Hot Money

by Sherryl Woods

  “We owe Roger a great debt of gratitude for allowing us to establish this memorial fund in honor of his wife,” Hernando said. “Today it is my pleasure to present the coalition with a check in the amount of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, which accounts for the contributions to date. I have no doubt that with the proper administration this fund will continue to grow.”

  Molly gasped at the amount that had accumulated in such a short time. She wondered if a single guilty donor had been responsible for pushing the fund well into six figures. As she wondered about that, Roger stood up.

  His normally strong voice shook with emotion as he said, “I would like to thank many of you in this room for your generosity. Tessa believed deeply that we have a responsibility to preserve what nature has given us. I hope that this fund will provide support to many environmental causes and that it will make the sort of difference she would have made had she lived to see things through.”

  “Hear, hear!” Jason Jeffries said, showing considerably more enthusiasm for his ex-wife in death than he had in life. “I think we should form a special task force to determine how these funds should be allocated.”

  Liza glanced at Roger. “Perhaps you would like to chair such a task force.”

  He regarded her uncertainly. “I’m not sure that I would be the best person …” His voice trailed off.

  “Enough of that. Of course you would,” Patrice said firmly, ready to rally the troops around him now that his wife was gone. “I am willing to serve as well. Lincoln?”

  “Of course.”

  Liza smiled. “Then I think we have our committee.” She paused to lead the group in a round of applause for the new task force. Molly observed the others in the room closely. All seemed to be joining in wholeheartedly. It was the first time all day they’d been unified about anything.

  “Now there is one more piece of business,” Liza said, her tone suddenly more grave. “Something has come to my attention just today that I think we ought to take a stand on. Yet another proposal is before the Dade County Commission regarding development in the western part of the county.”

  “The wetlands?” asked one horrified listener. “Surely not again.”

  “Yes, again, I’m sorry to say. There have been some changes on the federal level and local developers have taken that as a sign to try one more time to push progress straight into the Everglades.”

  An outraged murmur spread around the room. “Who’s at it this time?” Patrice demanded. She glared at Clark, then looked pointedly at Michael as if willing him to share her suspicions. “I’m sure you could tell us that,” she told Clark. “You’re probably representing the devils.”

  “No, I am not,” he said, returning her scowl without flinching.

  From the sparks flying between the two, Molly figured it was safe to assume that the pair had removed the kid gloves and intended an all-out battle of wills.

  “Stop pussyfooting around, Clark,” Patrice demanded. “You know perfectly well that if there’s a dollar to be made on development in this town, you know the players.”

  “I do stay on top of things, yes,” he said agreeably. “That’s not a crime, Patrice. It’s a civic responsibility. You should do the same.”

  “I’d say ‘on top’ is the wrong phrase. ‘In the middle’ would be more like it.” She sat back with a satisfied smirk.

  Liza apparently decided that the squabble wasn’t gaining the group a single bit of information and might well deteriorate into something truly ugly.

  “Enough, you two,” she said quietly. “I just learned about this today and didn’t have time to research it myself. The person who called me right before the meeting did mention the name of the company, Danson Properties, Inc. Has anyone ever heard of it?”

  No one acknowledged being familiar with the company. Molly kept her gaze pinned on Clark Dupree, but his expression remained stoic. She couldn’t help wondering if the look expressed genuine bafflement or had been perfected to keep from revealing too much. It certainly would be handy in a courtroom. Either way it was clear that details would not be forthcoming from him.

  “Would anyone like to propose a statement for the media regarding our stance on this?” Liza suggested.

  “Perhaps we should consider getting more information before we go off half-cocked,” Clark Dupree suggested mildly. He avoided Patrice’s gaze when he said it.

  “Of course you’d want us to remain silent,” she snapped. “The less said by the opposition, the better to get county approval.”

  “No,” Liza said reasonably. “What Clark suggests makes sense. We don’t want to get a reputation for crying wolf, unless the proposed development is truly a threat to the Everglades. Why don’t I look into it and then we can schedule another meeting for next week to firm up our position?”

  “What if the commission decides to ramrod it through before that?” Lincoln Granview demanded.

  “Any resolution would require more than one reading before the commission,” Liza reminded him. “We’re not even sure if this has zoning or planning approval. I’ll check it out as soon as we leave here today. If I find out it’s further along in the process than that, I will notify each of you and we can make plans to appear before the commission to outline our objections. In the meantime, if you require inspiration to remind you of what the fight is all about, reread River of Grass. Marjorie Stoneman Douglas said it all in her classic book on the Everglades.”

  “Perhaps we should send copies to the commissioners,” Jason suggested dryly.

  Patrice regarded him approvingly. “Good idea, Jason. I’ll do that myself.”

  With that the meeting adjourned. To Molly’s disappointment, the killer had not revealed himself or herself. That had been too much to hope for, she supposed.

  When Liza was finally able to join her, she said, “When exactly did you hear about this development deal? You didn’t mention it on the way over here.”

  “I got a call here right before the meeting started. It was all very mysterious. The caller wouldn’t even identify himself.”

