Dirty Money

by Denise Grover Swank

  I considered trying to convince him it was okay, but I didn’t want his guilt on my conscience. “Only you can answer that, I guess. You know I want whatever’s in that folder, and I swear on my life I’ll never tell a soul where it came from, not even Rose, but you should have worked this out before you invited me here.”

  He turned his head to give me a soft smile. “You’re right.” He tapped the top of the folder with his middle finger. “A man mentioned Ronnie’s name during his testimony to the grand jury on Monday.”

  I gasped. “The grand jury?” I thought he’d gotten his intel from a police report. “Mason, what on earth could happen to you if anyone finds out you’re sharin’ this with me?”

  “It wouldn’t be good,” he said reluctantly, refusing to look me in the eye. “And believe me, I’ve struggled with this decision.”

  “And you decided to break the law to tell me? Why?”

  He sighed, still refusing to look at me. “Maybe all the lectures from you, Rose, and my mother have started to sink in. And you’re right,” he added. “I should have sorted this all out before I brought you here. I thought I had. But this is harder than I expected.”

  “Takin’ that first step into the murkiness of right and wrong is always the hardest,” I said softly.

  He finally looked me in the eye. “I don’t plan on makin’ a habit out of this, Neely Kate.”

  “I know you don’t,” I admitted. “And maybe it’s the first and last time for you, but if you decide to do this again, for better or for worse, it’ll be easier.”

  He paused at that. There was a chance he’d change his mind, and I knew it, but I needed him to be certain before he compromised his values for my sake. “I don’t want you to look back on this and resent me, Mason,” I said quietly. “So if you’ve changed your mind, I understand.”

  His hands fisted slightly as he stared down at the folder, then he sat up straighter and met my gaze. “I haven’t changed my mind. Just don’t tell anyone where you got the information, I can’t reiterate that enough.”

  I nodded. “I swear it.”

  Pushing out a breath, he said, “Roy Julian, a known associate of the late Mick Gentry, testified on Monday. Since Gentry’s murder by J.R. Simmons last winter, Julian has been acting on his own, but we believe he made an alliance with another criminal of interest this summer, and no, I won’t tell you who.” He shot me a warning glance as though challenging me to question him anyway. “During his grand jury questioning—which included his work with Gentry—he mentioned Ronnie.”

  My stomach twisted.

  “Roy Julian said he met Ronnie when they were both workin’ with Mick Gentry.”

  “So it’s true,” I said. “He was workin’ for Gentry.”

  “Except he wasn’t workin’ just for Gentry,” Mason said. “We think Ronnie was workin’ for a crime syndicate in Dallas.”

  All the blood in my body seemed to sink to my feet, leaving me lightheaded. “The Hardshaw Group.”

  His brow lifted. “You’ve heard of them?”

  I released a bitter chuckle. “Yeah.” Had my entire marriage been a sham? Had Ronnie been watching me all along?

  Five years ago, I’d killed a man who had raped and beaten me, then I buried his body along with the bag of money he’d planned to use as payment to my old boyfriend for my “services.” In July, Jed and I had dug up both the body and the money, and while Jed had burned and reburied the body, we’d kept the bag of money. All ten thousand dollars of it.

  Still, it made no sense. Ten thousand dollars was nothing to a group like Hardshaw, so why were they pursuing it so hard? And if Hardshaw knew about the money, why hadn’t they made a move sooner?

  Ronnie had known I was poor, and he’d never once asked about my time in Ardmore. I’d been grateful for his discretion back then, but now it seemed suspicious.

  “We think they’ve been paving their way into Fenton County for a while now. They might have approached Ronnie and asked him to feed them information because they caught wind that Simmons was making a play for the county.” He paused and flipped his hand over, palm up. “But that’s merely speculation.”

  “So why did he leave town?” I asked. “Was Hardshaw upset that Gentry—their source of intel—was dead?”

