“Hello, this is Latrice Tyson of Tyson Investigations. I need to speak to Attorney Robert Richardson, please.” Richardson was the only local lawyer who had made it known to all local PIs that if they give him a tip that led to his being retained on a substantial case, he would provide a “finder’s fee”—payment commensurate with the value of the information.
Later, standing in his office in Camarillo, she handed him a copy of the Valley News sheriff’s report and an archival copy of a society page containing a picture of the Howards in much happier times.
Tyson was blown away when Richardson suddenly took out his business checkbook and wrote her a check for ten thousand dollars, no questions asked. She thanked him but asked, “So, if you end up getting a big divorce settlement in this case, I get more, right? You should even hire me to do more work on it.”
The attorney shut the door to his office behind them and told her, “This will be the last time we speak about this, and I trust you will forget about this meeting. Is that understood, Miss Tyson?” A blurry-eyed Latrice could do nothing but nod her head.
Five days later, Cheryl Howard answered a phone call while in the den. Dan was lumbering around upstairs somewhere.
“Hello, this is Cheryl.”
“Cheryl Oswald, or is it Cheryl Howard now?” The voice was all too familiar, and looking down at the caller ID, Cheryl Howard saw Law Office.
“Cheryl, this is Robert. You remember me, Robert Richardson, do you not?”
“What are you calling me for? How did you get this number?”
“Don’t be concerned about that at this moment. I see you may be in need of legal representation. I know about that little problem you and your husband had with the local authorities recently. How unfortunate.”
Cheryl’s face flushed. “Look, Robert, do not call me here again. I don’t want or need your help on this. I’m just fine.”
“Oh, my dear, I think not. I suggest we meet to discuss this and perhaps other matters. It’s important to be discreet; you can name the location.”
Suddenly, blood rushing from her face, Cheryl became uncharacteristically frightened. What did he want after all this time? How the hell did he find her? That part of her life was over; it was behind her. What now?
“If you must talk to me, meet me at the Denny’s Restaurant on the south end of Santa Barbara, two p.m. today. I’m hanging up. Good-bye.”
Cheryl Howard quietly placed the phone back on the cradle before arousing Dan’s curiosity. All she could think about was the pain of her past and Richardson’s parting words: I reserve the right to ask for a favor at some later date. She knew that only bad things follow bad decisions.
Cheryl arrived at Denny’s early but not ahead of Robert Richardson, who sat in the back corner of the restaurant eating a slice of peach pie with a dollop of whipped cream. Wearing his customary long-sleeved white shirt and black tie, his suit coat sat folded, inside out, on the seat cushion beside him. The lunch crowd had filtered out, and the room was sparsely occupied. Cheryl saw that he was an older, balder, and obese version of the Robert Richardson she remembered back in Miami.
The fat man got right to it. “I see you have done quite well for yourself, Cheryl. Good for you. Why on earth didn’t you tell me where you ended up after leaving Miami so suddenly? How fortuitous for both of us that I happened to move just one hundred miles away. My, it is a small world after all. How are things going? Oh, right, you’re having problems at home now, aren’t you? A little birdie tweeted to me about your recent domestic-violence problem. How sad for you, Cheryl. I do believe you require my services once again, don’t you?”
Howard shot back, “Look, Richard, I think this incident with the police will blow over. Dan and I have smoothed it over, and I have no doubt they’ll be dropping the charges. Dan has friends in high places in the sheriff’s department. I might be planning on divorcing him, but I’ll do it in my own time and when I’m damn well ready to.”
“So, my dear, I believe either situation dictates the need for an attorney. It’s either defending you with the police, or to facilitate obtaining a fat settlement from your husband—perhaps both. It’s a win-win for me as I see it, Cheryl.”
“Listen, I would never use you again. Do you hear me? Never! How did you end up here anyway—in central California, near Santa Barbara? Did you follow me here?”
