A Dime a Dozen (39 page)

By the time we got to the bottom of the list, we knew we were almost finished. Harriet still needed to look into a few things that related to the board of directors, and I still needed to sit down with Dean and Natalie and talk about their future plans for MORE. One of the criterion was “plans and spends wisely,” and though Harriet and I had already verified that they spent their money very wisely, I still needed to know where they planned to take this place in the future.

Of course, “plans wisely” was a fairly subjective guideline. I generally tried to watch for two danger signs: underplanning, where a company simply let their development unfold willy-nilly, and overplanning, where they had an unrealistic expectation for the things they would be able to accomplish in the immediate future. As long as a company fell between those two extremes, I was fairly generous with my approval. Dean and Natalie were such level-headed people that I felt certain this criterion would give us no problem.

All that was left, then, was for Harriet and me to write our list of contingencies for approval. We had three: sever ties with the problematic Su Casa, take steps to mend relations with the County Migrant Bureau, and implement better protections and procedures regarding passwords. If MORE could do those things, then we were going to recommend that they receive the grant of 1 million dollars.

Dean had already said he was willing to break off from Su Casa if there were some unethical goings on there. But I didn’t see how the relationship with the County Migrant Bureau could be mended until the events of last fall had fully come to light. The agent at the bureau was convinced that the problems had happened because MORE suffered from “shoddy controls,” but that simply wasn’t true. If we could prove to him that the two security violations were actual cases of criminal mischief and malicious intent, then perhaps he would revise his rating of MORE.

Of course, in order to do that, more of the questions surrounding the death of Enrique Morales needed to be answered. My hope was that I could close out the final part of the charity investigation and then dedicate my efforts solely toward identifying Enrique’s killer.

Luckily, the local police were working to achieve the same goal, and Detective Sweetwater was a nice woman who was willing to share in a fairly open exchange of information. Needing some of that information now, I dialed her number and was surprised to get through to her in person.

“I don’t believe it,” I said. “You’re actually at your desk?”

“I’m staying close to the office today,” she said. “We’ve got plenty going on right here.”

“Can you tell me what happened with Snake?” I asked. “I’ve been worried about him since I talked to you last night.”

“We’ve been questioning him for quite a while,” she said, “but so far he won’t name names. Somebody has him good and scared.”

“I guess I’d be scared too if I watched someone get stabbed right in front of me.”

“I suppose you’re right. Part of the problem, of course, is that we can’t exactly go at him like we would a normal adult. I don’t want any problems down the line when it comes time to prosecute, so we’re treating Snake as a juvenile. In other words, nobody’s screaming in his face. We’re just trying to gently wear him down.”

“Has he admitted to any wrongdoing?”

She hesitated, and I knew we were walking a thin line here between the sharing of information and the violation of confidentiality.

“We’ve managed to get some details of a few incidents, yes,” she said vaguely.

“Then I have to ask you about two specific ones. Just tell me what you can.”

I went on to remind her of the files that had been stolen from the MORE office and the database that was erased. Though I doubted Snake was intelligent enough to handle the computer side of things, I felt certain that he had stolen Ellen Mack’s cell phone and given it to someone who was smart enough to take it from there.

“Actually, Callie,” the detective said, “those were both on our list of suspected crimes, and he did talk about them. He admitted to taking the files but said he didn’t break into the office to do it. Apparently, his mother was working in the building at the time, and all he had to do was walk over to Luisa’s desk and take them. We believe that’s how he earned his first bead. Putting the files in the Laundromat later that night probably earned him the second.”

I sat back and thought about that, feeling very stupid. The day we met, Trinksie mentioned that last fall she was trying to start up a nonprofit fund-raising business. Was it really too big of a leap for me to realize that she had been doing it in one of the “starter offices” at MORE? With a great flash of clarity, I understood that the county agent had a point. If all of the outside people who took advantage of those offices had access to confidential information within the building, then MORE
did
have shoddy controls. Quickly, I pulled out my list of contingencies for approval and added one more: Construct a physical barrier between the starter offices and the rest of the MORE facility.

“So tell me this,” I said to the detective. “Has he admitted to stealing a smartphone?”

“Actually,” she laughed, “he confessed to taking a ‘little baby computer’ from someone’s drawer. We weren’t sure what he meant, but I bet that’s it. According to him, he put it back the very next morning.”

“What did he do with it while he had it?”

“That’s the big question, Callie. He gave it to someone, but he will not tell us who that someone is.”

I thought of Zeb Hooper, and I wondered if he had the computer knowledge to break into a mainframe and wipe out a database. Somehow, the picture didn’t quite fit.

“Pretty soon,” the detective said, “whether he names names or not, we’re going to have to book Snake for aiding and abetting.”

“I was afraid of that. How about his mother? Is she there at the station, freaking out on you?”

“You’re a very perceptive person, Callie. Let’s just say one of her other children has taken her to the doctor so that she can get a sedative.”

“Poor thing.”

“So tell me quickly and then I have to go, did our white-collar crime investigator get in touch with your coworker?”

“I’m not sure,” I said, and then I asked Harriet, who was absorbed in her own work across the room.

“He’s meeting me here in the morning,” Harriet replied, and I repeated that back to Detective Sweetwater.

“Good,” she said. “Because I’m not moving on Zeb Hooper or Su Casa until our guy has had a chance to see what you’ve got.”

“I assume the medical examiner called you today with his theory about the gemstones and the iron remover?”

The detective was quiet for a moment.

“You sure do manage to find things out,” she said. “I suppose I should’ve asked this a lot sooner, but are you by any chance licensed to investigate in the state of North Carolina?”

