Custody of the State (27 page)

“Mr. Chambers, that is an interesting lake. I used to fish it when I was a boy. Have you visited the grounds of the Eden Lake Resort there?”

“No, I can't say that I have.”

“You really ought to. You really ought to get a boat and go over there and take a look at the resort.”

“I wasn't aware there was a resort on the lake. The whole area looked pretty quiet to me. A few cottages here and there. But I certainly didn't realize there was a large resort area.”

“You go over there. You take a look at the Eden Lake Resort,” Father Godfrey said with urgency in his voice.

“I certainly will,” Will replied respectfully, but a little mystified.

Then he thanked the elderly priest again and returned to his car, glancing at his watch, feeling the crushing pressure of time. The trial date for Mary Sue was approaching fast. Every hour had to count. And Will was beginning to wonder whether the mystery woman who'd called now had him chasing rabbit trails that led nowhere.

40

A
S
W
ILL PULLED UP TO THE DOCK
on Eden Lake, he thought back to what Father Godfrey had said.

He wondered if the elderly priest's reference to the Eden Lake Resort was simply an irrelevant, wandering comment—or if it had some relevance to Mary Sue's case.

There was a small aluminum fishing boat anchored off the houseboat he could use. Will checked his watch again. Did he really want to waste time taking a boat ride, only because of Father Godfrey's odd statement? How could a lake resort hold the key to proving Mary Sue's innocence?

Well, why not
, he thought to himself.
Stranger things than that have happened
.

He climbed into the boat, which had a modest seven-horsepower motor, similar to the one he'd used as a boy during his summers on the lake in Maine.

After untying the boat from the dock, he yanked the pull rope and started out across the lake. With no other boats in sight, the water was calm, and its surface like glass. Here and there he heard a plop at the surface, as a fish jumped. It took him almost an hour, running along the bank, until he saw some log buildings, docks, and outbuildings tucked behind some pine trees at the other end of the lake. A sign on one of the swimming floats offshore said, “For Use By Eden Lake Resort Guests Only!”

Will cut his engine as he slid closer to shore. After he tied up the boat, he walked down the wooden plank dock toward the buildings, noticing a large “No Trespassing” sign at its shore end.

Every building, though beautifully crafted, was boarded up and the doors were padlocked. As he cast his eyes over the scene, he noticed winding sidewalks connecting the structures and a large pavilion at the top of a pine-covered hill—which Will figured was intended to contain a theater and restaurants, judging by the signs.

Then he realized there were written notices on the doors, giving public notice of a bankruptcy sale of the resort property.

Glancing between the boards over some of the windows, he saw that each building was empty. As he returned to the manicured path, a raccoon scampered out from under one building marked “Ultra Spa and Beauty Center.”

There were signs pointing the way to an eighteen-hole golf course, horse stables, a “Cultural Arts Center,” “Children's Fantasy Area,” and a business-conference complex. All were closed, some in varying degrees of incompletion, with a few tractors and a backhoe stationed off in the distance.

Then he heard the sound of a motor—and it was getting closer.

A man in a green maintenance uniform, driving a golf cart, scooted up to Will's position. He got off and approached Will.

“This is private property. Got to leave,” he said curtly.

“No problem,” Will replied. “But I'm here on some related business. I'm a lawyer.”

“Bankruptcy sale on the personal property is already long past.”

“I'm not interested in that.”

“Then what kind of business you got?”

“I'm wondering what real-estate development group owned this resort.”

“Why do you want to know?”

“That's confidential.”

“You can give me your name and telephone number—I can have someone call you,” the man said, eyeing Will and glancing over at his boat at the dock.

“I don't think that will work,” Will replied.

“Then you got to get out of here—now.”

Will smiled and walked back to the boat. As he was pulling away from the dock, the man took a cell phone from his golf cart and tapped a number into it.

In a few seconds there was an answer at the other end.

“Howley, this is George, down at the resort.”

“What is it—I'm busy.”

“Some guy came over here snooping around.”

“Who was it?”

“Don't know. Some lawyer. Didn't give me his name. But he's pretty recognizable. He's got a couple black eyes and a bandage across his face. He just left in a boat.”

“Where's he heading?”

“Over toward the other side.”

“Watch him. See where he goes. Then call me back,” Howley ordered.

The groundskeeper picked up a pair of binoculars from the cart. He watched Will as he traversed the lake, the rolling ripples from the boat's wake fanning out over the calm surface of the water.

Will was enjoying the clean lake air. Even though his head and nose were still hurting badly, his mind was clear. He knew now what Tiny Heftland's next lead would be.

Then the comment Father Godfrey had made sprang into his mind—about the fox in his garden. Something he'd read in the Bible. Jesus had called someone a “fox.” Who was it?

The lake was quiet as Will cut his motor and glided up to the houseboat. The only sound was the mournful warbling of a loon out on the water somewhere.

As soon as he got inside, he picked up the phone and called Tiny at his motel room.

“Tiny, I want everything you can tell me about who owned the Eden Lake Resort, which is now bankrupt,” Will said. “Check out the bankruptcy petition. Find out who the principals
were. Keep an eye out for someone by the name of Henry Pencup, a bank president. See if he had an interest in the venture.”

After he hung up with Tiny, Will walked out onto the deck of the houseboat. The sun was setting over the great pine trees that ringed the lake.

