Deadly Defiance, page 16
“Those symptoms are common to a lot of different diseases. We need to get her to an internist and have a complete physical exam done.”
“Good luck with that.”
“Let me come over and maybe between the two of us we can convince her.”
“That would be great. She’s asleep now but she’ll probably be awake by the time you get here. If not, I’ll wake her.”
An hour later Stan answered the door and welcomed Terry into the living room. Terry and Rebekah had worked together in the ER in McKinney and had been friends for over ten years. Terry was divorced and had led a difficult life as a single mother with two kids. She made a decent living as a nurse, but with no child support, the expense of day care, and a son with a learning disability, there was never enough money to pay all the bills. In fact, Stan had put her through bankruptcy right after her divorce to relieve her of the considerable debt her ex-husband had incurred and failed to pay even though the divorce decree ordered him to.
Although Rebekah was angry that Stan had called Terry, Stan knew she wouldn’t be rude to her and he was right.
“You didn’t need to come over here,” Rebekah said, shaking her head.
“I heard you fell in the shower?” Terry said. “I had to come over and make sure you were all right.”
“I’m fine. Stan shouldn’t have called you.”
“I’d have kicked his ass had he not called me,” Terry said playfully.
“Something is wrong with you,” Stan said, “and we need to figure out what it is.”
“That’s right,” Terry agreed. “I know a doctor over at Baylor who heads up a team of doctors which include specialists in all areas of medicine. What they do is give you a complete physical and do a battery of tests with the results being passed around to everyone in the team. Then they get together and figure out what’s going on. It saves you seeing ten different doctors and then not necessarily figuring out what is wrong with you.”
Rebekah frowned. “There’s nothing wrong with me. You both are overreacting.”
“Overreacting!” Stan exclaimed. “You’ve passed out several times, your left side went numb, you’ve had no energy, and now you’ve fallen in the shower. There is something wrong with you and we need to find out what it is.”
“Stan is right,” Terry said. “At least go see your internist. You know you should do that every few years no matter what.”
Rebekah sighed. “Okay. I’ll see Dr. Sanders, but he’s not going to find anything wrong with me.”
“Well. I hope you’re right, but I’ll sleep better once he’s given you a clean bill of health,” Terry said.
With that small concession Stan left Rebekah and Terry to catch up. He really liked Terry’s suggestion that Rebekah go to the Baylor diagnostic team and wished she’d gone for the idea. It made him angry and frustrated that she so stubbornly refused to listen to reason, but she’d always been that way and he’d learned to live with it over the years. But now it was different; her health was at stake and her irrational behavior could result in her disability or death. He just couldn’t sit back and watch her condition deteriorate without doing something. Such a course of conduct was unthinkable and, whether she liked it or not, he wouldn’t allow it.
Chapter 17
Loan Shark
Paula was having difficulty concentrating on her murder case with so much drama going on with Jodie and Rebekah. As concerned as she was for both of them she had to focus on Maureen Thompson. Time wouldn’t stand still. The court had set a trial date for June 14, 1995 and it was already the middle of April. Although she had identified several persons with strong motives to kill Rodney Thompson, that alone wouldn’t be enough to create reasonable doubt. She had to find evidence of opportunity and ill will. To find this, if it existed, would require a lot of hard work.
Rodney’s friendship with Doc Mellon seemed to be her most promising option, but gathering evidence against a high-profile, ex-football star, and known loan shark would be dangerous business. Bart had insisted she let him handle Doc Mellon, but that wasn’t really feasible as Bart had his own work to do at the DA’s office. When Bart came home that night she asked him about it.
“So, have you dug up anything on Doc Mellon?”
“Not yet. His businesses appear, on the surface, to be legal and there haven’t been any formal complaints against him.”
“I thought he was a loan shark?”
“Not in the traditional sense. He owns a string of payday loan companies and pawnshops all over Texas. Mostly small loans—less than a thousand dollars. He has a pretty sharp attorney who does the loan documents. On the surface they look quite legal with no more than the 10 to18 percent maximum interest allowed by law. But when you analyze them you can see that he is actually charging over 1000 percent interest. The extra interest comes from loan acquisition fees, late charges, service fees—you name it.”
“If it is so obvious what he is doing, how does he get away with it?” Paula asked.
“His customers could file a complaint or sue him for usury, if they dared,” Bart replied.
“I see. So, I don’t imagine he sues his customers if they don’t pay timely?”
Bart laughed. “No. He gets a postdated check and then threatens to criminally prosecute them if the check bounces. It’s not legal, but nobody has ever filed a complaint against him for it.”
“I wonder if anyone has ever died because they didn’t pay a loan back.”
Bart shrugged. “Not over a small payday loan, but Mellon’s loan to Thompson Construction obviously was in a different class.”
“I’ve read the note,” Paula said. “It’s got an interest rate of 18 percent, but the kicker is Thompson had to pay a $5,000 per week consulting fee to one of Doc’s friends. That made the effective interest rate on the loan 42 percent.”
“That’s pretty steep but I’ve heard of worse.”
“Of course, it had a ninety-day term and if it wasn’t paid timely, it accrued a $100 a day penalty which bumped the effective interest rate to almost 60 percent.”
