EASY GREEN

by Bill WENHAM

  “Mystery Car Fire Homicide! Who is the victim?”

  “Good God, Dean,” Willoughby gasped. “That’s your place, isn’t it? and isn’t that Dellie’s car!”

  Factor nodded.

  “But it isn’t Dellie. I know that much, but she’s still missing, Jim.”

  Willoughby shook his head,

  “Honestly, Dean, I really have no idea where she could be.”

  He looked at Cheryl and gave her an apologetic shrug.

  “I’m sorry, honey, but they were bound to find out about us sooner or later.”

  She shrugged back as well.

  “Its okay, Jim,” she said. “Jim and I were away together all weekend, Dean.” She looked at Willoughby and smiled. “From Friday night until very early this morning. I believe we even spent a little time actually skiing – a very little time, as I recall.”

  Willoughby said, “Dellie and I were working on a plan to expand the franchise operation even further and we completed it on Friday. We were planning to put an American folklore themed mini golf course in our prototype as a test. It was to be a surprise for you, buddy, and yes, I did stay over – all alone in the guest room.”

  Factor nodded.

  “I know, Jim. Dellie told me you and she had been working on a surprise but I didn’t believe her. I’d just gotten home and saw your cell phone on the hall table. I immediately put two and two together and came up with way, way more than four. I just got mad and stormed out without letting her explain.”

  “Apology accepted. And what did you do then?” Willoughby prompted.

  “I got myself thoroughly plastered and then slept it off in a motel. I came home around 4.30 yesterday morning to see that happening in my driveway,” Factor said, pointing at the photo.

  “So, who is it? Dellie?” Willoughby asked.

  Much calmer now, Factor replied. “No idea, Jim. The police just know it isn’t Dellie from DNA samples.”

  “Poor woman,” Cheryl said. “What an awful way to die.”

  Factor looked at her.

  “She was already dead before the fire, Cheryl – thankfully. She was badly battered first and then placed in the car, so the police tell me, anyway. I have to hope it was less agonizing than burning to death would have been”

  Cheryl brushed a tear from her eye and turned away to return to her desk. Factor’s office phone buzzed. Cheryl answered it at her desk.

  “Dean,” she said. “It’s for you, a Lieutenant Streeter.”

  Factor pushed a button on Willoughby’s cordless desk phone. He stepped away from the desk and took the call.

  “Hi, lieutenant,” he said.

  Without any preamble, Streeter said, “We’ve got a name. Patti Thatcher. The wife of a friend and business associate of yours, I believe, Mr. Factor.”

  Her voice was deliberately cool and without any trace of the former friendliness. No longer Dean, he was back to being Mr. Factor again.

  “Patti!” Factor gasped. “Oh, my God, no, not Patti!”

  “I just thought I’d let you know, sir,” Streeter said. “And have you heard from your wife yet?”

  “No, lieutenant, I haven’t, and my partner here hasn’t seen her either since Friday afternoon either. He was away skiing for the weekend.”

  There was a brief pause on the line.

  “Your partner, Mr. Factor? Everything’s back to being rosy again in the Garden World now then, is it?”

  Factor glanced over at where Willoughby was reading the front page newspaper article.

  “Just a little misunderstanding there, lieutenant, nothing more. I’m sorry about Patti. Paul must be absolutely devastated.”

  Willoughby looked up from the paper questioningly.

  Streeter continued.

  “He is, Mr. Factor. Very devastated. Please let me know as soon as you hear from your wife.”

  “I wil….” Factor responded but Streeter had hung up already.

  Factor pointed at the newspaper photo.

  “That’s Patti, Jim,” he said. “The police have made a positive ID.”

  “Oh, God, no!” Willoughby gasped. “Why?”

  “They don’t know why, or why in Dellie’s car or why in our driveway. But, as I just told Cheryl, they also told me she’d been battered before she was burned. None of it makes any sense to me and where the hell is Dellie?”

  On the following day Liz Streeter sat at her desk and pondered over the case in front of her. What were the odds of a murdered woman’s body turning up in the driveway of a man whose wife had also just disappeared?

  The chances of that being a coincidence were slim to none at all, she thought to herself.

  Her investigation had discovered that Paul Thatcher, a former next door neighbor of Factor’s had formed a consortium to buy the very first Easy Green Garden World franchise. Factor and Willoughby had retained ownership of the original as a prototype active park but also as a franchise demo site.

  Although they were no longer really close neighbors, the Thatchers had remained good friends and as the money rolled in from their franchise operation; they also bought their own massive mansion no more than a half a mile away from the Factors.

  Was all this all coincidence? Well, hardly, she thought. Streeter didn’t believe in coincidence. In her book everything happened for a reason and it was her job to find that reason.

  Time to go back to the beginning, she thought, as she dialed Factor’s office number again. Cheryl answered the phone, took her name and asked her to hold for a moment.

  A few seconds later, Factor picked up.

  “Hello?”

  “Dean, Its Liz Streeter. If you’re not too busy, I’d like to talk to you,” she said.

  At the other end of the line, Factor raised his eyebrows and smiled. So, now he was back to being Dean again. Maybe that was a good sign!

