Dangerous Undertaking Read online

  “Fats McCauley?” He sighed. “What has gotten into that boy?”

  “I’m hoping you can tell me. I’m trying to help run down some loose ends for Sheriff Tommy Lee Wadkins, and as you can guess, I’ve got a personal interest. I understand you’re handling the Willard estate.”

  He shook his head as if I had just asked him to fix the national debt.

  “I wish I’d never heard the name Willard.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Because they’ve been nothing but trouble.”

  “Was it just bad luck they came to you?” I asked.

  The length of Carl’s silence told me the Willards had been more than walk-in clientele. It must be genetic that people who become lawyers cannot begin a conversation without weighing the implications of every word. When at last he reached some comfort with how to proceed, he cleared his throat and spoke in a tone that made me feel like I was taking his deposition.

  “First of all, let me state that to the best of my knowledge everything regarding the Willards that I’ve seen has been handled on the up and up. I say that because some of the procedures may seem a little complex, but each requested action was well within the law.

  “About ten years ago, a client came to me and asked for a favor. Over the years he had provided me with a hefty sum of legal fees, so, naturally I lent a receptive ear. His proposition concerned the Willard property. He was interested in acquiring it, but smart enough to know you didn’t just walk in on Martha Willard and make her an offer. Selling family land would be traumatic. After all, what would all the dead ancestors think? And land values had skyrocketed during Martha’s lifetime. The capital gains tax would be obscene. Martha would sooner give money to the devil than to the IRS.

  “My client figured a way around these obstacles, and he wanted me to start the ball rolling by approaching Pastor Stinnett.”

  “Martha’s preacher?” I interrupted. “You were going to get him to make Martha sell her land?”

  Carl broke out in one of those “you’re-going-to-love-this” grins. “He was going to get Martha to give away the land. She would gift the land to Crab Apple Valley Baptist Church. I would be responsible for setting up a trust, a charitable remainder trust to be exact. The charitable trust would receive the property, sell it avoiding the taxes, and then begin legally paying Martha an income based on the interest earnings of the trust. She could start reaping cash from an asset that was currently providing nothing.

  “But what my client thought would really capture Martha’s support was the creation of the trust itself, The Martha Willard Trust, because when she died, all the money left in it would revert to the church.”

  “How much?” I asked.

  “Three hundred thousand back then. Enough to get Preacher Stinnett’s attention. That’s a hell of a lot of collection plates.”

  “That’s fine for him,” I said, “but wasn’t Martha cheating her heirs?”

  “Her son Robbie had died, and the three grandchildren, Norma Jean, Lee, and Dallas, were the only immediate family. At that time Martha was a spry sixty and never sick a day in her life. Her Alzheimer’s had not yet materialized. That’s where Archie Donovan came into the picture.”

  “The insurance agent?”

  “Yes, we had figured in a premium that Martha would pay out of her new income. It would purchase a three hundred thousand dollar policy on her life with the grandchildren as beneficiaries. That would repay them the money that went to the church. Everybody wins but the IRS.”

  “Obviously something went wrong. Was it just too complicated for everyone to understand?”

  “No, I went to see Preacher Stinnett and he jumped on the idea like a robin on a junebug. He took me with him to see Martha right away, and he suggested I let him do the talking.” Carl shook his head and laughed as he recalled the meeting. “Preacher Stinnett was amazing. He presented it as if it were his idea. No, it was more of a dream he had. While he slept, God spoke to him saying that the church would always be freshly painted, that the cemetery would overflow with flowers, that the ladies’ quilting circle of which Martha was a life-long member would never want for supplies. Preacher Stinnett said he asked, ‘How can this be, Lord? We are a congregation rich in faith but poor in worldly goods.’ And the Lord spoke majestically the words, ‘My beloved servant Martha Willard can provide.’ And then Stinnett said there appeared a sheaf of papers on which was written the name Carl Romeo. ‘So, I sought him out and discovered he was a wise attorney and a God-fearing man who knew the Lord’s will. He has shown me how those who sow unto God will themselves reap abundantly.’ The preacher turned to me, and I realized that was my introduction.”

