Death in Her Eyes (A Mac Everett Mystery Book 1) (27 page)

“Stan, look I have to go. I’ll call you right back.” I hung up and grabbed my binoculars. Nancy hadn’t wanted comfort food after all. That was another lie. She came sprinting out of the restaurant talking on her phone scarcely fifteen minutes behind me.

I watched her walk to her car. Even though she was moving quickly, I could still read her lips and what I saw sent a chill through me. She jumped in a red Nissan GT-R and was gone like a shot. I tried to follow her, but she hit I-75 and was out of sight before I could get on her tail. I knew what she was going to do, but not where she was going. I decided to call Stan back.

“Sgt. Lee, Homicide,” he said.

“Stan, its Mac. Sorry about that, I’m was following someone, but I lost them. I have some information for you.”

“What now?”

“Dr. Sharon Greer was the director of the Perimeter Marine Institute, that’s…”

“Yeah, so” Stan interrupted.

“When she was fired, they were missing vials of tetrodotoxin.”

“Wow, that’s amazing,” Stan mumbled. “How would you have come by this information?”

Stan could be an ass when he was mad, but I let it go.

“I just talked to a former employee and she gave me the lowdown.”

“Is she credible?”

I ignored his question.

“Sharon Greer ran the place when they used the tetrodotoxin. There was an allegation of misappropriation of funds, but it looks like that never went anywhere. Mrs. Hunt and Greer knew each other and...” I paused for effect, “Greer was Stephanie Hunt’s mystery lover.”

There was silence on the phone. I could almost see Stan’s stunned expression.

“Mac if you’re messing with me so help me…”

“I’m serious Stan. Greer was possessive about Stephanie Hunt. They lived together while they were in college. Mrs. Hunt had a long-standing affair with Greer.”

“That means both the Hunts were having affairs,” Stan said.

I’d known that for a while, but it was new information to Stan.

“Yep, that’s right. Can you do a nationwide criminal history check on Greer? I checked Florida and got nothing, but supposedly, she has an arrest for aggravated assault in New York. I think we might have a lead on our killer,” I said. “Also check the hospitals. Greer and Mrs. Hunt got in a fight several months ago. Mrs. Hunt supposedly ended up in the ER. I don’t know exactly when or which hospital.”

“If this witness is credible…”

“I think she is, but she could be seen as having an ax to grind so it might look bad to a jury.” I made a lame excuse for Nancy Cameron and left out that three quarters of what she told me was bunk. “We need corroboration and I think I know how to get it.”

“What do you have in mind?” he asked.

I ignored his question again. I knew he’d try to stop me. “Can you check to see if there was ever a report of theft, fraud, or maybe embezzlement at Perimeter Marine?”

“Yeah, that won’t take long.”

“Good, let me know what you find. Are you going to be able to get that warrant for Greer’s home?”

“I think so,” Stan admitted. “Where are you? The reception it terrible.”

“I’m near Bradenton,” I replied. “Can you use me as a confidential informant, or do you need the name of my witness?”

“You’ll do as a CI for now, but I’ll need that name eventually,” he replied.

“And you’ll have it. The hospital records and the embezzlement may be corroboration too.”

I hoped we’d could things wrapped up without Dr. Nancy Cameron. Her minimal acquaintance with the truth would be a major problem in court.

“Yeah it might,” he said. “Stay by your phone in case the judge wants to talk to you.”

“I’m in the car. Where am I going to go?”

“Very funny.”

“Where should I meet you, Stan?”

“Why don’t you head for your office? I’ll get to work on the warrant. If I get it, I’ll call you. We’ll hit Greer’s house.”

“Stan, Greer could be there too,” I said.

“Got it.”

I felt I was close to solving the mystery. I was putting the pieces together, but whether the jigsaw came out looking like the box cover was an open question. I was still running ideas through my head when it occurred to me Cameron must have abducted Greer. Maybe she was trying to get Greer to give up the missing blackmail money. I had no idea where to look for them.

I thought about it for a few minutes and had nothing. Another idea flashed in my head and I dialed Charlie Ross. He answered on the third ring.

“Hi ya Mac how’s my best client,” he said. “What kind of trouble are you in now?”

