Fatal Trust

by Todd M Johnson

  She waited a moment for her words to sink in. They seemed to have had no impact so far.

  “But I know something about you,” Brook continued. “I know you’ve got a résumé out to Paisley, Bowman, Battle, and Rhodes.”

  The law clerk’s expression went blank.

  “Right,” Brook said, hiding her joy at the successful bluff. “So here’s another educational tip. Eldon is really big on loyalty. Like paranoid big. Résumé floating? No humor about that. None at all. I doubt he’d wait to see if you got that job before he relieved you of this one.”

  Chloe cleared her throat. “What do you want?”

  “I want to be friends, Chloe. And a good start would be for you to stop snooping around in my private life—stop making insinuations about me. And as a show of my friendship, I’m willing to forget about your little shout-out to private practice. What do you say to that?”

  The clerk’s face had turned red. “Alright.”

  “Great. Oh, and as a friend, I’d like back the copies of those ICR and FBI reports I know you kept. All of them.”

  Chloe reached into her drawer and pulled out a thick Redrope expandable file. “You know Eldon already knows about these,” she said. “I mentioned them in my memorandum. What if he asks to see them?”

  “If he asks, send him to me,” Brook said sweetly. “That’s all of them?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. And lastly, I really have to ask that you keep me in the loop about this Ian Wells matter. Like the ‘first call’ kind of friend. Think you can do that?”

  Chloe nodded.

  Brook left the office and walked down the hall to the locked receptacle for storing documents for shredding. With a quick glance around, she pushed all the files Chloe had handed her into its wide mouth.

  As she turned away, Brook thought she’d feel a sense of victory. She didn’t. In fact, she felt sick. As much as she loathed Chloe and her no-holds-barred ambition, the truth was Brook had become involved in a betrayal. Of her job. Her profession. Her oath. Even her colleagues. Chloe wasn’t wrong. She was right for the wrong reasons.

  Brook shook her head hard. Fine. So Chloe’s conduct wasn’t exactly wrong. But in this case—in this one case—the system was wrong. About Ian Wells. She’d bet her career on it. Actually, she already had.

  Brook strode down the hall toward her office to collect her things and leave. This didn’t slow the process down, not yet. But it probably ensured she’d know what was coming before it happened. Like the issuing of the warrants.

  Because once Eldon got a warrant and reviewed Ian’s bank records—and saw the trust money transfers—it would all blow up. She hadn’t derailed this train. Maybe she’d slowed it down a bit.

  She turned off the light in her office as she left, feeling scared and lousy all at once. Scared for Ian. Lousy about herself.

  Still, taking Chloe down had been a little bit satisfying, hadn’t it?

  Yeah. It had. A lot, actually.

  38

  SUNDAY, JUNE 10

  7:40 P.M.

  VICTOR’S 1959 CAFÉ

  SOUTH MINNEAPOLIS

  Through the beginning of a light rain, Ian approached the entrance to Victor’s 1959 Café. He was tugging the hood of his sweatshirt over his head at the same moment someone else left the restaurant door just ahead, wearing a blue windbreaker and a hood already drawn up. The person turned away just as Ian slipped past.

  Every inch of the small restaurant’s yellow-painted interior was covered, wall to ceiling, with graffiti. The place was crowded, although given its size, Ian wondered if it was ever otherwise. He weaved across the uneven floor through tightly packed benches of patrons until he saw Rory sitting by himself in the back.

  Rory’s eyes flashed recognition as Ian approached. “What are you doing here?” he snarled over empty dishes on his table.

  Ian slid onto the bench opposite him, pushing a plate aside to rest his arms on the table. “We need to talk.”

  “I gave you all my information last time.”

  “You stood me up at Larry’s.”

  Rory squinted. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Our meeting you set up Friday night?”

  “Don’t know who you talked to. If it was Larry at the bar, we had a falling-out. Seems like too many people were learning my business. But you know what? It doesn’t matter. I don’t need to meet with you anyway. I’ve decided I don’t want the trust money.”

