Chapter 25
Finding the Killer
After pondering the wrongful death suit against Cindy Sharp for hours, Matt finally decided the only way to clear Cindy’s name and put the lawsuit against RMS back on track would be to find out who actually had killed Lucius Jones. At the firm’s weekly staff meeting he brought up that topic.
“Even if Cindy isn’t indicted people are going to wonder if she killed Lucius Jones. The only way to dispel that nasty rumor is to prove someone else actually killed him,” Matt argued.
“So, how do we do that?” Ryan asked.
“We identify who had motive and opportunity and then figure out which one of them did it.”
“So, who do you think had motive and opportunity?” Ryan asked, looking at his father.
“I don’t know. Shelly Simms likes the wife for it,” Rich replied. “They were separated, and apparently Samantha was just waiting for the most lucrative moment to file for divorce. But with the mortgage business in such disarray she may have gotten tired of waiting and decided to settle for the insurance proceeds on her husband’s life.”
“How much insurance?” Ryan asked.
“At least $250,000 but probably a lot more.”
“So, Dad. Why don’t you follow up on Samantha and I’ll check out Jones’s ex-partner, Walter Savage?” Ryan suggested.
Rich nodded. “What’s Matt going to do?”
“I’m going to see who else is out there who may have wanted to see Lucius dead.”
“You may need to hire a private investigator for that,” Ryan suggested.
“Maybe. I’ll do a little snooping around on my own first, but if I don’t get anywhere I’ll hire some help.”
After the meeting broke up, Matt started thinking about how he could find additional suspects. He remembered Shelly had said Sally, the receptionist out at RMS, knew more than anyone about what was going on around the office. Sitting out front and screening phone calls put her in a position to know everything about everybody. Matt called Shelly and set up a breakfast meeting with her and Sally the next morning at the Richardson IHOP. Shelly and Sally were seated in the waiting area when Matt arrived. They stood up, and Shelly introduced Sally to Matt. A moment later the hostess took them to their table and a waiter brought them coffee.
“Thank you for coming, Sally,” Matt said.
“No problem. I was actually excited when Shelly called. I hated Lucius Jones but I hate his wife even worse.”
Matt laughed. “Really?”
“Yes. So, how can I help bury the bitch?”
“Well, we’re looking into the obvious suspects, including Samantha and Walter Savage, but I wanted to see if there is anybody else out there who hated Lucius enough to kill him.”
Sally thought a moment. “Well, Lucius was pretty much an asshole, so he didn’t have a lot of friends. But aside from Walter and Samantha I don’t know anyone who hated him enough to kill him.”
“What about people who would benefit from his death?”
“He had several companies and partnerships that fed off the company. One of his partners in those enterprises may have had a motive.”
“Really? What kind of companies and partnerships are we talking about?” Matt asked.
“Well, he had a real estate company that bought foreclosed properties and another one that handled evictions.”
“How did that work?”
“A company called Southern Real Estate Investments LP bought all the foreclosed properties, fixed them up, and then sold them.”
“Was that profitable?”
“Yes, because they’d get the properties at least thirty percent below market value, so they almost always made money. If they couldn’t turn the property right away they’d sell them to Prime Holdings Ltd., who’d rent them out to cover the interest on the loans. In the interim while they were waiting for the market to turn around, the investors would get a nice tax write-off.”
“I see. Any other companies that, as you say, fed off RMS?”
“Yes, there was the eviction company and a company called Consolidated Document Retrieval.”
“You knew about CDR?”
“What do you mean?”
“Do you know what they did?”
“No. Not exactly. Why?”
Matt looked at Shelly.
“Nothing. What about the eviction company?”
“Metro Realty. They handled the evictions and the Cash for Keys program. It was their job to inspect all property put up for foreclosure, get an appraisal done, and get the home owners out of the property after foreclosure.”
“So, they offered money to evicted owners to induce them to leave peacefully.”
“Yes, because if a home owner contested a foreclosure or eviction it could cost the company thousands of dollars and delay liquidation of the property.”
“Who ran Metro Realty?” Matt asked.
“Ron Goddard. He’s an independent real estate agent, but more importantly, he’s six foot two and weighs 320 pounds.”
“Seriously?”
“Yes,” Sally replied.
Shelly nodded. “He’s a scary son of a bitch. He worked for the old company when I was head of customer service. You don’t know how many calls I got from people after he dropped by to encourage them to leave peacefully.”
“Will Samantha still use him, you think?”
Sally nodded. “She’s already talked to him and he’s agreed to continue on.”
