by Blair Howard
“If you have such evidence, we’d like to see it.”
She opened the file on the desk in front of her and took out a single sheet of paper. On it were copies of four checks, all seemingly written by one company to another. She handed it to Hartwell. He glanced at it, and passed it to Drake.
“As you can see,” she continued. “Those are counterfeit checks totaling $30,873 written by ICT Manufacturing Inc. to a company called Askar Industrial Supply. The checks were deposited in a bogus Askar account at your Fort Oglethorpe Branch over a period of four weeks. The fourth and final check was deposited on February 23, 2015. The entire balance was withdrawn via Internet banking two days later at nine o’clock in the morning on February 25, five minutes after the funds were available.”
“So,” Hartwell said. “The checks were counterfeit. We get a lot of those. What does that have to do with me?”
“Yes, you do indeed get a lot. In fact, over a period of two years, your banks have been hit more than 110 times that we know of. We recovered that information from a safe deposit box belonging to your deceased sister-in-law, Angela Hartwell.”
Hartwell’s eyes narrowed slightly; his lips tightened, but he said nothing.
“You asked what that had to do with you,” Kate said, handing over a second sheet of paper. “That is a copy of one of your bank statements. You’ll note several of the deposits are highlighted. Please look at the one dated February 26 for exactly $3,000, in cash. How do you explain that?”
He looked at the paper. It was shaking slightly in his hand.
“It’s extra income. Nothing more.”
“How do you explain that extra income, Mr. Hartwell?”
“It’s easy enough. Back in the day, before Regis died, I had to do tax preparation to supplement my income. The son of a bitch kept a tight rein on his money.”
“And you would, of course, have declared that extra income to the IRS?”
Now he was becoming angry. “Of course I declared all of my income, including supplemental, to the IRS. What do you think I am?”
“I think you’re a stupid little man, a crook that’s not nearly as smart than you think you are. Over a period of almost two years you made similar deposits totaling more than $300,000. That’s an awful lot of tax preparation. Why the hell didn’t you just hide it under the bed?”
He didn’t answer. More surprisingly, Drake was quiet too.
“You will, of course, be able to provide proof of where that income came from?”
Again, no answer.
“Fine,” she said. “But before we move on, I should tell you that we have evidence of at least 100 more such bogus transactions and accounts.”
His face was pale, his hands trembling, his eyes mere slits.
Kate smiled. “Moving right along. This was also found in Angela Hartwell’s safe deposit box,” she picked up a small digital recorder. She was about to turn it on but paused and looked up at him, smiling again.
“By the way, Mr. Hartwell,” she said quietly. “Did you know that your sister-in-law thought that you murdered her husband?”
“You don’t have to answer that,” Drake snapped, and he didn’t.
“Hmmm. I see,” she flipped the play button on the recorder, and we watched shocked looks come over their faces as the playback began. For twenty minutes we sat and listened as the angry conversation between Ralph Hartwell and his brother played out.
“Anything to say about that?” She asked when it finished.
Silence.
“No? Harry, do you have anything you’d like to say to Mr. Hartwell?
Before I could answer, Drake said, “He has no standing here and no right to say anything.”
“Ah, but as I’ve already explained, Mr. Drake, you’re wrong. Oh, before you get started, Harry, I’d like to show them both this.” She opened the file, took out a photographic print, and passed it across to Hartwell. It was the final blow. I thought he was going to explode. It was of him and Ruth Archer wrapped around each other, lips locked.
I nodded, smiling. “You know what I think, Ralph? First, I think you killed Regis. That recording was made just five days before he died. Second, I think you probably killed Angela, too. We’re just waiting for the results of a DNA test before we hang it on you. Third, I know without a shadow of a doubt that you were robbing Hartwell Banks, and that you were doing it in partnership with Ruth Archer.”
“That’s enough,” Drake said, leaping up from his chair. “This interview is over. Come on, Ralph. We’re getting out of here.” Ralph began to rise to his feet.
