A Deadly Development (11 page)

“He owns a 2009 Lexus RX 350 free and
clear.”

This was met with a blank stare. Thurber
wasn’t getting it. Burke sighed.

“What’s the one thing that you, Vithous and I
have in common?” Burke asked.

Thurber thought for a minute.

“We’re all brain dead?” he offered. Jack
smiled broadly. He had enjoyed that one.

“No dumbass,” Burke pressed on, “we are all
divorced. Divorces cost a lot of money.”

“You live in that crappy duplex out south. I
live in a crappy apartment on 39
^th
Street. This asshole
owns a really nice house in Crestwood. And his ex-wife lives in a
really nice townhouse in Leawood. He drives an expensive SUV, plus
he has a Mexico getaway he jets off to apparently whenever he wants
to.”

“Maybe the girlfriend is a sugar momma,”
Thurber offered - just to pull Burke’s chain. He was getting
punchy.

Burke felt a buzz in his breast pocket and
pulled out his phone. A text had arrived from a number he did not
recognize.

Need 2 talk 2 u soon about finances re:
Viceroy. Bethany Edwards

Burke stopped for a moment and typed a quick
reply.

Service Station coffee house at 6pm work?
Burke

The response was almost immediate

Yes. See u then.

Tom put the phone back into his breast pocket
and continued.

“She works for the State DMV as a supervisor.
I heard that from several people when I was interviewed them
yesterday.” Burke ran his fingers through his thick hair.

Thurber finally got serious.

“Money can be a pretty big motive for some
people to kill someone. But who?”

“Not a two bit junkie who boosts laptops at
City Hall, that’s for sure,” Burke replied.

“I think we need to know a lot more about Mr.
Vithous’ financial dealings,” Thurber said, “how do you want to
approach it?”

“Why don’t you circle back with the people
who knew him best, the ex, the girlfriend, whoever at the office he
was close to,” Burke replied, “I’m going to talk to some politicos
who might have some theories how Mr. Vithous became Mr.
Rockefeller.”

The Service Station coffee house sat on a
triangular piece of property on the edge of the Crown Center
redevelopment area. It had been for many years an actual gas
station that Burke sometimes used to fill up on the way home from
work. About five years ago, it closed briefly, and reopened as a
hipster coffee joint for the young professional crowd.

Burke wasn’t a regular customer, but he knew
the coffee house was close to the newspaper and was also only two
miles straight south of police headquarters. Although he wasn’t
thrilled about having to make yet another stop before heading home
for the day, Bethany had piqued his interest. She seemed
persistent, which reminded Burke of himself.

He parked right out front and walked in. The
coffee shop was mostly empty. Burke ordered a medium coffee with
soy from a hirsute barista who had enormous rings in his ear lobes.
The lobes were stretched like an elephant’s ear and waggled
whenever the barista talked. Tom was grossed out by the look. He
was a ‘live and let live’ type, but couldn’t help think this guy
was going to be sorry when he was about sixty and his earlobes were
dragging up against his shoulders.

Tom took his coffee, poured in some sugar and
stirred it in. He looked up and spotted Bethany toward the back of
the shop, her back to a large window. She had a white Apple laptop
open, typing furiously, oblivious to her surroundings.

“On deadline?” Burke asked while sitting
down.

“Always, Sgt. Burke,” Bethany replied. “With
all the layoffs and forced furloughs they are expecting even more
from us. Stories, blogs, twitter updates, you name it.”

It was dark outside and the light from her
laptop screen glowed off her glasses giving her an almost owl-like
appearance.

“So, you wanted to meet,” Burke said, while
taking a large sip of coffee. He realized that he should have
ordered a decaf at this hour, but it was too late now, “What’s
up?”

“Technology is a wonderful thing, Sergeant
Bethany stated while typing away, “What used to take me a trip to
the county courthouse and hours of research now takes less than
thirty seconds from my computer.”

Edwards finished typing and rotated the
laptop so Tom could see the screen. A webpage was opened entitled
“Economic and Community Development Viewer.”

Bethany slid her chair next to Burke and
began to manipulate the map.

