by Blair Howard
It was almost six o’clock by the time I finished. I was bushed, and so was Amanda. We called it a day.
“So,” she said, a large glass of white wine in hand, “What are you going to feed me?”
Damn. I’d completely forgotten I’d promised to cook.
“I dunno. To be honest, I haven’t given it a whole lot of thought. Scrambled eggs and toast, maybe?” I asked hopefully.
“Ugh, you really know how to show a girl a good time. I was thinking more along the lines of poached salmon with asparagus.”
Poached salmon and asparagus? I had ‘em both, but damn. I really didn’t want to cook.
I looked at her. She was laughing.
“It’s okay, scrambled eggs will be fine….”
“Wait,” I said. “I have an idea.” I hit the app on my iPhone, found what I was looking for, smiled at her, and went into the bedroom to order. An hour later, Dinner Delivered showed up at the door with… yep, you guessed it: salmon filet with asparagus for Amanda and a sixteen ounce T-bone with fries for me.
And it was great, too. Not quite up to my own standards, but close enough. Needless to say, the evening turned out far better than I had expected an hour ago.
Chapter 10
I’d told Tim I would be in the office by seven thirty that next morning, and I was. I spent the first thirty minutes in my cave with Jacque, making a list of things I needed to get done. We were just finishing up when Kate arrived. As always, she looked amazing, and it wasn’t what she was wearing: just a simple white, sleeveless top, black pants, and loafers.
Jacque left, and I took the next few minutes to bring Kate up to speed. She listened, made notes on her iPad, sipped her coffee, said little.
“What’s wrong, Kate? You seem preoccupied.”
She sighed. Then tilted her head back to look at the ceiling.
“You’re right. I’m trying to run four murder investigations as well as this one. And this one looks to be turning into a bear. I hope you’re wrong, but if Regis Hartwell was murdered, I’m going to have to get more involved. He was kinda prominent in this town—and a close friend of the mayor, too. He’ll be all over it. You sure he was murdered?”
“No, but his wife was, and I don’t believe in coincidence. Neither do you.”
She nodded, took a deep breath. “I need more coffee. What else do you have?”
“Did CSI find anything at Angela’s apartment?”
“I don’t have that report yet. Apparently the place was a hell of a mess. We can follow up on that after the interviews.”
“Okay. I gave Tim and Ronnie a couple of tasks yesterday; I need to see what they found, but it shouldn’t take long. You can wait for a minute, right?”
I picked up the phone and asked Jacque to send in Tim and Ronnie, and also asked her to join us and take notes.
“Okay, people. I’m on a tight schedule this morning, so let’s get started. Tim. Have you been able to find Angela Hartwell’s cell phone?”
“Sorry, Mr. Starke. I can’t find it. Either the battery’s dead or it’s been removed. It might even be at the bottom of the river where you found her.”
“That’s a thought,” I said. “Kate would it be possible to organize a couple of divers from Wildlife Resources?”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
“What else do you have for me, Tim?”
“As I mentioned on Friday, she has an almost perfect credit score. 832. Her net worth is still a bit iffy, but I’ve managed to put a rough estimate together. She’s worth—and this is a conservative estimate—$57.72 million.”
“Are you kidding me?” I was astounded. “She was twenty-nine years old, for Christ’s sake. How the hell did that happen?”
“Well, it was easy enough since she inherited all of her husband’s cash, real property, and investments. It seems he was a bit of a wiz with those, but I’ll get to him in a minute. Mrs. Hartwell owned her home. Zillow estimates it to be worth $850,000, but I think that’s a little on the low side. It’s probably worth closer to a million. She also owned—and it’s part of the net worth I already mentioned—a substantial amount of real property, including a hotel and a strip mall. Their investments in blue chip stocks are also substantial. She lived, as we know, in a rented apartment. There’s almost $63,000 in one checking account and a little over $94,000 in another, and then there’s $250,000 in liquid capital in a savings account. It would have been very easy to get her hands on money if she needed it. She was solid, Mr. Starke. That’s about it. She was also a very private lady.”
