Promissory Payback (3 page)

“Yes. Quite ironic, Detective.”

“Tell me a little about your conversation with Carolyn.”

“Oh, we didn't talk. When I saw it was Carolyn calling on my little caller ID thingy, I didn't pick up. I wanted to see my program. I figured I'd just come over here this morning.”

“I see. So, there wasn't urgency in Carolyn's voice-mail message?”

She thought about the question, seemingly detached. “Yes, there was. Quite
a lot
of urgency actually.”

“But she didn't tell you why she needed to talk to you?”

Laura's eyes skirted the carpet as if she were memorizing the pattern in the nap. “No.”

“Is there any way I can come to your house and hear Carolyn's message?”

“Oh, I erased it, dear. I erase all my messages the minute they come in. But it was a very simple message. She said, ‘I need you to come over here a.s.a.p.' She liked to say ‘a.s.a.p.' a lot.”

Jane knew the next question was probably pointless, but she went for it anyway. “Did you hear any other voices or sounds on the recording?”

“Voices? No. Why would I hear voices on her recording ? Oh, dear. I probably shouldn't have erased it, should
I? I'm sorry. But, you know, I wasn't about to jump to attention with her like I usually do. I wanted to see my program.”

Jump to attention.
Interesting choice of words. “Right. Your program.”

“It was on the Family Channel. Do you watch that channel, Detective?”

Jane looked at the sweet, cherubic face of Mrs. Abernathy and wondered why in the fuck she would think that someone like Jane watched the Family Channel
.
“Not recently,” Jane replied.

“Oh,
you should
! It's
so
uplifting to the spirit! This particular show was ‘Sharing of the Heart.' It was all about people traveling the world finding what needs to be fixed or changed and making it happen!
Very inspirational
.”

Jesus Christ
, Jane thought. Her oldest friend in the world is stiff as a board on a bed not twenty feet away and she's yammering on about The Family Channel and people fixing the problems in this world
.
“Inspirational.”

“'Be the change you want to see in this world.'” Laura said with a soft smile, echoing a quote from Gandhi.

Be the fucking change
, Jane mused. She needed to quickly change the subject before Laura tried to sign her up for a peace march. “So you came by this morning?”

“Yes,” Laura replied, her face shadowing with sadness.

“How did you get in the house?”

“I have a key. When Carolyn goes away, I come over and water her plants and pick up her mail. Sometimes I dust.”

Sometimes I dust
? Jesus! The relationship was now clearly defined for Jane. Laura was Carolyn's dependable doormat. “And you saw nothing out of place?”

“No. Nothing.” She leaned to the side to catch another glimpse of Carolyn's dead body. “Until I got . . .up here ...”

Jane moved her chair once again to block Laura's view. “Was the alarm set?”

Laura settled back in her chair, fatigue beginning to show. “Excuse me?”

“The security system? Was it set?”

“Yes. I know the code. I have one minute from the time I enter to get to the keypad and punch in the five numbers that disable it. Same thing in reverse when I leave. Punch in the code and I have one minute to leave.”

“What are those numbers?” Jane asked.

“I can't remember. It's based on a word. That's how Carolyn set it up.”

“And what's that word, Laura?”

She seemed embarrassed as she leaned forward and quietly revealed the answer. “M-O-N-E-Y.”

The rest of the interview, Laura fretted that someone needed to contact Carolyn's only next of kin—her forty-year-old nephew, Joe Harvey—who was out of town in California “talking to a charity.” Jane found his phone number in Carolyn's Rolodex and made the call. It was another facet of her job that she didn't excel in. But what was unusual about her quick chat with Joe Harvey was that she got the impression Carolyn's nephew wasn't surprised by the news. “I'm in California on business, but I'll get a plane out today,” he told her, sounding rather inconvenienced by his aunt's murder.

Laura was fingerprinted to exclude any prints of hers in the house. She seemed to like the attention she was getting from one of the cops. After her prints were taken, she asked the “nice policeman” who had patiently stood
by her side to please take her home. Another cop would follow behind in Laura's old car. Jane thought how Laura looked like a playful pixie as she exited the room, her arm hooked under the “nice policeman's” elbow.

