by Herren, Greg
“I know, it made me laugh my ass off when I first found out about it.”
“You think there’s a connection between the Alex Davis disappearance and Mona’s?”
She shrugged. “Who knows? Mona was involved with Cypress Gardens and was a star witness for Luke Marino. Hakim Ali was on the other side, under investigation from the FBI, and now she’s gone. Maybe she knew something—we don’t know what she knew.”
I shook my head. “It doesn’t make sense, Paige.”
“So the dots aren’t all connected.” She lit a cigarette. “But something about all of this stinks to high heaven. Maybe Mona somehow found out something about Hakim Ali, and the Feds put her into protective custody—”
“Doesn’t explain Robby’s murder.” I closed my eyes and leaned back. “This case! It’s driving me crazy, nothing makes any sense.” I thought for a moment. “I think the key to all of this is Mona changing her testimony. That’s the one thing that doesn’t fit with everything else I know about her.” I started ticking things off on my fingers. “She was loyal, she was honest, she was deeply religious, she was like family to the Marinos. So why would she stab them in the back, at the last minute?”
“Her son needed money.” Paige shrugged.
“But even that doesn’t make sense.” I shook my head. “I mean, I’m not her, but if my son needed fifty grand, she had ways of getting it besides selling out to Global Insurance. Jonny’s trust still has about sixty grand in it. She had certificates of deposit she could have cashed in. She could have taken out a mortgage on her house. And she had a cashier’s check for fifty grand from Morgan Barras, made out to her, that she could have turned into cash any time she wanted to.” I shook my head. “All she had to do walk into a bank, and voilà. Problem solved.”
“Maybe that money was the payoff for changing her testimony. You do know Morgan Barras is a shareholder in Global Insurance? And he bought Cypress Gardens from Luke a few years back.”
“The check was dated two weeks earlier,” I pointed out. “Why would she have held on to it for so long if she took it to help out Robby?”
“That doesn’t mean it was given to her two weeks ago,” Paige blew a few smoke rings toward the ceiling fan. “She may not have gotten it until it was too late. Maybe she went over to Robby’s to give it to him, found the body, and got the hell out of town.”
“Without her car and with no money?” I blew out a breath. “I wonder whose blood that was in her car.”
“Maybe she killed Robby. Or maybe she got his blood on her when she found his body. And that’s how it got in the car.”
“I can’t believe she would have killed her own son.” I shook my head. “No matter how much he might have pissed her off, it just doesn’t play with everything else I know about her. I mean, even if he exposed that she had an affair and Jonny was her lover’s child, who cares? It was twenty years ago.”
“Well, someone killed him—and Robby sounds like he needed killing.” She stubbed the cigarette out. “I mean, why would he tell Jonny they didn’t have the same father? And you said they looked alike, right? That’s just a shitty thing to do.”
“They looked like their mother,” I replied absently. There was something there, and I cursed myself for getting stoned. My mind was too foggy to grab hold of the idea that was trying to form in the back of my mind. Someone had said something—but the more I tried, the more it slipped out of my grasp.
“If she did have an affair, she wouldn’t be happy to have it all come out, even if it was twenty years ago, but you’re right, she wouldn’t have killed her son over it.” Paige glanced at her watch. “Damn, when did it get so late?” She tapped the file she’d placed on the coffee table. “This is some of what we’ve dug up on Social Justice. Take a look—you might find something useful.” She stood up and picked up her bag.
I kissed her on the cheek at the door. “This was fun—and thanks.”
“Yeah.” She gave me a hug. “I miss you, you know. But with everything—”
“No worries.” I kissed the top of her head again. “We all get busy.”
I watched her walk to her car and waited for her to drive off before going back inside and bolting the door.
My mind was still a little muddled, so I microwaved a cup of coffee and carried it back into the living room. I picked up the file and started reading.