I shook my head. I’d known her, not well, and I’d known him slightly, but I never would have thought they were worth that kind of money. She certainly didn’t dress the part. I looked at Tim and nodded for him to continue.
“She was an only child, and her parents are both dead, so, according to the way Regis set up the family trust, it all passes to his younger brother.”
“Fifty-seven million good reasons to kill her, or have her killed,” I said.
Tim nodded. “Regis Hartwell, as you know, died of a heart attack just over a year ago. He owned and operated the nine Hartwell Community Banks. When Mr. Hartwell passed, the Hartwell company passed to Ralph. That business is estimated to be worth close to $900 million, including the bank buildings and liquid assets of more than $600 million.”
He flipped through several screens on his iPad. “Ralph Hartwell was a year younger than Regis. Now he’s thirty-eight and married to Mary, his second wife. No kids with her, but two from the previous marriage. He lives on Signal Mountain, and….” He looked up and around the table with a grin. “This is where it gets interesting. He was in deep financial trouble when his brother died. He was behind on his child support, credit card bills, car payments; he was two payments in arrears on his mortgage. He likes to live high off the hog. The first thing he did when he took over the banks was pay off his debts and raise his salary. His brother’s death was—well, fortuitous?”
He paused to take a sip from his bottle of water. “His wife… uh, Mary, is a big spender. Drives a Mercedes, shops at Bergdorf, Neiman, you get the idea. Mary was his secretary at the main branch before they were married, and is probably the reason for the breakup of Ralph’s first marriage. Oh, and they’re both members of the country club.”
“They are? Huh. How come I haven’t run into them?” I looked at my watch. We were out of time. “That it, Tim?” He nodded.
“Good job, as always,” I said. “And thank you. Jacque, could you get all that entered into the computer and break it down into short bites, please?
She nodded, and left the room. I turned and looked at Ronnie. “Okay, smartass. How’s it done? How do I rob a bank without setting foot inside?”
He grinned at me. “There are a number of ways, some of which Tim could help you with better than me, the Internet, hacking, etc., but he’ll also tell you that it’s become very difficult to hit the big banks directly. Their security is unbelievably complex, but the smaller banks are easier—community banks and savings and loan companies. But it’s even easier to go for the bank’s customers. A phishing expedition would gather the necessary personal information: account numbers, login, and so on. Not easy, but it can be done.
“The other way is relatively simple,” Ronnie continued, “but much more labor intensive. It involves counterfeit checks on corporate accounts. They wouldn’t actually be robbing the bank, per se, but the bank would have to make good on the losses if it wanted to retain its good name and reputation, so, technically….”
“How would that work?” I asked.
“Well, like I said, it’s labor intensive, but if carried out by a dedicated team of crooks, it could produce significant results. The idea is to pick a mid-size company. A manufacturing company would probably be best, but not essential. What you do is get hold of one of their checks, make a dozen or so counterfeit copies, keeping the company name, routing number, and account number intact. You then write a counterfeit check to
a bogus company for a small amount, less than $1,000—say for materials or services rendered—deposit it in a bank account set up in the name of that phony company, and then you sit back and wait. If the check clears without problems or query, you’re golden. You write a second check for a larger sum, say three or four thousand. The idea is to get the bank used to seeing the checks and the name. If that one goes through, you do it one more time. This time for fifteen or twenty thousand. You space the three or four checks out over a month, and then you quit while you’re ahead. It takes that long for the target company’s bookkeeping to catch up. So the third check has to go through before they can catch it. Then you clean the money out of the account, close it, and launder the money.”
“But don’t banks have safeguards in place to catch that kind of thing?” Kate asked. “It can’t be that easy, surely.”
“Big banks do. Small banks, community banks, and company savings and loans usually don’t have that kind of sophistication. They can’t afford it. Oh some do, but….”
“It can’t be that easy,” I said.
Ronnie just looked at me, an enigmatic smile on his face.
“Okay, so what you’re saying is this: I steal a check, copy it, and write checks to myself, or some phony company I made up?”
