The Not-dead, Dead Husband

Well, that jived with what Cindy had told me except for the supposed blood stains on the rug and in Darlene's car trunk.

"The Crime Lab found a stain on and under your living room rug they thought was blood. They found the same thing in your car trunk. They couldn't positively identify the stains as blood because of the bleach that was used to clean it up, but they did find your husband's DNA on some hairs in your car trunk. Any ideas how all that might have happened?"

Darlene gave me a wry smile.

"Any woman knows only an idiot would put bleach on a rug because it would take out the color. The only reason the cop saw it was it was almost white instead of blue. It wasn't that way when I went to pack the night before and I didn't go through the living room when I left. If I'd done that, it would be the same thing as admitting I'd killed the jerk. Do I really look that dumb?

"As for the stain and hairs in my car trunk, Martin had a set of keys to my car. He could have put the stain and the hairs there any time my car was in the garage. He went out there after dinner about one night a week to polish his. I wouldn't have known if he'd done something to mine while he was out there. I never use the trunk anyway. I put my groceries in the back seat."

There had been nothing in the police report about any of that, and that only confirmed my suspicion that Martin was alive and something was going on.

"Did you tell all this to the detectives who interviewed you and to your lawyer?"

Darlene nodded.

"I did, but they didn't take any notes. I think they'd already made up their minds."

"Well, you've convinced me, but I have to find your husband to prove you didn't kill him. What I need from you is everything you can tell me about him -- what he liked to do, where he might have gone, who his friends were -- even something you don't think matters might be the key, so tell me everything you know about him."

When I got back to my office, I had some answers to things I'd questioned as well as some information I hadn't considered before.

Darlene didn't know of anyplace Martin might have gone to hide out. They didn't own a second home, at least that she knew of, and he didn't have any close friends. She'd never heard him talk about doing anything with anybody else except for at work.

Apparently his only hobby was polishing his car. Darlene said his dad owned a used car lot and had impressed on Martin the need to keep a car waxed so it would hold its value.

Martin had never told Darlene what his income was, but she'd seen one bank statement a couple months before that said they had about fifty thousand in checking and about half a million in CD's. She also said Martin kept money in a safe in their house but she didn't know the combination so she'd never seen inside it. Evidently the police hadn't either because there was nothing in the police report that said they had. That was really strange too. People keep a lot of private stuff in safes. You'd think the police would have opened it to see what was inside. You'd also think they'd have checked on his bank account, but they hadn't.

The bank account and the CD's bothered me a lot. Even if Martin had an income of a quarter million a year, he had too much money in the bank. If my estimate of the price of the house was even close, Martin would have had to put down at least a hundred grand and would still be making about ten grand a month in mortgage payments.

Darlene didn't know if there was a mortgage on the property, or at least, she'd never signed a mortgage agreement. That could mean either of two things. Either Martin had paid cash for the house or he'd put the house in his name instead of joint ownership with Darlene. I couldn't see any way Martin could have saved enough to pay cash, so there had to be a mortgage. My next stop was the county records office.

I learned two things there. Martin had purchased the house three years before and had taken out a mortgage with a major finance company. The deed was in his name and there was no mention in any of the deal of Darlene.

It seemed as if Martin had gone out of his way to keep Darlene totally out of his financials. There might have been a logical reason for that, but I had a feeling it was just because Martin liked having control of things. He'd provided for her, but basically, Darlene couldn't take a shit unless Martin said it was OK.

The insurance policy was the only exception, and I couldn't figure that out unless Martin was trying to fake his death and pin it on Darlene. It was the only thing involving money where she'd have immediate access to the money if he was dead. There was a problem with that though. Unless Martin's body was found to prove he was dead, Darlene wouldn't get anything.

Since Martin was technically just missing, Darlene would have to wait seven years and then be able to prove he was dead in order to get anything. Proving somebody is dead is pretty tough to do unless you can produce a corpse, although the DA seemed to be confident he could do it in Darlene's case.

