“You don’t believe this shit, do you? About there being nothing on them?” He said that he’d dug deep and there wasn’t anything, not even from college. “Well, we’ll have to be clever when we make something up, that’s all. I want those shares back in the account and the money returned. I’ve been looking everywhere, and the money that Tom made off the sale is gone. Not even a cashed check for it that I can find.”
He’d even gone over Tom’s banking statement and couldn’t find the money. That’s all he wanted, the cash that he knew had to be there for him. He pulled out the paperwork that Dusty had gathered on the McCullough family.
“It says here that they’re wealthy. Just how much wealth are you talking about?” He told him. “No fucking way. Why are they even working if they’re worth billions? You can bet that I wouldn’t be.”
“The one that you’re talking about, this Larson guy? He just bought a house. And while he didn’t pay cash for it, he could have easily done so without any harm to his lifestyle. He’s the richest of the family. And all I can find out about that is that he invests well and shares his knowledge with others so they can be wealthy too.” Dusty took something out of the folder. “You might find this interesting. Tom went to him when he wanted to sell the shares in another company that started his company. Larson told him to wait, that it would be making money in no time. In just a short few days, not only did they have the capital to start up this business, but also enough cash flow to keep it running in the black until he went public. The McCullough guy has a knack for buying and selling that no one else does.”
He’d been told the same thing by Tom, how the guy could turn a buck into a million. Not quite true, he supposed, but he did make them both a great deal of money. Only in the sense that he had been planning to take it all when his too honest partner was dead. Even the insurance policy that he’d taken out on the couple was null and void now that it was being ruled as a homicide.
“If those idiots hadn’t put them in the boat and set them out to sea, I’d be a good deal closer to making myself some cash.” He thought of the two men that had suddenly found themselves dead when he’d gone to them to find out what the fuck they’d been thinking. All they’d had to do was kill the couple on board the boat, and then die when he blew up the boat with his own bomb. “All they had to do was go in, fiddle around as seaworthy men, and then, when out to sea, kill them both. Not put them in a raft that would bring them to my doorstep. Fucker shit holes have messed everything up with that stupid move.”
“You said you got a call from Tom the night they were killed. Did you ever figure out how that happened?” He didn’t want to think of the call he’d gotten, nor the chilling things that had been said to him by Tom. “I hope to Christ no one finds out that he called you, Harley. If they do, they might be able to connect us to the crime. As it is, I’m afraid to answer my fucking door for fear it’ll be that moron of a cop they have working here.”
Tom had called him at around midnight that night. He was whispering, but Harley hadn’t any trouble understanding him. He’d heard gun shots too, during their brief but telling conversation.
“You fucking weed. You hired these guys to kill us?” A gun was fired and, while it sounded to him like it was far away, shattered the quietness of the night as he continued. “You’ll never get away with this. I took precautions that will see you hung for this. See if it doesn’t. And when you get to the gates of hell, I’ll be there waving goodbye to you.”
The call was cut off when the sounds of the gun got closer. He laid there in his bed, thinking about how he might have gone about taking these so-called precautions, and decided it was an empty threat. After all this time, someone would have come forward and turned it in, he thought. Still, from time to time, he would worry.
“I want you to find out something on one of the wives. Surely they’re not as clean as the men. And you said that one has the ear of the president? Find me a way to make sure that she is as guilty looking as the rest of them. I want this to end.” Dusty said he’d be right on it but didn’t move. “What is it now, Dusty? Another long tale about how we should just back our bags and get out of town? I’m not doing that. You can if you want, but not me. He owes me.”
“You have money, Harley. I do as well. Why don’t we just let this one go and move on? There are too many variables going along with this that are working against us.” He might have, if he wasn’t so pissed off about the fact that Tom had gotten the better of him. And not only that, all his money was gone. Preparing to be rich had cost him everything. “Please, I’m begging you. Let’s just walk away from this one. There might be a bigger fish out there you can catch.”
“That stock was mine. And the money I was going to get from the sale of it was going to set me up for the rest of my life. A nice place to live. An island or something. That was seventy-three million dollars, Dusty. That is nothing to just walk away from.” Dusty said he’d not realized it was so much. “Yes, and when the government comes to take their share, because they fucking think they can, I’ll be long gone, and so will you.”
“All right, I’ll keep digging, but you have to realize that there’s nothing I can do if there is nothing out there. They’re the cleanest people I’ve ever seen.” As he made his way to the door, he stopped and turned back. “Harley, if I were you, I’d be thinking of an exit plan. These people aren’t ones to fuck with, and they might get you where it counts most.”
After Dusty was gone, he looked at the paperwork he’d been given. There was a list of charities that the family not only donated to, but had set up foundations for. He read about the charity that helped families after tragedy struck. Cars were purchased for people who had no way of getting back and forth to work. The father of the clan even helped build and renovate houses for the crippled. It didn’t actually say that, but he was reading between the lines now. He hated do-gooders almost as much as he hated the imperfect. Everyone with a dysfunction, in his opinion, should be the ones put in a raft boat and put out to sea. Harley would do it too, if it wasn’t too easy to get caught nowadays.
