One thing I have never worried about is taxes. Lots of other people worry, but when you turn over virtually everything you earn to a convent, taxes don’t loom very important on your horizon. But I know that acquiring tax-free income is very desirable, and I also know that the Bahamas are known as a haven for folks with money whose origins are murky.
So I got up Tuesday morning trying to figure out what Patrick Talley might have done to come into the amount and kind of money that would draw him to a tax haven.
The money he had inherited from Alberta came through legal channels and would have been taxed according to the laws of the time. I wondered about real estate deals. I had heard of people coming to closings with briefcases—or paper bags—full of cash. But how do you check up on that kind of thing forty years after the fact?
Patrick Talley had been part of a small group of independent insurance agents that was still listed in the phone book. I decided to drive over and see if they could dig up any old records on him.
The company’s office was in northern New Jersey, not too far from the house the Talleys bought after Alberta died. I crossed the Tappan Zee Bridge and was there by nine-thirty.
It was a newish yellow brick building, and there was a kind of casual air among the partners and employees that probably made it fun to work for. The men sat at their desks in shirt-sleeves, and the women wore summery dresses and sandals with bare legs.
It took me a while to get to see someone who might be in a position to help me, Mr. Rasmussen, a graying man with very blue eyes. I went through my story of researching the unsolved death of Mr. Talley’s first wife, and he assured me he had known Pat in the fifties—“when I was a lot younger than I am now”—and that his father had worked with Pat.
I asked some questions and got a lot of anecdotes in return. Either he didn’t take me seriously or this was his technique for putting me off.
He confirmed what Patrick Jr. had said, that Pat had continued working past normal retirement, taking only a few clients. Eventually, he and his wife—“his second wife, I think it was”—had moved to a little farm somewhere. It amused me that the bungalow had become a farm. Rasmussen didn’t seem to know where the farm was, but he remembered when Pat died; he’d been to the funeral. “Lots of people,” he said. “Pat was really loved.”
So I knew he was lying, but I didn’t know why or about what. I couldn’t ask him about Patrick Talley’s whereabouts on Good Friday 1950, because Rasmussen had probably been a teenager then and not yet involved with the business.
Eventually I just gave up. I couldn’t stay all day, and I couldn’t crack the protective shell he had built around the Patrick Talley story. Finally I said, “Well, if you think of anything, please give me a call.” I said my name and number loudly enough that the other shirt-sleeves in the area could hear and then I wrote my name, address, and number on a sheet of his paper.
On the way home, I stopped in my bank and took out enough cash to pay for one round trip to Buffalo and one one-way back.
My last ploy at the insurance company paid off that evening. The phone rang, and when I answered, a man said, “Christine Bennett?”
“Yes, it is.”
“You the one wants to know about Pat Talley?”
“That’s right.”
“Why?”
I decided to be frank. “I think there’s something funny about his finances.”
“Ya damned right. That was no farm he bought.”
“I know that.”
“Ever hear of Mayfair Fuels?”
“No.” I grabbed a pencil and started writing.
“Biggest fire they ever had in New Jersey.”
“When was it?” I asked.
“ ’Bout fifty-nine.”
“Did he insure them?”
“Well, someone named Pat Talley did.”
“Was it arson?” I asked boldly.
“Suspicious. Nothing was ever proved. Three-million-dollar payoff.”
“That’s a lot of money.”
“Mayfair never rebuilt.”
“I see.”
“Town was against it, neighbors were against it. They made it look like they wanted to. ’F you ask me, they took their share and ran.”
He couldn’t have made it clearer if he’d spelled it out. “I appreciate your calling.”
“Just thought I’d set the record straight.” He hung up.
I looked down at what I’d scribbled: They took their share and ran. And the other share, I thought—had it ended up in the Bahamas?