  Ian leaned back in the bench, his questions forgotten. “Why not?”

  “First off, you’ve been talking to Ahmetti and listening to his lies. The old scab told you I fenced things after my mother died, didn’t he? Except I didn’t. I sold him some things when I got separated from Lisa, but they were mine. I told him they weren’t stolen, but he and his yeti of a sidekick didn’t believe me. Just like you’re not believing me now.”

  “Then that would mean you qualify for the trust. What if I believed you . . . still don’t want the money?”

  “Nope.”

  “Why?”

  Rory shrugged as he started to spin the ring. “My business.”

  Ian shook his head. “The money’s gone, Rory. You don’t want it because you’ve already got it.”

  The thin man’s head snapped up. “Whaddya mean, gone?”

  “Somebody hacked it out of my account two nights ago—the night you were supposed to meet me.”

  “That’s bull.” His attention drifted, and he looked over Ian’s shoulder.

  “It’s not. And it was your guys who attacked me at the bar too. Planning to make me disappear.”

  Rory was looking straight through Ian now. He shook his head, pulled some cash out of a pocket, and dropped it on the table.

  “Wait a second,” Ian said as Rory stood. “I’ve got more questions.”

  “Not for me, you don’t.”

  Ian stood as well, leaning over the table and grabbing the gaunt man’s arm. He pulled him close and whispered, “I know the trust money was from the art theft. I know somebody died in the robbery. Ahmetti told me my dad wasn’t connected to your family at the time. So how’d he get involved and how’d he earn a piece of the trust?”

  Rory’s expression was a mix of angst and anger. “Connor and I grew up in the same neighborhood. I knew him then.”

  The first sliver of truth. “Friends?”

  “No. I just knew him.”

  “Then how’d he connect to your family?”

  “He fell for my sister,” he replied, growing more agitated. Then he pulled his arm free and walked away from the booth.

  Rory had no sister. It would have shown up in his search of Jimmy Doyle’s genealogy. Infuriated, Ian called to Rory, “Callahan thinks one of us has that money.”

  “Then I suggest you give it back to him,” Rory shot back, then headed toward the restaurant exit.

  Ian moved to follow, but a waiter stepped in his way, bringing him to a halt and leaving him several paces behind as Rory was going out the door.

  Seconds later, the air outside was misty and cool as Ian emerged from the restaurant. He searched every direction before seeing Rory thirty feet away on the corner, looking both ways before crossing the street.

  A black car pulled across the empty intersection against the red light. It stopped as the rear passenger door came abreast of Rory. The door opened.

  The wiry man leaned forward, looking into the car. He slid inside.

  Ian hadn’t even thought to start moving again before the car was pulling away from the curb, splashing water as it disappeared up the wet street.

  8:27 P.M.

  EAST ST. PAUL

  Martha stared out across the parking lot that lay below her chair on the patio of the third-floor condominium. Somewhere in the apartment through the screen door behind her she heard Katie greet her son, who’d just arrived. Martha could just make out the voices of Katie and Ian and Brook in the apartment, speaking low enough that she couldn’t unde
rstand them over the freeway traffic in sight a block away.

  The low conversation faded, then stopped.

  “Have you tried Wet Willy again?” she heard Katie ask a minute later, calling from the kitchen.

  “Yep. I got him on the fourth try,” Ian answered, nearer at hand. “I told him he could keep the car till I get back from Florida.”

  Martha sighed. A swallow swooped down from a telephone pole, darting back and forth like the tip of a conductor’s baton.

  She ached in a way she hadn’t in a long time. If only Connor were here. He could always bring her back from these moods, convince her they’d really done the right thing all these years. Where was he now when she needed him so?

  She tried thinking of other things. Katie—dear Katie—was humming a familiar song in the kitchen. She loved when Katie sang or hummed. Deep-throated, carefree. It softened the edges of the void within her.

  “Mom. I’ll bet you miss your gardens.”

  Ian had appeared on the deck and taken a seat beside her. She felt him take her hand.

