by Lisa Regan
Amber looked at each of them and then said, “I was at the Mayor’s office.” She put up a hand. “I know, I know. You all think I’m some kind of plant. I’m really not. I just have to liaise with her office. That means communicating with her about things that might go out in the press. So I was over there waiting outside of her office and Connie Prather was waiting to see her.”
“At City Hall?” Gretchen asked.
Amber nodded. “Connie went in before me. I didn’t think anything of it at first, but then I heard them shouting at each other and I moved my chair closer. I heard them talking about what to do with the files now that Kurt was dead. Mayor Charleston said it was none of her business and she couldn’t get involved, but Connie said it was her business because she was the Mayor. I couldn’t hear what they were saying next—something about Marisol. Tara asked Connie why she didn’t just take the files to the police, and Connie said she didn’t want the police to find out, she just wanted Tara to handle it. Then someone else came into the waiting room, and I lost the rest of the conversation, but Connie Prather came storming out of there in tears. She had this flash drive clutched in her hand. Anyway, I followed her to the bathroom. She was in one of the stalls. She came out and put her bag down next to the sink. She was crying and so when she saw me, she went back into the stall to compose herself. She left her bag right on the countertop. I reached right in and found the flash drive. She didn’t see me.”
“Wait a minute,” Josie said. “You stole this? We can’t look at this, Amber. That’s not legal. Whatever’s on here—”
“Please,” Amber said. “Just look at it. It’s important.”
Mettner said, “Amber, why would you steal a flash drive from Connie Prather?”
She looked up at him, eyes wide. “No one believes that I’m on your side in this department. You all think I’m the Mayor’s puppet. Now she’s going to be in office even longer. I needed you all to trust me. Trust is earned, not given.”
Josie tried not to flinch at the words as she opened the PDF files on the drive and perused them. “These are files from the Prather Foundation,” she said. “Looks like scholarship applications.”
She skimmed through more documents. “There are some emails here as well. It looks like Marisol Dutton chose a student every four or five years to get a scholarship from the Foundation.”
Amber said, “Dutton Enterprises has been a huge donor to the Prather Foundation over the years.”
Gretchen said, “That’s not illegal. Neither is Marisol choosing the students. The Prather Foundation is private. They’re not bound by the rules non-profits are subject to.”
Josie scrolled through the applications more slowly. The names were familiar to her, but she couldn’t place them. “How did Marisol even find these students and vet them? I thought her only job was to look pretty and spend Kurt’s money.”
Josie came to the last application and read the name. A cold shock ran through her.
Gretchen said, “What is it, boss?”
“Alice Adams,” Josie said. “These applications—they’re all names we found on the driver’s licenses that Vera had been using.”
“Which means what?” Mettner said.
Josie scrolled through more documents. “The Foundation was able to send its checks directly to students or to their parents rather than to the school. Like Gretchen said, private foundation, private rules. Every four to five years, Marisol Dutton would choose a young woman to receive ongoing checks from the Foundation from their freshman year through their graduation. Connie approved these applications and the checks went out.”
“But not to the young women,” Gretchen said. “To Vera. Posing as these women.”
“Right,” Josie said. “Kurt Dutton wasn’t funding Vera all these years, Marisol was. She funneled it through Connie’s foundation.”
“Holy shit,” said Mettner. “But why?”
“I have an idea,” Josie said. “But we have to talk to Connie and Marisol. Unfortunately, because Amber stole these files, we can’t use them. We’ll need them to confess to some or all of this.”
Amber bit her bottom lip and said, “How will you do that?”
“I don’t know,” Josie said. “But I think we should start by talking with Connie.”
Forty-Eight
Josie and Gretchen stood on Connie Prather’s front stoop. They’d rung the doorbell several times and knocked but there was no answer. Gretchen said, “Maybe she’s walking her dog?”
“Let’s take a stroll,” Josie suggested.