  He glanced at me, concern washing over his face. “Julian thinks Hardshaw is interested in you, which is another reason why I’m sharin’ this with you. You need to take precautions.”

  “Me?”

  “After Gentry died, Ronnie told Julian that he had to leave town and fast. When Julian asked him why, Ronnie said Hardshaw was expecting information about you and he’d failed.”

  “What kind of information?” I asked, hating that I sounded breathless and weak.

  “The jury foreman asked Julian that very same question, but Julian said he didn’t know. The foreman is good at his job and asked the question in several different ways, trying to get the information out of him. I don’t think he was lying about not knowing.”

  I nodded, letting his news sink in. Never in a million years had I suspected Ronnie might have ties to Hardshaw. “Thanks,” I said, starting to get up.

  Mason placed his hand on my forearm. “Neely Kate, there’s more.”

  I sank back in my chair. “Okay.”

  He took a deep breath, then a grim look settled on his face. “After I got back from court yesterday, I found an envelope with information about Ronnie on my desk.”

  “Did you start investigating him after Julian’s testimony?” I asked.

  “No. Officially we’re not after Ronnie and there’s no reason for us to pursue him. I doubt he knows anything of use for our main investigation.”

  “So where did it come from?”

  Worry filled his eyes. “I don’t know, and I have no idea how they got in. My office was locked.”

  “You don’t know who left it?” I asked. I had my suspicions, but I wasn’t about to confess.

  He frowned. “No. And that’s what worries me. They got into my locked office.” He gave me an anxious glance, then flipped the cover of the folder open, revealing a blurry black and white image printed out on a white sheet of paper. It looked like a crappy surveillance camera image yet there was no mistaking the man front and center, even if I didn’t know the blonde his arm was wrapped around.

  “Ronnie,” I gasped.

  “This image is dated last week,” Mason said. “In a drugstore in Tulsa.”

  I glanced up at him, shaking my head. “What’s he doin’ there?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine.” He flipped the page, revealing a mug shot of a much younger Ronnie. “Did you know he’d been arrested for petty theft when he was seventeen?”

  “No,” I said, unable to believe what I was hearing. “Joe looked into his past and never found anything. You said he was seventeen?”

  He nodded.

  “It must have happened before he moved to Henryetta for his senior year. He moved back to Dallas after he graduated, but I never knew he was in any kind of trouble. And like I said, Joe never found anything.”

  “Ronnie was a juvenile and his records were expunged. Joe probably saw he had a clean adult record and didn’t dig deeper.”

  “Then how did you find them?”

  “They arrived in this folder.” He flipped the page again to reveal what appeared to be a court document. “But to be certain, I called a friend from law school who works in the Dallas court system. She confirmed, unofficially of course, that it’s authentic.”

  “But what does that have to do with what’s goin’ on with Ronnie now?”

  “I think this explains it,” Mason said, flipping to a tabbed page. The sheet was filled with text, but there was a yellow highlighted section.

  I leaned closer to read it: Colson was arrested with Shane Johnson, a known associate in the Hardshaw organization.

  I blinked. “Wait. Ronnie’s been with Hardshaw since he was a kid?”

  “I don’t know,” M
ason admitted. “Maybe. This file also came with a work history up until he moved back to Henryetta. He worked in several garages in Dallas as a mechanic, but as far as I can tell, none of them had ties to Hardshaw.”

  “Would they?”

  “Maybe,” he said. “They own several businesses and a couple of garages in the Dallas area. But Ronnie never worked at either of the known locations, so it could be a coincidence he was arrested with Johnson. The lack of further involvement with Hardshaw after his arrest suggests that.”

  “Except he came back to Henryetta,” I said. “And then got close to me. That can’t be a coincidence if Hardshaw wanted something from me.”

  “No. I don’t think it is,” Mason said. “Who better to send after you than someone you knew? Someone who already had connections in the community?” Even though I’d already considered the possibility, it hurt to have someone else confirm my hunch. Despite everything, I’d wanted to believe some small part of my marriage had been real.

