“I hope Jordan is able to start auditing the country club books soon. I have a feeling that’ll lead to a charge of embezzlement against Stuart. Then the subject of Lea’s blackmail will come up, and he’ll eventually confess to killing her.”
“It would be nice to think so. Jake Barnes says something like that at the end of The Sun Also Rises. We can hope for that outcome, I suppose. It’ll make our life easier if it turns out that way.”
#
By the next day, everything started happening fast. Jordan called Andrea early in the morning and reported about her conversation with the country club treasurer. He said he didn’t have an office, and that dues were paid at Stuart Kerr’s office. Dora, Stuart’s secretary, accepted them most of the time, and then Stuart turned them over to the treasurer, who put them in the bank. An audit of the club’s books was long overdue; the bylaws called for one yearly, but it had been a lot longer than that. The attitude toward club finances had always been casual, to say the least.
Jordan arranged for an immediate audit. Then Jack called to report that practically the whole town was buzzing with the gossip that somebody was stealing the country club’s money.
On top of all this, Chad came early and was able to break into Stuart’s secret files. “His security was even weaker than Lea’s,” he said. “And look what I found. He has a bank account in the Cayman Islands with two hundred and fifty thousand dollars in it. I have the account number and everything. If all crooks are this amateurish, they’ll be easy to catch.”
I was elated. “How can we tell Jordan about the bank account without revealing how you downloaded all that info from Stuart’s computer?” I asked Andrea.
“I think I’m going to have to bite the bullet and tell her. Chad printed the last statement—Stuart’s been getting them online. I’ll give her a copy of that, and she’ll have the account number, too. And if she asks me how I got the information, I can’t lie about it. I don’t think she’ll prosecute me…at least I hope not.”
“If she does, she’ll have to prosecute Jack and me, too. We were accomplices. I don’t think it’ll come to that.”
“We’ll wait till the audit’s done. Maybe they’ll get a search warrant for his home and office. And maybe I won’t have to confess anything. Maybe they’ll find evidence of the account in one of those places.”
“That’s a lot of maybes, as you always tell me.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The auditor found enough irregularities in the country club accounts that Jordan was able to get search warrants for Stuart Kerr’s office and home. She asked Andrea and me to accompany her and two deputies when they went to conduct the searches. I was excited—this would be a first for us—a legal search with actual warrants present.
Our concern was that the audit tipped Stuart off, and he would have cleared out any incriminating evidence before we could get there. We spent a day at his house, and we were about ready to decide he had gotten rid of all evidence, when we came to his wife’s room. Both he and his wife had cleared out and left us to it, as if to say, “Have a free hand—we have nothing to hide.”
Andrea was investigating Mrs. Kerr’s extensive jewelry collection. She found a case with a hidden compartment, and in that was a diamond necklace—at least they looked like diamonds to me—and a safe deposit box key. She put everything back as she found it, and we finished searching the house.
Next day, we went to Stuart’s office and found nothing. But in the meantime, Jordan was requesting and getting a search warrant for the Kerr’s safe deposit box. She asked us to go with her, since we’d worked so hard at finding evidence in the case, and there we hit the jackpot.
Bundled together in the box were statements from the Cayman Islands bank, which showed deposits of more than a quarter of a million dollars. Jordan knew Stuart’s salary was $50,000 a year, which was barely adequate to live on, let alone establish such an account.
Two deputies went to Stuart’s office the next day, read him his rights, handcuffed him, and took him through the club to their waiting squad car. I didn’t want to be present for that, and neither did Andrea.
We watched the questioning through a one-way glass, just like in the TV shows, and that was interesting. He tried to deny everything at first and insisted that the money came from his wife’s inheritance. That didn’t explain why it went into the account over a period of years. In addition, he couldn’t furnish proof that his wife had inherited anything.
