“Well, he said he was from Houston,” Phyllis replied, “and that he was semiretired from a company that does consulting work for the oil and gas industry. He claimed he was able to handle all his jobs on the computer, so it didn’t matter where he lived.”
“He said he was a widower, too,” Sam added. “He was married to a woman named Julie who sold real estate down there. But she died a while back.”
Tess nodded. “If you were to look up any of that online, I’d be willing to bet that the company he mentioned really does exist. Also, I know that there was a real estate agent in Houston named Julie Porter who was married to a man named Roy until she died. But Roy’s dead, too, and I’m not talking about the one who was buried today. The real one died sixteen months ago, which probably wasn’t very long before your friend Eve met the fake Roy online. That is the way they met, isn’t it?”
Phyllis nodded. “On the Facebook,” she said, quoting what Eve had told them.
“The Internet has certainly made life easier for the con men and swindlers, and I’m not just talking about the Nigerian princes,” Tess said. “Before that, men like Roy had to find their victims through correspondence or actually go out and meet them through singles’ clubs and things like that.”
“Roy was good on the computer,” Sam said. “A real whiz compared to fellas like me.”
“I don’t doubt it. He would have had to be good to create all the false identities he did. It never seemed to take him long to find a dead man who would have been about the same age and general description that he was. My theory is that he was able to hack into various databases and create new Social Security cards, driver’s licenses, and things like that to match whatever new identity he was adopting. I’ll give him credit: You don’t find too many people his age—no offense—who are so proficient with computers.”
“Yeah, he had good Google-fu,” Sam agreed. “How did you get onto him?”
Tess smiled. “I have pretty good Google-fu myself. I wrote a program to cross-reference the Social Security death index with new applications for those documents I was talking about. Most of the hits were simple, innocent cases of similar or even identical names, but there were enough matching parameters in some of them to prompt a deeper search. I put together a list of possibles and then did on-site investigations. That allowed me to come up with a fairly complete history of Roy Porter, as we’re calling him.”
Phyllis frowned and said, “I thought private detectives shadowed people.”
“That’s what I was doing,” Tess said, “only I was doing it with technology. By the time I had boots on the ground anywhere, Roy was already long gone, of course, but I was able to talk to some of the people who had crossed paths with him, usually to their great regret. He left a trail of broken hearts and empty bank accounts behind him.”
Phyllis leaned back against the sofa cushions and shook her head. It was so hard to believe that the Roy they had known was this manipulative criminal genius Tess was describing. And yet, to do the things she claimed he had done, he would have had to be a master of getting people to like him and trust him.
“You have actual evidence of all these previous identities you say he had?”
Tess nodded. “Photos, copies of marriage licenses and bank records, newspaper clippings like the one I showed you . . . Most of the women were fairly involved with the society scene where they lived, since they were all well-to-do. I can document seventeen different cases of fraud and embezzlement over the past twenty years, stretching from Florida to Maine to Colorado.”
“You happen to know what the fella’s real name was?” Sam asked.
Tess shook her head. “I was never able to uncover that. He seems to have surfaced for the first time in Virginia. But he was in his forties at the time, so either he had a long career as a swindler before that and managed to cover his tracks completely, or else he took up the game rather late in life. Now that he’s dead, I don’t suppose we’ll ever know the answer.”
“That’s a shame. I’d like to know what would prompt a fella to do things like that.”
“So would I, Mr. Fletcher.” Tess shrugged. “But in my business, sometimes you have to settle for knowing what happened and try not to worry about the why.”
“Speaking of your business,” Phyllis said, “could you tell us who hired you? I’m assuming it was one of the women who Roy bilked out of their money. Not all their money, of course, or else they wouldn’t have been able to hire someone as competent as you seem to be.”
