She picked up a thick file folder from her desk. “I made a copy for you. This is my father’s will. He had a living trust, so the settlement process shouldn’t take too long, but Adeline is going to contest it.”
Barry took the folder, but didn’t open it. “Is it important that we have this?”
She shrugged. “My father’s attorney didn’t see anything wrong with giving you a copy. A few weeks ago, my father contacted his attorney about changing his will. It was finalized three days before he died. I didn’t know anything about it. When my father married Adeline, he changed his will so that, essentially, she and I would split his estate, plus a trust fund to keep open the library he helped rebuild and a few other bequests. Now, everything Adeline was going to receive has gone to me, including the house. He didn’t tell me. He didn’t tell Adeline—at least, that’s what she says.”
“You don’t believe her?” Barry asked.
“I don’t know.” Jolene rubbed her eyes. “She appeared shocked when the lawyers told us yesterday afternoon. Completely stunned. Scott doesn’t think she was faking it. But what if she knew he planned on cutting her out? What if she killed him?”
“It’s a serious accusation,” he said, “but there is no proof that she had anything to do with your father’s death. We’re still investigating his death as suspicious, but there is nothing that points to Adeline.”
Lucy wondered why Barry didn’t tell Jolene that they’d confirmed homicide.
“Elected officials get a pass all the time,” Jolene said bitterly. “On corruption, adultery, any number of things. When Uncle Roy was alive, he had these stories about people, both Republicans and Democrats, who were so corrupt in taking money for this and that and passing legislation to help their friends, and no one did anything about it. Aren’t you guys supposed to stop that?”
Barry said, “Are you referring to Roy Travertine, the former congressman?”
“Yes, I’d known him since I was born. I’ve always called him Uncle Roy, and his wife Aunt June. Uncle Roy was my daddy’s closest friend.”
Barry slid over the list of numbers. “We accessed the tablet you gave us. On it were a bunch of spreadsheets and this list of numbers. Do you know what this is?”
She studied them. “These are land tracts, these”—she pointed to a group in the middle with the same beginning numbers—“are in Bexar County, but the others are a variety of different counties. I don’t know which ones offhand.”
“Were these your father’s properties?”
“No. He only owns his house and a couple commercial buildings, including the HWI buildings here and in Dallas. Maybe this is related to one of his clients. Do you want me to run it through our system?”
“No—not yet. We’ll let you know if we need your help there, but we’re still pursuing a couple of angles. One other thing—we were going over your father’s schedule for the last month. He was in D.C. the first week of May. His office indicated that he was on vacation. He had a change of travel arrangements.”
Jolene seemed confused by the question. “I vaguely remember that. He went to D.C. with Adeline because she was being recognized at some award dinner. He really didn’t like going to D.C. Daddy was a homebody.” She smiled wistfully and looked out the window, lost in thought.
Lucy gently prodded. “He flew in a day early, to Dallas, not San Antonio.”
“Yeah—it was strange. Maybe—that was about the time he became preoccupied. I should have asked him more questions. Pushed him. Maybe I was too selfish to see that something was bothering him.”
“Maybe he hid it from you,” Lucy suggested. “Fathers do that when they don’t want their children to know something. My dad was in the hospital after a heart attack over Christmas, and none of us kids knew he had been having heart trouble because he and Mom didn’t want us to worry.”
Jolene nodded. “Maybe you’re right. My dad didn’t like me to worry about him.”
“On that weekend he was in Dallas, there was nothing on his calendar, but he didn’t return to San Antonio until the eleventh.”
“I really don’t remember. I wasn’t in Dallas with him. Our office manager, Beth Holloway, might know what he was doing. You’re welcome to contact her. Her information should be in the employee files Gregor sent over.”
Barry wrote down the information. “We’ll do that. One more thing—can you think of a friend or colleague of your father’s who has the initials G.A.?”
Jolene looked at the ceiling, her brows furrowed. “No,” she said slowly. “I can look through his personal files. It could be a client. HWI has hundreds of clients.”
“If you could, that would be great.”
“What does it mean?”
“We don’t know yet, but if you come up with a list, it would be helpful.”
Barry thanked Jolene, and he and Lucy went down the hall to Debbie Alexander’s office. She was on the phone, so they waited.
A minute later she hung up. “Agent Kincaid, I was just going to call you. That was my husband.” She tore off the top sheet of a note pad. “This is the street where he saw Harper’s car parked. There were only three businesses on that side of the street—a bar, a tattoo place, and an auto body shop. It’s not a great area. Across the street is low-income housing.”
Lucy asked, “Could he have been meeting someone at the apartments?”
“Doubtful, but then I wouldn’t think he’d drive out there in his Lincoln.”
* * *
“Call Beth Holloway,” Barry said as he drove toward Adeline’s house west of the city.
Lucy called the HWI Dallas number and identified herself, and shortly Beth Holloway came on the line.
“Ms. Holloway, I’m Special Agent Lucy Kincaid from the San Antonio FBI. Jolene Hayden suggested you might have some information pertinent to our investigation into Harper Worthington’s death.”
