SISTER (ALTON RHODE MYSTERIES Book 4) (14 page)

CHAPTER 22 - SIN CITY CALL

I felt like a pervert watching the Ave Maria girls in red gym shorts and blue T-shirts scrimmaging at the soccer field. I was the only man in the stands. In fact, I was the only person in the stands. I caught a couple of the coaches looking over at me. Maybe they would think I was a scout. Maybe I’d be arrested.

At the first water break I walked over to one of the coaches and asked for Carole MacQuaid. She started to ask me my business when Carole jogged over.

“It’s OK, Mrs.Carruthers,” the girl said, “I told him to meet me here. Can I have a few minutes?”

Carole MacQuaid was what my mother would have called zaftig. Not that she appeared overweight; her body parts were in pleasing proportions to match her most obvious attributes, both of which were staring me in the face. Her exertions on the soccer field had left her with a healthy sheen of perspiration on her skin, and two damp crescents under each breast, which had the effect of calling even more attention to their size. I made an effort to concentrate on her above the neck. She was a pretty kid, with more delicate features than her luscious physique seemed to call for. We went and sat in the first row of the stands, where the kids had left their gym bags and backpacks. She found her bag and pulled out a candy bar.

“Want some,” she asked. “These are good for energy. Those power bars suck.”

It was a Milky Way, never a favorite of mine. I declined and she took a bite.

“I want to thank you for seeing me,” I said.

“You’re a real detective?”

“Yes.”

“Is that fun?”

“Sometimes, if I find out things. Lately, not so much fun.”

“Do you have a gun?”

“Yes.”

“Can I see it?”

I opened my jacket.

“Wow. That’s awesome. Have you shot anyone?”

“Not recently. Mostly I’ve been shooting myself in the foot.”

She looked confused, and finished her candy bar. She pulled out another. I thought I’d better move the interview along before she went into a diabetic coma.

“How about some of this,” she said, holding up the candy.

It was an O’Henry Bar. My favorite. I didn’t want to be impolite.

“Sure.”

She broke it in two and gave me the larger piece. I decided that there was hope for the younger generation.

“I’d just like to ask you a few questions about Sister Veronica,” I said when we finished our treat.

“Sister Veronica was great.”

She teared up.

“Listen, I don’t mean to upset you.”

She took a deep breath. Her breasts swelled against her T-shirt. I kept my eyes on her face, but I would have had to have been in low orbit to miss them entirely.

“No, that’s OK. I like talking about her. She was always doing stuff for us. She came to all our practices. We used to sit right here. She could talk to you, you know? Not talk down, you know? She was a regular person.”

“What did you talk about?”

“Well, school stuff, mostly. She was the principal, after all. But also personal stuff. Boy problems. You know.”

I suspected that Carole MacQuaid had plenty of boy problems.

“Any particular boys?”

It was needle in a haystack time.

“What do you mean?”

“Did she have a problem with any of your boyfriends? Or any of the other girls’ boyfriends?”

She looked at me as if I was crazy.

“Are you kidding me? You think one of the boys killed her? Never happen. She liked all the guys I went with. She didn’t judge people.”

“What else did you talk about? Her family?”

“Nah. Not that I recall.”

There were shouts from the soccer field and players ran by us.

“Hey, MacQuaid, who’s the hunk,” one of the girls shouted as she went by.

Hunk?

Carole laughed.

“You are pretty good-looking, you know that? I think I’ll tell them that I have an older lover.”

“I’m honored,” I said. “Just don’t make me too old.”

“You look like you’re in good shape. Do you work out?”

“Some. I run a lot and leap tall buildings with a single bound. Now, what else did you talk about with Sister Veronica?”

“A lot of technology stuff. She was trying to keep up with the latest, you know. I used to tease her about her cell phone. Flintstone model. Told her she needed to upgrade. Not that it mattered. She was always forgetting to take it with her. Half the time we were together she had to borrow mine. It’s the latest iPhone and I have unlimited calling, so I didn’t care.”

Broderson had told me that Ronnie’s cell phone records had turned up nothing useful. Mostly local calls and a couple to Aunt Betsy on Staten Island. I doubted that any calls she made on borrowed cell phones were any different. But I asked, anyway.

“When was the last time she used your phone?”

“I don’t know. Maybe about a month ago.”

“Do you know who she called on your phone?”

“No. I didn’t pry, if that’s what you mean?”

“I’m sure you didn’t.”

“Can I look through the list of past calls?”

Carole reached into her backpack and brought her iPhone out.

“Knock yourself out.”

I started scrolling through.

“Good Lord,” I said. “It’s lucky you have unlimited calling.”

She laughed.

“Yeah. I make a lot of calls. But mostly I text.”

