Morgan James - Promise McNeal 01 - Quiet the Dead

by Morgan James

  “Exactly.” I pushed the ice cream container away from me. “Yuck. If I eat anymore of this stuff, I’m going to throw up.”

  “Me, too. Where’s the Alka Seltzer?”

  “If one does not know to which port one is

  sailing, no wind is favorable.”

  …..Lucius Annaeus Seneca

  11.

  The Atlanta suburb of Roswell was one exit away when my cell phone rang. I rummaged frantically amid the mess in my purse and managed to dig the phone out one ring before it rolled over to voice mail. “Hello, Hello.”

  “Hey, Promise, “Garland began, sounding equally frantic—though I doubted it was because he couldn’t find his cell phone in his purse. “I got your message. I have court today in Gwinnett County. The files are in the conference room. I still think looking into the trust is a waste of time, and has nothing to do with the snake on your door, or Becca’s drive-by shooter, but go ahead and read to your heart’s content. Paige will take care of you. Just remember, we won on the trust issue. Becca gets control. Paul gets the house. Course, he still gets income from the trust, so why complain? Right? One more thing—I talked to Becca and she says her son could be involved in shooting incident.”

  “That is ridiculous. The woman is nuts!”

  “Nuts?” I could hear him snickering. “Is that your professional opinion? Maybe Paul changed his mind, decided to shoot her instead of sharing. Greed usually wins. Nasty human trait, but it’s who we are.”

  “Paul wouldn’t shoot at his mother,” I countered with conviction, but no real facts to back up my statement.

  “And you are sure of that because…?”

  I didn’t know why I was so sure, I just was. “Because the man is a great cook. A mundane little gun would not be the weapon of choice for a creative cook.”

  Laughter streamed from my phone out into the car. The sound was contagious and I was happy to make both of us a little lighter for the day.

  “Right. Another professional observation? Make sure you tell the DA that if they decide to build a case against him. In the meantime, can you check him out again while you are in town? Find out where he was when Becca’s car was being used as target practice. Back on the client’s payroll, of course.”

  “Sure,” I happily volunteered, not telling Garland I wanted to see Paul anyway about his grandfather’s textbook.

  “I’m at the courthouse now. Gotta go. And Promise, one last thing, I’m counting on you to keep Paul Tournay in line. Look at the records if you want to, just don’t make mountains out of mud hills. This little piece of trust work has gotten way out of hand. I want it over with by the time Becca is able to sign a check for the balance of my fee.”

  Before I could correct his homespun idiom from mud hill to “mole hill,” Garland hung up. While traffic moved fitfully at starts and stops, I rooted around in my purse again, this time for Paul Tournay’s home number. There was no answer, so I called his cell phone. He answered, relaxed and cheerful. “Paul Tournay here, who’s calling please?”

  He certainly didn’t sound like the kind of man who would don a Richard Nixon mask and try to kill his own mother; but then, I had to remind myself that to my knowledge, I had never had a would-be killer as a client. “Ah, Paul. This is Dr. McNeal, Promise. How are you this morning?”

  “Actually, I am right as rain today.”

  He did sound unusually chipper. Right as rain, molehills, this was a morning full of trite expressions. “Lovely, happy to hear that. How is your mother?”

  “I talked to her last night as her supper was being served. I believe the word she used was “swill.” Judging by her complaints, I’d say she is doing great. She says the doctors will probably release her tomorrow morning, so she’s going back to Columbia. I offered to drive her over; but she’s already called someone from the leasing company to bring her a new Miata, pink of course. She insists on driving herself. Personally, I don’t think she’s in any shape to be on the road; but Becca is Becca and if she says she’s driving, then hell better make a path for her.”

  “You sound concerned.”

  “Well, I am. Becca hasn’t exactly been a June Cleaver mom, but then I’m no Beaver either. The accident must have been terrifying.” Paul hesitated and then continued, “You know, Dr. McNeal, I’m having trouble believing this was a random act of violence. Especially after that crazy doll thing. What do you think?”

  I took a deep breath and thought for a moment about my answer. I wasn’t sure I was ready to share what I thought with Paul right now. “I’m having trouble with that too, Paul. Can we get together later today and talk? I could come over to your house, say around one o’clock? I could stop by Henri’s bakery and bring lunch. I’ve been craving one of their ham on rye sandwiches for days.”

