“Anyway, Herbert Development did a lot of business with Premier Projects Development and they also did a lot of business with Riverside Asset Management.
“The ownership of both companies is hard to figure out. Some charitable trusts own pieces. Undoubtedly legitimate corporations have members on their boards. Most of their business, so far as we’ve been able to figure, is completely on the level.” Gil Laimbeer sat back and frowned at the ceiling. “Bugsy Siegel and Meyer Lansky had close ties to many other mobsters, and the world-wide organization that those mobsters built still exists today. Their methods might be more sophisticated than they used to be but they’re essentially unchanged.
“Have you ever heard of Sheila Donovan?”
“No,” Bill Harris said. Drew shook his head and noticed George Rodriguez wince.
“A lot of speculation here,” Gil Laimbeer said, “but this character, Kurtz, is no dummy. Tom Hawley’s death is suspicious, and he’s not the only one. Premier Projects Development has a long history of getting what they want. This casino legalization bill had some determined opposition. Almost all of it has vanished. One legislator who was against it died in a car crash. Tom Hawley dropped dead. The others changed their minds.” Gil Laimbeer grinned. “Your boy Kurtz had a lot to do with closing down Herbert Development, whether you know it or not. He does get around.
“Sheila Donovan, we are fairly certain, is a fixer for the mob. Or she was. Nobody has seen her in years.” Laimbeer shrugged. “She’s probably at the bottom of a landfill, somewhere, along with Jimmy Hoffa, but who knows?
“And then there’s Brian Murphy. You ever heard of him?”
“Can’t say that I have,” Drew said. Again, George Rodriguez winced.
“Brian Murphy is a real piece of work. His family was well to do. His mother was crazy. Drank like a fiend, fucked any guy that looked at her twice, spent money like water. One day, she vanished. The father seemed frankly relieved. The son showed no emotion at all, which was typical for young Brian. Brian had a history of disturbing behavior toward young women. He was also a sadist. One time, they found a neighbor’s dog staked out in the woods, its tongue cut out and its belly slit open. Another neighbor’s house burned down. Nothing was ever proved. People who crossed him tended to suffer curious injuries. He was arrested at least three times but the charges were always dropped. None of the victims were ever willing to testify.
“Brian left home and joined a gang. The old man died, leaving Brian a sizeable trust fund. Brian joined another gang, a larger one. He vanished for awhile and was next seen living in Chicago. A local mobster was shot in the back of the head. Brian vanished again. Since then, he’s been seen in Toronto and St. Louis and New York.
“His nickname is ‘The Chameleon.” It seems Brian has a talent for disguise. He spent a couple of years in college, majoring in theater arts. He knows how to change his looks, his accent and his background. He’s good at not being seen.”
“And yet,” Drew Hastings said, “he’s been seen in Toronto, St. Louis and New York.”
“Probably,” Gil Laimbeer said, “because he wanted to be. Somebody associated with the local mob dropped dead in each city around the time Brian happened to be there. Most likely, a message was sent and received.”
“Lovely,” Drew muttered.
Gil Laimbeer smiled “You remember that Woody Allen line, ‘Intellectuals are like the mafia. They only kill their own?’”
“It sounds familiar,” Drew said.
“Bugsy Siegel was once bragging about the people he had murdered. One of his contractors overhead him and got a little upset. Bugsy said to him, “Don’t worry. We only kill each other.”
“Well,” Drew said. “I’m sure he was relieved to hear that. I certainly am.”
Gil Laimbeer sipped his coffee and gave a half-hearted grin into the cup. “Of course, it’s not true. They kill whoever they’re told to kill, and whoever gets in their way.”
Bill Harris cleared his throat. “Are you suggesting that Brian Murphy is here, in rural West Virginia?”
Gil Laimbeer sighed. “No. Brian Murphy and Sheila Donovan are only examples. There’s also John McBain, Lillian Parker, Sal Marino, Little Bobby Sandford…” He shrugged. “Some of these may not even exist. At the least, they haven’t been seen or positively identified in years. They’re names that mobsters use to frighten their children, names like Joey Carbone and Big Sammy Rosen. Urban legends.”