  “Laid it on kind of thick, didn’t he,” I said.

  “I must have looked like a fool, sitting there in a doily-covered armchair with my mouth hanging open. ‘Go ahead, Mr. Romeo,’ he prompted. ‘Show her the diagrams, especially the one that gives the money to the Lord instead of the tax man.’

  “I managed to compose myself and drew a simple flow chart of how things would work. Martha followed pretty well and seemed genuinely interested. She asked a few questions, mainly about the insurance and could her own doctor perform the required physical. Then she announced she would pray about it and then have us return for a family meeting.”

  “With her and her grandchildren?”

  “Yes, I got the feeling if they had no serious objections Martha would fulfill Preacher Stinnett’s prophecy. A week later I was back in her small living room with my charts. Norma Jean and Lee were all for it. They had no attachment to the land, and they liked the idea that Martha had more money coming in. I’m sure their tax-free three hundred thousand dollar inheritance didn’t hurt either.”

  “Dallas was different,” I said.

  “Dallas fell apart. It was awful. At first he got angry. Then he started crying. Wailing is more like it. He and his father had hunted on that land, and his dad had promised some day the ridge would be his. At sixteen, he was the youngest. His father died when he was fourteen. The mother had died when Dallas was only seven, leaving him to the maternal care of Grandma Martha. He was the baby of the family by more than five years and still held that place in his grandmother’s heart.

  “Well, his pathetic reaction turned Martha’s mind against the plan. She wouldn’t contradict Dallas’ wishes. The others wanted her to give two-thirds of the land, carving out the section Dallas wanted. Preacher Stinnett looked at me, but I shook my head no. My client would not agree to buy property with the center gutted out of it. I rolled up my papers and left the room. There was nothing I could do, and frankly, the tension between Dallas and his brother and sister bordered on open confrontation. Perhaps the seeds of murder were sown that day.”

  “Perhaps,” I agreed. I also recalled Preacher Stinnett’s glare of disapproval when Dallas arrived at the graveside. He knew because of Dallas he was also burying three hundred thousand. “But you’ve seen the family since then?”

  “Yes. About six months ago, Norma Jean brought Martha in to have her will drawn. Her general health was failing rapidly, but although her Alzheimer’s was beginning to make an impact, Martha remembered me and said she knew I had only been trying to help. Norma Jean said her grandmother wanted the land to come to them intact, with equal ownership of the whole parcel.”

  “Not carving it up,” I said. “Giving Dallas the ridge section.”

  “No, Norma Jean was very specific on that point.”

  I handed him the map from Dallas Willard’s cabin. “Not like this?” I asked.

  “No,” said Carl. “You know Ruth said Dallas brought something like this by the office the day after Martha died. I was out of town. She told him it was not the way the estate would be settled, that Martha had directed that the land be held in common and that all the paperwork had been legally executed.”

  “So, what if someone wanted to buy the whole parcel and Dallas still didn’t want to sell?”

  “Simple majorit
y vote of the owners.”

  “Did Dallas know that?”

  “I assumed he did. But, given what happened the last time they tried to sell, his brother and sister could have intentionally kept him in the dark until Martha died.”

  “And then voted two to one against him. I understand both the power company and a migrant project are interested in the property, and it’s probably worth more than three hundred thousand today.”

  “I wouldn’t want to speculate,” said Carl. “But you’re right about the vote, although this document may have given Dallas a case.”

  I patted my bandaged shoulder. “Carl, I think it’s safe to say he settled out of court.”

  Chapter 8

  I traveled several miles outside of town and up from the valley floor to meet Tommy Lee at a local dive called Clyde’s Roadside. Normally a five-minute trip, the drive took twenty because autumn tourists were as thick on the roads as—I could just hear my grandmother’s voice—“ugly on a hog.” She had said it in such a variety of contexts that it became a family expression for unwanted abundance.

