by Blair Howard
My thoughts were interrupted as my iPhone began to vibrate its way across the top of my desk. I grabbed it just as it was about to fall off. It was Kate.
“Hey,” I said. “Where’ve you been? I’ve been trying to reach you.”
“I’ve been in a meeting with the chief. He’s not happy. It’s been more than a week and we still have nothing concrete for him.”
“Jeez, Kate. Tell him he needs to have patience. This is not an easy one. We have no physical evidence, nothing yet from Willis, and no suspects—at least, none we can be sure of. We start harassing Ralph Hartwell or the Archer sisters without cause, and Dan Drake will be all over us. Well, all over me.”
“I know, and that’s what I told him. Didn’t do a whole hell of a lot of good, but…. Well you know Johnston, probably better than I do.” She paused, and then her voice brightened. “Hey. I do have one bit of good news. Willis found a partial print on the watchband. If we can find a match, we’ll have something solid. He’s running it through AFIS as we speak. I’ll know something later this afternoon. There’s still nothing from the DNA lab about the hair though, and I don’t expect there will be for a couple more weeks.”
“Well, the print is something,” I said. “But if it belongs to who I think it might, there won’t be a match in AFIS.”
“You’re talking Ralph, correct?”
“Yeah. Either him or one of the Archers. Listen, I have something too. I have a key to a safe deposit box that belonged to Angela Hartwell. Can you get a warrant? We need to get into it.”
“Where the hell did you get that?”
“I’ll tell you when I see you. Look, if you can’t get a warrant, I’m calling Henry Strange. He’ll issue one.”
“I can get one. Which bank and branch? I’ll also need the box number.”
I gave her the information and told her I’d already checked and that the bank was open on Saturday morning. She said she’d give it her best shot. I tried to tell her that calling Judge Strange was the quickest and easiest way anyway, but….
“Let me try it through the proper channels first, Harry. I don’t want there to be even a hint of impropriety.”
“Since when were you bothered about improprieties?” I asked.
“Since Johnston jumped all over me less than thirty minutes ago. We’ll do it my way, okay?”
“Alright, alright.”
After we disconnected, I got myself another cup of Dark Italian, asked Jacque to hold my calls, and settled back down in my chair. I stayed there for the next hour.
I think they call it a power nap.
It was after four when I came around. I looked at my watch, and then called Amanda.
“Hey,” I said. “You at work?”
“No, I have the day off. Why?”
“You want to get some dinner?”
“We could. Where? When?”
“Somewhere quiet, where you won’t be the center of attention.”
“I know just the place. Where are you?”
“The office.”
“Great. I’ll pick you up in forty-five minutes.”
Click.
Damn! I’ll never get used to that. Whatever happened to “Goodbye?”
-----
She picked me up right on time. I slid into the passenger seat of her Lexus and was immediately taken by how stunning she looked. She was wearing a floaty white summer dress with a flared skirt cut above her knees. It had ridden up and showed almost all of the loveliest pair of thighs this side of the Mississippi. And she was in a great mood. Happy, laughing, joking—and it was infectious. She soon had my own spirits right up there with her own.
“So where are we going?” I asked, as she pulled out of the lot.
“I thought the Mountain City Club would be nice,” she said, looking sideways at me as she headed south on Georgia.
“Sure. Why not? I’d been thinking more along the lines of my place, but Mountain City is good.”
“Your place? I need real food, and the last time you said you’d cook we ended up with a fast food delivery.”
“Fast food my butt. That salmon came straight from Catch of the Day. It was delicious.”
“No it wasn’t. It was…. You took the easy way out. Now shut up. We’re almost there.”
She made up for what she said was “fast food” by inhaling a ten-ounce slab of chargrilled North Atlantic salmon and fresh vegetables followed by Key Lime pie and an ice cream sundae. Boy does that girl like her groceries. Me? I had a New York strip steak and a spoonful of Amanda’s sundae.