  Her gardens? She did miss her gardens. Why had they taken her away from them? Why couldn’t she go there now?

  “I’m flying to Florida in the morning, Mom,” Ian was saying gently. “Brook’s driving me to the airport. I’m going there to talk to Ed McMartin.”

  Florida. She remembered going there as a child with her mother. The hot sand underfoot, the shells of Captiva piled deep like a snow sculpture on the beach. Warm rain drifting in from the Gulf to pound the roof of the house they’d rented.

  “I wish you could tell me what happened.” Ian was speaking again. “Like what you meant when you told Katie they wouldn’t ‘find it.’ You meant the painting, didn’t you? Where is it, Mom? And how Dad earned his share. Anything to help me recover the trust money before Tuesday. I need to know so I can protect you. And me. Everyone. I don’t care what Dad did, but I wish you’d speak to me and save me this trip.”

  The pain gathered again around her heart. Oh, Connor, where are you?

  “Hon, supper’s about ready,” Katie called.

  “Great,” Ian called back. He let go of her hand. “Five minutes till we eat, Mom.”

  Martha’s mind flowed back to Florida and the man arriving in the rain, ringing the doorbell of their house that lay within sight of the Gulf’s waters. Leaning down and tickling her chin when she answered the door. Her mother in a green dress, coming out of her bedroom and greeting him, kissing him. The man taking off his wet coat and crouching down to give her a brightly colored plastic turtle.

  The swallow had been joined by others on the telephone wire. Martha watched them gathering for a moment, then glanced over her shoulder. In the apartment, Ian was filling glasses with ice, Brook setting dishes on the table. Katie stood at the stove.

  She turned back to the parking lot.

  Why didn’t Mother ever explain? You never should assume what a child knows or believes. Never. Though she understood that sometimes it seemed too painful. Too painful to lay bare what you were doing or what you’d done or, hardest of all, why you’d done it—even to a child who had a right to know. Martha understood that now. Still, her mother should have at least tried to explain.

  The man had left them in the morning. The rain hadn’t stopped, but he’d gone out into the shower with only his hat and coat and no umbrella, walking slowly to the black car, pelted by drops as big as pebbles, to drive away.

  Martha sighed.

  “Hon, it’s time to come in and eat.” It was Katie, standing at her shoulder with a wide smile on her face.

  Martha shook her head. “Tell Ian to bring an umbrella,” she said quietly. “It rains a lot in Florida.”

  Then she began to cry.

  39

  MONDAY, JUNE 11

  3:45 P.M.

  PORT ST. LUCIE, FLORIDA

  Ian had flown into Fort Lauderdale instead of West Palm Beach. No flights were available into the airport nearer to his destination. He’d rented a car for the extra hour drive to Port St. Lucie.

  Brook had driven him to the Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport the night before. She’d offered to lend him money, but he’d turned her down. “You’re already in way over your head,” he’d said with thanks. Accepting money from her made it all the worse.

  He’d promised to be careful. “If somebody was trying to harm you before,” Brook told him, “they almost certainly still are.” And this time he wouldn’t have the gun he’d left behind with Katie.

  They’d hugged before parting. In the midst of the hug, he’d remembered the name of the perfume she always wore in law school and was wearing again last night: Chantel Spring.

  Ian saw the exit for Port St. Lucie ahead. Feeling blind without GPS, armed with only a cheap cellphone he’d bought yesterday, he left the freeway and began watching the street signs carefully, recalling from memory the map he’d reviewed.

  Within minutes he entered a neighborhood of winding streets and tropical-colored ramblers with tall palms rustling overhead. Each house looked a little different from the other. It was a rare one that didn’t have a pool behind it.

  Then he saw it.

  It was as though a snapshot buried in his mind had come to life. The long sidewalk curving from the street to the front door. The coral walls and green shutters. A single palm centered in the front yard. By the time he parked, he knew that confirming the address was unnecessary.

  This was Ed McMartin’s home. Ian had been here before.

