by Rene Fomby
Gavin stopped to add something to his notes, then caught Tara’s reddening eyes with a wan smile. “Yeah, well, no need to beat yourself up about that. I can’t go into any of the details right now for obvious reasons, but trust me when I say it’s unlikely anyone could have done a single thing at that point to help her. But before we all call it a halt for the night, there’s something you said just a few moments ago I’d like to follow up on. You said something about assuming Trevor was telling the truth about getting separated from Katy and the rest of the group accidentally. I take it maybe you have your doubts about all that?”
Tara hesitated, pausing a long moment to watch the lightning display out the side window. Finally, she pushed her chair back slightly to give herself a better view of the two men before answering in a low, conspiratorial voice. “I think you can do the math. It’s not rocket science, after all. If someone really did do something to Katy, if someone did kill her, there are really only three possible suspects. Me, Brett… and Trevor. Since I know neither Brett nor I did it, that leaves only one suspect left who could have pulled it off. The guy who was buddy diving with Katy and was supposed to keep an eye on her the whole time we were down there. The guy who got conveniently separated from the group at the exact same moment Katy disappeared. The one guy who could possibly have anything at all to gain from her death.” Tara let that hang in the air for a pregnant moment before spitting out the last word like it was a mouth full of foul tasting poison. “Trevor.”
19
Sea Trial
After Tara left to rejoin her husband upstairs, Espinosa and Gavin stayed behind to discuss what they had learned and come to some kind of agreement on the best way to move forward.
Espinosa closed up his notebook and set it on the side table. “I think we’re done here, Agent Larson. I’ve already seen and heard more than enough to arrest Katy’s husband right here and now for homicide in the first degree. Everyone’s story checks out to a T, everyone except Trevor’s, that is. And, drunk or not, Tara Cutler had it all down cold. The only possible person who had both the opportunity and the motive to murder Katy Mulcahey was Trevor Johnson.”
Gavin shook his head. “Well, I’d have to agree with you about the opportunity angle, but I still don’t think we’ve heard enough about the motivation part quite yet. I’d suggest we hold off on the arrest for now, at least until we hear back from my investigator. Has he sent you anything yet?”
Espinosa fished his phone out of his pocket and checked it. “His name’s Harry Crawford?” Gavin nodded. “Okay, then, let’s see what your guy has to say. Then I’ll pull out the handcuffs.”
He brought up the email Harry had sent, then placed the phone between them so they could read it together. The details were still pretty scant, mostly tracking what they already knew. Billie had apparently been arrested at some point for felony drug possession, but that had been knocked down to a misdemeanor and later disposed of with a deferred adjudication. Billie had paid all his fines and charges and stayed out of trouble during the probation period, and the charges had subsequently been dropped.
There was one other small surprise in the packet. Apparently Casey’s first name wasn’t Casey at all, but Antoine. Gavin checked his notes from the interview and realized they had somehow forgotten to ask him that one routine question. He made a mental note to follow up with Casey later on to get that point clarified.
When they were finished reading the message, Espinosa closed the email and put the phone back in his pocket.
“Nothing in there to change my mind about any of this, Gavin. It’s still clear to me that Trevor’s our guy.”
“Okay, tell you what. We still haven’t interviewed him yet, so there’s no real harm in trying to get his story down firsthand. If you do wind up arresting him, that can only help the prosecution in the long run. Plus, it’s late, and there’s a major storm blowing out there, so bringing a boat all the way out here in the middle of the night to pick him up and move him onshore seems a little risky. Why don’t we both get some sleep tonight and see if we can close up some last loose ends in the morning when we’re both nice and fresh. He’s not going anywhere in the meantime.”
Espinosa reluctantly had to agree with Gavin’s points. And getting Trevor’s statement down while he was still just a suspect and not under arrest would keep him from lawyering up and then, later, clamming up, making the prosecution all that much more difficult for everyone involved. He stared out the window at the storm, which was now tossing whitecaps up against the tiny window. Not exactly a night to be out on the water if one could help it.
