Dangerous Undertaking Read online

  “I was not splitting legal hairs. I was respecting legal ethics. I don’t go around giving out my clients’ names or discussing their business any more than you go around saying how much somebody spent on a funeral. You should understand that.”

  His words stung and the blood rushed hot in my cheeks. To hell with thermal harmony. Frustration pushed my decibel level to a near shout. “We’ve had enough god-damned funerals. And what about your responsibility to Martha Willard, and Norma Jean, and Lee, and Dallas. They were your clients too, and the bodies don’t stop there, Carl. Something is going on I don’t understand, but if there is a connection, any connection, between what happened in that cemetery and Dallas Willard’s and Fats McCauley’s death, I’ll be god-damned if I’m stopping until I’m satisfied that I know all there is to know even if it creates a problem for you, or Doug Turner, or some hot-shit wheeler-dealer named Waylon Hestor.”

  The flicker of fear on Carl’s face burst into outright panic. He looked to the dining room doors as they split apart.

  “Just who the hell do you think you are?” shouted a steel-haired man who strode across the foyer and into the living room. He stopped only a few inches away, towering over me, the wealthy tan on his face broken with blotches of fury. We recognized each other. He had been the distinguished mourner at Grandma Willard’s funeral.

  I sat in stunned silence and then guessed the obvious. “Carl,” I said in the quietest, most civil tone I could muster. “Why don’t you introduce me to Mr. Waylon Hestor?”

  Carl Romeo got to his feet, and for a split-second, he looked like he would bolt from his own house. I stayed seated, leaving both men to realize my level suited me perfectly. I was content to look up to them and found nothing intimidating in our relative positions. Psychological power stayed on the settee with me.

  “Mr. Hestor, this is Barry Clayton.”

  Carl waited, but neither Hestor nor I said anything. I wasn’t expecting a handshake or a “glad to meet you.” He had just heard me call him a “hot-shit wheeler-dealer.”

  Carl filled the silence. “Barry, that is Mr. Clayton, was shot by Dallas Willard.”

  “I know,” said Hestor. “I was standing beside him.”

  Carl looked surprised for a second, and then continued, “Barry came to me thinking I might know why and could it involve Martha Willard’s land. I told him how attached Dallas was to the ridge sections of the property based upon an earlier effort to buy it. Now he apparently believes I was less than truthful because I didn’t mention your development plans.”

  Waylon Hestor studied me for a few seconds. His eyes focused on my left arm and shoulder while he relived the horror of the cemetery. I assessed him as well. He looked to be in his early fifties. The green pullover short-sleeve shirt and yellow cotton slacks tagged him as the country club set. His body was trim and lean, the result of a disciplined diet and regular exercise. I suspected he took an active role in whatever interested him. I also suspected he wielded formidable economic and political power, and that he did not like to lose.

  Waylon Hestor cleared his throat in an effort to reset his vocal cords to a more conversational mode. “You’re an undertaker, aren’t you?”

  He asked the question without sarcasm or any implied condescension. More for confirmation.

  “Yes. And I’ve had more business than I want.”

  “That was a terrible tragedy up there. I hope you have a speedy recovery, Mr. Clayton. I can understand why you want answers.” He looked at Carl and frowned. “I appreciate your concern with confidentiality, Carl, but, under the circumstances, I want Mr. Clayton to know I do have an interest in the Willard property. Frankly, that’s why I attended the service—to pay my respects, sign the register book, and begin a relationship with the heirs.”

  I slid over. “Why don’t you have a seat?”

  “I think the dining room is more appropriate, don’t you, Carl?”

  Our mutual attorney gave an audible sigh of relief.

  Five or six tubes of rolled documents were stacked at one end of the dining room table. Two copies of Architectural Digest on either side of this elongated pyramid kept it from collapsing. An inch-thick pile of unrolled charts and survey reports fanned across the center of the table. Most looked like topographical mappings of land tracts, although their exact technical description was unknown to me. Several of the larger sheets had black and white aerial photographs clipped to them. Hand-drawn red lines on each photo identified an area of particular significance, probably corresponding to the attached surveyor’s plot.