Tess smiled and said, “Thanks. That’s a good deduction on your part, Mrs. Newsom. Unfortunately, the identity of my client is confidential, but I can say that in general terms, you’re right. As a matter of fact, I’ve been working for more than one of Roy’s victims. As you can imagine, there’s a long line of people who’d like to see him brought to justice.”
“Who’d like to get even with him, you mean,” Sam said.
“You could call it that,” Tess admitted. “Now, of course, they’re out of luck. Although they may take some satisfaction out of knowing that he’s dead.”
“I would think some of them might take a great deal of satisfaction out of that,” Phyllis said.
Tess took another drink of her Diet Coke and asked, “Is there anything else I can tell you?”
“What are you going to do now?”
“I’ll prepare reports for all my clients. In fact, I’ll probably send e-mails even to the ones who didn’t hire me, just so they’ll know what happened. I think they have a right to know, too, don’t you?”
“Yes, of course,” Phyllis said. “Just like you told Eve she had a right to know.”
Tess shifted uncomfortably in her chair and shook her head. She said, “Look, I’ve been thinking about what happened, and I admit I was a little too zealous. I could have waited for a better time to talk to Mrs. Porter, and I’m sorry about the way things turned out. Please tell her I apologize for the extra pain I caused her.”
“I can do that,” Phyllis said, nodding and thinking that she liked Tess Coburn a little better now that the woman had exhibited some contrition.
“It’s just that I’ve been on his trail for quite a while,” Tess went on, “and I’ve seen with my own eyes how much pain and trouble he caused for all those women . . . and I guess I was kind of satisfied myself to know that he wouldn’t be doing it any more. So I got carried away. Again, I’m sorry.”
“Well, it’s gracious of you to admit that you were wrong. What are you going to do about the police?”
“About the investigation into his death, you mean?” Tess looked uncomfortable again. “I’ll have to turn over the information I have to the sheriff’s department. The victim’s background is evidence in a murder case. If I didn’t give it to them and it came out later, I could be in trouble myself. At the very least I might lose my license.”
“I understand, but it’s liable to make the authorities even more convinced that Eve’s guilty.”
Tess nodded and said, “I know. They’ll think that she found out somehow what he was planning and killed him to stop it. But like I said before, that makes her actions more reasonable. Look, it would certainly be easy to argue that she confronted him with it, he attacked her, and she was only defending herself when she killed him. She’s looking at a possible manslaughter plea, and she might even get off with a claim of self-defense.”
Phyllis was about to respond to that when a clear voice rang out from the door into the hall. “The only thing wrong with that idea,” Eve said, “is that I didn’t kill my husband!”
Chapter 19
Phyllis was on her feet instantly, turning toward the door and saying, “Eve, you really shouldn’t be down here—”
“So I wouldn’t know that you brought this woman into our home?” Eve snapped. “To spread her lies about Roy and about me?”
Eve’s eyes were still red rimmed from crying, but no tears welled from them now. Instead, they sparked with anger.
De
spite the terrible situation, for the first time in days Eve actually looked a little like herself again, Phyllis thought.
Tess had stood up, too, and now she extended a hand toward Eve. “Mrs. Porter, I’m sorry—”
“Save your breath,” Eve snapped. “I don’t accept your apology, and I don’t accept anything you have to say about Roy. You didn’t know him.”
“It’s true I never met him,” Tess said, “but I have proof of everything I’ve said. Solid proof that would stand up in court. If he were still alive, he’d be behind bars now, because I would have turned over everything to the cops and had him arrested. It was just a matter of locating him.” She shrugged. “I was a little late on that score.”
“Get out,” Eve said in a low, dangerous voice.
Tess looked at Phyllis. “Mrs. Newsom . . . ?”
“I think it would be best if you left,” Phyllis said. She believed what Tess had said about Roy. It was hard to argue with the proof she had assembled. But right now the important thing was to get her out of here and get Eve calmed down, Phyllis thought.
Tess shrugged and said, “Sure. I really am sorry if I’ve made things worse for you folks.”
