Life's a Beach Then You Die

by Falafel Jones

  Chapter Thirty

  After lunch, I had a nice walk in the surf back to the house where I planned to change clothes before visiting A.V. Designs. While I walked, something occurred to me. Maybe the empty battery compartment in Ray’s answering machine never had a bug. Maybe it was empty simply because it came without a battery and no one bothered to put one in. If there was no bug, then there had to be some other way to know that Ed was handling Ray’s estate. Sure there was. You could be Kathleen, the woman who hired Ed.

  If Kathleen wanted the prototype and couldn’t find it, she could have bugged Ed’s office in the hopes of locating it. All she had to do was visit the Spy Shack. When I considered this possibility, I realized that it could also have been Kathleen who tossed her house searching for Ray’s hiding place. Especially since she’s left the area, Kathleen is definitely a loose end I’d like to tie up

  She lived with Ray. If she wanted to kill him, she would have had the opportunity to do it. Also, as his spouse, she could have a motive. Lastly, without looking into her, I’ll never know if we were headed in the right direction.

  When I got home, I sat at my desk and turned on my laptop computer. While I sat there waiting for it to start up, I thought about what Ed had said. He was right about protecting his client’s interests, but Ray was his client too. Who was representing his interests? Surely, it was in Ray’s interests to catch his killer. In addition, there was more at stake here than Ed seemed to want to acknowledge. He retained me only to locate client assets and I had done that.

  Since then, thieves broke into my home, my wife was too scared to come back and someone was stalking me. I had to address those personal concerns too. I was definitely going to look into Kathleen, but I promised Ed I would be discreet. I’d have to forgo the usual P. I. databases and phone calls, but I should be able to use whatever resources were available to the general public out on the Internet.

  Then it occurred to me. Much of what I wanted to know about Kathleen, I could learn by investigating Ray. No one said I couldn’t do more of that. I knew Kathleen and Ray lived in a house in Volusia County. I had been there to sweep for bugs. I also knew that there should be a deed on file. If the house was in only Ray’s name that might be useful information. If someone else owned it, I might be able to identify another player.

  Figuring the deed would be a good place to start, I went to the website of the Volusia County Clerk of Circuit Court. Under the listing “Public Records”, I clicked on “Instrument Inquiry”. The next page required I enter my full name. I didn’t want to, but my computer IP address could identify me anyway. I typed in my name. I doubted things would get to the point where this information would come out.

  Besides, I wasn’t investigating Kathleen, I was investigating Ray. I promised myself I wouldn’t even type “Kathleen” into any of the search fields.

  Instead, I typed “Kenwood Raymond” in the text box at the top of the page, clicked “Submit” and a list of Ray’s county records appeared. The list included a marriage certificate, a deed, a mortgage document and a satisfaction of mortgage document.

  I started with the marriage certificate. The handwritten entries told me it was the first marriage for both Ray and Kathleen and that Ray was born in Florida while Kathleen was born in South Carolina. Since the addresses on the certificate for both Ray and Kathleen were the same, I guessed they were living together when they decided to marry. She was two years older than Ray and her maiden name was Kincaid. So far, all I learned was that her premarital monogrammed clothes were still useable.

  I looked at the deed next. The address on it was different from the one on the marriage certificate. It was the place where Ed and I had done the bug check. Apparently, they lived elsewhere for about ten months before buying the house as a married couple. The deed listed both Ray and Kathleen as “grantees”. The mortgage document listed both Ray and Kathleen as “borrowers” and the Satisfaction of Mortgage document showed they paid the mortgage in full ten years later. I didn’t see any money problems here. In addition, records I found on Ray’s computer also listed Kathleen as a joint owner of all the assets listed there. If Kathleen killed Ray, it probably wasn’t for money.

  I didn’t find any documents pertaining to any court orders or probation reports. Since they were readily available, I decided to look at the Citation records to see if anything was there. In this case, tickets issued to Ray wouldn’t mention Kathleen, so I did this search on the last name alone. Nothing came up on either Ray or Kathleen. She didn’t even have any traffic tickets.

  I went back to the marriage certificate. It listed Kathleen’s maiden name, birth state and date of birth. I was thinking I could use that information to get more details from one of the P. I. databases when the phone rang. It was Ed. “We meet the D. A. tomorrow at 9:00. He wants to hear what we got in person. I’ll pick you up at 8:30.”

  “OK. See you then.” After his call I felt like I pushed as far as I could against Ed’s edict without going over the line. I didn’t find anything that made Kathleen look suspect but I filed her information for possible later use and sat back in my chair. It was time to go to A. V. Designs and see what else I could find.