  I walked full circle around the table, looking for anything that would put me on familiar ground. Even the aerial shots offered nothing in the way of recognizable landmarks.

  “This mess is a process,” said Waylon Hestor. “A process of prioritization.”

  “Housing developments?” I asked.

  “One residential community to start with.” He walked to the table, rolled back the top two sheets of drawings and pointed to an aerial composite.

  Across the upper left corner ran a two-lane highway with a cleared circular area beneath it. There I saw the roofs of migrant shanties and an old school bus parked in a dirt lane connecting the camp to the paved road. A dotted line had been drawn from the highway through the school bus and shanties into the middle of the wooded terrain.

  Waylon Hestor’s broad hand and stubby fingers swept an ellipse around the picture. “As things stand now, most likely my land out on Walnut Hollow Road. You see, my investors and I don’t have the kind of capital to take on more than one project at a time. Sure, I own three tracts, but it is the investment company that’s got to put in the roads, survey the lots, create a marketing plan, and sell the real estate. Carl and I are determining which tract will have the lowest start-up costs, whether it be road construction, sewer and water lines, or environmental impact studies.”

  “And how about return on investment?” I asked. “Isn’t that what it’s all about? Keep your costs down and your prices up? The Willard property has more than a little to do with pricing, particularly if the migrant camp beside it is closed.”

  “Indirectly.” He looked back at Carl, who still stood just inside the double doors.

  “We’re willing to lay that out for you, Barry,” said Carl. “There’s nothing to hide.”

  “Then let me take a stab at it,” I said. “Mr. Hestor, all your property borders migrant camps. No coincidence. In fact, you probably bought it cheap because of that proximity. A migrant camp is not a desirable neighbor to an exclusive residential community. You’re smart enough to take the long-range view that someday, when those camps are gone, the value of your land jumps immediately. So, regardless of those development costs you’ve just outlined, the lot prices increase without you spending an extra nickel. A government recommendation for centralization can make that happen. You work quietly behind the scenes so the politics come together, and you and Carl start working on the Willards to sell their land. It’s a tract you don’t own, but fits in with your plans. Only Dallas won’t budge. In fact, he thinks the migrant camps are directly tied into the deal somehow and begins taking out his hostility on the workers.”

  I looked from Hestor to Carl Romeo. Neither seemed concerned. They simply waited patiently for me to finish.

  “So, his brother and sister get the grandmother to leave the property in such a way that Dallas can be out-voted. And you don’t tell him anything about the new will, Carl. Then Grandma Martha dies. Dallas thinks everything is like his grandmother promised in that sketch, but someone tells Dallas the truth. That causes him to come to your office, where your secretary confirms his fears. When he finds out his brother and sister can sell the land, he makes plans to kill them.”

  “That’s an interesting theory, Mr. Clayton.” Waylon Hestor actually smiled. “Part of it might be true. I can’t know what Dallas Willard thought or what his family told him. I don’t know why he should think the migrants had anything to do with it. I do kno
w I neither spoke with him nor instructed anyone else to.”

  He waved his hands over the table. “This is what I like to do. Take something from an idea to a finished project. Sure, I want to make money. And yes, bottom line, that’s why I have an interest in the government consolidating the migrant camps so that property like the Willards’ becomes more valuable. At least that’s the way it started.”

  “What changed?” I asked.

  “Everything changed. Now buying the Willard land also means buying lakefront property when the new reservoir is filled.” He gestured toward another aerial photograph. This larger one included several ridges with a blue-coded oval superimposed over the valley between them. It depicted the expected shoreline when the Broad Creek dam was completed. “That means double maybe even triple appreciation,” continued Hestor, “and now I’m competing with Ridgemont Power and Electric who wants the property just as badly. Hell, they don’t want to protect the watershed, they want to sell lakefront lots and homes like they’ve done with every other hydro-electric lake they’ve ever created.”