  “Did you recognize anything about the voice?” Michael inquired as he joined them.

  Liza shook her head. “I was too furious about the message to worry about the messenger. I wish it hadn’t been so last-minute. If I’d had time to check it out, we could have taken a formal stand today and Ted Ryan could have gotten it in tomorrow’s paper. I want these people on notice that they won’t be able to sneak this through.”

  She glanced at Molly, her expression genuinely distraught. “Every time I think about these random attacks on the fragile ecology of the Everglades, it makes me sick. There’s nothing else like it in the United States. We should be protecting it, not destroying it just to put up another strip mall or plunk down another community of tacky, matching houses.”

  It was a subject on which Molly shared Liza’s views and her fervor. “Half the malls we have now are failing because there are too many of them,” she chimed in. “The last time I drove into one of these new developments, most of the houses were unoccupied, the developer had run out of funds, and there was a suit from the few existing homeowners to force him to make good on the amenities he’d promised. They’d read about a similar mess in California that made a deal with the producers of Lethal Weapon to wipe the whole thing out. The homeowners invited me out because they wondered if we had any films coming into town that might want to destroy their community as part of the plot.”

  “So why would anyone want to build another one?” Michael asked.

  Molly sensed that the question was rhetorical, but Liza jumped right in to answer anyway.

  “I’ll tell you why,” she said furiously. “Greed. Pure and simple.”

  “Greed,” Molly echoed thoughtfully. “Remember when we said the key to solving Tessa’s murder was to find the money. Maybe this is it.”

  Liza looked startled by the suggestion, but then she nodded. “You could be right. How do we find out the principals in
this deal?”

  “I’ll make a few calls to a friend in another county department, and if the lid on this isn’t on too tight, we should know in no time.” Molly glanced at Michael to get his reaction to the plan.

  He shrugged. “It wouldn’t hurt to make the call. If you unearth something, though, call me or Detective Abrams. Don’t go chasing down any leads yourselves.”

  After promising to be careful, Liza broke speed limits getting them back to Molly’s office so she could make the call. Unfortunately, the only official record of the zoning request listed no more than the name of the company, Danson Properties, Inc.

  Discouraged, Molly hung up the phone. “No luck.”

  Liza, however, was just getting her second wind. “Don’t look so glum. If it’s incorporated, then there are records on file with the state. I’ll call Tallahassee.”

  “Do you have a contact who’ll do the digging for you?”

  Liza grinned. “I have contacts everywhere they might come in handy. You should know that by now.”

  It took one call and a half hour of impatient pacing to get the answer they were after. When the call came in, Molly reluctantly handed the phone over to Liza, then had to watch as a slow grin spread across her face, only to twist into something else entirely. There were furious sparks in her eyes by the time she hung up.

  “Well?” Molly demanded.

  “The president of Danson Properties, Inc. is none other than our good friend and board member Clark Dupree.”

  Molly started to speak, but Liza held up her hand. “Wait. There’s more. The vice president was none other than Tessa Lafferty.”

  Now that was a turn of events that led to all sorts of fascinating possibilities. It even fit quite nicely with Molly’s belief that Tessa had been desperate to prove herself in business. The only question now was who, besides Clark Dupree, had known about Tessa’s involvement in Danson Properties.

  CHAPTER

  SEVENTEEN

  Liza was all for driving straight to Clark Dupree’s office and stabbing him in the heart. It took Molly and Jeannette combined to restrain her.

  “Two murders don’t make a right,” Molly reminded her. “We don’t know that he killed Tessa. Why would he, if she was his partner?”

  “I don’t give a damn whether he killed Tessa. He’s trying to rape the Everglades. He sat right there today and swore he was not representing Danson Properties.”

  “He’s probably not,” Molly said. “Only a fool would represent himself. Isn’t that the way the saying goes?”

  “More or less,” Liza agreed. “But that’s a technicality. He basically lied to us. When the others hear about this, they’ll want to lynch him.”

  Molly could believe that. “Which may explain why he declined to comment today,” she said dryly. “Would you admit to this in a hostile crowd?”

  Liza sagged back into her chair. “No. Do you think Patrice knew? Could this be the reason she was so furious with him?”

  “You mean this on top of the fact that he was screwing Tessa?”

  “To a woman of principle like Patrice, this would probably matter more.”

  “Based on her reaction earlier, I’d say she might have suspected he was involved with Danson, but I don’t think she knew even that for certain, much less knew that he actually owned the company.”

  “What if Tessa hadn’t realized exactly what Danson Properties was buying into?” Liza suggested slowly. “What if she found out and confronted him that night? They argued and Tessa ended up in the bay.”

  Molly had considered the same possibility and dismissed it. “I have a hard time picturing Tessa morally outraged enough to blow a gasket over Clark’s development deals, especially when it was her first big shot at proving her worth as a businesswoman. I know she was on record as an environmentalist, but I had the feeling that, like Helen Whorton, she took that position because it was politically correct. Am I wrong?”

  “Not entirely,” Liza said dully. “Too bad, though. I liked that scenario.”