“It’s a bit more complicated than that, but essentially… yes.”
“Where the hell would someone get a company check?” Kate asked.
“That’s actually the most difficult part. The counterfeits have to look like the real thing.”
“Come on, Ronnie. We’re talking small potatoes here. Twenty or twenty-five thousand is not worth killing for, nor can I see anyone making the effort,” I said skeptically.
“So you say,” he replied. “But think about it this way: Eight or ten deals like that a month, and you’re looking at some serious money, maybe as much as a quarter million. Repeat it five or six times a year, and that’s several million dollars. Easy money. You hit each company once, then wait a year or so and hit them all again. Over two or three years… five, maybe as much as eight million.”
He was right. I could see it. What I couldn’t see was the kind of organization and dedication it would take to pull off such a heist on such a grand scale.
“Sorry, Ronnie,” I said. “I just don’t see it. You’re talking a lot of companies, and a lot of banks. I just don’t think it’s viable.”
He shrugged. “It is if you have the resources. There are hundreds of companies within a hundred miles of Chattanooga, especially since VW and Amazon arrived. It could be done. And, I might add, it already has been done elsewhere. How do you think I came up with it?”
He had me there.
“Didn’t you tell me that Joan Loftis said Regis Hartwell thought someone was stealing from his banks?” Kate asked. “Maybe they were.”
I nodded. The more I thought about it, the more viable it became. Hartwell was operating nine bank branches. It was a perfect setup for what Ronnie had just described. And then I had a thought: Especially if….
“Okay, people. Good job. I need to get out of here. I have several appointments this morning.” With that, I waited until they’d gone, all except Kate, and then I called Amanda. At the same time, Kate was calling to request divers be dispatched to the country club to try to find the phone.
“Hey, you,” I said when Amanda picked up. “Listen, I know you’re busy, but I was wondering if you’d found anything…. Yes, yes, yes… I know. I know you said you’d call if you had anything, but I just thought I’d—Okay. Call me later. Bye.” Jeez, I only asked.
I looked at Kate. She was smiling, “All not well in paradise?” she asked.
I shrugged, “Amanda offered to help. She’s digging through Channel 7’s archives. Hell, Kate. I’m just as slammed as you are. I needed the help, and she offered. It’s as simple as that.”
“Methinks he doth protest too much.” She grabbed her iPad from the coffee table. “Come on. Let’s go. I don’t have all day.”
So we headed out to see Dr. Gray. On the way out, I told Jacque I’d be back sometime that afternoon.
Hah.
Chapter 11
I’d arranged to meet Dr. Gray at his office at CHI Memorial Hospital—the Chattanooga Heart Institute. It was just a fifteen-minute drive from my office. I knew we wouldn’t have a whole lot of time, though, since the doctor was sure to be busy.
Sure enough, the place was a bustling mass of humanity. CHI Memorial is always busy. He guided us along the maze of corridors back to his office, and we got to see it all.
Dr. Gray was a tall man, dressed in the obligatory white lab coat. He was perhaps a couple of years older than me—say forty-four or five—light red hair, clean shaven, slightly stooped, hands in the pockets of his coat, a bright smile on his face
“So you’re Harry Starke,” he said, sitting down behind his desk. His voice was much deeper than I’d expected. “I’ve heard a lot about you. I don’t know whether to be impressed or frightened. Impressed, I think. And the lady is…?”
“Lieutenant Catherine Gazzara, Chattanooga PD, Doctor,” Kate said, offering her hand. He rose from his seat, leaning over the desk to shake it. “I’m actually running the investigation. Mr. Starke is consulting.”
“You said on the phone that you wanted to talk to me about Angela Hartwell.” He looked at me as he said it. “Very well, what can I do for you?”
“Harry?” Kate prodded me.
“I know you must be busy, Doctor, so I’ll get right to it. I understand you were with Angela Hartwell at the country club the night she died.”
“Yes, we had a couple of drinks, talked for a while, and then she left. At about nine thirty, I think.”