His lawyer joined him early in the session, and we soon began hearing talk of a plea deal. The subject of Lea’s blackmail came up, and he admitted she had been blackmailing him when Jordan produced Lea’s files. Then when the subject of her murder was discussed, he vehemently denied all knowledge. The deputies kept at him about it, but he refused to admit he killed her, even when told that his DNA would be checked against that of her killer.
Did the sheriff’s office have the killer’s DNA? This was the first we’d heard of it. Maybe this was a ruse to get him to confess, but it didn’t work, whether true or not. They took him away to a cell, and this is a sad sight, no matter what the accused has done.
“That was an interesting experience, but not one I’m sure I’d like to repeat,” I said as we left the courthouse.
“I agree. When it’s make-believe on TV, that’s one thing, but when it’s someone you know, that’s another matter altogether…even when you don’t think much of that person.”
“Well, back to practical matters. Let’s stop at Wal-Mart. I need to pick up a prescription, and I could use a cup of McDonald’s coffee.” The restaurant was located within the store.
“Good idea. I could use some caffeine, too.”
I went to the pharmacy counter while Andrea got coffee and found a table. When I joined her, I was surprised to see Rick Smith sitting at the table with Andrea. Stranger yet, he had a bouquet of Wal-Mart flowers laid to the side.
“Hello, Rick,” I said. “Fancy meeting you here.”
“I needed some coffee, too. I’ve been working too hard lately, and I’m playing hooky this afternoon.”
“Looks like some lucky girl is getting flowers,” I said, prying.
“It’s not that. I take flowers and put them on Lea Logan’s grave on weekends. Actually, I haven’t been doing it lately. The last time I was at the cemetery, there were some homeless people hanging out, and they nearly scared me to death.”
“What happened?” Andrea asked.
“It was dark, I was approaching Lea’s grave, and I heard a noise. It’s kind of spooky in the cemetery at night, even though it’s kind of romantic too, so the noise startled me, and I started to run back to my car. Whoever it was shined a light on me, but I kept running. I jumped the fence, caught my toe, and went head-over-heels.”
“Was that the time your shoulder was injured?” I asked.
“I came back to Martindale and went for a run on the hike-and-bike trail, and I fell again, believe it or not. That’s when I hurt my shoulder.”
Would he be telling us all this if he killed her? I didn’t think so. Besides, we already had our killer in Stuart Kerr. “You must have liked Lea a lot,” I said.
“I did. I wanted to date her, but she had a boyfriend. I never could get her to go out with me, but I’ll never forget her. Handling the forensics after her death upset me, and I wanted to do something for her. From now on, though, I’m going to the cemetery on Saturday afternoon while it’s daylight. This will be the first time I’ll be back there since I ran into those homeless people.”
“How do you know they were homeless?” Andrea asked.
“Who else would hang out in a cemetery at night? I figured they were sleeping there.”
We managed to hold in the laughter till we reached the car.
#
We were going through cold cases in our office, trying to decide what to tackle next. We were through with Lea’s case. Jordan told us they did have the killer’s DNA, so it was only a matter of time before
Stuart Kerr’s was checked against it and he was charged with her murder—or so I thought. Andrea was waiting for the results in order to be sure, but she agreed we should start looking at another case while we were waiting.
“This looks interesting,” she said. “An antique emerald necklace was stolen from Angela Trudeau. She’s one of the richest women in Martindale.”
“Aren’t there any murders to consider?”
“A couple of very old ones. We might check out one of those, too. We don’t have to decide today.”
“That would be good. Fascinating as all this is, I need to give my house a good cleaning and do some work in the yard. Let’s look through all the cold cases and then take a couple of days off before we start another one.”
“That’s a good idea. My house could use some attention also.”
We didn’t lock the door when we were in the office, so a deputy we knew only as Dan walked in. He was an older man who had worked under various sheriffs. “Good morning, ladies. How are you?”
“We’re fine,” I said.