“I’m not in any new trouble, if that’s what you mean. I have a couple legal questions for you. You do civil work, right?”

“Yeah, what’s up, you want to sue somebody?”

“Hypothetically if a lawyer advised or represented both sides of a law suit…”

“It’s a matter of conflict of interest. There’s nothing keeping an attorney from representing both sides in a matter if he discloses his conflict and both parties agree to the representation, but a lawyer may not act as an advocate in one matter against a person the lawyer represents in some other matter, even when the matters are wholly unrelated.”

“OK, I think I understand that. What if a lawyer conspires to manufacture a situation where a suit is brought?”

“That’s different. You used the word conspire. Did the matter at issue ever happen?”

“I think so,” I said.

“Well you and I have attorney-client privilege. Why don’t you tell me what’s going on instead of playing twenty hypothetical questions?”

“Alright, you win. Ashton Hunt represented a woman in a sexual harassment suit. There was a big judgment in the case.”

“That’s unusual. Was the person fired too?”

“Yeah she was,” I replied.

“Employers are unlikely to settle a claim they’re convinced they could beat in court,” Charlie said. “When a sexual harassment complaint goes to trial, there is usually a wrongful termination claim too. Awards are generally small in these cases, unless there are multiple plaintiffs or egregious behavior. An award is generally based on the duration and severity of the sexual harassment and the long-term effect of the inappropriate behavior.”

“I think the whole thing was a set up to make money and have the alleged harasser fired,” I said. “Ashton knew both the plaintiff and the defendant and they had mutual friends.”

“Do you have any proof of this?”

“It’s circumstantial at this point, but I think it’s tied into the blackmail and murder I’ve been working. Can you nose around the Federal courthouse and see if you can dig up anything on Ashton Hunt, Nancy Cameron, or Sharon Greer…”

“Hold it. I need to write this down. Nancy, spell Cameron,--- Sharon Greer, who else?’

“Ashton Hunt and Perimeter Marine Research- that’s the name of the company. It’s connected to Ocean World.”

“I know the General Counsel at Ocean World,” Charlie said. “I could see if he could tell me anything about the case.”

“Would you,” I asked. “That would be great.”

“It’s Saturday, but I think I can reach him. If I learn anything, do you want me to call you back or wait till tomorrow?”

“Call me tonight if you get anything.”

“OK, Mac. Will do.”

I was glad I had Charlie Ross in my corner. He was a good guy.

I was twenty miles south of the airport when Stan called.

“We are still working on the warrant,” he said. “The judge had questions about the probable cause. It just gets harder and harder to use a confidential informant as the PC source. We need more.”

“Did you get the DNA back on those cigarette butts?” I asked.

“No, not yet. We could sure use it now.”

“Can you check some phone records?”

“Sure, give me the numbers,” he said.

I told him what I read on Cameron’s lips as she went to her car. She’d said, ‘We’ll do it tonight- kill both of them.’ I assumed she meant me, but wasn’t sure about the other victim. I guessed it was Greer, but had no idea where to find her. I gave him the phone numbers for Cameron, Greer, and Ashton.

“I don’t know who she was talking to. You have those numbers?”

“Sure do. Ah, who was she putting a hit on?”

“Who do you think?”

“Why don’t you come over to my office? We can baby sit you until this is straightened out.”

“I’ve got things to do,” I said. “You find these people, Stan. Get them off the street.”

“We will find the tetrodotoxin on Greer won’t we?”

“I believe you will, Stan. I just hope you find her alive. I’m going home. Call me when you wrap things up.”

“OK Mac, will do,” he said. “Watch yourself.”

I didn’t tell him I was painting a target on my back.

I hoped Nancy Cameron’s phone number would prove to be a link to Greer. Stan could get his warrants and close his case, but his piece was going to take some time. I had another idea and all I needed to do was make a couple phone calls.

There comes time in a case when intuition is your only choice. The solution comes to you and you don’t know how or why. Sometimes the answer is what you expected and sometimes it’s a surprise. I was sure I was in for the biggest surprise of my life.

