Dead Peasants (28 page)

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Once the judge and jury were gone, Jack had his team remain in the deserted courtroom to discuss the day’s events. With the evidence he expected to get from Quillen, he thought he now would have all the pieces to the puzzle. When he started the trial, he thought he was going to establish a pattern and practice of defrauding employees out of their benefits under the policies. Now it appeared that pattern and practice may have included murder to collect on the policies. Jack turned to J.D. “Did you get Quillen served with the subpoena?”

“Yes, sir. Out in the hallway like you said. He was not a happy camper.”

“Okay,” Jack said. “You walk June to where Willie, Jr. is waiting and meet Colby back at the Hummer. I’m going to go over to Sherrod’s office and give my statement.”

“Jack,” Colby said. “Don’t you think it’s about time to tell him what we’ve uncovered about these policies?”

Jack pondered the question. “You’re right. I’ll tell him what we’ve put together with the understanding that we need to finish this trial before he starts investigating Allison. We ought to wrap this up tomorrow anyway.”

Allison was washing his hands in the men’s room when Quillen entered.

“Dwayne, I’m glad I caught you in here. I don’t like the way this case is going. I think you’re going to lose your ass, and there goes our chance to recover on seven thousand dead peasant policies.” Quillen raised his voice. “You need to settle this damn case. Pay the widow her $400,000 and shut this son of a bitch down. You hear me!”

Allison dried his hands and turned to face Quillen. “Dammit, Beau, maybe you haven’t looked at my financial statements lately. All of that money from those policies went to your bank, including the $400,000 on Willie Davis’s life. I’m broke.”

Quillen’s anger boiled over and he shoved Allison up against the wall. “You bastard, you’re not the only one in financial trouble. You’re the cause of my banks being close to failure. The main topic I have with regulators currently is Allison Southwest. Goddam it! I’ve waited long enough. Understand me. If you fuck this up, we’ll both be in bankruptcy court. Those dead peasant policies are keeping both of us afloat. If you don’t do as I say, you won’t like the consequences. You get what I’m telling you?”

“Shit,” Dwayne yelled, “I’ve paid you about five million in the past six months. The feds ought to see that I’m doing what I can. Tell those fuckers to go regulate the damn Wall Street bankers.” Allison pushed back away from Quillen. “Wait just a goddamn minute. Bryant has pounded me in the courtroom, accusing me of murdering my employees to collect on those policies
. I didn’t do it.
You’re the only person besides my brother who knew exactly which of my employees had life insurance coverage and how much. You son of a bitch!”

Allison shoved Quillen aside and stormed out the door. When Allison was gone, Quillen pulled his cell from his pocket.

Allison was walking down the courthouse steps when he saw Colby about to reach the Hummer in the now almost deserted parking lot across the street. He waved his hand. “Colby, hold up.”

Colby felt uncomfortable with having Allison confront her but stopped. Allison ran across the street. When he reached her, he paused to catch his breath. “I think I know who killed my employees and tried to kill you.”

Before he could say anything else, a white panel truck wheeled around the corner, and a shot rang out. Allison crumbled to the ground as the panel truck sped away. Colby had the presence of mind to get a partial license plate number before she bent over Allison and called 911. Next she called Jack, telling him what happened and assuring him that she was unharmed.

The ambulance was there in five minutes. The wound was in the right side of the chest. The lead EMT said Allison had a collapsed lung. Working rapidly, he stemmed the blood flow and inserted a breathing tube before loading him on a gurney. Ten minutes later Allison was on the way to the hospital. By then Jack and Joe arrived.

“I’m okay, Jack. Allison was shot. The EMT says he’s got a collapsed lung, but he’ll live.”

Joe sized up the situation and said, “You’re both coming back to my office. I want some answers.”

When they were settled in Joe’s office with the door closed, Joe said, “Tell me why you guys are in the middle of a crime wave.”

Jack told Joe everything they had learned, including that they had subpoenaed policy information from Quillen Bank and Trust. When he got through, Joe said, “Holy shit! Dwayne Allison. Never in a hundred years would I have pegged him to be doing something like this.”

“But, Joe,” Colby said. “Maybe it’s not him. He’s the one shot and in the hospital.”