  Instead of sounding pleased, he said, “Oh, oh, am I back to being a suspect again then? You were pretty damned curt with me yesterday.”

  Streeter said, “Sorry about that. You’re not exactly a suspect but you sure as hell could be if I don’t get all this sorted out in a hurry. So, we need to talk, okay?”

  “Sure,” Factor answered. “Now?”

  “Yes, please, but not over the phone. There are just too many listening devices around here.”

  “Listening devices?” Factor queried.

  Streeter laughed.

  “Ears, Dean. Listen, could we meet for a coffee somewhere. I’ll drop by and pick you up.”

  “I was just heading out the door to go home when you called. Why don’t you just meet me there and I’ll put the coffee pot on. There are ears here too but only yours and mine at my place, okay?”

  Streeter paused a moment to consider. Watch it, Liz, she thought. You can look and listen but don’t you dare touch!

  “Okay I’ll be there in about twenty minutes.” She was about to hang up when she added. “I take it your wife is still not back yet then, Dean?”

  “No,” Factor said. “And she hasn’t phoned either. She definitely isn’t and wasn’t with Jim Willoughby either. He had another young lady keeping his bed warm for him but not my Dellie, thankfully.”

  “Dean, don’t fret over it. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  She hung up and hoped Factor wouldn’t do anything stupid. And don’t you do anything stupid when you see him again either, my girl, she chided herself.

  Factor had been home, with the coffee made for over 15 minutes before Streeter rang the front door bell.

  “Sorry,” she said as she stepped into the front hallway. “I got nailed just as I was heading out of the door. When it’s the boss who wants to talk there’s no way to wriggle out of it, is there?”

  Factor nodded and smiled.

  “When I want to talk I expect my employees to jump a little too,” he said as he led her into the kitchen. Streeter removed her winter coat and hung it over the back of one of the kitchen chairs. Factor poured two mugs of coffee as Street
er sat down.

  “How do you take it?” he asked.

  “Milk or cream and one sugar, please”

  “Me too,” Factor replied.

  He put the mugs on the table and sat down opposite her.

  “Now,” he said. “What’s all this about? Why all the secrecy?”

  Streeter gave him a look that was hard for him to interpret.

  “It’s about me, Dean.”

  Factor raised his eyebrows.

  “You? What about you?” he asked curiously.

  “The whole department, and the Chief, my boss, want a solution to this murder, and they want it fast, Dean.”

  Factor nodded.

  “Well, we all want that, Liz.”

  “I know, but they also want you as the prime suspect, Dean, and I’m being hounded to make it happen for them,” she said. “The problem is - I don’t think you’re the culprit. I think you’re just another one of the victims.”

  Factor smiled at her.

  “Thanks, Liz. After yesterday, I was beginning to wonder.”

  “Yesterday, I had ears all around me. Today I don’t – and I need you to tell me everything. How this business of yours started, how you got into partnership with Mr. Willoughby, where all the money came from and so on.

  Somewhere there’s a thread linking all of this to Patti Thatcher’s murder and possibly to your wife’s disappearance as well – and I need to find it somehow. So talk to me, Dean. Please.”

  Factor did talk, for almost three hours in fact, but even then he couldn’t tell her everything – because there were a couple of major things that, even after all this time, he didn’t even know himself!

  One of the things Factor was unaware of was a meeting in a downtown bar a few years back between two men. One of them was a short, stocky man of about fifty, obviously of Italian descent, although he had no discernable accent. The other was a much younger natural born American Caucasian.

  The two of them were in a booth at the rear of the bar.

  “Listen, pal, I’m trying to do you a favor here,” the American said irritably. “You know as well as I do that your land of yours is practically worthless. Just look at the bloody great useless hill on it. Nobody, except the Chinese, maybe, wants to farm any more so no one in their right mind would ever want to buy it.”

  The Italian said, “Then why do you want it?”

  The American laughed.

  “Me? I don’t want it. There’s no way I’d touch it – but a client of mine is just looking for any old piece of waste land to park some tractor trailers on. Well, the trailers, anyway. He says he might want to build a few bulk storage units on it as well later on. Much later on is my guess. But to do that he needs to have title to it.”

  The American took a sip of his beer.

  “But, hey, land like yours is going for a song just about anywhere these days. So, pal, are you interested or am I just spinning my goddamned wheels here?”

  “Just give me a couple of days to think about it, okay?”

  The American shook his head.

  “I’ll give you a couple of minutes, maybe, and then I’m out of here.”

  He signaled the barmaid to renew their drinks. Then he leaned back in the booth and waited, confident he’d got a deal.

  The other man licked his lips nervously.

  “Can you see your way clear to upping the deal a bit?” he asked.

  Instead of replying, the American stood up, took some bills from his wallet, dropped them on the table and turned to leave.

  The Italian panicked.

  “No, hey, wait up. You can’t blame a guy for trying, can you?” he gasped.

  The American casually sat back down again and relaxed against the padded back of the booth. He was completely at ease.

  “Okay, bud, so you’ve tried and I’m not biting. I’ve offered you a fair price for what we both know is junk land, so just make up your mind – right now. Take it or leave it.”