He walked directly to the safe and started twirling the knob on the front. “Somebody’s been eating my lunch, so I fooled them today. Instead of putting it in the fridge, I put it in the safe.”
“You know the combination?” Andrea asked.
“Sure. I’ve known it for years.”
“When did you put the lunch in the safe?”
“Early this morning.” He turned the handle and opened the safe.
Andrea walked toward him. “We had the door locked, so I guess you have a key.”
“Yes, I have a key to just about everything around here. When you’ve been here as long as I have, you tend to accumulate these things.” He took a brown bag from the safe and started to close it.
Andrea grabbed the door. “Just a minute. I need to look in there. We never were able to find Lea Logan’s purse, so I wonder if it’s…yes, this looks like a purse.” She took a black leather bag from the safe.
“Good work on the Lea Logan case, by the way,” Dan said. “That one had us puzzled for a long time.”
“When you can devote all your time to one case, which is what we’re doing as volunteers, then results are easier to come by,” I said.
“Would you please leave the safe open?” Andrea asked. “I’d like to see if there’s anything else in there that would be helpful for the cold cases Jordan wants us to work.”
“Better yet, why don’t I just give you the combination? Then you can look in there any time you want.”
“Splendid. That’ll be most helpful,” Andrea said.
He went to my desk, got a sticky note, and wrote something on it. “There you are.” Then he grinned. “Just don’t eat my lunch if you find it in there.”
“They’re pretty casual about security around here,” I said when he left. “That’s fortunate for us. Jordan will be delighted.”
Andrea put on vinyl gloves and was methodically taking the contents of the purse and spreading them on her desk. She looked through a billfold. “There’s no money in here at all. She must have had some money in her purse.”
“Maybe the killer took it.”
“All this will need to be checked for fingerprints.” She handed me some vinyl gloves, and when I’d put them on, a 2011 calendar. “Look at July.”
This was the same type calendar I carried in my purse at all times for recording my appointments. A little chill ran up my back. What if Lea had made a note that she was meeting with Stuart the night she was killed? That would just about seal his fate. I opened to July and read from the box for July 18: “Meet Terry after work.”
We both looked stunned for a moment, but as usual, it only took Andrea seconds to regain her composure. “We have to go back to Hog Run—right now.”
“We’ve already searched the house…”
“I know, but this time we need to tear it apart and also look under it. If Terry is the one who killed her, he must have killed Ollie, too. Let’s not forget he inherited the property, along with mineral and timber rights. Surely he left some evidence at Ollie’s place that we can use to make a case against him. If we get his DNA through Marshall County, then it can be compared to the DNA of Lea’s killer.”
I wasn’t convinced. Somehow, I kept hoping Stuart Kerr was our killer. “If he killed Ollie, why did he wait so long to cash in on those rights? He could have discovered the body himself right after Ollie’s death and started making money right away.”
“I can’t answer that. Maybe he felt his chances of getting away with it were better if someone else found Ollie. Also, we don’t know when Ollie was killed. The medical examiner hasn’t said, at least not that I’ve heard. With wild animals roaming Hog Run, who knows how long it would take for his body to get in the shape it was in. Anyway, let’s get ready and go.” She put back the contents of Lea’s purse and locked it in the safe.
“Maybe we should take Rosy with us. After all, she led us to Ollie’s body.”
“That’s not a bad idea. Maybe we should take Chad with us, too. He could help us search.”
“What about Jack? He always wants to be included in whatever we do.”
“Okay,” Andrea said. “I’ll call him. We can pick him up on the way if he wants to go.”
We took off for Pine Summit to pick up Rosy and Chad. I hadn’t seen the dog in several days, since we’d been working at my house. She was filling out and looking healthier. She hopped into the backseat and curled up.