Richardson put down his forkful of pie while dabbing the corners of his mouth. “That is an unfortunate attitude to take, Miss Oswald, especially when you know how connected we are. Actually, you flatter yourself too much. It was mere coincidence that we ended up relocating near each other in beautiful California—a fortuitous coincidence for me, if I do say so myself.”
Now fuming, Cheryl Howard shot back, “What are you saying? What do you want?”
With a wry smile on his face, Robert Richardson stared at her and responded in just above a whisper.
“I have come to an epiphany that the horrible knowledge of what you did ten years ago to poor Troy Williams in the Caymans has been like a stone ballast around my neck. I’m having a terrible time living with myself, Cheryl. I don’t know how long I can keep such a murderous secret to myself.”
Trying to contain her erupting anger and struggling to keep her voice from carrying, Cheryl responded, “What about attorney-client confidentiality, you prick? You are just as guilty as I am, so don’t bullshit me here. You’ll go down with me if you ever fucking tell anyone.”
He smiled again. “Oh, to the contrary, my dear. You killed your Troy Williams, not I. I was just your lawyer. You came to me after the crime. The corrupt police will never tell anyone they took my money to close the case, and it would be your word against mine. After all, you are the killer. I am quite insulated, you see. You, on the other hand, are not. They would reopen their investigation the instant I came forward to disclose your confession, and you would spend most of the rest of your life in the beautiful Cayman Islands looking at those white-sand beaches through steel-barred windows. You see, the Cayman Islands have no statute of limitations on the crime of murder. The most I would suffer would be a short suspension, perhaps only a slap on the wrist from the Bar Association. After all, true justice would be served through my untimely disclosure.”
“What do you want from me now, you bastard?”
“Let’s be civil, Cheryl. I only want to represent you in the dissolution of your marriage with Dan Howard, and perhaps your legal case, should you face any charges there. It’s just that simple.”
Cheryl Howard softened her tone. “If I agree, what’s the catch?”
“The only catch, as you put it, is that as part of my fee, I get fifty percent of your overall property settlement in the divorce.”
Customers sitting fifteen feet away turned as Cheryl Howard erupted, banging on the table. “You motherfucker!” Then lowering her voice, she spit out, “How dare you ask for what I have spent the last eight years suffering to get! That money is mine, and you’ll be lucky to get your normal fee, you greedy asshole!”
With his hands outstretched, Richardson attempted to calm his reluctant visitor down and quietly continued, “Cheryl, you really should lower your voice. I’ve done my homework. Your husband’s net worth is in the area of thirty million dollars.”
Howard corrected him. “No, more like twenty-four million, and you know it.”
“I will split the difference with you, my dear, and let’s agree for arguments’ sake that it’s worth that amount. You will still end up with six million here in California, since I will have your spouse pay my fees as part of the divorce settlement. You win either way, as I see it.”
Cheryl Howard leaned in close to Robert Richardson, and in a low, decidedly guttural voice, she said, “Let me be very clear here, dear Robert. I will get it all—all of it. I won’t fuck you, and I won’t let you fuck me out of what is mine. Understood?”
Robert Richardson’s face showed no emotion, and after wiping the corner of his mouth once again wi
th his napkin, he slowly looked away. Then gazing back at her, his eyes narrowing, he whispered, “Then, Ms. Howard, I must insist you do a favor for me. Remember our arrangement when we parted company in Miami?”
Cheryl had known that this moment was coming. “What is it, Richardson? What do you want from me now?”
Leaning closer to her, he continued, “I need you to use that incredible brain of yours—your talent for getting complicated, messy things done. I need you to take care of someone who has wronged me. This person has blackmailed me, and he must be removed from the picture.”
She could feel the blood draining from her face as Robert Richardson finished his whispered request. She felt the urge to vomit.
“Cheryl, you’re extremely intelligent and blessed with a unique ability. You impressed me ten years ago with your planning. You’ve accomplished this type of thing before, and you will repeat it now for me or pay dearly for the mistakes of your past.”
