He put both hands on the coffee table. “One hundred seventy-five people would lose their jobs if we closed. Boom.” He slapped the table. “Those jobs—gone with the wind. A lot of them folks have worked for me for thirty years. And the damage to our reputation. Oh, no, Chuck. This can’t come out.”
Hank snapped his fingers. “Tell you what, Chuck. I understand that you’re not a hired killer, even if the bastard deserves it.”
“I stay within the law, Hank.” That was 99 percent true. Okay, 90 percent anyway.
“With God as my witness,” the restaurateur raised his right hand as if he were taking an oath, “if anything happens to Smoot that removes him from the land of the living, if he is unlucky enough to be run over by a drunk, or struck by lightning, or if anything else—no matter how far-fetched—happens to him, I will send you a check for $50,000.”
Oh shit, Chuck thought, this idiot’s stepped in it now.
“Hank, you can’t do that.”
“It’s my money and I can do anything I goddamn well please with it.”
Chuck raised both hands. “If anything happens to Smoot, it’ll have nothing to do with me. I don’t operate that way. But you could get us both thrown into jail.”
“How?”
“Smoot has other victims. There are other people out there who want to see him dead too. You with me so far?”
Hank nodded. “Okay, go on.”
“Suppose one of his other victims does something stupid like hire a hitman to kill Smoot. The police will investigate his death. You see that?”
“Yeah. So what?” He leaned back. A frown crossed his face.
“I confronted Smoot in his office a few days ago. He pulled a gun, and we had a fight over it. That’s when I took all his files, by the way. For a thousand bucks, you deserve to know that. A homicide investigation would turn up my fight with Smoot. It would also reveal his connection to you.” Chuck leaned forward and lowered his voice. “It would also reveal your secret.”
“I didn’t think of that.”
“How would it look if you sent me fifty grand right after Smoot died? It would look like you hired me to kill him, even though we’d both be innocent.”
Hank frowned. “I could send a cashier’s check—anonymously.”
Chuck shook his head. “Anonymous doesn’t exist anymore. Every check is digitally stored in the bank’s computer system. And the banks make a record of every cash withdrawal of that size. The banks record the purchaser of every cashier’s check. The cops would trace the money to you in ten minutes.”
Chuck wasn’t sure he’d gotten through to Hank. This well-meaning millionaire could get both of them in trouble up to their eyebrows.
Chapter 55
Chuck watched Beverly Restrow push an empty basket from the parking lot into the Target store. She’s a good citizen, bringing in a basket. Restrow didn’t look like a blackmail victim. Suburban housewife, two teenage sons, married for twenty-two years to the same man. Her husband Doug was a successful real estate broker and a deacon in their church; she was president of its women’s club and charity foundation. Pillars of the community.
He lingered at the Starbucks inside the store while she shopped.
“Mrs. Restrow? I’m Chuck McCrary. Do you have a minute to discuss a donation to your church’s charity foundation?”
Chuck stood six feet in front of her shopping cart, outside her personal space. He wanted her to feel safe even though she’d been approached by a strange man, even one who wore a suit and tie.
“Do I know you, Mr.—?”
“McCrary. Chuck McCrary. Please call me Chuck. I’ve seen you and Doug at church. I’d like to discuss a possible donation. Can I buy you a cup of coffee?” He pointed at the Starbucks a few yards away. He knew she often bought coffee there. And he knew why.
“Of course, Chuck.”
Restrow wheeled her full shopping cart to a table toward the back. She sipped her coffee.
Chuck handed her his card. “Mrs. Restrow, I want to talk to you about the regular withdrawals you’ve made from the foundation’s bank account.”
Her face turned white, her eyes widened, and her pupils shrank. “Wha— what are you talking about?”
He raised his left hand an inch in a calming gesture. “I’m here to help you get out of this mess, Mrs. Restrow.”
Her cheeks colored. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She pushed her coffee cup a millimeter to one side.
