I wondered how much of Simmons’ story was speculation. The kind of talk that’s no more than gossip to make the teller feel important. “Why would anyone loan Carl anything? He didn’t have any collateral.”
“I guess they figured his old man would bail him out. But Ralph cut him off as clean as a whistle.”
“How much was he into?”
Simmons rubbed a hand across his chin. “You got me. Enough that they couldn’t let him off the hook. This way they write it off as advertising.”
“Advertising?”
“Carl Atkinson’s a message.” He spread his hands as if framing a billboard. “Stiff us and we’ll stiff you.”
Chapter Nine
On Sunday afternoon, the Sheriff’s Department had all the energy of a hound dog sleeping on a cabin porch. So I often swung by to catch up on paperwork because distractions were few and I finished in half the time.
Today I wanted to sit in the conference room, sift through the statements collected at the crime scene, and think about Ron Simmons’ conjecture that Carl had been murdered because of money problems. The motive was mundane enough, as motives usually are. Carl’s ex-wife had won the lion’s share of a settlement, his daddy had cut off his allowance, and Carl had refused to curtail his lifestyle. Through gambling or extravagant spending, he might have crossed from debtor to deadbeat, an uncollectible who became worth more dead than alive.
I nodded to Lois Hinsley, the weekend dispatcher on duty, and headed down the hall.
“Any breaks?” she called after me.
I turned. Her smile seemed encouraging. Lois had to be in her late fifties, an institution in the department who worked the two-way like a virtuoso violinist.
“Not really. We have a few clues but nothing that links them to a suspect.”
“Do you think the victim was supposed to be Archie Donovan?”
“No. I don’t.”
She nodded. “Me either.”
“You got a specific reason?”
“Archie Donovan’s a pain in the ass, but that’s all he is.” She rolled her chair closer to me. “Sometimes his antics are comical, sometimes they’re pathetic. Like the time he told Homer Lakewood’s six-year-old son his daddy didn’t love him enough to buy life insurance and Homer decked him right on the front porch.” Lois laughed at the memory.
“I haven’t heard that one.”
“Oh, yeah. Knocked Archie out cold. Homer thought he’d killed him and phoned for an ambulance. I was on and the EMTs relayed the info to me because Homer confessed he hit Archie.”
“When did this happen?”
“About five years ago. Before you came back.” Lois grinned so wide her eyes crinkled into slits. “You know what Archie said when he regained consciousness?”
I shrugged. “I guess he wanted to sue.”
“He told Homer his temper was a serious problem and could get him killed. He made one final pitch for a policy as the EMTs loaded him in the ambulance.” Lois stared at what must have been a look of incredulity on my face. “That’s right. And the hell of it all, Homer bought the insurance.”
“Archie, the lovable annoyance.”
“That’s a good description. You can’t stay mad at him, so I can’t see anyone wanting to kill him.”
“Not even a jealous husband?”
“Not in that way. Don’t you think a jealous husband would jump him in a parking lot or try to catch him in the act? This killing was either about Carl Atkinson or was committed by someone who savored the theatrics of the scene and it didn’t matter who was in the casket.”
“A nutcase?”
Lois tapped her microphone. “When you’ve been dispatching officers as long as I have, nothing surprises you. The citizens of Laurel County are as likely to go bonkers as anybody else. It’s a short hike from quirky to crazy, and we mountain people are eaten up with quirkiness.”
She looked toward Tommy Lee’s door. “We even elect some of the strangest ones.”
Her comment shocked me. I thought Lois and Tommy Lee had a good relationship, especially given the number of years they’d worked together.
The door to the sheriff’s office opened and a bulbous rear-end covered in green and red plaid backed out.
“Here comes His Honor now,” Lois muttered. “So much hot air I wonder what keeps him on the ground.”
That elected official and target of her derision was Mayor Sammy Whitlock, not Tommy Lee. Whitlock relished his role of town leader, a function he fulfilled by latching onto someone else’s good idea, seeing if a parade formed, and then jumping in front of it.