They were halfway down the next block when they passed Calvin Plummer’s house. The attorney’s Lexus LX was parked in the driveway, as was Tammy’s Honda. As Josie passed, Tammy emerged from the house, headed toward her car. Josie waved at her. She waved back. “What are you doing here?”
“Looking for someone,” Josie told her. “Connie Prather? She’s got this little tiny dog. White fur. Looks like you could fit it in your purse.”
Tammy pointed down the street, in the direction Josie and Gretchen were headed. “She walked down toward the flood area about a half hour ago.”
“Is it still flooded?” Josie asked.
“Around the back of the development? Yeah. When you get to the end of this block, turn left. You’ll see a big, unfinished house. Behind that is where the moat got absorbed into the larger flood area. It’s still pretty bad back there. Just be careful. I don’t know what she’s doing down that way but a lot of people have been walking down there to look at the damage.”
Josie thanked her and she and Gretchen followed her directions until they came to the house, standing tall and majestic but covered in Tyvek wrap that whipped in the wind, making a loud fluttering sound like that of a hundred huge flying insects. There was no sign of Connie and her dog, so they picked their way around the side of the house through mud and dirt to the backyard.
The deck at the back of the house was unfinished. Beyond it was at least an acre of water-logged land on a downward slope, leading to a grove of trees. Josie couldn’t see much beyond the trees.
“You think she came back here?” Gretchen asked.
“I don’t know,” Josie said. “To walk her dog? Seems strange.” They walked deeper into the yard.
“Is that water?” Gretchen stopped and pointed. “On the other side of those trees?”
Josie studied the property line until she saw a few flashes of muddy water. “I think that’s the infamous moat.”
They took a few more steps toward the trees. “Look,” Gretchen said, pulling up short and barring Josie’s progress with an arm. Looking at her feet, Josie saw that the grass gave way to a large muddy patch filled with concrete chunks. A backward glance revealed that they were about halfway between the house and the line of trees. “There used to be a wall here,” Gretchen added. “This is where the yard ends.”
“The wall broke down,” Josie said. From where they stood, the neighboring houses were just visible. Each one had a solid barrier wall between their well-manicured lawns and the tree line which separated the properties from the moat.
Gretchen said, “What’s on the other side of the moat back here?”
“One of the still-active flood zones. One of the tributaries coming from the river runs through the neighborhood next to Quail Hollow on this side. When it flooded, it ran over into the moat, which made that flood. It’s all just one large flood zone now.”
“The barrier wall at the back of this house either wasn’t finished or it was too weak to withstand the moat overflowing, ’cause there’s nothing left of it,” Gretchen said. “There is no reason for Connie Prather or anyone else to be back here.”
“Something’s not right,” Josie said. “Do you hear that?”
They paused and listened. The wind rustled the leaves of the trees and voices floated up from the direction of the moat.
“Let’s go,” Josie said. “Be careful.”
As they began to negotiate the slippery, mud-covered fiel
d of uneven concrete pieces, Gretchen pointed to a series of footprints. Two sets, both mingled. “Step where they stepped. Maybe we won’t fall.”
Josie kept her arms outward for balance as she stepped from one block of misshapen stone to another. Gretchen put both hands on Josie’s shoulders for support and slowly followed. The voices grew louder. Finally, the stones gave way to mud, veined with tree roots. Josie saw the moat now, about thirty yards ahead, beyond the trees, its brackish water churning. Beyond it was just more water.
She and Gretchen followed the voices through the trees until they became clearer. The mud sucked at their feet, making it difficult to move quickly. Each time their sneakers made a small popping sound, Josie expected the voices to stop, but they didn’t. Finally, they came to the place where the trees ended. A narrow dirt ledge stood between the tree line and the moat. More tree roots reached their gnarled arms from the earth. There had obviously been a small landslide in the area at some point. Probably when the flooding overtook and destroyed the barrier wall above them. From where they stood, Josie estimated that it was a twelve-foot drop from the ledge into the water. They paused behind a large oak tree and craned their necks to find the source of the voices.