“Of course you do. You’ve withdrawn five hundred dollars from the foundation’s bank account every week for the last three months. Sixty-five hundred dollars so far. The same money you gave to Ted Smoot at this very Starbucks.” He sipped his coffee while he studied her reaction.
Her face fell. Her eyes dropped to her hands clasped in front of her. “I’m ruined. My life is over.” She fumbled with her purse as she started to stand.
Chuck raised his hand a little more. “I’d like to get you out of this trouble if I can, Mrs. Restrow. Please, sit.” He picked up his coffee cup to make himself look less threatening.
“Who are you and what do you want?” she blustered, but she sat back down.
“I’m a private investigator. I was hired by another of Smoot’s victims, Mrs. Restrow. You’re not alone. My client is paying me to get him or her out of the same mess. I don’t need any money from you. You’ve heard of collateral damage?”
She nodded.
“Think of me as a collateral benefit.”
She forced a tiny smile. “Who is this other client who is so generous with his money?”
“It’s not necessarily a ‘he,’ but the client’s identity is confidential.”
“But you’ll tell your client about me.”
“That won’t be necessary. I’m not here to make any more trouble for you. You have enough trouble as it is. What I want is to nail Ted Smoot. And make him stop blackmailing you.”
“It’s hopeless.”
“Dum spiro spero,” he said.
Her lips traced a hint of a smile. “Are you a fan of Cicero, Mr. McCrary?”
“Call me Chuck. Nothing is ever hopeless. Let’s talk some place more private. You pick it.”
#
Chuck followed Restrow to a neighborhood library. She walked into a small, unoccupied reading room separated from the main lobby by a glass wall.
Chuck admired her thought process. Good choice. Private, but a safe place to meet with a strange man.
“You may as well call me Bev. Everyone else does.” She sat down. “Now what do you propose?”
“Smoot went to prison once for blackmail. He won’t want to go back. I have proof that he’s blackmailing people again. I intend to convince him that if he continues to blackmail anyone, I’ll send him back to prison.”
Restrow sighed. “For that to be a credible threat, he must believe you will actually do it. Which would require that one or more victims testify. A victim such as I. Am I correct?”
“Yes.”
She crossed her arms. Never a good sign. “That, of course, would expose the very secret which I’m paying him not to disclose. You must understand, Chuck: My secret must remain secret or my life as I know it will end. I’ll lose my husband, my children, my position at the church. I may as well be dead if that happens.”
“Bev, your secret may come out anyhow. Your daughter may decide to try to find you the same way you found her. I found her identity in a few hours. Secrets have a way of coming out.” He waited while she processed this.
The woman clasped her hands in her lap. “How did you find out?”
“I obtained Smoot’s file on you, and it was a big one. He had hacked your credit cards and your bank accounts, both your joint ones with Doug and your personal ones in your own name. He found the online birthday presents you sent to your daughter and the contributions you made to the adoption agency as well as the checks you wrote to your attorney.”
“How did you get Smooth’s file?”
&
nbsp; Chuck waved a hand dismissively. “That’s not important. What’s important is that you left a trail to your daughter that any skilled private investigator could follow. I advise you to just admit the mistake you made when you were a teenager and ask for everyone’s understanding. Then it’s all over. Smoot would have nothing on you.”
She looked down at her hands, shoulders slumped. “I can’t. My life would be over.”
“Bev, times change. Attitudes change. Doug will understand. Your other children will still love you. And your boys might enjoy having an older sister. Your church members will understand. If you pay it back, they’ll even forgive you for embezzling the foundation money.”
“No.”
“If you come clean, you can pay back sixty-five hundred dollars. It’ll take time, but you’ll manage it. The longer you delay, the deeper you dig the hole. Remember that old rule: When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.”
“No, no, no. That’s final.”
Chapter 56
“So how did it go with Beverly Restrow?” Snoop took another pull on his beer. He and Chuck sat on Chuck’s balcony and watched the sun set.
“Same way it went with Hank Hickham.”