“All right, you win. We can call it a night for now and finish up first thing tomorrow morning. But in the end that doesn’t change a thing. No doubt in my mind he’s our man. Like I told you this morning, cases like this, 99 percent of the time it’s the husband who did it.”
“Yeah, I hear you, Tony. And I agree, things are looking pretty bleak right now for our friend Trevor Johnson. Pretty bleak, indeed.”
20
Sea Trial
At some point during their interviews with the rest of the group, Trevor had grabbed a bottle of whiskey and retired to his cabin for the night. Espinosa double-checked with his people keeping watch on the catamaran to make sure they had the small boat well secured so Trevor couldn’t possibly escape, then borrowed a police cellphone from one of his officers. He paused to make some quick adjustments to the phone, then handed it to Gavin.
“Here, you might find this useful while we’re waiting for the cell tower to get repaired. It’s not 4G, but it’s fast enough for checking emails, and it’ll let you make calls back and forth with your people in the States. Don’t worry about the charges, either. The data and call time are unlimited, even for any calls you might want to make stateside.”
“Hey, thanks, Tony. That’s real thoughtful of you.” Gavin hadn’t told Espinosa about his satellite phone, which was now fully charged and hidden away in the backpack he had brought on board the boat. Not that he didn’t trust his partner from the Mexican Federales, but in his experience the less that was said about these things, the less he eventually had to wind up regretting.
Brett was the last person left in the salon when Espinosa and Gavin climbed up the stairs. He was also the only person left in the group who was still largely sober. Considering the fact that one of their friends had been brutally murdered just the night before, Gavin wasn’t ready to judge the group for drowning their sorrows. Or their fears, for that matter. But he appreciated the fact that Brett had managed to keep his wits about him, especially since they had this storm raging full-bore outside that was now rocking the boat back and forth rather alarmingly. Gavin doubted he would get much sleep tonight.
Brett turned on the overhead light to the trapeze and pointed out the hatches for the two forward sleeping compartments buried in the tips of the port and starboard pontoons. “Sorry, but you’ll need to make a run for it in the rain. I’m pretty sure the beds are made up, but I’m not all that sure the bathrooms are fully functional yet. Billie had to do something in the main cabins to turn them on when we first came on board, and I’m not quite sure he managed to do the same for the forward cabins. We weren’t expecting visitors, after all. So my suggestion is you handle all of your bathroom needs in here before you head off to bed.”
Gavin shot him a quick OK sign with his right hand. “Thanks, Brett. See you first thing tomorrow morning, then. Hopefully we can get everything wrapped up here well before noon and be on our way.”
Brett smiled, one of the first smiles Gavin had seen on him since they had come on board earlier in the day. “That’s the best news I’ve heard in a while. This trip has certainly turned into a nightmare, hasn’t it?”
“It has, indeed.” Gavin shared a quick handshake with him before stepping away to use the restroom. Espinosa busied himself with his phone while he waited his turn.
When they were both finished, Gavin slid open the door t
o the trapeze area in front of the boat and dashed outside, Espinosa hot on his heels. Gavin veered left, maneuvering around the hot tub that was sloshing water violently over its sides in the heavy surf, then found the hatch to the port cabin and ducked quickly inside. The short trip across the trapeze had left his shirt soaked through, and he pulled it off even as he found the light switch and dumped his backpack on the floor. Sitting down on the bed, he pulled out his sat phone and checked for any private messages from Harry. There were two emails, one a duplicate of what he’d already read on Espinosa’s phone, plus another substantially longer one that had been sent only to him. He pulled it up and started scrolling through it. Interesting. This certainly throws a big monkey wrench into the whole motive angle, now doesn’t it…
21
Sea Trial – Tuesday Morning
Gavin was well into his second cup of coffee when Espinosa finally leaped through the sliding door from outside, shaking the rain off his head and shoulders like a wet dog.
