Sitting at her desk, sipping her third coffee, Frankie flipped through a summary of Caroline’s banking and credit card statements. Multiple cash withdrawls popped up reminding her of the hundred dollar bills in the money clip and the cash Caroline had squirreled away around the house. Caroline appeared to be as obsessive about having cash available as she had been about her housekeeping.
Billy was on his way to meet Zelda Taylor at Caroline’s, a smart move. The woman would be difficult to handle in the interview room. Frankie found her quirkiness—not to mention the obvious childhood crush she had on Billy—irritating. He would work that relationship to his advantage with his sincere tone and slow smile. She’d seen tough offenders give up the damnedest information to him, because he’d slipped under their guard.
She put away Caroline’s records and moved to her search on Highsmith. Nothing remarkable there, not even a speeding ticket. Robert Highsmith had grown up in Lincoln Park and attended University of Chicago Law School, graduating third in his class. He then joined the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office. With those credentials and visibility as an assistant state’s attorney, he must have been planning a political career. If that was the case, the move to Memphis was a veer off course.
She signed onto Friend Feed and Search Systems but found little information. No Facebook or Twitter account, but then on an initial pass Highsmith hadn’t seemed like the social media type. An article in the Chicago Tribune’s archives pictured him and two colleagues participating in a Toys for Tots drive. All three wore Santa hats and business suits. Highsmith—barrel-chested with a high forehead—gripped a three-foot-tall Big Bird in front of him like he’d taken the bird hostage. Not a handsome man, more the dependable type.
The most telling piece was an article published in the Tribune seven weeks before Highsmith had left Chicago. A city councilman was in court being arraigned on bribery charges. Highsmith was the prosecutor. Immediately after the councilman and his attorney were given a trial date, the councilman stood up and began to curse at the Cook County State’s Attorney, who happened to be in the rear of the courtroom. The reporter implied that the councilman had seemed astonished when prosecution of the case moved forward. The article also noted that the councilman had twice before been arrested on felony charges. In both cases, the State’s Attorney had, without explanation, dismissed the charges. Soon after that Highsmith was out of a job.
It smelled rotten. Frankie imagined the Cook County State’s Attorney had instructed Highsmith to tell the judge they had decided to drop the charges. Highsmith may have objected. As a result the state’s attorney fired him. On the other hand, Highsmith could have quit in protest or disgust.
That had been seven months ago. Highsmith moved to Memphis and had been with the Lee Law Firm for around five months. She copied the article, submitted requests for more documents from the Cook County Clerk’s office, and moved to Caroline’s phone logs from her office and mobile.
Starting with the day Caroline died, Frankie cross-referenced her office calls with her list of clients. All incoming and outgoing calls had been work-related. During the afternoon and evening hours, she’d made five notable calls on her mobile. The first was to Blue Hopkins, presumably about the wedding arrangements. The second was to Robert Highsmith. According to his file, he had repeatedly urged her to allow him to file the protective order. Since she was planning to leave town, it was possible she’d called to put that on hold. The third was to Zelda Taylor, the fourth to Gracie Ella Adams, her aunt. The fifth was to Judd Phillips. That one put up a red flag. Judd said he and Caroline had been out of touch.
Frankie tapped in Judd’s number. “Mr. Phillips, this is Detective Malone. I need to speak with you . . . Oh, really.” She listened. “That is a coincidence. I can come there. Sure. I have the address.”
Someone had done a masterful job updating Judd’s 1930s cozy craftsman bungalow by enlarging the paned windows and adding peaked roofs and stone pillars to the porch. The yard had been extensively landscaped. And there was the red BMW Z4, Frankie’s all-time favorite car, sitting in the driveway.
Judd was waiting for her on the porch, seated in a wicker chair with a coffee cup and reading a newspaper. He folded his paper and stood as she came up the walk, carrying her satchel. She could tell he was attempting to read her face the same way she’d seen him do with other players around a poker table.
“Cool day to be reading outside,” she called.
“I needed some air.”
She took the steps up to the porch.
“Let me take that,” he said, relieving her of the heavy satchel on her shoulder. She picked up on his bloodshot eyes and the smell of the rum he’d poured in his coffee.
She’d grown up with her father’s alcoholism and the smell of Flor de Caña rum as he drank himself into a stupor every night. Alcohol had been his way to blunt his anger toward a wife who’d left him with a daughter he had not wanted in the first place.
She wondered what pain Judd was trying to bury. She understood. She’d done the same for a brief time with pills. The struggle to get past it had given her a new kind of courage, something she hadn’t expected.
Judd held the front door for her. The oak floors and the sun flooding through the windows and skylights made the space warm and inviting. They passed through a rustic, tasteful living room with a fireplace and a sofa deep enough to curl up in. This was a real home, not what she’d expected from the drunken man she’d met two nights ago at the CJC.
A Georges Braque painting, Vase, Palette and Mandolin done in charcoal and oil, hung over the mantel. The logic of the geometric shapes in his work had always fascinated her.
“You’re a student of art?” She stepped closer to study the painting.
“More a student of poker.”
“I’ve seen a photo of Braque. You look a lot like him.”
Judd laughed, pleased.
She followed him through an arched doorway into the dining room where the rustic elegance stopped. This was a war room—chairs pushed against the walls, their seats loaded with boxes and binders, a computer and desk chair positioned at the end of a ten-foot farmer’s table, lists written on whiteboards, and news articles tacked up.
Aerial photos of rice fields took up most of one wall. On an adjacent wall hung a geological survey that mapped the flood inundation of a river basin. Yellow and blue sticky notes with directional arrows festooned the edges.
