Dead Broke in Jarrett Creek: A Samuel Craddock Mystery (Samuel Craddock Mysteries) (23 page)

“This is the McClusky resort. The resort is closed for renovation. For information regarding the new facility, please contact Gary Dellmore of Citizens Bank.” I dial the phone number given in the message and am told it has been disconnected. I sit and stare at the phone for several seconds as if it could tell me what I need to know. Meanwhile, traffic whizzes by on my left as if demons are chasing the drivers.

Driving home I have plenty of time to mull over what DeWitt told me, and the answer to what may have happened to the animals stocked out at the resort comes to me. A few years back every cattleman in the state was chilled at an especially widespread outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease. When I thought of the exotic animals stocked at the resort, the fact that they were cloven-hoofed animals slipped past me—I was thinking more of their exotic hides. Of course they would be vulnerable to the disease—maybe even more than domestic animals. If McClusky had an outbreak, the entire herd would have been quarantined until such time that it was determined that the soil no longer harbored the disease.

I spend the rest of the time worrying about whether I’ve inadvertently exposed my herd to the disease by being on the resort property. I think back and realize I did no more than walk on the pavement when I was confronted by Harold. Next time I go, I’ll be sure to disinfect my boots afterward—or maybe even wear old ones that I can throw out.

When I get home, I call Jenny and have a long talk with her about what I found in the contracts so I’ll be prepared for the meeting tomorrow morning. She scolds me for not bringing them home so she could look over them.

“Jenny,” I say, “you’re a lawyer. If you got your hooks into those contracts, I’d have to postpone the meeting until next July.”

Alton Coldwater is the first of our visitors to arrive at the station the next morning, but he only has a few blocks to drive—the other two are coming from Houston. I’ve got the coffee on and some of Loretta’s cinnamon rolls laid out on a paper plate on my desk where I’m seated. Coldwater plunks himself down in one of the three chairs facing me. If you were to go by his jovial manner, you wouldn’t think he had a care in the world—much less that he was the target of scorn in town. He snatches up one of the cinnamon rolls and attacks it with gusto.

Bill Odum arrives a few minutes later. He’s supposed to work this afternoon, but since he did the setup for the meeting, he wanted to be here. He brings a folding chair out of the closet and sits down against the wall, away from the three chairs I set up for our visitors. He’s got good instincts, knowing to keep himself apart from the main attraction and to be an observer.

“Alton, I’m glad you’re here early,” I say, “I want to ask you a couple of questions before those other fellows get here.”

“Ask me anything.” He’s got a mouthful of cinnamon roll, and the words come out mushy.

“Whose idea was it to build a water park out at the lake?”

“You know, Samuel, that’s a good question. It wasn’t my idea, but it seemed like a good one.”

I wait while he sips some coffee to wash down the rest of the roll. I can’t tell if he’s considering the answer to the question or stalling, but his attention seems completely focused on eating and drinking.

Finally he sits back and pats his belly. “Seems to me Slate McClusky came to me with the idea. He said he had an interest in water parks in other towns and they were doing pretty well.”

“I only recently heard that McClusky was involved in it. Did he want his part kept secret?”

“He said he’d like to be a silent partner. He said that since he only lived here part of the time people might think he was trying to come in and ram the idea down our throats.”

Which is, more or less, the way it happened. “Am I right that there never was a vote on the project or much discussion of it? The first thing I heard was that the land had been bought and plans were in place.”

Coldwater passes his tongue around his teeth to clean out the remnants of the roll. “City Council voted for it. I guess they didn’t think it was necessary to have it on the ballot.” There’s a challenge in his voice.

The door opens and two men in suits step into the room. Coldwater gets up and shakes hands with them, eyeing them the way he might look at disgraced relatives, although they don’t seem to notice. He introduces them to Odum and me. Pete Fontaine, a slight-built man pushing fifty, steps up eagerly to shake hands. He tells me he’s happy they had the time to come in. Larry Kestler is younger, maybe forty, with a substantial head of hair and the thick body of an ex-football player. He flicks wary eyes around the room, as if looking for a backdoor exit.

After they get settled, I say, “Bill explained to you that we’re investigating the murder of Gary Dellmore. I’m trying to piece together what his interest was in the water park you fellows were planning to build here in Jarrett Creek.”

“I was sorry to hear that Dellmore had been killed,” Fontaine says. “We didn’t have much in the way of dealings with him, but he seemed like a nice fellow.”

“Can you give me a general idea how a deal like this water park works? Does a city come to you with a proposal, or do you do a search for sites?”

The two men look at each other. Coldwater has slipped himself another sweet roll and is concentrating on it. Fontaine answers again. “It can go either way. Sometimes we put out feelers and sometimes people come to us. That’s what happened at our park in Beaumont.”

Kestler shoots him a warning look, and I know why. The Beaumont water park is one of the parks that’s in trouble. Of course they think a rube like me couldn’t possibly have that information. But getting the information was as easy as looking at a magazine article. Which is why I wonder how come no one else knew there were problems.

“Which was the case for the Jarrett Creek plans? Did Coldwater here come to you, or did you go to him?”

Coldwater takes his time working over his latest bite of roll, no doubt hoping someone else will fill the void. Fontaine obliges. “I don’t remember. That would be somewhere in my files, I guess. Mr. Coldwater here would be the best person to answer your question.”