“Huh,” Drew Hastings said.
“I’m only trying to give you an idea of what you’re dealing with,” Gil Laimbeer said. “You don’t want to mess with guys like Brian Murphy. Believe me.”
“And yet,” Bill Harris said, “messing with guys like Brian Murphy is our job.”
“Lucky us,” George Rodriguez said.
Chapter 23
“That’s a relief,” Georgia Philips said.
“So, you haven’t changed your mind, then?” Kurtz said.
“No. Even if I wanted to, I would try and give it a shot, for a little while at least. My husband is a sociologist. He’s accepted a position at the University, in Morgantown. It’s not that easy for a junior assistant professor to get a decent job. The competition is ridiculous.”
“Good. We’ll see you in a couple of weeks, then.”
Kurtz hung up the phone and wondered for the hundredth time why he was the one talking to Dr. Georgia Philips, but of course, he knew why. Jerry Mandell was still in his funk. Going through the motions, doing and saying as little as possible. Doing his job—barely. So far, the anti-depressants hadn’t seemed to help.
One of the symptoms of morbid depression is a lack of interest in pretty much everything. Life has no meaning. Nothing is worth doing. The victims of morbid depression wander through the world in a fog of lethargic detachment. Maggie Callender had admitted to Kurtz that she had been paying the bills, using Jerry Mandell’s credit card numbers, for nearly a year.
Dr. Philips was also concerned about the rumors regarding the sale of the hospital, but this was more of an annoyance than a problem. All the surgeons on staff had privileges at other area hospitals, and most of them had courtesy privileges at the school as well. There were other places to take their patients, if Clinton decided to close.
Drew Hastings walked in and sat down. “Howdy,” he said.
Kurtz repressed a smile. Isaac Asimov had written a series of mysteries about a reclusive genius who solved crimes without ever having to leave the confines of his comfortable study. What was the guy’s name again? Oh, yeah: Wendell Urth. He was smart enough to listen to a story, pick out the relevant bits of information, put two and three together and come up with the solution, while sipping a cup of tea. It amused Kurtz to try and play the same role. Also, it beat getting shot at.
“So,” Drew said, “here’s where we stand…”
“That’s…unbelievable,” Kurtz said when Drew had finished. Not that he didn’t believe it. He did. “You’ve got a serial killer working in the area and you’ve got a front for organized crime worming its way into the community.”
“Yup. So, it seems.”
“And you’re assuming that the two things are related.”
“Seems likely,” Drew said.
“Seems likely…” Kurtz shook his head. “You know, I’m a surgeon. As a surgeon, I read three journals every month. Physicians are required to keep up with what’s going on. New treatments, new techniques, new ideas. Most of the articles report on recently completed studies. All of them give the data produced by the study, and a statistical analysis of the data. Do you know what ‘P less than zero-point-oh-five’ means?’”
“Not at all.”
“P less than zero-point-oh-five means that the results are statistically significant, which is an agreed upon convention. More specifically, it means that there is less than a five percent chance that the results were obtained by chance.”
“Okay,” Drew said cautiously.
“Two things. First, a P less
than zero-point-oh-five still allows for that five percent chance that the results are bogus, which means that five percent of the results obtained from such studies are bogus, but we don’t know which five percent until we do further studies. Two, reviews of the scientific literature have shown, over and over again, that far more than five percent of the results obtained from scientific studies cannot be substantiated by further studies.”
“Uh…”
Kurtz smiled. “It’s hard to know what that means, but it seems unlikely that so many people are faking their data, though there has always been more scientific fraud than we like to admit. Far more likely that the data, or the interpretation of the data, or the design of the study was biased in some unknown way.”
“What are you saying?” Drew said.