Jane sidled up to Weyler who was talking quietly with a crime scene tech. “Where are the security tapes?”

“They're working on that downstairs,” Weyler replied. Jane stared at Carolyn as a tech took close-up shots of the urine stain and feces next to her body. How far can a person fall to end up like this—having their piss and shit photographed? Fucking humiliating, Jane thought.

But that was all part of this ritualistic murder scene. Humiliation. Revenge. Shock. Suffering.
Karma
. People may not remember how you live, but they sure as hell remember how you died if your death was graphic. She turned to Weyler. “Have them copy as much as possible from the tapes that goes beyond last night. I want to see if she's had any visitors.”

Jane wrapped up what she could in the bedroom and walked downstairs. She needed a smoke badly. But before she exited the house, she ducked into a small alcove just off the entryway by the table that displayed the odoriferous lilies. One of the techno wizards from DH was reviewing the tapes. “Nothing so far,” he offered Jane with a shake of his head. She was about to head out when she noticed a small digital clock on the security panel that housed the two video screens. It displayed 2:00 AM. Jane checked her cell phone. It was 9:30 AM.

“Shouldn't this be the current time?” Jane asked.

The techie agreed, suggesting that there might have been a power glitch since the video he viewed so far showed the correct marker time on the screen. “Once the
power goes back on, this clock is set up to start back at 12:00 until it's manually reset.”

Jane meandered into the large, chic kitchen and checked the digital time on the stylish oven. It read the current time. Searching further in the house, Jane found another digital clock on a table in dining area. Again, there was the current time. The S.O.S. Security System seemed to be the only unit in the house that had a timing glitch. How convenient.

Jane knew it would take at least a couple days before the Medical Examiner would determine Carolyn's C.O.D. and what was in her system at the time of death. But Jane wasn't about to wait for the M.E.'s report. She needed the names of the investors Carolyn had seemingly conned and the person who might be able to enlighten her was Joe Harvey. After talking to him again on her cell that day, they arranged to meet at his office the next morning.

Harvey owned a downtown Denver consulting firm in a two-story building that incorporated the industrial design that was so popular lately. To Jane, the steel columns and grey-themed palette reminded her of a prison complex. But when she was greeted by the soft splash of water emitting from the indoor koi pond in the lobby and later by the hiss of a handsome cappuccino machine, the prison motif was quickly eradicated. Across the walls of the lobby were more than two-dozen plaques and embossed commendations to Harvey, all pertaining to charitable
groups he either directly helped or aided through people who consulted with him. The groups ranged from Veterans associations and hospitals to Habitat for Humanity building programs. Above the plaques were the words
BRINGING PEOPLE IN NEED TOGETHER
in block letters. Carolyn's only next of kin looked like the ultimate networking kingpin.

Harvey greeted Jane in a rushed manner and led her back to his small office. He was all business and seemed like a man with far too much on his plate, mumbling about how he was waiting for a conference call and he hadn't had much sleep. She sat down and offered her usual line to open up the communication.

“I'm sorry for your loss, Mr. Harvey.”

“Call me Joe. And don't be sorry.” That was the second time Jane's rote statement had been summarily shunned. “Look, I don't mean to be rude or insensitive but my aunt was a despicable human being.” He sat down, fuming under the surface. “She lived like a queen off the sweat of her four, wealthy ex-husbands. Going without was not something Aunt Carolyn was into. She
never
gave a dime to help another human being, no matter how desperate they were. Entitlement was her goddamn birthright. She expected everyone to do for her, but she wouldn't do for them! So, excuse me, but her death is no loss to me.”

“In other words, you crossed her off your Christmas card list?”

Joe was taken aback by Jane's acerbic retort. “Yes. Very much so.”

Jane quickly sized up Joe. He was a tightly wound, intense, no nonsense guy who found his redemption in helping other people. You don't sport the theme-statement,
BRINGING PEOPLE IN NEED TOGETHER
,
in your lobby for shits and grins. But he also had no sense of humor, Jane surmised. His intensity of purpose prevented wit from shading his life. It was a common side effect she'd noticed of those who dedicated their life to service. It was as though they believed laughter would take away from the seriousness of their endeavors. “So, let's cut to the chase, Joe. Do you know who killed your aunt?”

