Killing Time
Page 3
little attention to the less than pleasing surroundings as I focused on the impressive meal. Later, back at the cabin, after my shower, I sat in the bed with the three pillows as my backrest, the television as background noise, and I read the intriguing material on Lenore Hatchell given me by the late, and only I knew he was the late, Wyatt Hatchell. Wyatt wove the story of the disintegration of the Hatchell marriage. Lenore knew of his philandering but had always turned her head as if it didn't exist. The turning point was reached one afternoon at the Galleria in Houston where their main home in River Oaks was located. Lenore had been shopping with two friends when the time neared six that Saturday afternoon.
The friends left Lenore because their husbands were at home and expected them for dinner. Wyatt was in D. C. testifying before a House panel about the fracking turmoil of causing earthquakes that had arisen. Coastal Oil, Hatchell's parent company, was being sued to stop fracking near urban areas. Since Wyatt wasn't home, Lenore decided to eat downtown. She chose Fogo de Chão, the Brazilian steakhouse. She was having a pre-dinner martini when a younger woman slid in the chair beside her and said, "Good evening, Lenore. I'm Marsha Teller, a friend of Wyatt's. I want to ask you something. Wyatt told me last week that you told him that you wanted to do a threesome with us. I'd like to set up a date when we could all meet and spend the night."
According to Wyatt's material, Lenore threw the martini in Teller's face, stood and ran from the restaurant. She went to the house, packed her bags and flew to Hilton Head Island to the condo they owned there. She hasn't been home since. Wyatt learned through an attorney that Lenore was in the process of transferring her old family homestead south of Hilton Head to her niece and the two lots in Savannah to her nephew. Wyatt wrote that he wanted those two properties because he had planned a housing development on the homestead property and had two clients interested in the city lots for multi-story office buildings. He was pissed. And, he was mostly accurate in his story. Lenore had told me basically the same accounts almost word for word.
Her picture was a good one and I studied the face of the elderly, but still very attractive Lenore Steele Hatchell. I had long ago burned the face into my memory until I knew that I would recognize her even after a bombing in World War III. Wyatt penned that she would be at the condo until those transactions were completed and that target date was three weeks from today. He gave the address, the places Lenore frequented, and, of course, the contract price that I collected last night. What he couldn't tell me was that Lenore had also contracted with me to reconcile their argument. I executed that contract last evening.
I knew that the niece had been the caretaker of the homestead for the last fifteen years. She lived in the homestead, ran her Arts and Crafts business in Savannah and lunched with her brother twice weekly when he flew into town. He was a pilot for a major airline based in Atlanta. I knew that the two clients for the Savannah lots were already in contact with the nephew thanks to Lenore. The attorney working with Lenore had introduced the niece to a developer who was arranging funding to develop the property into upper-class residential lots.
I put the material away, relocked the case and sat it beside the bed. I used the remote and turned the TV off, clicked off the light and turned to my left side facing the window. I was asleep within ten minutes and didn't budge until the clock showed seven. It was Sunday morning; the sky was heavily clouded with very few rays of sunshine bursting through the clouds. I got up, shaved, dressed and drove to the office. No one was around, but I had already paid, so I dropped the key in the slot and was swiftly on Interstate 10 speeding toward San Antonio to meet my eleven A. M. flight to Savannah/Hilton Head. I had expressed the money to the Westin on Hilton Head Island to be held for my arrival. I had my carryon as I checked the larger bag that contained my pistols but no ammo, so the TSA didn't question them when I showed my permits. After turning the car in to the rental agency, I had breakfast in the airport before heading to my assigned Gate. I was flying under the name Kyle Morris, an accountant from Corpus Christi when I checked in at the Gate. The attendant welcomed me to the flight and said that boarding would begin in ten minutes. I was flying first class and would be one of the first boarders called. I sat in the leather theater seat near the window where someone had left the Sunday paper. I perused it but found no reports of Hatchell. It appears that my planned early arrival had been just the trick to make my plan successful. Had I showed up Saturday evening there would have been no blonde, no rush to get back to her, no naked bodies in the bed, and the execution of the reconciliation would have proved far more difficult. The surprise factor usually provides me with unquestioned results.