Coldwater wipes his mouth with a paper napkin. “It’s no secret. Dellmore came to me and said you fellows had come up with an interesting proposal and I ought to take a look at it. Slate McClusky had already told me he thought a water park would succeed here.”

“Anybody ever do any studies about how it would work here in Jarrett Creek?”

“That’s not our department,” Kessler says. I don’t believe him. Their names were sprinkled through the documents in the files I saw.

“How about you Coldwater? You ever get any studies?”

“We saw some. I don’t recall if it was specific to us or to small towns in general.”

“And at the time the city was having financial problems and you were looking for a way to make a good investment that would bring in some money,” I say.

Coldwater grasps at my suggestion. “That’s exactly it. We were having real problems. You know, with the economy going bad, we were in trouble. Lot of towns had the same problem. I thought this water park thing would be a boon. It’s too damn bad it didn’t work out.”

“When you talked to Dellmore, did he happen to mention there was lot of risk involved in a deal like this?”

“Now hold on a minute,” Fontaine says, ignoring Kestler’s narrowed eyes. “Our water parks are no more risky than any other amusement-type venture.”

“Maybe this was a tad riskier,” I say. “One other question. What kind of permits did the state give you? Who paid for them?”

Coldwater swallows. “It was up to the water park builders to get that.”

“You should have gotten some copies. Did you ever get any?”

“I can’t make out what you’re getting at here,” Kestler says. “Like Pete said, this is not our department. We just arranged to get the land and then passed it on to another group for implementation.”

“Coldwater, did you ever have any dealings with anyone but these two men?”

“No, but I only met with them a couple of times. After that, Dellmore took over. He was sort of the go-between.”

“Can anybody tell me if Dellmore got a kickback from your company for putting together a loan on this deal?”

Kestler hasn’t taken his eyes off me. “I don’t have any particulars, but that’s illegal,” he says. “Our company wouldn’t do anything like that.”

“Even if you were having trouble getting a loan for the park?”

“Again, we didn’t have anything to do with that part of it.”

“How many parks does your outfit own?”

“We’ve got ten water parks. Six in Texas, two in Louisiana, and a couple in Arkansas,” Kestler says.

“How many of them are making money?”

“They’re doing okay.” He looks at Fontaine, who is staring out the window.

“How many of them have closed in the last three years?”

“I don’t know what that has to do with Gary Dellmore. You said this was an inquiry into his death, not an attempt to place blame for a business venture that your mayor here went into with his eyes wide open.”

Coldwater glares at him.

“I believe this does have something to do with Dellmore’s death. You fellows put together a deal you never had any intention of following through on, and I think that got Dellmore into trouble with somebody.”

Kestler gets up abruptly. “We’re done here. I don’t need to sit here and listen to wild accusations.”

“Wild accusations? Maybe you’d be interested in this.” I open the
Texas Amusement
magazine to the article about water parks and push it over to them. “According to this, some of your parks were going under at the time you were trying to sell one to Jarrett Creek. I believe a judge would be interested to know that Gary Dellmore knew the parks were in trouble before he pushed this loan through.”

“This has nothing to do with us. It’s on the banker.”

“The contracts have your names all over them. And you knew the water park was not going to be built.”

Kestler sits back down. “We’re the front men for a big backer,” he says.

Fontaine shuffles in his chair and coughs once, the only sound in the room for several seconds.

“So who’s the big honcho? Or are you willing to let him hang you out here on your own?”

Coldwater looks puzzled and the other two men exchange glances.

“Looks to me like sort of a Ponzi scheme, you gathering money for a new park here in Jarrett Creek and using the money to shore up the ones that aren’t doing so well. Was Dellmore aware of this? I know Slate McClusky must’ve been.”

Fontaine gets up fast, almost overturning his chair. “I didn’t come here to be accused of being a crook. I thought we were helping you out. If you’re complaining about the way this was handled, I suggest you take it up with McClusky and…”

“And Dellmore? He’s not around to defend himself, which seems convenient.”

Now Kestler gets to his feet again. “We didn’t have anything to do with that. Like we said, we barely met Dellmore. I believe I’d look to your mayor here for answers about Dellmore.” They start toward the door.

“If I were you,” I say, “I’d be consulting with your lawyer, because I’m pretty sure there’s going to be legal action coming your way.”

“You can’t touch us,” Kestler says.

“I wouldn’t be too sure of that.”

They slam the door behind them.

While this has been going on, Alton Coldwater has risen to his feet and started to ease toward the door as if he’d like to slink out right behind them. “Sit down, Alton,” I say. “We have a little more to discuss.”

When I hold his feet to the fire, Coldwater doesn’t hold out long. He’s all too willing to tell us that Slate McClusky handled all the dealings with Gary Dellmore. “Like I told you, McClusky wanted his name kept out of it.”

To hear Coldwater talk, he was an innocent small-town mayor, hoodwinked by big city slickers. We’ll see how that holds up when the time comes for the courts to try to wrangle some of the town’s money back from this outfit, but for now he’s pointed the finger at McClusky. That doesn’t mean McClusky is guilty of killing Dellmore, but it brings up a lot of questions about what the two of them were up to, and why McClusky pretended he had nothing to do with Dellmore.