Bitch Factor (30 page)

“That’s a sizable dowry, sweetie,” Pearly White commented. “I didn’t realize women handed over their money so easily these days. This Mr. Payne doesn’t have much of a head for business, does he?”

“Not much of a head for crime, either.” Smokin was fingering keys wildly and without much success. “Not a blamed thing on record locally. What is this fella, a monk? Not even a dadburned traffic ticket.”

Previously, the Payne account had operated close to the margin. As Pearly White scrolled forward in the file, small amounts moved in and out of the account, then four months after the $132,000 was deposited, it disappeared.

“Now you see it, now you don’t,” Dixie said. That was the month Rebecca opened the Garden Cafe. “See if she opened a business account in the same bank.”

She had. The money was used as the initial deposit.

“If you don’t mind,” Dixie said, “go back to Travis’ records.”

“No problem.” Pearly White touched a key. The joint account
reappeared, with a window containing the cafe business account. The lady beamed.

“You get a kick out of this, don’t you?” Dixie said.

“It’s like eavesdropping, sweetie. Everybody likes to do it, but few would admit it.”

“Ever get the urge to change some of those numbers?”

“You mean, transfer a few digits into my own pocket? Don’t I ever! Especially when you know the money was probably acquired illegally. But, sweetie, that’s a quick way to become a guest of the federal government.”

“What about just looking? Is it dangerous?”

“Yep, yep,” Smokin piped. “But only if someone’s doing a security scan—”

“Wait! Back up.” The Paynes’ joint account had rocked along for several months barely above zero balance. Then a $20,000 deposit popped up. “Where did that come from?”

“Maybe they sold something.” Pearly White scrolled slowly through the numbers.

A few days later, the $20,000 disappeared without reappearing in the cafe account. Pearly White made another window and brought up the business account for Payne Hardware. The $20,000 transfer had hit barely in time to avoid a bounced check.

“Whatever they sold must have belonged to Travis Payne,” Dixie said. “And he needed the money.”

“Dear, I’m surprised Mr. Payne stays in business. Look at this.”

The cafe account, shortly after it was opened, showed a transfer of $30,000 to the hardware account. Both deposits to Payne Hardware occurred in the first year after Travis and Rebecca married, and were followed by a frenzy of spending.

Twice the following year—in June, the month after Betsy’s death, and August, after Courtney was killed—a $50,000 deposit was made to the joint personal account, then transferred almost immediately to Payne Hardware. Insurance settlements?

Fifty thousand dollars seemed like a heck of a big policy to carry on a child, especially when Jon Keyes seemed to have
paid the burial expense. Of course, some policies paid double for accidental deaths.

One thing was clear, Travis Payne profited by marrying Rebecca, and profited after the death of each child.

“That twenty-thousand-dollar deposit,” Dixie said. “Is there any way to find out where the money came from?”

“Is it important?”

“I don’t know.” But all the other big deposit amounts were accounted for by Rebecca’s initial cash injection or by insurance on the two girls. “Guess I’m just curious.”

They spent another half hour looking for additional bank accounts for either Rebecca or Travis, while Smokin pecked away at records Dixie didn’t even want to know about. Nothing turned up. Once again, Dixie was ready to call it a good search and go home when she realized there was one person she had ignored completely: Parker Dann. Belle Richards would not be happy if Dixie uncovered additional evidence
against
Dann, but for her own peace of mind Dixie needed to know.

“Hope this perp’s got more going than the last one.” Smokin hunched over his keyboard as if World War III were at hand. Fascinated, Dixie watched him dip into files she would’ve spent hours, possibly days, acquiring at the courthouse. The arrest last May was there, of course, and the previous DWI charges, as well as a speeding ticket from January.

“Sweetie, this man is a much better catch than your Mr. Keyes,” Pearly White commented. “He has bank accounts in three states. And some nice investments.”

Dixie’s mouth dropped open. Dann appeared to be worth several million dollars, if he chose to cash it all in. Having been inside his house, she’d expected his big commissions to be offset by heavy spending—expensive dining and drinking tabs, maybe some gambling. According to his accounts, though, he lived sparely and invested most of what he earned. Although he drove a luxury car, currently impounded as evidence, his home and furnishings were modest if not downright paltry.