  Paul did not hesitate. “You know, I would like that, Dr. McNeal. It would be good to see you again, even if you do technically work for the other side. I have one stop to make at our set designer’s shop, just off Chattahoochee Avenue. I’ll be home well before one.”

  “Paul, since we are sharing Henri’s sandwiches, please call me Promise.”

  “Well,” he replied, with a relaxed laugh, “I always obey a lady’s wishes. I’ll see you around one o’clock, Promise.”

  “Sounds good. Do you want ham?”

  “No, I don’t eat beef or pork. I’ll have the turkey with provolone.”

  “No problem. And Paul, one last thing. I’ve read your grandfather’s book on Carolingian art. He must have really loved that period of history. Did he own any of the artifacts he wrote about? Maybe display pieces around the house.”

  “Oh, my Lord, I can’t believe you waded through that dry piece of work. I loved Papa dearly, but what a boring book! I can’t say I remember Papa having any medieval stuff around the house—except the knight carved on the front door, and I’m pretty sure that’s a reproduction. He painted mostly landscapes, and we always had canvas propped up all over the house, but I don’t remember any old art.”

  Paul was quiet for a moment. I sensed he was searching for some scrap of memory, so I waited. After several seconds, he spoke again. “There is one small box Papa gave me when I was a teenager. I remember he made a big issue of telling me he realized it didn’t look like much to me then, but one day I would understand why I had to promise not to part with it. I guess he thought I was just a dumb kid, might throw it away or something. I guess I was pretty dumb; but still, I wouldn’t part with that box for anything. Mitchell bugged me for ages to have it appraised. Somehow that felt, I don’t know, sort of disloyal to Papa. Like I was sneaking a look at a price tag on a Christmas gift. Besides, if it’s worth five dollars or five hundred, I still wouldn’t sell it. I think Mitchell finally got it into his thick head how much I love the box, because he stopped pestering me about an appraisal. Another one of those unattractive Mitchell traits: the man thinks everything is for sale.”

  Yes, I could imagine Mitchell would think that way. “A box, you say? That’s interesting. So you still have it?”

  “Oh yes! It has been on my dresser since Papa gave it to me. I keep loose change in it. I’ll show it to you when you come over, if you like.”

  “Yes, I would like that very much, Paul. I’ll see you later. Take care now.” I hung up feeling a tiny bit guilty about prying information from Paul about his grandfather and the Carolingian art connection. I could have come clean and told him his dead grandmother was nudging me from the grave to solve her murder—somehow that did not seem like a good idea. Better to shoulder the guilt of prying.

  You know, there is something so very charming and genteel about an English accent. I swear, Paige could tell me I had a face like a dried up South Georgia pothole, and I’d be all over myself thanking her. I wonder if she had the same effect on Garland. No, it was not her voice that made him smile. Being beautiful is still solid currency, brains or no brains. Paige was fortunate: she possessed beauty and brains, plus the upper class accent. When I stepped off the
elevator into Wang and Wang’s eighth floor offices, the beautiful Paige was not up front behind the telephone brain center of Garland’s law practice. Another young woman explained Paige had just stepped to the kitchen for her midmorning tea break, and she would show me to the conference room. That was fine with me. All I wanted was to dive into the Tournay trust information. I could listen to Paige’s lovely English accent some other time.

  Two cardboard storage boxes were on the conference room table, the same type of boxes I use to dump all my business records in during the year, before I panic on April 1 and sit down to sort out the various cryptic pieces of paper in order to do my income taxes. However, these two legal sized containers did not contain a jumbled up mess. The content of each box was divided by neatly labeled green hanging folders. Whoever administered the Tournay trust was certainly organized. Every expense from the beginning of the activation of the trust to date was housed in a separate folder by months, and years, and then itemized by category on the front of each folder. Nice, I thought, I should use that system. It would save hours of sifting through bits of paper.

