by Carl Schmidt
I couldn’t help but think of it in a slightly different way. It wasn’t so much that she was troubled; she was trouble itself. The poor fellow, or fellows, that she soaked were the ones being troubled. But I didn’t want to split grammatical hairs with Monsignor O’Reilly. Whether she was a noun, an adjective or a participle only mattered to editors and English teachers.
“Let’s get back to Evelyn’s DNA sample,” I said. “What puzzles me is how Nicole managed to capture your saliva. Presumably she mixed it with some of her own and submitted it as having come from her imaginary daughter. Do you mind describing your physical contact with Nicole?”
“We’ve come this far; I suppose it won’t hurt if I lay out for you the sordid details. What exactly do you want to know?”
“Did the affair take place here?”
“Yes. It began right where you’re sitting now…and ended up in my bedroom.”
“Do you have any idea how she could have gotten some of your saliva?”
“Well, now that you ask, yes, I do. I never gave it any thought before, but every move she made plays out in my mind as if it were yesterday. We were sitting side by side on the couch discussing her personal problems. Suddenly, she put her arms around me and began to tremble and weep. I held her until she stopped crying, but she kept holding on. It was very arousing. She wrapped herself around me like a rubber band.”
That, I thought, was a very tactile, though somewhat surprising, way to put it, coming from a man of the cloth. I’d be tempted to call his choice of words an “immaculate conception,” but that phrase has already been fully allocated.
He continued, “I’m sure she could feel my heart pounding and my breath quickening. Then she kissed me. It was a long and passionate kiss. She pulled away slightly and then wiped my mouth off with a handkerchief, presumably to remove any trace of her lipstick. No doubt some of my saliva was blotted onto the linen. In fact, it surely held a mixture of hers and mine.”
Immediately a light went on. “Of course,” I thought. “That’s exactly what Tina Woodbury did with her date on New Year’s Eve. She kissed the guy in the suit and then wiped his mouth with a handkerchief.”
“Do you want me to go on, Jesse?”
“No, Father,” I replied. “You don’t have to say another thing. I believe you’ve uncovered her modus operandi—hers and another woman’s as well.”
“At least the child support payments are over,” he said with a sigh. “I’m going to pray that Nicole sees the error of her ways and returns to me for absolution. She doesn’t have to pay me back; she only needs to ask for forgiveness.”
“I wouldn’t hold my breath,” I thought, but I didn’t say that to Father O’Reilly. What I said was, “I pray that this all works out for you.”
He didn’t respond for several moments, as if he were alone in the room. I gave him time to sort it out and finally asked, “Would you like me to continue searching for her, or should we just call the whole thing off?”
“I think we should call it off, at least for now,” he replied slowly. “If I have a change of heart, I’ll get back with you.”
“That’s reasonable,” I said. “I have her cell phone number, but I suspect she won’t be answering your calls. The phone could easily be a throwaway, and under the circumstances, I’d bet on it.”
“It’s in God’s hands now,” he replied.
As I made my way to the door, he asked, “Do I owe you any more money?”
“I’ll work out my time and expenses and let you know. At least I’m happy that we were able to get to the facts. Hopefully it will provide some measure of relief.”
“It already has,” he said. “Thank you for your help and your confidence.”
I drove away with a sense of partial closure. One door had been shuttered, while another had been thrown wide open.
15
Every Crowd Has a Silver Lining
It was only the second day of January, and already New Year’s resolutions were piling up.
1. Get familiar with the provinces of Italy; my birthday was only two months away.
2. Stock up on beef jerky for the Portland office.
3. Beware of sultry women bearing handkerchiefs.
4. Keep an eye out for Jaguars and dark burly men wearing gold chains.
5. Keep your .38 Special loaded and nearby at all times, just in case Joe Pesci or Robert De Niro drop in for a visit.
6. Call Archie Lapointe and have another chat.
As I drove back to the office from Our Lady of the Seas, I spent almost as much time looking for black Jaguar convertibles in my rear view mirror as I did watching the road through the windshield. Resolution #4 was beginning to make me edgy.
Holly was still at the computer when I walked through the door.
“Any luck in Massachusetts?” she asked.
“Yes and no,” I replied.
Holly listened and nodded as I described the events of the afternoon. She scowled noticeably when I told her that Father O’Reilly wanted to drop the investigation.
“Criminals should be held accountable,” she said with a measure of disdain.
“I agree, but our hands are tied on this one. We can’t go to the police without his permission. He’s not an active client at this point, but I want to clear up a few things. I feel we owe him that much.”
“Maybe I should have a talk with him,” she suggested.
“Let’s put our energies into the Tina Woodbury case. It’s entirely possible that she will lead us back to Nicole Shepard and the guy with the hairy chest and gold chains.”
“While you were gone, I checked on the status of my license to carry a concealed weapon. They told me it’s in the mail. I’ll bring my Springfield .357 to work tomorrow. It’s time for us to take precautions. In this line of work, we can’t be too careful,” she concluded.
