Summer People (22 page)

“Well, for quite a number of years Joe worked for Kagan exclusively. Not only guiding, but looking after his place. Kagan did a lot of advertising for one of the big breweries in Detroit, even after he retired. I’ve been told that a couple of times a summer a whole truckload of beer would be delivered to his place. He had a barn that was filled with cases of beer. I guess he and Joe spent their time fishing and drinking. Some time after the war Kagan died. He left his place in trust to Joe with sufficient funds to pay the taxes on the place.”

“So Reed inherited the place?” Ray asked.

“Not exactly. Kagan died of acute alcoholism. In one of his more sober moments he came to see me. Although he didn’t come out and say it, he knew he helped Joe become as much of a drinker as he was. He was afraid that if he left the place to Joe, it would be sold off immediately to keep him in booze. So Kagan set up this trust for Joe. We paid the taxes on the place and provided for a minimum amount of maintenance. But there was no way that Reed could sell the place. After his death, it was to pass to his heirs. In addition, the trust provided a very modest stipend paid on a monthly basis. We were to pay the stipend to Joe’s wife, but, unfortunately she died young and the stipend was then paid to Joe…”

“So those two parts, the property and the stipend compose the two trusts?” Ray asked?

“No, that’s just the Kagan trust. The second trust account was established by Orville Hentzner, one of your predecessors. I don’t know if you remember him?”

“He was still in office before I left for college and the army. He died just about the time I came back to the area,” Ray said.

“Orville was quite a character. Don’t suspect we’ll ever see that type again. He was really the law over in your county. Let me give you an example,” he said with a chuckle. “I got stopped one night coming back from steelhead fishing over near Frankfort. Got a speeding ticket. The next morning Orville was on the phone apologizing, saying the deputy didn’t know I was a friend. Told me to tear up the ticket and throw it away. Anyway, Orville comes in one day with four big checks written to cash; they were all written on down state banks, maybe even a Chicago bank—none of my customers…”

“Do you remember any of the names on the checks?”

“Ray, that was a long time ago. Anyway, Orville wanted to set up a trust for Joe Reed; told me this group of men wanted to do something for Joe because they were so thankful for all Joe taught them about fly fishing. Orville wanted the money in a trust so Reed wouldn’t drink himself to death. He asked that the trust be set up so the principal couldn’t be touched, just the interest paid to Reed on a daily basis. So that’s what we did. Back then the interest rates were much lower. I think he only got two or three dollars per day—business days. Later it got up to about five dollars. I remember thinking at the time the whole thing was very suspect, but it didn’t violate any banking laws so we set it up. I knew this was another of Orville’s funny deals, but I could never get him to tell me why he was given those checks or why he set up a trust for Reed.”

“If you only paid Reed the interest on the money, what happened to the principle?” Ray inquired.

“It was dispersed after his death.”

“Dispersed? Who got it?”

“His daughter, his only surviving child. Took us a long while to locate her. She’s living in Phoenix.”

“Last name is Reed?” Ray asked.

“No, she has a married name. It’s one of those hyphenated names. Lovely woman. She came in a few months ago—late March—and we were finally able to get the estate settled.”

“Was there much left?”

“Actually there was. A substantial amount of money had built up over the years. And although excess funds had always been invested very prudently, over time they developed into a very tidy bundle, very tidy, indeed.”

“So she got the full value of the two?”

“Yes, and interestingly enough, she put most of it into our money market accounts, the remainder into one of our savings accounts.”

“And the property,” Ray asked, “did she sell or is she in the process of selling the property?”

