Knot in My Backyard

by Mary Marks

  The Hardistys lived in Sherman Oaks, near Laurel Canyon—a good neighborhood, but not a millionaire’s enclave. Yet she drove a luxury car and spent nearly one hundred thousand dollars a year in tuition at the Beaumont School for her two children. Her lifestyle couldn’t have come from her salary with the engineer corps. Did it come from bribes? From her husband? I had to find out more about Lowell Hardisty.

  Just how involved was Barbara Hardisty in Dax Martin’s murder? She was certainly the architect of the destruction of the wildlife reserve. What better way to get rid of any possible witnesses? Did she act on her own, or was she carrying out instructions from someone at Beaumont? During the conversation I overheard in the park, Lawanda Price demanded money. Hardisty replied, “People who get in their way,” and “I’ll talk to them.”

  I looked up from the directory. “Dana, what do we know about Hardisty’s husband, Lowell? Has anyone taken a look at him?”

  She pointed her finger at the booklet in my hands. “Not yet. We just got this copy an hour ago.”

  I waved the directory in the air. “Do you mind if I take this home? I want to see what else I can discover about Lowell Hardisty.”

  “Not at all. I’m so swamped I could use the extra help.”

  Back at my home, I fired up my laptop. “You’re the computer expert, Carl. What’s the fastest way to find out about Lowell Hardisty?”

  “What exactly are you looking for?”

  “I want to see what he looks like. Either rule him in or out as a suspect based on the witnesses’ description. I also want to look at his financials. How can this couple afford to send their kids to the most expensive private school in the country?”

  “If I had my computer here, I could use the proprietary software Ed and I developed to search for the information. Using your computer will limit the extent of our search.”

  “Would the software be on Ed’s computer?”

  “Well, yeah, but—”

  “We’re in luck, then. Ed left his computer with me.” I smiled at him.

  Carl grinned in turn. “Dude!”

  I fetched Ed’s laptop from the living room. Carl typed furiously, pulling up screen after screen until he found what he was looking for. The word “Hermes” stood in bold black letters on a blue background. Beneath the logo was a box asking for a password.

  “Here we are. We named our fraud-detection software after the Greek god of communication, trade, commerce, and thievery.”

  “Cute. What’s the password?”

  “Madoff.”

  I groaned. Because of his titanic acts of fraud, Bernie Madoff singlehandedly reinforced centuries of anti-Semitic prejudice. Now his name—his Jewish name—would forever be synonymous with the biggest swindle in history. I cringed every time I thought about him.

  “What does the program do, exactly?” I asked.

  Carl kept typing. “First, we’re going to see what kind of businesses, bank accounts, and other financial records there are in his name. This program allows us a global look. If he stashed money outside the country, we’ll find it.”

  He sat back while the computer executed a slow search. “Your Internet connection sucks, dude. This may take a while.”

  The time was nearly four in the afternoon. I pulled out a bottle of Pinot Grigio from the refrigerator.

  Carl held up his hand. “None for me. I’m on duty. Crusher would have my bal . . . my neck if he thought I was compromised in any way. I will have a cup of coffee, if you don’t mind.”

  By the time the coffee had brewed, text and numbers had shown up on Ed’s computer screen.

  “Wow!” said Carl. “Take a look at this.”

  I handed Carl a steaming cup of coffee and sat beside him, holding my wine in my favorite red Moroccan tea glass, with the gold curlicues. “Tell me what I’m looking at.”

  “This is Lowell Hardisty’s financial history. His company lost money for about three years in a row. The man had no other source of income, and his business accounts were overdrawn. There were pending lawsuits from creditors, including former employees. The dude was bankrupt. Then two years ago, he got a huge infusion of cash, putting him back into business. He paid off his creditors and hired employees again.”

  “What’s the name of his company?”

  Carl looked at me triumphantly. “Valley Allstar Construction.”

  I put down my glass of wine. “No way!”

  “Way.”

  “Can this program spell out exactly where the cash infusion came from?”