Clint came out of his room. “What do you think of Antwone Fisher, Snoop?”
“Never saw it, kid. What did you think of it?”
“I think I’m not the only one with troubles. I also think that Denzel Washington deserves an Academy Award.” He turned to Chuck. “Can I have a beer?”
“Help yourself. And Denzel Washington has two Academy Awards. If you want, we could rent the movies he won the Oscars for.”
“That would be good.”
The three men sat in companionable silence, sipped beer, and watched the sun slide toward the distant Everglades as the sky turned multiple shades of rose, gold, and pink.
Snoop set down his empty bottle. “Chuck, you’re oh-for-two getting victims to cooperate. Are we seeing a trend here?”
“Yeah, we go back to the drawing board.”
Chuck had to tell Snoop about the victim files.
#
He handed Snoop a portion of the victim files he’d taken from Smoot’s bottom drawer.
“Another good fairy gave you these?” Snoop sat at the other end of the dining room table.
Chuck plugged in the first stick drive and opened the first folder. This man was not yet a victim. Smoot had investigated him, found a little dirt, but nothing significant enough to warrant blackmail.
The second folder was on Trey Morrison. Smoot had the criminal records from the rape case at Stanford. Trey hadn’t mentioned that Smoot knew about that. Maybe Smoot was holding that in reserve in case the two mistresses ever blew up on him. He knew Trey’s financial position to the nearest ten million dollars based on reports Trey had filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Smoot knew how much to ask for without jeopardizing the goose who laid the golden eggs.
The next folder was Bev Restrow’s.
Then Chuck saw the fourth folder. “Oh, jeez.”
Snoop looked up from the file he was reading. “Must be big.”
“It is. Look at this one.”
Snoop opened the folder. “Oh, jeez indeed.”
The fourth folder was for Trey’s wife, Allison Throckmorton McIntosh Morrison.
Chapter 57
“You’ve never come to me for legal advice before,” Victoria Ramirez said. She spoke to Chuck in Spanish, as they always did when they were alone. They sat in her small conference room at a medium-sized walnut table. Seeti Bay sparkled in the distance.
“I’ve never needed legal advice before,” Chuck answered.
Vicky Ramirez was a name partner with a top-notch, boutique law firm in Port City. She and her firm had sent Chuck a boatload of clients. Vicky specialized in corporate and family law, not criminal law. She had also been Chuck’s friend with benefits before he got involved with Terry. She reminded Chuck of Condaleesa Rice, but with curly hair. The same aura of intelligence, style, and class.
“Tell me all about it,” she said as she pulled over a fresh legal pad.
Chuck told her about his investigation of Franco’s murder, his interest in Smoot as possibly framing Jorge Castellano for that murder, and Smoot’s blackmail of various victims. He told her how Murphy had put him onto Smoot, how Chuck had followed Smoot, and how he had met Trey Morrison.
Chuck stood and paced. “I’ve got three, uh, situations that I’m not sure what to do about. Trey Morrison hired me to stop Smoot from blackmailing him.”
“What is Smoot blackmailing him about?”
He told her. He also told her that Smoot knew about the Stanford rape charge and that Trey was not aware that Smoot knew about that. He told Vicky how he had confronted Smoot in his office and taken his files and computers the previous Saturday.
Chuck waited while she finished writing.
“Smoot pulled a gun on you before you stole his files and office equipment?”
“Yes.”
Vicky’s secretary, Carmen, came in with coffee service.
Vicky thanked her and made more notes. “Chuck, I’m not a criminal attorney. If you ever face criminal charges over this, I’ll refer you to a criminal defense lawyer. You understand that.”
“That’s not why I came to you.”
“So what is your legal problem?”
Chuck sat at the table and poured Vicky a coffee. “It’s more of an ethical problem. When I reviewed the files on Smoot’s victims that I took from him, I found a file on Trey Morrison’s wife, Allison. She’s cheating on Trey. Smoot’s blackmailing her, too.”