Hakim Ali had quite a checkered past indeed, I thought when I closed the file an hour later and put it back down. He’d been born here, in the St. Thomas housing projects—and was a product of the New Orleans public school system. But he was the kind of success story people could get behind—no father, his mother had been a drug-addicted prostitute, and he’d grown up in the projects. He’d worked hard in public school, not joined a gang or gotten involved in drugs, and had gotten into LSU—he was actually there at the same time as Luke and I. He’d worked his way through college, eventually getting a double degree in political science and African American studies. While at LSU, he’d gotten involved in several organizations that would have most likely set off some alarms at the FBI—he’d converted to Islam and changed his name, joined the college Communist Party and a black power group reputed to have ties with some anti-American Islamic groups in Africa.
After finishing his degrees, he’d gone to Africa and worked there with relief missions in war-torn countries for a few years before returning to the United States, where he’d become highly active in a group called Mindpower—whose focus was encouraging young African Americans in the inner cities to give up gangs and drugs and focus on education. He’d been arrested several times at protests and returned to New Orleans shortly after the turn of the century. He’d led the opposition to the demolition of the St. Thomas Projects and had formed Social Justice as an organization to help the evicted tenants of St. Thomas find other places to live in the city.
Social Justice had barely subsisted until Katrina roared ashore and the federally built and maintained levee system failed so spectacularly and was witnessed by the entire world. The entire country—and world, for that matter—had been riveted to their television screens as news crews broadcast the daily horrors going on in a once-proud American city. The natural human instinct when witnessing horror is frustration at one’s helplessness—and the next instinct is to open your wallet and give money. With so much attention focused on the displaced New Orleanians, it was a very ripe time for a group like Social Justice to get some cash. Their donations rose exponentially, and apparently Hakim had approached Luke Marino about taking over management of Cypress Gardens in the spring of 2006. The complexes were sitting there empty, there was a need for low-income housing, and the contracts were signed. Social Justice took over in the late summer 2006.
Luke and Hakim—they’d both been at LSU at the same time. Was it possible they’d known each other from then? The football star and the radical black activist?
Stranger things, I reflected, had happened on college campuses before.
Luke Marino turned around and sold the complex to Morgan Barras in spring of 2007, and Barras evicted everyone—including Social Justice.
Which would explain why Ali is testifying for Global Insurance—it’s payback, I mused as I stared at the ceiling. And it was around that same time that Alex Davis disappeared.
Paige’s reporter had compiled a lot of interesting information about Alex Davis. He’d been in his mid-thirties when he disappeared, leaving behind a wife and two young daughters. He’d been sent to New Orleans to infiltrate Social Justice in 2004, and the Feds had put up the investment money to get him into the group. But there was nothing in the file about why the Feds were willing to spend the money and go to the trouble to infiltrate Social Justice.
Unless they thought Hakim Ali was a terrorist—since 9 / 11 no expense was spared to investigate possible terrorist cells.
I picked up the file again and turned back to the countries where he’d worked.
I smiled. How could I have missed it?
Somalia, Yemen, and Ethiopia.
So, the Feds thought Hakim Ali was a terrorist and Social Justice was a terrorist front.
Because of course a terrorist front would try to find housing for displaced poor people in New Orleans after a natural disaster.
I walked over to the computer and signed in. I scanned my e-mails—nothing from Abby or Jephtha.
I sent Jeph a quick e-mail, asking him to find out whatever he could about Hakim Ali and Alex Davis.
I doubted there was anything there, but I always found it better to rule things out.
That way they couldn’t come back to bite you in the ass.
