put the MBA she earned from Georgia Tech to good use.
I still needed a recent photo of Alice to show around. Remembering my previous online search to find out if Mrs. Ramey was still alive and breathing, I typed in the URL for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and entered “Alice Spence” in the site’s search engine.
Bingo! Alice’s name popped up under several headings. I clicked on the first one, a feature in the Lifestyles section showcasing upscale homes and their owners in the Greater Atlanta area. A close-up photo of Alice sitting in the very chair I’d sat in near the fireplace appeared on the monitor, the first of seventeen photos. The caption read: Business woman and certified masseuse/fitness trainer Alice Spence relaxes beside a native stone fireplace in the parlor of the late 19th-Century Buckhead mansion she shares with her widowed aunt, Mrs. Edmond Randolph (Darla) Ramey.
Damn, I’d almost forgotten just how beautiful Alice was. She wore a big smile and a plunging V-neck royal-blue dress with sleeves just past the elbows. Her legs w
ere crossed in a ladylike fashion, and the dress was hiked up a few inches above the knees, leaving plenty to the active imagination. The strawberry-blonde locks were parted just right of center and cascaded well past her shoulders, framing her cleavage.
Alice was decked out with enough yellow gold to open her own jewelry store. A pair of leaping dolphins on a braided chain hung above her breasts, and more fingers than not sported rings. From the slight tilt of Alice’s head, one dangling earring was visible. She wore a braided bracelet on her right wrist and a watch on her left, both gold, of course. I wondered just how much of the bling was courtesy of late Cousin Bobby’s generosity that Alice had mentioned.
I quickly scanned through the rest of the photos, tastefully done interior and exterior shots like you’d see in magazines such as Better Homes and Gardens or Southern Living. Then I downloaded all the photos in the feature to my hard drive. Later I planned to crop and enlarge Alice’s photo as much as I could without losing resolution and then print a few copies on photo-quality paper to show Dakota and J.D. and whoever else I could come up with.
I was just about burned-out with all the computer research I’d been doing the past couple of days. It was happy hour. I grabbed a beer and headed outside to my picnic table. Tomorrow I planned to do some fishing, using the photos of Alice Spence and Wes Harrison as bait.
CHAPTER 18
Friday morning after breakfast I discovered I was down to one wrinkled sheet of photo paper, so I headed to the Walmart in Parkersville. I’d just passed the St. George city limit sign when my phone rang.
“Mac, it’s Mark Bell. Kate’s been in a wreck.”
A cold fist squeezed my gut. “Is she okay? What happened?”
“She left after work last night to spend a long weekend with Mom and Dad. Her car ran off the highway and flipped. She’s got a concussion and a lot of bumps and bruises, but nothing too serious. It scared the crap out of us, but the doctor says she’ll be fine.”
“I’m headed your way. Where’s the hospital?”
“She’s in Parkersville, Mac, room 218. The wreck happened just a couple of miles out of St. George. She made me promise to call you first thing this morning. I think that speaks for itself.”
When I stepped into Kate’s room I forced a smile to hide my shock at her appearance. The left side of her face was swollen, leaving that eye barely a slit. Her lips were puffy, and most of the skin that wasn’t hidden by the bandage wrapped around her head was various shades of purple. She was hooked to a monitor and an IV drip. She held a hand out to me. I took it in both of mine and gently pressed it to my cheek. “I love you,” I choked out.
“I love you, too,” she said, barely moving her lips when she spoke. “You’re not upset with me?”
I squeezed her hand and smiled again. “No, I’m just glad you’re okay. How do you feel?”
Kate let out a weary sigh. “About like I look, I guess.”
“You look fine, considering.”
“Liar. I made Mom loan me her compact.”
“You’re still beautiful to me.”
Kate started to laugh, but it quickly turned into a groan. “Thanks, Mac. You need to visit the eye doctor.”
I grinned. “I just did. He said I’ve got twenty-twenty.”
Kate suffered through another laugh. She started to say something, but I touched her lips with my index finger. “Don’t try to talk. I better run and let you get your beauty rest.” I leaned down and gently kissed her forehead. “I’ll see you later today, okay?”
“You better,” Kate said as a single tear trickled from the corner of her swollen eye.
Kate’s parents, a fine-looking, friendly enough couple given the cir cumstances, took up the vigil in Kate’s room while Mark and I headed to the hospital cafeteria to grab a cup of coffee. Mostly, I wanted to ask him a few questions.
“What the hell caused her to run off the road?” I said as we sat in the cafeteria over steaming mugs. Kate was a safe driver. The few times I’d ridden shotgun in her car she’d always kept her eyes on the road, even while we were talking.
“I think something in the front end broke,” Mark said, adding a half-pack of sugar to his coffee. “Kate said it felt like the right front wheel suddenly fell off. It dug into the pavement, and the next thing she knew the car was rolling and she ended up in a ditch. Thank God for seat belts and airbags.”