“Sit down,” Kate said, quietly. “Both of you. If you don’t. I’ll charge you with bank robbery right now, Mr. Hartwell. I have more than enough probable cause.”
“You wouldn’t be able to make it stick,” Drake said. “That—” he waved his hand at the file, photo, and recorder—“is all circumstantial. It all can be explained.”
“Perhaps it can, but it’s definitely enough to charge him, and then I can hold him while I take my time proving Murder One. So sit!”
They sat.
“Harry,” Kate said. “You want to continue?”
“As I said, I think you killed your brother. You had every motive in the book. First and foremost was your fear of exposure. Even if Regis didn’t report the robberies, the sale of the bank certainly would have exposed them. Revenge would be a second motive. You hated your brother. He inherited everything, you got nothing, and you said yourself he kept you poor. Greed? You wanted it all for yourself. As to means, that was easy enough if you know the right people, and you certainly do. What did you use? Potassium chloride? Succinylcholine chloride? Either one would induce a heart attack.”
I watched his eyes as I named the drugs. The first got no reaction. The second got a slight twitch of the eye. If I hadn’t been looking for it, I would have missed it.
“You can’t prove any of that,” he said, but his voice cracked as he said it. He cleared his throat a few times, making kind of a big deal about it.
“Can I have some water?”
I got up, fetched a bottle, and handed it to him.
I watched as he drank, then said, “I know you killed him, Ralph,” when he’d finished. We’ve asked for an exhumation order. If he had elevated levels of potassium chloride, you’re toast.”
It was a bluff, but Ralph couldn’t help himself. “That won’t prove anything,” he snarled.
Drake grabbed his arm. “Shut up.”
Ralph shook his hand off. “Potassium chloride is produced naturally in the body.”
“That it is,” I said, smiling at him. “So that’s what you used, not SUX?”
This time he didn’t answer.
“What about Angela?” I asked.
“What about her?”
“Did you do that, or did Ruth?”
“Piss off, you tin-pot shamus.”
I laughed out loud. That was a first. I’d never been called a shamus before. I loved it. Unfortunately, he was right. We had a bunch of circumstantial evidence, but it was going to take more if we were going to take it to the DA.
“You want to tell us about it?” Kate asked. “It will go easier for you if you do.”
“Screw you, lady. I didn’t kill Regis; I didn’t kill Angela, and I didn’t steal from the bank. The only thing I’m guilty of is a drunken kiss in the parking lot at the country club. You can’t even prove I was having an affair.”
“Okay,” Kate said, rising to her feet. “That will do it for today. You can go, but please stay close. I wouldn’t want to have to come looking for you.”
“You’re not going to charge him with anything?” Drake asked. I think he was slightly perplexed at the idea.
“Nah,” she said. “Not today, anyway. Plenty of time, eh, Harry?”
We walked them to the front entrance, and they left together in Drake’s BMW.
“So,” Kate said, turning toward me. “What did you make of that?”
“Not abso
lutely sure. He was robbing the bank; there’s no doubt about that. I think he killed his brother, but he’s right: that one is long gone. We’d never prove it, not unless we did exhume the body. He’s right about the potassium chloride, but that’s not what he used. He used SUX. I could see it in his eyes, and he’s feeling pretty good about it. Up until a few months ago there wasn’t a tox screen that could find it; it was untraceable. And he knows that. Now, though, so I’ve heard, there’s a company in Europe that can find it, even if the body is fully decomposed. It would be expensive, but it’s a thought. Maybe a last resort. And as for Angela? He sure as hell had motive and opportunity for that one. He has no alibi. Any word on the print Willis found on the watchband?”
“No, but that bottle of water you handed to Ralph might provide us with a match. I had it taken from him as we left the interview room. If they match, we have him, and I’ll arrest him. We should know within the next hour or so. Let’s go over the road and grab a coffee while we wait.”