“Agreed. In fact I was thinking the same thing as I drove back to the office. Have you made any progress locating Frank Richards?” I asked.
“Possibly. I contacted the BMV directly to see if his car is still registered in Maine. His registration expired in September, and he didn’t renew it. On the off chance that he has relocated in California, I called the DMV offices in Sacramento and worked my way up the food chain to an assistant director, one Beverly Albright. I explained to her at length who we are and the information we need. I told her that Frank Richards was not only wanted for civil action in Maine, but that he might also be the subject of a criminal investigation by the FBI and the State of California. That got the ball rolling.
“She agreed to contact her superior and get back with me after she had time to check us out. Incidentally, she had heard of the Lavoilette murder case. When I told her that you helped bring the murderers to justice, she responded very favorably.
“She called back a half-hour later and indicated that a Frank Richards had registered a 2012 BMW in California on September tenth of last year. They provided me with his mailing address, which is a postal box in Mill Valley just north of San Francisco.”
“Great work, Holly,” I said. “I’ll give Randall Bradford a call tomorrow and ask him what he thinks should be our next legal step. Keep searching. A phone number or a home address would be very helpful. At the very least, a strongly worded letter via registered mail, suggesting legal reprisals, often gets the job done. My guess is that it will be worth twelve grand to him just to get us off his back, assuming, of course, we have the right Frank Richards.
“It’s a little after five o’clock. Time for you to call it a day. I’ll see you tomorrow morning,” I said. “Oh, and I’ll begin carrying my .38 Special full time for the foreseeable future.”
“Roger that,” Holly replied.
“I have a few calls to make before I leave,” I said.
I reached into my drawer and got another strip of beef jerky for Ranger. We shook appendages one more time, and he followed Holly out the door wagging his tail.
“Archie Lapointe here,” came the re
ply over the phone.
“Archie, this is Jesse Thorpe. I have a question for you.”
“Fire away.”
“I’m working on a couple of cases that have a common thread. I would like to know if you’ve come across anything like this.”
“I’m all ears,” he replied.
I left out the names, but told him about Nicole Levesque’s extortion of Father O’Reilly. I also described the details of the DNA tests and saliva on linen handkerchiefs.
“Have you ever heard of this sort of thing?” I asked.
“In fact, I have,” he replied. “I wasn’t told about any handkerchiefs, but it could have happened that way. My client, a wealthy and well-known man in the state, hired me in a similar case. A woman, who claimed to have borne his child, contacted him and requested that he take a DNA test to determine whether or not he was the father of her son.”
“What did you do?” I asked.
“I tried to check out her background, but I couldn’t find any information on the woman. That led me to assume she was using an alias. When my client was scheduled to appear at the testing center, I went in his place. I met the woman and asked her why her son wasn’t there to be tested as well. She showed me his DNA test results, but I demanded that the child accompany both of them to the center so that we could witness him being retested. She said that she’d have to think about that, because she was reluctant to expose the boy to that kind of publicity. I told her it had to be done that way or else my client would not submit to the test.”
“So what happened?” I asked.
“We never saw or heard from her again,” Archie replied.
“Do you recall the name of the woman?” I asked.
“Let me check. It’s in my files.”
A minute later, he said, “The name she used was Jessica Easton.”
As I was thinking it over, Archie asked, “Did one of your clients actually pay a woman in a case like this?”
“Sixty thousand dollars over three years,” I replied.
Archie let out a whistle.
“People can be gullible, Jesse. Grifters are like Italian cooks. They keep throwing spaghetti against the wall until some of it sticks. Their games don’t have to work every time…only now and then. Eventually they latch on to a sucker.
“The size of New England complicates things as well,” he added. “Individuals can dodge the authorities by crossing state lines. There is some cooperation between neighboring jurisdictions, but it definitely hinders investigations, especially when there is not enough evidence to file a formal complaint, or if the client wishes to remain anonymous.”
“Those are the exact circumstances in this case,” I replied. “My client has chosen not to pursue the matter. The publicity could ruin him.”
“These criminals choose their marks with precision. They come on loose and carefree. The victim thinks he’s in control.”
I nodded earnestly, but it’s doubtful that Archie noticed.
“Do you like to fish?” Archie asked.
“Fish?” I replied.
“Yeah. Do you ever go fishing?”
“Sure,” I said enthusiastically. “I love to fly fish when I have the time, but not in winter.”
“Do you wiggle that fly on the top of the water?” he asked.
“Only when I want the fish to bite.”
Archie chuckled.
“All right. The fish thinks he’s about to have a tasty treat. He drifts up, takes a bite, and suddenly he’s hooked to the end of your line. He never saw it coming. That’s what con artists do. They go fishing. They might lose a few here and there, but eventually they get a fish into the boat. Then they take it home and fry it in a pan.”
“Makes you stop and think,” I offered philosophically.