“I wonder what the balance on the loan was on the day Rodney was murdered.”
“I don’t know, but I suspect it was nearly half a million.”
Paula continued to pick Bart’s brain about Doc Mellon and get his advice on how to investigate him without riling him. She finally decided she needed to find some of his victims. They presumably would be willing to provide information as long as they were guaranteed anonymity. To do that she’d research all the lawsuits and Better Business Bureau and Texas Attorney General complaints filed by or against Doc Mellon or his companies, if there were any. If that didn’t work, she’d have to put Mellon or some of his underlings under surveillance to find out who they were leaning on.
That afternoon she contacted the Better Business Bureau for each city where Mellon’s companies did business and asked if there were any complaints against them. Unfortunately there weren’t any active complaints but there were five that had been resolved. Paula asked them if they’d fax her copies of these complaints. They said they would.
After calling the consumer division of the secretary of state’s office and finding no disputes, Paula drove to the district clerk’s office to search for lawsuits. In Dallas she found two pending lawsuits involving the Clock or his companies and three that had been settled and dismissed. She spent the rest of the afternoon reviewing the trial court’s files on each case and making notes. As she drove back to the office, she was pleased; her list of enemies was growing and she still had half a dozen other counties to check on if need be.
Back at the office Paula found the fax from the Better Business Bureau on her desk. There had been complaints about collectors threatening criminal prosecution and wage garnishment, both of which were illegal under Texas law. Each file had a notation of having been resolved. Paula decided to contact each of the complainants. The first two weren’t home, so she left messages. The third and fourth refused to talk to her. Finally she hit pay dirt on the last one. Her name was Bessie Burns.
“Mrs. Burns. This is Paula Waters. I’m an attorney and I noticed you filed a complaint against Doc’s Payday Loans a few months back.”
“Yeah. That was a misunderstanding. They came out and we got the matter resolved.”
“How was it resolved?”
“Who did you say you were again?”
“I’m Paula Waters. I’m an attorney for Maureen Thompson and I promise you I won’t tell anyone what you tell me. I’m just trying to gather information about Doc’s Payday Loans.”
“So, what does it matter to you?”
“Well, I’ll be honest with you. I’m defending a woman accused of murder. I’m certain she didn’t do it, so I’m trying to find out who did.”
“Oh, I don’t want to get involved in any of that.”
“I understand. Like I said, I’ll keep anything you tell me confidential. I’m just trying to find out if your complaint was legitimate. Did someone really threaten you with garnishment and criminal prosecution?”
“Yes, I’ve got a letter right here threatening to turn over my check to the DA for prosecution. That’s why I filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau.”
“So, how was the matter resolved?”
“The bastards told me if I didn’t withdraw the complaint and pay what was owed, I would likely be spending the next few weeks in the hospital.”
“Seriously. That’s what they told you?”
“That’s what someone told me. They called late at night and didn’t identify themselves, but I’m not stupid. I only filed one complaint with the Better Business Bureau.”
“Did you call the police or the telephone company?”
“No. I’m not crazy. If I complained to anyone about the call I’d probably end up dead.”
“Okay. I promise I won’t tell anyone what you’ve told me. You’ve helped me a lot. I know now I’m on the right track. Thanks a lot.”
“No problem. I hope you get your client off and bury Doc Mellon in the process!”
“Oh. One last question,” Paula said. “How did you get the money to pay off the debt?” Paula asked.
“I sold my car and got a bus pass,” Bessie replied bitterly.
“Oh, my God,” Paula gasped. “I’m so sorry.”
Paula hung up feeling shocked and angry. She had a strong gut feeling Doc Mellon had something to do with Rodney Thompson’s murder. If his people would threaten to beat up a helpless woman and end up forcing her to sell her car to pay them, they were capable of anything. Unfortunately she was no closer to proving Doc Mellon was responsible for Rodney Thompson’s murder than when she started. But at least she knew she was on the right track and now it was just a matter of time and hard work to discover the truth.
Before she went home, Paula started reading through some of the lawsuits. One of them was a suit for breach of partnership. Apparently Doc the Clock Enterprises had entered into a partnership with “Dancing Dave” Reynolds, another football player with a payday store location in Waco. Dancing Dave was the plaintiff and he claimed that Doc had promised him an exclusive location in Waco, but when his occupancy permit was denied on the building he’d leased for the operation, Doc wrongfully terminated the partnership and signed a new partnership with a third party. The suit asked for injunctive relief, specific performance, or in lieu of specific performance, damages of $750,000 for loss of expected profits from the operation for the first three years, and attorney’s fees.
Paula liked the looks of this suit as Dave Reynolds wasn’t somebody Doc Mellon could push around. If she could get him to open up, she might learn a lot from Reynolds. She pondered the question of how to contact him. He wasn’t someone you could just call up on the telephone. He had people who managed his affairs and insulated him from the public. That night when she got home, she updated Bart on her day’s activities and asked him if he had any ideas.
“I’d call his civil attorney and broach the subject with him. You’re going to have to give Reynolds some incentive to help. He’s not likely to open up to you just for spite.”