“What about CDR?”
“Actually, CDR was Samantha’s idea,” Shelly noted. “Lucius said he got the idea for that company from his wife.”
“What does CDR do, anyway? I’ve always wondered about that,” Sally said.
Shelly looked at Matt. “Should we tell her?”
“Why not,” Matt replied. “Listen, this is strictly confidential and before we’ll tell you CDR’s purpose, we need to be sure you’ll keep the information to yourself. This is as much for your protection as ours.”
“Okay. My lips are sealed.”
“CDR is the company’s forgery division,” Shelly said. “Whenever the company needs a document that doesn’t exist, CDR will create it for us.”
Sally nodded. “That doesn’t surprise me. I always wondered how you guys always seemed to find the documents you needed for court at the last minute.”
“Uh-huh. Documents on demand,” Shelly said. “One of my jobs was to provide the specifications for the documents we needed from CDR and then check them when we got them back for compliance and accuracy.”
Sally shook her head. “I’m working for a bunch of crooks.”
Matt smiled. “We’ll put a good word in for you with the FBI when they take RMS down.”
“Thanks. Maybe I should get out like you did, Shelly. Get off the ship before it sinks.”
“That’s your decision, but if you want to ‘bury the bitch’ like you said earlier, there is no better way than to stay where you are and provide us intel.”
Sally sighed. “Oh what the hell. They didn’t prosecute Bernie Madoff’s receptionist, did they? And he stole billions.”
“No, I don’t think the feds will go after you.”
“All right, then. I’ll stay.”
“Good. Thank you,” Matt said. “Now, one more thing. I know you need to get to work so I’ll make it fast.” Matt looked down at his notes. “Did Lucius have any other partners or friends who came around that weren’t involved in CDR, Metro Realty, Southern Real Estate Investments, or Prime Holdings Ltd?”
“Well, just one comes to mind. Rick Shafer and Lucius had lunch at least two or three times a month. They were old college roommates and went to football games together sometimes.”
“Can you get me contact information on Rick?”
“Sure, I’ll email it to Shelly.”
“Email it from your house, not the office. Someone might be monitoring your email.”
“Of course,” Sally said with a big grin. “I’m a sp
y now. I know the routine.”
Matt swallowed hard. He wondered if Sally realized how dangerous a situation she was in. She seemed a bit cavalier, but he figured that might be just for show. Deep down she was probably scared to death. At least he hoped she was so she wouldn’t make any fatal mistakes.
When Matt got to the office he saw unopened mail on his desk. As he rummaged through it he noticed an envelope from Richmond & Richmond, so he opened it first. When he read it his heart nearly stopped. The title on pleading read Final Summary Judgment.
“What the fuck! You’ve got to be kidding!” he exclaimed.
Ryan, who was in the library, heard Matt and rushed in. “What’s wrong?”
“The court granted RMS’s motion for summary judgment.”
“What? We haven’t even had a hearing yet.”
“Apparently there was a hearing and Marvin Richmond didn’t bother to give us notice.”
“That bastard! He can’t get away with that.”
“No. But now we’ll have to file for a rehearing and it will delay the trial for months.”
“What a scumbag!” Ryan exclaimed. “I can’t believe this.”
“Believe what?” Rich said as he walked in to find out what all the commotion was about.
“Richmond got a summary judgment against us. He got a hearing, and it was held last Friday.”
Rich sighed. “There was nothing on my calendar.”
“No. We didn’t get notice,” Matt said. “It’s total bullshit!”
“Well, I bet you Richmond has a green card saying we got notice.”
“But how could he, if we didn’t get notice from him?”
“RMS has their own forgery department, remember?” Rich said.
“Oh, shit. Do you think they would do that?” Matt asked, incredulous.
“Well, if they file fraudulent documents in court, what’s to stop them from forging a return receipt?” Rich replied.
“For one thing, their attorneys would have to be involved,” Matt said.
Ryan shrugged. “It wouldn’t surprise me if Marvin Richmond were in on the entire RMS scam. In fact, I bet he engineered a lot of it. You’d need an attorney’s assistance to pull off what RMS has been doing.”
“So, what do we do?” Matt said.
“File a motion to strike the judgment for lack of notice. In case that doesn’t work, file a motion for a rehearing. Luckily you can’t get a summary judgment by default, so at the rehearing the court will have to consider all our evidence and legal authority.”
“So, should I file a response to motion for summary judgment?”
“You didn’t file a response?” Rich asked.
“No. They are supposed to give us twenty-one days notice and I don’t have to respond until seven days before the hearing.”
