Mountain Top

by Robert Whitlow

  “How do you know about this?”

  “Through the inadvertent help of a former bank employee who now heads the accounting department at the paper. His cubicle is near mine, and I didn’t want him to hear me talking to you the other night.”

  “He told you about this?”

  Hodges shook his head. “Not exactly. I have my sources.”

  “Braxton, are you rummaging through the trash again?” Mike asked with a smile. “I hope you washed your hands before you ate your hamburger.”

  “Trash? You’re in the dark ages before computers.”

  “You snooped on someone’s computer?”

  “Are you my lawyer?” the reporter asked. “This has to be confidential.”

  “Yes, I can handle two clients.”

  “His laptop. He’d brought one from home until we got him up and running on our system. Last week, he left it on when he went to the restroom, and I couldn’t help but see what was on his screen. I sent the information in the file to my computer and printed it out after he left.” Hodges held up the envelope. “It’s in here.”

  “Who are you talking about?”

  “Brian Dressler.”

  “From the Bank of Barlow County? He’s one of Jack Hatcher’s chief assistants.”

  “Not anymore.”

  “Why did he leave the bank?”

  “I’m not sure, but it wasn’t a friendly divorce. I didn’t participate in his interview at the paper, but he needed a job as soon as possible and took a huge pay cut. His wife has cancer, and he needed health insurance. That’s about the only employee benefit we have that’s first rate.”

  Mike remembered Sam’s dream about the hatchet, deeds of darkness, and Cohulla Creek.

  “This is all juicy local gossip that I wouldn’t hear sitting in my office at the church,” Mike replied lightly, “but what does it have to do with Sam Miller?” “Miller is mentioned in a memo in the file.”

  Mike sat up straighter in the seat. “Let me see the memo.”

  Hodges opened the envelope and handed a single sheet of paper to Mike, who quickly read it. It was a memo from Dressler to Hatcher about the meeting with the deacons from the Craig Valley church. It listed the check numbers, the amount of the checks, and the deposits to Sam’s account. It contained no new information.

  “I met with the leaders of the Craig Valley church and already know all this,” Mike said.

  “That doesn’t surprise me, but why would that memo be in this file?

  Everything else has to do with the Cohulla Creek project: companies holding the options, the acreage involved, and preliminary plans for development of the property.”

  Mike shook his head.

  Hodges leaned closer to him. “Read the last line of the memo.”

  Mike held up the sheet of paper and read, “‘This should take care of the Miller problem. Will keep you advised.’”

  “Doesn’t that sound strange?” Hodges asked.

  Mike shrugged. “Yes, but it’s ambiguous and subject to various interpretations. Just like the statement Sam gave Detective Perkins. What expands this case beyond a routine embezzlement charge is the degree of interest Maxwell Forrest and Jack Hatcher have in what’s going on, including my involvement.”

  “Admit it. They know you’re one of the best investigative attorneys in this circuit. Ken West once told me you drove him nuts with all the time and energy you put into even little cases.”

  Mike grinned. “If God hadn’t taken away my ego, that sort of compliment would make my head swell.”

  “Then use what’s left of your brain. Sam Miller wrote one of his crazy letters to the president of the bank and made Hatcher think he knew there was something shady about the acquisition of the Cohulla Creek property. Hatcher tells Dressler to frame Sam on an embezzlement charge so anything the old man says, especially about the bank, will be automatically discredited.”

  Mike was impressed by the reporter’s deductive abilities but knew that without Sam’s consent he had to keep his own information private.

  “If you print that story it will definitely be libelous,” he said.

  “I know, but you’re a defense lawyer. You can say anything you want in court and get away with it. Isn’t your strategy in a criminal case to put everyone on trial you can think of except your client?”

  “Yes, it can be an effective way to go on the attack.”

  “Which is what I want to do. If you stir this thing up enough, something may break for me. A little light can dispel a lot of darkness, and a story like this would be the opportunity of a lifetime.”

  “Have you considered going directly to Dressler?”