About twenty feet upstream, Josie saw Connie Prather first, standing close to the trees. Her tiny dog was clutched to her chest. Bright pink rubber boots adorned her feet. A matching raincoat completed the ensemble even though it was no longer raining. “Come back from the ledge, Mar. Really. You’re scaring me.”
Marisol stood about three feet away, as close to the ledge as she could get before the ground would just disintegrate beneath her. One of her black rubber boots nudged at a mud-covered tree root. When she said nothing, Connie continued, “I don’t know why we had to talk out here.”
Marisol laughed but kept her back to Connie. “Because you’re going to accuse me of something very bad, and I don’t want to take the chance of anyone hearing it.”
“I’m not accusing you of anything. I’m telling you that with everything that’s come out about Kurt, there seem to be some… irregularities with your involvement in our foundation. I talked to Tara and she—”
Marisol whirled on her, eyes flashing. The swelling in her face had gone down but her skin was still various shades of purple and yellow from the faded bruising. “You talked to Tara? Are you out of your mind?”
Connie hugged her dog closer to her body and took a step back. “Tara didn’t even want to hear it. She told me to go to the police.”
Marisol seemed to calm down. Gone was the momentary flash of rage Josie had seen. In its place was a sardonic smile. “You want to go to the police because you let me choose a couple of students to give scholarships to for your foundation? Are you listening to yourself? Connie, I know your life is boring, maybe you’re looking to liven things up a little, but leave me out of it. I had to kill my husband last week. I’ve been through enough.”
“Then explain to me what you did with the applications?”
Marisol rolled her eyes. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Con.”
“It was your idea—to use my foundation.”
“Use it for what?”
Connie’s voice rose. “You know damn well what!” Her little dog gave a squeak and Connie placed it on the ground, its leash loosely tied around her wrist. “The girls that you supposedly ‘selected’ for scholarships—you were the one who filled out their applications. Four different applications, four different names, many similar answers and all with the same handwriting in the signature part—yours.”
“You can’t prove that,” Marisol scoffed.
“I’m right, aren’t I? You didn’t select any girls. You made them up and filled out applications in their names and then you collected the money, didn’t you? What was it for?”
Marisol didn’t respond. Instead, she took another step back toward the ledge. Josie and Gretchen stepped out from behind the tree.
“She was supporting Vera Urban,” Josie said.
Connie jumped at the sound of Josie’s voice. Marisol looked up. Now that they were closer, Josie could see that her eyes were bloodshot. “Oh great,” Marisol said. “Connie, did you do this? Call the cops?”
Connie shook her head. “No. I didn’t call them.”
“Then why are they here?” Marisol said, her voice rising to a near-shout. The scent of alcohol wafted toward Josie and Gretchen.
Josie took another step closer, Gretchen right behind her. To their right, water stretched for miles, several empty houses rising from the muck in the distance, their windows like sightless eyes.
“We came here to ask you a few questions,” Gretchen said.
“Me?” Marisol asked. She took a small step backward and stumbled briefly before righting herself.
“Both of you,” Josie said.
Marisol started to walk back into the trees. “I don’t have to stay here for this bullshit.”
She had just passed Connie when Josie called out, “You don’t want to explain to your friend how you used her foundation to fund Vera Urban’s life for the last sixteen years?”
Marisol stopped in her tracks. She glared past Connie at Josie. “You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. All of you are crazy.”
Josie looked at Connie. “If Marisol hadn’t used the foundation, she wouldn’t have been able to explain to her husband what she was spending so much money on every year. The names of the applicants? They were real women. Vera chose them. Stole their licenses. The Foundation mailed Vera checks in the names of her aliases for years and no one was the wiser. She used her doctored IDs to cash the checks at the banks they were drawn on—probably traveling to a branch far from wherever she was living so she wouldn’t be remembered by anyone local.”
