Dead Broke in Jarrett Creek: A Samuel Craddock Mystery (Samuel Craddock Mysteries) (24 page)

Cookie Travers says she’s swamped trying to straighten out matters Gary Dellmore left behind, but she’ll make time for me on her lunch break. While I sit in the lobby to wait, I notice that Darla Rodriguez has come back to work. I mention that to Cookie when we sit down to talk.

“She has. But if I have my way, it won’t be long before she’s looking for a job.” We’re sitting in a small, empty conference room with no windows, off the room where the safety deposit boxes are kept. Cookie has spread a napkin on the table and brought out sliced tomatoes and deviled eggs in plastic containers. Diet food. She offers me some, but I tell her I’ve already eaten.

“Darla seems to have brought Gabe down a notch or two, and that can’t be a bad thing,” I say. We both laugh. “Why do you want to fire her?”

Cookie takes her time answering. “I don’t trust her. Ever since she started up this thing with Gabe LoPresto, I’ve thought she was playing with him. I just don’t understand why. I suppose that’s really not enough reason to fire somebody. And now that Gary’s gone, maybe she’ll straighten up.”

“What do you mean?”

“She and Gary were thick as thieves. She was always in his office or they’d be whispering off in a corner. I got the impression they were up to something, but I don’t know what. And then she took up with Gabe.” She throws her hands up. “It’s a mystery to me.”

“I know you’re pinched for time,” I say. “The reason I’m here is that I want to ask you about some of Gary’s bank business.”

“I’ll help if I can. What do you need?”

“I found some files in the trunk of Gary’s car, and in going through them to see if they might give me some idea of what he was working on—anything that might have gotten him killed—I ran across something troubling. It looks like Gary might’ve been involved in some shady dealings having to do with the water park that was supposed to be built.”

She puts the tomato container down and goes still. “What kind of shady dealings?”

“Gary might’ve done more than arrange the loan. He might have conspired with someone to have the city put up money for the park even though he knew Liberty Water Park was in financial trouble.”

“Oh, my Lord. If Alan heard that, it would kill him.”

“How much did Alan know about this water park deal? I imagine there’s going to be a lawsuit against the company. I talked to Jenny Sandstone last night. She thinks that if Alan didn’t know what Gary was up to, we can keep him out of the legal proceedings personally. But I need some assurance that it was done without his knowledge. I’ll talk to him, too, of course, but I wanted to get your take on it first.”

Her eyes are smoldering. “Alan would never do anything like that. He’ll be humiliated when he finds this out.” Her voice is like steel. “You know, the only reason Alan hired Gary is because he felt sorry for him after his father-in-law’s business failed.”

“Speaking of that,” I say, “I heard a fairly reliable rumor that Gary had something to do with the failure.”

Cookie draws a breath like she’s about to speak, but then she hesitates. Finally she says, “Barbara is a friend of mine and I don’t know how much she knows, so I wouldn’t want it noised around… oh, never mind. I know you’ll keep what I say confidential.” She lowers her voice as if the walls have ears. “Gary pushed Mike Johnson into expanding his business at a time when money was tight. Alan told me at the time that he wished Gary would stop playing around with Mike’s business, but nobody could ever tell Gary anything. He was always cocky; always thought he knew better than anybody else. He went ahead with the expansion and they got overextended and the business went under.” Her voice is trembling.

Like Cookie, I wonder how much of this Barbara knew. She’s sharp, and it’s hard for me to believe that somewhere along the line she didn’t find out that Gary had a hand in her father’s failure. She had more than enough reasons to be furious with Gary. I’m wondering how far she could be pushed before she’d had enough.

I also wonder how much money Gary made from putting together those loans for his father-in-law’s business. “Did Citizens Bank loan the money to Mike Johnson?”

Cookie nods.

“That was before Gary worked here, so who arranged the loans?”

“I was supposed to handle them, but Gary went over my head to Alan.” She picks up the lids and snaps them sharply onto the plastic containers. Then she looks me straight in the eye. “But don’t even suggest to me that Alan knew those loans were too much for Mike. Gary was in charge of the whole thing from Mike’s end, and I wouldn’t be one bit surprised if he cooked up false numbers to make sure Alan gave him the loan. And that fits with him making loans to Jarrett Creek under false pretenses.” I wouldn’t want to be on Cookie’s bad side right now.

“Cookie, is it possible to find out whether Gary got a kickback from the water park company for arranging the loan?”

“You mean besides the commission?”

“Yes.”

Cookie considers the question. “The only way I know of is to find out from the company, or I guess from Gary’s bank account. You know as well as I do that getting his bank records is going to take time.”

“I understand. Did you ever discuss the park deal with Gary?”

“No occasion to. Would’ve saved everybody a lot of trouble if I’d been involved.” She looks like she’s going to cry.

“Gary’s not the only person who may have benefited from the phony water park project.”

“Who else?” She bites her lower lip.

“Slate McClusky had a lot of involvement in it.”

“Slate? Wait a minute. How did that happen?”

“Apparently he has a big interest in the water park outfit. He may be the owner of it, for all I know. I’ll try to find that out. But whatever his position in the company is, he told Coldwater and the two front men on the deal that he wanted to keep his investment quiet. He thought people in Jarrett Creek wouldn’t want him butting in since he lives out of town most of the time.”

“That’s ridiculous. Slate’s daddy was from here, and Slate has had his place here for a long time. That makes him part of the community.”