  “So why would he do it?” I asked. “If he wasn’t part of their world? And why wait so long?” Another thought trickled ice down my spine. Had they known about me before Kate stirred up trouble in Ardmore?

  “I’m not sure,” Mason said. “Do you have any idea why Hardshaw would be interested in you?”

  That got my attention. “Who’s askin’? Mason my friend or Mason Deveraux, the state special prosecutor?”

  His gaze landed on the folder. “That’s a fair question.”

  When he hadn’t continued after a few seconds, I asked, “Are you gonna answer it?”

  His face rose, his eyes searching mine. “How about I show you what else is in this folder before I answer.”

  My blood ran cold. What did he know? I nodded, trying to hide my terror.

  The expression on Mason’s face confirmed he saw my fear, but he wasn’t gloating. It was worry for a friend.

  “This file has other information, which I’ve corroborated before showing you.”

  “What is it?” I asked in a whisper.

  He gave me a sympathetic look. “Neely Kate, Ronnie is married to someone else. Your marriage wasn’t legal.”

  I shook my head. “But his family came to the wedding. And his mother said it was the first wedding for any of her kids. Why would she lie?”

  The last time any of us had seen Ronnie in person, Joe had spotted him with a woman in New Orleans. Maybe the same blonde from the picture. He’d been wearing a wedding band—a different one from the one I’d given him—and the two of them had boarded a bus to Memphis. I’d thought it was either some kind of act or she was the second wife, not me. Could I have gotten it this wrong?

  “Maybe she didn’t know. But there’s a marriage license in this file.” He turned the page to another tab, showing me a marriage license between Ronnie and Amanda Cumming, dated six months before Ronnie came to Henryetta. Seven months before we started dating.

  “That can’t be right,” I protested.

  “Like I said, I had it verified. There’s no divorce on file.”

  “Maybe he went to the Caribbean for one of those quickie divorces,” I said even though I didn’t really believe it.

  “Maybe,” Mason conceded, “but I don’t think so. He was married in Dallas and lived there until he moved back to Henryetta. Did he tell you why he moved back?”

  I shook my head. “No. He said he missed living in a small town and a friend from high school gave him a lead on about a job.” I sat back in my chair. “I guess this explains the wedding ring.”

  “What wedding ring?”

  I quickly explained what Joe had seen.

  His mouth pursed. “Which only proves he’s still married.”

  “So he left town and ran off to meet his real wife in New Orleans?”

  He lifted his shoulders into a half shrug. “If I had to guess, I’d say yes.”

  “What does that mean? That I can get an annulment instead of a divorce?”

  “You don’t even need that,” he said softly. “Your marriage license to him means nothing.”

  It took a moment for his news to sink in through the mix of relief, sorrow, and betrayal swirling through my head. “You’re sure I don’t have to chase him down to serve him the divorce papers?”

  “No, and we can file bigamy charges if you’d like,” he said with hesitation in his voice.

  I remembered how he’d said he wanted me to see the contents of the folder before we discussed what he planned to do. “Why do I sense another big ol’ but in there? What does this have to do with whether you’re my friend or not?”

  He pushed the folder a few inches toward the center of the table and scooted his chair around to face me. Softness filled his eyes. “I can’t stop thinking about something you told me at the fundraiser in Little Rock back in August.”

  Mason had followed me to that fundraiser to try and trick me into sharing Rose’s secrets. He’d ruined the night for me—and out of fear and guilt, I’d nearly told him everything about Pearce Manchester, the man I’d killed in Ardmore.

  I tried to keep my cool. “A lot of things were said that night. You’ll have to be more specific.”

  “You wanted to know if I’d turn you in if you told me about something bad you’d done in Oklahoma.”

  The blood rushed from my head, but I said, “And?”

  “Did you break the law in Oklahoma, Neely Kate?” he asked quietly.

