Inadvertent Disclosure (27 page)

CHAPTER 39

Adrenaline hummed through
Sasha’s body as she sat tucked away in a corner of Bob’s, soon-to-be the Café on
the Square. Her fingers flew, the pen gliding over the notepad like it had
wings. She stopped and took several long, slow breaths. She had to beat back
her excitement, stay calm, and work her way methodically through the stack of
documents Jessie had delivered.

The exchange had gone smoothly.
Just before noon, she’d returned to the Recorder of Deeds Office and caught
Jessie walking out of the office, her arms full of papers, engrossed in
conversation with a man about her own age.

Judging by the smiles the couple
exchanged, at least one romance had bloomed in the hallway. That was no
surprise. Every long trial or out-of-town document review Sasha had worked on
had yielded at least one “summer camp” romance. Two bored attorneys, support
staff members, or some combination of the two would get hot and heavy for the
duration of the assignment. Usually, there’d be a halfhearted attempt to make a
long-distance relationship work—a few weekend flights cross-country, the
grownup equivalent of a flurry of letters before school started again and the
summer romance faded with the leaves on the trees.

Every once in a while, a
relationship took root and flourished, though; maybe Jessie and this
dark-haired guy who didn’t realize he was supposed to cut the fabric label off
the outside of the arm of his suit jacket would beat the odds.

Sasha had caught Jessie’s eye
and nodded toward the restroom.

Jessie had tossed one last
giggle over her shoulder and then trotted to catch up to Sasha. They’d walked
to the ladies’ room in silence.

Once inside, Jessie had checked
under the stalls for feet, like she was in a made-for-tv movie, then handed
over the papers.

“Jessie, I really appreciate
this. Thanks so much.” Sasha had dug into her wallet and fished out a fifty. “I
know you said you didn’t want money, but take this and buy dinner for you and
Joseph A. Banks out there when the new restaurant opens.

“Joseph A. Who? Oh, you mean
that tag on Brandt’s sleeve. Good one.” She’d rolled her eyes.

“Why don’t you tell him to just
snip it off?”

“I dunno. I don’t want to
embarrass him.” She’d blushed, then laughed.

Now, reading over her notes,
Sasha wished she’d given Jessie a hundred.

The pieces of two puzzles were
falling into place. She had to hitch a ride to the hospital and talk to
Connelly. She’d tried calling his cell phone, but it had rolled straight to
voice-mail.

A familiar voice cut through
the noise in her head.

“Thanks, Marie,” Gavin Russell
said, as he headed out the door with a pastry bag.

She threw the papers in her bag
and tossed a ten on the table on top of her bill. She heaved the bag over her
shoulder and called out, “Deputy Russell!”

He turned and looked over his
shoulder while she ran over to him.

“Sasha, I didn’t see you
there.”

“Listen, can you take me to the
hospital?”

He hesitated.

“It’s important. And, besides,
I need to talk to you about Jed.”

She watched him calculating,
weighing Stickley’s annoyance against whatever information she might have.

His curiosity won out and he
nodded. “All right.”

He held the diner door open for
her and followed her out to the street.

* * * * * * * * * *

They drove in silence through
the center of town, which was quiet on a Thursday afternoon.

“So?”  Russell said, palming
the steering wheel and turning onto the state road that led out to the
hospital.

Sasha had been outlining her
plan of attack in her head. She had to find out if she could trust him before
they got to their destination.

“So, did you hear Jed’s going
to be okay?”

Russell took his eyes off the
road long enough to give her a worried look. “I wouldn’t get your hopes up,
Sasha. He was in pretty bad shape yesterday.”

“He was,” she agreed. “Was he
like that when you found him?”

“Yeah.”

Time for the money question.
“What made you just decide to stop in and check on him like that?”

Russell answered immediately.
“Doc Spangler asked me to.”

“She did?”

“Sure. I ran into her at Bob’s,
as a matter of fact. I was picking up one of Lydia’s pies to take out to my
parents. I have dinner with them every Wednesday, and I always bring dessert.”

“Would Doctor Spangler have
known about that routine?”

Russell wrinkled his forehead
at the question. “Well, I imagine so. Her office is right next door.”

“So, she approached you at the
diner and asked you to visit with Jed after your dinner?”