“I’m counting on you to make sure he keeps that woman under control,” he shouted into Tommy Lee’s office. Then his pear-shaped body moved in ripples as he spun around.
A pink golf shirt bright enough to draw moths topped the green and red plaid pants. Someone told me the mayor was acutely colorblind, and since his wife’s death, his wardrobe had plunged into color combinations not seen outside of Ringling Brothers.
He took a step forward, and then froze. Blood rushed to his round face until I thought it would spurt from his ears. For an awkward second he stared at me.
“Good afternoon, Mayor Whitlock.” My words broke whatever spell paralyzed him.
“Yes, Barry.” He tottered forward, a kaleidoscope in motion. “Hear you’re working the Atkinson murder.” He patted me on the shoulder as he passed. “Remember, there are a lot of good people in this town. We don’t need outsiders doing a smear job on their reputations.”
“In my experience, smear jobs are usually self-inflicted. But if I come across some outsider determined to smear someone, I’ll send him to you to set him straight.”
The mayor kept walking. “You do that, son. I for one won’t hesitate to defend our citizens.” He pushed open the door to the parking lot and the afternoon sunlight turned his clothes into Las Vegas neon.
“What the hell was that about?” Lois asked.
“I’m not sure, but I bet a hundred to one Tommy Lee’s in a bad mood.”
I thought about avoiding Tommy Lee and heading directly to the conference room, but Mayor Whitlock’s odd behavior piqued my curiosity. I found the sheriff flipping through a stack of computer printouts.
“You look like an accountant,” I said.
He waved me to the chair in front of his desk. “We’re into the last two months of the budget year and I’m looking for money to pay for the Atkinson investigation.”
I touched the cushion of the empty chair with my palm. “Warm. I deduce a hot air mass recently blew through your office.”
Tommy Lee laughed and shoved the computer sheets aside. “So you saw our illustrious mayor.”
“He’s hard to miss.”
“Like a black eye on a beauty queen. He was here whining that your ex-wife’s attacking the reputation of one of our outstanding citizens.”
“Rachel?”
“Evidently she hit the after-church buffet at the Gainesboro Country Club, asking people to tell her what they knew about Carl Atkinson’s messy divorce and questionable business dealings.”
“Rachel’s tenacious.”
“I don’t think people felt comfortable talking. Mainly because they didn’t have much good to say about Carl, but they didn’t want to air the town’s dirty laundry in front of a stranger.”
“So that’s what put a hitch in His Honor’s underwear.”
“She evidently confronted him in the dessert line.”
I couldn’t suppress a laugh. “Talk about bad timing.”
“That, and Ralph Atkinson’s contribution to his election campaign.”
“Is that a problem for you?”
“Hell no. But I doubt I’m running again. Might be a problem for you.”
“Me? My only problem is finding a motive for Carl’s murder.” I sat and stretched my legs under the desk. “Especially when Mayor Whitlock and Ralph Atkinson cry foul whenever someone asks pointed questions.”
“Did
Ralph talk to you?”
“Before he went in to discuss funeral arrangements with Wayne and Fletcher. He and the mayor were speaking off the same script.”
Tommy Lee sighed and leaned back in his chair. “Ralph’s probably scared.”
I thought of Ron Simmons’ comment that Carl’s death had been a message. “Do you think someone’s coming after Ralph?”
Tommy Lee’s one eye glanced behind me. “Close the door. Anybody’s likely to be roaming the halls today.”
He waited till I returned to the chair, and then he pulled a legal pad from his desk drawer. “Before the mayor’s interruption, I’d been jotting down a few thoughts to share with you. We’re thinking along the same lines.” He scanned the top page. “Ralph lost the Atkinson future when Carl died in that coffin. No matter what kind of jerk Carl might have been he was still Ralph’s flesh and blood, his only child. As if that wasn’t bad enough, he’s scared about what we might uncover because that could destroy his past. Whatever good name he’d hope to salvage for his son. I don’t think he knows what Carl was into.”
“Ron Simmons says Atlanta loan sharks.”
