Paradise Falls (21 page)

Jennifer slipped off the bed and winced as her weight pressed down on her bad leg. She walked very carefully over to the bedroom office, sat down, and turned on the computer. A quick search of
paradise falls fracking
brought up a slew of results, and the top half all said roughly the same thing:
Petrolum company in talks to buy Dean Dairy
.

Jennifer sat back in the chair. Katie folded her arms and scowled at the screen.

“Katie,” said Jennifer. “This might be why Elliot came to the house. Think about it.”

“Think about what?”

“When Grandma Rose died, we and Mom inherited her shares in the dairy.”

“Yeah,” said Katie. “We each got, one, like three thousand shares? That’s like five hundred dollars. It’s worthless.”

Jennifer pointed at the screen. “Not if someone is going to buy it. It’s worth whatever they’ll pay for it. The board would negotiate a price, I think.”

“How many people own stock in the company?” said Katie.
 

“I don’t know,” said Jennifer. “A few dozen. The board probably owns most of it. Grandma Rose sold a bunch of it off before she left the rest to us.”

“There’s more to it than that,” said Jacob.

Jennifer jumped when she heard his voice. Katie let out a little yelp.

“Don’t
do
that,” she snapped.
 

Jacob leaned on the door frame. “Is your stock common, or preferred?”

“Uh-“ said Katie.
 

“Common,” said Jennifer.

“Which means you have voting rights. If you two and your mother, between the three of you, have almost ten thousand shares, that means if a few more shareholders voted against the sale, it could put a stop to it.”

“Couldn’t they do a hostile takeover or something?” said Katie.
 

Jacob smirked. “Not necessarily. The company might receive a cash infusion. Or a counter-offer. Another, more prosperous dairy company might offer to buy the struggling smaller company and begin a bidding war. Lots of things might happen.”
 

Jennifer eyed him. “What did you do?”

“I made some phone calls.”

Katie looked at her. Jennifer shrugged.

“Please tell me you did not buy the dairy plant,” said Katie.

“No. I bought another dairy. Actually, one of my companies did- Jacopo Industries now controls the Rosenberg’s dairy, which will in turn put in a substantial counter-offer on the Dean Dairy, all its facilities and dairy farm contracts.”

“Jacopo Industries?” said Katie. “What the hell is a Jacopo?”
 

“It’s from
The Count of Monte-Cristo
,” said Jennifer. “Like the Wilmore Group. Very funny, Jacob.”

“This fracking company,” said Jacob. “How much would you bet me they don’t really do any fracking?”

“You think it’s a front,” said Jennifer.

He took a piece of paper, and spread it out on the desk next to her. He wrote GOLDEN GOOSE PETROLEUM and circled it, then started writing out other names and circling them, as well. Then he drew a line to a middle circle, in which he wrote KHCLLC. All the other companies connected to the middle one, likes spokes on a wheel.
 

“So far as my lawyers can put together, these companies all belong or belonged to this limited liability company in Delaware.”
 

“Does that belong to James?” said Katie.
 

Jacob sighed. “I don’t know. In Delaware it’s easy to file an LLC sort-of anonymously. The filing was done by an attorney and they’re listed as the only point of contact.”

“Great,” said Jennifer. “Who is it?”
 

Jacob Shrugged. “A law firm, actually. Blake and Lewis and a few dozen other junior partners. They’re in Wilmington.”

“Let’s go,” said Jennifer, rising.

“Go where?” said Katie.

“Talk to them.”

Jacob shook his head. “Not yet. We can’t just show up there and start asking questions. We have to be smart about this.”

“Define ‘smart about this’,” said Katie.
 

“Break in,” said Jacob.

“Oh,” said Katie. “Yes, very smart, breaking and entering. Good plan, I’m proud to be a part of it. Let’s do it.”
 

“You’re staying here,” said Jennifer. “Or going back to school. Or something.”
 

“That implies you’re going along with this,” said Katie.

“Yes,” said Jennifer, glancing at Jacob. “I am.”

“Actually-“
 

“If you say you work better alone, I will hit you.”

“There’s something else we need to check out first,” said Jacob. “Making the leap from the fracking thing was impressive, Jennifer. I almost missed that.”