It didn’t seem possible that anyone, even a popular teen-ager, which from the looks of her, she undoubtedly was, could make that may calls, and text beside. Most of the numbers were local, and had names attached to them.

“Did you let anyone else use your phone besides Sister Veronica?”

“Since she used it?”

“Yes.”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Can you look through these old calls and pick out the numbers that she might have called.”

“Jeez. There a zillion calls.”

“Yes. But they are listed by date. What dates did she use the phone?”

“How would I remember that? All I know is that it was here, at practice.”

“Well, do you practice every day?”

“Oh, right. It was a Monday.” She checked the calendar on her phone. “Here it is. Looks like she made only one call. To a 702 area code. Where’s that?”

“I don’t know,” I lied, looking over and memorizing the number. Every private eye knows that 702 is Las Vegas. But there was no reason to tell the kid that. A nun calling Sin City. It would be all over the school in an hour. “How long was the call.”

Carole checked.

“Almost 15 minutes.”

“Did you hear any part of that conversation?”

I thought she might get annoyed again, but instead she looked thoughtful.

“No. Now that you mention it. She walked away and stood off to the side that time, like she didn’t want to be overheard. That’s the only time she ever did that.”

“Did she say anything about the call?”

“I don’t think so. I kinda remember that she seemed happy afterwards. But she was usually happy, so it probably doesn’t mean anything.”

We heard shouts and laughter from the field and turned to see what was going on. A yellow Labrador had joined the scrimmage and now sat in the middle of the field chewing on a soccer ball. The team was arrayed around the dog in a circle and was slowly closing in.

“That’s Rusty,” Carole said. “Sheila’s dog. He’s usually pretty good, but sometimes the temptation is too great, I guess.”

The circle closed. Rusty suddenly sprang up, ball in mouth, and darted effortlessly between two of the laughing girls. He went under the stands with his prize.

“That pooch has the moves,” I said.

“Get another ball,” one of the coaches yelled, and the practice resumed.

I turned back to Carole.

“Sister Veronica didn’t call anyone else?”

“No. The rest are mine.”

I heard a shout. The new soccer ball rolled over to where we were sitting. Before one of the girls could run over to get it Carole jumped up and kicked it back. Her legs were as strong as the rest of her. The ball sailed all the way to the goal.

“Nice kick,” I said.

“I’m the top scorer for our team,” she said proudly. “Got a partial scholarship Xavier.”

“That’s great, Carole. Good school. Can you think of anything else that might help me.”

Her brows furrowed in concentration.

“No, I’m sorry.”

A coach yelled to her.

“Listen, I have to go.”

“Sure. Thanks for all your help. Good luck in college.” I gave her one of my cards. “If you think of anything else, please call me.”

“Anything else?”

Her smile told me she wasn’t talking about the case. Jesus.

“Good luck in college,” I said again.

She laughed, and started walking away, but turned. Now she was serious.

“I hope you catch whoever did it, Mr. Rhode. And don’t shoot him in the foot, the creep. Shoot him in the balls. Sister Veronica was the best.”

CHAPTER 2
3
– FIVE MILLION REASONS

I checked back into the Hilton Garden Inn that I used on my first visit to Worcester. I had already gotten a phone call from American Express questioning the use of my card all over the country. They thought it might have been stolen. Even though I told them it hadn’t been, charges at a new hotel might prompt another call. When I got to my room, I tried the 702 number in Las Vegas. A woman answered.

“The law offices of Stetson Principato. How may I help you?”

Ronnie had called a lawyer. I didn’t know which lawyer, so I went in order.

“I’d like to speak to Stetson.”

“I’m afraid he’s in court. May I take a message?”

“How about Principato? He’ll do.”

There was a long pause.

“Stetson is Mr. Principato. That’s his name.”

“No one can be named Stetson Principato. Even in Las Vegas.”

“He is,” she said, archly. “Now, how can I help you?”

“You can tell Mr. Principato to call me back.”

I left my name and number and told her that it was very important. I got my iPad from my suitcase and went down to the Uno Chicago Grill that was part of the hotel. The Uno’s are chain restaurants, but if you avoid the crazy dishes they offer, such as the “Rattlesnake Pasta,” you can usually get a decent meal. And the bar looks like a real bar. I sat in a booth and ordered a local craft beer called Harpoon and a sliced sirloin topped with “chimichurri, a blend of cilantro, oregano, Italian parsley, garlic, olive oil, lemon juice & red wine vinegar.” There is chimichurri and there is chimichurri, so I told my waiter to put the sauce on the side, just in case.

