Buried Trust, page 3
part #5 of A Turst Mystery Series
He retreated to the suite’s privacy and dialed the foreman. “We’re good to go,” he said, preempting the foreman’s inappropriate pressure for details. Just how many offices, malls, and factories the foreman had built were of no consequence to the dealmaker, who regarded blue-collar types with disdain, regardless of their record and accumulated wealth. The foreman would do as he was told, without question, or nobody would ever hire him again. That, he had the power to do, and the foreman knew it.
Euphoria overwhelmed him as he mentally counted his money. His extraordinary brain could keep it all straight without three separate spreadsheets. Dear old dad never envisioned him becoming a farmer when he sent him to Harvard, but he would approve of him being filthy rich.
Chapter 3
The following Saturday, freed from weekday responsibilities, the parents sorted their options regarding the unplanned guest in their house. “Face it,” Todd summarized the obvious. “Give a pet a name, and he’s yours. Billy loves him, and the D O G seems to be accepting our house rules.”
Billy looked up from his French toast, a bit of maple syrup dribbling down his chin. “D. O. G. Dat ‘pells Omowwee!”
Two and a half? Kingsley dabbed his face with a napkin and turned back to her husband, rolling her eyes. “We need to teach our guest to come when he’s called. He does great in the house because there’s food or attention involved. But he has to learn to obey us. That we mean business.”
“You’re the sexiest alpha dog I’ve ever met.”
“Hush—little ears!” Billy touched his own ears, his attention diverted by how syrupy fingers stuck to his hair, lifting it and not letting go. He giggled.
“Let’s take O’Malley outside this morning, attach that new ten-foot leash to his collar, and reward him with praise for coming when he’s called,” Todd said. “If he bolts, we can step on the leash and stop him—if we’re fast.”
Kingsley chuckled. “Was it only two weeks ago that we were trying to get rid of him?”
As planned, the parents stood fifteen feet apart, taking turns positioning O’Malley at their feet. When the dog was focused elsewhere, Kingsley let the leash slip to her feet, pleased that the animal didn’t notice. When Todd called his name, O’Malley scampered across the void. Each time either adult called his name, Billy joined in the footrace. They repeated the exercise, over and over, until Billy, reduced to being the monkey in the middle, wailed in frustration.
“Take the leash off altogether,” Todd called. “Let’s see how he does. Let him wander around the yard a bit farther.”
“Fine. Then you can explain that lesson to our son when he bolts a half-mile to the highway and gets killed by a truck.” Todd ignored her warning, unclipping the lead and letting their pet explore the backyard, nose down, in widening circles. When he wandered more than twenty feet, Todd called him. O’Malley’s head shot up, he focused and ran gleefully toward him and the generous praise that was heaped upon him.
“I think he was starved for attention and craves it,” she said. “That he’ll do anything we ask if he knows what that is. If we never reward him with people’s food, he won’t beg during mealtime or be a nuisance when we entertain. Have you noticed?” she added. “He doesn’t bark. I’ve never heard him—not once. Did someone or something traumatize him? Some watchdog he’ll be!”
“Little dogs can be yappy. He must think he’s big. If he accepts us as his, I think he would go for the jugular if anyone threatened us.”
“I can’t imagine that. He seems to love people unconditionally.”
Late Sunday evening, the tall-case clock in the foyer bonged midnight. Kingsley sighed, wishing to linger just a little bit longer over her book, curled in her favorite library chair. She knew if she went to bed, the minute she closed her eyes the alarm would jolt her into another arduous day at the bank as if sleep hadn’t happened. She couldn’t complain—she loved heading the bank’s commercial lending department which, still in her twenties, was a major coup that rewarded her education, determination, and grit. Still, she begrudged the time, now that she had a family.