  The Italian nodded.

  “Okay, it’s a deal, but for cash, right?”

  “Cash, yes, less my handling fee, of course,” the American added casually.

  “Handling fee? What the hell is that?” the Italian yelped.

  “Real estate commission, pal. You really don’t think I do this kind of thing for nothing, do you?” the American sneered at him.

  The Italian was aghast.

  “How much commission?” he asked fearfully.

  The American shrugged.

  “Normally, its 5%, but for a cash deal, no questions asked, it goes up to seven.”

  The Italian looked at him incredulously.

  “You want 7% of what I get for my land just for sitting here talking to me! No bloody way. You’ve got to be kidding me,” he said angrily.

  The American stood up again. The notes he’d put on the bar were still there. This time he walked out of the bar without so much as a backward glance but he knew from experience when his fish had been well and truly hooked.

  Outside the bar, as he paused to light a cigarette, the bar door flew open and the Italian rushed out.

  “Hey, wait up. I’ll take the deal,” he gasped.

  The American calmly blew a cloud of smoke into the sweating Italian’s face.

  “You can’t,” he said. “The deal’s no longer on the table.”

  The Italian looked devastated.

  “What!” he shouted angrily. “You can’t do that.”

  The American shrugged nonchalantly.

  “I just did do it. You had your chance, bud, and you blew it,” he said.

  “No, no,” the Italian blustered. “I’ll pay you the 7%, okay?”

  The American just smirked at him.

  “That was the old deal. Now, for the added aggravation, the new deal’s gone up to 10%. Take it now, this minute, or it goes up to 15, okay?”

  The Italian gulped, but he also seethed with fury at the arrogance of this guy who had him by the balls.

  “Okay. It’s a deal.”

  He offered the American his hand, but the American ignored it.

  “Be here Friday – same time. I’ll have the papers for you to sign and the cash. You bring the bloody survey and the deed and no more nonsense from you, okay?” the American snapped.

  The Italian, calmer now, frowned.

  “Don’t we need a lawyer for this?” he asked.

  The American shook his head at the Italian disgustedly.

  “You sure like throwing your money away, don’t you, pal? Lawyers don’t do cash deals with no questions asked. No questions, no tax, get it? And even if they did, they’d want their cut as well. You just be here on time, like I told you.”

  Without another word, the American walked away. The Italian stared after him.

  What the Italian didn’t know was that the American had negotiated several of these deals already for his employers, all of them with fatal results for the sellers. Within a few months of the deal being completed, the sellers just disappeared from the face of the earth and the money he or she was paid found its way back to the American’s employers.

  This was what was intended all along because they now had the legally deeded title to the land – and all of their money back. It was one sweet deal for everyone concerned except the unfortunate seller because he or she was already dead.

  Because of what he intended to do next, this particular seller, who had contacts for this kind of thing, changed his and his wife’s names. Nico Franchetti and his wife, Rosa, no longer existed also. They both disappeared, and only Nico knew where they’d gone.

  The man in the car was angry. Very, very angry, as he watched the huge tract of land across the highway being graded. A man named Thatcher had signed an agreement for an Easy Green Garden World franchise to be built on this land with its easy access to the highway. It was to be built on his land. Land that had been in his family for generations. Land that he’d been deliberately cheated out of!

  Thatcher would die, of course, as a resul
t of this but he’d only be one of many. In the army, the man had killed many times before and could easily do it again but this time it was different. This was personal. This time it would be a pleasure.

  When he was a boy, to teach him manners, his mother had always told him, “ladies first, Nico, it’s always ladies first, so you just remember that.” His mother had been right, of course. He would start with the ladies. The wives would be first to die, just to add a little atmosphere and interest to the proceedings. Then he’d move on to the men that made up the Easy Green Garden World Corporation.

  Thatcher himself would be way down the list, though because someone else was number one!

  Chapter Ten

  April, 2010.

  At first, Factor called all Dellie’s friends and relatives but none of them had seen or heard from her. None of them had called her recently either. He also called their travel agent but no travel arrangements for Dellie had been made through them. Finally in February, in desperation, he hired a private investigator but the man could come up with nothing at all.

  There was no sign of Dellie anywhere. She had just disappeared without a trace.

  On a Saturday morning in early April, with a lot of snow still on the ground, Factor received a phone call. The caller said he was from the marina where Factor had his boat stored.

  He and Dellie had both always enjoyed boating but in the beginning, with just the small Easy Green nursery, they had neither the time nor the money to pursue their interest. Later, when the money started to really roll in, Factor and Dellie flew down to Ft. Lauderdale to take a look at a 1974 Chris Craft 60’ aluminum hulled; diesel powered ‘Roamer’ cabin cruiser in mint condition. After an afternoon’s test run out on the water with it, they bought it and had it shipped home. After taxes and shipping, it had cost them well over $300.000.00.

  They renamed it ‘Dellie’s Delight’ and its small outboard tender was re-christened ‘Dean’s Dinghy’. It was a beautiful and luxurious boat with a large comfortably furnished main cabin, complete with a large screen television, a large forward stateroom plus spacious aft cabin sleeping accommodation beneath the rear deck as well.