Jennifer actually smiled. Katie’s eyes widened as she continued to stare.

“We need to check on something closer, first. Liz said something about Hunter working with another kid before Ellison busted him. Tommy, she said his name was.”

Jennifer spun around in the chair and logged into the school network, and quickly typed in the name.

“There’s only two students named Thomas in the system,” said Jennifer. “One’s a freshman, and the other is a senior over at No. 1,” she trailed off. “That must be him.”

Jacob looked at Katie. “You, stay here.”

Katie bristled, but Jennifer stood up and put her hand on Katie’s shoulder. “He’s right. We need to check up on this. You need to go back to school-“
 

“I’m not going back,” Katie said, tilting her chin up a she crossed her arms.

Jennifer sighed. This was going nowhere.

“Fine. Hold down the fort,” said Jacob. “Come on, Jennifer.”

Katie followed them to the front door, scowling.

Now that she was warmed up, her ankle flexed more easily and she walked out to the carriage house without leaning on him once. Jacob opened the locker by the door and took out the key, and started up the Aston Martin. Jennifer strapped in and Jacob drove grim-faced, engrossed in taking the curves.
 

Jennifer braced her hand against the roof a few times. When he took the big curve down to the main road and the car felt like it was leaning, she grabbed his arm without thinking and quickly pulled it back. A smile flashed on his face as she folded her arms over her chest and glared at her own reflection in the window.

Her ring itched.

Jacob had the address in his phone’s GPS, and it was a short drive. Tommy’s parents were in town, not far from where Jennifer lived, or used to live, or something. There was no pattern to which of the high schools and given student attended. There had been rumors of combining them for years, anyway. Hunter transferred to No. 2 shortly after he apparently started working with Ellison.
 

“Oh,” said Jennifer.
 

Jacob glanced at her.
 

“He must be dealing drugs, too,” said Jennifer. “That’s it. There’s one of them in each school.”

“A distribution network,” said Jacob. “Good idea, but Ellison Carlyle isn’t the boss.”
 

“How do you know?”
 

“He’s getting the drugs from somewhere.” said Jacob. “He doesn’t manufacture it all himself. Maybe the weed and the meth, but LSD and MDMA are complicated and expensive to make, especially the LSD. I doubt Ellison has the chemistry background to do either.”

“He could be buying it.”

“Where’d he get the money? No, let’s look at this. Ellison busted these two kids and put at least one to work for him, dealing in the school. He probably took care of everything when the kid was arrested. The kid gets sloppy, probably because he was desperate- a girlfriend with twins was about to get expensive. He makes a mistake, gets busted, Ellison comes up with this idiotic plan to clean it up… wait, Elliot was at the Leviathans’ clubhouse on Saturday night. It was probably Elliot’s idea, to try and clean the whole thing up without involving his father.”

“That makes a lot of sense,” said Jennifer, nodding.

“Too clean,” said Jacob. “We’re missing something.”
 

He stopped the car a block away from the address, and stepped out. Jennifer rolled her shoulders and walked next to him, looking around. This street was even more run down than hers. A good third of the houses were abandoned, and one was uninhabited so long that all the little problems that can’t pile up in an occupied house left the entire structure leaning drunkenly, shedding siding from silvery old wood.

The house they were looking for was abandoned, too. There were no curtains on the windows. The view from front to back was clear through, no curtains or furniture. The front door was hanging open. Jacob reached for it, and stopped, then walked along the porch to the side and peered through.

“Hey!” a voice called

Jennifer looked up. An old man walked out onto the porch next door. The house was one of the better kept ones on the block, if not the best. The shingles were painted, the roof was in good order if not new, and there was no strange lean to the structure itself. A little garden lined the front walk, all wildflowers in a riot of colors. The man himself looked like he belonged in a Norman Rockwell painting of a barber shop.

“You lookin’ for the Blake? Lyle Blake, and his wife and their boy.”
 

“Oh,” said Jacob. “Yes, we are. Mind if we come over?”
 

The old man beckoned them, and Jennifer rushed to follow Jacob to his front walk and up onto his porch.
 

“You with the police?”
 