Tommy Lee shook his head. “I find that hard to believe. Did he give you specifics?”
“No. He said that’s what Carl told him and that Carl was killed because he didn’t pay up.”
Tommy Lee pursed his lips. He obviously didn’t think much of Simmons’ theory. “Why were you interviewing him?”
“I wasn’t. He drove Ralph to the funeral home and caught me as I was leaving. He thought the information might be helpful.”
“Well, you’ll have to check it out, but I doubt it’ll amount to anything.”
I shifted forward in my chair, curious where Tommy Lee’s observations might lead. “Do you think Carl could have been dealing meth? It’s our biggest organized crime and those boys play for keeps.”
“The president of the Jaycees as a drug dealer?” He mulled the idea for a moment. “About as unlikely as the loan sharks, but it’s easy money. The Atkinsons have enough land to tuck an operation downwind of any population that could get a whiff of the lab fumes.”
I weighed the possibilities. “What if he were higher up the food chain? Coordinating production and distribution for a network of labs across western North Carolina. And somebody below him wants to move up to the next level.”
Tommy Lee shook his head. “Then Carl would have been spending money like a drunken sailor. That’s the way he lived his entire life.”
Money. The word sparked a memory from Friday night. “Carl came out to the haunted house because they needed more change. I wonder where he hauled in a stack of bills after the banks closed?”
“Where’s that money now?”
In my head, I replayed the scene of Archie counting the cash as the final tickets were sold. “I don’t know. I guess either Archie or Susan took it. One of them mentioned needing to repay Carl. That didn’t happen.”
Tommy Lee grunted. “Check it out. Nothing much we can do till I get the forensics on the knife and the post-mortem. Now I’m told that might not be till Tuesday.”
“I’m having the crime lab go through Carl’s car tomorrow. Maybe he was carrying a lot of cash and provided the change box with only part of it.” I got up, and then paused at the door. “What do the smart meth guys do with their money?”
“Smart meth guys? Now there’s an oxymoron.”
“I mean the big guys, not the kids cooking and using.”
Tommy Lee shrugged. “Same as any illegal operation. Launder it through some legit business that handles a lot of cash.”
“Or use it as investment capital?”
“Yeah. But it would still be underground.”
I nodded. “Like loan sharking.”
Tommy Lee showed more interest in that connection. “So, Carl gets in debt like Simmons said, but tries to work it off somehow. Maybe providing and protecting a lab site or shipping product.”
“Crates of apples come out of Atkinson’s orchards by the thousands. How hard would it be to nestle crystal meth in the center of some of those crates?”
Tommy Lee tapped his notepad. “I’d planned to help you tomorrow by making a few phone calls. Craig de Santos at United Community Bank would know the status of Carl’s accounts. I’ll check with the executives at the other banks to see if Carl had been moving cash through any of them.”
“So you do think he was into something illegal.”
“It’s not what I think. Right now it’s what I feel.”
I didn’t say anything, just waited for him to explain.
“And I feel things are going to get worse before they get better.”
I folded my arms across my chest and leaned against the door. “Wait a minute. You’re confusing me. If Ralph’s not in danger, who is?”
“Archie Donovan, for one.”
“I thought you discounted him.”
“I have. But if someone wants to send us on the wrong trail, Archie’s the obvious choice.”
“You think they’d kill Archie to pull us off Carl?”
“I said it’s a feeling. We’re turning over rocks and there’s no telling what’s under them. And then there’s Jamison yesterday and the mayor today, each pushing competing agendas.”
Tommy Lee lost me again. “How?”
“Whitlock wants to protect Ralph from any blowback as we look for a motive. Jamison would like the case to enlarge. Hell, he’d love it to be some full-blown conspiracy so he can appear tough on crime. And he has a history with Ralph Atkinson.”
I slipped back in the chair, realizing I’d jumped the gun thinking Tommy Lee had finished with me.