My thoughts focused on what Nancy had said. Aston had been there when the toxin disappeared. She knew about Sharon Greer’s penchant for knives, and her assault arrest. She knew about Greer’s offer to hire me, maybe she was behind it. She knew about the twenty-five million and Sharon’s affair with Stephanie. She knew about it all and I didn’t want to think about the final maybe.
What could I believe
?

When the phone rang, I was surprised to see it was Charlie Ross calling me back already.

“Hey Charlie,” I said.

“Mac, I’ve got some information for you. I spoke to my friend. He was anxious to talk about it, if there’s a chance of getting a new hearing. The jury awarded a $250,000 settlement to Dr. Nancy Cameron and punitive damages of $1 million. The awards were based on Dr. Cameron’s description of ongoing harassment and an instance of sexual violence. He and his team were convinced that Dr. Cameron wasn’t telling the truth, but they had no way to dispute her testimony. Even their forensic psychiatrist couldn’t shake her story.”

“Thanks Charlie. That’s good information. Did your friend say why they didn’t believe Dr. Cameron’s story?”

“He said it was just intuition. He had no actual evidence, but he and his team were sure she was lying.”

“Charlie, if this works out. Your friend may get his new hearing. I’ll talk to you tomorrow. Thank you.”

I had all the facts I needed. I just needed something called evidence. As I drove the last few miles home, I watched in the review mirror as distant lightning lit up the western sky. There was storm brewing closer to home too. I knew what I had to do and how I’d have to do it.

“Hi Ashton,” I said when she answered the phone.

“I told you not to call anymore,” she asserted. “Isn’t it enough I got Daddy to give you a job?” she said in a frosty tone. “We can’t see each other again.”

“I know,” I explained, “but we have some unfinished business.”

“I thought we agreed you’d drop everything. I don’t want to know any more.”

“Yeah you do, besides I have a job to finish. Afterward, I can turn it all over to Ward Barber.”

“Can’t you tell me what you have to say over the phone?” she said.

“Not really. There’s a lot to it. You paid me well to run this down. I owe you a full disclosure.”

There was silence on the line, and then she breathed a sigh of frustration “All right. I can be at your place in an hour,” she conceded.

“I’ll be waiting. See you then.”

Ashton hadn’t balked. I hoped what I was thinking was all wrong. I made one more call as I drove to the office.

A boisterous Saturday night crowd kept Dave busy behind the bar so he didn’t see me wave. Once up stairs, I crossed the office in the dark and made a beeline for my desk. I sat down, clicked on the lamp, and opened the bottom right drawer. There, next to a bottle of Old Overholt was my Beretta and the newly acquired Bersa Thunder .380 pocket pistol.

I grabbed the .380 from the drawer, checked the magazine, thumbed off the safety, and slipped the little semi auto into my waistband at the small of my back. I left the drawer open leaving the Beretta within easy reach. The bottle of rye was nearly empty, maybe a snort or two, but enough. I set up two glasses, split the last pour between them, and put the two shots in the center of the desk. I leaned back, put my feet on the desk to wait in the green glow of the desk lamp. The two shots of rye were screaming my name.

When the buzzer sounded forty-five minutes later, the two glasses were still untouched. Without a word, I unlocked the street level entrance. A few moments later, Ashton breezed through the door in a lacy yellow figure-hugging dress, as if nothing was wrong. She stood just inside the doorway. Her green eyes sparkled in the pale light, but it was hard to notice anything but her sultry figure. The sleek mini-dress’s fabric shimmered as she moved. It flaunted her assets, clinging to every curve from cleavage to upper thigh. The V-neck plunged to her navel, a single strap over her left shoulder seemed to defy gravity, and an oval cutout over her right hip competed for my attention with a metalwork pendant dangling between her melons. The dress was super short and left nothing to the imagination. She may as well have been naked and I’d take bets, underneath she was. She’d capped the outfit with a small yellow bag and matching stiletto heels that made her legs seem even longer than they were. She was dressed to kill and I was the intended victim.

“I interrupt your evening of clubbing?” I asked.

“Not yet,” she replied.

“I’ve seen that style on TV,” I commented. “It sure looks good on you. What’s it called?”

“It’s called body-con, but you didn’t ask me here to see what I was wearing, or did you? You sounded so serious on the phone. What’s up?”