Phyllis went to Eve’s side, took hold of her arm, and gently urged her toward the kitchen as Eve continued to glare at Tess. “Sam, if you could get Ms. Coburn’s coat . . .”
“Sure,” Sam said. Phyllis maneuvered Eve into the kitchen so she couldn’t see what was going on anymore, but she heard Sam open the hall closet. He and Tess spoke briefly in low voices; then the front door opened and closed. Sam came down the hall to the kitchen and said, “She’s gone.”
Eve sank into one of the chairs at the table. The momentary strength that anger had given her appeared to be fading fast. “Why did you let her come here, Phyllis?” she asked.
“I’m the one who asked her to come,” Phyllis replied. “It wasn’t her idea.”
Eve stared up at her. “Why would you do that?”
“Because I wanted to know as much as I could about Roy. You’re still in trouble with the law, Eve, and as much as we might hate to think about it, the only sure way to clear your name is to figure out who really did kill Roy.”
“But the things that woman said . . . they were all lies . . .”
Phyllis shook her head. “I don’t think so. She has a lot of evidence—”
“Did you see it? Did she show you anything?”
“Well . . . not really. Just that mug shot and the newspaper clipping she had at the cemetery. But I don’t think she’d lie about the other things if she couldn’t produce them.”
“You don’t know that!” Eve insisted. “It could have been faked, all of it.”
“Eve’s got a point,” Sam said. “With all the things folks can do with computers these days, it probably wouldn’t be too hard to come up with a mug shot and a newspaper clippin’ that looked real.”
Phyllis hadn’t considered that, but as she thought about the possibility, she knew Eve and Sam were right. Tess Coburn could have fabricated the evidence she claimed to possess. But to what purpose? Phyllis didn’t have an answer for that.
“If she’s lying, the truth will come out eventually,” she said. “But if she’s not, we need to know the facts.”
“The only facts that matter to me are that I loved Roy and he’s gone.” Eve started to cry again. “Gone.”
Carolyn came along the hallway from the stairs. “What’s going on here?” she demanded. “Eve, I thought you were taking a nap.”
“I . . . I woke up,” Eve said. “I came downstairs to see where everyone was . . . and I found that woman in the living room! The one spreading all those lies about Roy!”
Carolyn glared at Phyllis. “I thought we were going to try to protect Eve from all that.”
“You knew about it?” Eve asked.
“It was Phyllis’s idea.”
What was it they said on those horrible reality TV shows about people being thrown under buses? Phyllis knew what that felt like now. But she still thought she had done the right thing by trying to find out what Tess knew about Roy.
Despite that, she said, “I’m sorry, Eve. I hope you’ll forgive me.”
“Well, of course, dear.” Eve had taken a handkerchief from her pocket. She dabbed her eyes. “I know you were just doing what you thought was best.”
That’s right, Phyllis thought. She was going to find Roy’s killer and clear Eve’s name, no matter what anybody thought about her.
And as always, coming to that decision was a great weight off her mind. From here on out, she could take action, knowing that she was doing the right thing.
* * *
Eve refused to eat any lunch, but that evening Carolyn took a plate of food up to her room and persuaded her to eat a little. As time passed, her appetite would come back and her strength would return, Phyllis thought.
She hoped that was true, anyway.
In the meantime, Phyllis got on the computer and did some searching of her own. Her “Google-fu,” whatever that was, was no match for Tess Coburn’s, but she was able to confirm several things. The company that Roy had claimed he worked for in Houston did exist, but in all the newspaper business section stories Phyllis could find about it, there was no mention of him.
She found an obituary notice for a Houston Realtor named Julie Porter who was survived by her husband, Roy. But that Roy Porter had survived his wife by less than a year. Phyllis found an obituary notice for him, too. Roy—Eve’s Roy—must have figured that while someone might check up on his claims about his late “wife,” no one would think to see if there was an obituary for him, too. Why would they, when they would all be convinced the real Roy Porter was still hale and hearty and standing right in front of them?