“No,” said Jacob.

“Huh. There was some local boys there last night, then this morning Lyle and his people moved out. Gone. Sent the boy to pick up a U-Haul and moved out all their things. I watched it all from the upstairs bedroom,” he said, gesturing up with his thumb. “One of these local boys has been breaking my flower pots and killing my mums. I’ve been watching out to see who it was. I keep notes.”

“Notes?” said Jennifer.

“Everybody up and down the block,” said the old man. “License numbers and descriptions, and when the cops come. That boy was nothing but trouble for his poor mother and father. Had a cop in there every week.”

“Every week?” said Jennifer.

“Every Friday,” said the old man. “Same guy, too. Must have been his probation officer or something.”

“Mind if I have a look at your notes?” said Jacob.

“Sure, come in. I just made sweet tea.”

Jennifer looked at Jacob and he looked at her and shrugged. The old man led them into a front parlor that fit him perfectly, all earth tones and heavy wooden bookcases full of old paperbacks and a ticking grandfather clock. As promised, he poured them both a tall glass of iced tea, with a wedge of lemon. Jennifer sat down on his old couch and waited.

The old man disappeared upstairs, then returned with a shoebox full of note cards. He put them on the coffee table and lowered himself into a recliner with an arthritic wince.
 

Jennifer pulled the shoebox over and ran her hands through the cards. He had some turned so they stuck up from the others, and the protruding bits were marked with the date in shaky block letters.

Jacob’s shoulder pressed against her as he leaned over to thumb through the cards, in silence.
 

“Breaking your flower pots, huh?” said Jennifer.

“I call the police, and they don’t even come out,” said the old man. “Name’s Obie, by the way. Ain’t you a teacher?”

“Yes,” said Jennifer.

“You’re the English teacher at No. 2,” the old man said. “My grandson said you was real pretty. Has to be you, by that hair.”

“Uh,” said Jennifer. “Thanks.”

“My pops was in the war,” said the old man. “Had a girl painted on the nose of his bomber that looked just like you. Want to see?”

She blinked. “Okay.”
 

The old man got up and trundled upstairs again.

“Look at this,” said Jacob. He held one of the cards so Jennifer could read it.

“It’s a squad car number,” said Jennifer, “and he described the cop. That’s Ellison.”

“He was picking up his money,” said Jacob.

The old man came down carrying a big photograph, and handed it to Jennifer. It was an old black and white photo that had been colorized by hand. Three men in flight suits standing in front of a bomber with a redhead in lingerie riding a bomb painted on the nose.

“She does look like you,” said Jacob, glancing over.

Jennifer scowled at him, but knew she was turning red.

“Can we keep this?” said Jacob, hefting the box.

The old man frowned, and cocked his head to the side.

“May as well,” he sighed. “Happened last year, too. They don’t care about my pots.”

Jacob drew the lid over the box and tucked under his arm, and offered his hand. The old man shook it, then shook Jennifer’s hand, too. His grip was oddly strong.

“I don’t know what this is about,” said the old man.

“It’s best if you don’t,” said Jacob. “It’s best if we weren’t here.”

The old man nodded. Jennifer finished her cloying tea and set the glass on a coaster.

As they walked down the sidewalk, Jacob bounced a little with each step.

“You realize what this is?” he said.

“What?”

“Proof,” said Jacob. “If the old man will testify…” he sighed. “Not that anyone would care. Ellison isn’t going on trial for this, but we have actual evidence.”

“This kid,” said Jennifer. “Tommy. Do you think…”
 

Jacob shook his head. “I don’t know,” said Jacob, “I’ll put my people on it, see if we can find them. There will be records. The rental truck, something.”
 

Jennifer nodded. Jacob carefully tucked the box behind his seat as she dropped into the car and let her head fall back against the headrest. Jacob pulled out and drove slowly, looking around.

As they made the first turn, he glanced back once, then again, and then a third time.

“We’re being followed.”

8.

Rolling along behind them was the blotchy green Chrysler. Jennifer saw it in the mirror, then jerked around for a better look. Jennifer shivered. The driver was the big man from the woods. She slunk down in her seat and looked at Jacob.