Who was the “fox” that Jesus talked about?
he wondered again.

And then he remembered.

It was one of the Herods. Jesus called him a “fox” because he was devious, clever, and devoid of scruples.

As he went inside for the night he also recalled that the Herod who was denounced by Jesus was a blood relation to the very same Herod who had sought, unsuccessfully, to hunt down Mary and her infant child, Jesus.

Have I been looking for rabbits when I should have been hunting for a fox?
Will asked himself.

He had no answer to that—yet.

41

W
ILL SLEPT DEEPLY THAT NIGHT
. When he woke, it was almost noon. He was starting to feel a little more like himself, despite the headaches from his concussion and the tenderness of his broken nose.

He poured himself a cup of coffee and went out onto the deck with the medical records from Mary Sue's case. He reviewed them again, particularly noting the blood test from Dr. Parker, the chief pathologist at the Delphi hospital. The report was dated nearly three weeks after Joshua's admission to the emergency room for one of his spells of vomiting and lethargy, when his blood had been taken for a routine CBC. Will figured the lab results should only have taken a few days at the most.

Then the phone rang. It was Tiny.

The private investigator had gone to the bankruptcy court when it opened for the day. He had already reviewed the court file and was calling from his car in the parking lot.

“Any reference to the bank president—Henry Pencup?” Will asked right out of the gate.

“We have a great big zero on that one, chief,” Tiny answered. “Believe me, I looked real hard for that.”

“What did you find then?”

“There were some general partners in on the resort at the beginning,” Tiny said. “This was a huge project. I'm talking 170, 180 million dollars. And that was only for phase one of the development. There were two more phases planned. Somebody must have thought this was going to be the next Disney World.
I suppose they figured it was close enough to Atlanta to draw the big-city folks—and it looks like they were planning to make part of it a business conference center. They even had long-range plans for a major sports arena. Anyway, the whole thing started collapsing when they couldn't squeeze their investors for a measly few more million dollars to pay off some of the subcontractors.”

“How much were they short?”

“About three million—something like that. The project was mortgaged up to the hilt—no banks would extend any more credit after the subs started filing liens and the lawsuits started piling up. And all of a sudden—bango—the whole deal collapsed like a house of cards.”

“Are you sure Henry Pencup's bank didn't lend any money on that project?”

“Positive. There were no mortgages listed in the name of his bank—and that bank was not listed as a creditor. Most of the banks were the big Atlanta lenders, and a couple were out of state—you know, New York banks, that sort of thing.”

“This doesn't add up,” Will commented, with some exasperation in his voice.

“Why's that?”

“I don't see how any of this relates to Mary Sue Fellows being accused of child abuse.”

“Yeah—well, either do I. But then, you're the legal genius—I'm just the P.I.”

“Father Godfrey, the priest that took Henry Pencup's last confession, suggested I take a look at the resort. I took that to be some kind of hint—a clue that he was not free to fully explain. Now I'm thinking it was just an irrelevant comment. He's getting pretty old, after all.”

“Well, look—if you won't be needing me any more on this, I'll drive back to old Virginny,” Tiny said.

“I'm not sure. I may still have some work for you on this. But go back a second—you mentioned the general partners. There were several?”

“In the beginning. But by the end there was just one—with a whole long list of limited partners.”

“Who was the last remaining general partner on the project?”

“Some guy named Jason Bell Purdy.”

““I've heard about him. Well-known local hero. He even dated Mary Sue Fellows in high school. I think he comes from old money here in Georgia,” Will said.

“If he came from big money, then why didn't he bail out his project with his own cash?”

“I don't know,” Will replied. “But I'd like you to find out.”

“You said he was well-known in the Delphi area?”

“Yeah. I think he went to a ritzy private school in the Delphi area—he was some kind of football star when he was in high school. There's a street in Delphi named after some prominent ancestor of his.”

“Then,” Tiny concluded, “I think it's time for me to get a haircut in one of Delphi's fine barber shops.”

“I don't get it.”

“Will, I'll let you in on a little trade secret. In small towns, if you want the scoop on a well-known local man—go to the local barber shop and strike up a conversation. You'll hear a goldmine of info. If you're checking on a local female socialite, head for the best beauty salon in town.”

“Tiny, you're letting go of the tricks of the trade,” Will said with a chuckle.

“Look, I trust you. You've been good to me, Will. But just don't be sharing my stuff with anybody else!”

“Oh—before you go, how about the list of limited partners in the resort?” Will asked quickly.

“Sure. It's a long list—I'll e-mail it to your laptop.”

After Tiny hung up, Will returned to his coffee, by now grown cold. He glanced out the window. The water of Eden
Lake was being whipped up by a stiff breeze, and the waves were causing the houseboat to rock a little.

He thought back to the phone call he'd received from the woman who said she'd called in a false child-abuse allegation against Mary Sue. It seemed like a flip of the coin—but Will felt he had to accept that message at face value.

He had no other choice. Outside of the protestations of innocence from Mary Sue—and of course from Joe, that phone call represented the first real corroboration of their story by an independent source.

On the other hand, Will could not use this hearsay information as proof at trial. Without the caller as a witness to identify who had put her up to the false accusation, Will was left only with using her scoop as a lead in his investigation. If justice was to be obtained, it would have to be through other facts, other witnesses, other evidence.