The clock bonged the half-hour. As if on cue, O’Malley’s head jerked to attention, turning questioning eyes in her direction. “Outside?” The little dog pranced toward the front door. Kingsley reached for his lead, then reconsidered. As she opened the front door, he looked at her face expectantly. “Go take care of yourself,” she commanded, mimicking Todd’s inflection, delighted when he trotted to his spot. She stooped to his level when he had finished. “You are a wonderful little beast, aren’t you?” He ducked his head under her hand for an ear rub.
Suddenly, O’Malley alerted, staring east into the darkness as machinery began rumbling in the distance. Before Kingsley could react, he bolted in the direction of the sound, barking as furiously as any large breed she had ever encountered. She yelled his name to no avail; and by the time she’d reached the end of the brick sidewalk that connected to their gravel driveway, O’Malley was gone. Her instinct was to chase after him until she glanced at her slippered feet.
She tore through the house, pulled on her barn boots, shrugged into a hooded sweatshirt that hung on a hook, and sprinted out the back door, circling toward the lane. She knew exactly where he was headed, and tore cross country to the construction site, only slowing to squeeze through an opening she found in a new chain-link fence. Suddenly work lights exploded through the blackness, exposing excavation workers glaring at her.
Kingsley brushed past two men in coveralls who gaped at the intruder. “O’Malley!” she shrieked, stumbling over toolboxes, rebar, Dewalt hand tools, and extension cords. A portable generator rumbled beyond the circle of light. “Have you seen a little dog? Beige with black ears? About fifteen pounds? We live down the road, and he’s run away.” The pair shook their heads.
Peering into the darkness beyond the light’s circle, she spotted a hulking figure in jeans, a dirty tee-shirt, and yellow hard hat. He was turned sideways, but she could see he was gripping a shovel, choked up to the blade. “Hey mister, have you seen…” As he pivoted toward her voice, she could see O’Malley, anchored on his hip. The hulk was winding up, his right arm ready to connect with her dog’s head.
Instinctively she rushed toward him, screaming. “Stop! You coward! Don’t you dare hurt my little dog!” A weapon. She needed a weapon! By the drag on her jacket’s right pocket, she recognized the feel of her garden clippers. But as she grappled to free them, they stuck on the fabric. Crazed, she lifted them through the pocket and pointed them like a gun. “Hurt my dog and I’ll shoot you dead!”
The man froze. Lowering the shovel, eyes darting from her face to her hand, he dropped O’Malley on the ground. Kingsley pivoted, stepping backward to keep all three men in her line of vision. “That goes for all of you!” she yelled. She could feel the little dog velcroed to her legs, shaking, and scooped him up.
“Lady, keep your damn dog at home.”
“Home? Home you say? You don’t live here. We do. You are strangers who disturb our sleep night after night. I’m going to make it a point to get to the bottom of this—this—intrusion. Get out of my way. Let me pass.”
Anger propelled her from the construction site, down the lane to her driveway, and through the back door. A quick examination revealed no apparent injuries—just caked mud and oil. “Let’s give you a bath,” she soothed O’Malley, flicking on the basement lights and heading for the washtubs. Still clutching him on her hip, she ran warm water and half-filled the tub. Then, as Todd had done, she hosed and shampooed him and toweled his fur. Luckily, she’d left the old hairdryer nearby and finished the job. “Young dog, another lesson—come when you’re called.”
At their first possible opportunity, they’d walk him around and around the front, side, and the back garden’s edges to delineate his boundaries. As her blood pressure settled and her nerves calmed, she took mental inventory. It was her fault. She never should have let him outside off the leash. If he had vanished, or worse, been found dead and mutilated, how could they explain that to Billy? But she vowed to find out exactly what that construction was all about. Confession—she’d have to tell Todd about her adventure, but beyond their bright little son’s imaginative mind.
Chapter 4
Todd’s reaction was shocking and unexpected. Her sophisticated, highly educated, brilliant husband, who could keep hundreds of shareholders enthralled while explaining the minutia of the bank’s increased profits and earnings, rarely raised his voice. Sometimes she wished he wasn’t so sensible, the grownup, level-headed eldest child, who commanded respect regardless of circumstance. His mild-manner, she suspected, came naturally and was how he won the cooperation of influential people.
