An Absence of Motive

by Maggie Wells

  He thumbed through a stack of folders to his right, then withdrew one bulging with papers. “These are summary files, you understand,” he explained as he plopped the brick of a file on the table in front of her. “There are boxes and boxes of documents to back all this up, but I keep the most pertinent facts close at hand.”

  “Real estate?” She eyed him askance as she flipped open the cover. “You want to start me off with lease agreements and evictions?”

  “Among other things,” he said, unperturbed by her pique. “I’m sure you are aware your family has extensive holdings throughout the county. Commercial, single family and multidwelling rental properties are held in a separate corporation from the business or personal properties.”

  Despite her annoyance at being handed the legal equivalent of a bike with training wheels, she scanned the summary pages, her lips parting as she lined up her questions. Skimming to the bottom of the page, she clamped her mouth shut and forced her pride aside long enough to absorb the information. “Nearly all of our tenants in single-family dwellings were evicted two years ago.”

  “Yes, they were.” Wendell beamed at her, and for some reason it made Marlee feel like she’d earned her first gold star.

  “Why? They couldn’t have all lost their checkbooks at once.”

  He chuckled and shook his head. “No. I wish it were a simple matter of failure to pay.” He pointed to the file. “Take a look at the yellow papers. Those are original copies of work orders.”

  She did as she was told. But as she studied the notes about tests administered and failed, remediation of “residential chemical contamination” and certifications secured once the work was done, she wagged her head in confusion.

  “Did we build on a toxic waste dump or something?” Marlee had heard her father complain about the Environmental Protection Agency and the costs incurred by following their guidelines her entire life, but building on contaminated land would be a bridge too far, even for Henry.

  “No.” The older man took a deep breath, then released it with a shuddering sigh. “The Drug Enforcement Agency cut a big swath through this part of the state a couple years ago,” he began.

  Marlee recalled her father and Jeff talking about the agency’s action in Masters and surrounding counties. “Yes. They were looking for people producing methamphetamine, weren’t they?”

  The older man nodded. “Precisely.”

  When he said nothing more, she glanced down at the paper in the folder. The puzzle pieces slipped into place. “They were cooking in our houses.”

  “A number of them, yes.” Wendell ruffled a stack of papers with the side of his thumb before proceeding with caution. “When your brother first came to work, your father had put Jeff in charge of overseeing the real estate division.”

  He let the tidbit of information dangle. Frowning, Marlee slipped her foot out of her pump and swung the shoe on her toes, a nervous habit she’d picked up while being forced to sit through dozens of white tablecloth–draped debutante teas. She flexed her foot faster and faster as she flipped through page after page of documentation. Many of them carried her brother’s signature scrawled at the bottom.

  “Jeff?” She froze for a moment. “He wasn’t involved with drugs, was he?”

  Wendell shook his head. “No. The only thing your brother was guilty of was being young and naive.” He straightened in his seat. “He acted in good faith, but a number of people around him did not. There were some who escaped prosecution on technicalities. Some, your brother might have considered friends at one time. Adding insult to injury, it galled Jeff to see the real estate division bankrupted on his watch. A fact your father didn’t hesitate to remind him of at every opportunity.”

  Marlee’s gut churned and her foot started to twitch again, the leather edges of her pump knocking against the bottom of her heel.

  Wendell pushed on, but now he sat still, his gaze fixed on her. “To make amends, he negotiated a deal where they could sell off a chunk of the family’s personal property. A parcel earmarked to come to him eventually anyway.”

  Dread pooled in the depths of her belly. “What property?”

  “An attorney representing land development trust made a large offer for several parcels of land out on Sawtooth Lake.”

  Chapter Seven

  Marlee sat at the conference table piled with files. Wendell had abandoned her for a client meeting, so she sat there leafing through countless pages of title transfers, lease agreements and other assorted documentation related to both the sale of the lake property and the remediation of the rental properties in town, wondering what the hell had happened to her hometown in the years since she’d left for college.

  In her mind, Pine Bluff was the quintessential small Southern town. They had pancake breakfasts after church on Sundays and parades for almost every holiday. There were ice-cream socials and sewing circles with multiple generations of women from the same family as members. Sure, people moved away, but for some reason or another, a good portion of those people eventually found their way back.

  What they didn’t have were people who manufactured illicit drugs in their kitchens and massive distribution networks stretching across the state and beyond.

  Or so she had thought.

  Her mind reeling, she continued flipping pages, trying to focus on the real estate holdings she was supposed to be studying. But here and there she found references to the tenants who were caught up in the legal proceedings stemming from the DEA sting. So many people involved in something she—a Masters from Masters County—had no idea was even happening. It didn’t seem possible.

  Her father had raised his children to believe their family name made them personally responsible for the health and well-being of every person who lived inside the county lines, but reading through these files, she began to realize her hometown and its surrounding area were not the bucolic microcosms she’d believed them to be.

  Some of the statements taken as part of the evictions read like works of fiction. Who would have ever believed Clem Watkins, the man who’d been janitor at the high school as long as anyone could remember, was one of the biggest dealers in town? And he’d been savvy enough to cut a deal with the agency in exchange for a handful of underlings and the name of the man who’d gotten him started in the business.