  Hodges shook his head. “I thought I’d leave that to you.”

  Seventeen

  MIKE LEFT BROOKS SANDWICH HOUSE WITH A FULL STOMACH and a computer disc containing the information Braxton Hodges had obtained from Brian Dressler’s computer. While driving back to the church, he debated when to call Dressler and how to bring up the subject of the memo. He decided the best approach would be to set up a face-to-face meeting as soon as possible. Delores didn’t speak when he greeted her as he passed her desk.

  Mike went into his office and shut the door. There were two stacks of phone messages on top of the announcements for the bulletin. Delores’s work on the bulletin was accurate but without the embellishments Mike normally added to make the upcoming events more appealing. He took out his red pen to make changes then stopped. Better to leave it alone than to raise her ire.

  He went to the door.

  “Delores, the wording of the announcements was fine. No corrections needed. However, next week I’ll make sure I allocate the time to take care of it myself.”

  “That’s better,” she replied. “You’ve been acting more like a lawyer than a minister. Ordering me around like a twenty-year-old clerical worker, staying out of the office half the time, thinking more about one man who committed a crime than the three hundred law-abiding people depending on you here.”

  Mike withdrew before his face revealed his irritation at the secretary’s attitude. He didn’t want to see her the rest of the day, but a sudden idea drew him back to the office door.

  “How is your sister?” he asked.

  “Not good. We had a long talk this morning. Her husband filed for divorce and hired a sleazy lawyer who got a crooked judge to sign an order kicking her out of the house. She’s checking into a motel this afternoon but has no place to go.”

  “Could she come up here and stay with you?”

  “That wouldn’t work. She’s allergic to cigarette smoke.”

  “What about Jo Ellen Caldwell? Doesn’t she have extra space?”

  “Do you know her?”

  “Not well. She visited the church about a year ago.”

  “I hadn’t thought about her,” Delores said thoughtfully. “That’s a great idea. She has an extra room available since her granddaughter moved out. I’ll call her right now.”

  Delores had the receiver in her hand before Mike closed the door. Impressed with his insightful suggestion, Mike began returning phone messages and included an appropriate apology for his tardiness in returning the call. After he finished the last one, he called the paper and asked for Brian Dressler.

  “He left a few minutes ago,” the receptionist said. “Would you like to leave a voice mail?”

  “No, I don’t want to leave a message,” Mike said. “I’ll check back tomorrow.”

  Mike pushed aside an unfinished financial report and inserted the Dressler disc into the computer. He scrolled through the file. Except for the memo about Sam, the data looked like benign corporate records. Mike felt slightly uneasy reading what was obviously considered confidential information by the companies furnishing it to the bank. The bank’s exact role wasn’t clear. Nothing in the records indicated the source for funding.

  High dollar options to purchase land along the Cohulla Creek watershed had been in place for several years. Real estate options held a
high degree of risk since all the earnest money, which amounted to several hundred thousand dollars, would be forfeited by the prospective buyers if the sale wasn’t completed. The option contracts didn’t make finalization of the sale contingent on legislative action authorizing the sale of Horseshoe Bottoms. In fact, they contained no contingencies. Thus, the original owners probably thought they were getting a great deal from out-of-town speculators. Even if Braxton Hodges didn’t write a massive exposé of local corruption, the current owners’ anger when they realized what the developers intended would be newsworthy.

  The more recent documents confirmed the project was as big as Mike imagined. The pro forma financial data had eye-popping projections for revenue in the tens of millions. Mike didn’t recognize the names of any of the people connected with the business entities; however, the last folder he opened caught his attention. It contained a letter from his old law firm as local counsel for Delvie, LLC, a Nevada limited liability company. The letter was signed by Bobby Lambert. In the letter, Bobby provided Dressler information about the credit worthiness of Delvie, LLC. However, the supporting documents mentioned in his former partner’s letter weren’t included on the disc. Mike shut down his computer without printing anything. The information in the files didn’t span the canyon between the charges against Sam and the bank’s involvement in the Cohulla Creek project.