  Carl clicked a few more keys. “The cash came from SFV Associates.”

  Jefferson Davis’s company. Now we had proof positive of a conspiracy between the Beaumont School and the Army Corps of Engineers. The Beaumont School needed a site for their million-dollar baseball stadium. Barbara Hardisty needed money to save her husband’s company and finagled an entrée into the exclusive and expensive private school for her children while she was at it.

  Even more egregious was the conflict of interest in the devastation of the wildlife reserve. Lowell Hardisty’s company was the contractor on that deal too.

  “Carl, is there anything there showing us if any funds went to Valley Allstar Construction before or after yesterday’s destruction in the Sepulveda Basin?”

  “Just a minute. Holy crap! One million dollars was transferred on Monday to Valley Allstar’s account from the United States Treasury.”

  “How did Barbara Hardisty funnel one million dollars of federal money into her husband’s business without anyone else noticing? I mean, we’re not talking petty cash here. Even though the army is notorious for wasting taxpayer money, I doubt Hardisty has access to a million-dollar slush fund.”

  “There’s some kind of number on the originating federal account. Maybe it will tell us something about the pot of money it came from. Could be an earmark. I’ll keep digging.”

  I still didn’t know what Lowell Hardisty looked like. I Googled his name and up popped a two-year-old image from a newspaper article about breaking ground for the Joshua Beaumont School baseball stadium. A line of smiling people wearing hard hats stood on a mound of dirt.

  The caption underneath identified the man holding the shovel as Jefferson Davis. Lowell Hardisty stood at his left and Dax Martin at his right. They were all around the same height. Dax Martin was soft around the middle, but both Davis and Hardisty looked fit. I already knew Davis’s silver hair potentially matched the description given by the witnesses. Unfortunately, I couldn’t say the same for Hardisty. His hair was hidden by the hard hat.

  Carl pulled out his cell phone. “Simon needs to hear about all this.”

  At six o’clock, someone knocked on the door. I started to get up, but Carl unbuttoned his vest and gestured for me to stay at the table. He looked through the peephole and then visibly relaxed.

  “Awww. Are those for me?” Carl pointed to a bunch of flowers Crusher held.

  Crusher ignored him and walked to where I sat in the kitchen. He looked freshly showered; under his black vest, he was wearing a blue button-down shirt, which made his eyes look like summer in the Caribbean. The sleeves were rolled up enough to reveal his muscled forearms covered in freckles and red hair. Instead of a do-rag, he wore a dark blue crocheted kippah on his head. For the first time, I saw his hair, which was red shot with gray and cut very short, and his beard was freshly trimmed. He cleaned up nicely. Except for his modern clothes, he looked like many of the observant Jews walking the streets of Los Angeles. Yet, he clearly did not live a totally observant life. This six-foot-six biker, with a weightlifter’s build, was an enigma. Sonia was right: Crusher was one hunk of a man.

  He handed me a mixed bouquet of fragrant ginger, stock, roses, and Boston ferns. “I thought after yesterday you could use these.”

  I closed my eyes, buried my face in the fragrant petals, and took a deep breath. “How thoughtful, Yossi. Thanks.” When I opened my eyes and looked at him, he had a tender but slightly hungry look in his eyes
.

  Uh-oh.

  CHAPTER 34

  I felt so disoriented by Crusher’s transformation, I didn’t realize Carl had left until the door closed softly behind him.

  “You look nice, Yossi. Special occasion?”

  “Well, I figure if we’re going to spend the night together . . .”

  I laughed a little too brightly and busied myself finding a vase for the flowers. “You mean, you’ll be sitting watch in the living room like before.”

  He didn’t respond. I could feel his eyes following me around the kitchen as I fluttered peripatetically from cupboard to cupboard.

  Vase. Vase. Find a vase.

  I finally remembered I kept them in an upper cabinet and stretched unsuccessfully to reach the top shelf.

  Yossi ambled over, plucked the crystal vase as easily as a ripe peach from a tree, and handed it to me with a bemused twinkle in his eye.