Connie’s head swiveled in Marisol’s direction. At Connie’s feet, her small dog whined. “Is this true, Mar? Why? Why would you do that?”
Marisol said nothing.
Josie continued, “Yeah, Mar, tell us, why did you need to support Vera all those years while she was in hiding? Why did she need to go into hiding in the first place?”
“You know why,” Marisol said. “I told you.”
Josie said, “After you shot Kurt you told us that Vera went into hiding because she witnessed Beverly’s murder. She was there the night Kurt killed Beverly, wasn’t she? What really happened?”
Marisol jammed both hands into the pockets of her black jacket. Slowly, she lifted her head to meet Josie’s eyes. “I already told you this.”
Gretchen said, “You told us a version of what happened. Now we want the truth.”
Connie stared at her friend, stricken. “Mar, what are they talking about? You said Vera tried to stop Kurt and then—”
Marisol made a noise of frustration in her throat. Then she cut Connie off. “Vera didn’t intervene. You think Vera could have stopped Kurt? She had a bad back. He had a foot and a half on her. He was terrifying. She hid. She came home, through the back door, and heard Kurt and Beverly arguing in the living room. Beverly wanted to keep the baby. She was going to expose him. Kurt killed her in cold blood. Vera told me that Beverly said there was nothing he could say to convince her to get rid of the baby. Beverly told him to leave. She turned away from him—to walk away—and Kurt took a gun out of his pocket, aimed and fired. Vera saw the whole thing. As soon as Kurt shot Beverly, Vera ran and hid in the hall closet. She was terrified that he’d do the same to her if he found her there. You saw what he did to me. He could get bad, and I never knew if he was going to kill me or not. He didn’t beat me often—only when I confronted him about his girls or when I talked about leaving—but when he did, it was very bad. He was a monster. Vera saw that side of him and she was afraid.”
“Oh God, Marisol,” Connie said. “But how do you know all this?”
“Because Vera told me.”
Josie said, “Vera went to you instead of the police?”
“Why?” Gretchen asked.
�
��Kurt was my husband,” Marisol said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Vera was my friend.”
“But you hadn’t seen Vera in sixteen years,” Josie said. “By all accounts, Vera had never even met Kurt. It’s not like he was there when you were having your parties. Vera had no loyalty to him. She didn’t even have any reason to be afraid of him as long as she got out of the house without him realizing she had been there.”
“He was a very powerful man,” Marisol said.
“No,” Gretchen put in. “Not that powerful. Vera was an eyewitness. All she had to do was get to a nearby phone and call the police. They would have caught him burying Beverly’s body under the basement.”
Josie said, “Vera came to you because of something else.”
Connie looked from Marisol to Josie and Gretchen and back. “What are they talking about, Mar?”
“Shut up,” Marisol snarled.
Josie kept going. “The only reason I can think of why Vera would come to you—after sixteen years—instead of the police, is because you both had something to hide. You were dependent on one another to hide it. You’d both be in big trouble if it came out.”
“If what came out?” Connie asked, eyes darting back and forth.
Josie met Marisol’s eyes. “You were Beverly’s mother, not Vera.”
Marisol sucked in a breath.
Connie flinched. “Is that true, Marisol? You had a baby?”
Marisol’s face twisted in an ugly scowl. “Shut up!” She looked at Josie. “You can’t prove that.”
Josie shrugged. “I could if you submitted to a DNA test.”
Connie said, “How did you—how could you possibly know that?”
“Marisol was in rehab while Vera was pregnant. In fact, she sent her a card apologizing for not being there. She said she was in rehab in Colorado for a year. Plenty of time to have a baby. Vera went on bedrest very early in her pregnancy and yet, no one knows who helped take care of her during that time. She told everyone that she’d gone to her brother’s in Georgia but in fact, records show that she gave birth at Geisinger.”
