T. Lynn Ocean - Jersey Barnes 01 - Southern Fatality

by T. Lynn Ocean

  “You don’t look the type to be shopping for art.” It may have been an insult.

  “Do you know Jared?” I tried again.

  “I watch television and read the newspaper.”

  “I need to know more than what is public knowledge.”

  “What is your interest, Miss Barnes?” he asked.

  “I’ve been hired by his father to bring him home. So far, I’ve been unable to determine where he is,” I said.

  “And you think, once you find him, you can simply bring him home?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  He nodded, but didn’t offer more, like a sheet of written instructions on where to find Jared. Spud began to fidget. My method of questioning someone was most likely much different than his had been during his career with the cops.

  “Hmm,” Cameron said. He studied me, perhaps trying to get beyond the fact that I did not look like someone who could retrieve a hostage from bad people.

  “Bill said you might be able to help,” I prompted.

  “How, exactly?”

  “I’m not familiar with Wilmington’s gay community. I’ve just learned that Jared is gay and I’d like to talk with some of his friends.”

  “How will that help you?” His questions in place of answers were beginning to annoy me.

  I met his eyes, smiled. “I won’t know that until I talk with them.”

  “Do you have any idea how much a tabloid would pay for such a juicy story? Especially right now, when the Chesterfield family is a regular part of the evening news?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I have an idea. I also have all the money I need. My only interest is in locating the kid, and to do it soon.”

  “Why?” Another question. Spud began to drum his fingers on the small table that separated our wingback chairs.

  “I can’t tell you that.”

  “Does Jared’s father know?”

  “That is son is gay? I don’t think so.”

  “Are you going to tell him?”

  “Rousting someone out of the closet is not my thing. It may become apparent to Chesterfield, depending on what I uncover,” I said. “But what do you think he’d rather have? A heterosexual dead son or a homosexual live one?”

  Cameron Slate made a decision. “I don’t personally know Jared. But I do know who he was seeing, unless something changed in the past month.”

  Spud’s fingers stopped tapping the wood.

  “A bartender in the historic district. I think he works the day shift. His name is Steven Meyers. His father is Michael Meyers. You may have heard of him? Big real estate developer in South Carolina?”

  I nodded. I’d check the name later.

  “Anyway,” Cameron continued, “Steven’s father found out Steven was gay when a guy he dumped went a little crazy and wanted retaliation. The ex showed up at the real estate office and told all. Now, Steven has been disowned. His trust fund, which was his as soon as he completed college, has been revoked. Supposedly it was somewhere in the neighborhood of a million and a half.”

  Spud leaned forward in his chair to listen. Things were finally getting interesting.

  “So, Jared’s boyfriend was set, financially,” I said. “Until a jilted lover tattled to daddy. Tough situation.” Jared may have been worried that the same thing could happen to him.

  “Steven is still young. He wasn’t using good judgment in choosing his friends. But he’s tough. Bartending to put himself through school and planning on going into occupational therapy.”

  “Thanks for the information. It might be a big help.”

  He revealed the name and location of the bar and we shook hands.

  “Good luck,” he said.

  Our next stop was the pub where Steven Meyers worked as a bartender. From the outside, it looked like a dive but the interior was tasteful with lots of dark wood and colorful artwork on the walls. A rectangular bar was built in the middle of the place. Besides one kid working behind the bar cleaning glasses and whoever did prep work in the kitchen, Spud and I were the only people there. It was barely eleven in the morning and the pub had just opened. I suspected that barflies seeking their first drink of the day would soon filter in and the lunch crowd would arrive shortly after.

  We pulled up bar stools. Spud asked for a Coke with a slice of lemon and I had an iced tea. The kid behind the bar was the right age to be Steven. Maybe we’d gotten lucky on the first try.

  “Are you Steven?” I asked him. He studied me for a few seconds to see if he knew me. He was tall and slender and had the build of a basketball player. His face was clean shaven, with an open expression. He looked like the proverbial all-American boy next door.