“This is a GIS interactive map the county
recently put on their website,” she said as she used the pointer to
zoom into a parcel of land just south of the Missouri River. Tom
could easily make out the new road he had recently jogged by and
the satellite picture was even clear enough he could easily make
out the jogging path.

“The yellow lines highlight property
boundaries,” Bethany said as she continued to zoom in, “and check
this out.”

She double clicked on one property and a
bubble appeared with the exact address, parcel number, current
owner, property area and two links entitled “view property report”
and “where are my tax dollars going?” The current owner was listed
as “Viceroy Property, LLC.”

“That’s pretty cool,” Tom admitted while
looking at closely. The bubble even had a picture of the
property.

“It gets even better,” Bethany replied,
clicking on the property report. A new browser window opened, and
in it was all the information about Viceroy – the owner’s address,
the amount of property taxes paid, even what Viceroy had paid for
the property, which was virtually nothing.

“Here’s what
really
got my juices
flowing,” Bethany said while closing out the property detail window
and going back to the map. See this property right here, next to
Viceroy?”

Tom nodded while looking at a thin sliver of
property on the eastern portion of the development.

“That originally was owned by Viceroy, but
they recently did a warranty deed and gave it to a new owner.”

“Gave?” Tom asked.

“Well, technically they sold it for one
dollar, but you get my drift,” Bethany replied clicking on the new
property owner information. “It doesn’t look like much but there is
enough land to build apartments, or a mixed use development, or
heck, even a coffee shop like this.”

The new window displayed information on
“NestEgg, L.L.C.” Burke didn’t recognize the address of the
owner.

“This took some digging,” Bethany said,
clearly proud of herself, “that address is just a front. The
physical address is for an office building up by the airport, but
there isn’t any NestEgg office in that building. Instead, the
owners of NestEgg pay a monthly fee to use that address for the
mail. The service forwards the mail to the real address.”

“Did you happen to get the real address from
the service?” Burke asked. He was impressed. Maybe he had
underestimated Edwards. Bethany shook her head.

“They wouldn’t give it to me, but I have
other methods at my disposal,” with that she leaned over to her
computer bag and pulled out a sheet of paper and handed it to
Burke.

“Any L.L.C. has to be registered in the State
of Missouri with the Secretary of State’s office,” Bethany went on.
A broad smile overwhelmed her face.

“Recognize that address, Sergeant.
Burke?”

“Holy shit,” Burke said, not believing his
eyes. “That’s Vithous’ Crestwood address, isn’t it?”

“The very one.” Burke could tell she was very
pleased with herself, to the point of smugness. She had earned
it.

“Does the name of the principal of NestEgg
ring a bell?”

“It does indeed,” Burke replied while staring
at the name on the screen. “The live-in girlfriend. I didn’t know
DMV supervisors were developers.”

“Vithous covered his tracks pretty well,”
Bethany went on, handing Burke more paper. “He was smart to put the
LLC in her name. He was smart to have the phony address on the
property report. His only slip up wasn’t changing the address on
his original submission to the state to get his LLC.”

“This is why he was so touchy when you
started digging into Viceroy,” Burke said. “It was more than just
protecting his boss. It was about protecting his own ass.”

“Turns out Nestegg own several properties in
Kansas City. All obtained via warranty deed. All carved out of
large developments that were recently approved by the City Council.
And all purchased for the remarkably low sum of one dollar,”
Bethany leaned back and looked like the cat who ate the canary.

“The son of bitch wasn’t only a prick, he was
dirty,” Burke said. “Any chance you have the names of all those
property owners who gave property over to NestEgg for nothing?”

“Even better,” Bethany replied, handing him
one last sheet. “I have every property owner, every developer, and
their attorneys.”

At first glance, Burke was elated, but then
he saw something on the sheet that made his smile vanish
instantly.

“Something wrong?” Edwards asked, noticing
Burke’s frown.

“Nothing you did,” Burke said, “this is
great. Can I have this?” He held up the last sheet.

“You can have all of it,” Bethany replied, “I
have the originals back at the office.”

Burke stood up quickly.

“I’ve gotta go. You’ve given me a lot to go
over. This is great, really. Thank you so much. You’d make a hell
of cop.”