Joe shrugged his shoulders. “I'm sure a lot of people would want to bump her off !”

“Right. People she owed money to. Do you have those names?”

Joe turned his head to the left and let out a sigh. He absentmindedly fiddled with a red envelope on his cluttered desk. “I have no idea.”

Laura Abernathy seemed to have a better bead on Carolyn's unpaid investors than her nephew. “Laura Abernathy said there were three individuals. All in for fifty thousand?”

He looked at Jane somewhat surprised, tension lacing his lips. “Is that right? Three? Fifty thousand?” He leaned back. “Well, I guess my aunt disclosed more to her—”

“Have you and Mrs. Abernathy talked?”

“No. I saw her briefly at Aunt Carolyn's house a couple months ago—”

“She got a voicemail from your aunt the night before the murder. Laura said Carolyn's voice sounded ‘urgent.' You have any idea what that might be about?”

He tapped his pencil against the desk. “Knowing my Aunt Carolyn, it could be anything from a stubbed toe to a dripping faucet.”

“Which one did you usually respond to?”

Joe looked at Jane, slightly appalled. “Her faucet had to be busted before I'd show up. I learned my lesson well, Detective. That woman never figured out that the world didn't exist for her amusement or needs!”

“I need the investors' names. Based on the way your aunt was found, it looks like an unhappy investor was involved in her demise.”

Joe pinched the skin between his nostrils. “Yeah, yeah. I heard.” He looked like he was trying to shake the image from his head. “Graphic, wasn't it?”

Jane watched him closely. “So, Joe. Do you have those names?”

As if on cue, Joe turned his head again to the left, exactly as he had done when Jane asked him the same question not thirty seconds before. And then, like clockwork, he touched the same red envelope on his desk.
Tells
. The body gives us all away with those physical and sometimes verbal
tells
. Jane casually glanced to the wall where Joe's attention seemed to be leaning. There were four photos. Two photos featured grade-school children. Another showed Joe shaking hands with a road-ravaged Vietnam Vet and, in the other, a thin gentleman in his fifties who was on crutches.

“No earthly idea,” he said, avoiding Jane's glare. Another
tell
.

Jane glanced at Joe's business card. It was a simple white card with grey lettering above his name that read
Founded on Trust—Sustained on Trust
. To Jane, putting the word “trust” twice on your card spoke volumes. “Nice slogan,” Jane said, pointing to the card.

“That's not a slogan, Detective,” Joe replied somewhat insulted. “That's the way I live my life and run my
business.” He leaned back in his broken-in, inexpensive desk chair, tapping the eraser tip of a pencil against the layers of papers that cluttered his modest desk. “Without trust,
you have nothing
. I built a reputation on that and I'm proud of it.”

Yes, there was that singleness of purpose. “What exactly do you do?”

“I consult with companies and nonprofit groups as to how they can connect with likeminded individuals and create win-win outcomes.”

Well, that sentence wouldn't fit on his card, Jane thought. “Why?” Jane asked, catching Joe off guard.

“What do you mean, ‘why'?” Joe looked stunned.

Jane decided to play devil's advocate. She didn't have to, but she liked pissing off people like Joe Harvey who were puffed up with self-importance. “Why is it so important for you to help people? What do
you
get out of it?”

Joe seriously considered her question. “My late mother was Carolyn's sister. As rich as Carolyn was, it never trickled down to us. But the one thing that was driven into my head was that it didn't matter how much money you had—the most important thing in life was your word.” He leaned forward, mindlessly playing with a paper clip as he spoke. “A man can own all the riches, but he's as good as a pauper if his word isn't his bond. I saw so many people growing up who had nothing, and I knew there
had
to be a way to attract people in need to people with means to help.” Joe discarded the paper clip and gave his full attention to Jane. “There is no reason for people in this world to suffer needlessly.”