“Yes,” I laughed. “I am. Since I travel for my job, I’ve kept current in a number of states. There’s also some reciprocity. I can fax you copies of my papers, if you need.”

“Are you a bounty hunter too?”

“No. Just a private investigator.”

“Do you have a permit to carry?”

“Nope. I don’t even own a gun.”

“All right, then,” she said, “I guess we’re on the same page. But I think you need to step back a bit and let us do our jobs.”

“Aw, come on, Detective,” I said. “You’re doing your job, and I’m just doing mine.”

Forty-Five

After I hung up the phone, I entered a few notes in my database and then went to see if Dean and Natalie had returned yet to the building. I was glad to see that they were both in Dean’s office. I knocked on the door and asked if they had a few minutes to meet with me.

“Of course, Callie,” Natalie said. “We’re at your disposal.”

She looked tired and upset, and I learned that they had just come from the funeral home, where they helped Luisa make arrangements to ship Enrique’s body to Mexico for his funeral and burial next week.

“There will be a small memorial service here on Saturday,” she said. “But come Monday morning Luisa will be leaving Greenbriar for good.”

“What’s going to happen to her?” I asked. “Is she okay?”

“In a way,” Dean said, “I think Luisa is just relieved that her questions have finally been answered.”

“Answered?” I asked. “But we still don’t know who killed her husband.”

“No,” he said, “but at least she knows that he’s not somewhere out there suffering. It’s been a long, horrible four months for her, and now at least the waiting and wondering are over.”

“I understand.”

We talked about Luisa and the children for a few minutes, but finally Natalie asked what I had come there to talk about.

“Tell me something happy,” she told me, pinching the bridge of her nose. “It’s been a very difficult day.”

“Happy,” I said. “Okay, how does this sound? My investigation is almost over, and your agency is looking very, very good.”

Natalie gasped and Dean grinned, and they both stood and hugged me.

“It’s not over yet,” I said, “and I’m afraid we do have a short list of contingencies that would have to be taken care of pending approval. But overall you’ve scored very well. If we could just get to the truth about those two acts of vandalism last fall, then I think we’d be ready to close things up.”

“I know the police are working very hard on it,” Natalie said. “I’m going to pray that the truth will come to light very soon.”

“I hope so,” I said. “In the meantime, we need to cover one last area that we haven’t really touched on yet. I wonder if you could share with me your future plans for MORE? I know you put on your grant request that you hope to expand, assist more charities, and start working with the migrants before and after they are actually in the area. But I’d like to hear some concrete ideas about how you’re going to make those hopes a reality.”

They seemed eager to talk about the future, and I took notes as they laid out their plans and ideas and dreams. As I had expected, they seemed to have a good grasp of how their agency was going to grow and change, and they were well within my guidelines to pass this particular criterion.

When we finished talking, I added the info to my database and then told Harriet I had something to do but that perhaps she and I could meet for dinner in town later.

“You’ve been working so hard,” I said, “I think you deserve a break.”

“I think we both do,” she said.

We arranged to meet downtown at Sparky’s Restaurant at 5:30. My fruit-and-vegetable lunch wasn’t exactly sticking to my ribs, and I knew I’d be quite hungry by then.

In the meantime, I had some serious thinking to do, and so I drove to the Webbers’ house and took out the canoe and treated myself to an afternoon paddle.

It was exactly what I needed to clear my head. The day was warm and sunny, and I paddled slowly, not looking for exercise but merely some mental clarity. Somehow, I always seemed to think better with a paddle in my hands.

I spent the first ten minutes or so in prayer, asking God to provide me with wisdom and strength. When my prayer was over, I let my mind go back over the sequence of events and the facts I knew thus far. Once I had reviewed the timeline, I tried to isolate the names of the people who were involved with the case and then considered what sort of motive each of them might’ve had for killing Enrique Morales.

Of course, the most obvious choice was Zeb Hooper, considering all that we now knew about his nefarious doings with Su Casa. But the man wasn’t exactly computer literate, which meant he couldn’t have done it entirely on his own.

I thought perhaps his son Butch could’ve helped him, though everyone seemed to feel Butch was the very salt of the earth. I couldn’t rule out the possibility that Karen or Pete might’ve been involved. For Karen, I knew she could have one of several different motives. Did she blame Enrique for the teenage kiss that had destroyed her life? Perhaps she wanted a relationship with the man now, but he had turned her down? I had to admit that neither motive seemed to make much sense, but I had to throw everything out on the table in order to process it through.

Pete didn’t seem to have a motive for the murder, though he struck me as a passionate man. Perhaps he would be capable of killing someone in an argument, say, in the heat of the moment.

Danny, too, was a consideration. But I couldn’t really count him among my suspects because he hadn’t even moved to Greenbriar until long after Enrique disappeared.

Lowell Tinsdale I ruled out simply because he was too ill at the time. That left Snake or his mother Trinksie, neither of whom were capable of murder or computer tinkering, I felt sure.

Paddling toward the distant shore, I thought about the mysterious John Doe, the man who came here one night and ended up getting stabbed to death in a church parking lot. In my mind, when I tried to imagine how that had come to pass, I saw a group of three: John Doe, Snake, and the person—whoever it was—who was manipulating Snake to commit acts of vandalism. While Snake lit the stink bombs and tossed them into Luisa’s car, perhaps the other two men had argued, and it ended with the stabbing. To get away, Snake had run through the woods behind the Webbers’ house, where I had seen him. The person who did the stabbing must’ve simply driven away, out of the church parking lot, leaving the stabbed victim on the ground to die.