  The spectacular foliage of October kept a large number of Florida retirees in the western North Carolina mountains in unwanted abundance. And even a backwoods route did not avoid the perpetual parade of Cadillacs, Lincolns, and Buicks that crept along the winding two-lane blacktop, slowing at every break in the trees in hopes of a glimpse of some yet undiscovered panorama. My Jeep Cherokee wove through the maze as fast as the serpentine road would allow me to pass.

  “Hello, sir, my name is Lindsay and did you see our specials board?” were words I would not hear inside the putrid green cinder block building of Clyde’s Roadside. On the other hand, the Floridian drivers would definitely not be slowing down or stopping for this local color. At Clyde’s the vehicle of choice, the pickup truck, outnumbered the cars two to one. I counted eight trucks, four cars, no out-of-state license plates, and no empty parking spaces in front.

  I pulled around to the side. The site for Clyde’s Roadside had been gouged out of the mountain, and a wall of dirt rose more than twenty feet above the parking lot. Naked ends of roots dangled where they had been mutilated and exposed by an earthmover’s blade. Overhead, several pines at the edge of the man-made cliff leaned like green Towers of Pisa, waiting only for a windy push to topple them. Tommy Lee was parked in the V of double-stacked railroad ties which served as a make-shift dam against the torrents of water that would cascade down the slope during a heavy rain. I parked alongside him.

  “Does this qualify as a rendezvous rather than a meeting?” I asked.

  “My office is crawling with press. Hide at Clyde’s is our safest bet if we want to talk undisturbed.”

  As we walked around the windowless exterior, I heard the bass notes of “Stand By Your Man” vibrate through the walls.

  “At least they’ve got good music,” I said.

  “There are four copies of that song on the jukebox because they keep wearing out.”

  “They ought to get it on CD.”

  “Those are CDs,” he said, and pushed the door open.

  I was immediately hit by the smell of beer and peanuts.

  “After you,” he said.

  As I suspected, someone named Lindsay was not there to ask if we preferred non-smoking. Instead, a soft gray haze flattened into a single layer and hung just below the rough-hewn ceiling planks. Neon American beer signs glowed beneath it. I would not be ordering a Newcastle Brown. As my eyes adjusted to the dimness, I spied the centerpiece behind the bar—a double-barrel shotgun which made Tommy Lee’s brand of law enforcement unnecessary except for those occasional arguments which might spill out into the parking lot.

  The patrons mostly drew from construction workers ending the day with a couple of brews, the unemployed who could afford Clyde’s posted no-credit policy, and those mountain folk who tired of drinking corn liquor alone. About half the tables were filled, not with individuals, but with clusters of drinkers laughing or arguing to pass the time between swallows.

  A distinct drop in the level of conversation started at the tables closest to the door and swept back across the room. Tammy Wynette’s voice seemed to swell louder as the competition faded. Heads turned to the door to see what intrusion had broken the afternoon rituals. Tommy Lee just smiled and nodded his head with an unspoken “Howdy, boys.” He walked over to the bar and ordered a draft of Bud for me and a Diet Coke for himself.

  “Guess this means you’re on duty, Sheriff,” said the skinny, gray-bearded barkeeper. He slid a dirt-spotted mug of foam across the chipped Formica surface to me and an unopened aluminum can to Tommy Lee.

  “Just visiting, Clyde, if that’s what you mean.” He popped the top, took a deep pull on the soda and turned around to survey the crowd. “We’ll start a tab and camp at a back table if that’s all right with you.”

  “Sure. Take the one under the ugly guy in the corner.”

  As we crunched across discarded peanut shells, the men returned to their conversations. A few said hello, and one guy with a smile sporting broken and missing teeth that looked like the keys of a basement piano loudly asked for Tommy Lee’s autograph. We knew why when we saw the election poster hanging over the table Clyde so graciously offered.

  “At least they didn’t deface it,” I said.

  “Probably afraid they’d improve my looks.”

  We sat down. Tommy Lee grabbed a handful of peanuts from the bucket on the table, crushed them in his fist, and started sorting through the hulls.

  “What did you find out?” he asked.

  I gave him my report on Linda Trine and Carl Romeo.