The police report hadn't said anything about a will, but I went back through the paperwork Darlene's lawyer had given me just to make sure. I didn't find a will, but I found something better. Martin had made the payments to the mortgage company by check, and he always made a copy of the check and attached it to the monthly statement. I'd missed the copy of the check when I went through the paperwork the first time.

What I had was Martin's bank, the routing number and his account number. I couldn't get a copy of his last bank statement, but I had a feeling I wouldn't need to.

The next morning, I called Martin's bank, told them I was calling from Harry's Auto Repair, and I had a check for two thousand one hundred and fifty three dollars and wanted to know if it was good. There was a pause after I gave her the routing number and account number. When the girl came back on the line, she told me the account had been closed.

It never pays to give up on people just because they think they're not supposed to tell you something. If you can get them on your side, sometimes they'll tell you more than they're supposed to. Since being a PI means you have to be a pretty good con man too, I put my con man skills to the test. I asked for her sympathy.

"Ma'am, I don't know what I'm going to do then. My little girl is in the hospital and she needs an operation. I really needed the money so I let the guy pay me by check because he said he couldn't get the cash on a Saturday. Now that this check is no good, I guess Melody will have to wait. I wish there was a way to find this guy and get him to pay me. Did he put the money in another bank? Maybe I can find him if I go to that bank and explain what happened."

There was an even longer pause then, and I figured she'd just tell me the bank didn't give out that kind of information, but she surprised me.

"Sir, I sympathize with your situation, but I can't tell you if he moved his money to another bank. Our records indicate he took it in cash."

I knew she couldn't give me anything more, so I thanked her for her help and then hung up.

The only person who could have closed Martin's bank accounts was Martin and the fact he'd gotten cash instead of just doing a bank transfer was more than suspicious. If Darlene was right, Martin had walked out of the bank with around six-hundred grand or better. Nobody in their right mind walks around with that kind of cash on them unless they think they're going to need most of it soon and don't want a paper trail. If the cash had been in the house, the Crime Lab techs would have found it, but they didn't find any money there. Martin had to have taken it with him when he left.

It wouldn't be that hard to do. Six hundred thousand in hundreds would take up some space, but it would fit in a large briefcase or a gym bag. It would be reasonably heavy though, so Martin wouldn't have been taking any long distance hikes while carrying that briefcase. That brought me back to someone helping him and the receptionist was still my prime suspect.

I had her name from the plaque on her desk, Connie Baxter, and because I'd followed her home, I had her address, 509 West Main, White House. I decided she deserved a little closer look.

Like a lot of PI's, I subscribe to a people finder web site. I can find out the same information without it, but using the web site is a whole lot faster. That saves me hours of boredom and my clients a lot of money. I typed in Connie's name and address and then waited until her information filled the screen.

Connie Baxter's information was pretty normal with one exception. She was divorced. Being divorced isn't all that unusual these days, but what was interesting was the reason. According to the case file, Connie's husband divorced her because she was having an affair, and the person she was having an affair with was one Julia Morganthaller. That was interesting in itself. I've had only one case where a wife was having an affair with another woman. It got more interesting when I typed Julia Morganthaller into the people finder website.

Julia Morganthaller was married but she hadn't changed her last name like most women do. She'd been arrested one time for protesting as part of a women's lib protest. Apparently she slapped a patrolman when he asked her to step back on the sidewalk. Under Tennessee law, that was a Class B misdemeanor, but Julia was released the same day without being charged, and when I read her husband's name I knew why.

Julia was married to Dunston Witherby, one of the biggest real estate developers in Nashville. Dunston Witherby was also a major contributor to several political campaigns. It didn't take a fucking genius to figure out that his financial contributions gave him a certain amount of leverage in the city government. He'd just called someone and suggested his wife be released without being charged.