We did, but it didn’t. The print did not match those Mike Willis was able to lift from the water bottle. That didn’t mean Ralph didn’t kill her. It just meant we couldn’t tie him to her—yet. But who the hell did the print belong to?
Damn!
“Okay, so what’s next?” Kate asked.
“I think we need to go visit Ruth Archer. How about tomorrow morning? You up for it?”
“Sorry, I can’t. I have an interview; one of my other cases.”
I nodded. “Okay. I’ll do it. I need to get hold of Wise first, though. I’m hoping he’ll have something for me I can use.”
I looked at my watch. It was just after noon.
“You want to go get some lunch?”
She hesitated for a minute, then said, “Sure, but we’ll need to take both cars. I have to get back here by two thirty. Where should we go?”
“How about the Boathouse. It’s busy, but close. We’ll go in your cruiser and you can drop me back here afterward.”
-----
When I arrived back at my office later that afternoon, Sol Wise was waiting for me, a huge grin on his face and a sheet of paper in his hand.
“Here you go,” he said, handing the paper to me.
I glanced over it. It wasn’t much, just a few type-written lines and some numbers. “That didn’t take long. How’d you manage it?”
“We all pitched in. I did some, the girls did the rest. What you have there is accurate. We looked inside every unit, all 263 of them. There were a lot of vacancies, as you can see. I kinda enjoyed myself. It was a chance to hone my skills a little.”
“What sort of skills?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.
He grinned, but said nothing.
“I get it. Plausible deniability, right Sol?”
He just tilted his head slightly to one side and winked.
I shook my head and smiled to myself. “I’m going to see Ruth Archer tomorrow. Anything I should know?”
“No. Not yet. I tagged along behind her last night. She left her office at four and went to the club. She had dinner there, a few drinks, and was home by ten. I spent today knocking on doors. You said you needed that,” he nodded at the paper in my hand, “ASAP, so I thought I’d better make sure you had it.”
I nodded. “Stay on her. She’s up to no good, and I want to know what it is.”
Chapter 26
Ruth Archer had an office on the top floor of the building that housed the Archer Finance company. It was a small, two-story structure on Market Street, just west of the Choo Choo.
Just inside and to the right of the front entrance was an open door. The calligraphy on the glass pane read:
ARC Inc.
Archer Recovery Company
Inside and to the right of that, a large man sat behind a desk. And I mean he was a big man. Easily 350 pounds.
The guy in the Mazda 3? Could be. He’s big enough.
“Yeah? Whadda ya want?” Goliath growled when I knocked on the door.
Oh this one was a treasure. His head sat square on his shoulders and his huge jowls spread sideways, turning his face into a giant pear with an untidy tuft of black hair on top. Fat lips, a fat squashed nose, and small, piggy eyes under huge black brows completed the picture.
“I’d like to see Ruth Archer.”
“She ‘spectin’ ya?”
“No, but she’ll see me. Please tell her Harry Starke is here.”
“’Arry Starke, ‘eh? I know’s you.” He looked me up and down, then said, “Y’ain’t so much.” He reached for the phone, and his entire body shook, from the huge jowls on down.
He punched a single number into the keypad, waited a moment, then said, “’E’s ‘ere.”
So, the word is out. She is expecting me.
He dropped the handset back into the cradle and waved a fat hand in the same general direction that I’d come. “That way. Up the stairs on the right.”
I nodded, and left him staring after me. Burke or Hare? I wondered.
She was waiting for me. If she’d dressed to impress me, she’d done one hell of a job. For the first time in my life, I felt small. She was wearing heels that pushed her to an astonishing six foot five, and almost filled the damn doorway.
You had to be there. She looked like a runway model. The dark blue business skirt suit was tailored to accentuate her figure, and it did. She wore a white scoop neck under the suit jacket. I felt decidedly underdressed, and she knew it.
“You were expecting me,” I said as she stepped back to allow me into her office.