Quarterly, a check was paid to a Monica Dann in Montana.
An ex-wife, Dixie would’ve guessed, if Belle hadn’t already told her that Dann was never married. Probably his mother, then. In addition to normal expenses, a monthly check was also sent to someone in Wisconsin named Heather Burke. The debits went back four years, and were paid out of an account in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

“I wonder if Ms. Heather Burke sold him some property,” Pearly White said, calling up deed registration files.

“Burke?” Smokin said. “Yep, yep. That’s the name right here on this paternity suit.”

Paternity suit? Dixie leaned over Smokin’s shoulder. Heather Burke, twenty-one, had filed a paternity suit against Parker Dann four years earlier, claiming him the father of her two-year-old son. Dann was forty-two now, so he’d have been thirty-five to Heather’s eighteen when the child was conceived. Seventeen years older than Heather. According to the records, she had lost the suit. So why was he sending her checks every month?

Dixie wrapped up the computer search and arrived home an hour earlier than she’d told Dann to expect her. She found the red Frisbee on the back step and the house dark except for one light in the den. Mud met her at the door. The house seemed incredibly quiet.

“Hey, boy.” She scratched Mud’s ears. “What’s going on?”

The kitchen sparkled. She couldn’t detect any cooking aromas. But then, even though she was home early, it was long past supper.

When she flipped on the kitchen light, a loud
thump
sounded in the den. Following Mud, she swung past the refrigerator, where a note was anchored by Ryan’s picture magnet:
Your plate’s ready to go in the microwave
.

In the den, Dann sat at the desk, reading. He looked up, all blue-eyed innocence, when she entered. Dixie’s hunch alarm clanged like crazy. He’d been up to something. Mud settled at Dann’s feet, his ugly mug across one shoe.

“Guess I lost track of the time,” Dann said, looking at the desk clock. “Got some great books in here.”

“I didn’t realize you were a reader.” Actually, she’d seen a bookcase at Dann’s house filled with an interesting variety of reading material. But he didn’t know that.

“Passes the time.” Using one of her business cards to mark his place, he closed the book. Dixie read the title:
Whip Hand
by Dick Francis, one of her personal favorites. In fact, she seemed to recall leaving it face out on the shelf the last time she read it. Handy.

“Did you eat? I made Stroganoff.” Dann stood and pushed his chair under the desk.

Tense
, Dixie thought.
He didn’t expect me and didn’t hear the car drive in
.

“How about popping my plate in the microwave,” she said, “while I wash up?”

He glanced at the book on the desk. “Sure. Give me about six minutes.”

She waited until he was out of the room, then slipped behind the desk and opened the drawers. Nothing screamed out as having been disturbed, but then she wasn’t the world’s neatest when it came to filing and paperwork.

She scanned the room, thinking maybe the
thump
she heard was Dann dropping something rather than shutting a drawer. She had no doubt Dann was clever enough to escape if he took a mind to; she hoped he was also smart enough not to try. Perhaps he was merely nosing around in her scrap-books again. No harm there. She studied the bottom bookshelf where the five volumes stood, all in order, their dates marked on the spine.

In the shelf above, a volume of
How Things Work
was misaligned. She pulled the book from the shelf, and looked behind it. Nothing prevented it from sliding all the way in. She laid the book on the desk. It fell open to a section on locks—safe locks, automobile locks, mechanical, electric, electronic, even magnetic strip locks. It appeared that Dann was either trying to get into something, or trying to get out.

When she entered the kitchen, after quickly washing her hands in the bathroom, he was pouring coffee.

“How’d it go today?”

“Better than yesterday. That Stroganoff smells good.”

Dixie had come home debating whether to relate what she’d found on Jon Keyes. Now she was more intent on learning
what Dann was plotting. If he tried something stupid, like breaking open the ammunition cabinet, it would, at the least, cost her an expensive lock. Worse, he might actually blow himself up trying to make an explosive device. Another volume in her bookcase carried the instructions for homemade bombs.