  I heard the anger come back in his voice.

  He heard it too and sighed. “But, the money isn’t life or death to me. As for the government, you flatter me that I exercise any control. I’ve been to a few hearings and seen the county and federal bureaucrats in action on the migrant camp consolidation. Yes, they’ll probably agree on a centralized site, but I had nothing to do with it. If anything, my lobbying would have hurt that proposal. Others would draw the same conclusion you have and figure I was only out to make a quick buck.”

  Waylon Hestor spoke with conviction. If pressed for a judgment, I would have said he told the truth. I had also heard so many good liars that I refused to suspend my skepticism. Hestor admitted the Willard land made a difference to his bottom line. For a business man driven to succeed, there might be no other priority.

  “Carl had a buyer for the land at three hundred thousand ten years ago,” I said. “What’s it worth today?”

  “Ten times that. I’ve offered three million.”

  “Your other investors, the limited partners, how many are there?”

  “Thirty. Each has put in an additional fifty thousand. I’ve made up the rest.”

  I turned the numbers in my head. One and a half million from the partners, the same from Waylon Hestor. Dallas stood between his brother and sister and three million dollars. Three million dollars that went to Talmadge Watson as soon as the gun smoke cleared in that cemetery.

  “Would any of the other investors have approached Dallas? Tried to get him to sell?”

  “No one would have gone around me,” said Carl. “The limited partners are legally prohibited from any management or strategic decisions. That protects their liability to their original investment.”

  “Yes. That’s the downside, but on the upside, what do you estimate the removal of the camps and the lake frontage to mean?”

  “A thirty to fifty percent increase in the price per lot,” said Waylon Hestor. “Throw in the more expensive homes that will be built on the more expensive property and the total revenue from the development jumps ten-fold. We’re talking a thirty million dollar deal.”

  “Well, you may not be greedy, Mr. Hestor, but out of thirty people who plopped down fifty thousand for the Willard property, you’re saying none of them wants to earn as much as he can? That no one would engineer steps to make that happen?”

  “I’m afraid you still don’t understand,” said Hestor. “Engineer what steps? When I say everything changed, I mean everything changed up in that graveyard. With no Willard heirs, the property will eventually be auctioned off. Ridgemont Power and Electric has pockets as deep as that reservoir. We can’t compete.”

  I shot a glance at Carl Romeo and felt guilty about my accusations against him. He had kept Waylon Hestor in the dark about Talmadge Watson.

  “How did you expect to compete at all once the power company became interested?”

  “I’m a real person,” he said. “Yes, I’ve been financially successful, but I was born up on Yellow Mountain and had the good fortune to develop my family’s property instead of simply selling off when the first land speculators came in thirty years ago. The Willards liked talking to a homegrown, not an institution of suits. I thought I had a chance to work out a deal even Dallas would have been happy with, until I realized he was mentally ill. Then we tried to work around him.”

  I looked down at the tract surveys. They could as easily have been the locations of lost gold mines given all the money at stake.

  “And you’re sure none of your investors would have thought they could intimidate Dallas into selling and thereby aggravated his unstable condition.”

  “No, I can’t say that with certainty,” conceded Hestor.

  “I think it’s important the sheriff know who those thirty people are. You have my word any inquiries will be handled discreetly.”

  “And if we refuse?” asked Carl.

  “I expect Sheriff Wadkins will decide how he wants to incorporate you and your limited partners into his open investigation of Dallas Willard. Discretion will become a public inquiry.”

  “Make up the list, Carl.” Hestor pulled a slim billfold from his hip pocket. He extracted a business card and handed it to me. “Here are phone numbers for home, office, and car. In return for my cooperation, I’d appreciate a call if you learn anything.”

  I looked at the string of numbers under HESTOR ENTERPRISES before slipping the card in my own wallet. “Certainly,” I said.