“Anything I can do to help. Jolene is just heartbroken, bless her heart. I saw her right after she found out, poor thing. She loved her daddy, they were very close. He raised her, you know, after his wife died.”
“Yes,” Lucy said. “I’m calling specifically about a change in Mr. Worthington’s schedule on May eighth. He wasn’t planning on being in Dallas then, but flew from D.C. to Dallas on the eighth and stayed for three days. His San Antonio office doesn’t know what he was doing there, he had no scheduled meetings, and he didn’t usually work out of the Dallas office.”
“I remember, but let me just pull up my own calendar.” She clicked on the keyboard. “That was a weekend. Then on that Monday, he came into the office in the morning. I was surprised, it was the first I’d known he was in town. He said he was just taking a bit of time to himself.”
“Did he do that often?”
“No. But he was the boss, and he looked tired. His favorite golf course is in Dallas, and when he comes here for work—maybe once a month—he always takes at least half a day to golf.”
“How long was he in the office?”
“Not long at all. He left by ten, told me he already had booked a flight back to San Antonio. I didn’t see him again, not until he came back to Dallas last week.”
“Did you know about his spontaneous trip to San Antonio on Friday night?”
“No, I would have told Jolene immediately after I heard what happened. I was certain it wasn’t him, but then he didn’t answer his phone, he wasn’t in his hotel room—Jolene was frantic looking for him.”
“Thank you for your time. We’ll be in touch if we have any other questions.”
“Anything I can do to help, anything at all, please call me. I love Jolene like a daughter, and Harper like a brother. They are a wonderful family, and this is at its heart a family business.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
After dropping Lucy off at work, Sean went back to their house. He’d told Lucy he was running errands, mostly because he didn’t want her driving when she was still so emotionally and physically worn out after last night. Th
e entire drive he wondered if he should have pushed her into staying home. She would have, if he’d pressured her hard enough. But she was fragile, and he didn’t want her to resent him later. The last thing he wanted to do was bully her into taking care of herself.
Plus, working would clear her head. Give her something to focus on other than reliving last night.
That didn’t mean he was going to sit back and do nothing about Mona Hill.
He sat down at his desk and booted up his computer. He’d been thinking all night about how he wanted to handle this. He couldn’t exactly turn over the information about Mona Hill that he’d uncovered because he hadn’t obtained all of it legally.
He considered calling Lucy’s sister-in-law, Kate Donovan. Though Kate was a fed, she was one of the few people Sean trusted when it came to Lucy—outside of Lucy’s brothers. But Jack would come down and kill Mona Hill, Patrick would want plan a sting operation, and Dillon would reprimand Sean for breaking the law and jeopardizing Lucy’s career. Kate, however, had a history of breaking the rules for justice. Plus, as a fed, she could find a way for the FBI to obtain the information Sean had obtained, but through legal channels.
And while Sean kept the idea of working with Kate in the back of his mind, he got to work doing what he did best.
First, he had to put aside his emotions. His overwhelming love for Lucy, and the protective instinct that came with that love, meant he might miss something or misinterpret information. He couldn’t afford to screw this up.
“This is a job,” he told himself. “Just a job. Focus, Sean.”
Putting himself in his professional mindset, he skimmed the file that Tia had sent to Lucy. He felt a bit guilty about reading Lucy’s emails—Lucy had all her files copied over to her personal computer, which was networked with his office. If he’d asked, she would have said yes. She might have asked why, though, and he didn’t want to lie to Lucy.
He needed to know what the cops had on Mona Hill and why they hadn’t been able to arrest her. It was clear from Tia’s personal notes that she believed Mona Hill had someone high up in the criminal justice system in her pocket. She didn’t give details—but it didn’t take much imagination to read between the lines. Either she was blackmailing someone or bribing someone—or a combination of both. Maybe more than one person. No government agency was 100 percent clean, as evident from the DEA’s recent problem with Agent Nicole Rollins.
And truth be told, law enforcement didn’t concern themselves with the sex trade. They had stings here and there, but when facing serious problems like human trafficking, drug cartels, violent crimes—hookers were the least of their concerns. And a group like Mona Hill’s? Tia’s notes said that Hill kept her girls under tight control and didn’t beat or abuse them. She paid them fairly, but controlled their lives through where they lived and what jobs they took. A benevolent dictator.
But Tia’s notes were borderline hostile—she certainly didn’t like Mona Hill or find anything benevolent about her. There had to be something more that wasn’t in Tia’s notes, maybe personal. An old case? A cold case? History. He made a note to dig around. It would take talking to a contact at SAPD. Unfortunately, he hadn’t lived in San Antonio long enough to have cultivated sources who weren’t directly tied to Lucy.