Gavin waved his cup toward the coffee maker. “Morning, Cinderella. Glad you could finally join us.”
“Yes, well, I didn’t get a whole lot of sleep last night. The constant rocking of the boat kept rolling me back and forth in my bed. And the lightning and thunder didn’t help a bit, either. And, oh, by the way, it’s Sleeping Beauty.”
“What is?”
“The fairy tale reference. It’s Sleeping Beauty. Cinderella was the one with the pumpkin and the evil stepsisters.”
“Huh. You must have grown up listening to a whole different version of the story than we Americanos got. Probably just a language thing. Different translation, and all that.” Gavin reached into his pocket and pulled out the phone Espinosa had given him the night before. “Oh, and thanks for this. It’s already paying dividends. I got a message that I think you’re gonna want to hear all about before the rest of the crowd wakes up and joins us.”
A momentary uncertainty flitted across Espinosa’s eyes and Gavin smiled to himself without showing it. Yeah, I noticed the spy program you had running in the background on the phone. So now you’re thinking that maybe it didn’t work after all. Touché, my friend.
Espinosa recovered and tried to hide the momentary wavering look in his eyes by grabbing a cup of coffee, adding milk and two spoonfuls of sugar in the process. “Yes? What did you find out?”
“My guy in Houston ran a check on finances for everybody on the boat, then did a deeper dig on Trevor and Katy.”
“Okay, that would be helpful. What did he turn up?”
“For the six friends, nothing we didn’t already know, or at least didn’t suspect. Billie and Sally have barely two nickels to rub together, Casey and Jillian are struggling but nothing to write home about, and Brett and Tara are mostly living month-to-month, with a few months’ worth of cushion in the bank and a mortgage they can barely afford.”
“I take it this is where the other shoe drops. The shoe Trevor Johnson is wearing,” Espinosa said, sitting down next to Gavin and taking a few tentative sips of his coffee.
“Exactly. Turns out, little Katy has been keeping her finances completely separate from Trevor pretty much their entire marriage. And from his corporate tax filings it appears that Trevor’s stock brokerage business isn’t so lucrative after all, barely meeting the payroll, rent and utilities. Katy was cutting him a sizable allowance check every month just to cover his bills.”
“That doesn’t make sense. How sizable are we talking here? Enough to pay for this boat?”
Gavin shook his head. “Nope. Because the boat isn’t his. It’s registered in Katy’s name, as is pretty much everything else they own. Houses, cars, you name it. All hers, not his.”
Espinosa paused to sort through all that. If indeed Johnson wasn’t solvent, but instead needed Katy Mulcahey’s money to help maintain his fat cat lifestyle— “So that makes him even more likely to have wanted her out of the picture. It couldn’t have been good for his ego to have to eat crow every single day of his life, letting Katy throw him crumbs while she was sitting on a big pile of Daddy’s money. By killing her, and doing it in a way that would almost certainly look to the rest of the world like a tragic accident, he could grab hold of her fortune himself and never again have to ask her for a handout. Plus, from what we’ve been told of their personal life together, he wasn’t going to be giving up all that much in the bedroom department, either, even as pretty as she was. That was already a dry hole.” He paused again, all the pieces of the puzzle finally starting to fall into place. “Did your guy check into whether there was a life insurance policy out on her?”
“As a matter of fact there was, to the tune of two million dollars,” Gavin said, enjoying the little mind game he was playing with his partner from south of the border.
Espinosa grinned like a Cheshire cat, standing up victoriously and toasting Gavin with his now half-empty cup of coffee. “Well then, case closed! Like I said, 99 percent of the time it’s the husband. Now we just have to wake him up and—”
“But the problem is,” Gavin added with a slow drawl, “Trevor isn’t the primary beneficiary of the insurance policy. Sure, he would get about ten percent, enough to bury her and keep him going for a few months. But the rest of it was directed to her son, Paxton. All of it in a trust, with a bank named as the trustee.”