Julia and Dunston were still married and that smelled too. It could have been he didn't want the publicity of a divorce, but just like Connie's husband, most men wouldn't stay married to a wife who likes fucking other women...well, unless he knew and approved of the affair. There was probably no way to prove he did. What I could do was put what I now knew into a possible explanation for about everything. Then I'd see if I could find evidence that my explanation was what really happened.

I don't believe in coincidences, and there were several here. Connie worked in a real estate office and had an affair with Julia, who's husband just happened to be a real estate developer. Martin worked in the same office evaluating commercial properties, the same sort of properties that had made Julia's husband a shit load of money. Connie just happened to find Martin's memo while looking on his computer for an appraisal.

Julia's husband had the political connections to convince some people in the government to do what he asked, and he'd apparently used those connections to give his wife a "get out of jail free" card. He could easily use those same connections to keep Darlene in jail and stop any further investigation. The only question left was why would he do that.

I thought the answer had to be what the TV cops always say -- follow the money.

Like any real estate developer, Dunston Wittherby made money by buying properties with a potential future and then developing them to make that future a reality and pay himself well in the process. The less he paid for the property, the more money he made, and who was in a position to steer him toward undervalued properties? That would be Martin Matthews.

It wasn't a stretch to think that Martin could have understated the real market value of some properties at Witherby's request. If he did, Martin would probably collect a sizeable sum from Witherby under the table for his efforts. That would explain how he was able to afford an expensive house and still save as much as Darlene said he had.

The fact that Martin might be involved with Witherby also solved the riddle of how Connie found Martin's memo blaming Darlene if anything happened to him. There could be a lot of reasons Martin had decided to skip town, and Witherby probably knew he was going to. It would be to Witherby's advantage to keep his name out of everything, and he would have suggested Martin take steps to do that. Martin would have just told Connie where to find the memo on the day he disappeared and give it to the police. That would divert any suspicion from anybody but Darlene, and nobody would investigate his connection to Witherby. Witherby probably gave Martin a bonus for doing it.

That all fit well with what had happened, but there were still two questions I couldn't answer -- how did Martin disappear, and where the fuck was he?

As far as Darlene's case was concerned, why Martin disappeared wasn't really important. Finding him would take care of her problem and start making problems for Martin. Faking your own death isn't a crime, but Martin had fucked up big time by taking out the insurance policy on himself and disappearing three months later. To a prosecutor, that would look like insurance fraud. If what I suspected was true, that same prosecutor would have several other charges to consider.

I was still unsure about how Martin had managed to slip away from his house without being seen. It seemed likely he'd walked to that dirt road and gotten a ride. Connie didn't have a vehicle with lug tires, so unless she had another vehicle stashed somewhere, it wasn't her. That left Julia and Witherby as possible people who picked him up. Witherby would have had access to a four-wheel drive vehicle because of his business. All developers have at least one so they can drive through rough graded building sites.

The more I thought about that though, the less likely it seemed. A lot of criminals are caught during routine traffic stops, and Witherby wouldn't have wanted to take the risk of being stopped with Martin in his vehicle. He could have paid one of his employees to pick up Martin, but he was probably smarter than that. The more people involved in a scam, the more probable there will be a leak. The employee could also have threatened to tell the police unless he got more cash.

So, if Martin didn't go through the trees to that dirt road, how would he have gotten out of the house without being seen?

I was wracking my brain for an explanation when I remembered reading about a woman who'd been kidnapped and stuffed in a car trunk. She'd escaped by figuring out how to unlock the trunk lid from the inside. She waited until the car stopped at a stoplight, popped the trunk, and then ran to the car behind.

Darlene said Martin went out to the garage one night a week to polish his car. What if he figured out how to unlock her car trunk from the inside? She said Martin's dad had done most of his own mechanic work, so Martin would probably have had the opportunity to see how trunk locks work.