  I began at the earliest date and worked through the information. I learned an old Decatur law firm whose partners were familiar names in both legal and social circles administered the trust in the early years, before a Columbia, South Carolina, firm took it over. Tournay must have maintained his Georgia residency all those years. Of course, there is nothing illegal about that; he did have a house here. The original trust agreement stated pretty much what I already knew, except there was a list of assets and monies covered by the trust. Paulie was right. The Buckhead house was not listed as part of the trust, so at least the administrator knew Tournay had already deeded it to his grandson. Strange Becca didn’t know that. The Columbia house was owned free and clear by the trust. No mortgage. Smith Barney managed a small stock portfolio. A one-half acre piece of property on Trenholm Road in Columbia was also listed, as was seventeen acres on Friendship Road in Hall County, Georgia. I suspected the Columbia property was commercial, and was familiar with the area around Friendship Road where there was a new Wendy’s and a Kroger. Tournay had made very good investments. There was not a single piece of artwork listed as an asset of the trust. However, there was one asset that intrigued me—a shopping center situated on Briarcliff Road in Atlanta. The name was very familiar: Cliff Palisades. Good Lord, that shopping center had to be worth over a million dollars, maybe two million. How did Tournay buy all this property?

  I moved on to files containing expenses. There were various monthly expenditures for the two houses, tax payments, an appraisal bill for the Friendship Road property, and management fees for Cliff Palisades paid to Bozell Realty Management, an Atlanta firm. Then I noticed something else. There was a separate second management fee paid each month for twenty-five hundred dollars to a SBT, LLC. Why would one shopping center need two management companies? Each month contained the same twenty-five hundred dollars fee to SBT. I went through every folder. Where were the canceled checks? I didn’t find even one cancelled check.

  The conference room door opened and Paige eased in with a steaming white china mug in hand. “Good morning, Dr. McNeal,” she purred. “So nice to see you. I suspected you were properly parched by now, so I’ve brought tea.” After she set the cup safely to my left, away from the trust papers, she stood back and folded her hands demurely in front. “Are you finding everything you need?”

  “Actually, no, I’m not. But thank you for the tea,” I responded, trying to sound friendly through my frustration. “Are you sure these two boxes are all of the Tournay information? There seem to be some documents missing.”

  “Oh, dear me,” she answered, her brow wrinkling with concern. “I should think so. Mr. Wang personally carried them in here from his office.”

  “His office?” I echoed.

  “Well, yes, his office.” Paige said hesitantly, and stroked her peaches and cream chin lightly with her forefinger. I waited, hoping she would reach the correct conclusion. “Unfortunately, Mr. Wang was in a terrific hurry this morning, off to court in Gwinnett County, you know. Nasty divorce case. And aren’t they all when big money rides on the outcome?” I nodded. “Well, let’s just have a look-see in his little cubbyhole, shall we? Could be he missed something in his scurrying about.” Yes. I wanted to shout. Right answer.

  A couple of minutes searching Garland’s office yielded another box under his desk knee space, one identical to the others I’d already searched. “Well, there we are, Dr. McNeal,” Paige announced triumphantly, as she retrieved the box. “We’ll just leave this one with you in the conference room.” I could tell by her hurry to leave Garland’s office, she was ambivalent about us rifling around his ongoing work. I don’t know what she was worried about, with at least twenty knee high piles of papers stacked on the office floor, snooping would be a slow go. I wondered if Garland’s tall columns of papers rising from the carpet constituted case management and preparation.

  Paige left me alone in the conference room and I lifted the box to the table and removed the top. It was disappointingly light, only about a third full, and unlike the other two, there were no neatly labeled file folders. In fact, there were no folders at all, just stacks of paper. I turned several pieces of paper over, looking for canceled checks. I found none. Finally I turned the box on its side, and scooped the sheaf of papers out on the table. I was determined to go through everything. The first group seemed to be receipts from repairs done on the Cliff Palisades shopping center. They were all dated in the early seventies and invoiced to Trust Company Bank. What is this? I was puzzled until I looked further and found a creased and folded Limited Warranty Deed from Trust Company Bank selling the property. Ah yes, the sale must have been during the devastating Atlanta real estate downturn in the early seventies. Lenders who had extended overly optimistic credit to under capitalized developers took back the collateral in the form of scores of commercial properties and raw land. Technically the assets were called “workout properties” and the task for the banks was to workout of the lost revenue by making cash deals whenever they could. So, Paul Tournay had the cash to take advantage of one of Trust Company’s non-earning asset sales. Completely unfolding the deed, I saw Paul Tournay was not the only name listed on the deed. There were two owners of Cliff Palisades: Paul Tournay and Solomon B. Turner. I wanted to jump up on the table and do one of those victory dances the football payers do when they score a touchdown.