  It was after 5 P.M. when I left Phoenix House. Carl Romeo handed me a folded sheet of white paper which I tucked unopened into the front pocket of my slacks. On it, he had written the names of the thirty investors, and although I was eager to read them, I waited until the first stoplight on Vance Avenue before unfolding the paper against the center of the steering wheel.

  I scanned the list. Most were unknown to me, probably cronies of Hestor in Asheville. A few were familiar, moneyed individuals who lived in Gainesboro. Doug Turner’s name was near the top although I didn’t believe Carl had listed them in any particular order. The last name surprised me. Dr. Alex Soles. Did the psychologist have a very practical and profitable reason for not helping Dallas Willard? Or was there more to it than that? What kind of mind games could he have played if he had seen Dallas after Martha Willard died?

  I called Tommy Lee and laid the whole thing out. Dr. Alex Soles would be getting an unexpected visitor.

  Chapter 17

  The breakfast crowd came in shifts at the Cardinal Cafe. Most of the construction workers arrived between six and six-fifteen, wolfing down tankards of hot coffee and platters of eggs and grits. They were replaced by the shopkeepers and tradesmen whose livelihood enjoyed a more leisurely start on the workday. Finally, the retirees arrived, meeting a crony or two and lingering over morning coffee and sweet rolls; by nine-thirty, the bustle had faded to a few tables of gossip and refills.

  At seven forty-five Monday morning, the triple bells over the front door announced our arrival. Helen, the head waitress, glanced back over her shoulder and saw Tommy Lee and me entering the diner. The sheriff raised two fingers and pointed to an isolated booth along the wall. We were between the shifts of shopkeepers and retirees, and the restaurant would fill up again before eight. With a nod, Helen grabbed a pot of coffee and two cups from the counter.

  I followed Tommy Lee’s example and kept my voice low. We also avoided names whenever possible. “So, what did you learn from our doctor friend?” I asked.

  “Not much. I called on him at his house yesterday afternoon. As soon as I mentioned the Hestor project, he started blubbering about how he didn’t mean to avoid Dallas. He started psychoanalyzing himself. Subconscious motives he didn’t recognize. He was more concerned I would report him to a licensing review board than that he was a murder suspect. Psychologists! They’re all crazy.”

  “Crazy like a fox. He had a conscious motive to push Dallas to sel
l. I’m concerned he did see him and tried to manipulate him. I don’t know much about dealing with someone like Dallas, but I suspect it can be playing with fire. He would have a good reason to lie to you if he talked to Dallas right before Dallas shot his brother and sister.”

  “Yeah, maybe,” Tommy Lee said. “Our doctor said he hadn’t seen Dallas since he quit the Alzheimer’s meetings. Kept saying Dallas was not his patient. And I heard the tape of Dallas Willard’s voice, the messages he left trying to reach you the night before the funeral. Dallas didn’t say a thing about him.”

  “Okay,” I admitted. “That’s a point in his favor.”

  “He was also aware that with Lee and Norma Jean dead the power company holds the cards and the cash if the property goes to auction. You told me Carl Romeo has kept mum about Talmadge Watson’s connection.”

  “That’s right,” I said. “Waylon Hestor didn’t know anything about Talmadge. I’m surprised someone in the Ridgemont Power and Electric legal department hasn’t discovered Martha had a brother.”

  “Why should they look? The line of descendants was uncontested down to Dallas, Lee, and Norma Jean. No one anticipated a whole family would be murdered.”

  “But they will look now,” I said. “There is too much at stake.”

  “Probably. Carl Romeo found Talmadge because he went back to the hard records. The county hasn’t computerized those early twentieth century birth certificates yet. Maybe Martha’s birth record will be entered when her death certificate is being processed. But birth records don’t list siblings and Martha was born before Talmadge.”

  “Without an heir, the benefactor will be the power company, and it’s the least likely to be a murder suspect.”

  “We’re talking about people,” said Tommy Lee. “Not an institution.”

  “Then who personally benefits?” I asked.