“What’s that mean, body-con? I thought that was strictly for girls gone wild.”

“As if you’d know, it’s a body conscious dress – see body-con. The big name designers show them now. This dress emphasizes the body’s contours, but not everyone can pull off wearing it. It’s a trendy style, at least the name designer ones are.”

She tugged a bit at the hem, as if it would make a difference. The dress fit like a glove, a size too small.

“It sure is, but you have the body and the confidence to pull it off. I bet you can pull off just about anything.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” she said. “Can we get on with this? I don’t have all night.”

“Really?” I asked. “The last couple times you were here I thought you wanted to stay all night. You got me all hot and bothered. That’s what you’re trying to do now, isn’t it?”

“Come off it, Mac,” she said, “get on with it.”

“I’ve got a final report on your brother’s case.”

“Ah, why’s it so dark in here?” she took a couple steps closer. “Now I see. I’m glad we’re breaking up. You’re drinking again.”

“Breaking up, that’s rich, as if we were ever together. No, I’m not drinking. I’m thinking about drinking. I do that a lot. This is the last of it,” I pointed to the empty bottle on the desk “the last dead soldier.”

“You live over a bar. How can you say that’s the last of it?”

“I thought we’d share a drink. You know, have a taste from the same barrel together. What’d you say?”

“I don’t like that crap you drink,” she said.

“Don’t be a wet blanket. Come on over and sit down Ashton. Make yourself comfortable. You’ve been comfortable here a few times.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Come on, take a seat.”

“This dress is made for standing, how about that report,” she replied. A hint of defiance had crept into her voice.

“Suit yourself.” I pounded back one of the shots and savored the feeling as the rough liquor burned all the way down. This could be my last drink. “Well, my report,” I began, “you see, I couldn’t put my finger on what was wrong. I sort of went on the wagon after I met your father. He shamed me into it, probably without meaning to, but I just couldn’t get a handle on this mess. Then it got bigger, the bodies piled up and I was nowhere closer to finding answers. For a while, I thought it was
because
I wasn’t drinking. Then it came to me. It was something Nancy Cameron said. It got me thinking of you.”

“You talked to her? You told daddy you were dropping everything.”

“I lied,” I said, “but you knew that. You talked to her right after I did.”

Ashton’s eyes flared and her eyebrows shot up for a moment. I knew I was right.

“No I didn’t,” she argued. Her eyes darted to the right, a lie.

“Ashton, that’s not true, but we’ll let that go for now,” I conceded. “See, Nancy said a lot, but only a thimble full of it was true. The more I thought about what she’d said, the more I began to see the way she’d shaded everything. It only made sense if you were involved. I’m sure giving me
that
idea wasn’t part of the plan.”

“What plan? I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”

“I’m sure you do. It started with a casual remark. You met your client, Nancy Cameron, at a party given by one of Stephanie Hunt’s friends. You were there and so was Sharon Greer. Maybe you put them together. What’s it called when people work together, collusion? When it’s a criminal matter, it’s called conspiracy.”

“I represent a lot of friends,” she said.

“You told me you didn’t know Sharon Greer or Stephanie’s friends, but you went to their parties. You had to have met them.”

“Ah, well Nancy Cameron isn’t a friend,” she objected.

“Oh, I’m sure she is now with that big judgment you got for her. How much of it did you get? You took a big risk suborning perjury,” I replied.

Ashton shot daggers at me, but the cues were there. “I never…”

I held up one hand to cut off her pathetic denial.

“When I realized you knew both sides in that lawsuit, I took another look at the order of events. I started to see how you might fit into things, but I couldn’t figure the motive.”

I picked up my white board and showed her my timeline. “It’s all here. I just couldn’t see it… because of you.”

“You must be drunk, you’re talking nonsense. So what if I knew both Nancy and Sharon? I disclosed my potential conflict of interest. Stephanie introduced us.”

One point for the good guys, she admitted something
, I thought. Now if I could just get her to cop to more.

“Conflict of interest isn’t the problem, but we’ll come back to that too. No, you see I remembered something else, something that put a whole new spin on this mess. I remembered your face when your father said he’d paid Greer
$25 million
. That’s a bundle of change in any man’s language. You weren’t shocked he’d paid, you were surprised by the
amount
.”