  Clint Young.

  But both the agents working the lingering cases and the prosecutor’s office had been unable to unearth a shred of evidence to support Clem’s claim, and no charges had ever been filed against Clint.

  As far as Marlee could see, he’d managed to cover any involvement he might have had so thoroughly, he hadn’t even been brought in for formal questioning. Did Ben Kinsella suspect Clint was involved in all this mess, even peripherally? Was he aware Masters County was such an unholy mess when he’d agreed to take the job as sheriff? Were the surrounding counties as much of a mess? Prescott County bordered Sawtooth Lake as well. Who had cleaned up over there? Prescott County’s economy was driven by small-crop farmers, some who grew timber to sell to Timber Masters or direct to the paper mills. They didn’t have the backing of one solid, stable company. Masters County had Timber Masters and the Masters family. Who was footing the bill for Prescott’s recovery?

  Closing one file folder, she reached for another labeled Sawtooth Lake Sportsmen’s Club and opened it with some trepidation. Wendell had told her Henry had rejected Jeff’s idea of selling off parcels of their property out of hand, but in the weeks following her brother’s death, he’d reconsidered. Back in the day, there had only been two dwellings on the lake—her family’s and the one built by Clint Young’s father.

  Four bedrooms with adjoining baths, a chef’s kitchen and a wraparound deck affording spectacular sunset views made her family’s spread a showplace. The extensive use of good Georgia pine and rough-hewn wood accents allowed her father to call it a cabin rather than a lake house—a
distinction Henry had found appealing, even if the rest of the family couldn’t have cared less.

  He primarily used the place for entertaining clients, or loaned it out to people he thought might be influential or beneficial to the business. Her mother had hated it out there and had grudgingly gone only when Henry put his foot down. She and Jeff swam in the lake when they were young, though she preferred a nice chlorinated pool to anything with a mud bottom and slimy grass that wrapped around a person’s legs. If she closed her eyes and focused hard, she could conjure up a happy memory or two, but they were sparse.

  She couldn’t figure out why it upset her so to discover the land adjacent to theirs had been sold. Opening the folder, she inspected the revised plats dividing the property into five sections. The largest belonged to their family. Their closest neighbors were still the Youngs.

  Theirs had actually been a cabin. A simple place built by Mr. Young as an escape from his unhappy home life. There were three other parcels situated on the other side of a cove from the Masters and Young places. They were labeled with names. Pulling the yellow legal pad closer, she noted them.

  Thomason, Abernathy and Baker.

  She tapped her pen against the pad until something clicked. Abernathy. She’d dated a boy named Bo Abernathy in high school. It was possible his parents had purchased one of the plots, but it didn’t seem likely. The family wasn’t particularly well-off. Dismissing the name as coincidence, she checked the next. There were three different Baker families in the area, to her recollection. She marked it for further research, then sat staring into space as she ran through her mental map of town. For the life of her, she couldn’t place anyone named Thomason but had the niggling suspicion she ought to recognize the name.

  Wendell opened the door to the small room where she’d spread out and popped his head in. “Doing all right in here?”

  “Is there a Thomason family in town?” She bit her lip as she searched her memory again, trying to place anyone she may have met with the name.

  “Family? No.” Wendell paused, his expression thoughtful. “You mean other than Will Thomason, right?”

  “Who is Will Thomason?”

  “Will Thomason,” Wendell repeated. “General manager at Timber Masters,” he added with a pointed stare.

  “I don’t know a Will Thomason,” Marlee said. “I thought Jeff was the general manager.”

  “Yes, he was, but...” He let the thought trail off and made a vague circling motion with his hand.

  “But Jeff is dead,” she concluded flatly. “Will Thomason is the man who took his place.”

  Wendell rolled his shoulders back, then cocked his head as he studied her. “Come to think of it, I suppose Will moved while you were in college.” He frowned. “I’d have thought your father would have introduced you, but then, you haven’t been home long.”

  “No. I haven’t.” She closed the file with a sigh. “I guess a lot of things have changed since I’ve been gone.”

  “Some things but not everything,” Wendell said gently. “You’re past due for some lunch. Go walk around town and clear your head a bit. I believe you’ll find the onion rings at the Daisy Drive-In are as tasty as they ever were.”

  She hooked her arm through her handbag and rose, anxious to leave the files behind. “Can I bring you anything?”

  “No, thank you. Miss Delia has packed me my no-salt, no-fat, no-flavor lunch, and she reports back to my daughter-in-law if I try to cheat.”

  She grinned as she imagined the Wingate’s five-foot-nothing housekeeper giving the old man what for. “How would she know?”

  He chuckled. “Another thing that hasn’t changed. Word travels fast around here. She’d sense it if I even dipped a french fry into the ketchup.”

  Marlee stilled, her hand on the door handle. He was right. The only mill in Masters County that ran faster than her daddy’s lumber mill was the rumor mill. It was time to pound the pavement, and possibly press an ear to the ground.