“I’m saying that the FBI must find it frustrating that they can’t just go in and bust an organization like Premier Projects Development. They can’t do it because the only evidence they have is circumstantial, which means, simply, that the statistics say the organization is dirty, but statistics aren’t admissible in a court of law. They need actual bodies with bullet holes in them. They need eyewitnesses willing to testify. They need to catch the bad guys handing drugs over to little kids and getting paid for it. A statistical analysis just isn’t good enough. It’s not evidence.”
“Oh,” Drew said. “That’s not helpful.”
Kurtz shrugged. “I didn’t claim to be Sherlock Holmes. I didn’t promise to solve your mystery.”
“Now, you’re depressing me.”
“Do George Rodriguez and Bill Harris know you’re here?”
“Yeah.”
“What do they think of that?”
“They think that I shouldn’t be talking about the case with a civilian, but the bodies were found in Clark County and I’m the Sheriff of Clark County. They can’t cut me out of the loop.” Drew grinned. “Anyway, they didn’t object very hard. You do have a history. I think they’re curious to see what you come up with.”
Kurtz cocked his head to the side, considering. “So am I,” he said.
“Tell me,” Drew said, “do you play poker?”
Kurtz raised an eyebrow. “Now and then.”
“George, Bill and I are playing poker at my house this evening. I’ve been authorized to invite you along.”
Kurtz blinked. “Okay,” he said.
Drew Hastings, Kurtz reflected, was a lucky guy. He lived in a sprawling ranch house on two acres of land, with a swimming pool in the back. His wife was dark-haired, with an oval face, dark eyes and a curvaceous figure. She put a bowl of chips with salsa on the table and kissed Drew on top of his head. “Beers are in the fridge,” she said. “Have fun,” and she walked out of the room.
Kurtz noticed Bill Harris trying not to stare at her. Drew smirked.
Bill Harris effortlessly shuffled the cards while looking Drew in the eye. “So, Drew,” he said. “How can a Sheriff in one of the poorest counties in the state afford a place like this?” Kurtz was wondering the same thing.
Drew smiled. “My wife’s Daddy is rich.”
Bill Harris whistled. George Rodriguez gave a reluctant grin. Bill Harris dealt two cards down and one up to all four players. “Seven card stud,” he said. “Deuces wild.”
“Deuces wild is a sissy game,” George Rodriguez said.
Bill Harris shrugged. “Dealer calls it. You want a different game, wait for your turn.”
George Rodriguez sniffed.
Drew bet without rhyme or reason and smiled the whole time. Bill Harris and George Rodriguez took the game seriously. Kurtz fell closer to Drew on the spectrum. Kurtz played poker to relax, and he didn’t play often. Calculating the odds and bluffing his opponents was more effort than he felt like expending.
George won the first hand, Kurtz the second and Bill the third. All of them were on their second beer when Bill Harris said to Kurtz, “How did you get involved in that business with Herbert Development?”
Kurtz sighed. “One of Eleanor Herbert’s nieces murdered another one of her nieces so she would inherit a larger share of Eleanor’s money. This had nothing to do with the company except that the one niece paid the head of Herbert Development’s security to murder the other niece.”
Bill and Drew looked at each other. “But what did you have to do with it?” Drew said.
“More than I wanted, that’s for sure. One of Eleanor Herbert’s nephews, Jerome Herbert, was in love with the murdered girl. He decided that he was sick of the whole scam. Jerome was killed. Jerome’s grandfather, Vincent Herbert, decided to blow the whistle. The whole racket wound up tumbling like a house of cards.”
Drew looked at Bill Harris. “I still don’t get your involvement,” Drew said.
“I was one of Eleanor’s physicians. She took a liking to me. I met all of them. Jerome, for reasons that I still don’t understand, decided to confide in me. By this time, the higher ups in the organization had become suspicious of Jerome. They followed him to my office. Jerome and I were both kidnapped. They killed Jerome.” Kurtz grimaced. “I escaped.”
George Rodriguez, who obviously knew the story, nodded. “You didn’t just escape. You killed two of them—one with your bare hands—brought in their chief enforcer at gunpoint and blew the whistle. The whole organization went down.”