“Right. So?”

“So, she had prescribed an
over-the-counter allergy medicine for him that’s known to cause dementia-like
symptoms in older people.”

The deputy’s head snapped back
like he’d been slapped. “What?  Are you sure about that?”

“Yes. Doctor Brown ran blood
tests. Once the medication’s cleared Jed’s bloodstream, his confusion and
incoherence will disappear.”

He jerked the car to the right
and pulled off onto the shoulder. He parked on a wide gravel patch that led to
a drilling pad about ten yards away. They watched as a hydraulic lift guided a
huge section of pipe to the well head. Two mud-covered men in hardhats nudged
the pipe into position and signaled to the drill operator.

Russell turned his body
sideways so he was facing Sasha full on.

“You don’t think she did that
intentionally, do you?”

“Oh, I know she did. And she
used you. She sent you out there knowing what you’d find.”

Disbelief and anger clouded
over his face.

She went on, more gently.
“Gavin, she testified that she’s had at least ninety patients declared
incapacitated and serves as their guardian. I pulled thirty cases where her
patients were deemed incapacitated and compared the addresses with recorded oil
and gas leases. In all thirty cases, after Spangler took control of the
patients’ finances, she had them transferred to one of two assisted living
facilities and then entered into hydrofracking leases on their property on
their behalf.”

He started to speak, but she kept
going. “I compared the recorded leases with her certified annual reports to the
Orphans’ Court. She’s been understating the royalty payments by ten percent.
Assume the evidence carries through all ninety files. Ten percent of ninety
mineral rights leases is a lot of money. Add in the fee the county’s paying her
to serve as guardian and, well, it certainly gives her a motive to create
incapacitated patients, doesn’t it?”

“But she . . . I . . .”

Russell pounded the steering
wheel with his fist.

There was more, but she needed
him to calm down and get her to the hospital. She touched his shoulder. “It’s
going to be okay. We’re going to stop her.”

“I have to radio Stickley,” he
said.

“Please wait until we get to
the hospital and make sure she’s even there.”

She’d wait until they were at
the hospital to fill him in on Stickley and Heather Price.

He nodded. “That’s good
thinking. Let’s go.”

He pulled out, as a convoy of
equipment trucks came roaring up the road.

CHAPTER 40

Heather slammed the closet door
and smiled at her reflection in the mirror. She leaned in close to check her
makeup, then hung her pocketbook over her wrist and turned out the light.

As she backed the pickup out of
the driveway, she cursed Stickley and her sister. She didn’t trust either one
of them not to mess up. She’d just drive over to the hospital, find this federal
agent, and see for herself whether he was a problem.

She punched Bob’s number into
her cell phone.

“Heather,” Bob purred, “to what
do I owe the pleasure?”

Although he was on the short
list of husband candidates for when the old man expired, she ignored the
flirtation.

“Things are spinning out of
control, Bob.”

She palmed the steering wheel
and accelerated down the ramp to the interstate, cutting off one of her own
commercial trucks, probably headed out to a drilling site.

“How so?”

“Well, let’s see. We have a
dead judge, but still no tape. That lawyer you appointed is hanging around
town, stirring up trouble. And Stickley and my sister tell me there’s a federal
agent sniffing around.”

“Sasha’s back?”

“Yes. Although apparently,
that’s Shelly’s fault. Listen, I think I can still salvage the hotel deal, if
we can get that freaking tape. Stickley thinks the lawyer has it. Is he right?”

Bob took a minute to answer. “I
doubt it, Heather. If she had the tape, she would have pushed back when I shut
down the investigation. Stickley’s just trying to cover his ass because he
can’t find it.”

Heather breathed out. “Okay,
that’s what I think, too. I have an idea to keep your lawyer out of our hair,
but it means sacrificing Stickley. I assume that’s okay with you?”

Bob’s only answer was to roar
with laughter.

“Good then, we’re in
agreement.”

She smiled and ended the call,
then checked her rearview mirror. The left lane was clear, so she slid over and
gunned the engine.

CHAPTER 41

Leo sat in a small metal chair
that he’d dragged over and positioned in front of Jed’s hospital door. So far,
the only person to come by had been Dr. Brown, who reported the drugs were
clearing Jed’s system and he was starting to come out of his haze.