“I’ve read the case files,” she said, indicating the satchel he’d laid on the table.
Judd dipped his head. “I was sure you’d find them interesting. Finn was a great guy. He deserved more than to vanish without a clue.”
A two-foot by four-foot photo of shoes and folded clothes lying near the water’s edge dominated the room. She’d seen the shot in the file. Enlarged it was even more unsettling. She walked over to look at several snapshots Judd had pinned around it. In one of them, Finn was sitting in the Camaro, leaning out the driver’s side window and waving. Caroline and Judd were standing next to the front fender, both of them grinning.
“Finn bought that car with his own money,” Judd said. “He was a wizard in the stock market.”
“Looks like the three of you were close.”
“Best friends.”
“How did Caroline end up with the Camaro?”
“Seeing it in the driveway every day made Finn’s mother heartsick. She let Caroline take it as long as she promised to give it up when Finn came home.”
He pointed out a photo of Finn and Caroline, the Gothic architecture of the Rhodes College campus in the background. A man stood between them, one arm around Finn’s shoulders and the other around Caroline’s waist. In his thirties, he was fit and tan with angular features and thick dark hair cut short on the sides. Frankie thought of the Argentine polo players who used to fly into Key West to compete in the local field polo tournaments. At night they would take over the bars on Duval Street with women practically throwing panties at their feet. This guy had the same cocky smile.
“That’s Clive Atwood,” Judd said. “Finn came down with mono the fall of his junior year and had to sit out seven weeks. Aunt Gracie Ella hired Atwood as a tutor to get him through the semester. He claimed to have graduated from Princeton and earned a Masters in journalism at Stanford. Finn came out of the semester with a 4.0 average. We were impressed. After that Atwood hung around as a mentor.”
“Why do you say ‘claimed’?”
“After Finn disappeared I got suspicious and looked into Atwood’s background. He’d been expelled from Princeton and never attended Stanford. He had a minor possession charge in Florida and an arrest in Georgia for selling counterfeit DVDs out of his trunk. Got probation for that.
“Our family has lived in a bubble of power and privilege for many years. It didn’t occur to us that someone with Atwood’s background could work his way inside.”
“It happens. Con artists seek out smart, wealthy people like your family and worm their way in. They rely on your good manners.”
“Finn trusted him. We’ve calculated that Atwood talked him out of at least thirty grand.”
She studied the photo, the way Finn’s gaze cut possessively at Atwood. “The PI report indicated Finn and Atwood were lovers.”
Judd’s eyes softened. “That explains a lot, doesn’t it?”
“What makes you think Atwood had a role in the disappearance?”
Judd’s gaze jumped around the room over the charts and stacks of files. “Atwood started dealing drugs. We believe he talked Finn into making a pickup. It got him killed.”
“You’re certain he’s dead?”
“Without a body . . .” He shrugged. “Walker’s investigators believe he’s gone. The day Finn disappeared the landlord overheard him yelling on the phone. Records show Atwood called Finn from Miami three times that day. Walker believes Atwood convinced Finn to drive to a place in Arkansas where meth labs had been operating. Meth cookers have shit for brains. You know what I’m talking about.”
She nodded, not wanting to interrupt.
“I’m sure Finn didn’t know what he was walking into. It would be like him to balk when he realized he’d been sent to mule meth. He’d be furious.”
Frankie looked around the room, aware of the resources Judd had thrown at the case. She caught him rubbing his eyes. “Headache?”
“No sleep. It’s under my skin. Finn and Caroline gone. You’re wondering why I think the cases are connected. Take another look at the photograph of the two of them standing with Atwood.”
She leaned in. Atwood had pulled Caroline close, his hand around her waist, two fingers slipped deep into her waistband.
“She had it bad for him,” he said. “She’d done a lot of drugs as a teenager, but it was behind her. Atwood found out. He roped her in with coke.”
“You’re sure?”
“I’m sure,” he said.
“She had to know Finn and Atwood were lovers.”
“No one in the family knew Finn was gay. Maybe Zelda did, but she’d never bring it up. Finn wouldn’t want Caroline to know about him and Atwood, although she was so infatuated I don’t think it would have mattered. Atwood must have realized Finn’s money was limited and that Caroline’s folks were the ones with the deep pockets.”
Frankie thought about that. “You believe Atwood wanted Finn out of the picture?”
“Hard to say. Running drugs out of Arkansas was dangerous business. Walker believed the meth cooks killed Finn by accident or for the hell of it. Knowing they’d screwed up, they called Atwood. He was smart enough to make the murder look like an accident or suicide.
“I ran into Atwood at a bar downtown after the case went cold. I hauled him out into an alley and knocked him around, gave him Walker’s theory about the meth labs and Finn’s murder. I accused him of being responsible. He took off running. I couldn’t catch him. He disappeared after that. Caroline found out what I’d done. That’s why she quit talking to me.”
“I picked that up from the transcript,” she said.
“Walker tracked him to a California prison where he served 120 days for a simple possession charge. He gated out. Walker lost him.” Judd fell silent. He ran his palm across his forehead, sweating. The rum and conversation had taken its toll.
“On the phone you said you had information about Caroline,” she said.
“Right. It’s in the kitchen if you’ll follow me.”
He showed her to a kitchen with a beamed ceiling and brick fireplace. Sitting on a stack of old phone books at the end of the counter was a dusty answering machine.
“I just found this message Caroline left on my landline. It’s time stamped Monday afternoon. I was concerned I might lose the recording if I unplugged the machine to bring it to your office.”
“Good thinking,” she said. She took out her mobile and set it to record.
He hit play.