  THE FOLLOWING DAY, MIKE PHONED THE NEWSPAPER SEVERAL times but never caught Dressler at the office. He began to wonder how the new head of accounting at the paper could hold a job when he didn’t show up. Finally, he called Braxton Hodges.

  “Where is Dressler? He’s never there, or he’s avoiding my phone calls.”

  “It’s his wife. She’s taken a turn for the worse and is at the hospital receiving treatment. He won’t be back in the office until next week. I should have let you know.”

  “Any other news on your end?”

  “Plenty. It’s going to be a late spring, so you’d better not plant your Silver Queen corn for another week or two. I interviewed the county extension agent, and we’ll have a suggested schedule for planting all your garden vegetables in this week’s paper. Don’t miss it.”

  Mike chuckled. “I’ll take that as a negative about matters of interest to me.”

  “Imagine the world without Silver Queen corn. Oh, Maxwell Forrest never called me back about any correspondence from Miller and Hatcher.”

  “Which doesn’t mean much.”

  “Except that he doesn’t want to talk to me, a sure sign of something to hide.”

  “Talk about media bias. Have you considered that some people are afraid to talk to reporters?”

  “And lawyers. But does that apply to your old boss?”

  “No,” Mike admitted. “Mr. Forrest isn’t intimidated by anyone.”

  MIKE DELAYED LETTING MELISSA HALL KNOW ABOUT SAM’ S decision rejecting the plea bargain and desire for a jury trial. It was a week before the deal would expire, and in spite of Sam’s clear instructions to nix any offer, Mike didn’t want to eliminate any option prematurely.

  The following morning, he woke up later than usual. He’d stayed up working on his sermon, and while it wasn’t yet up to his usual standards, he was satisfied that all the main points were properly organized. Peg wasn’t in bed when he opened his eyes. He went downstairs in his pajamas and bare feet and found Peg in the kitchen with a coffee cup and an open notebook on the table in front of her. She put down her pen when he entered the room.

  “What are you working on?” he asked.

  “Writing down a dream I had last night.”

  “You never remember your dreams except bits and pieces that don’t make sense.”

  “I remembered this one. It was so vivid.”

  “Tell me.”

  Peg hesitated. “Not until I have time to think about what it might mean. It may be important in a religious way.”

  “I’m a minister. I’ve been dreaming for years. Trust my experience and training.”

  Peg smiled. “How many classes in dream interpretation did you take in seminary?”

  “None.”

  “That’s what I thought. If you had, I’m sure you would have made an A, but I may call Sam Miller and ask him about it. He has a lot of experience.”

  “Wait a minute. I’m Sam’s protégé, and he didn’t say anything about God giving you dreams.”

  “Jealous?”

  Mike poured a cup of coffee and took a sip.

  “I’m not in danger of violating the tenth-commandment prohibition against jealousy when it comes to my wife,” he teased, “but don’t make me wait six months before you let me know what you really think.”

  As soon as he said the words, Mike wished he could take them back. Peg’s face fell. She closed her notebook.

  “Were the words in your sermon the other day about forgiveness just a minister talking down to his congregation?” she asked.

  “No, it came straight from wrestling with our situation. I meant every word.”

  “It’s a new day. Do I need to ask you to forgive me?”

  “No. I’m sorry,” Mike responded quickly. “I shouldn’t have said that. I know what you said on the mountain was from your heart, and I received it that way. Seeing the glow on your face Sunday was worth the pain.”

  “Is that what you really think?” Peg asked.

  “Yes, and I respect your right to keep the dreams to yourself until you feel comfortable sharing them. Call Sam Miller if you like. I’m sure he’ll be glad to help if he can.”

  Judge, as if knowing Peg needed to be comforted, came over to her. She patted the dog on the head.

  “I was thinking about going over to Cohulla Creek today,” Mike said. “Would you like to go with me?”

  “No. My energy level isn’t very high this morning. I’d better stay here and take it easy.”