“Right. Those who don’t think wind up marinated in tartar sauce.”
Archie is as colorful over the phone as he is face to face.
“Thanks for the advice,” I said.
“Keep your eyes open and your head down, Jesse.”
“I’ll do just that,” I replied.
I hung up and scrolled through my contact list till I came to “Richard Merrill.”
Richard had been an aide and loyal friend to Governor William Lavoilette, and he knew Tina Woodbury. I wanted to have a chat with him to see if there was anything significant he might be able to tell me about her.
I gave him a ring.
“Hello, this is Richard Merrill. Is that you, Jesse?”
“Yes it is. How are you doing?”
“As you might recall, I moved to Washington in July to take a consulting job. There’s lots of action here, but it’s not very pleasant. I long for old times Down East, where people speak honestly, and things are above board. It took me three or four months just to learn the language of lobbyists. Everything I hear has two or three meanings. People want all sorts of things, and they’ll do most anything to get what they want. Folks sell their souls down here.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. Maybe you should come home.”
“Maybe I will,” he sighed.
“Richard, I wonder if you would talk to me about Tina Woodbury.”
“To be honest, Jesse, I was hoping her name would never come up again.”
“Well, Richard, I’m afraid it has. She’s quite something.”
“Oh yeah!” he replied.
“Oddly enough, she is now my client. I’m trying to locate her ex-husband and convince him to get up to date with his alimony payments.”
“That sounds like Tina,” he said.
“What more can you tell me?”
“First, you’ve got to promise me one thing.”
“What’s that?” I asked.
“Do you remember Paul Harvey, the radio commentator?”
“Vaguely,” I replied.
“He might have been a little before your time. He passed away a few years back. His show aired for decades. They really ate it up in Maine—across the entire country, for that matter, but especially in the central plains states. He’d tell long-winded, human interest stories that didn’t make the headlines. He closed every program exactly the same way, ‘And now you know the rest of the story… Good day.’”
Richard did an excellent impersonation. When he finished, I remembered exactly whom he was talking about. It had been years since I’d heard Paul Harvey on the radio. He inflected his voice in a very distinctive way. Richard nailed it.
“OK,” I said. “I remember the guy. So why did you mention him?”
“Because I don’t want you to go around telling the rest of the story.”
“I see,” I replied. “Richard, we’ll keep this strictly between us. I won’t breathe a word of it to anyone, not even to Angele.”
I paused a second and then added, “I’d appreciate one escape clause if I might, Richard.”
“And what’s that?” he asked.
“I am planning to speak with Randall Bradford tomorrow about a related issue. Could I discuss this with him if it were germane to other legal concerns? He would be bound, of course, by the attorney-client privilege not to reveal any of it.”
Richard thought about this for a time and then replied, “I guess that would be all right. But leave it out of your memoirs, Jesse.”
“I promise.”
“There’s no way to sugar coat this,” Richard said. “Tina Woodbury and William Lavoilette had a child—a girl—who now should be about three years old.”
“Richard, there’s no way I can sugar coat this either. There’s a distinct possibility that there never was a child. Did you or William ever see her?”
“No,” he replied slowly, “but we did see the DNA report.”
“So William never saw his daughter, but believed he had one because Tina Woodbury showed him a piece of paper?”
“Well… Yes.”
“You know what P.T. Barnum used to say?” I offered.
“Actually, Jesse, he never said that.”
�
��Never said what?” I asked.
“‘There’s a sucker born every minute,’” he replied.
“He didn’t?”
“Check it out. There’s no record of him ever actually saying that. What he did say was, ‘Every crowd has a silver lining.’”
I couldn’t help myself; I laughed out loud.
“Really?” I said. “I guess comedians have taken poetic license.”
“Apparently,” Richard replied. “So, you’re suggesting that Tina never had a child by William Lavoilette?”
“That’s what I’m suggesting. I could be wrong, of course, but I have good reason to believe that I’m not.”
“Huh,” he replied.
“Exactly,” I said.
“William paid her almost one hundred thousand dollars to keep it secret,” he said emphatically, and then added, “But she produced a birth certificate,” sprinkling some doubt on my hypothesis.
“There’s more than one way to get a birth certificate, Richard. When you have a home birth, for example, all you need is a witness, a statement from a midwife, and personal identification to obtain a certified birth certificate. That kind of document can be forged as well,” I offered. “Tina Woodbury is involved in some shady dealings.”
“I’ll be damned. That’s exactly the type of woman Tina is. If your story is true, she sure pulled the wool over our eyes.”
“A rabbit out of a hat is more like it,” I suggested.
“You’ve got to keep this confidential, Jesse. This is even more embarrassing than actually having a child with a mistress. It would not only expose William’s affair, but it would suggest he was naïve as well.”
“I won’t say a word to anyone,” I said. “You can count on that.”
“Thank you, Jesse. Good God,” he added. “What’s the world coming to?”