“Fucking humanitarians. Why spend money on people who’d not appreciate it? They’re just sucking you dry.” Much like, he supposed, he was doing right now. “If you had just kept your nose out of my stocks, then you’d be sitting pretty about now, wouldn’t you, Larson, my boy?”
There were more accolades about the McCulloughs. Newspaper articles how they had married and adopted children. Harley didn’t believe in taking over someone else’s discards. He didn’t have any children of his own, not even a wife to share his good fortune with, and he was going to keep it that way. Wives were whiney…they messed with the natural order of things, like not having to share your shit. And children were just nasty little shits that got into everything and broke your nice stuff. He thought he’d rather be handcuffed to a tree for a year than to have to spend an hour with a brat.
The more he read about these fools, the dumber he realized they were. Not only were they rich, but stupid with it too. He calculated that at the rate they were going, they’d be broke in a year at most. But then he found the article that was talking about how long they’d been wealthy. Just as he was closing up the information that made him think that they might know what they were doing, the cop, Joe Windfall, came into his office.
“You find out any more about the death of my partner?” Harley waved off his secretary after she showed Joe in. He’d have to tell her not to just let any Tom, Dick, or Harry in his office like she owned the place. “And his poor children. I bet they’re devastated about this. To lose both their parents, and under these kind of circumstances. It must be hard on them.”
“It is, but for now they’re staying with their grandmother.” He’d have to find out where they were and what their daddy might have told them that night. “I’ve pulled the phone records of both Donna and Tom. And there is a call to you, at a little after midnight on the night we’re presuming they were killed.”
&
nbsp; He’d tried his best to look like he had no idea what he was talking about. And he supposed that now wouldn’t be the time to bring up the fact that he thought it was a murder suicide again. That hadn’t flown well a couple of days ago, and he doubted that it would now either. Leaning back in his seat, he pretended to think the question over. Like he hadn’t thought of that fucking call every day for the last few days.
“Are you sure it was to me? This call? Because I have to tell you, Joe, I don’t remember getting one from Tom. Do you suppose he was calling me to warn me or something?” Joe said or something, and that pissed him off. He thought if he could, he’d dig up the couple and shoot them himself this time.
They’d been shot once in the head. And there were defensive wounds on them both, he’d been told. Then there was the added fact that they’d been found adrift in the ocean without food or water, and no gun. He hated everyone right now. Then he looked at the cop in front of him and had to think of an answer.
“What night was that? It’s all blurring together now. I don’t remember a call from him, as I said, but then I’ve had phone issues before.” He asked him what sort of issues, and since he’d never had any, he didn’t know what to tell him. Instead, he changed the subject. “The people that were on the boat with them…have you found out who they were?”
“We know that the Simmonses had hired a crew to work with them and to show them the ropes, so to speak. They were to supply them with the food they’d need, cook, and help them learn to sail their boat so they could go out on their own with the children the following summer. So far, all we’ve been able to find is that you recommended them.” He asked him how he’d come to that conclusion. “We have a note, in Tom’s handwriting, which tells us that.”
“Really?” He wanted desperately to ask him if there was anything else, like where the fucking money was now, but didn’t. This was getting worse and worse all the time, he thought. “I might have mentioned something like he should find someone to help him out, but I don’t remember telling him who to use.”
The copy of a sheet of paper that slid across his desk was indeed in Tom’s girly handwriting. And it did say just what the cop told him. That he had recommended a firm by the name Boating Made Easy, with not only a phone number, but that he’d given them a five-star rating.
“The thing is, we can’t find anything about them. This company, I mean. We know that he called them…he wrote that down, as well as the names of the crew members, where he was to meet them when they took off, as well as another phone number. Both of which are no longer working.” He handed him a copy of the next note. “Tom called them, and talked to them off and on over several days. And he wrote notes about the conversation on each call. That’s how we found out that he’d called you. We pulled his records, as well as bank and security cameras on his home and here. Things aren’t as cut and dry as you’d like us to believe, Harley. Did you have anything to do with the deaths of your partner and his wife?”
Harley wanted to squirm. He wanted to order the man out of his office and tell him to leave him alone. The office he was in was hotter than it had ever been. Stuffy too, as he felt sweat running down his backbone like a fucking waterfall. This wasn’t good. Not even a little bit good. As he looked at the notes, he noticed that his hands were shaking a little and put it down. Christ, he was looking more and more guilty all the time.
“What a question to ask me about Tom and his wife. Of course I didn’t. But I just don’t know how I can help you with any of this. I guess, as you say, I did give him the name of the company he used, but I can honestly say I don’t remember. It might have been something I said off the cuff to him. We were good friends, and I miss him terribly.” Joe nodded, but didn’t say anything. And unlike his normal self, Harley felt the need to fill the silence. “I can go over my notes at home and see what I can find if that helps you.”