Edwards smiled. Burke could tell she was
enjoying this.

“Does it pay more than a beat reporter?”

“That,” Burke said while walking out, “I
can’t say. My guess is we both are overworked and underpaid.”

The feeling of well-worn flooring under his
feet was very familiar. Fifty years of spilled beers and cigarette
ash had given the hardwood a special patina. The stale smell of
smoke was now gone; a smoking ban had relegated smokers to the
patio out back or out in front.

Charlie, the bar’s owner had complained to
Burke at the time that the ban would end the place. “You city
people are killing me,” he said exasperated on a warm fall day,
when the doors were open wide and sounds of traffic on
63
^rd
Street rolled through the bar in waves. Burke
didn’t argue. He knew that “the city” meant everything to people
like Charlie. Over the years he heard complaints about code
enforcement, fire protection, park maintenance, you name it. It
would seem fairly obvious that cops had nothing to do with such
things, but people complained anyway.

Despite Charlie’s dire warnings, the bar
survived. In fact, it was thriving. Many people who had refused to
go to bars because of the overwhelming smoke were now coming in.
Twenty years ago people would have called them yuppies; Tom had no
idea what they were called now.

He had brought Julie here on their second
date. At first, she was less than enthused. “I’m not a big bar
person,” she protested. But her defenses melted fairly quickly. Tom
bought a pitcher and introduced her to throwing darts. Bobby was
there with his wife, and Lisa Sullivan went out of her way to make
Julie feel welcome. Julie’s long black hair cascaded over her
shoulders as she struggled to throw darts anywhere near where she
was aiming. She laughed at her futility and Tom caught himself
laughing too. He never laughed out loud that easily. Her jeans
hugged her hips and ass, and her tan skin highlighted her blue
blouse. One pitcher became two, and Tom knew he was already in
love. The night ended with even more laughs and hugs and sweet
salty kisses. It was a night that he wished he could relive
again.

Instead, he felt rage burning inside his gut.
The moment he had gotten into his car, he had dialed Bobby. It had
gone straight to voice mail, so he left a terse message.

“Bobby. Call me. It is extremely
important.”

At first, he couldn’t remember the last time
he had been this angry. But then it had dawned on him, when he
found out the truth about Julie. Betrayed by his wife. Now
apparently betrayed by his best friend and cousin.

His thoughts were broken up by his cell
ringing.

“Hey numbnuts,” Bobby began, “what’s up?”

Burke wasn’t in the mood.

“We need to meet. Now.” He had hissed the
word now into the phone. No way Bobby wouldn’t figure out he was
pissed off.

“Ok,” Bobby replied, taken aback. “Why don’t
you swing by the house? I just got here. Kids would enjoy seeing
you.”

“Huh-uh,” Burke said. “Charlie’s. I’ll be
there in ten minutes.”

Then he hung up and tossed the phone in the
passenger seat.

Bobby was already in back, drinking a beer
and playing a video golf game. He wasn’t wearing his suit coat, and
he had loosened his tie. He hadn’t noticed Tom walk up behind
him.

“I see your virtual swing is just as shitty
as the real one,” Burke observed.

“Only constructive criticism, or else you’ll
hurt my psyche,” Bobby replied while taking a swig of his beer.
“I’m ready for another one, you mind?”

“In a minute,” Tom stared right into his
cousin’s eyes. “NestEgg. Ring a bell, Mr. Attorney?”

Sullivan’s shoulders slumped. He stared at
his shoes and sighed.

“What the fuck, Bobby?” Tom shouted, loud
enough to be heard by others, but at this point he could care less
who heard what.

“Buddy,” Bobby said meekly, “I wanted to tell
you, I really did. But…”

“But what, Bobby?” Tom was so mad, that he
had to catch himself and think before he spoke.

“I thought we were close, I thought we were
brothers
. If I can’t depend on you, who the hell can I
depend on?”

“Man, I wanted to tell you. Honest. But I
could have lost my license. It’s attorney client privilege.”

Burke felt his cheeks burn with heat. He
wanted to punch his cousin straight across the face and keep
punching him until he was exhausted. He turned away a moment, and
then spun on his heels and pressed his fingers into Bobby’s
chest.