“Actually, there are two pieces of property. First, there is the cabin on the trout stream that we talked about from the Kagan estate. Then there was the home Joe owned just south of the village, you know about that, too. We had nothing to do with that one. It was pretty tumbled down, and he hadn’t paid taxes on it for years. She was planning on selling that one. She asked me to suggest a realtor to handle it, and I gave her several names. To my surprise, she wanted to keep the cabin. I mentioned that under the terms of the Hagan trust we were to provide a minimum level of maintenance—you know, keep the roof covered, keep the place painted, not much more. But the little bridge and much of the road, both on his property, got washed away when that old power company dam collapsed in 1984. We asked Joe if he wanted us to have the road and bridge repaired, but he said he was just as happy to leave things as they were. He thought it would help keep vandals away from the place. It is probably one of the most remote places in the area, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” said Ray. “It’s bordered on one side by the National Park and a State Forest on the other. And there are no other trails into that area. And I think by now even all the old logging roads are grown over. It’s mostly cedar swamps back there, and that part of the river is narrow and overgrown. I wonder why she would want a place like that, given how remote it is.”

“I was surprised about that myself. I asked her, and she said that she had many good memories from the summers that she spent there. She also said she did a lot of wilderness camping, and its remoteness suited her just fine.”

“Do you think she is in the area now?”

“Don’t know. I think she was going back to Phoenix. Do you want me to get her address and phone for you?”

“Please.”

Clopton lifted his phone and asked his secretary to get the information. “I’ve rambled on quite a bit. Is this the kind of information you’re looking for?”

“Well, you’ve given me some background information that might help a lot in solving a crime.”

“Can I inquire what the crime is?”

“Unfortunately, it’s too early to talk about it. But I promise you this, as soon as it’s solved, I’ll come back and give you all the details.”

“I would like that a lot. I love a good mystery. Meg will have that phone number and address typed and ready for you.”

Ray found Lisa sitting on the deck reading in the late afternoon sun, a sail bag slouched against the cottage wall giving a hint of the afternoon activities. He startled her when he announced, “You summer people really know how to get good tans. I wish I had time to lay out all day.”

“Oh Ray,” Lisa said dramatically, “you’re an Adonis already. You don’t need a great tan.”

“Sarcastic woman,” he threw back with a smile. “Where’s Marc?”

“He just ran to the store to get a couple of basics. We were down to our last bottle of Muscadet,” she offered, knowing her comment would elicit a response.

“If you summer people ever run out of baguettes, goat cheese, or white wine, you’ll starve to death.”

“Now Ray, that’s unfair. I must have Grape Nuts, too. Can’t start the day without them.”

“Better unload my Consolidated Croissant, you’re probably on the forefront of a culinary trend. I guess I shouldn’t kid you so much. You and Marc have been around so long you’re almost natives.”

“Yes,” added Lisa, “and we’re unemployed, and soon we will be registered voters. You don’t get much more local than that. We haven’t seen you for a few days. Anything new in your investigation?”

“A lot has happened, you will be…”

“Wait,” interrupted Lisa. “I hear Marc. Let me get him so you don’t have to tell your story twice.”

Lisa disappeared through the front door and reappeared in a few minutes with a bottle of wine and glasses. Marc followed with a carafe of coffee and a mug; he set both in front of Ray. Lisa went into the house again and returned with a tray on which she had arranged plates, napkins, knives, a basket with chunks of bread, a bowl with grapes, and a plate with a cylindrical piece of cheese.

“French or domestic?” said Ray pointing to the cheese.

“French,” responded Lisa with a broad smile. “I know it’s your favorite.”

“I hear you have some interesting new stuff,” said Marc.

“I was just starting to tell Lisa,” Ray responded. “Let me give them to you in chronological order. When we last talked,” Ray paused, “Lisa prodded me to find someone who might remember something relating to those events. I did some checking; the only deputy from that time still living is Floyd Durfee. Well, I went over to see him. He’s eighty-eight and lives in this awful rest home.”

“Is he still okay mentally?” asked Lisa.

“He hasn’t lost very much, including all of his old prejudices,” said Ray without explaining. “And he told me something that’s quite useful.”

“What’s that?” Marc prodded.

“He recollected that Orville once brought in some boys, summer kids. Old Miss Vanderdyke, she taught English and history at Cedar Run High for damn close to fifty years, called Orville. One of her students, a girl she had taken special interest in, said she’d been gang raped.”

“Were the boys charged?” asked Lisa.

“He doesn’t think so. He can’t recall any names, but he thinks four were involved.”

“How about the teacher?” asked Lisa.