“What?” he bellowed.
“I, ah, had no choice but to go after him. I didn’t think. I reacted. Maybe if we invested in Invisible Fence…”
“Not my point! Did that workman threaten you? Raise that shovel, as if to strike you? If he thought you really had a gun, he might have. And having witnesses to vouch for him, the cops might conclude that he had been justified. This could all have ended badly.”
Kingsley opened her mouth to retort, but reconsidering, shut it. Her moment of contrition passed quickly, however. “We’ve got to find out what those guys are up to. I’ve written enough loans financing commercial enterprises to detect something’s amiss. I’m going to find out who bought the land, what business they’re in, if it’s approved for non-agricultural use, what’s in the agreements, who’s financing it…”
“K, you can’t use the bank’s resources to satisfy your personal curiosity. But you can ask Margaret to check out the real estate transaction—who’s the new owner of record, the financing, etc. That’s public record. Even though she’s in charge of residential real estate lending, she knows every realtor in multiple counties. Pete, her legal eagle husband, might have heard something about the business or its owners.”
“Zoning. This land is zoned agricultural, not commercial. That I can check myself.”
“And then,” Todd said, his gaze far away into the depths of his mind, “I will have a little chat with the owner. ‘Top-down.’ Not ‘bottom-up.’ I see no benefit in confronting workmen who are following somebody’s orders.”
* * * * *
Margaret Stiles, Kingsley’s dear friend, a fellow officer at Keynote National Bank, and sometimes co-conspirator and amateur sleuth, rapped on Kingsley’s private office door frame. Kingsley had been deep in conversation with an unqualified prospective client. She swiveled from her calming view of the lush vegetation on the hillside beyond her floor-to-ceiling windows. She motioned Margaret toward a visitor’s chair, crossing her eyes at the phone while making a circular motion with her index finger. Margaret smothered a chuckle as Kingsley fabricated an excuse to hang up.
“Him again?” Margaret asked, referencing the caller who would not give up.”
“I’ve told him—repeatedly—that he’s undercapitalized. He and his bride exhausted their savings to buy 120 acres of farmland. He has a hefty home mortgage and wants an additional loan to renovate the house and barn, buy cows, and launch a dairy business. He was angry. Said ‘you won’t give us young folks a break.’ I told him, ‘By turning you down, I am giving you a break. You could lose everything with an ill-thought-out business plan.’”
“So, what was your advice?”
“Keep their day jobs. Rent the land for crop farming. Invest sweat equity in renovating their house. Listen to the Cooperative Extension Service. Meet other dairymen in their district and learn from their experience.” She smiled at her friend whose stunning sapphire cashmere sweater set accentuated her startlingly blue eyes.
“Shall I shut the door?” Margaret asked.
“If that folder contains something incendiary, that might be prudent.” Margaret took a moment to do so, after motioning to Kingsley’s AA in the outer office that she’d just be a minute. She opened the folder, passing several documents across Kingsley’s desk.
“Here’s what I found. I’m afraid you’ll be disappointed. A farmer, who leases part of the acreage for field corn, is continuing to do so. And there’s a new business on part of the land in question called Hydroponic Products. While that’s not about growing crops in the ground, like corn or wheat, it’s still agriculture.”
“As in growing lettuce in water tanks full of nutrients?”
“Precisely. But here’s the interesting part. Rather than being owned by your local Pennsylvania Dutch farmers, the land appears to be owned by a corporation registered outside Pennsylvania. That, in turn, is owned by a shell corporation, registered outside the United States with an alphabet-soup name. The closest I got to speak with an officer of that entity was an overseas number and a woman with an eastern European accent that I couldn’t understand.”