While I waited for my meal, I sipped my beer and Googled Stetson Principato. There were scores of news stories, citations and references about him. I found out more than I wanted to know about his education, professional associations and charitable work. I went to his website. His specialty was wills and estates, to the exclusion of almost everything else. My steak came. I put a dab of the sauce on it. It was excellent. While I ate, I pondered. Wills and estates. That meant money. The root of all evil. More importantly, the root of motive. My waiter came over and asked if everything was all right. I ordered another Harpoon and noticed that I had finished all the chimichurri in the little side bowl he’d given me, so I asked for more.

“Of course, sir,” he said, with a weary inflection that indicated I shouldn’t have asked for the sauce on the side to begin with.

I went back to my pondering. I had a funny feeling that I was finally on to something.

***

I had just walked into my room after dinner when Principato returned my call. After an exchange of greetings, I told him who I was and asked him flat out why Ronnie had called him.

“I’m afraid that is privileged information.”

“You do know she is dead, don’t you?”

“Yes. Some nut job is killing members of the clergy. The media is calling him ‘The Ice-Pick Killer’.”

I hadn’t heard that one, but, of course, it was inevitable.

“I’m pretty sure the lawyer-client privilege doesn’t follow the deceased into the grave,” I said, “especially when murder is involved, but I won’t press the point right now. You handle wills and estates. Can I can assume this has something to do with money?”

“Well, I guess that’s not privileged. Her father died a month ago, just before we were going to prepare his will.”

“Harry Frost?”

“Yes.”             

So the elusive Harry Frost wound up in Las Vegas. And died a month ago. And then Ronnie was killed.

“You were his attorney?”

“Well, I was many years ago, when I specialized in real estate. I handled some work for him, but then the market in real estate out here softened and I decided to concentrate on probate law. I hadn’t seen Harry professionally in quite some time, but I bumped into him. When he found out what I was doing, he said he was thinking about making a will and asked me to take care of it before he went away on his trip.”

“What trip?”

“Oh, some around-the-world gambling cruise. He said he’d be gone for almost a year. He had some health issues. I think he was reflecting on his own mortality. Turned out he waited too long about the will.”

“So, he died intestate.”

“Yes. Since I did have a relationship with Harry, the court appointed me to handle the estate.”

“Did you know he was a lawyer?”

“No. He seemed to have a lot of legal knowledge, especially about real estate, but he never said that. Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“You’d think someone like that would know the importance of a will.”

“Was Sister Veronica an heir?”

“I’m not sure I …”

“Come on, Mr. Principato. That has to be a matter of public record. Save me a trip.”

“Yes. In fact, she was the only heir we were able to locate.”

“I’m curious. How extensive a search does the court require you to make?”

“When someone dies intestate, we’re obliged to look for anyone even remotely connected to the deceased: spouse, children, siblings, parents, grandparents, aunts or uncles, great uncles or aunts, nieces or nephews, cousins of any degree, or the children, parents, or siblings of a spouse who predeceases the person in question. Hell, everyone but the family dog. It might have taken us some time to find Sister Veronica, but Harry mentioned to me he had a daughter who was a nun.”

“Did he say he was planning to leave his estate to her?”

There was a pause. Principato was probably debating whether something he wasn’t told was privileged.

“We hadn’t gotten that far. Listen, I told the police all this right after she was killed.”

Something clicked. What, I wasn’t sure.

“Bear with me, counselor. I’m just trying to get some facts straight. How much money are we talking about?”

“Listen, Rhode …”

“I’m sure that’s also public record and I can find out. But if you help me out here, I may be able to make you some serious money.”

The magic words, especially to a lawyer.

“Mr. Frost did very well in local real estate,” Principato said. “He sold just before the market collapsed and put his cash in diamonds and gold. Smarter than a lot of people out here, me included. Then he bought up distressed properties for a song and started renting them out. He also prospered in the casinos. He finished high up in a couple of those Hold ‘Em poker tournaments. The estate is now worth almost $5 million.” 

Five million reasons to kill.

“And Sister Veronica was due to get all of it?”

“She was his direct descendant, and, as such, entitled to the entire estate.” Principato said. “Frost’s wife died years ago.”

“How did you contact her?”

“I called her.”

“Did you have her direct number, or her cell?”

“No. I just called the main number at the school. Why?”

The Worcester police probably looked into Ronnie’s cell phone records. She probably picked up the lawyer’s call on an extension at the school. Cops would have no way of knowing.

“Nothing,” I said. “And you gave her your number.”

“Of course.”

“How often did you speak to her after your initial contact?”

“Just once, I believe. What are you getting at?”

Ronnie used Carole MacQuaid’s iPhone for that call. The cops couldn’t have known that, either.

“What about Harry’s son, Matthew? Ronnie’s brother.”