  I quickly turned my back to him and turned on the faucet, filled the vase with water, and shoved the flowers in. My hands shook as I jittered the vase over to the apricot-colored countertop and set it down. I wiped my wet hands on the sides of my jeans.

  Dear God, why doesn’t he say something?

  “So, how was your day?” I asked lamely.

  He opened his mouth to speak, and then the doorbell rang. He walked over, bent down to look through the peephole, muttered something, and opened the door. A severely upset Arlo Beavers stood, clenching and unclenching his hand, as he glared at Crusher.

  Double uh-oh.

  Beavers strode over to where I stood. He glanced at the flowers and the muscles rippled in his jaw. Then he focused on me. “You’ve been in touch with the witnesses to Dax Martin’s murder!”

  This wasn’t a question; it was an accusation.

  I looked at the man I had thought I was in love with: dark eyes a woman could drown in, and a really pissed-off expression.

  “What makes you so sure?”

  “Someone in the US Attorney’s Office tipped us off about a request by Simon Aiken to expedite a couple’s petition for political asylum in exchange for testimony in a criminal case.”

  I made a grand gesture with my arm. “Oh, sure. So you assumed the refugees were the witnesses we’ve all been looking for and I’ve been in touch with them?”

  Beavers sizzled with some interior lightning. “Your twenty-four hours are up. I want everything you know, and I want it now. You can start by telling me how you found the witnesses and where they are. I’m assuming since you haven’t come to me with that particular information, the results of your inquiry didn’t turn out well for Ed Pappas.”

  I had to give him credit: Beavers was good, but he wasn’t good enough to see behind his back. While we were talking, Crusher quietly removed Ed’s gun from inside his vest and slipped it under a sofa pillow. An ex-con could be thrown in jail just for touching a gun—let alone carrying one.

  I walked over to the coffeepot and filled the carafe with water. Clearly my bravado hadn’t worked. “Oh, all right. A promise is a promise. You might as well sit. It’s a long story.”

  Beavers stood watching me, and Crusher stood watching Beavers.

  “Oh, for pity’s sake! Will the two of you just grow up and sit down?”

  Beavers turned abruptly and headed for the sofa. He sat and shifted his weight against the pillow where the gun lay hidden. Crusher sat as far away as possible.

  A few minutes later, I brought out three mugs of coffee on the tray painted with tole roses. “Okay. Here’s what I know.”

  I told Beavers about Javier and Graciela Acevedo. “Unfortunately, you’re right. Their testimony doesn’t definitively clear Ed Pappas, but they did give us some details to go on. The killer was tall and slim, had light hair, wore a baseball cap, and had a funny voice. With their permission, I taped our conversation. Listen to this.” I fetched my cell phone from my purse and played the recording for Beavers.

  “Where are they now?” he asked at the end.

  “I don’t know. I caught them just as they were leaving town.”

  “What about Aiken’s attempt to get them asylum?”

  Beavers once told me about how the government seized the lands that had been owned by his tribe along the Siletz River in Oregon.

  “Would you trust the government to protect you after they destroyed your home?” I questioned with that in mind.

  He looked at me for a beat, long enough to tell me he knew what I was referring to.

  “What else have you found out?”

  I looked at Crusher. If I told Beavers everything I knew, I might be sabotaging Aiken’s defense strategy for Ed. On the other hand, if I kept back information, I could be getting myself into serious trouble. Beavers still might have some compunction left about throwing me in jail. Kaplan, however, wasn’t my biggest fan, so he’d feel no such hesitation in doing it.

  Crusher could tell I was in a spot. He nodded slightly for me to continue. The exchange didn’t escape Beaver’s notice as he looked from one of us to the other, but he said nothing.

  I told him about Jefferson Davis’s deal between the Beaumont School and his company, SFV Associates, to develop the baseball stadium. I told him SFV Associates then subcontracted with Valley Allstar Construction to do the actual building. They somehow did all of this without city permits.