If that news deflated Espinosa’s confidence in his case, he wasn’t quite ready to show it. “Okay, but that doesn’t change a thing about the real money in the case. The billion or so she inherited from her father, plus ten billion more when her mother dies.”
“You’re assuming she named Trevor as the beneficiary of her estate, even though she mostly cut him out of the insurance money,” Gavin noted.
“Well, even if her will left the bulk of her share to her son, that still leaves half of her money that Trevor would automatically be entitled to as her surviving spouse.”
Gavin nodded, a smile starting to creep slowly across his face. “Yeah, you’d be right about that. Except for the part I mentioned earlier about how she had maintained her fortune as a separate estate. Everything Daddy gave her before the marriage, in addition to everything she got when he died. Texas inheritance law is based upon the old Spanish law, which I assume is still largely the rule down here in Mexico, as well. Unless she comingled the money, placed it into joint accounts or gifted it to Trevor, every bit of it remained completely separate marital property. He’s not entitled to one solitary red cent.”
Now Espinosa went completely quiet, sitting back down and sipping slowly on the remainder of his coffee as he watched all of his earlier theories as to motive fly out the window. “So I guess we need to find out for sure about the will—”
“My guy is already chasing that down even as we speak.”
“And if it turns out to be structured similar to the insurance policy—”
“Then Trevor Johnson would have no financial motive whatsoever to see his wife dead. In fact, given the fact that she was the goose that laid a monthly golden egg for him, almost literally, in fact, he actually had every incentive to make sure she stayed alive and healthy and still wanting him in her life. Although I can’t really see why she even bothered to hang around, given their lack of any semblance of a loving relationship toward the end.”
“Maybe it was the kid,” Espinosa suggested. “Not the first mom to stay married to a loser of a husband until all the children left the nest.”
“Yeah, maybe,” Gavin agreed. “But usually they hang around for financial reasons, or because the man, for all his faults, actually makes a pretty good father figure. But clearly Katy didn’t need his money, and my take on dear old Trevor is that he was unlikely to ever be named father of the year.”
A small noise from the port pontoon suggested they were about to have company, so Gavin decided to cut short their private discussion of the case for the time being. “With that said, Tony, I guess we’re back to square one regarding motive. And as for oppo
rtunity, we still need to have that conversation with Katy’s widowed husband. It’ll also be interesting to find out just how much he knows about his current financial status. My guess is, next to nothing.”
“Which could still give him a very good motive to kill her, even if it was poorly founded in fact,” Espinosa added defensively.
“You are right on that point, my friend. So that makes our objective here this morning quite clear. We need to know what he knows, and when he knew it. And we need to find that out without showing our hand in the process. How’s your poker face this morning?”
“Good for at least one more hand,” Espinosa promised.
22
Trevor
After breakfast, Brett set up the interview station in the starboard pontoon again and Trevor reluctantly followed Gavin and Espinosa down below to give his account of what had happened during the dive, and how exactly he came to be separated from his wife.
Before they crawled into bed the night before, the two agents had worked out a plan for exactly how this interview was going to play out, but the new information from Harry Crawford back in Houston had changed everything.
In the meantime, Espinosa’s head was still churning about how Gavin had received that message without a copy being forwarded automatically to him. He checked, and there was no record of Gavin ever making or receiving a phone call during the night, nor was there a record of any Internet, email or instant messaging activity. He considered challenging Gavin directly about the source of his information, but that would easily give away the fact that he was spying on the American agent, so he decided to let it ride for now.
Trevor sat down heavily between the two agents, nursing his first cup of morning coffee as they laid out their notebook and legal pad, ready to begin. He was dressed simply in a light green T-shirt and dark blue swimming trunks, and still looked a little red-eyed from the night before, whether from tears, booze or a lack of sleep, it was hard to tell. Still, Espinosa decided to go a little easy on him at first, just in case. And routine questions were always the best solution to that problem.