Darlene also said when she left that night, she thought Martin was in his study. She hadn't actually seen him there. He just wasn't where he was when she left to pack. I needed to look in that car trunk or at least talk to somebody who had. I called Cindy again.

Like before, she told me to hang up and she'd call me back. When she did, she sounded nervous.

"Harry, I already told you everything I can. What do you want?"

"Did your techs find anything odd about Darlene's trunk other than the stain and the hairs?"

I heard paper rustling for a couple of seconds before she replied.

"Yes, but it didn't seem relevant so it wasn't in the report. The trim on the back that covers the lock was loose. Why?"

I was smiling to myself because I'd answered one of my last questions.

"I'm just confirming a hunch. By the way, how fresh was the bleach on the rug and the car trunk?"

"Well, the bleach on the rug was still wet, so it had to be put there the day before the officer found it. The bleach in the trunk was dry, so who knows how long it had been there. It could have been two days or two months."

Cindy had just answered another of my questions, but I still had one more.

"Cindy, I drove by the place and there were security cameras all over it. I didn't seen anything in your report or the police report that said they'd watched the video of that night. I'd think they would have."

Cindy said they'd found the recorder and looked at the video, but there was nothing there except for the lawn in front and the trees in back from the time of the fight until the police officers got there the next morning.

I thanked Cindy and then ended the call. If what I suspected was true, Martin hadn't been picked up by anyone. He'd just hidden in Darlene's trunk while she was packing to leave. He'd have had to plan everything in advance, but I figured he'd unfastened the trim on Darlene's trunk sometime before that night so he could get back out.

That night, the fight gave him an opportunity and when Darlene went to their bedroom, he splashed something on that living room rug, poured bleach on top of it and then opened Darlene's trunk and climbed in.

The garage was off the kitchen, so Darlene wouldn't have had to go through the living room to get to her car, and she wouldn't have smelled or seen what he'd done. Martin could have put the stain and bleach in her car trunk the day or even a week before. The hairs in the trunk might have been an accident or part of his plan.

Once Darlene got to the motel, all he had to do was give her an hour or so to get checked in and inside her room. Then, he popped the trunk, got out with his briefcase with the money, and either gotten picked up by someone or caught a cab.

I needed to prove that, of course, but I thought I might have a way. It meant I'd have to shave and dress up in a suit and tie again, but if it worked, it would be worth it.

}{

The next morning, when I drove to the Red Roof Inn where Darlene said she'd spent the night, I was Harry Meers, salesman for Clarkson Security Systems, and I had a business card to prove it. I'd printed the dozen business cards the night before on the little printing press in my desk that uses rubber type.

I walked into the lobby and asked to see the manager. The woman behind the counter went through a door behind her, and a couple seconds later, she came out ahead of a man in a polo shirt and shorts. He introduced himself as Ali Shendiri and his accent was pretty thick.

I asked if the motel had a security camera. I already knew they had because I saw one on a pole that would have been able to see the parking lot and the front doors of the rooms. He nodded.

"Yes, why you ask?"

I went into my spiel about how Clarkson security systems were a lot better than what he had and I could prove it to him. I asked him to show me some of the footage from the last week or so, both day and night, and I'd tell him how our systems were better. I also said since his motel would be our first commercial account, we'd give him a twenty percent discount on our system if we could put our sign on his lobby door.

I was hoping his system had a big enough hard drive to save at least a couple weeks of video. If it didn't I was fucked.

When he took me back to his office and showed me the recorder, I told him our systems could access any video by date and time and asked if his could do the same. When he said it could, I gave him the date and time Darlene said she'd checked in.

I watched the video play, and sure enough, about ten minutes after the time Darlene said she'd checked in, her car pulled into a parking space in front of one of the rooms. She got out, took a small bag out of the back seat, and went inside.

Martin didn't wait the hour I thought he would. He only waited for ten minutes. I saw the trunk on Darlene's car open, a man got out with a gym bag, closed the trunk and then walked away toward the street.