“Miss Vanderdyke, she’s long dead. But Floyd recollects that Orville cut a deal with the parents and a cash payment was made. Orville was a bit of a do-gooder in his own peculiar way.”

“Explain.”

“He apparently intimidated the parents into laying a large amount of cash on the father of the girl as a way of insuring that there would be no further investigation….”

“You’re kidding,” said Lisa, her indignation rising.

“No kidding, and it gets worse. But Lisa, don’t kill the messenger. He put the money in a trust for the girl’s father.”

“In trust for the father. Why the hell did he do that?”

“I said Orville was peculiar, didn’t I? This was probably his idea of justice and social welfare. He was able to get money out of the rich downstaters and give it to locals who needed it—the Robin Hood syndrome….”

“But why a trust?” Lisa insisted.

“Well, he knew the father was a drunk. So Orville had a trust set up that would give the father only a few dollars a day.”

“I take it his concern for justice and social welfare didn’t extend to the victim of the rape.”

“You’re right. Orville probably believed that all rapes are the fault of the woman. I’m sure he didn’t give her a second thought.”

“You have been careful not to mention the name of the victim,” interjected Marc.

“You’ll have the name later. I don’t want to get ahead of my story.”

“How about the trust?” asked Marc, “do you think there is any truth to that story?”

“Well, that’s the next thing I checked out. I stopped off at the bank first thing Monday. The kid who manages the place was no help, so I went in to the main branch and talked to Hugh Clopton. Did you ever meet him?”

“He was a friend of my grandfather,” said Lisa, calming with the change of topic. “We used to visit him at his office every time we went to town. And my grandfather and Clopton would often go fly-fishing. I bet his office hasn’t changed a bit.”

“Not a bit, not a bit from when I was a kid. Only he insisted I call him Hugh this time, made me feel uncomfortable as hell. It’s nice to keep some adults out there, if you get my meaning.”

They nodded.

“So I asked him about the trust. Clopton…Hugh…has got to be over ninety, but he could remember almost every detail. There were two trusts, actually. First one was set up years before by a Buster Kagan, an old professional golfer who was big in the thirties. His trust was to pay the taxes on a piece of property he had given to the girl’s father. The second one was set up by Orville.”

“Did he know the source of the money?”

“No. But listen to this. He said that Orville brought him four checks—not from local banks. And Clopton set up the trust to pay out earnings on a daily basis. The principal couldn’t be touched until after the death of this man. Then the trust was to be dissolved and whatever was left was to be paid to his heirs.”

“Well, that was white of him. Now that this woman, this victim, is in her forties, she can get therapy to help her deal with being raped when she was a teenager. Did Hugh give you any names?” she pressed.

“For the boys, no. Said the checks were from down state or out-of-state and he doesn’t remember any names. But he did give me the name and address of the only living child of the person who benefited from the trust and….”

“And?” they both asked.

“And I’ll get to that in a minute. So I had a name, address, and phone number. But what was I going to do, call her up and ask her if she was offing some boys who raped her twenty-some years earlier? But I dialed the number anyway, and got one of those recordings that said the number was no longer in service. So I do some fishing, call the Phoenix P.D. and ask for the detective division. I get this clerk on the phone who’s convinced that I want to file a missing person report. Finally I convince her to let me talk to a detective. I get this detective on the line, tell him who I am and that I’m trying to locate this person, but I can’t reach her because her phone seems to be out of order or disconnected. He tells me in a bored voice that he’ll do some checking and get back to me if he finds anything. To be frank, I thought that was the last of it, never expected to hear from him.”

“But you did?”

“No, not from him, but a woman, a Lieutenant Martinez. She wanted to know why I was looking for this person, and I tell her that the name came up during a murder investigation, and I was hoping to question her. Martinez turned out to be real helpful…” “So who is she?” asked Marc.

“Slow down, let me tell my story. Turns out Martinez has known this woman for a number of years and was almost too willing to share everything that she knew. The two met when Martinez worked on a police/school task force on drugs and alcohol. The woman was a school social worker. She said the woman was a single mother and that her daughter had died in a tragic accident, and after her life really fell apart.”