“How was she? Upset? Worried? Did she seem to have anything on her mind?”
“As far as I could tell, she was perfectly normal. A bit harassed, intense, and yes, she had a lot on her mind, but that’s the way she was.”
“May I ask what you talked about?”
He sighed, shook his head, then said, “I was a good friend of Regis’s, which is how I knew Angela. How she knew me. Regis and I played together several times a week, mostly on the weekends. It came as a great shock to me when he died. Most unexpected, so it was. Picture of health, the man was….” He sat for a moment, staring down at his desk, seemingly lost in thought. After a while, he looked up again.
“Angela was convinced Regis was murdered. That was what we were talking about. That’s what we always talked about. All Angela ever wanted to talk about.”
“What made her think he was murdered?” I asked.
“Just that he was disgustingly healthy. To my knowledge, he hadn’t seen a doctor in ten years. He was a runner, you know. Made the top 100 in the Boston Marathon several times. Sudden death happens, especially where the heart is concerned, but Regis…. Well. She ordered a post-mortem. Nothing. No signs of heart disease. It just stopped. She never got over it, poor girl.”
“And what do you think? Could he have been murdered?”
“Sheesh.” He pulled a face and sucked air in through his teeth. “Could have been, I suppose, though how, I have no idea. Who… well, Angela was convinced that her brother-in-law had something to do with it, but the tox screen revealed nothing. He’d had a drink, so there was a small amount of alcohol, but that was all.”
I made a mental note of his reference to Ralph Hartwell, and continued.
“What about Potassium Chloride or SUX?”
“Succinylcholine chloride? I doubt it. It’s almost impossible to obtain outside of a hospital, and highly regulated. Potassium Chloride… possibly. It would have to be injected, but there were no injection sites found during the post mortem, and Regis wouldn’t have allowed anything like… that… unless….”
He stopped talking, stared down at his desktop again, his eyes closed.
“Unless what?” Kate asked.
“Unless he was drugged first. Damn, why didn’t I think of that before? Any one of th
e date rape drugs would have rendered him non-resistant, then it would be easy enough to administer an injection. Potassium chloride would do it. He’d be dead in minutes.”
“But you said no injection sites were found, and wouldn’t the drugs that sedated him have shown up on the tox screen?” Kate asked.
“No, there are no tests for the so-called date rape drugs. GHB be can be detected in the hair, but no one would think to look for it, and the others—Rohypnol, Ketamine and so on—no. Potassium chloride? The human body produces it naturally, so unless the levels were off the charts, it wouldn’t be noticed. And an injection site probably wouldn’t have been noticed if it was between the toes, or even in a nice vein in the ankle. One of the great myths of injecting is that it leaves a mark, and for multiple injections, that’s true. But for a one-off, probably not. Needles these days are extremely fine, smaller even than a sewing needle, and will often leave no mark at all.”
“So it could have been done, then?” I asked. “He could have been killed with Potassium chloride?”
“It’s possible.”
“But isn’t the injectable type also hard to get?” Kate asked.
“Not so much. Vets use it all the time, and their offices get broken into rather regularly. There was a string of break-ins only last year, if you remember, here and in Cleveland.”
Kate nodded thoughtfully.
“Look,” he said, glancing at his watch. “I don’t want to rush you, but….”
“Of course,” I said. Just a few more questions, if you don’t mind. Doctor, why did Angela Hartwell think that her brother-in-law might have had something to do with Regis’s death?”
“Regis and Ralph didn’t get along. I know that from talking to Regis. He would have fired him if he could, but his father had set it up so that he couldn’t. Smart man, old man Hartwell. Anyway, Regis was convinced Ralph was stealing from the company. He didn’t have any proof—at least, if he did, he didn’t tell me. But he was convinced Ralph was stealing, and I guess that if he could have proved it he would have, and Ralph would have gone to jail. Angela knew everything Regis knew, plus she’s been digging around ever since Regis died. She told me she did have proof, but she didn’t say what. That’s all I know.”