She never expected this. Her heart raced, and her breathing came hard. She knew that Robert Richardson held a royal flush, and she had nothing. Howard gazed down at the table in front of her, mute, with hands clasped.
After several moments of nervous silence, she looked up. “Robert, you must think I’m a monster—that I could do something like that without remorse, without hesitation. I am not that kind of person—not anymore.”
“My dear, I don’t think of you as a monster. You are a mechanism. I was such a mechanism for you ten years ago, a means to an end. Now I merely ask that you be my mechanism. Be my problem solver. Think of it as just a means to an end. The person you must deal with stands in the way of my plans and therefore is a roadblock to your eventual freedom as well. It’s just that simple.”
The potbellied lawyer scribbled something on a note pad, ripped it out, and slid the small, white piece of paper under Cheryl’s folded hands sitting on the table in front of her. Through watering eyes, she read: Dr. Marvin Redbone, bungalow number six, Village Commons, City of Solvang.
“Mr. Richardson, Robert, I need to think about this…think hard about this. I can’t give you an answer right now. I need a week, maybe more, to consider all my options. Please understand, this is crazy. It’s my life.”
Touching the soft hand that held the note, the cunning attorney responded, “Certainly, Cheryl, take the time you need. I will give you five days to respond. However, time is vital, and it’s running out for you quickly. So ticktock, ticktock, my dear.”
Cheryl Howard left Denny’s with the paper tucked deeply away in her pocket. Her mind raced as she drove back to her comfortable home in the foothills. Suddenly, her unhappy marriage didn’t seem all that bad after all.
What if they catch me? How could I even consider doing this? I could lose everything I’ve worked so hard for. I could lose my life, my freedom. But if I don’t do it, I could lose it all anyway.
She entered the foyer and heard movement in her upstairs bedroom. Climbing the stairs and entering the hallway, she saw Dan Howard packing a suitcase that was sitting open on their bed.
“Where are you going, Dan?”
“I’m going to New York…some more business.”
She could feel the heat boiling up to her face from her neck, burning her ears.
“New York! You mean that whore’s apartment in Manhattan, don’t you? I swear, Dan, this is it. You leave and you seal your fate. You leave, and I swear you’ll regret it!”
Suddenly, Cheryl Howard knew she could kill again. She wanted to kill Dan Howard right where he stood. Maybe, just maybe, she would. It would be easy. A nearby lamp stand could crush his skull. She could use the 9-mm pistol he kept in the nightstand to blow his fucking head off. No, wait. If she killed her bastard husband, she would rot in prison. They would know she did it, and she’d end up with a lifetime away from what she really craved—wealth, travel, maybe even real love someday.
No, not Dan. It had to be Marvin Redbone. The call to Robert Richardson didn’t take five days. She called twenty minutes after Dan’s Mercedes peeled out of the driveway. When the lawyer answered his phone, Cheryl Howard merely said, “That thing, I’ll do it. I’ll call you when I’m ready.”
The next morning, while sipping espresso as he sat on his office throne, Richardson pushed the intercom button. “Martha, can you get Dr. Redbone on the line for me, please?”
“Certainly, Mr. Richardson.”
The call rang into his office a minute later.
“Robert, are you calling because you’ve reconsidered your position on the Blivins case?”
“Well, Marvin, I have thought long and hard about this, and I realized that you did a lot for me, for us. Without your assistance, none of this would have been possible.”
“So, Robert, do you agree to the payment I asked for? It’s in both our interests, you know.”
Robert Richardson was deliberate in his response.
“Doctor, I agree that you should get what is coming to you in this matter. Give me a couple of weeks to arrange it, and an associate of mine will contact you for the final payment.”
A relieved Marvin Redbone finished by saying, “Great, Robert. I’m sure that in the end you’ll agree that what I want is only what I’m owed. I hope we can do more business together in the future.”
Robert Richardson ended the conversation by simply saying, “I am sure this will take care of everything, Marvin. Good-bye.”