Chapter Thirteen
Abby woke me up shortly after seven, waking me out of an incredibly deep and restful sleep, insisting that I meet her at the Please You for breakfast. I could tell by her tone she was excited about something—I could practically see her bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet. Reluctantly, I agreed to meet her in about half an hour—which would give me enough time to shower, gulp down some coffee, and try to wake up. I got the coffee going while I brushed my teeth and got in the shower. The hot water splashing over my body somehow managed to wash the sleep out of my eyes and soak the tired out of my muscles. The coffee was ready once I toweled off, and I poured a big steaming mug of it. It looked gray outside—which meant we were due for more rain. I put on a light T-shirt and pulled on a pair of loose-fitting khaki shorts, finished the coffee, and walked out the front door. The air felt close and heavy—which meant it was definitely going to rain at some point in the day. I kicked my way through the cluster of stinging caterpillars undulating on the front porch and headed down the walk to the gate. By the time I got to the sidewalk, my underarms and forehead were damp with sweat. The humidity was lying on my skin like a hot wet towel. I could also feel pressure starting to build in my sinuses.
Abby was already seated at our usual booth drinking coffee when I walked through the front door. The Please You was crowded—every stool at the counter was taken, and there wasn’t an open booth or table to be had. I’d never been in the café that early—it was like a completely different place. The air-conditioning was blasting—which was why the windows had been covered in condensation—and the staff was moving at a remarkably fast clip. I could smell coffee brewing and could hear bacon sizzling on the grill. The mixed odors of eggs, toast, pancakes, and bacon made my stomach growl and my eyes water just a little bit.
Abby grinned as I slid into my seat. There was a cup of coffee sitting beside the place mat on my side of the table. Gratefully I dumped some cream and a packet of Sweet’n Low into it and took a big drink.
“Damn, boss, you look like you’re still asleep,” she teased me. Her hair was all pulled up and shoved into a black Who Dat baseball cap, and she was wearing a baggy navy blue T-shirt.
The coffee was strong, and I took another big gulp of it before growling, “And what was so goddamned important that I had to get out of bed this early?”
She made a face at me. I ordered scrambled eggs, bacon, toast, and grits from our waitress, and resisted the urge to tell her to leave the coffeepot. I raised my eyebrows at Abby. “You’re not eating?”
“I’m not hungry—I’ll just have coffee.” Once the waitress moved away to check on another table, Abby pulled her battered navy blue backpack up from the floor and placed in on the table. She unzipped the main compartment and removed a green file folder, which she shoved across the table at me. Her eyes danced. “I can’t wait for you to read that,” she said in a low voice, leaning across the table.
“What is it?” I didn’t bother to open the folder. I could tell she was dying to tell me what was inside, so I just picked up my coffee cup again and took another drink. The caffeine was starting to clear my brain—but I still wanted to go back to bed. “Just tell me—I can read it more thoroughly later. My brain’s not quite working at a hundred percent yet. Too early.”
“It’s the paperwork for the trust the Verlaines’ lawyer set up for Mona and her kids—I was able to find it on one of the city’s court websites. The settlement and the trust were set up through the courts. It makes it more official that way.” Her voice rose in excitement. “They could have just done the whole thing privately, but my guess is the Verlaine lawyer wanted it done this way so Mona couldn’t ever come back and sue again later—I don’t know that it was absolutely necessary, but from what you’ve told me about the Verlaines—”
“Oh, yes, that’s exactly the kind of thing the Verlaines would do,” I commented sourly. “Protect their family at all costs, that’s their motto.”
She glanced at me. “I’ll take your word for it. Anyway, the primary thing that really caught my attention was the way this was set up to really take away options from Mona—like the Verlaines almost didn’t trust her to do right by her kids.”
I narrowed my eyes. “What do you mean?”
“If the Verlaines had just settled the money on Mona, she could have set up the trusts herself and done with them as she pleased,” Abby went on. “But they didn’t. All of this was done by the Verlaine Shipping Company attorneys under the supervision of a civil judge. So the trusts were set up by the court. Mona was the trustee—she could put money in or take money out, but she couldn’t dissolve the trusts. She would have to go to court to do that. Remember how there’s like a thousand dollars each left in Robby’s and Lorelle’s? She can’t simply close the trusts without going back in front of a judge, and she’s just never bothered, she just left the trusts alone. But you want to know the best part?”