  I lifted my chin in defiance, cursing myself for telling him that, but it was too late to take it back now. “Surely you have some old law school buddy who can check that out,” I said. “Oh, but it was in Ardmore, and none of your high-falutin’ friends could be bothered to work in that rinky-dink town.”

  His face remained unchanged, his gaze full of sympathy, which confused the snot out of me. Did he pity me because he was about to bring my house down, just as he’d threatened to do to Rose?

  “The only thing I found on you was a shoplifting charge when you were eighteen. You were trying to steal cold medicine, and not the kind used in meth labs, so that hardly seems hardcore to me. The judge must have felt the same way because he only gave you community service.” His voice lowered. “Who’d you steal the medicine for, Neely Kate?”

  “Who said I did it for someone?” I asked. “Maybe it was for me.”

  “It wasn’t,” he said with a tender smile. “You wouldn’t steal it for yourself, but you would for someone else who needed it. Who was it?”

  What did it hurt to tell him? “Miss Zelda. The older woman who took me in when I went back lookin’ for my momma. She was sick and her niece had stolen all her money. I didn’t have any money myself, so I took it.”

  “And who was her niece?” he asked, sounding like he already knew.

  I figured he could easily find out for himself, so I told him. “Stella St. Clair.”

  “The woman who was murdered in Rose’s barn.”

  I nodded even though it wasn’t a question.

  “What did you get mixed up in, Neely Kate?” he asked, sounding concerned.

  “I can’t tell you, Mason.”

  He studied me for a moment as though mulling over my answer. “I know there was a kidnapping attempt against you in August by a Hardshaw associate. He told the sheriff’s deputies it was a case of mistaken identity, but I don’t buy it. Are you in danger now?”

  “I’m not sure,” I said honestly. “Are you gonna pursue it?” All laid out like this, I could see why he would.

  “That’s when we get to the question of whether I should treat this as your friend or as the state’s special prosecutor,” he said softly. “Except that’s a misnomer. I’m your friend no matter what decision we make together. So you tell me, do I let this go or do I pursue it to protect you?”

  My mouth flapped open. “What?”

  “You asked me if I’d turn you in for doing something bad in Oklahoma. I’d like to remind you that most crimes have a statute of limitations and you’ve been back in Fenton County
at least five years. There are still several crimes you could be arrested for, but the worst thing I can think of is murder, and you, Neely Kate Rivers, are no murderer. So if you killed someone and didn’t report it…let’s say I know you had just cause, and I would hate to be the reason it got exposed. So the real question is are you safe enough for me to let this go? Because frankly, I couldn’t live with myself if something happened to you.”

  “Mason…”

  “I don’t want to know any details, but I need to know that competent people are keeping you safe. While I know Rose is competent, she’s too preoccupied with Violet’s death and her pregnancy to give you her full undivided attention, so I’ll ask you again. Do you have protection?”

  Tears filled my eyes as I nodded.

  “Do you want me to legally open this can of worms or do you want me to stuff it back in the cabinet?”

  “You would do that?” I pushed past the lump in my throat.

  “To protect you? Yes. In a heartbeat.” He paused. “I’ve done some soul searching recently. I’ve made mistakes. It’s too late to change them, but I can try to do things differently going forward.”

  I took a second to get over my shock. “We’re workin’ on figurin’ out how to get Hardshaw to back off,” I said. “We don’t know exactly why they want me, but we think we have an idea.”

  “Joe knows about this?”

  I hesitated, suddenly worried this was a trap.

  “I just told you about someone’s confidential grand jury testimony,” he said. “If I use this against you or Joe, all you have to do is tell them what I told you.”

  “Is that why you told me?” I asked in disbelief. “So I’d have something to use against you?”

  “That was one of the reasons. The other was if I don’t pursue this, I need you to know what you’re facing.”

  “Why would you do this, Mason? After all the grief I’ve given you.”

  “I brought some of that grief upon myself,” he said. “You’re a good friend to Rose, and I can appreciate that, but you and I also used to be friends. I want to help you. No, I need to help you.”