Phyllis looked up the other cases Tess had mentioned and found more information about both of them, including photos that were unmistakably of the man they had known as Roy. She wanted to stop calling him by that name, since it obviously didn’t belong to him, but she didn’t know how else to think of him.
She was at the computer in the living room when she heard a car door outside. Eve, Carolyn, and Sam were all upstairs. She stood up, moved the curtain aside at the front window, and looked out to see a sheriff’s cruiser parked at the curb. Mike was walking toward the house.
Phyllis met him at the door. “Come in out of the cold,” she told him. She smiled. “You’re wearing your hat this time.”
He took it off as she closed the door behind him. “I can’t stay but a minute,” he said. “And I really shouldn’t be here at all. But I wanted to tell you . . . a woman named Coburn came to see Burton and Conley.”
Those were the investigators in charge of the case, Phyllis recalled.
“You don’t look surprised,” Mike commented with a slight frown.
“I’m not. I know who she is, Mike. She confronted Eve at the cemetery after the graveside service. You and Sarah had already left.”
“She came there?” Mike shook his head. “Man, that takes a lot of . . . brass. What did she want?”
“To tell Eve the same thing she told Burton and Conley, I imagine. The truth about the man we all knew as Roy Porter.”
“Then you already know.” Mike looked relieved and troubled at the same time. “I worried about coming here and talking to you about it. If the sheriff found out . . .”
“I don’t want you getting in trouble,” Phyllis said. “I certainly don’t want you risking your job.” She hesitated. “But what did the investigators think about the evidence Ms. Coburn turned over to them?”
“They’ll check it all out, of course, and confirm it. But from what I heard, it all looked pretty convincing. I think Burton and Conley are convinced.”
Phyllis nodded. “I was afraid they would be.”
“And it doesn’t exactly help Eve’s case, either.”
“I know. It just gives her a motive, where she didn’t really have one before.”
“Yeah. Mom, are you
going to—” Mike stopped short, held up his free hand, and shook his head. “No, forget what I was about to ask you. Forget I said anything.”
Phyllis smiled and said, “Consider it forgotten.” He didn’t want to know if she was going to investigate the case and try to find Roy’s killer. And since she had already talked to Tess Coburn and learned about Roy’s criminal background, he hadn’t revealed that information to her, either. He was still in the clear as far as doing anything that could cause the sheriff or the district attorney to be angry with him.
“You’d better go,” she told him. “There’s nothing wrong with stopping by to say hello to your mother, but that’s all you did. Right?”
“Right,” Mike said. “Although Sullivan might not believe that.”
“He can’t prove otherwise. And for that matter, I don’t care what Mr. Sullivan believes, because he’s obviously wrong about a great many things.”
“Yeah,” Mike said with a grin. He leaned over to kiss her on the cheek, then put his hat back on. “Good night, Mom.”
As she closed the door, Sam asked from the bottom of the stairs, “Was that Mike?”
She turned to him and nodded. “That’s right. He told me that Tess Coburn went to see the investigators in charge of the case.”
“Well, we expected that,” Sam said with a shrug. “She told us she was goin’ to.”
“I know. But it just makes things look worse for Eve.” Phyllis nodded toward the computer in the corner of the living room. “I’ve been trying to look things up. She was right about Roy, Sam. Everything she told us checks out.”
“Yeah, we figured it would. But that didn’t stop me from doin’ some searchin’ of my own. I reckon I probably found the same things you did.”
“The question is, what do we do now?”
Sam smiled. “If Roy went around stealin’ from folks for twenty years, you know what that tells me?”
“No, what?”
“That you got twenty years’ worth of suspects to sift through, so you better get a good night’s sleep. You’re liable to need the energy to find this killer.”
Wedding Cake Killer: A Fresh-Baked Mystery Page 13