Next he reviewed the information he’d retrieved last night while running a deeper background check on Mona Hill. He learned quickly that Mona Hill wasn’t her real name. Why Tia didn’t know that, Sean couldn’t figure out. The information had been buried, but not impossible to find. Mona Hill was born Ramona Jefferson to a prostitute by the name of Carla Jefferson. No father was listed on the birth certificate. While Mona was a common nickname for Ramona, why had Mona changed her last name? He couldn’t find any records that she’d legally changed her name or got married. But, she had a social security card, driver’s license, and bank accounts all under the name Mona Hill—going back to when she was eighteen. Relevant? Possibly. She could have changed her name legally in another state, but she hadn’t done so in the four states he had record of her living in.
He’d also pulled her credit report and a list of all the property she owned, and had started to run down her known associates. She owned the apartment building free and clear in her own name. A car—again, completely paid for—and a boat that was docked at Canyon Lake.
He ran businesses and other entities and almost shut down that avenue of approach. Then he ran businesses on Ramona Jefferson. The connection between Hill and Jefferson was extremely thin. Most people would assume they were different people. In fact, the chances anyone would connect the two were slim to none because—as a person—Ramona Jefferson had ceased to exist after the age of eighteen.
Ramona Jefferson existed on paper. It wasn’t easy to find, and Sean wondered if Mona Hill herself had created this paper trail, or if she had had someone do it for her. It was pretty damn good.
But he was better. Unfortunately, not all the records he wanted were online.
Still, he found an extensive trail of small entities that led him down a path to a company that held one property in Houston. The company was listed as a consulting company and had filed all the appropriate tax forms with a small income, but Sean immediately saw it for what it was.
Companies set up like this were generally laundering money. They took in reasonable fees, paid taxes, and reported properly, but would often have one large account that would buy property and other tangible items to hold and retain until the cash was needed. Then they’d liquidate, report, shut down the business, and have clean money.
But … there were no large accounts. The only large purchase was for a house in Houston that was worth just over half a million and bought eight years ago for less than half that.
The company paid a consulting fee to another paper company in the amount of five thousand dollars a month—almost identical to the fees the company took in. If Sean didn’t know better, he’d think that this was set up to keep a mistress. Buy her a house, give her an allowance, keep her beholden to her lover who was unwilling or unable to leave his wife.
Mona Hill was a girl. Didn’t mean she wasn’t keeping a guy—or a girl—but that would be unusual.
There were only minimal records on Mona Hill in Houston, and nothing before the age of eighteen. Ramona Jefferson was also difficult to track, and tracking juveniles was a lot harder—they usually didn’t have a paper trail, especially if they were on their own.
He considered the house in Houston. If he had the time, he would fly up there and check it out himself, but it would take all day, and he needed to finish his assignment with HWI and pick up Lucy later. Searching his contact file, he pulled the number for Renee Mackey, a longtime PI out of Houston. She was semiretired and Sean hoped she was around, because he didn’t have anyone else he could call locally.
“Yep,” Renee answered. Over the phone, Sean heard the long drag of a cigarette.
“Renee, it’s Sean Rogan.”
Renee barked out a laugh. Her rough, deep voice responded warmly. “How’s my favorite computer hacker doing these days? I heard you’d relocated to Texas. Following a girl. Way I remember it, the girls were always following you.”
“I’ve grown up.”
“She better be treatin’ you right.”
“More than right.”
“So I guess you’re not callin’ me to run a background check on the woman.” Another drag on the cigarette, or maybe it was Sean’s imagination. The woman was seventy and smoked a pack or three a day. Sean had met her years ago, while he was still in college at MIT, and his brother Duke had asked him to spend his summer setting up a complete security system—physical and computer—for a high tech company. Renee had been hired to do background checks. She was old school, Sean was new school, but they’d hit it off immediately.
“Though,” Renee continued, “I’m none too happy you’re livin’ a couple hours from Houston and you didn’t pop over to visit.”
“My loss.”
“It certainly is.”
He smiled. “You’ll never change.”
“God, I hope not. So this ain’t a social call. You want something.”
“I do.”
“I should be offended and hang up, but I love your voice.”
“At least I have something going for me.”
She laughed, a deep, genuine laugh. “You know I’m retired.”
“You’ll never retire.”
“Whadya want?”
“A house. Occupants. Anything you can dig up on them.”
“Sounds boring.”
“You know I pay well.”
“I don’t need the money.”
“Yes, you do.”
“I don’t need the money so bad I’m willin’ to take a boring job. Tell me why.”
“Will you take it if I do?”
“If you tell me the truth.”
“Always.”
She snorted out a laugh. “What’s so important about the house?”
“I don’t know. A known prostitute—a madam, I guess you’d call her—owns it free and clear. It’s worth half a million.”
“Shit, I went into the wrong business.”
“I want to know who lives there, how long, what they do, a full rectal exam—without letting anyone know you’re looking.”
“You could do it from your computer,” Renee said.
“I tried. Everything is in this woman’s name. Mona Hill. That’s not even her real name, it was Ramona Jefferson. Mona Hill has a different social, but I know they’re the same person.”
“I trust your instincts, Sean. You know I’d do anything for you, sugar.”
“Likewise.”
She laughed again, then started coughing.
“Are you sick?”
“Naw, just smokin’. Shouldn’t laugh when I’m puffin’ away.”
Best Laid Plans Page 20