She sat down at the table where he’d placed a plate of steaming beef and noodles, a dinner salad, a basket of hot pumpernickel bread, and a glass of water with a lime slice floating in it. Whatever else Dann was, he knew how to eat well. And since he knew how to follow recipes, he’d have no problem figuring out how to do just about anything, digging through her library.

Tasting the Stroganoff, she realized just how much she was going to miss the gourmet fare when this business was over. Mud, watching her eat, doing his best to look starved and pitiful, was likely to miss it, too. Dixie had noticed the bag of dog food in the pantry wasn’t disappearing at its usual rate.

Dann brought two cups of coffee and joined her at the table.

“Food okay?”

“Absolutely.”

“Cheesecake and blueberries for dessert. The boxed kind, but it tastes pretty good.”

“Think I’ll skip dessert. It’s late.” She continued eating, without looking at him. Mud, watching every forkful, obviously expected her to share.
Dream on
.

“Guess you had a long day,” Dann said. “Not very talkative.”

Dixie buttered a piece of bread.

“Dann, you ever hear the old story about a Shogun who saw one of his Samurai coming up the road, bloodied and battered? What happened to you?’ the Shogun says. ‘I have been robbing and killing your enemies to the East, my Lord,’ the Samurai tells him. ‘But I don’t have any enemies to the East,’ says the Shogun. The Samurai pauses for a moment, then says, ‘You do now.’”

Dann smiled tentatively. When she didn’t smile back, he
sighed. “Guess there’s a message for me in that story. Unless you’re planning a new career on the comedy circuit.”

Dixie put the bread down and pushed her plate away.

“Dann, I’m not your enemy.”

“No.” He frowned at his hands, clasped around his coffee cup. “Not unless my court date arrives and you haven’t turned up a miracle.”

“Do we need a miracle? I thought I was just looking for evidence.”

“And not finding any.”

“We still have time.”

He carried his cup to the sink and dumped the coffee down the drain. He stood with his back to her, neck and shoulder muscles rippling with tension.

“I looked every one of those jurors in the eye that last day. The prosecution showed photographs of Betsy lying beside the road like a pile of discarded clothes. I thought about how I’d feel if I were one of the jury listening to the prosecutor’s case. I’d throw my sorry ass so far in Huntsville Prison the world wouldn’t even be driving cars when I got out.”

Dixie was tempted to tell him what she’d learned about Keyes. But first she needed to talk to Belle Richards and find out if the lawyer thought the information would make enough difference to alter Dann’s case.

“If there’s evidence out there to find, I’ll find it.”

“I wish I knew.” His eyes held a solemn resolve she’d never seen there before. “I wish I
knew
if there was any evidence out there to find. I wish I could promise you absolutely that I wasn’t behind the wheel when my car hit Betsy.
I just don’t friggin know
. But two things I
can
promise. One. I’d never intentionally hurt you, or hurt Mud, or cause you any unnecessary anguish. Two.” He sighed again, his gaze never wavering from hers. “I won’t go gently to prison.”

After transferring the contents of the ammunition cabinet to the Mustang’s trunk—just in case that was sparking Dann’s sudden interest in locks—Dixie spent the few remaining
hours of the night wrestling with sleep. Rows of numbers and letters bounced around against a glowing computer screen in her brain. She’d hoped to avoid returning Belle Richards’ phone calls until she had something concrete to present in Dann’s favor. But the attorney would need time to reorganize her case presentation for court on Monday. Only five days remained, most of them weekend or holidays.

When the alarm finally rattled Dixie out of bed, she pulled on some clothes and headed straight for the phone, knowing Belle’s habit of keeping early office hours. The lawyer picked up on the first ring.

“You weren’t joking when you said you’d let me worry right up to the last minute, were you, Flannigan?”

“Did I get your attention?”

“Trust me, you better have good news after keeping me waiting. What’s going on?”

“First, let’s set your mind at ease. Parker Dann is here.”

“Where?”

Dixie glanced through the hall at the guestroom door. Mud would be dutifully on guard beside Dann’s bed.

“A friend of mine is keeping an eye on him. But I have some other news.”

She told Belle what she’d learned about Courtney’s swimming “accident,” about Jonathan Keyes talking to Dann at the Green Hornet, and finally about her suspicion of Keyes. Belle was silent for a long beat.