Rich sighed. “I know. But how many times have I told you not to wait until the last minute to file things? You should have filed that response a while ago.”
“It’s just about ready,” Matt said dejectedly.
Rich shook his head. “Well, get it filed immediately.”
Matt sat in his office completely deflated by what had happened. He felt sick and angry. How could something like this have happened? He picked up the phone and called Marvin Richmond.
“What’s this crap about a judgment!” he spat.
“Oh. Matt Coleman. Is that you?”
“Yes, it’s me.”
“What happened? Why didn’t you answer my motion for summary judgment?”
“You son of a bitch. I never got notice of it!”
Richmond chuckled. “Sure you did. I’ve got a green card right here.”
“Who signed for it?”
“Rhonda Wilson, I think it says.”
“I’ve never heard of her,” Matt said.
“Well, the address is correct, so you must have had someone at your office by the name.”
“Yeah, well I’m pretty sure we don’t.”
Matt hung up and went to see Suzie, who was responsible for personnel.
“Have you heard of someone named Rhonda Wilson?”
Suzie grimaced. “The name does ring a bell.”
“So, did she work for us?”
“Well, we did have a temp a few weeks ago when Debbie was sick.”
“Oh, shit! Look it up. I need to know if she was on duty in October.”
Suzie nodded and went to a file drawer. She opened it up and pulled out a file.
“What am I looking for?”
“Her name, address, and telephone number. Then call her and find out if she signed any green cards.”
Suzie nodded and went back to her desk. Then she got up abruptly and went to the desk where Rhonda had sat and rummaged through it. The left drawer was full of unopened mail.
“Matt! Look at this,” Suzie yelled.
Matt came over and looked at the stack of mail. There in the pile was a letter from Richmond & Richmond. “Goddamn it! How could this happen? She wasn’t authorized to open mail or sign green cards.”
“I know. I don’t understand it,” Suzie agreed.
“I bet somehow Richmond got to her,” Matt said. “Contact the temp agency and find out her address and telephone number.”
“Yes, sir. Right away.”
Rich walked in and looked at Matt. “What happened?” he asked.
Matt explained what they’d figured out. When Suzie returned she looked pale.
“What’s wrong?” Matt asked, fearing the worst.
“The temp agency claims they didn’t send over any personnel. They claim we canceled the request.”
Matt turned beet red, barely able to contain himself. “Then who the hell came and worked here for a day!” he screamed.
“Okay. Okay. Calm down,” Rich said. “We’ve obviously been set up. Our offices must be bugged. Don’t say another word until we get someone over here to sweep this place.”
“Bugged?” Suzie repeated. “But—”
“Don’t say another word,” Rich repeated.
Twenty minutes later two technicians from Sentinel Security were on-site sweeping all the offices for listening devices and hidden cameras. After about five minutes one of the technicians found a listening device in one of the plants in the reception area.
“This could be the culprit right here,” the technician said, holding up a small wafer-like object.
Rich shook his head. “Damn. Anybody who has been in our reception area could have planted that bug, and whoever was listening at the other end could have overheard that we were hiring a temp.”
Matt slammed his fist on the reception desk. “Jesus! I can’t believe Richmond would stoop to this.”
“You don’t know that it was Richmond. It could have been someone at RMS. Richmond might not know anything about it.”
“So, you’re saying we can’t do anything about this?” Matt asked.
“No. Don’t mention it to anyone. Unless we have proof it just makes us look desperate.”
“But what about the summary judgment?”
“As long as we can show the failure to respond was inadvertent and without conscious intent, the court should grant us rehearing or a new trial.”
Matt just looked at Rich in utter dismay.
“Just get your response filed along with the motion for a rehearing ASAP.”
“All right, Dad, but this is bullshit!”
“I know. But RMS has a lot of dirty secrets to hide and they’ll do anything to keep us from exposing them. We’ll all need to be on our guard.”
That night Matt worked until midnight on his response and motion for a new trial. When he finally got to bed after one a.m., he couldn’t sleep. All he could think about was explaining to Cindy Sharp how they’d screwed up her case and ruined any chance of getting justice for her dead husband. He’d never had to notify their insurance carrier of a possible malpractice claim and didn’t relish the idea of starting now, but for Cindy’s sake he’d have to do it. If he didn’t
put their insurance carrier on notice they might not pay the claim later if one actually materialized. He cursed RMS and Marvin Richmond and vowed to make them pay for their unscrupulous tactics.
Unconscionable, A Rich Coleman Novel Vol 3 Page 26