  “Sounds like the motive is pretty clear,” said Tommy Lee. “When Grandma Willard died, Dallas found out Norma Jean and Lee planned to cheat him out of his inheritance.”

  “Cheat him out of the land,” I said. “He’d get his share of the money.”

  “Money doesn’t mean squat to Dallas. You don’t have to be crazy to want revenge when the thing you love most is being stolen from you.”

  “You think Dallas is sane?” I asked.

  “No, I didn’t say that. I think the boy has mental problems. Alex Soles says he’s paranoid/schizophrenic. Little late with his diagnosis to do us any good. But just because Dallas was paranoid doesn’t mean someone wasn’t out to get him. And now he’s lost all hope.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He can’t inherit what he stands to gain through murder. His only motive was revenge—killing his brother and sister wouldn’t get him the land.”

  “How do you know he knew that?” I asked. “He might be crazy enough not to understand the consequences of his actions and think he’ll keep the property.”

  Tommy Lee stared at me for a few seconds. “You know, you just earned yourself another Bud. For that matter, who else stood to gain if Dallas killed his brother and sister?”

  “Carl Romeo said Martha’s grandchildren were the end of the line. He’s going to do a check for any legal heirs the state would recognize, but the property will probably go to auction.”

  “A gift to the developers,” growled Tommy Lee. “Unless Carl Romeo finds an heir.” He thought for a second. “I wonder if that’s an angle that ties Fats McCauley in somehow.” He took the final swallow from his Coke can, but before he could say anything more, a noise invaded the bar like a hundred chain saws swirling around the building.

  All other sounds stopped except for Tammy Wynette and the encircling roar from outside.

  “Bikers,” said Tommy Lee.

  The throaty rumble told me the motorcycles were not luxurious Honda Gold Wings ridden by retired couples—Cadillacs without doors. These had to be Harleys. In quick succession, four engines died.

  The door to Clyde’s Roadside swung inward, spilling the brilliance of the afternoon sun around the four silhouettes of the men who entered. The jangle of chains carried across the smoke-filled air. If I closed my eyes, it might have been the sound of spurs in a saloon. One
of the men leaned over the bar and spoke to Clyde. The owner pointed at us.

  “Oh, no,” muttered Tommy Lee. He slid back slightly in his chair, ready to get to his feet.

  I looked for a back door. There wasn’t one. The largest of the bikers headed toward us with his comrades trailing behind. Men at other tables stared at us, knowing we were the gang’s destination.

  Sheriff Tommy Lee Wadkins smiled and spoke out of the corner of his mouth. “Cover me.”

  “Cover you?” My voice cracked through wilted vocal cords. “I’m a damn undertaker. The only thing I can cover you with is dirt.”

  They were close enough for me to hear the hobnails of their boots scraping across the floor’s rough planks. The leader must have been somewhere between six and eight feet tall.

  Tommy Lee whispered, “Then get ready to dig our way out of here.”

  The smell of the man’s sweat reached us first. He stopped in front of Tommy Lee. The others fanned around us, sealing our corner table as tightly as a tomb. The quartet from hell sported heavy black leather jackets decorated with studs and chain links. The curly red-haired man closest to me had the tip of a letter B showing on his neck. I could guarantee the tattoo didn’t say “Born to eat quiche.”

  “Saw your car, Sheriff. I’ve been looking for you. I hear you been spreading lies about me.” The leader split his lips just enough to show he had fewer teeth than cards in a poker hand. His shoulder-length black hair was pulled back with a red bandanna, and a nut and bolt pierced his ear. Ugly on a hog took on a double meaning.

  “What if I am? What are you going to do about it, Jack?”

  I stared at Tommy Lee like he’d turned into a stranger. If he wanted to get the crap beat out of him, fine. I’d had my stay in the hospital this month. Let Tammy Wynette stand by him.

  The man called Jack turned to me. A hollow whistle sounded as he sucked in air. “He a friend of yours?” he asked me.

  “Look,” I said. “I’m only an undertaker and I don’t need any more business.”