  “Yeah, but sorry, I don’t recognize you. Have we met?”

  “No,” I said. “My name is Jersey. I’d like to talk to you about Jared Chesterfield.”

  His eyes clouded and he lost the friendly smile. “Whoever you are, and whatever you want, I can’t help you.”

  “If you care about Jared, you’ll talk to me. I’m trying to find him while there’s still time.”

  I’d gotten his attention. “Are you a cop?”

  “No. Jared’s father has employed me to find his son.”

  His face went pale. “He knows?”

  “About the two of you? I don’t think so. I do, though, and have some questions.”

  He scanned the bar to see if we were still alone. “What makes you think I can help?”

  “I know the two of you were, maybe still are, an item. I’m not here to judge anyone or blab secrets. I’m only trying to find Jared and any information you have can be very useful.”

  Steven moved down the bar to retrieve a box of fruit. He came back to where we sat and began cutting lemons into slices on a small wooden cutting board.

  “Are you going to talk to me about Jared or not?” I said.

  “How’d you get my name?”

  “From Cameron Slate. He and I have a mutual friend.”

  “Cameron Slate knows who I am?”

  “Sure,” I told him. “Just like you know who he is. You don’t personally know each other, but you know of each other. You’re both well respected in your own way. You, apparently, have caught the eye of Jared Chesterfield. Good-looking, single, millionaire several times over. Big news, I’d think, in gay circles.”

  Steven thought about that while he efficiently sliced another lemon and flicked the pieces into a plastic bin. “What do you want to know?”

  “You were Jared’s boyfriend?”

  “Still am.” Another lemon.

  “Has he made any contact since you heard about the kidnapping?”

  “No, nothing. I’ve been so worried, I can’t stand it. But who could I tell?” The first bin was full, so he switched from lemons to limes and began cutting them with a bit more vigor. The sharp knife sliced cleanly through the thick skin and hit the cutting board with a hollow thunk. Slice, thunk, toss.

  “You tell whoever you can trust, if you must tell. But, since we’re dealing with the son of Samuel Chesterfield, I suppose it’s hard to know who you can trust.”

  “Tell me about it.” Slice, thunk, toss. “Both of us with imposing fathers who couldn’t possibly understand. My father won’t speak to me. Doesn’t acknowledge that I exist.”

  “I’m sure it can’t be easy,” I said softly, urging him to tell me more. Spud was about to interject something from a father’s point of view, but I gave him a shut-up look.

  “It’s not. It’s not easy,” Steven said. He’d gotten a faraway look in his eyes. “I can’t stand not knowing what’s going on with Jared. He could be hurt, or worse.”

  “When did you see him last?”

  “We cooked dinner at my apartment two days before he disappeared.”

  “Did he seem worried about anything?”

  “Nothing out of the ordinary. His bio-mom wanted money again.”

  “Bio-mom?”

  “Barb Henley, Jared’s birth mother. A horrible bitch.”
/>   “I thought Lillian Chesterfield died.”

  “She did. But Jared’s biological mother’s name is Barb. Mrs. Chesterfield was never able to conceive children, so they used her eggs fertilized by Mr. Chesterfield’s sperm and a surrogate mother. Jared’s sister was born to a twenty-year-old law student. And Jared came out of the womb of Barb Henley. She was a young secretary at Chesterfield Financial in New York and volunteered to be the surrogate because she needed money.” Steven filled another small plastic bin with the limes and started on an orange. Slice, thunk, toss.

  “She delivered Jared, went to work for some other company, and that was it. Jared and his sister knew they’d been delivered by surrogate mothers since they were teenagers because it was in their medical records, so it was never a big deal.”

  “Then what happened?” I asked.

  “Jared told me that when he was like, maybe fourteen, Barb appeared out of nowhere and said she was his biological mother. She told him that Mr. Chesterfield had an affair with her and when she got pregnant, it was really her and Samuel’s baby.”