  “I have a better one,” Molly soothed. “What if she found out, maybe Clark even revealed it to her in some intimate moment, and she tried to blackmail him. Clark’s always had the law on his side when he’s gone into these fights. He’s always sounded very high and mighty, stating that everyone under our system of justice deserves the best representation he or she can get. He’s acted as if it weren’t something he personally would ever do, right?”

  “The same argument given by those who defend drug dealers and rapists,” Liza said in disgust.

  “But the point is he’s never been involved himself. In fact, he’s gone to the extreme of forking over huge donations to politically correct environmental causes.”

  “As if that would make up for his choice of clients,” Liza grumbled.

  “True, but that’s not what I’m getting at,” Molly said. “I seriously doubt he’d want it known that he was trying to develop the Everglades at the same time he’s sitting on a board that’s committed to protecting it. Tessa and Roger needed money. We know that. This deal might have held out the promise of a solution. Then when she realized what she’d gotten herself into, she might have tried blackmailing Clark. He strikes me as sleazy enough to murder her to keep her quiet. Maybe she simply tried to bail out, but he wouldn’t let her.”

  “You know what I think of him,” Liza said. “But we don’t have any proof. All we have is an interesting theory.”

  The door to Molly’s office opened just then. Michael stepped in and beamed at the two of them. “Just in time, I see.”

  “Just in time for what?”

  “To keep you two from dashing off to prove whatever theory it is you’ve dreamed up. Care to share it with me?”

  With some reluctance, Molly recited everything they’d been able to piece together since the meeting earlier in the afternoon. To her surprise, Michael nodded approvingly.

  “Good work. That could fit with another piece of evidence we picked up today. Abrams got a call from the captain of a yacht that was cruising on Biscayne Bay Saturday night. He’d taken a party to Bimini and didn’t read about the murder until he got back.”

  “And?”

  “He says he heard an argument about the time of the murder. He couldn’t be sure because of the way voices carry on the water, but it seemed to be coming from the grounds of Vizcaya. It was a man and woman, but he couldn’t tell any more than that.”

  “So it might have been Clark and Tessa,” Molly said.

  “But why didn’t anyone else hear them?”

  Michael shook his head. “Could be the way the wind was blowing. Could have been the music drowned them out.”

  “The only thing that puzzles me is how Clark would get a candlestick down to the water without Tessa noticing.”

  “He didn’t,” Michael said. “Or, rather, the killer didn’t. There wasn’t a trace of anything to link that to the murder. The wound didn’t match either, according to the medical examiner. It wasn’t made by something with sharp edges.”

  “Then why was it missing?”

  “For all we know it was never even there. Maybe it had never left Neville’s office.”

  “Believe me,” Liza said. “Neville knew exactly what was in that truck when he brought it to Vizcaya. He’s fanatical about details like that.”

  “Then my guess would be that one of Neville’s employees figured it was valuable and tucked it away to be fenced later. When he heard rumors that the police thought it might have been the murder weapon, he slipped it back into Neville’s office. At any rate, whatever the killer did use to hit Tessa is probably at the bottom of the bay. It wouldn’t have taken much to knock her unconscious. A good-sized rock would have done the trick. The blow didn’t kill her.”

  “What then?” Molly asked.

  “The medical examiner speculates that she might have come to at some point, but in the dark, tangled in those mangroves and disoriented, she drowned before she could free herself. There wa
s evidence that she’d struggled, but the scratches were more consistent with scrapes she would have sustained underwater than with any she might have gotten in a fight.”

  “Oh, God,” Molly murmured, horrified by the image of such a tortured death. Liza looked equally shaken.

  “How could Clark have thrown her in there and walked away, knowing she might still be alive?” Liza said. “What kind of man would do that?”

  “One who was desperate,” Michael said. “And we don’t know it was Clark Dupree. Until we do, you’d be wise not to speculate in public. He’s the kind that will sue you for slander, if you’re wrong.”

  “I doubt I’m wrong,” Liza said. “But I’ll keep my opinion to myself.”

  The door to the office, already partially open, was flung wide. Expecting Vince or Jeannette, Molly was dismayed to see Hal DeWitt standing there glaring at her. If the judgmental expression on his face was anything to go by, he’d overhead enough of the conversation to guess what it was about.

  “You just can’t leave it alone, can you?” he said wearily.

  Molly cast a look of pure desperation at Liza and Michael, but they were already on their feet. At least Michael looked torn about leaving her alone with her ex-husband. That didn’t stop him from going, though. He gave her a supportive thumbs-up sign from the doorway.

  When they’d gone, she felt abandoned. She also felt more frightened than she ever had in her life as she met Hal’s furious gaze.

  “Why are you here?” she asked.

  “I thought we should talk again about the custody suit.”

  Molly’s breath caught in her throat. “You’ve decided something?”

  “I thought I had,” he admitted, sinking wearily into the chair just vacated by Michael.

  He closed his eyes and rubbed his temples, as if he was fighting a pounding headache. The tension in Molly’s neck promised a headache of her own as she waited for his verdict, a decision that could dramatically affect her life and Brian’s.