“So,” she said, between mouthfuls, “I’ve been talking to Charlie Grove. I think I may have stirred his pot. He’s been taking another look at the Archers, but it seems they’ve cleaned up their act. There have been no complaints since he investigated them more than a year ago. Since Regis died, in fact. What do you think about that?”
I stared at her. “That’s too coincidental to be a coincidence. One minute they’re screwing every customer that walks through the door, the next they’re clean, no complains. The timing is… it’s bizarre.”
She smiled, took another spoonful of sundae, then turned the spoon upside down in her mouth and did something to it that made my toes curl. She said, “I like bizarre. Let’s go home.” And we did.
Chapter 20
The following morning dawned ugly. The rain was coming down in sheets. I was up and about by six; Amanda lay like a dead dog, a very beautiful dead dog, with the sheets pulled up to her chin. I placed a cup of coffee beside her on the nightstand, smiling. I shook her. She stirred and rolled away, taking the covers with her and exposing a naked backside Venus herself would have been proud of.
“Hey.” I shook her again. “Come on. Get up. Have coffee with me.”
She groaned. “I sure as hell am going to replace you one of these days, Harry Starke. It’s Saturday, for God’s sake. Go away.”
I sighed, and left her to it.
I went back into the kitchen, grabbed my own coffee, then went into the living room and hit the remote to pull back the drapes. Visibility was down to almost zero. The rain and wind had whipped what little I could see of the river into an undulating field of tiny waterspouts. Dressed only in my boxers, I parked myself and my cup on the sofa and stared out over the water
I had only been there a couple of minutes when, without a word, Amanda came out and sat down beside me. All she had on was a T-shirt, several sizes too big for her. On the back was a picture of a teddy bear and the words “Hug Me.” So I did. It was a nice moment, quiet but for the rain beating on the windows, which was hypnotic. Finally, I turned Amanda loose and went out into the kitchen to make breakfast. Kate had sent a text at some point during the night. She had the warrant and would pick me up at my office at nine.
We ate. I showered, dressed—black pants, black dress shirt, shoulder rig for the M&P9, black loafers, and a black leather blazer. Morbid? Sure, but that’s how I like it. I was ready to leave by eight thirty, but Amanda was still on the sofa, a second cup of coffee in hand, staring out at the weather.
“Hey. I need to go.”
She didn’t reply. She simply turned up her face and smiled. I leaned over, kissed her lightly on the lips, and told her I’d be back as soon as I could. She nodded and turned again to stare out over the water.
The drive over the Thrasher Bridge was a nightmare. I had the wipers on high, but they had little effect on the torrent of water lashing the windshield, and it was no better when I pulled into the lot outside my office. Thank the Lord I’d had that automatic gate installed.
I didn’t bother to get out of the car. I just sat and waited for Kate to arrive. I only had to wait a couple minutes. The weather decided which car we would use, since there was no way she was going to get out of hers in the downpour, so I had to. “Equality for women” hah! Only when it’s convenient, or the sun’s shining.
We didn’t have far to go, and we arrived at the Broad Street branch of the First Appalachian Bank onl
y a few minutes later. The rain had not let up one wit. Fortunately, Kate was in a cruiser, so she parked in the rear lot close to the entrance.
The manager was a lady, perhaps fifty years old, very efficient. She took the warrant and stared at it, unsure of what to do. I had the feeling it was a first for her. She looked up and down at Kate at least a dozen times while she read every word, like some great black bird pecking for worms. Finally, she nodded, went to her desk, grabbed a set of keys from her desk, and asked us to follow her into the vault.
We both put on latex gloves while the old bird opened the box. She withdrew the inner container, placed it on the table, and turned to leave.
Kate stopped her. “I’ll need you to stay and observe, ma’am, if you don’t mind.”
The woman, silent, nodded. She stayed.
The contents of the box included only a letter addressed to “Whom it May Concern,” a thick sheaf of copy papers, an envelope with a tiny, MemoQ digital recorder inside, and another with an SD camera card.