I smiled at our waitress as she slid my plate of food in front of me and topped off my coffee again. Once she was out of earshot, I said, “Well?”
“The Verlaines’ lawyer—Matthew Pennycuff, who I am still trying to track down, by the way, he retired just before Katrina and apparently never came back to New Orleans, it’s so weird, it’s like he just vanished off the face of the earth—took care of everything. But the settlement wording is the most important thing.” She took a deep breath. “Are you awake enough, or do you need more coffee?”
“Yes,” I growled back at her. “Get to the point.”
“The Verlaine settlement was worded this way.” She cleared her throat. “It settled the sum of 1.3 million dollars to be equally divided into separate trusts for the widow of Danny O’Neill and his children.” She paused expectantly, a grin playing at the corners of her mouth.
“So?” Maybe the coffee wasn’t working, because I didn’t see what that mattered.
“You are so not a lawyer.” She blew out a breath in exasperation. “Chanse, don’t you get it? I mean, it was pretty sloppy of Pennycuff, but the wording—the way it was worded—in the law, wording is everything.” She licked her lips. “The children weren’t specifically named; the settlement, approved by a judge, I might add, simply said ‘the children of Danny O’Neill.’ Now do you get it?”
A light went on in my head. “So, if Jonny wasn’t Danny’s son…”
“He wasn’t entitled to any of the money, according to the settlement paperwork filed. Again, this isn’t a big deal, because Mona was the trustee and she could do whatever she wanted—except that the trusts were also set up so the money could only be used for the needs of the person the money was in trust for.” She sat back in the booth, a self-satisfied smirk on her face. “So, if Jonny isn’t really Danny O’Neill’s biological son, a case could be made that he’s not entitled to any of the money in the trust, and if Mona knew he wasn’t Danny’s son, she committed fraud.”
My head was spinning a bit, so I took another drink of the coffee. “She was also defrauding herself, though, wasn’t she? If Jonny wasn’t really an O’Neill, and the money should have only been split three ways—between Mona, Lorelle, and Robby, she was cheating herself.”
“She was also cheating the Verlaines.” She tilted her head to one side. “A case could be made that the amount the Verlaines settled upon Danny’s heirs was based on there being four of t
hem, not three.” She shrugged. “I doubt the Verlaines gave a shit. But Robby was desperate for money.”
“And he was claiming Jonny wasn’t really Danny’s son.” I finished my grits. “So, if he got the fifty grand from Mona to pay back the money he embezzled—”
“He’s still pretty heavily in debt, and unemployed. But if he goes to court and proves Jonny didn’t deserve to have a share of the money—”
“Then the money would be split between the three of them, Mona, Lorelle, and Robby. And the house Mona bought for Jonny and Heather—”
“Also belonged to them; Mona had no right to take the money and use it for Jonny. In fact, both he and Lorelle would have a case against her for cheating them.” Her eyes danced with excitement.
“And it gives Mona herself a much stronger motive for killing Robby than I’d thought,” I mused. “But did Robby know for a fact Jonny wasn’t Danny’s son? And who could Jonny’s father have been?”
Robby had been sixteen or seventeen when his brother was born. If his mother had been cheating on his father, would he have known? And could he prove it, twenty years later?
I took out my phone and made a note to myself to call Celia later in the morning.
“It makes sense, doesn’t it?” Abby went on. “This would take care of all of his problems. He could pay back the money he stole from his clients and get another infusion of cash to help keep him going. And so what if his mother gets humiliated in the process? He couldn’t stand his mother, right? If he knew she’d cheated on his dad, and his dad was killed…no wonder he couldn’t stand her.” She laughed. “I mean, think about it. She was cheating on his dad, his dad dies, and she’s set for life. Humiliating her would just be an added plus for him.”
“It could also explain why Robby always resented his little brother,” I said. “If he’d always known his little brother wasn’t really an O’Neill, all of this makes the family dynamic a little more understandable.” I felt myself liking the theory more and more. “I wonder—” I broke off.