  * * *

  BEN WAS BITING into one of the Daisy Drive-In’s famous mile-high club sandwiches when the door to the office swung open and Marlee Masters blew in. He lowered the sandwich to the carryout container and forced himself to chew as she approached. When she drew to a stop in front of his desk, he swallowed with a hard gulp then reached for the cup of sweet tea he’d ordered to go with his lunch, gesturing for his guest to take a seat while he washed the food down.

  Holding a to-go cup of her own, Marlee dropped into the wooden guest chair so hard he winced. “Ms. Masters. We meet again,” he said, wiping his mouth with one of the inconsequential paper napkins the dairy bar had provided with the meal. “What can I do for you this time?”

  Marlee glanced over both shoulders as if she’d only now noticed they weren’t alone in the office. Julianne was at home eating her own lunch, but Deputy Mike Schaeffer sat at his desk, his pen frozen in midair. The younger man gaped at Marlee in wide-eyed shock, and it was all Ben could do to suppress a smile. The woman did cause a stir.

  “You can go grab your lunch early, Mike,” Ben called out to him, his voice genial but the command clear.

  He saw the younger man’s desire to protest. After all, he’d come on shift only a half hour ago. But Ben had the distinct feeling he shouldn’t have an audience around for whatever Ms. Masters wanted from him.

  Ben waved his hand in a shooing motion. “It’ll keep you from having to run out later.” He cast a wistful glance at his uneaten lunch, then carefully closed the lid on the container.

  “I’m sorry—I didn’t mean to interrupt your lunch,” she said. “I figured you’d be done. You must have had a busy morning too.” She waved the cup in her hand, indicating she’d been to the Daisy as well. “I opted to drink my lunch. A chocolate malt has everything a girl needs to power through the afternoon.” Her cheeks flushed a rosy pink, making her blue eyes appear even brighter. “Please, eat.” She waved a hand at the container.

  He was about to refuse when his stomach rumbled. Loudly. Marlee laughed, and he felt the heat rise in his own cheeks. “Excuse me,” he mumbled. Pushing the sandwich aside, he sat up straighter. “You’re going to think all I do is eat.”

  “Heaven forbid people consume meals at meal times,” she countered.

  He fixed her with a pointed look. “Is there something I can do for you?”

  She scooted forward in her seat and placed her cup on the edge of his desk. “I wanted to ask you a couple of questions, if you don’t mind.”

  Ben nodded, then popped the lip on the container again. “Wanna join the mile-high club with me?” He kept his expression sober but gestured to the quartered club sandwich nestled into a bed of potato chips.

  Her lips parted as she looked at him, then down at the sandwich. “You get that from the Daisy?”

  “Of course.”

  He could see she was sorely tempted, but still she refused. “No. Thank you. It looks delicious, though.”

  He pushed the box closer to her, then picked up the quarter he’d abandoned. “How is your first day going? Did you get a big office and everything?”

  “I got farmed out,” she said, her lips thinning into a line.

  He froze, the stacked sandwich gripped in both hands and his mouth hanging open for a moment. Moving his head to the side, he peered at her around his lunch. “Farmed out?”

  “To Wendell Wingate.”

  She gave a jerky shrug he supposed was meant to be nonchalance, but the tiny furrow between her eyes gave her away. It also annoyed him. Marlee Masters was a woman born to smile, not scowl.

  “You’ve been working with Wendell? Well, I guess that makes sense in a way,” he commented, manufacturing his own measure of casualness.

  “Sheriff—”

  “Ben,” he corrected, then sank his teeth into the sandwich.

  “I wanted to ask if you knew anything
about the sweep the DEA made of this area a couple years ago,” she continued.

  Ben chewed methodically, examining the question in his mind and checking every angle before deciding how to answer. He swallowed, then took a sip of his tea. His response was nothing more than a cautious, “I do.” He then took another healthy bite to buy more time.

  She tipped her head to the side, clearly irritated by his succinct answer but prepared to reframe her question in a half dozen other ways.

  “Fine. Can you tell me more about the actions surrounding the Drug Enforcement Agency’s activities in this area and the fallout from them?”

  He nodded again, his mouth full. He watched her practically vibrate with impatience as she waited, and he couldn’t resist yanking her chain one more time. Though he acknowledged the necessary role attorneys played in their legal system, as a cop, he wasn’t particularly crazy about them. If he was honest with himself, he would admit his willingness to help this one wasn’t motivated by a simple desire to see justice served.

  “I can.” He chewed then swallowed before waving his hand as if telling her to come at him. “Try again, but this time ask in a way that doesn’t give me as much wiggle room.”

  She huffed her indignation, her face alight with a blush. “Fine. What do you know about the raids the DEA staged in this area?”

  He tossed the crusts of the sandwich into the box and picked up another segment as he eyed her. “Two years ago, a team of agents undertook an operation to shut down one of the largest methamphetamine networks in the Southeast.”

  “You were part of the team?”

  He ignored her shocked question in favor of getting the pertinent information out of the way. “Most of their operations centered in Masters and Prescott Counties. We made several arrests, turned several more of the operation’s key figures into witnesses and shut down the majority of the production in the area.”