  I made notes on my yellow pad about the deed and the construction receipts. Apparently, part of the sale was for Trust Company to do some repairs to the property prior to closing. Sweet deal, I mused. Paul Tournay was a good businessman. So then, why would he and Boo Turner be partners? I didn’t think the partnership was forged just because they had once known each other during the war. I wrote that question across the top of the pad and closed my eyes. Is that it, Stella? Are you trying to tell me something about your husband’s relationship with Boo Turner? I didn’t get an answer to my question, though the moment of quiet did affirm a few facts for me. Stella, Paul Tournay and Boo Turner were together in Paris during the war. All three seemed to be in touch after the war. Stella was in all the photographs with Turner hanging in the Tournay house, so chances were Stella was part of whatever had forged the alliance between the two men. And that alliance lasted a very long time. They met in 1944; Stella was killed in 1957. Tournay and Turner bought a shopping center in 1973. A long time, indeed. There were various later receipts of utilities, roof repairs, parking lot paving repairs, and rental income records. Looked like in the early years, Tournay managed the property himself. Paul had mentioned his grandfather came to Atlanta once or twice a month. That would make sense if he were taking care of the shopping center. So then I had to ask what Boo Turner did to earn his partnership? What had Susan learned about Boo Turner in the seventies? As I remembered her research found he was pretty much retired, except for a few appearances at Blues and Jazz festivals.

  Furt
her down the stack of papers I discovered another deed. This one was from Solomon Turner selling his half interest in the shopping center back to Paul Tournay. It was dated early in 1975. Ah, yes, I remembered Susan saying Turner had two drunken driving violations, one in 1972 and another in 1974. So, maybe Turner was drinking heavily during this time and needed his part of the investment cash back. Somehow I didn’t think that was the end of it. There was the matter of all those management checks going to SBT, LLC,—fees still being paid to that entity. Who was SBT, LLC? Was it a coincidence the initials matched Boo Turner’s? If I had the canceled checks I’d know who was cashing them; too bad I’d not found one single canceled check in the box.

  I dialed Susan at Granny’s Store. “Hey, Miz P. How’s it going? Did you find some good stuff in the trust records?”

  “Some. I have a string attached to one piece of the puzzle, I think. Can you pull on that string for me and see what we get?”

  “Huh?” Susan replied, the metaphor being lost to her.

  “I mean I need you to get on the computer. Can you get into the Internet and mind the cash register at the same time?”

  “Well Duh…” She was indignant. “I can multi-task better than most folks, Miz P. What am I looking for?”

  “Paul Tournay’s estate has been paying a company named SBT, LLC a management fee for years, and it doesn’t seem they do anything for the fee. Can you go to the Georgia Secretary of State’s web site and see if there is a limited liability corporation named SBT? I’ll wait.”

  “Hang on just a minute. Mabel Sessions is in here with three of her wild-ass kids. I got to watch them to make sure those pint-sized criminals don’t steal a pocket full of Tootsie Rolls.” I could hear Susan put the phone on the counter and then the humming sound of the new computerized cash register totaling up a sale. While I waited, I continued to leaf through the stack of papers. There was a deed to Tournay for the Columbia, South Carolina parcel of land and the Georgia acreage on Friendship Road, both bought during the late eighties. No one else was listed on those deeds. There was a survey of the Columbia property showing it located between a carwash and a Texaco gas station. So I was right. It was also commercial property. All these records were pretty straightforward. A fifth grader could figure out what investments Tournay transferred into the final trust. Becca probably brought the boxes to Garland, so she had to know what her father had, and Garland no doubt had seen the boxes. This one was under his desk, for goodness sake. He had to know the source of the trust wealth. So why did he tell me he had no idea where the trust money came from? Why was that information not on my “need to know” list?