“They thought I was a city boy. I got lucky,” Kurtz said. He turned to Drew Hastings. “What do you plan on doing about Lyle Simmons?”
“Excellent question,” Drew Hastings said. He looked at Bill Harris. “What do we plan on doing about Lyle Simmons?”
“We plan on holding him,” Bill Harris said, “for as long as possible.”
It was down to two.
Jerry Mandell was clearly out of the running, though John Snowden had semi-seriously toyed with the idea of pushing Jerry Mandell’s candidacy. After all, a borderline senile Delegate might prove to be an asset. Malleable, at any rate. But John Snowden’s contacts within the party had been adamant that Jerry Mandell was anything but malleable. For one thing, Jerry Mandell had been a successful surgeon for many years. He had plenty of money. Men who don’t need money are independent. Independent men are not malleable. For another, Jerry Mandell was old. He wasn’t thinking about his career. His career was already over. No need for a man with no ambitions to suck up to anybody. For a third, he was a surgeon. Surgeons are used to being in charge. Men who are used to being in charge tend to resist direction. And of course, by temperament and nature, Jerry Mandell was a stubborn old coot.
Nope. Jerry Mandell was not the man for the job.
That left two: Gary Kurtz and Mabel Stone. Both had indicated they would be willing to serve. Both were smart, level-headed, rational and at least moderately successful in difficult industries. If the only consideration had been which one would be better for the position, John Snowden might have seen no clear distinction between the two. His associates, however, did.
Gary Kurtz owned a large piece of land that he was reluctant to sell. The financial well-being of Clark County, and by extension the financial well-being of both the State of West Virginia and John Snowden himself, would be aided immeasurably if Gary Kurtz could be persuaded to give up his property. He would be more likely to sell if a career in politics, with a move to the State Capital, was in the offing. Mabel Stone, on the other hand, was useful exactly where she was, serving excellent food to the good people of Clark County and eager to serve even more excellent food to the hordes of hungry, hoped-for tourists soon to be inundating a brand new resort and casino.
So then, Gary Kurtz it would be.
Kurtz had learned all he could from publicly available sources. Premier Projects Development and Riverside Asset Management had worked together on at least twenty deals dating back for twenty-five years. Each company had offices across the United States. Their websites consisted mostly of glossy, self-congratulatory statements on progressive, forward thinking management marching bravely into the future. Their actual business, co
nstruction and real estate development, was barely mentioned on either website.
The information provided by the FBI, that Drew Hastings had copied and given to Kurtz, was more detailed, but still consisted largely of rumor and speculation. Kurtz had seen the pattern before, with Herbert Development and then the Rugov Corporation, mobsters regarded by the public as mostly legitimate businessmen, with mostly legitimate deals, activities and interests on the corporate ledger.
One folder contained summary statements on the lives and careers of rumored associates; in other words, fixers, thugs and assassins. All the names that Gil Laimbeer had mentioned were included. Most of them had pictures, smiling at the camera, looking weirdly normal.
So far, the killer had slipped out of their hands, unless poor Lyle Simmons was guilty, which they all doubted.
The van and the ATV were supposition, and nothing had come of them. It seemed virtually certain that the killer was living and hiding within easy proximity to the forest, but how close, really, was that? Five miles? Ten? Fifty?
There were 17,431 people living in Clark County. 8,723 were male. 3,247 were between the ages of twenty and sixty. The only physical evidence they had, from related but unsolved crimes, indicated a white male of Scots-Irish and European descent. They were assuming he was white, but maybe he wasn’t. That left only about 2500 suspects, just within Clark County.
Not much help.
George Rodriguez, who knew his serial killers, knew that the ones who targeted women most often started slowly, with adolescent fumbling. It took most of them awhile before they turned to sexual assault, then full blown rape, even longer before graduating to rape plus murder. And even then, the first few attempts rarely had the consistent pattern of their later, more mature crimes.
If a Tree Falls Page 15