I wanted to get my hands on it all right there and then, but I knew it was impossible. The contents were evidence, and as such were subject to the chain of custody. They had to be labeled, documented, and sent to the crime lab for examination.
Kate placed each of the items in separate evidence bags or envelopes, then signed them, and had the branch manager countersign them.
“What’s the chance of getting copies made today?” I asked Kate.
“Pretty good. The paper we can copy back at headquarters. Whatever’s on the recorder and the memory card will need to be copied by a lab tech to ensure whatever’s on them isn’t damaged or erased. That might take a day or two, but I can probably talk Mike Willis into doing a quickie. If not, we’ll have to wait until the lab releases them.”
“Sounds good,” I said. “Let’s get back to Amnicola and see what can be done.”
We thanked the branch manager, then headed north. It was an equally short drive to the Police Services Center, and we arrived just as the lab people were leaving for an early lunch. We caught Mike Willis as he was heading out the door.
“Hey Mike,” Kate said. “I need a favor. Can you spare us maybe thirty minutes?”
“Sure. What’s up?”
Kate told him what she needed. He nodded, and took the two items from her. While we were waiting, she donned a pair of latex gloves, and made two sets of copies of the mass of paper and the letter. She’d barely finished when Willis reappeared. He’d copied the data from the SD card and the recorder onto DVDs: two sets, one for me, the other for Kate. I told him I owed him one, and then Kate drove me back to my office. I didn’t go inside. Instead, I climbed into the Maxima, called Amanda, and then headed home.
It was almost noon when I arrived, and the rain had subsided to a fine drizzle. Amanda had tidied up and prepared lunch. She’d cooked some tiny shrimp, iced them down, added mayo and alfalfa, and with a crusty baguette had made a plate of sandwiches.
I dropped the sheaf of papers and the two DVDs on the desk, and grabbed a bottle of Niersteiner from the cooler. We were all set.
I tried to let the copied evidence lie while we ate, but I couldn’t do it. Halfway through I had to put my sandwich down and pick up the copy of the letter. It was from Angela. It was short, just a page and a half, but handwritten in cursive. Amanda had been sitting beside me, but when I opened the letter she got up, came around behind me, and read over my shoulder.
To Whom It May Concern,
I know it may sound melodramatic, but if you are reading this note I am probably dead.
It was exactly a year ago today that my husband Regis died. I was devastated. I was also convinced that his brother, Ralph, had had something to do with it. I still am. Dr. Gray said it was a heart attack. I didn’t believe it, so I requested an autopsy. The result was the same, but deep in my heart I know he was murdered, and now I fear for my own life, but I will not give up trying to find out what happened to him. I know Ralph killed my husband, or that he paid someone else to do it.
Why did he kill him? Because Regis had found out that he, Ralph, was robbing the bank’s customers. Regis had proof, of sorts—not enough to stand up in court, but enough to ruin Ralph if he exposed him.
In the box you’ll find hard copies of counterfeit checks that Regis recovered from the company. They total several millions of dollars, all of it stolen. There’s also a recording of a conversation between Regis and Ralph in which Regis accused him of the crimes, and there are photographs of Ralph with Ruth Archer. They were having an affair. Regis hired a private detective, a Mr. Solomon Wise, and had him follow Ralph. The man wasn’t much good, but he did manage to get some compromising photos of the two of them together.
As you will see when you look at the hard copies, it appears that the stealing stopped when Regis died. I suspect that it continued, but with Regis dead and Ralph in control, I had no access to the bank records and so couldn’t prove it.
Ralph is still seeing Ruth. I’ve seen them together myself on several occasions, and I suspect it may be her, or someone working for her, that is or was working with Ralph.
I can’t prove that Regis was murdered, but I am convinced that he was. I think when you listen to the recording that you’ll come to that conclusion too. I will not give up trying to find the proof, even though it may get me killed too. If that happens, I hope that you, whoever you are, will see that Regis gets the justice he deserves, and that Ralph and whoever he’s working with get their just deserts.