Joe shook his head. “Colby, that shot may have been intended for you.”

Colby’s face went white and her hand came to her mouth as she gasped at the thought.

“Look, I’m putting one of my investigators on this first thing in the morning. I’ll be calling Judge McDowell in just a minute. He’ll most likely postpone the trial for a while, depending on Allison’s condition. That means my investigator will need copies of those records of policies and the former employees who have died. I’ll also post a car and two officers outside your house. They’ll follow discreetly when you go anywhere, including the courthouse. I’ll also have a second bailiff assigned to help Deputy Waddill. Oh, and I’ll also put someone on tracking down that partial license number. You’re going to be okay, Colby, and it sounds like with one more day of evidence I may be able to dismiss the murder charge.”

That night Jack received a call from Judge McDowell’s clerk, advising that he wanted a conference call with the two lawyers in thirty minutes.

“Gentlemen, I’ve talked to Joe Sherrod. Ace, let’s start with you. How’s Dwayne doing?”

“He’s doing okay, Judge. He’s stable. The bullet went through his lung and came out the other side. They had to do laparoscopic surgery and then re-inflate the lung. He should be out of the hospital in a few days.”

“That’s good to hear. Jack, are you going to oppose a mistrial?”

“Judge, you know I don’t want that. I figure we just have a few hours of evidence left. I don’t have any reason to re-call Allison. I want to keep going, but, it’s really Ace’s call.”

“Judge, this may surprise you. Allison is intubated but alert. He wrote me a note, and said he doesn’t want the case continued. He wants to testify again. He’ll write out notes on the witness stand if necessary. We just need a two day continuance.”

“You sure about that, Ace?” the judge asked, concern in his voice.

“Judge, that’s our best estimate for now. If it changes, I’ll let you and Jack know.”

Jack received a call early the next morning from Joe Sherrod. “Jack, here’s what I’ve got on the partial license number. This is not certain, but the most likely owner is Federal Bank Security, a company that provides security services for banks in Texas and several other states. I’ll be putting someone on it, but I figure you’ve become Sherlock Holmes. You may beat me to the punch. Just keep me in the loop.”

When the call ended, Colby appeared in the kitchen, her eyes red from lack of sleep. “Jack, would you mind not leaving me today? I got really spooked when Joe said that the shooter might have been after me. I hardly slept at all last night. Can you do some trial preparation or something and maybe by tomorrow, I’ll be okay.”

Jack hugged her. “Sure, Colby. We don’t go back until day after tomorrow. I can prepare closing argument

Colby alternated between sleeping and sitting next to Jack at the dining room table while he worked on his closing argument. He gave himself a small pat on the back for not wasting time on closing when he did his trial preparation. The case had turned into one he never saw coming when it began. Now, he intended to take advantage of it.

The next morning Jack woke Colby and had a long talk with her. When he was satisfied that she was back in control of her emotions, he decided that he and J.D. could be gone for a few hours. After setting the alarms and convincing the two officers parked in the front of the house they should stay and watch over Colby, Jack and J.D. drove downtown. Jack wanted to arrive at Quillen’s office at eight o’clock, the minute the doors opened. As they rode the elevator to the thirtieth floor, J.D. asked, “You think he’ll give us everything he has?”

“He will.” Jack nodded. “Our trial and Allison’s shooting are the lead stories in the
Star Telegram,
even this morning. Quillen isn’t about to do anything that would piss off the judge and put the spotlight on him. We’ll get everything.”

The door opened. Across the hall were two large paneled doors. Jack opened one and they entered an opulent office, suitable for the CEO of a financial conglomerate. A young receptionist sat at the desk

“Good morning, gentlemen. How can I help you?”

“Is Mr. Quillen in?”

She shook her head. “He’s out at a meeting at one of our banks.”

J.D. handed the subpoena to her. She studied it for a minute before she spoke. “Mr. Quillen was expecting you yesterday. I suppose I can get what this says. You want the entire list of employee policies where we have liens on the proceeds?”

“That’s correct.

“Please excuse me, and I’ll get the information. Will a thumb drive be okay?”

“That’ll be fine,” J.D. replied.

Thirty minutes later they were back on the elevator and headed out the front door of the building.