“What are you talking about,” she said as she came a few steps closer. She moved her bag to her left hand. I thought I knew what was in it, but hoped I was wrong.

“Sit down, sweetie, sit down, and have a drink with me,” I said.

“Get on with it, I’m not staying.”

“Your father picked a boozehound for a patsy and you fell right in line. Did you get the idea from him? What was it he said ‘your hands weren’t clean’. I didn’t understand what he meant, until this afternoon. Yeah, he used me, but you, you worked me over. You chewed me up and spit me out.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You, damn it,” I said swinging my feet off the desk. I kicked the bottle and it clattered to the floor and rolled out of sight. “I’m talking about you. You used me, and everyone else mixed up in this caper, you even used your father and brother, but I don’t understand why.”

“You’re crazy.”

“I’m seeing you for what you really are,” I said. “I can sense the truth in people through their eyes; it’s a sort of sixth sense for the truth. Did you know that? I watch people’s bodies, look in their eyes and I see truth. It’s a gift of sorts. After meeting you, I’ve learned I have to look at people’s actions too.”

I’d spent a lot of time with this woman, but I’d missed the cues. The trick was she never actually lied to me until this morning at her father’s place. So much of what had passed between us had been unsaid, and I hadn’t asked the right questions. I couldn’t see her lies and deceit because she never spoke the words.

She let lose a haughty laugh. “You’re making this up as you go along,” she said. “I fell in love with you. I still love you.”

She was right. I was making it up on the fly. I was dizzy from twists and turns in this case. It even had me turned around for a while, but as for love, well that was a different story. It was all in her lovely green eyes.

“Maybe you want to love me, but you already love something else more than you could ever love me - money.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You’re behind this whole mess,” I said. “You’ve plotted and manipulated your way through a stack of bodies - all for money.”

The fear I read in her dilated pupils told me I was right.

“Come on Mac,” she said in a shaky voice. “You can’t expect me to stand here and listen to you…”

“Shut up,” I shouted. I smacked the desk with my open hand. “You’ll listen and listen good.”

“OK,” she said. “I’m listening.” She crossed her arms and thrust her right leg forward. Waiting. Defiant.

“The lawsuit started things off. Let’s start there,” I said.

“I can’t talk about that, Mac, there’s a gag order on that case,” she said as she straightened her dress.

“No there isn’t. I got the low down on it less than an hour ago,” I replied.

I could feel her confusion as she wondered where I was getting all this. Her shoulders had slumped and she held her hands low in front of her. She knew the jig was up, but didn’t understand why.

“Mac, you can’t believe…”

“I told you to listen,” I chided. “You’re an expert in employment law. You would know the only kind of sexual harassment case that wins big involves wrongful termination
and
‘egregious circumstances’. Claiming there was a rape would fit that wouldn’t it? There was no rape. You and Nancy Cameron cooked that up.”

“No, Mac, that’s not true,” she insisted.

Her words said no she didn’t, but her body language and her eyes said,
oh, yes I did
.

“You concocted the phony lawsuit with Nancy Cameron. Cameron’s rape claim made it a cinch Ocean World would settle. They made a good offer, but you took it to all the way to a verdict trying to squeeze out every penny.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” she insisted.

“Sharon Greer lost her job. That’s pretty tough on someone who owes over $48,000 in gambling debts.”

Her jaw dropped.

“How did you know?”

“Does your father know how much
you
owe your bookie?”

“You have to believe me, I didn’t…”

“Save it, the only thing worse than a compulsive gambler is a drunk. I guess you and I have those bases covered.”

Her lower lip quivered and her face and chest were flushed. It’s hell to get caught.

“The money you made off the lawsuit only put a dent in your tab with Luck Taylor, so you had to come up with a new scam. Is that why you killed him?”

“Mac, I didn’t mean for anyone to get hurt.” She was pleading with me now. Her face was slack and her eyes were dead. She knew there was nowhere to hide. I’d seen that look too many times before.

“Was it Nancy Cameron’s idea to lie about the rape or yours?”

“It was Nancy. She only told me she’d made the story up after the trial. I swear I didn’t know before.”