Vicky laughed. “Oh, the delicious irony. Wow.” She made a couple more notes. “Okay, Chuck, so what is this ethical problem?”
“Do I have to tell Trey about his wife’s infidelity?” Chuck poured his own coffee.
She pursed her lips as she thought. “What exactly did Trey hire you to do?”
“To get Smoot off his back.”
“Do you have any sort of written agreement?”
“For a sensitive case like this one, I decided it was better to go with a verbal agreement. Especially since he paid in advance.”
“Getting Smoot ‘off his back’ is not very specific.”
Chuck shrugged. “That’s as specific as we got.”
“And are you trying to do that?”
“Of course.”
“Then you’re earning your money.” She put down her pen and added sugar to her coffee. “I don’t think you have an obligation to tell him his wife is cheating.” She snickered. “Although I’d love to see his face. Wow,” she said again.
“Okay, that’s good. Now about the second problem…Is there any reason I couldn’t take on Trey Morrison’s wife as a client too?” He added a little half-and-half to his coffee, stirred it in.
Vicky laughed. “You have a set a balls that an elephant would be proud of.” Vicky clapped her hands.
“Excuse me while I blush modestly. Look, if I don’t have to tell Trey about his wife, then logically I wouldn’t have to tell the wife about Trey, right? So I could represent them both.”
“If you couch the terms of your engagement the same way you did Trey’s, yeah.”
“Okay. Then the third problem is that I have this other guy who is technically my client.”
“Technically?”
“It was more of a joke that anything else. Smoot is also blackmailing Hank Hickham.”
“The Hank Hickham? Hank’s Bar & Grill & Bodacious Ribs Hickham?”
“The very guy.”
She grinned. “I love his ribs.”
“Don’t we all. Anyway, I discovered that Smoot is blackmailing Hank too.”
“This Smoot guy gets around. Go on.”
“I visited Hank and told him to pay me a dollar so he’d be a client, and I would give him one dollar’s worth of advice.”
“I’m not sure that would hold up in court if anyone challenged it.” Vicky smiled a
nd sipped her coffee.
“He said he wanted better advice than that and wrote me a check for one thousand dollars.”
Vicky wrote on her note pad. “That’s enough to make him a serious client.”
“Hank offered me $50,000 to kill Smoot.” Chuck told her the whole story of his meeting with Hank.
“Oh, jeez.”
“You can say that again.”
“Oh, jeez.”
“That’s not all.”
Vicky set her cup down with a clink on the saucer. “There’s more?”
“Oh, yeah. Trey Morrison also asked me to kill Smoot. In fact, he said it before I ever met Hank Hickham.”
“Surely he wasn’t serious.”
“He beat around the bush and made it a hint. But he was as serious as a heart attack.”
“Oh, jeez again.”
Chuck related his conversation with Trey. “I told him there was no way that was going to happen. I think—I hope—that he understood that I would never do such a thing.”
She put a hand to her chin and frowned in thought. She picked up a spoon and idly stirred her coffee.
Chuck went to the window and looked out. “Vicky, I don’t trust this guy as far as I could throw him.”
“Which guy?”
“Trey Morrison.”
“What are you worried that he’ll do?”
Chuck turned to face her. “Remember that he’s got more money than Fort Knox. He’s led a life of privilege since he was born with a silver portfolio in his brokerage account. He’s well connected politically, and he feels entitled. Hell, Vicky, the guy’s got three girlfriends. That’s practically a harem. If that’s not acting like he’s entitled, then I don’t know what is.”
“So he feels invincible. I got that. Go on.”
“Now that the idea of killing Smoot has occurred to him, I’m worried that the SOB will actually hire someone to make the hit. If that happens, my, ah, confrontation with Smoot would be uncovered during the murder investigation. The fact that Trey is a client might also come out. It could look bad for me.”
Double Fake, Double Murder (A Carlos McCrary, Private Investigator, Mystery Thriller Series Book 2) Page 14