“Yeah.” I took another sip of coffee as a red flag waved in my head. “Her car’s only two years old. Honda makes good stuff. Things don’t just fall off of a car that new with low mileage.”
Mark finished a bite of the doughnut he’d ordered with his coffee. “Kate mentioned she’d been hearing a clunking noise for a couple of days. She was going to have our uncle’s Honda dealership check it out today. That’s one reason she was coming home this weekend.”
“Damn. If I’d known about it I would’ve made her take it to the one here in Parkersville right away.”
“Don’t blame yourself, Mac. She bought the car from our Uncle John for just over cost, and he always gives the family a good discount in his service shop.”
“Anybody talk to the sheriff’s office or Highway Patrol yet?”
Mark shook his head as he stirred his coffee. “We came here as soon as we got the call.”
“Who made the call?”
Another shake of the head. “I don’t know. My parents were pretty much in a panic. I don’t think we talked about it on the way over. We just wanted to make sure Kate was going to be okay.”
“You come in separate cars?”
“No, I drove. Mom and Dad were both pretty shook up.”
“Any idea what they did with Kate’s car?”
“No, not yet. I guess we’ll have it hauled to my uncle’s shop when the insurance people are finished with it.”
“Not if it’s totaled. The insurance company owns it then.”
Mark licked some sugary glaze off his fingers. “I hadn’t thought about that.”
I finished my coffee and stood. “I’m heading to the sheriff’s office. You want to come with me?”
Mark held up a finger as he finished swallowing a bite. “I better stick around here in case my parents need me.”
“Okay, I’ll see you later this afternoon. You still got my number?”
He patted his back pants pocket. “Right here.”
“You call me if there’s any change or if Kate needs me. Got it?” The Top Sergeant in me was snapping orders again.
“You bet.”
“McClellan, long time, no see. I’ve been expecting you. Grab a seat.” Sheriff Bo Pickron motioned to a padded wooden chair at the right-front corner of his cluttered desk. He didn’t bother to offer a hand, which was fine by me. Since I’d set foot in Palmetto County a year ago our relationship had been more like coarse sandpaper than smooth glass, although he had deputized me to work undercover for him on Maddie Harper’s murder case last summer.
The circumstances leading up to my short tour of duty as a county cop were a bit muddled. Basically, I discovered Maddie’s body while fishing, and she just happened to be Pickron’s niece. After being implicated in her death, I set out to prove my innocence and find the real killer. Once the sheriff was convinced I had nothing to do with Maddie’s death, he figured I might make convenient bait for the real perpetrator. The fact that Pickron and Kate had dated briefly when she first moved to St. George didn’t do much to endear him to me either.
I dragged the chair closer to the center of the desk and sat. “What can you tell me about Kate’s accident last night?”
Pickron leaned forward and planted his muscular forearms on the desktop with his hands clasped. He was tall and built like an NFL linebacker. His bulldoggish face was topped by a military-style buzz-cut, a holdover from his days as an Army chopper pilot. Pickron had earned the Distinguished Flying Cross during the fiasco in Somalia. As much as I disliked the guy personally, I had to salute his courage under fire. “A passerby called 911. One of my
deputies beat the ambulance to the scene. Kate was unconscious but had a good pulse and didn’t appear to be bleeding badly. My deputy made sure she didn’t move until the EMTs arrived and took over.”
“What about her car?”
“Looks like it rolled a couple of times. Last I heard FHP is still working on their reconstruction.”
“Where’s the car?”
“We’ve got it impounded while our investigators go over it.”
I wasn’t surprised to hear somebody other than me thought it strange that a front wheel would just fall off, but I had to ask. “Why?”
“The guy driving the wrecker said it looked like the front right wheel came off. He took a closer look and thinks somebody might’ve tampered with something. If that’s the case, my guys will find out.”
“And you’ll let me know?”
The sheriff’s eyes narrowed, and he let out a breath. “You know, McClellan, you’re not real high up on my favorite people list, but since you risked your ass for my niece, I feel like I owe you one. So yeah, I’ll let you know what we find.”
“I appreciate it,” I said as I stood to leave.
“Hey, McClellan.”
I stopped short of the door and glanced back.
“Don’t make more out of this than what it is. Chances are it’ll turn out to be a cut-and-dried mechanical failure. Nothing more.”
“Right.” I walked out of his office.
“And don’t go sticking your nose into county business again,” Pickron called as I headed down the hallway.
Despite the sheriff’s assurance that he’d keep me in the loop, I didn’t trust Bo Pickron any farther than I could throw him, and I damn sure couldn’t heave two hundred and fifty pounds of muscle and boneheaded ego very far. So, I made a few inquiries before I left the department. It didn’t take long to find out that White’s Towing & Salvage had handled the wrecker service for Kate’s CR-V last night.
Deadly Ruse Page 12