“Sure, we’d like that. And we’ve a warrant to take his computer to the offices. I told my boss that I didn’t think I’d need it, that you’d cooperate more than anyone would, but he insisted.” He saw men in the outer office putting things in the box now, and his secretary helping them out by pointing at other items of interest. “You don’t care, do you, Harley?”
He did. Very much so. He’d not been able to get into his computer since it had a password on it. And he’d tried about every combination he could until it locked up. This wasn’t going anywhere near the way he needed it to go. Harley actually considered just getting up and leaving the office, then the state. As surely as he was sitting there, he knew they were only steps away from arresting him.
“Well, I just wanted to keep you updated on things and to get his computer. If you remember anything, Harley, I’d surely appreciate you letting me know. This has been a hard case for us all, you included, I bet. To have such a nice man go like this.” Harley said he missed him every day. “I bet you do. He always said that you were a good partner to have.”
As soon as the cop left, Harley got up and closed his door and locked it. Going back to his desk, he laid his head down to try and calm himself. Christ, this was something that he’d never had to deal with before, and he was sure he was going to end up with a heart attack if he had to sit through another visit from the cops. Deciding to go home for the day, he packed up his things, including the notes, and noticed that his file on the McCulloughs was missing.
“Mother fucking bastard took it.” He wasn’t sure if it had been the cop or Dusty, but this shit was getting old fast. He needed a break in this thing so he could leave the country. “I’m too old for this shit.”
He left his office just as the police were going through Tom’s office. He’d have moved into it by now, but there were things that he had in his office that Tom didn’t. Like a safe that was hidden away, as well as other items, such as guns and his books. Damn it all to hell, he thought, he should have killed him here and been done with it.
~~~
Virginia was working when someone knocked on the door. She didn’t want to get up to answer it, and had even decided that she was going to get her a sign that said for people to go away or hire someone to do that for her. She hated interruptions. When the doorbell rang three times in a row, she got up and stomped all the way to the front hallway. She was both annoyed and surprised to see Rich and Bea there, and the bundle they had in their hands.
“We have to go on a trip. Not an emergency, not really, but we have to go.” She nodded at Bea. “Everything you need is in that bag. He’s been fed, and should take a long nap for you. But we have to go.”
Before she could say a single word, even if she had been able to think of anything to say, they were in their car and gone. That was when the bundle in her arms started to cry. It was a baby. And she’d bet anything that it was her cousin’s.
Taking it into the house, kicking the bag that had been dropped off too, she pulled some of the blankets off his face and looked at him. He’d stopped crying, but now he was looking at her as if he were studying her for any defects. She did the same to him.
“Well, thankfully you look like your mother and not that asshole of a dad.” He seemed to agree with her and yawned. “Yes, well, I do hope you take a long nap, kiddo. I don’t have the time or the energy to mess around with you today. And I doubt very much anyone would have left you with me if they knew I don’t even know how to change a diaper.”
He yawned again and she joined him this time. Sam was a cutie, she’d give him that, with his pursed lips and tiny little nose. She wanted to touch him, and actually looked around to see if anyone would see her. Then she ran her fingers over his soft cheek, and that made him yawn again.
“You can’t keep doing that, you know. If you do, then we’re neither one going to get shit done today.” She figured that she should have cleaned up her language, but decided that if he was going to be hanging around her for any length of time, he’d better get used to it. “I’m not changing my ways for anyone, kid. Just so you know to keep that in min
d as we deal with this. And I don’t think for one second that whatever they’re doing, it would have been a bother to take you with them. I’m thinking, and I’m more than likely right, that they wanted me to see you, and here you are. They’re sneaky, those parents of Larson.”
Taking him into her makeshift office, she thought about what it was going to be like having him around. She’d thought about going to see him over the last couple of days. And since she was pretty much going to be living in the same town as him, she might as well get used to the little boy. She thought about the McCulloughs and their little plot to bring them together.
“I don’t think anyone in their right mind would think that you being here with me without supervision would be a good idea, do you? One of us is going to get hurt in this, and I’m betting that it’s not you.” He just stared at her, his eyes blinking slower all the time. “I think they just wanted to see if you and I could get along. Do you think we can?”
After unwrapping the blankets off him, she laid him on the couch that had been delivered this morning. It was nice and soft, and she’d wanted it for her office. Of course, Larson had told her to take it. He now wanted something bigger for the living room. The room that she’d been working in had been the living room, and she thought he was nuts for wanting something bigger. But then she thought of the size of his family.
“You’re small, aren’t you? I mean, I didn’t expect you to be toddler sized, but you’re tiny.” He closed his eyes, and she watched his little lips move like he was sucking on a bottle. “There are things about you that annoy me. Like how cute you are, and how you’ve already wormed your way into my heart. Darned McCulloughs. They knew just what the heck they were doing, didn’t they? Well, I don’t think we should tell them that, do you? They’re going to think they’re the greatest matchmakers in the world if we do.”
Larson: McCullough’s Jamboree – Erotic Jaguar Shapeshifter Romance Page 5