“J.D., plug Federal Bank Security in the GPS and let’s drop by there before we head back to the house.”

The GPS directed them to the main office on a side street off of Seventh Avenue a few blocks from downtown. The building was unmarked without even an address. Six inch posts circled the building, rising four feet in the air and placed about three feet apart. From the look of the posts, a tank could not have gotten past them. Finding the front door locked, Jack pushed a doorbell and waited. A voice from an intercom said, “Yes.”

“I’m Deputy Jack Bryant. We’re investigating a shooting that took place two nights ago. It appears that the shooter was driving one of your panel trucks.”

“Just a minute.”

“The door opened and a gargantuan man invited them into a small reception area with another door, leading back to the main work areas. The man who opened the door asked for some identification. Jack flashed his badge quickly enough that he did not notice that Jack was a reserve deputy. When he handed the man a piece of paper with the license number on it, the man picked up a reception phone and called to the back.

“That license is one of ours. That’s all the information I can provide you without a subpoena.”

When they returned to the house, J.D. said he would check the information on the thumb drive.

Jack shook his head. “J.D., you’re a better computer sleuth. See what you can find out about FBS. I’ll check out the rest.”

J.D. spent the rest of the afternoon tracking information. Colby supplied them with sandwiches and sodas. As the sun was dropping below the horizon, J.D. came bounding down the stairs. “I’ve got it, Dad. I had to trace back through several dummy corporations, including some off shore, but I’m certain I’m right. Quillen owns Federal Bank Security.”

Jack got up from his computer and stretched his fingers. “And I think I can top that. The sweet little receptionist gave us a lot more than we asked for. We got the Allison Southwest dead peasant policies on a spread sheet. I’ve confirmed that what J.D. found was correct. Every one of the violent deaths was an Allison employee with a dead peasant policy. Colby, that includes Rob.

J.D. drove his fist into the air. “Yes!” he exclaimed. Colby breathed a sigh of relief.

“Wait, it gets better. Once I got past the Allison Southwest employees, and, by the way, there was a red “X” beside the ones who had died, I found more. Quillen has fifteen other bank clients who have dead peasant policies on their employees. None of them individually are as big as Allison Southwest, but I found twenty-three names with the same red “X” beside them. They’re scattered all over ten states. Then I went to the Social Security website and those twenty-three are all dead. It doesn’t say how they died, but does anyone want to place a small wager that they were unexplained violent deaths?’

“Shit, Dad, what are you saying?”

“I think we’ve been barking up the wrong tree. Allison’s business ethics are damn marginal with all those dead peasant policies, but I don’t think he’s the killer. Quillen Bank and Trust is in deep shit. Quillen picked up the idea of dead peasant policies from Allison years ago. Then it looks like it became standard operating procedure for his bank. If you want a loan, you take out these policies. When Quillen started getting in trouble because of Allison’s non-payment, and he started getting squeezed by the mortgage lawsuits that Jacob and I filed, he needed money and he needed it fast.”

Colby’s eyes glistened. “That means it wasn’t Allison. I knew he couldn’t have tried to kill me. I knew it.”

“Tomorrow ought to be a most interesting day. I’m going back to work. I need to outline questions for Allison and Quillen. Now, I think I know why Allison is insisting on testifying, even if he has to get out of a hospital bed to do it.”

Later that evening J.D. burst through the doorway between the man cave and the dining room. “Dad, the feds just closed one of Quillen’s banks. The newscaster says it may be the first of many. Quillen was not available for comment.”

“Well, isn’t that an interesting turn of events .”

“What are we going to do, Dad? What if Quillen doesn’t show up tomorrow?”

Jack walked over to the back door to his collection of canes. He sorted through them until he found the one he wanted. “I think you and I better take a little drive over to Shady Oaks. Grab a couple of bottles of water. We’re going to watch Quillen’s place for a while.”

Jack parked Lucille a half a block down the street, in the darkness between two street lights, and waited. J.D. spent the hours texting Tanya and then his teammates, encouraging them to run up a big score. After all, they were going for a national championship. Jack was content to drink his water and watch the street for any signs of activity. It was getting close to midnight when Jack saw a truck approaching in the rear view mirror. “Put down that phone, Son. There’s a white panel truck coming up from our rear.”