Angela Hartwell
March 29, 2016
“Oh, my, God,” Amanda said quietly. “That poor woman.” She went back to her seat, picked up her glass, and took a big sip. “Oh, my, God,” she repeated, leaning close to me, trying to see the letter. I read it again, quickly, and then passed it to her.
I knew Sol Wise. He was a weird little guy who ran a one-man private investigation agency out of an office on Rossville Boulevard. I wasn’t sure how good he was, but I did know that he wasn’t averse to skirting the law to get what he needed. He came to me for a job once, back when I first opened the office, and I probably would have given him one if he’d had the right qualifications, but he didn’t.
He was cheap, and he didn’t mind getting his hands dirty. From what I’d heard, he stayed busy, which must have meant something. I wondered what he’d found.
The letter hadn’t told me much more than what I’d already learned from Dr. Gray and the Loftises. What I hadn’t known was that Ralph was having an affair with Ruth Archer, and that put the entire investigation in a whole new light. For one thing, it would explain her keen interest in me and the investigation.
“Ralph Hartwell and Ruth Archer?” Amanda asked, her eyes wide in disbelief.
I shrugged. I was as surprised as she was. “Could it be true, I wonder? Was Ralph having it off with Ruth? I guess we’ll know in a minute.”
I slipped the photo disk into the laptop and opened the file. There were two-dozen photographs in it. Amanda watched as I brought the first one up on the screen. It was a little dark, taken at night with a medium telephoto lens, but the quality wasn’t at all bad.
Good for you, Sol.
He’d chosen his spot well. The images had been shot in the country club parking lot, obviously from Wise’s car window. The security lights provided good illumination, if weird coloring, but no matter; they were good enough to show to a jury. The first image showed Ruth and Ralph walking down the front entrance steps. From there, the shots progressed until they reached what I assumed must have been Ruth’s car, a new, white Mercedes-AMG GTS sports car. The final four shots showed them both looking around, evidently to see if anyone was watching. The last three images showed them with their arms wrapped around each other, kissing.
Oh boy, do I know how that feels. Stupid man. Out in the open, in the country club parking lot of all places.
I heaved a sigh. I almost felt sorry for him, especially as I began to wonder what else might be going on betw
een them. Could Angela have been right? Was Ruth involved in the check scam with Ralph? It would make a lot of sense, and answer a lot of questions.
And if she was…. If they were…. Hmmm. We’ll see, I guess.
I ejected the photo disk and set it to one side. On Monday I’d get Tim to make prints. I slipped the audio DVD into the drive. Mike Willis had made an mp3 of the recording. The metadata told me it had been made on March 23, 2015, six days before Regis died. It was just over twenty minutes long. I hit the play button, and we listened to it all the way through. When it was done, we listened to it again. This time I made notes of the highlights.
“Ralph, you stupid son of a bitch,” it began. I assumed the voice was Regis Hartwell’s. “I know what you’ve been up to. I know you’ve been stealing from our customers. Oh, don’t look so shocked. You knew I’d find out, God damn it. Just how long did you think you could get away with it?”
“You crazy piece of shit.” That must have been Ralph. “You’re out of your goddamn mind. What the hell makes you think that?”
“These!” The shout was followed by the rustling of papers. “They’re checks, Ralph. Counterfeit checks. All of them fraudulent. You’ve gone too far this time. You’ll go to jail for this.”
“I had nothing to do with them, you… you… asshole. Why me? Why the hell do you think it was me?”
“Because you’re goddamn stupid. That’s how I know. I have your bank statements. Every time one of these things hit, you made a cash deposit.”
“How the hell did you get your hands on those? I don’t bank here!”
“No, you don’t, smartass. That’s another reason I know what you were doing. Why wouldn’t you use our own banks, unless you had something to hide?”
“How… did… you… get… them?”
“Archie is a friend of mine, that’s how.”