  Spud’s mouth had fallen open, and even I was shocked. It sounded like a daytime soap opera. “Go on,” I said.

  “So she wanted money. Told Jared that she was really his mama, after all, and deserved something more than the hundred grand Chesterfield had paid her to be a surrogate.”

  “For crying out loud,” Spud said with disgust. “You people sure have screwed-up families!”

  “A lot of people have screwed-up families, Spud,” I said, thinking of my own.

  Steven scanned the bar again for customers. “Anyway, she wanted a few hundred here, five hundred there. A thousand to get herself a new washer and dryer. Another two grand for new furniture. That kind of thing.”

  “Jared gave her the money?”

  “Yeah. He wanted to keep her quiet, because he couldn’t stand the thought of his mother—his real mother—finding out that he was the product of an illicit affair.”

  “Unbelievable,” I mumbled, angry that Chesterfield hadn’t told me about his kids’ surrogate mothers and thinking that maybe he held other secrets, too.

  People began filling seats at the pub’s tables and a server appeared to take their lunch orders. Steven disappeared momentarily to pour several glasses of wine and blend a frozen drink. When he returned, we asked for two lunch specials—a grilled ham and turkey sandwich with Dijon mustard and melted provolone cheese on sourdough bread.

  “So Jared never told his father what was going on?” I said, after he’d placed our order.

  “No, never. How could he?” Steven said and I thought, very easily. Barb was most likely lying.

  “Where’d he come up with the dough, without making his folks suspicious?” Spud asked. I wondered the same thing. No matter how wealthy a family was, parents tended to notice the spending habits of their children.

  “From money he made working for his dad part-time. He also sold a solid gold antique pinkie ring with an awesome emerald in it. Family heirloom. He told his folks that he’d lost it in the ocean. He has a trust account, but he can’t access it until he’s twenty-five.”

  I eyed Spud, thinking of all my growing-up incidents that we could never look back on and laugh about. Like the time I pawned my mother’s microwave oven when I was fifteen and later claimed to know nothing about its disappearance. My father hadn’t been there to discipline me for that stunt, much less share the important times like birthdays and proms. I looked back at the kid behind the bar and hoped he might reconcile with his father, before too many decades passed. “How long have you known Jared?”

  “Since his sophomore year at the Citadel. A little over three years.”

  “What happened with Barb? Did she go away?”

  “She found out that Jared liked guys. When Lillian Chesterfield died, Barb no longer had anything to hold over Jared’s head so he told her to bug off. That was when he was a senior in high school. But then, after he started college, the bitch hired a private investigator to follow him around, on speculation, just to see what she could dig up, I guess. The guy managed to get pictures of Jared kissing a boy.”

  I swallowed some tea. “Do you know where Barb lives?”

  “Somewhere in New York. She demands money by phone.”

  “How long have you lived here?” I asked, wondering if the kid had followed Jared to Wilmington. Steven noticeably blushed. He explained that he’d lived in Charleston, where he first met Jared, and moved to Wilmington when Jared graduated. He didn’t say who actually followed who to Wilmington. Jared could have asked Chesterfield to put him in charge of the Wilmington branch office. Either way, it wasn’t my business.

  “Has Jared ever had a DNA test?” I wanted to know.

  “I don’t think so,” he said with a crinkled forehead. “You mean a DNA test could prove if Barb was lying?”

  “Of course.”

  Spud and I were silent while Steven moved off to take orders from two businessmen who’d sat at the bar. Returning, he picked up where he’d left off without prompting. “There was something else, too.”

  “For crying out loud,” Spud said, almost choking on a swallow of soda. “There’s more?”

  “Jared told me about an old roommate at the Citadel. I think the guy knew Jared was gay. But he was cool with it, like, it was no big deal and the secret was safe with him, you know? But then, right around the time of graduation last year, he wanted Jared to give him some information from Chesterfield Financial. His reason was that he wanted to go to work for a brokerage firm, and having inside information would help. When Jared told him he wouldn’t do it, the guy threatened to out him.” So not only was Chesterfield’s ex-secretary and surrogate mother blackmailing the kid, but an ex-roommate was, too. Greedy people seemed to be feeding on Jared.