“Why not? Judging from the tone of the lawsuit, I think he probably pretty much hates Doc right now.”
“True. But Doc has a reputation for violence and he doesn’t want to provoke an all-out war.”
“Well, I just need information. There’s no need for Doc to know anything about it.”
“Be sure and tell him that, but you’ll still need an angle—some kind of incentive to get him talking.”
“How about putting Doc away in the slammer for the rest of his life. Don’t you think that would be sufficient incentive?”
“You can’t promise that,” Bart replied. “The DA won’t touch a case against him without rock-solid evidence and you’ll never be able to get that.”
“I know,” Paula said thoughtfully. “Thank you, honey. I think I’ve got my strategy figured out.”
“So, what are you going to do?”
“Well, I may not be able to get the rock-solid evidence necessary to put Doc away, but Reynolds might be able to do it.”
Bart smiled. “Now that’s an angle. I like it.”
The next day Paula put in a call to Dave Reynolds’s attorney. She explained that she’d discovered their lawsuit against Doc Mellon and thought maybe they could help each other out. She didn’t want to explain too much of her idea to the attorney for fear he wouldn’t pass it on to his client or would do a lousy job explaining it. She knew attorneys were often overprotective, arrogant, and controlling. She just had to tell him enough that he’d be obligated to tell his client about it. The attorney was skeptical at first but finally agreed to pass on the information to his client. He said it might take a few days to get back to her as Dancing Dave was a busy man. Paula thanked him and hung up.
Paula got up and went into the break room to get another cup of coffee. Stan was there doing the same thing.
“Great minds think alike?” Paula joked.
Stan looked up. “Right. Or, we could be addicted to caffeine.”
Paula laughed. “That’s probably more likely.”
“So, how’s the case going?”
“Slow. I may need to go ahead and hire an investigator for some surveillance work.”
“Sure. Whatever you need.”
Paula filled Stan in on her investigation of Doc Mellon and her need for some inside information.
“Okay. You can call Jake Weston. He’ll arrange whatever you require. I wonder if the police considered Mellon a suspect before they latched on to Maureen.” Stan mused.
“I don’t know. I’ll ask Bart.”
“Yeah, you better. He may have an alibi.”
“He probably does,” Paula replied. “But he wouldn’t have done it himself, anyway. He’s got muscle for that. In fact, that’s one of the things I need to find out—who handles his dirty work.”
“Well, let me know if I can help in any way.”
“I’ve got it covered for now. I think you’ve got your hands full with Rebekah and Jodie. I’ll try to leave you alone.”
Stan nodded. “You’re right about that. Rebekah’s got me totally frustrated. She won’t acknowledge that something’s wrong with her. Consequently, she’s totally uncooperative and somewhat belligerent when it comes to dealing with the problem. And Jodie is like a runaway freight train. There’s nothing stopping that girl no matter how dangerous it gets. I worry about her every minute she’s out of my sight.”
“Well, you’ve known her since she was a teenager. She’s like another daughter to you. I can see that now. I used to think you two had something going on between you, but now I realize you love her like a daughter.”
Stan nodded. “I’ve got to get back to work. Say hi to Jake for me.”
Paula said she would and went back to her office. She put her coffee down, picked up the telephone, and called Jake Weston. His secretary put her through and she explained what she wanted. He agreed to put a man on Doc Mellon for a few days and do some research into his entourage. Paula hung up the telephone and wondered if all of this was a waste of time. Money was tight and Jake Weston’s services didn’t come cheap. She sighed and then put the thought out of her mind. She had no choice. Mellon was her best shot at creating reasonable doubt and she certainly didn’t have time to do surveillance work herself.
That night they went to Campisi’s on Lovers Lane for dinner. They ordered a large pepperoni pizza and some wine. While they were waiting for their order Paula asked Bart if the police had looked at Doc Mellon as a suspect in Rodney Thompson’s murder. It wasn’t proper for her to be asking for inside information, but she didn’t consider it to be that kind of a request. She was entitled to any evidence, favorable or unfavorable, that the police dug up.
“Sure, he was on the short list, but he was out of town when the murder took place.”
“What about his employees? He’d have hired someone else for a job like this.”
“No. They didn’t look into his employees. There was no evidence to justify that.”
“So, they checked his alibi and that was it?”
“As far as I know,” Bart replied. “Why do you ask? Have you found some evidence that he was involved?”
“No. Nothing solid, but I know he threatens defenseless women with bodily harm if they don’t pay back their piddly payday loans, so you can imagine what he’d do to someone who stiffed him for a quarter million dollars.”
Bart nodded. “You want me to look into some of his associates?”
“No. You’ve helped enough and I don’t want to get you in trouble. I’ve got Jake Weston over at Excel Security looking into it.”
“He’s a good man.”
After they got home Paula took a long bath and thought about Doc Mellon. She wondered why he’d blown an NFL career for a measly $10,000. She guessed for a teenager from the ghetto it must have seemed like a lot of money at the time. From what she had learned he truly was an evil person, someone without a conscience. She knew that was usually the result of serious problems during childhood and wondered what Mellon’s story was.