“I agree. I think his real reason for keeping quiet is that he never had any intention of building a water park here. I think he was counting on getting money from Jarrett Creek to shore up his parks in other cities.”

Cookie shakes her head. “Like I said, I’ll swear on a stack of Bibles that Alan had no knowledge of this.”

“One more thing. I don’t know if you can legally tell me the answer to this. Do you know anything about Slate McClusky’s other business dealings?”

She shakes her head. “This gets worse and worse. Look, even if I did know anything about Slate’s finances, I couldn’t divulge details. But I don’t. He doesn’t keep his money here and doesn’t have any personal loans with us.” Interesting. Angel said Slate did have some small loans here. Of the two, I’d be inclined to believe Cookie.

Cookie tucks the remnants of her lunch in the bag, folds up the napkin, and then puts a couple of fingers to her lips, frowning. “I wonder if one reason Gary got involved with Slate’s outfit was to try to lure his business here? If I thought that, at least I’d think a little better of him.”

As I’m walking out, I notice Jessica Reinhardt is in the teller area. She didn’t quit after all. Before I turn away, Darla Rodriguez walks over to her and bends her head close, and the two women giggle. In that moment I understand why Cookie said she doesn’t trust Darla. There is something furtive about Darla Rodriguez. It may be time for me to have a heart-to-heart talk with Gabe LoPresto.

Rusty Reinhardt is still reluctant to meet with me after I wounded his pride by questioning his daughter’s behavior. I tell him the subject is the water park and not his daughter. “I found some things in the city’s files that I think we ought to discuss.” He says he’ll come down to the station right away.

When he walks in, his greeting is curt. “I think we’ve done everything we can to put that water park fiasco to bed,” he says right off, “but I’m willing to listen to what you have to say.”

“Did you ever consider a lawsuit against Slate McClusky?”

He frowns. “What does McClusky have to do with it?”

“You might be surprised.” I get him to sit down and give him details of the conversations I’ve had in the past few hours pointing the finger at McClusky and Dellmore.

He slaps his hand on my desk. “That snake.”

“Which one?”

“McClusky. We all knew that Dellmore was up to no good. But a snake hides in the grass, and that’s exactly what Slate McClusky did. He hid behind that big old smile he always has plastered across his face.”

“Bottom line is both men conspired to cheat the town.”

Reinhardt slumps back in his chair and pulls at his mustache. “If that doesn’t beat everything. I was willing to go along with the idea that Coldwater and the city council made a mistake, but being scammed? It never occurred to me. What’s the point of living in a place if you can’t trust your neighbors to do right by you?”

“You can find greed anywhere,” I say.

“Do you think Coldwater knew the details?”

“I think he knew something wasn’t right, but he was desperate to shore up the town’s finances, so he didn’t look as closely at the deal as he should have. For example, he didn’t insist on getting copies of permits the water park company should have obtained from the state.”

“I didn’t have much use for Coldwater before I became mayor, but I’ve sort of figured out that he was doing his level best to find a way to fix things. But he should’ve had more sense than that.” Gloom settles over Reinhardt. He folds his hands over his belly, and his eyes have a faraway look.

“Anything else bothering you?” I ask. I’m hoping he’ll come out and tell me that he had a talk with Gary Dellmore after the meeting the night he was killed so I don’t have to bring it up.

“Yesterday Marietta and I took some time going over the city’s bills, trying to figure out how we were going to settle up. It’s a mess.”

“There may be something to be done.” I tell him that Jenny Sandstone suggested the city sue the water park outfit. “I expect they’re on the verge of bankruptcy themselves, and we won’t get a lot out of them, but maybe enough to help with the bills.”

He nods. “We’ll see. Marietta is sharp. She thinks if we pay a little toward each bill and write a letter explaining our predicament, we can get creditors to cut us some slack until we get money from property taxes.”

“My guess is that once Alan Dellmore finds out what Gary was up to, he’s going to do what he can to ease the loan payments.”

“That would be a big help.”

Since it’s clear that Rusty isn’t going to bring it up on his own, it’s up to me. “Rusty, there’s one more thing I need to talk to you about.” I tell him that someone overheard him arranging to meet with Gary Dellmore after the meeting last Tuesday night.

“I don’t know what that has to do with anything,” he says.

“How could you not know? You might have been the last person to see Dellmore alive. What did you want to talk to him about?”

“No big secret. I told Dellmore to leave my daughter alone.”

“What did he say to that?”

Fire flashes in his eyes. “Son of a gun told me she was a grown woman and could make her own decisions.”

“How did you first find out Dellmore was pursuing your daughter? Did she tell you?”

“No, in fact when I heard it and mentioned it to her she said it wasn’t anything I should be concerned with. My wife heard it from somebody down at the bank.”

“How did you and Dellmore leave it?”

Reinhardt frowns at me. “If you’re asking me did I leave him dead on the ground, I can’t tell you I didn’t want to. But he was alive when I left him. I told him if I heard he’d messed around with her anymore, I was going to take a whip to him.”

He gets up, picks up his hat and claps it on his head. “I don’t think we have any more to discuss.”

“There is one thing,” I say.

He turns around, too polite to walk out on me. “Make it quick. I have to get back to the store.”

“That night, when you had the discussion with Dellmore, where did you talk to him?”

He looks at me like he thinks I’ve gone off a rail. “We went around the west side of the building to have a private discussion, since everybody was getting into their cars on the other side. Why?”