“I was. Please sit down.” I sat in one of her two guest chairs—they looked a lot like mine—and she turned the other chair so that it faced me, then sat down too. She smiled at me, and crossed her legs, offering me an unrestricted view of just about everything. Over the years, I’d been presented with similar views many times. I’ve never gotten used to it.
“Ralph called me. He said you’d been to see him and that you thought he was having an affair with me.”
Straight to the point. No small talk, nice to see you, how are you?
I could do that too.
“Were you?”
She shrugged, looked away. “I suppose you might call it that. We did meet once in a while.” All of a sudden my head was filled with the mind-boggling image of this amazing, statuesque woman writhing about naked with a skinny little man less than half her size. I smiled.
“What?” she asked.
“Nothing I can tell you about,” I said. “So you were having an affair with him?”
“If you say so.”
“I don’t say so; I know so. I have the proof. “
“A couple of photos? I hardly think that’s proof. As Ralph told you, they were the result of a little too much to drink and Ralph stepping outside his neat little box. No more than that.”
“Oh, I think it’s much more than that. In fact, I think you two are up to your necks together in a whole host of dirty deeds.”
She sat back in her chair, dropped her chin, and stared at me through her eyelashes. It was a look she’d given me before—right before she kissed me.
“What makes you say that?” she asked.
“Several things, not the least of which is that you seem to be very interested in the investigation into Angela Hartwell’s death. In fact, the other day on the golf course, I got the distinct impression that you were pumping me for information. Why was that?”
“Because I was pumping you for information. But not for the reason you seem to think. I was doing it to get your attention.”
“You already had that. What else were you after?”
She took a deep breath. “Why do you think, Harry? Why do you think I kissed you? I’m attracted to you, dammit.”
I don’t believe it.
“I don’t think so,” I said. “I think you know who killed Angela Hartwell. I think it might even have been you, or maybe one of your sisters. You saw her that night, at the club. What was that about?”
&nbs
p; Her face had gone pale, her lips drawn tight, eyes narrowed. “She was leaving. I caught up with her in the lobby. I asked her to stop badmouthing me and my sisters, but she wouldn’t talk to me. That’s it. That’s all there was to it. I wasn’t the last one to see her alive; whoever killed her was.”
“We know Ralph killed his brother. We also know he was systematically robbing the Hartwell banks. I think you were involved with him in that enterprise. I can’t prove it right now, but I will. You can bank on that, pun intended. I also think Angela was onto you both. You were, as far as I know, the last one to see her alive. I think she was about to expose you. She had to be stopped, right?”
“You’re out of your mind, Harry. I have no idea what Angela was up to. She was always spouting off about her husband and how she thought he’d been murdered. You do know that she was a very troubled woman, don’t you? And why on earth would I rob banks? I run four very successful businesses. I make more money than I can spend, that my sisters can spend, and that’s a hell of a lot. I’ll tell you this, Harry: you spread one word of these accusations outside of this office, and I’ll sue you for slander.”
I almost laughed at her, but the look on her face was anything but funny.
“Why would you rob banks?” I repeated back to her. “I think you did it because you could. I think it was a power trip, a way for you to look down on the little people and laugh. I also think it’s in your genes. They tell me your dear old dad wasn’t above stiffing people whenever he could.”
“You… you—you son of a bitch. Don’t you dare talk about my father like that. He—he, he was a good man, good to me, good to my sisters.”
“Maybe, maybe not. But you, my dear, are a shark. A very beautiful shark, but a shark nonetheless. Ralph’s a guppy, but between the pair of you you’ve robbed Hartwell Banks of more than five million dollars. Ralph murdered his brother along the way, and you or one of your sisters murdered Angela. And I’m going to put you away for it.”
“You’re crazy,” she said. “What the hell I ever saw in you….”
“A dope. Or at least you thought you did. You’re an arrogant, self-absorbed egotist, Ruth. You think you’re smarter than everybody else. Well how about I show you just how smart you’re not?”