“There’s something you need to understand when you sit behind this desk,” he said. “A small town is like a pressure cooker. Sooner or later everybody’s into everybody else’s business. And when the heat’s ratcheted up—a murder, a messy divorce, a big outside business deal, hell even a big wedding—then slights and old grievances are thrown into the pot.
“Ralph Atkinson put the screws to Jamison’s father. Loaned him money when we had a couple years of late spring freezes that decimated the apple crop. Old man Jamison put up his land as collateral with the assurance from Ralph that it was just a formality. Something Ralph’s bankers would want to see when analyzing his credit risk.”
“And then they foreclosed on him?” I asked.
“Not right away. The loan payback was scheduled to start after the next harvest. But the crop was tainted. Many of the growers used an insecticide spray that was identified mid-season as a carcinogen. Worse yet, it had been applied at a point when the chemical infused itself into the fruit enough to show up at an unsafe level.”
“I remember that. I was in high school.”
“A disaster way beyond a hard freeze. If you lose the blossoms, you don’t work the trees. But this promised to be a bumper crop with all the expenses incurred as it was brought to harvest.”
“And Jamison was wiped out?”
“Ralph lost his crop as well. Claimed he had no choice but to foreclose.”
“Sounds understandable.”
Tommy Lee nodded. “And if we were in a big city and it was just another explainable business failure it would be understandable. But Ralph took the land, leaving old man Jamison just a few acres for his house and patchwork garden. Then he didn’t put the property up for sale. That struck some folks the wrong way. If Ralph needed cash, that’s what he would have done.”
“Maybe he used it for collateral for a new loan?”
“No. He sold other acreage instead. He’d been talking to people at N.C. State who were trying to introduce a new cash crop in the mountains. Christmas trees. And the best stock, the Fraser Firs, grew at higher elevations.”
I held up a hand. “Don’t tell me. Jamison’s land was on the upper ridge slopes.”
“You got it. The acreage was ideal. Ralph cleared the apple trees and got expert advice from the state on how to cultivate the Frase
rs. Other growers followed suit and the diversification was good for the county.”
“But not for the Jamisons. You think that was Ralph’s plan all along?”
Tommy Lee gave a humorless smile. “Not a doubt in my mind. I spoke to one of the agriculture extension agents who said Ralph had been interested in Frasers for several years before getting the Jamison property.”
“Must have been a bitter pill for D.A. Jamison’s father to swallow.”
“No. He swallowed the business end of a shotgun. I took the call.”
An involuntary shudder ran down my spine. “I didn’t know that.”
“Suicides aren’t discussed much. In a small town word travels in whispers, like steam escaping from that pressure cooker, the only way out.”
“You don’t think the D.A. plays a role in this, do you?”
“No. Let’s just say it’s a bonus if he can prosecute Carl’s murderer and embarrass the hell out of Ralph Atkinson at the same time.”
I began to see the political landscape Tommy Lee was facing. “So you’re in the middle of the mayor and the D.A.”
“Yeah. But I’ve got two things going for me. First, I’m also an elected official who answers only to the voters, and second, I don’t give a shit what the mayor or the D.A. wants. On the other hand, we have our points of agreement. Whitlock thinks the D.A. is a pompous, arrogant opportunist, and Jamison thinks the mayor is a pompous, arrogant buffoon. I think they’re both right.”
The intercom on Tommy Lee’s phone crackled and Lois spoke. “Excuse me, Sheriff. Is Barry still with you?”
“I’m here,” I said.
“Reverend Pace’s on hold. He says he needs to talk with you.”
Tommy Lee grinned. “Barry skips church and the Methodists put out a BOLO.”
I forced a smile. A BOLO stood for Be On the Lookout. “Either that or there’s some fallout from yesterday’s funeral.”
“Don’t you mean fall-in?” He waved me away. “We’re done. I’ll work the banks in the morning.”
I got up. “Lois, transfer the call to the conference room. I’m headed there now.”
“10-4, Lazarus.”
I could hear Tommy Lee laughing till I closed the conference room door.
Fatal Undertaking: A Buryin' Barry Mystery (Buryin' Barry Series) Page 10