“We knew about him. Sister Veronica told me about him during our initial call, and urged me to find him. She was a good woman and wanted him to get his fair share. She had no idea where he was, or if he was even alive. I didn’t like telling her what we found out.”

“Which was what?”

“Matthew Mercer Frost was dishonorably discharged from the Army for abusing prisoners in Iraq. Then he disappeared without a trace. I was glad to hear it. I wanted the daughter to get the money, rather than some war criminal. Like I said, I didn’t relish telling her about her brother, but when she called I had to. She took it hard. I got the impression she knew something about him but had hoped he changed his stripes.”

Principato had become very forthcoming.

“You mentioned something about serious money, Rhode.”

“I’ll get to that. What happens if Matthew Frost eventually turns up?”

“Well, if you’re missing seven years you are presumed dead, although it’s not a legal designation unless someone petitions the court. It has to be a relative. Not strictly necessary, but it’s cleaner that way. Speeds things up a bit. I asked his sister to do that. She was reluctant, but I finally convinced her. She was planning to come out here to file the papers right after the school year ended. But, of course, then she was killed. I guess I’ll have to ask the aunt now. She’s the only one alive still in line.”

He didn’t know.

“You’re talking about Elizabeth Spigarelli, on Staten Island.”

“I can see you’ve done your homework, Rhode. She wasn’t easy to find. Been married a few times. We only had her sister’s maiden name to go on, which came in handy looking for the brother, too. This whole thing will come as a shock to her, I imagine. I think she’s pushing 80. Well, I suppose it’s never too late to hit the jackpot.”

“You haven’t contacted her?”

“There was no need. The daughter was a direct descendent. Children have precedence.”

“Don’t bother calling Mrs. Spigarelli. She’s dead.”

“Balls. I was hoping to put this all to rest soon.”

“What happens now?”

“Well, in Nevada, when someone dies without a will, and there are no survivors, there is a three-year waiting period, then any unclaimed property or money escheats to the state. It goes into a fund supporting education.”

Sure it would, I thought, just like the billions spent on the New York Lottery that have been long plundered by Albany politicians to keep the state solvent.

“Matthew Frost won’t wait that long. He’ll be waltzing in to your office fairly soon, I imagine.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Matthew Frost killed both Veronica Frost and her aunt. He’s still alive.”

It was the only thing that made any sense. It all started falling into place. I even had a momentary flashback to when I read the yellowed sports article in Aunt Betsy’s dusty scrapbook:
“Curtis sophomore southpaw Matt Frost pitched an uneventful ninth inning in relief.”
Matthew Frost was left-handed, like the “Ice Pick Killer” was presumed to be.

“He’s the serial killer!”

“No, not really. I mean he killed them all, but he had a plan. The other clerical victims were killed to make it look like his sister wasn’t the target. She stood between him and all that money. And I bought it.”

“My God! Can you prove any of this?”

“Sure,” I said, even though I didn’t have any idea how to do that.

“Wait a minute. Why kill the aunt? His claim is superior to hers. For that matter, why kill his sister. They could have split the inheritance.”

“I don’t know. Maybe because he’s crazy. Because he is a hater. Because he wants the whole $5 million. This is a guy who set fire to cats when he was a kid and committed war crimes. I’m glad he won’t see any of the money.”

“That’s true. If you can prove what you say, no court will honor his claim.”

“He can’t have it anyway, counselor. Harry Frost was a crooked New York lawyer who bilked his clients out of $3 million, which I’m sure he washed through the casinos in Vegas. His victims are the ones who deserve his estate. There is even a lawyer on Staten Island who will be very interested to know where Harry finally landed.” The thought that I would have to tell Rosenberg about the money stuck in my craw. “That’s where you come in. I’m pretty sure there will be a substantial finder’s fee for anyone who aids in the recovery of the money.”

I was winging it, but it was possible. I even hoped it was true. I smiled at the thought of Rosenberg and a Vegas lawyer duking it out over who got what. I could probably sell tickets.

“That’s all well and good,” Principato said, “but what are you going to do now? I’m not looking forward to having a mass murderer coming to my office.”

Good question. I didn’t know. If Principato’s extensive search didn’t turn up a live Matthew Frost, what chance did I have? He’d probably changed his name. And then there was the inconvenient fact that despite my certainty I couldn’t prove anything.

“I suppose I’ll try to convince the police to look for Matthew Frost instead of some religious nut.”

I wasn’t looking forward to that, having been the main proponent of the serial-killer theory.

“I should tell you, Rhode, that the detective who told me Veronica Frost was murdered seemed quite convinced it was the work of a serial killer.”

Something clicked again. And now I knew what it was. It hadn’t registered when Principato first said the police notified him of Ronnie’s murder.