  “You’re not sick, are you?”

  “No, pregnant. Are you going to park and ride your bike?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then take Judge with you; he’ll enjoy it.”

  PEG WASN’T IN SIGHT WHEN MIKE PREPARED TO LEAVE. JUDGE, sensing an outing, paced back and forth across the kitchen floor.

  “Peg!” Mike yelled up the staircase.

  “Bye!” she called back.

  Mike climbed several steps of the stairs. He wanted to clear the air between them. Judge barked and scratched at the door. Not sure what to say, Mike retreated down the stairs.

  WITH JUDGE ON THE SEAT BEHIND HIM AND HIS BIKE IN A RACK on the roof, Mike drove west of Shelton. The main access road to Cohulla Creek was about a mile from Sam Miller’s house. Mike turned onto a gravel road. Within a few hundred yards, he began to notice red and orange survey ribbons tied to the lower limbs of trees. The color had faded from some of the ribbons, but others appeared fresh. Survey ribbons marked more than boundaries; they were the first sign of permanent change coming to the woods.

  The road crossed the creek on a one-lane bridge. A fisherman wearing hip waders stood at the edge of the water below the bridge. Focused on his line, he didn’t look up when Mike drove by. The emerging leaves shaded the road as it skirted a small hill then emptied into a parking area where fishermen left their vehicles. Mike parked beside a white pickup truck. From this point forward, the road remained passable for vehicles but received less maintenance and became more dirt than gravel.

  Judge bounded out the door and immediately put his nose to the ground. Mike unhooked his bike and lifted it from the roof rack. He slipped on a small backpack and whistled for Judge, who had ventured down the road.

  To Mike, a mountain bike earned its name if used to climb hills and mountains. Hopping curbs in Shelton didn’t count. The red paint on his bike was nicked from contact with rocks and trees. Only once had he hurtled over the handlebars. During a ride in Virginia, his wheel had slipped into a deep rut, causing him to become airborne. His helmet slammed against an exposed tree root. Stunned for a few seconds, Mike recovered and cont
inued.

  He’d ridden along Cohulla Creek shortly after they moved back to Shelton, but because it was relatively flat, and he wasn’t a fisherman, the route dropped off his list. Mike enjoyed the physical workout required in a climb followed by the exhilaration of reaching a high place of perspective above the world below. The Cohulla Creek watershed didn’t offer any thigh-burning challenges.

  He pedaled upstream. The dirt road stayed close to the creek for several hundred yards then rose slightly until the stream lay thirty or forty feet below on the right. Mike pedaled at an easy rate. Judge loped alongside him. The dog could maintain his pace as long as Mike’s legs could pedal the bike. More survey ribbons appeared at various intervals then stopped when they passed onto land owned by the state. Two vehicles containing fishermen passed them on the road. The ground rose sharply on the opposite side of the creek, but on the roadside, Mike could easily envision areas for housing development. The road dipped down and rejoined the creek, which slowed and broadened in a flat, wooded area. They’d reached Horseshoe Bottoms.

  Mike stopped and looked behind him. He wondered how far upstream the lake would extend. Without a doubt, it would be a magnificent setting—a mountain finger-lake filled with clear, cool water surrounded by gentle hills. Mike would enjoy stepping onto the front porch of a home on one of the hills to inhale a view.

  Mike remounted his bike. The road split in two, climbing into the hills to the left and continuing near the stream on the right. He’d not remembered the fork in the road.

  “Which way, boy?” he asked Judge, who was sniffing the air.

  The dog padded onto the road into the hills. It looked like a newer cut.

  “That’s the way I wanted to go,” Mike said, slipping his feet into his toe clips and shifting into a lower gear.

  Sure enough, it was a new track that ascended the hill in a series of short switchbacks. Large rock gravel spread on the road made the ride bumpy. Mike had to hold the handlebars tightly. He came around the corner into a cleared area. A new silver SUV was parked beneath a large oak tree. Mike slowed to a stop beside a large poplar tree. The front doors of the SUV opened.