“Todd’s not going to like this. I suspect his plan was to overwhelm the owner with veiled intimidation and Ivy League gibberish, without his ingratiating smile. Let them know that he’s a force to contend with minus resorting to anything actionable.”
“Are they really that much of a bother?”
Kingsley narrowed slit eyes to Margaret. “He was seconds from bludgeoning my dog.” She shook her head and started to laugh. “Suppose I had managed to yank those clippers out of my pocket and threatened to shoot him with them?”
“I’d have bought a ticket to witness that scene.” Margaret flipped a glance at her watch and rose. “Better get back; got a real estate client coming to initiate preapproval to buy a horse farm. I may need another bank to participate. It’s a hot property because horses raced in Pennsylvania now must be born in the commonwealth. That’s driving prices for suitable farms through the roof.”
Kingsley motioned to the research that lay on her desk. “Many thanks for this. And good luck with the ponies.”
* * * * *
Todd left the bank as soon as he wrapped up the senior officer’s meeting. As he strode to his vehicle, he breathed the intoxicating scent of spring’s earliest daffodils and budding trees. What a wise choice he’d made, leaving big-city New England banking where he would always be a specialist cog where junior officers were chewed up and spit out. Even here, he thought he’d end his career as a small-bank executive vice president in charge of lending, technology, and branch administration. He never anticipated the president’s departure under a cloud of suspicion and being offered his job, only to be followed by the chairman’s pending retirement.
Tonight, out in their country home, he’d review all the department heads’ reports after tucking their little one into bed. He and Kingsley would talk shop, having ignored each other at today’s meeting except when she reported on commercial lending. As the bank’s president, he anchored the banquet-sized board table, and she sat as far away as possible. If any other senior officers resented their relationship, they’d gotten over it. Theirs had not been a company romance but a confluence of tragic circumstances by two single people who weathered it together.
As he drove, he switched from banker to personal mode. Billy had balked at leaving early and missing another tyke’s birthday party. That jolted Todd, who had to accept that his toddler son had a life of his own, courtesy of Keynote’s daycare center. The gregarious little guy loved his friends, his teachers, and age-appropriate activities, which sometimes made weekends challenging as Billy expected nonstop entertainment there too. O’Malley, Todd admitted, was a welcome playmate.
That business next door—later he would try the eight hundred number Margaret had found. Forty-five minutes later, he exited the highway and motored west on the rural two-lane, crossing the county line into picturesque farmland.
Within a short distance of their private driveway, he spotted new activity on the adjacent property. A bevy of vehicles paralleled the construction site, beak to tail. Judging from their position, a new F250 had arrived first, followed by an assortment of jeeps and older trucks. Bringing up the rear was a pristine black limo, which Todd noticed bore New York plates. The meeting must have just broken up, as a man in a thousand-dollar suit approached the limo’s driver-side door.
Todd didn’t have to think twice. Putting the SUV in reverse, he stopped double parking beside the black car and circled to face the driver. “This your business?” he asked in neutral tones but without extending his hand.
“What’s it to you?”
“I have business with the owner. Might that be you?”
The man flicked a glance at Todd as if taking his measure. “That’s none of your business.”
“Actually, it is. I live right over there, stone house, at the end of the lane before it dead-ends at the dairy farm. Your operation, if it is yours, is keeping my family awake at night. You might want to reconsider your hours of operation before I ask the township to intervene.”
“Don’t threaten me. I have a perfect right to have my crew work when they’re available. Besides, there’s no ordinance against it.”
“Did you check? There should be hours between which you can’t exceed a certain decibel level. I intend to find out.”
“Good luck with that! My hours are grandfathered.”
“Which can be denied. Look—I don’t want to get off on the wrong foot with a new neighbor, but this is a peaceful community that’s zoned agricultural, not commercial.”
The man jerked a thumb over his shoulder to the gathering group, half in work clothes, half in suits. “This is an agricultural enterprise. And if you do anything to impede its progress, I’ll…”