We picked up both Chad and Jack, and they managed to fit into the backseat with Rosy between them. When we arrived, we saw that Hog Run Road was deeply rutted, and the underbrush had been cleared away on either side. The timber cutters must have started on the trees. I hated the thought of any of our beautiful West Virginia hardwoods being cut, but there’s nothing to be done when you don’t own the land. When we arrived, we could hear something in the distance that sounded like chain saws, or maybe a chipper.
Rosy seemed reluctant to get out of the car when we got there, but she obeyed Andrea’s command to come with us. We went in the house—all four of us and Rosy—and gave the place a thorough search. We tapped walls, looked under the trapdoor again, and checked the stairs on both porches for loose boards. Nothing.
“I’m going to walk on up the run and have a look at the burned-out house. Maybe there’s something in the fireplace,” Chad said.
“We’ll check under the house while you’re up there,” Andrea said.
I wondered whether this had been her main purpose in bringing Chad, to have him go under the house. After all, there might be spiders. However, she didn’t seem bothered by going under herself.
“I’ll check under the house,” Jack said.
“Thanks, but I’ll fit under there better than you. Rosy knows me better and will be willing to go with me, and she might sniff out something.” The house was on piers and was about three feet off the ground. Andrea hunkered down and went under on the side, accompanied by Rosy. I had been hoping I wouldn’t be expected to go, so I stayed back. I find it easier to deal with criminals than spiders.
I could hear something being moved around under there. It sounded like boards being tossed from one place to another. I could also hear the sound of a vehicle approaching. It seemed to be coming from farther up the hollow. Perhaps the timber cutters were leaving for the day.
Andrea and Rosy came out from under the house. Andrea was holding something that looked like an article of clothing, and Rosy was sniffing it. At the same time I heard a door slam. Then Terry Forsythe came around the corner of the house.
Rosy began snarling furiously and crouched down as if she were ready to spring at him. He reached in his pocket, pulled out a handgun, and fired at her. She collapsed at Andrea’s feet. He brought the gun up toward Andrea. “You two couldn’t leave well enough alone, could you? Did you hear the chipper going? Did you see the movie Fargo?”
At that moment I saw Chad approaching him from behind. He put his ha
nds around Terry’s neck and somehow pulled him backward until his body formed an arch, and the handgun went flying. Then an even more incredible thing happened—the gun came down just in front of me, and I caught it. I stood there staring at it, stunned that I was holding a gun.
Terry was now on the ground, and Chad had turned him face down. Jack ran over and helped hold Terry down. Andrea rushed to the toolbox in her car and got some plastic ties, and between Chad and her, they soon had Terry’s hands secured behind him.
Andrea went to Rosy, picked her up, and carried her to the car. She began issuing orders. “Jack, you drive while I find the nearest vet. Chad and Kathleen, stay with him and call for help.”
I took out my phone and saw I didn’t have a signal. “Try your phone. I can’t get a signal here.”
Chad pulled his phone from his pocket with the same results. “He’s not going anywhere, and they’ll have to come back for us. They can go back to the highway and call 911.” He was kneeling with both knees in Terry’s back. He grinned and flexed his arm muscles. “Krav Maga.”
Why was he suddenly speaking Polish? Or was it Russian? It could have been either, or something else, as far as I was concerned. “What did you say?”
“I’ve been studying Krav Maga. This is the first time I’ve ever had to use it.”
Why was I questioning him instead of thanking him for saving our lives? I realized I was still holding the gun, and I dropped it to the ground. “Whatever that is, you saved our lives. I’m sure he was going to shoot us. Thank you!”
“It’s a form of self defense perfected by the Israelis. This was good practice. And you’re welcome.”
“Where did you learn that…whatever you called it?”
“I have this book, Krav Maga for Beginners.”
“To paraphrase Mr. Miyagi, ‘You learn Krav Maga from book?’”
We both laughed. I didn’t know about Chad, but I was feeling rather giddy from the happenings of the last few minutes. To add to the excitement, I heard another vehicle approaching.
Evil Under the Moon (Moon Mystery Series Book 5) Page 15