  He got out of the car into air like that of a sauna. As his feet hit the pavement, he had the strange sensation he was a child again, missing the grip of his mother’s hand. He took the sidewalk in rapid strides and rapped on the door.

  A large woman answered.

  “Mr. McMartin?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “Mr. McMartin isn’t living here at present,” she said in a Jamaican accent. “I’m the cleaning lady. Mr. McMartin’s current residence is the Shannon Transitional Care Home.”

  “Could you tell me where that is?”

  She disappeared, returning moments later holding a Post-it note with the address and directions written on it.

  The drive to the medical facility took less than ten minutes. The man behind the front desk acknowledged Edward McMartin was a resident patient and led Ian into a dining hall with brightly colored tablecloths decorated to look like an ice cream parlor. “Over there,” he said, and pointed toward a corner.

  The figure there was hunched in a powered wheelchair with an oxygen canister attached to its back.

  Ian approached. “Ed McMartin?” he asked.

  The man looked up. With wisps of stray white hair and tubes running to his nostrils, the man resembled a shrunken version of someone familiar. Ian tried to picture him as the man at the pool from his dreams, but the gap of age and wear was too great.

  Yet the opposite apparently wasn’t true. The withered man looked at Ian with such ferocity that he half expected a renewal of the poolside demand to know who had brought him there.

  “Do you remember me?” Ian asked unnecessarily.

  “Yeah, I know you.” Ed raised a bent hand holding a cloth and wiped at the edge of his mouth. “You’re Martha’s brat, the one she brought with her to Christina’s funeral. Still look like you’re ten years old. Come back to bury me, now, did you?”

  Ian shook his head. “I’m here because I need to know some things about the art robbery and the money.”

  Ed coughed into the cloth in his hand, glancing around uncomfortably. “Don’t know what you’re talking about. And I don’t want to talk now—I’m tired.”

  Ian shrugged. “Well, I’ve got all day. I can start with a few questions to jog your memory, and you can join in when you feel like answering.” He looked around. “Anybody in this place not hard of hearing?”

  Ed glowered. His hand went to the joystick on the arm of his wheelchair. “My room,” he said.

  The one-bedroom apartment was barely furnished
and held little that was personal, hinting at either a recent arrival or no plans for a long stay. Given the man’s frailty, Ian wondered if the sparse décor was wishful thinking. Ed drove his wheelchair to a corner window that looked out over a green lawn. He spun the chair around to face Ian.

  “You want to know about the money, eh?” He shook his head. “What good’s that gonna do you? What good’s the trust money going to do anybody after all these years?”

  “Then tell me about the robbery,” Ian said, trying to stay calm. “I need to know my parents’ role in it.”

  Ed coughed, louder and harsher this time. Ian realized he felt no concern for the man, only a powerful worry that he might collapse before he could tell Ian what he needed to know. That and a mild curiosity to learn whether McMartin really was as ill as he looked. Because if so, it was impossible he could have had a hand in launching the events up in Minneapolis the past week.

  “Sean was right,” McMartin said. “You don’t look like a lawyer.”

  “I’ve been hearing that a lot lately.”

  “Yeah. Not jaded enough yet. You don’t give me the urge to hide my wallet. Give it time, I suppose.”

  “If you’ve been talking to Callahan, you know I represent the trust.”

  Ed nodded. “Yeah. He called me last week.”

  “Good. So tell me my dad’s role in the robbery.”

  Ed waved him off with a gesture of his hand. “What’s that matter to passing out the trust money?”

  Ian’s voice hardened. “Because you need me to make decisions to distribute the cash and I want to know my dad’s role.”

  Ed shrugged. “Your dad wrote the trust. Jimmy wanted it that way.”

  “That’s not what I meant. I want to hear how my dad earned his share from the art gallery job itself.”

  The old man’s nostrils shrank as he drew a gulp of oxygen through his nose. “Not sure what you think you know.”

  Ian looked up at the ceiling. “It happened on January 14, 1983, at the Elaine Art Gallery on Excelsior Boulevard in St. Louis Park. There were a dozen paintings taken. Also around fifteen thousand in cash.”