  Then I told him about Barbara Hardisty’s connection to the US Army Corps of Engineers, Valley Allstar Construction, and the Beaumont School. I also mentioned Valley Allstar was recently paid by funds from the United States Treasury to destroy the wildlife habitat in the Sepulveda Basin yesterday. “Barbara Hardisty must have arranged that too.”

  Crusher looked surprised. “When did you make the connection?”

  “Today. I just haven’t had the chance to tell Simon yet.”

  Beavers looked fiercely at Crusher. “Shut up, Levy. I’m asking the questions right now.” Then he turned to me again. “How did you discover all this?”

  I took a sip of coffee, deciding if I really could be compelled to reveal my sources at this point in the police investigation. Was Ed and Carl’s software even legal? No use getting anyone else in trouble. “I have people.”

  Beavers put down his mug. “Martha—”

  “Can’t you be satisfied with all the information I’m giving you? Where I get my information is not important. If you want my sources, you’ll have to invoke the Patriot Act and torture me—which you seem to be very good at doing already.”

  He leaned back in his seat and sighed. “Is there anything else?”

  “Plenty.” I told him about Lawanda Price wanting a piece of the action and what Hardisty said about anyone getting in their way and also talking to them.

  I turned up the palms of my hands. “Don’t you see? Because of a known history of violence against Martin, Ed Pappas was set up by ‘them’—Davis, the Hardistys, and whoever else was involved in the illegal stadium deal. Martin’s murder could have been connected to the conspiracy and conflict of interest in building the stadium.”

  I finally seemed to be making sense to Beavers. “Why else would they send Lawanda Price to terrorize me? I was getting too close to finding the witnesses. Obviously, someone involved in this whole conspiracy is worried about being identified as Dax Martin’s killer.”

  Beavers looked at Crusher. “What is your role in all this?”

  “I take the threat against Martha very seriously. I’m here to protect her from anyone who would hurt her.” He leaned toward Beavers and said softly, “Anyone.”

  Beavers stood, turned toward the sofa, pulled the gun out from under the pillow, and laid it on the coffee table. “You know what happens to an ex-con caught with a firearm?”

  How did he do that? He must have felt the gun when he was leaning on the pillow. Does he know Crusher put it there, or is he just guessing?

  Beavers must have read my mind. “Windows on ovens. Reflections.”

  So he did see Crusher hide the gun!

  I rea
ched for the pistol. It felt cold and heavy in my hand. “I borrowed this from Ed to protect myself. Go ahead and check. This gun is registered to Ed Pappas.”

  Beavers looked at Crusher. “Uh-huh.”

  He could have arrested Crusher, but he didn’t. He had just given Crusher a pass. I thought I knew why. Beavers finally understood I was in real danger and needed protection. Could it be he still cared, after all?

  I put down the firearm, stood, and touched Beavers’s arm with my fingertips. He stiffened ever so slightly. “So, what do you think, Arlo? Don’t you agree there’s plenty of evidence to indicate someone else killed Dax Martin?”

  “You still haven’t given me a motive.”

  “What about blackmail? Have you looked into Dax Martin’s finances? Maybe he got greedy, or maybe he threatened to expose the corruption?”

  “Maybe.”

  I tried to think of how to tell Beavers about Diane Davis and the other things Miguel had divulged about Coach Martin—without revealing the groundskeeper source.

  “Look. I heard Martin was cocky. Maybe he crossed a line with someone else’s wife, someone high up in the school hierarchy. Maybe Martin was beaten to death in a fit of jealous rage. You should look into that.”

  Beavers crossed his arms. “Go on.”

  “Also, Martin was a bully who liked to throw his weight around. Maybe he pissed off one of the parents. You know how pushy parents can be when it comes to their kids playing ball. Maybe there’s a father who fits the description of the killer. You could look for someone who wears a baseball cap, has light hair, and speaks with a funny voice—like a stutterer, for example.”

  “Those both sound pretty specific. And you know this how?”

  “As I said, Arlo, I’ve got people.”

  “What about names? Your people give you any names?”