While I waited, I reflected on the past. I resurrected my years in Iraq as an Intelligence agent and the extensive training Uncle Sam gave me in the art of killing. My reminiscing went back as far as when I left Lafourche parish in Louisiana. It focused on my time in college that I spent each summer searching graveyard headstones for young males near my birth year who had died in their infancy. I collected and still use those names and dates of birth. I had read a mystery novel in my first year of college and was intrigued when the villain in the story had gathered a number of valid birth certificates by garnering names from the graveyards. He had then applied for birth certificates in those names. From the birth certificates he had obtained passports and drivers licenses in several states that he used to throw off his true identity. I did that. I now have ten valid names plus my own true name, Donald Tencount that I use. I have business cards in those names, occupations, and false addresses. My shadow names have served me well the last five years. In fact, they have made me a millionaire several times over. I also learned from that book that one does not leave witnesses. I'm a firm believer in that advice. I looked up as my thoughts were interrupted by the boarding call and that took preference.
We arrived so close to the predicted time that I was actually startled when the wheels hit the tarmac. I fly frequently and on-time arrival is mostly a cruel joke. We're either early--rarely--or late--mostly and late is what I expect. Once I had snatched my bag from the carousel, I drug it behind me, wheels squealing at the slick tile, to the National Rental desk where I had reserved a rental car. I had requested a Buick Enclave and sure enough, I was given a nice cream-colored one with very few miles on it. Luxury was included and the vehicle drove like a dream. The GPS guided me flawlessly over Hilton Head Island. I didn't stop until I was at the portico of the Westin and having the bellman removing my bags from the hatch. I drove forward, parked the car and returned to the front door. I went in, checked-in and received my room key and garage ticket. I went back to the portico, gave the key to the bellman and went to put the car in the garage now that I had authority. When I arrived at my room, he was just adjusting the drapes and had turned the air conditioning on to begin a cool down of the room. I tipped him, secured my bags in the closet and went to the poolside bar.
I ordered a beer with a tuna salad sandwich. While I waited I watched the ocean waves create nice easy whitecaps for the few who preferred to frolic in the ocean waters in lieu of the pristine pool. My first beer was gone by the time the sandwich was delivered so I ordered a second, dark, different brand. The sun felt good, the beer was mellowing me after the flight and all in the world of me was good. After I ate, I took a lounge chair and moved it under the shade of a tree. I spent the next two hours drinking beer and watching every type of bikini on the face of the earth either in the water or avoiding water. The exposed flesh was charming and tempting, but I wasn't on a pleasure trip. The ladies would have to wait a week or so to entertain me and when that time came, I would open the flood gates of womanly pleasure for them.
Lenore Hatchell lives on the route to the Westin. When I turned, I drove slowly past her condo on Folly Field Road on my way to The Westin. It is an easy walk or pleasant jog back to where the condo is one of many in that development. Hilton Head Island is mostly a condo community because of the tourism and desire to have a vacation home in a popular and b
usy location on the water. When I visit Lenore it will be on foot because it is a gated community and I want no records of my being admitted through the gates. Without a car, I will have easy, undetected access and once inside, face few questions since being stopped is a rarity. It is such a large development that hordes of those in residence are always on the move from the pools, the mail boxes the playgrounds, the cars and just generally moving around the grounds. I will be one of those milling around aimlessly.
Lenore is not scheduled to be here until Wednesday. She is still at the old home place with her niece. Tonight the two of them will have dinner with the nephew, the pilot. who is checked-in at the Sheraton for a layover rest period. He flies out tomorrow as Captain on the 3:20 P. M. flight to Cincinnati. That scheduling means that I have all day Monday and Tuesday to do my advance preparation before my appointment Thursday with Lenore. Wyatt conveniently mapped where he had hidden a key that I will use for undetected access to their Unit. Theirs is two units combined. When they