With Dr. Spangler nowhere to be
found, Leo, unfortunately, had plenty of time to mull over his earlier
conversation with Sasha. He felt like a jerk. A needy, insecure jerk.

It wasn’t like him to push an
issue, but Sasha’s blanket refusal to acknowledge his feelings had been eating
at him. He wished he’d kept it to himself at least until they’d gotten a handle
on the situation in this town. His regret and worry about their discussion was
making his stomach flip. Or else he was hungry. He hoped Sasha’d show up soon,
maybe with some lunch.

His cell phone vibrated in his
pocket and he pulled it out. Not Sasha. A 202 telephone number. Looked like the
Bureau, but not an extension he knew.

“Connelly.”

“Connelly, it’s Stock. I only
have a minute. I have information for you. Can you talk?”

Connelly wasn’t sure calling
from the office was the smartest idea, if Stock was trying to operate under the
radar, but it wasn’t his neck.

“Sure,” he said.

“Okay. My section chief called
me in until this blows over, so I’m using my neighbor’s office. If she comes
back from lunch, I’m going to disconnect the call.”

Maybe Stock wasn’t entirely
stupid.

“Understood. So what do you
have?”

“Heather is the older sister by
two years. Apparently, she was always the pretty, popular sister. Heather moved
out at eighteen and tried her hand at modeling and acting. She spent time in
New York and got a few commercial spots. Apparently, there was a pregnancy in
the mid-80’s, father unknown, pregnancy terminated either naturally or by
abortion; it wasn’t clear. She moved back to Springport and married a local
businessman, Lewis Price, who was thirty-some years her senior. By the
mid-90’s, she had taken over all his business interests. She ran for county
commissioner for the first time in 1998 and has been reelected each term since
then.”

“What about Shelly?”

“Shelly was a late bloomer,
studious and quiet. She went to Ohio State and was a pre-med major. Completed
medical school at Temple and stayed in Philadelphia for her residency. She was
briefly married to an accountant in Philadelphia. They divorced after a year
and she moved home to care for her mother until the mother’s death two years
later. She remarried. Clint Spangler runs the hardware store. She opened her
medical practice right after they married. She maintains a low profile, in
contrast to her sister.”

“Shelly and Heather are said to
have a typical sister relationship, with periods of closeness and bouts of
disagreements. Does that sound typical?” 

“I don’t know, I’m an only
child.”

“Yeah, me, too,” Stock said. He
continued, “Shelly supported Heather’s various runs for office. Heather and her
husband have the Spanglers over for dinner every Sunday.”

“What about the thing Sasha
heard. Anything about Heather using her position as commissioner?”

“Sure. Nothing solid, but none
of my sources doubted that she does it.”

Connelly stretched his leg out
straight trying to get more comfortable on the chair and asked, “How are their
finances?”

“Both sisters are
cash-positive. Shelly’s sitting on seven hundred and fifty thousand liquid or
easily obtained. Heather’s got more like a million cash, spread out across
several accounts. Neither husband is a signatory on any bank account.”

Connelly gave a low whistle.

“Yeah,” Stock agreed. “I guess
watching your father lose a fortune then eat a gun will make a girl want to
have a nice-sized nest egg. Shelly keeps it simple, real estate concerns and
the profits from her practice. Heather’s got investments all over the place,
probably as a result of all the
quid pro quo
arrangements she’s got.
She’s got the trucking business, of course, and has an interest in a
construction company. She’s also a backer for the restaurant that’s about to
open in town and is pushing for some kind of hotel deal. The only real
interesting thing is that the sisters both make fairly regular deposits to and
withdrawals from their mother’s old checking account. They’re both signatories,
so I guess it’s okay that they still use it. But, they seem to be using it to
transfer money back and forth. Heather deposits forty grand; Shelly takes it
out. Shelly deposits twenty-five grand; Heather withdraws it. If you want to
get the white collar fraud guys or the money-laundering pros involved, that’s
on you.”

“No, not yet. Listen,” Connelly
began, but the
sudden silence of a call being disconnected filled his
ear.

It appeared Stock’s office
neighbor had returned from lunch.

Connelly tipped the chair back
on two legs and considered Stock’s information.