Cheryl Howard spent the next couple of weeks learning all she could about Marvin Redbone. She was very careful when she scouted out his bungalow and became intimately familiar with his daily routines. She studied his nightly habits diligently. She planned to make the murder look like the work of a serial killer. It had to be bloody.
She was very careful to cover all her computer research by using public library machines, and then she erased all her search histories. She scoured forensic articles relating to blood evidence and how to avoid leaving fingerprints and fibers. Her goal was to leave zero footprints of her handiwork.
As the days progressed, a warm, familiar feeling engulfed her. She recalled how carefully she had planned to end her problem with Troy Williams ten years earlier. It was a powerful intoxicant. She had again taken charge of her life. She felt alive!
Chapter Nineteen
Unmasked at Last
Twenty-three days after the murders, things were finally buzzing at the sheriff’s office. Lots to do, lots to plan…and then there was William Baxter: Billy “Butthole” Baxter. He came bouncing into the office two days ago, within an hour of Rachael Storm’s departure, grabbing everyone’s hand to shake. He liked to make small talk while interjecting questions along the way. We were ready for the prick.
We gave Baxter his very own office. It was down the hall, right across from the crapper. It was small, windowless, had one electrical outlet, and no phone jack. We managed to cram a three-by-three table into it with a folding chair. I apologized and told him there just wasn’t any other available space. I gave him this bit of advice: “You might want to leave the door open, ’cause it can get a wee bit stuffy in there.”
It was a supply closet that we cleaned out just for him. We told Billy that we’d brief him every day on what was happening, and as planned, we gave him only superfluous information that didn’t tell him jack shit. He had no clue about our chat with Stanley Blivins, and we sure as hell told him nada about the attorney or a peep about our red-haired suspect. That didn’t stop butthole, though. The day after he arrived, he was on the six and eleven o’clock news: “Phantom continues to stalk city of Solvang.” The banner, in bold letters, flashed across the top of the TV screen right before his on-air report. Lots of hype, lots of bullshit, and his classic final tag line.
“As the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Department investigators remain stymied, this reporter will continue to bring you all the latest news on their hunt for the Phantom Killer. This is Bill Baxter, Channel Three news.”
Eat shit, little mushroom, eat shit!
&nb
sp; Three days after the corrupt attorney and his coconspirator had their early morning coffee klatch at Sally’s Place, Ted Banner and I were ready to pay a visit to a certain lady. We’d been watching her for days and wondered where her husband was. We had enlisted an unlikely protégé to ensure our meeting would go smoothly and uninterrupted: our best friend, Chief Sam Walters.
Walters was Dan Howard’s racquetball buddy, so on the guise of lining up a game, Chiefy called his friend’s cell phone.
“Hi, Dan, it’s Sam Walters. I was hoping to get a game together and wanted to see if you could work it into your busy schedule.”
“Sorry, no can do, Sam. I‘m in Manhattan.”
The chief played dumb. “Damn, how long will you be gone, guy, so I can book a court for us when you’re back in town?”
“I’ve been out of town for about a month, Sam. Don’t quite know when I’ll be back. Some things came up, and I’ll be away for a while. Sorry.”
The chief had the information we needed. “Well, then, buddy, just call me when you get back, OK?”
Okeydoke, boys, the coast was clear.
We gave Cheryl Howard three hours to clean up after she returned from her workout at the 24-7 gym. In the late afternoon, Ted and I stood at her resplendent front door. We rang the bell. She opened up, and it took everything we had to stand there straight-faced.
Standing before us was a lovely blond-haired Cheryl Howard. She was drying her recently dyed hair. My brain raced. We knew she wouldn’t expect a reaction to something we shouldn’t know, so we gave her none. Ted and I all but expected something like this. We smiled and asked her if we could come in to chat. She nervously agreed and invited us into her Mediterranean-style formal dining room, which was lavish and lovely.
Slice of Greed: A Kevin Rhinehardt Mystery (BOL Mysteries Book 1) Page 15