  “What information did the roommate want?” I asked.

  “Jared didn’t tell me but he knew it wasn’t the right thing to do. He couldn’t figure what the guy wanted with the information, anyway. But after he thought about how my father pretends I don’t exist, he gave in.”

  “Who’s the kid? The Citadel roommate?” I asked.

  “Jared never said a name. He told me about it, but didn’t want to talk about it. You know, like he was sorry that he’d confided in me to begin with? So it never came up again until last month. Jared said he would make up for what he’d done. He got the memory stick back—the same one that he shouldn’t have given out to begin with.” Bingo! “But then he couldn’t open the files on it, so either it wasn’t the right memory stick or it had been changed. He was going to talk to some accounting guy to determine if there was a problem before he told his dad what he’d done.”

  Eddie Flowers. The accountant must have surmised that there was, in fact, a problem.

  “Do you know anything else about the roommate?”

  “All I know is that the father was some sort of big politician, or something. Like maybe a congressman?” he said and headed to the kitchen.

  Walton Ralls. The senator’s son. The one who got himself kicked out of the Citadel. I’m pretty sure the Citadel always has several students whose fathers are politicians, but the fact that Senator Ralls was on the finance committee that oversaw SIPAs, and Chesterfield’s and Ralls’s sons were enrolled at the Citadel at the same time was certainly curious. Plus, since Jared was being groomed to work alongside his father in the business, he would have had access to the SIPA databases at Chesterfield Financial.

  Steven came back with four sandwiches. Two went to the businessmen at the end of the bar and the remaining two were mine and Spud’s. They smelled delicious. He studied me with worried eyes. “Can you get Jared back?” It was the same sound of desperation that Samuel Chesterfield displayed when he asked the same question.

  “Going to do my damnedest.”

  Steven nodded and I figured he was what he appeared to be—a bartender and a boyfriend—but I’d do some checking to be sure. I quizzed him further while Spud and I
ate. Steven said he couldn’t think of anyone who would want to kidnap Jared, except maybe Barb Henley, because she was money hungry.

  “Feel like a ride to Wrightsville Beach?” I asked Spud when we were back in the car.

  “Sure, why not?”

  I called Soup and asked for an address on a home in the Wrightsville Beach area. I gave him a name. He put me on hold, got into the tax records, and had an answer in less than five minutes: a street address for the only home in the area owned by a Sigmund Ralls. Soup also gave me the permanent mailing address in Georgia and, just to show off, rattled off the purchase prices, property taxes, and heated square footage of both. Since the permanent address was in Georgia, it had to be the senator. The one from Chesterfield’s grand-opening party who was on the finance committee, and whose son got kicked out of the Citadel.

  I jotted down the information before telling Soup I needed medical information and a doctor’s name for Barb Henley, who used to be a secretary for Chesterfield Financial. I told him why.

  “Your tab’s growing faster than a kudzu vine, Jersey,” Soup warned me. “You weren’t pestering me this much before you retired.”

  As usual, I could hear computer keys clicking in the background. He slurped on something and the telephone handset amplified the sound of him swallowing. “You know I’m good for it,” I said.

  “I can mosey back into Chesterfield’s system, see if personnel has an address on her. The quickest way to get her doctor’s name would be to get into the pharmacy’s system where she fills her prescriptions. They’ll have the prescribing doctor’s name and her insurance information. From there I can get into the insurance files, check on claims, too. See if anything interesting turns up,” Soup said. “Do you want her current doctor’s name or the doctor she used when she was still with Chesterfield Financial?”

  “Whomever she used twenty-three years ago,” I said, since Jared was twenty-two.

  He slurped again. “Might take some time,” he said. “If we get lucky, a few hours. If not, probably tomorrow.”

  I told Soup that I owed him.